Chapter 4
Chapter Four
It had taken him hours of restless tossing before Adrian managed to get any sleep. Some of that he could blame on his link with Emmaleigh. Her fear, worry, and agitation seeped through the blood bond like a cruel parasite nibbling into his subconscious.
The rest of his anxiety developed because he doubted he’d be enough to protect her if an entire sect of vampire hunters had it in for her.
There couldn’t be worse news than discovering they’d acquired the Eye of Sariel, but he had to wonder how they’d located it—better yet, why they wanted it. Did they realize the fallen angel considered itself the sworn enemy of their vampiric maker?
Had it been coincidence?
Somehow, he doubted it. Centuries living in this world had ruined his belief in coincidences. Whatever the hunters had planned, something or someone had set them in motion.
An hour before sunset, a knock on his door roused him. He slipped from beneath the sheets and trudged to the door, expecting to find a servant bearing a morning glass of fresh blood or some other luxury.
“Chancellor Clarice,” he said in surprise.
“A moment of your time?”
“Of course. Please, come in.”
She swept past him, the skirt of her diaphanous burgundy gown swishing around her ankles. Her pale brown hair hung in perfectly formed ringlets around her wide-lipped, cherubic face.
Adrian shut the door behind them and turned to face her. “What may I do for you, Chancellor?”
Clarice’s eyes cut toward the door joining the two guest rooms, and then her brows squeezed close together. “Tell me something. Do you believe it when she says she knows nothing of her sire?”
“I see no reason for her to lie.”
“Hmm. What a funny thing, recalling nothing of her rebirth.”
“Forgive me, Chancellor, but you know as well as I that many of us can sweep away memories. If we couldn’t, the humans would have hunted us all down by now.”
“Do you remember your sire?”
“Of course I do. I work with him every day.”
“But if you didn’t—if you were away in Edinburgh—would you be aware of Brennan?”
“I would,” he conceded. “But only because he and I have a bond deeper than sire and child. We were close friends long before he bit me. It’s absolutely possible a complete stranger turned Emmaleigh. She wouldn’t be the first to be abandoned at her rebirth.”
“A stranger…” She trailed her fingers over the nearby dresser and frowned.
“If this stranger has a similar gift, perhaps he or she saw something in Emmaleigh but was unable to handle the responsibility of rearing a neophyte at the time,” Adrian suggested.
“It’s the only theory I have. Nothing else makes sense when you consider the convenient circumstances surrounding what happened next.
What are the odds of an abandoned neophyte stumbling to the doorstep of a master of liaisons in her personal home? ”
“A wise thought from one so much younger than we. Of course, anyone with a gift of this nature would have to be older. Such negligence cannot be condoned, of course, and the guilty vampire must be punished for their transgressions.”
“That happened a long time ago, Chancellor.”
“I would like them found,” Clarice said. “This betrayal of our principles cannot be ignored. The pity I have for that poor girl, awakening alone and afraid, unaware of what she had become.” Her gold eyes fixed on the door again. “I would have you look deeper, Adrian.”
He stiffened. “What are you asking”
Clarice strode closer to him, invading his personal space, close enough for Adrian to breathe in the hints of spice on her skin, her perfume skimming his senses. The powerful blood in her veins called to him. “For you to lend your personal touch to this matter, of course.”
“Is this an order, Chancellor?”
Her bright eyes drifted lower, drawing Adrian’s attention to his inappropriate state of dress.
Boxers weren’t the best wardrobe choice while in the presence of chancellors.
Female chancellors. “Consider it a favor, one which might help your own fate when all things are said and done. Besides, wouldn’t you like to help your young… charge?”
“Charge?”
“Is there another term I should call her by?” Her smug smile set him on edge. How much did she know?
Clarice raised a hand and walked two fingers down the middle of his bare chest, her eyes focusing once she reached his heart. “I can promise you things you hadn’t thought possible, Adrian.”
“I’m certain your husband would have my head, and I’m quite fond of it where it is.”
“I’m not offering you sex, dear boy. I offer information. Besides, I know I wouldn’t compare to your Emma, would I? But, if you’re unwilling to consider my proposal, perhaps I should return to my chambers and take the rest of my knowledge with me.”
