Chapter 26 Maeve #2
“Wow.” It was the only word I could say. It was the only word that summed everything up.
Just…just wow.
He smoothed a hand over my shoulder, stroking me in idle circles and swirls, and I relaxed under the casual gesture.
“Do we even have to move?” I asked.
“Mm… Peut-être.” He made a considering noise. “I suspect we should. Just so the others know you’re still alive.”
I groaned. “But I was having such a good time.”
He answered my lazy frustration. “And we will have a good time again, mon ange. Again and again and again…” Then his hand landed on my ass. “But until then, we should get up.”
“Ugh.” I slid off him and walked to the bathroom. “I’ll get ready.”
When we walked down the hallway from the bedroom, everyone was already sitting in the living room, like some kind of family meeting was taking place, but they all talking stopped and everyone turned to look at me as I entered the room at Francois’s side.
Nic stood. “What the hell happened?” He looked at me, his eyes narrowing, but Francois reached for my hand, and I took it.
This was a weird situation, still being human in a room full of vampires. It wasn’t the easiest thing to discuss either, when I had no idea what the hell had happened. Probably better just to let Francois deal with this conversation.
“Je ne sais pas, Nicolas.”
Excellent. I squeezed his hand. Francois had made a truly excellent start—if telling his king he didn’t know was the correct answer.
“As far as I can tell,” he continued, “The poison is gone from Maeve’s system.” He turned and gave me a confused look. “She still appears to be human, although her strength is increased.”
The room erupted with the sound of eight vampires all talking at once as Francois and I stood and watched them. But as I watched, I suddenly didn’t care about the loud voices and the random gestures, and the room full of passion and vampire strength.
Francois had been right. I may still have been only human, but I was different. I was changed. Before I was bitten, I was weak. Now, I was strong, confident in my life, and happier than I’d ever been.
I had everything—my humanity and my vampire.
“Wait!” Kayla held up a hand. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried from the room, and we all watched as she headed off in the direction of her spell room.
She didn’t seem to have been gone two minutes before she was back, a particularly grimy book clasped to her body. She placed it onto one of the tables and opened the old, tattered cover.
Sebastian approached her and stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. “What’s that?” he asked. “It looks like it might be contagious. Have you sanitized it?”
Kayla grinned. “I think we’ll all be just fine, don’t you? There’s a clue in the word immortal.”
He laughed. “So what is it?”
“It’s a book about supernatural creatures. I found it at a black market stall when I was making a potion to ward off some trolls from a fae area of the bayou.”
“Ward off?” Sebastian raised an eyebrow.
Kayla shrugged. “Ward off…kill…the end result is the same.”
I shivered a little. Kayla sounded like a very powerful witch if she commanded the dark arts.
“Why do we need the book?” Francois stepped forward but didn’t let go of my hand.
“Because…” Kayla turned some more pages.
“Aha!” She jabbed the page with her forefinger.
“Listen…A Venator – Latin for Hunter. Venators are descended from a clan of shamans who gave their lives to fight vampires. They’re human, but as they mature, their powers slowly come to the surface.
Usually they start to realize their potential at around thirty.
Their first power is strength.” She glanced at Francois then me.
“Then improved hearing, and third is improved sight. After that, they inherit the full power of their blood oath.” She looked at me again.
“I guess your process got sped up by the vampire venom.”
I laughed and shook my head. Now this was the craziest thing I’d ever heard, and I’d heard some batshit crazy stuff in my life. What the hell was Kayla talking about?
“I’m not some sort of hunter.” I laughed again.
Kayla raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t? What exactly have you been doing your whole life?”
I shrugged. “Trying to find proof of…oh.” I stopped talking as she nodded.
Kayla bent back over the book again. “Since the Shamans started to disappear, there have been fewer venators than there were before…”
“Wait.” Sebastian held up a hand. “How old is this book?”
Kayla lifted an eyebrow. “Old.”
“So we don’t even know if there are any shamans, let alone these venator things. I mean, shit. First Ancients and now witch-doctor-created vampire hunters. The world’s gone crazy.” He paced to the other side of the room and Nic laughed.
“The world is the same place it’s always been. And we’ve been here for hundreds of years. We can be here for hundreds more.”
“Anyway.” Kayla looked at both guys. “It says here that the only way to kill a venator is to behead them…” She was quiet a moment, her eyes scanning the page as she read ahead.
“And I don’t really think we need to read the rest.” She finished with a bright smile and closed the book quickly.
“So, anyway.” She pointed at me. “You equals venator.”
I looked at Kayla for a moment, expecting her to laugh at her joke. Then I glanced at the other vampires in the room. Each of them watched me, their faces blank.
I looked at Francois. He still hadn’t let go of my hand, but his eyebrows drew down, his confusion evident. “Mon ange?”
I blurted a laugh, almost a hiccup, really, and another, until the laughing was too fast and powerful to control and the first tear emerged from the corner of my eye, but I still couldn’t stop.
I laughed again even as I struggled to suck in a breath.
