37. Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Six
Benjamin
I was tired and groggy as we showered in the master bathroom.
Zar and Chris had spent the night together and I had to admit I was glad.
I knew how hard it must’ve been for Zar to make the decision regarding Isabelle and he’d made the right one, there was no doubt about that.
Yesterday, I’d been too in my own head to think about how this would affect Zar. Now I knew better, as did Chris.
“I’m sorry,” Chris whispered as he washed Zar’s body, leaning in to kiss him on the lips. Zar met him eagerly, both of them seeming closer after Zar got claimed last night.
“I’m sorry, too,” I said, enjoying the warm water.
I’d been cold for most of the night, not wanting to leave them out there in the rain alone.
I hadn’t lasted long before I returned to the tent, glad that it had a sort of window I could watch from.
My men were hot together, but I also needed to know they would be okay out there.
They broke the kiss, both of them panting, Zar looked at both of us with a fond smile. “And I’m sorry as well. Today will suck, but after Isabelle has gotten what she wants, the rest of the day will be spent in our wing, just the three of us. We can even have your meals delivered.”
“I would love that,” I said, giving him a quick peck on the lips. He grabbed me before I could step back, deepening the kiss and making me all weak in the knees.
“I wish we had time for some fun,” Chris said, sounding amused. “But we have less than ten minutes before they’re here.”
“Why are vampires so damn punctual,” I grumbled.
We got ready and dressed, and before we knew it, Altaur called us to the meeting.
We’d agreed that he would call Zar’s phone once Isabelle and her goons were in the official meeting room.
It was a room Zar had described as less cozy and would fit more people.
It was at the ground level and as far away from the private rooms in the mansion as possible.
This was where outsiders came for meetings, Altaur simply didn’t allow visitors further into the mansion than that.
We walked hand in hand to the meeting, Zar and Chris both tense with worry over what would happen once the book got opened. No one knew, and I doubted even the witch coven who’d guarded the book did.
Once we were in the right location, Zar opened the door, walking in first with me in the middle.
I was glad I held both their hands, because as I watched a white-haired pale vampire and then one with black hair and dark skin, I suddenly remembered what had happened when they took me.
Strangely enough, the worst of it was seeing Panu die.
That had been a memory I had no idea I’d lost. I’d been too focused on avoiding my torture memories to think about all the other horrors I’d witnessed.
Altaur sat at the end, a black-haired woman next to him, her eyes were red with a golden ring that seemed to glow.
It was unnervingly beautiful. She had red lipstick on and a black dress, very gothic, but then again, she’d likely lived longer than any other vampire and could very well be the whole reason for the aesthetic.
“Hello again, boys,” Isabelle said, smiling warmly as Chris closed the door behind us.
There was a seat for everyone, and we sat on the opposite side of the Greenwren Coven.
I remembered the names of the two goons who’d tortured me.
Wisp and Barius. The other two I hadn’t met, or at least I couldn’t remember them.
They were both women and looked like sisters.
They were blonde and pale, and their eyes a lighter red than the other vampires.
It was likely rude to ask why they looked different, though.
Once we were all seated comfortably, Isabelle went straight to the point, placing the book on the table. “I’ve followed this book ever since I heard of its existence. I don’t think any of you truly know what this book is rumored to hold.”
“We know about the rogue thing from Gabrielle, if you’ve heard of her,” Zar said. Maybe we would learn if her coven was responsible for what happened to her. We knew Isabelle had controlled the witches, but had she controlled Gabrielle, too?
Isabelle laughed. “Of course we did! We believed if we stole the book ourselves, we could die, we had no idea at the time if a sacrifice had been made or not. She was making us rogues and we hoped one of them could grab the book, they were cursed and should’ve been able to touch the book without dying. ”
“But,” I frowned. “Why would you die touching it?”
“We thought a new sacrifice had to be made before we could move it,” Isabelle shrugged.
“Like we told Altaur, we had no idea how much you knew about the book. For all we knew you’d either read it and knew all the information, then had it sealed away again and protected it against everyone else, or you hadn’t read it but were trying to destroy it. ”
“Did Altaur tell you everything we know about the book?” Zar asked and Isabelle nodded.
“We were told what Benjamin had already said during his playtime with my men,” Isabelle said, like I hadn’t been tortured by them.
My men growled low in warning, their possessiveness taking over even in the company of perhaps the strongest vampire alive.
She ignored them completely as she continued.
“And now we’ll all soon learn if all the rumors were true. ”
She handed Chris a dagger with a leather handle, a blue sapphire was embedded in it. Even the blade had a blue sheen to it, making it look pretty and deadly.
“He won’t use that,” Zar denied, pushing the dagger back to Isabelle.
She quirked a brow at him. “Then how do you suppose he’ll bleed?”
He flashed his fangs. “In a painless sort of way.”
I swore Chris melted at the thoughtfulness, even if a small cut likely wouldn’t have caused him much pain.
Isabelle made the go-ahead motion and pushed the book over to Chris. “Remember, you are not to open it, just drop your blood on it and slide it back to me. Got it?”