Her hand dropped away, and she glided toward the door. Adrian clenched his fists at his sides while willing his pulse to slow.
“It isn’t up to me,” he told her. “What if Emma doesn’t want to know?”
Clarice looked back over her shoulder, ruby painted lips twisting into a coy smile. “Well then, I leave it to you to make her consider otherwise. Good hunting, Adrian.”
She swept through the door and closed it behind her, leaving only her scent and veiled promises.
What knowledge had she wanted to share with him? More importantly, if Clarice saw their one-sided bond, how long would it be before she decided the secret was no longer worth keeping?
Unsettled by the visit and the task assigned to him, Adrian showered and dressed. The moment the last golden ray of sunlight vanished below the horizon, he knocked on Emma’s door and announced it was time to leave.
He didn’t want to linger a moment longer than necessary.
Lucky for him, Emmaleigh seemed to be of the same mind. She answered the door dressed and ready to depart. Blowing off decorum, they carried their own overnight bags and hurried downstairs to find an attendant waiting by the curb with their vehicle.
“Now what?” Emma asked once the door shut behind them.
“We go back to Dartmouth.”
Emma lapsed into silence, her body twisted toward the passenger window in a closed, antisocial posture.
Clarice’s offer lingered in his mind and, more than once, he glanced over, focusing his gaze on the pulse at Emma’s throat.
Her blood still sang to him, a siren’s call he barely managed to resist. He wanted her again, her body and her blood, but he’d be damned if he took either one for the council and their mysterious whims.
Over and over, he told himself only Emma was entitled to learn the identity of her mysterious sire.
“I’m sorry,” she spoke up suddenly, breaking the silence for the first time in an hour. “I’m not trying to be a bitch.”
“I’d say you’re entitled to it this time.”
“Why are they so terrified of this gemstone anyway?”
“It’s a powerful artifact.”
“Bullshit. You know what it is. I saw your expression when they named it.”
He pulled over into a rest stop and parked the car, but left the engine running. “You really want to know?”
“Seeing as how I have to find it, yeah. It would probably help to know what this thing is.”
She was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. He shoved his hands through his hair and stared out the front windshield. Outside, the fluorescent lights illuminating the public bathrooms flickered on and off with an irritating buzz.
“It’s not common knowledge, so I’ll ask you never to repeat this.”
“I promise.”
Adrian took in a deep breath and let it out on a huff. “There were eight Ancients, Emmaleigh. Not seven.”
“Wait, what?” She shot him a bewildered look.
Adrian paused before continuing. “No one knows the identity of the oldest vampire anymore, and the eight Ancients he turned no longer speak of him.”
“There are seven, Adrian. Or rather, there were until Margot drained Lamashtu.”
His dark chuckle raised the fine hairs on her arms. “No. There’s a lot of history that adepts aren’t privy to, and even more most of our younger generations neglect to learn.
We should really hold history classes one day.
Anyway, that isn’t the most important part.
What matters is that the eighth was murdered and struck from our stories because of Sariel. ”
“I don’t think I understand. What would the council have to gain from hiding it?”
Adrian rubbed his palms together and nodded. “Let me finish. Brennan told the whole story to me, and made me swear to never share it. So I’m asking you to do the same.”
“I promise.”
“As the story goes, a wizard set Sariel free from captivity in the stone and used her to decimate one of the original covens established by our ancestors. Before she slaughtered each vampire, she tore apart the elder and ate his soul. She is powerful beyond comprehension and believed to be one of the first of the fallen after Lucifer.”
Beside him, Emmaleigh paled. Good. As much as he hated to scare her, and despised the twisting nausea he experienced due to their link, she needed to know the severity of the situation.
“Then what happened?”
“No one knows. The wizard vanished, taking Sariel and the Eye with him. The remaining elders could only assume he trapped her inside the gem once more, otherwise our world would be a very different place if she were free.”
“So what do the hunters want with the Eye? How did they even find it?” she asked.
“No idea. Hell, I don’t even know how the council discovered it was back in the open after so many centuries.
” Adrian ran his fingers through his hair.
“If I had to make a guess, I’d say the hunters were influenced somehow.
Sariel is known as the deceiver. A trickster.
Stories claim she could reach out and touch the minds of weak-willed men. ”
“And what’s this all have to do with me?”