Chapter 16 #2
Julian picks up his tablet again. His voice has a different quality now.
Tighter. Clipped. “A vampire lord with no dormancy window, no sunlight vulnerability, and around-the-clock operational capacity.” His attention shifts to Maximus.
“You can command during daylight. Defend during daylight. Move during daylight. Every strategic limitation we’ve built our defensive models around just became obsolete. ”
“Yes,” Maximus says.
“Both of you. Two vampires who can fight, command, and defend when every other vampire is unconscious.”
Marcellus stands. The chair scrapes against the floor. He walks to the window and stands with his back to the room and his hands clasped behind him.
When he turns around, his face is unfamiliar in a way I don’t know how to read.
“I have never heard of a vampire lord who could walk in daylight. Dormancy and sunlight have been our two immovable constraints.”
His attention returns to Maximus. “And you just told me both of them are gone.”
Maximus holds his second’s gaze. “Both of them are gone.”
Marcellus nods. Once. Then he sits back down. “Good,” he says. “We’re going to need any advantage we can get.”
Yeah. We are.
Marcellus clears his throat. “On another note before we break. Elena and I bonded while you were gone.”
I look at Elena. She’s already looking at me. Her eyes are steady and warm and certain in a way I haven’t seen before. I reach across the table and squeeze her hand. She squeezes back.
Maximus is quiet for a moment.
“You have put this territory before yourself for as long as I’ve known you.” He holds Marcellus’s gaze. “I am glad you’re finally going after your happiness.”
Marcellus’s throat moves. He nods once. Then he glances at Julian. “There’s one more thing.”
Julian nods. “I’d like to brief you privately on this one.” His eyes find mine. “Find me when you’ve seen Simone.”
Simone is in the training room. The heavy bag has new dents in it. A water bottle on the bench has her name written on it in marker.
She’s put on muscle since we left. Her shoulders are broader. Her stance is wider.
“Simone.”
She turns. Her eyes are clear.
She crosses the room and pulls me into a hug. Brief. Hard. Then she steps back and looks me over the way I’m looking her over.
“You got stronger,” I say.
“I had three weeks.” She shrugs. “I remember more now.”
I wait.
“The facility. The schedule. The guards who rotated in twelve-hour shifts and the one who didn’t follow the rotation. The one who brought blood when they forgot.” Her voice empties. “I remember a name.”
“Whose name?”
“His. The one who was different.” She looks at me. “Alexei.”
“Alexei,” I repeat.
“He touched my hand through the bars. Once. When nobody was looking.” She doesn’t look away. “I want to know why.”
I pull her in again. She lets me hold her this time.
“We’ll find out,” I say.
I walk out.
Julian is in the corridor.
“A vampire arrived while you were gone.” He pauses. “He’s modified. Marcellus and I ran a preliminary assessment. Dr. Dalton’s full evaluation is in the brief. I’ve been holding the rest for your return.”
Everything in me goes still. “Modified like me?”
“Different. His enhancements are sensory, not physical. Sharper senses, faster thinking. He remembers everything. The modifications are Konstantin’s work. Same methods he used on you, just aimed at a different result.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in the secure wing. He surrendered at the gate. No resistance, no weapons. He walked up to the perimeter at dusk and stood there until the sentries responded. He put his hands up before anyone asked him to.”
Julian meets my eyes. “He asked for you by name.”
“For me?”
The hallway is quiet. The compound hums around us.
“He says he has information about the farms,” Julian says. “He says he knows where they are. He says he’s been documenting them.” He pauses. “He says his name is Alexei.”
“I want to see him,” I say.
Julian’s mouth tightens. “I briefed Maximus while you were with Simone. He wants to see him first. Marcellus agrees. The man is dangerous, Celeste. He’s modified, patient, controlled in a way that suggests extensive training.”
“Simone remembers him.”
“I know. She told me. That’s why I wanted you to hear it from her first.” His mouth thins. “I haven’t told her that he’s here.”
“Thank you for that.”
He nods.
I spend the night on the ward reports with Seraphina, then walk the perimeter checking every change they made while we were gone. Every time I pass the conference room, Maximus is at the table with Julian. Every time I pass Marcellus’s station, his pen is moving.
Close to dawn, Maximus finds me in the corridor outside the east wing. He doesn’t say anything. Just takes my hand and walks me to our room.
We undress in silence for a moment. Then I say it.
“Did you see Konstantin’s vampire, Alexei?”
“I spent three hours with him in the secure wing.” He folds his shirt over the back of the chair. “He’s calm. Cooperative. Gave us locations on two farms without being asked twice. Everything about him reads as genuine.”
“Simone remembers him.” I sit on the edge of the bed. “She gave me his name before Julian did. He was the one guard who brought her blood when the others forgot.”
“Julian told me,” he says.
So he’s known for hours. He’s been sitting with this all night.
“Alexei didn’t mention your sister,” he says. “Not once. Three hours of cooperating on everything else, and he never said her name.” He pulls back the sheets. “I need you in the room when I go back.”
“He asked for me by name, Maximus. I was always going to be in the room.”
We get into bed. The mattress gives where the Lithenmere’s stone held. Cotton sheets instead of fabric that rippled under my fingers.
“It still feels like we were on vacation while the house burned down,” I say.
“We brought back the alliance. The Fae military support. The intelligence Lanthar is sharing through Seraphina.”
“I know. But the healing springs were a little bit of a vacation.”
His thumb traces my knuckles. One pass. Slow.
I press my back against his chest. His arm comes around me.
The compound goes quiet around us. The way it does every dawn. Footsteps stopping. Doors closing. The building settling into the stillness that usually takes everyone but me.
The shutters close. All at once, the compound locking the sun out.
He’s still awake. No pull. No fight. Just awake, the way he was in Thessivane.
He sits up. Pulls the covers back. Crosses the room.
His hand finds the manual override beside the window frame. A switch no vampire should ever touch during daylight, because touching it means dying.
He opens the shutters.
Dawn floods the room. All of it at once. Full Georgia morning, the sun already above the tree line, gold light hitting the floor and the bed and the man standing at the window with his hand still on the switch.
He stands in it. The sun on his face, his chest, his hands. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t burn.
He turns to me. Gold light behind him.
I go to him. He pulls me in. The light falls across both of us now.
Around us, every vampire is dormant. Every room still. Just the two of us awake, holding each other in the sun.
All of it waits. The war. The prisoner. The Hidden Accords cracking at the edges.
For right now, this is enough.