As Francois drew me carefully against him, the laughter turned to loud, ugly-sounding sobs, and I buried my face into the front of his shirt, my hands clutching the fabric at the back.
The room stayed quiet, as if I was playing out my confusion for an audience, and I fought to bring my crying under control. Even when I’d finally quieted, I remained standing against Francois, hiding myself as I pulled together the last remnants of my composure.
When I turned around, I smiled tightly. “Sorry.”
“You never need to apologize.” Francois rested his hand on my shoulder, and I nearly grinned.
There was something amusing about being told I never needed to apologize. Like maybe ever again. And it most certainly wouldn’t hold true.
“Are you mated?” Nic’s question was blunt and abrupt, and his tone was curt.
He’d already moved into royal figurehead mode and was protecting his dynasty and territory.
Leia laughed and rested her hand on his upper arm as she met my gaze. “I think, my love, that there are some things that are none of our business.” She grinned and my face heated.
Well, shit. They were all going to know I’d just had sex for the first time.
Sam appeared beside me and looped an arm around my waist. “It’s okay, Maeve,” she said then lowered her voice. “We were all virgins once.”
That was true enough—and they’d all been aware I was a virgin, anyway. They all probably knew my change in status without us having to declare it.
All of the girls laughed, and I glanced at Sam. “What’s funny?”
Leia shrugged but took the lead answering. “It’s the way things are around here. We were all virgins before we turned.”
Maybe I’d known that on some instinctive level, or maybe one of them had told me—Ciara, maybe?
But it didn’t actually make any sense. Each of these women was beautiful inside and out.
There was almost no way they wouldn’t have been approached by a guy before a vampire just stumbled into their lives.
“Yes, we have mated.” Francois spoke like he was making a grand announcement. “Maeve bears my mark.” He lifted the hair from my neck, and everyone leaned forward to look.
I closed my eyes briefly. It was like being meat on a market. But my eyes sprang open again when the only sounds in the room were gasps.
“There’s nothing there,” Jason muttered, but he stepped forward to have a closer look, even lifting the hair at the other side of my neck.
What did he mean? Francois had bitten me. I touched the side of my throat, searching for a tender point or somewhere raised or uneven, but there really was nothing there. My fingers skated across smooth skin.
“Francois?” I glanced at him. “What does this mean? I can still feel you…here.” I touched my chest in the same place as before. It was like he had left part of himself inside me somehow.
His eyes widened as he touched my neck, too. “Mais…rien.” He tried again. “Nothing there.” Then his eyes widened and he fumbled with his cuff, trying to push far too much lace out of the way.
He gave up and whipped the entire shirt over his head instead, and my knees weakened at the sight of him. The craving was back.
He lifted his arm and exhaled—the relief in the sound obvious.
I glanced at his arm then looked again, finally seeing what he’d been looking for. The bite I gave him. The skin was puckered and slightly raised, my teeth-marks already immortalized in his skin.
“She’s claimed you.” Leia laughed, although the confusion mixed with her amusement was evident.
We all looked at his arm again as Francois held it out, pride clear on his face.
Kayla returned to where she’d left the book on the table and started flipping through the pages again.
“Hang on, there’s something I missed.” Her eyes widened as she quickly scanned one of the pages.
“Okay.” She looked up. “Okay,” she said again.
“It’s a bit weird, but if a venator bites a vampire, they can become soulmates.
The vampire’s soul is reborn in the venator.
If one lives, so does the other. But…” She swallowed and cast a quick glance at Francois almost like she was nervous.
“If you don’t drink from Maeve, you’ll become human again.
It’s her bite that kills vampires and only her blood can keep you in your current state.
That’s what creates the soulmate bond. My, my.
” She stepped back. “I’ve never seen a finer line between love and death.
And I thought being turned vampire came pretty close. ”
Well, fuck. I could potentially kill everyone in this room.
My whole body seemed to heat with the intense shame of that news, and I backed away, already looking toward the exit. I needed to go. Just leave. Now.
I could hurt one of them and maybe I wouldn’t even mean to. It was what I’d been bred for, apparently—vampire killer. No wonder I’d spent so much of my life trying to find them. At least that made sense now. But why hadn’t Granny told me? Perhaps even she hadn’t known. It didn’t really matter now.
I tried to slide past Francois, my mind spinning with too many thoughts, but he reached for me then pulled me against him. I pressed my hands against his chest to push him away, but I didn’t want to hurt him. I couldn’t use all of my strength just now in case I did.
“You need to let me go,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I could hurt you. Kayla just said I’m capable of killing you. All of you.” Oh, God. I didn’t know what to do. I needed to go and I couldn’t. I was trapped.
“Maeve.” Again Francois used my name, and again I stopped and looked at him, my head suddenly—blessedly—quiet. “Stop. I’ll never let you go no matter what. Didn’t you hear Kayla? We’re bonded. We’re not just true mates. You’re my soulmate. There’s nothing you can do to get rid of me now.”