21. Soren
Soren
“What are you?” Hours. I’ve waited hours to get Lazarus alone to question him. No doubt he did it on purpose. No doubt because the moment I’ve got him alone I’d berate him. And I intend to do just that.
Hell part of me wants to stab him.
Stake right through the heart. It won’t kill him. But it sure as fuck will hurt him. Me as well but I’m fine with the pain if he can get it through his thick skull this is a terrible idea.
All day. All fucking day I’ve had to watch the two of them through the window into the isolation room. Chat and laugh and work through a translation he already knows.
And flirt. They’re, flirting.
“Soren.” He rips off his gown stuffing it in the trash. “Is Vex awake yet?”
“Is Vex awake yet?” I tug on the strands of my hair. “That’s what you want to ask me. What the fuck are you doing.”
“Smile, she can see you.” He toes off the booties.
I do smile because if I don’t, I’ll worry Callie and I’m starting to realize that she will pick up on anything off. She always does. It’s honestly uncanny.
“Lazarus.”
Unfortunately, Vex chooses that moment to walk through the doors.
“You’re up.” Lazarus ignores me.
Which makes me even angrier. “He handed her a translation.” I tug on the strands of my hair all over again. “Guess what word, Vex. Guess.” I don’t let him guess before carrying on while pacing. I’m pacing now. “Bride. He gave her the translation to bride.”
Vex slowly shuts the door and leans on it. His eyes ping-ponging back and forth between us. He smells faintly of diesel fuel. Maybe oil. And from the circles under his eyes he will need to feed soon.
And we will have to teach him how to hunt. Humans.
But right now I need him to focus on me.
“Is that bad?” he asks after a long minute.
“Is it bad?” I repeat almost hysterically.
“Did you go to the shop first?” Lazarus questions him.
“I did,” Vex answers without looking at him. “Explain it to me like I’m five.”
“Did your mom ever tell you not to touch the hot stove?”
“All the time.” He smirks.
“Okay, Lazarus just told Callie to touch the hot fucking stove.”
“That is inaccurate.” Lazarus turns to look at Callie scribbling away in a notebook. “She almost has it completely translated.”
“Impossible.” I freeze as I embrace the rush of adrenaline then let it flow through my body. While the taste of it lingers on my tongue.
“So you told Callie to touch a hot stove?” Vex questions.
“Are you hungry?” Lazarus asks him instead.
“Lazarus.” I’m so angry at him and the fact he’s just blowing this off is going to make me homicidal.
He sighs heavily before propping himself on the edge of a desk. “The vampires that killed you, Vex, did not leave, in fact they’ve found a place to hide in Appalachia.”
Please, just change the subject.
“Let the hunters kill ‘em.” Vex shrugs.
“What does that have to do with anything.” Seriously the way it is so hard for him to stay on topic.
Lazarus slowly shakes his head. “I have this fear,” he says slowly, softly as he gazes at Callie now chewing on her tongue as she writes. He looks at me ever so slightly before turning back to her. “That something will rip her from me before we even hold the chance to, to—”
“Bond,” I finish for him. That hot rush of emotions sings in my veins just like the night I lost my wife. “Don’t you fucking dare use my wife as your emotional crutch.”
He snaps his head to me. “You think that night didn’t affect me exactly as it did you?” His voice remains calm with that underlying edge of steel that’s all Lazarus. “You think I don’t relive daily getting to you almost too late. Having to decide between you and Cassie.”
“Don’t say her name,” I hiss.
“Cassandra,” Lazarus says again.
“Stop.” Vex steps between us. His eyes glowing softly like a cat hunting in the woods at night. “Lazarus explain this fully. Stop fucking around with his emotions. Do better, man.”
Lazarus glares at nothing for far too long before nodding his head. “I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t save both of them. And I saved Soren. Because she—”
“Was too far gone.” I look away not wanting anyone to see the true tears pooling in my eyes. Or the pain that still shimmers just under the surface.
“Seeing those in House Asmodeus I felt that the chances of it happening again were too high.” He looks up holding eye contact with Vex, then me. “I couldn’t change anything then. I can now. And even if this ends badly then she will know. She’ll know everything in the only way we can tell her.”
“Can’t you just say, hi Calliope I’m a vampire,” Vex questions.
Knowing no one has explained this to him yet I open my mouth. “Have you tried?”
“Well, no.”
“You can’t. The bond needs her love given freely.
Not love she gives because she found out what we are and decided to stay anyway.
That’s not a choice, that’s a reaction.” I pause hoping like hell he understands what I’m saying.