Chris nodded and offered Zar his left hand. He bit into his wrist, then held it over the book. We watched in fascination as the book absorbed the blood. The front of the book didn’t even look to have gotten blood on it.
Chris pushed the book to Isabelle, but half way to her, it flew open, light pouring out of it. A female voice spoke from the book, loud and clear.
“You have freed our curses, be warned, for they are now no more, no more should be born, no more should be made, our curse is broken and those already created shall remain.
“Through trial and error, we forced it back, bonds and matings are no longer–” then pure gibberish none of us could understand “–for now the book has been opened and all revealed, as are our cursed bonds and those it obtained.”
There was a pause and I could tell none of us wished to be the first to break the silence, but then the voice spoke again.
“Our coven is no more, as was our curse, for creating this book and throwing unbalance in the universe, forgive us not for we have prevailed, in paradise we rest and forever we shall.”
The book turned its pages and landed on a page with the words, “Curses that have been broken.”
“Holy…” I whispered, staring at the words in front of me. All were-beings were no longer cursed, making Chris either cured or one of the last werewolves to exist. Then rogue vampires were listed along with the skinwalkers and some other species I’d never heard of.
“What did it say about bonds?” Isabelle asked, looking eagerly at the text in front of her. Chris grabbed the book and turned the pages, stopping once he hit a list about bonds and matings.
“It says they forced bonds to stay intact, not wanting supernaturals to claim whoever they wanted without repercussions. They were the reason we could only mate or bond with one person. According to this, numerous mates and bonded were possible, but they stopped it,” Chris said.
“I can have more than one bonded?” Isabelle gasped and I swore her eyes glowed at the thought.
She likely had more than one lover and hated that she couldn’t claim them all equally.
That, or because that meant she wouldn't die if just one of them did.
Though I highly doubted that would be how it worked.
“I think so,” Chris said, turning the book around. “You can read everything here.”
“You can also break bonds freely,” she said, reading further down the page. “It says a healer can remove your mating or bonding mark and that will free you from the bond.”
For once since I was forced into a mating and a blood bond, I could actually get out of it, if I wanted to.
It was crazy to think that now I wanted nothing more than to stay theirs.
I felt their nerves rising now that they knew I wasn’t forced into this bond.
But I wasn’t going anywhere. I did, however, have a question.
“Can healers force your bonds away? Like without your consent?”
Isabelle kept reading. “It says that you have to want the bond gone for it to work, and that forcing someone to want it gone won’t work either.”
That was something at least. Otherwise, I would’ve feared getting healed after this.
“You can also bond with the same person again if you break a bond and regret it,” she added on.
“So,” Altaur said, gaining all our attention. “The book didn’t offer anyone power and it didn’t do anything other than to bring our world back to what it was before this particular witch coven cursed us. So, what do we do with the book now?”
“It still holds information on what has changed,” Isabelle replied, skipping through the pages. “It doesn’t say how to make the curses, so I say let’s keep it and read it through, maybe make it public knowledge amongst all vampire covens?”
“That would be my thought, too,” Altaur agreed. “This will change a lot of things, for everyone.”
Isabelle nodded. “We still have no idea what coven held the book or if they died when the book was stolen, or right now as it got opened.”
“I think it was when it was stolen,” Chris said. “My father died but the rest made it away safely and we had no witch problems before your witches showed up.”
I was tempted to ask how she knew Chris had the book, but I doubted I’d wanted to know her ways. She was mad old and likely had abilities no one knew about outside her coven.
“With the increase in vampires, which will no doubt happen now that the risk of becoming a rogue has passed, we should make a joint decision on what to do about turnings,” Altaur said.
It was rather daring of him to speak like that to Isabelle, but so far she’d seemed intent on this being a meeting where we spoke as equals.
“I completely agree,” Isabelle said, smirking. “Is it too big of a demand that only those in covens are legally allowed to turn someone? And if they turn successfully, the coven is forced to take them in, making them their responsibility?”
“I think that’s only fair,” Altaur nodded.
“We’ll get everyone together for this,” Isabelle said, glancing at the book. “We’ll need allies now more than ever if more are turned. The supernaturals will have to remain a secret to the humans, and newly turned vampires are already a threat to us.”
We rose to leave, figuring we weren’t needed for the rest of the conversation, but to my surprise, Zar had one last question. “Why was Tom in the cabin in the woods?”
Darius chuckled; it made me bristle. “Gabrielle needed to know her place, she’d talked about the book with those it didn’t concern. We simply had to remind her of what she had to lose.”
“That, and he was the only one she could feed from, even in his rogue state,” Isabelle said, grimacing. “But it did make creating rogues easier.”
“Was she the one finding all those people?” I asked, already regretting it when Isabelle’s eyes found mine.
“No, Benjamin. Those people were ones who wanted to become vampires. Many people believe we exist and some eventually find our coven. We figured this was the perfect way of getting rid of them. We did, after all, make their wish come true.”