“You tell a bride what you are before she loves you, and the bond doesn’t take.
It fails. She’s just a woman who knows too much and feels nothing toward the vampire. ”
“I can,” Lazarus states. “And I won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he just told you why,” Lazarus says. “I could say the words. My mouth works fine. But the moment I do, I’ve traded the only thing that keeps her around us. She loses agency to see past the fangs. I need her to see past the fangs.”
“But you’ll have her translate a tablet older than your parents. So she can what?” I scoff. “Run into your arms. Say I love you? What Lazarus?”
“Maybe,” he snaps back. “I don’t know. All I do know is if I tell her, then what?
You want me to tell her the reason I made her a security guard is because her mind connected dots too quickly and I couldn’t have her working for us.
You want me to tell her that her work was so fucking close to the truth if published it would tell the world who we are?
Or that I kept her close just to make sure she never found out? What would you have me tell her?”
“The truth,” Vex whispers.
“If she finds out too soon.” I pace again shaking my head. “What if she rejects us?”
“That’s an option?” Vex pushes off the door to peer at Callie through the window.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Lazarus,” I mutter.
“Our world is dangerous,” he spits out. “Or have you forgotten that?” His cruelty feels like a spear to my heart. “I didn’t think so. If she knows then we can protect her with a bond.”
“Ah.” Vex snaps his fingers. “I get it. Soren doesn’t want a pity bond. But you don’t care. As long as you bond her, that’s okay right? I think I’m reading this right. What’s with the power of the bond? Will she become another vampire?”
“No.” Lazarus shakes his head. “No, she’ll be ours. And us hers. In an eternal life cycle. Her blood will always hold the ability to sustain us. And in turn she drinks from us extending her life. And the ability to bear our children.”
“That one will fuck her up,” Vex says softly. “She lost a child, I don’t know the details but she’s already lost a child.”
“I know,” he softly replies his eyes straying back to her, just like the rest of us.
“Is that why she lost the child?”
“Yes.” Lazarus peels his eyes away from her long enough to give Vex and I the answer. “She was never built to nourish a human baby. She was built to nourish a vampire baby. Even the amniotic fluid will have different nutrients.”
“This is all fucked.” I catch her movement and watch as she finally sees all three of us in here watching her.
When she smiles it’s with her entire face. Her whole soul.
And I get it.
The fear.
The what if. What if those who killed Vex come back for vengeance. What if they discover her. What if they do to her what they did to Cassandra.
“You never said if she survived,” Vex whispers as Callie moves toward the door. “What if Cassandra is alive?”
There’s no time to answer as Calliope opens the door.
“Guys.” She rips off her gown. “I got a whole sentence. A whole sentence.” She squeals. “You won’t believe this. It’s mind-blowing. It could change everything.” She’s talking a mile a minute and for the first time not realizing that the room is full of tension.
She just looks so fucking happy.
“Basically,” she continues unaware. “It’s a story about a bride and her lovers.
” She laughs at that. “Lovers as in plural. Do you think it was the norm in that era for multiple lovers. I mean I wouldn’t be surprised.
It’s just recently that people feel some kind of way about polyamory.
Because that has to be what it is.” She toes off her booties, her smile reaching her ears. “Polyamory. I can’t believe it.”
“Anything else?” Vex questions watching her carefully. With hunger.
“Yes.” She bounces from foot to foot tugging the cap off her hair. “It’s about this woman, meeting men from a house titled Nergal. Do you think it’s like family houses. Like mine is Cantemir. I’d be from house Cantemir. Or at least that’s how I’m taking it?”
“Yes,” Lazarus answers while staring at me as Callie floats about in excitement.
“Okay that makes sense.” She wanders to the next room while the three of us follow behind her faithfully. “Okay so then my kids if I ever had any would also be house Cantemir. Unless I married into another house. So it’s exactly like our surnames which is really blowing my mind.”
She pauses before her locker and thumps down on the bench.
“It’s incredible. I learned so much and nothing at all the same time and I can’t figure out how to bridge it.
No matter because there’s always tomorrow.
I’m so close.” She mumbles to herself. “House Nergal. She was their bride. And multiple men. I think she had four. Which is crazy.” She turns to us.
“Do you think it’s because there were more men than women then? ”
She looks from Lazarus to Vex then me.
No my love. Not men. Not men at all.
“I don’t know.” I lie feeling my heart burn.
“I’ll figure it out because it makes sense. I’ll have to check the historical records for any kind of extinction event for women.” She chews her lip.