9. Chapter 9
9
I couldn’t help but think about Bastian as I loaded dirty clothes into the washer stacked on top of the dryer in the narrow laundry closet beside the fridge. He was just so yummy . And so thoughtful and kind. He definitely didn’t seem like the friends-with-benefits type.
So, what did that mean? Were we a thing ? We hadn’t had the talk , but we were definitely more than mere colleagues or friends now, as my office walls could attest to, especially after our second, less frantic coupling yesterday evening. He had even walked me home, holding my hand and kissing me on the doorstep of my apartment and everything. It was all very couple-y.
And yet, he had declined my offer to come up. To stay with me. Apparently, he had a prior commitment, but he hadn’t elaborated beyond that. And he hadn’t responded to my text this morning. So, I spent the past twenty hours snuggling with my cat and second-guessing everything that had happened between Bastian and me while resisting the urge to text him every five minutes.
I paused before stuffing the jeans I had worn to the bar a couple of nights ago into the washer, some inexplicable instinct driving me to check the pockets. It wasn’t something I usually did. More than a few tubes of ChapStick had lost their lives in my washing machine. But the instinct proved valid when my fingertips brushed against the edge of a card tucked into one of the front pockets.
I fished out a business card from the pocket and frowned, studying it. A name—Gavin Lee—and a phone number had been printed on one side of the card. I flipped it over and sucked in a sharp breath when I saw the symbol printed on the other. The celestial seal—the combined sun, moon, and stars representing the three immortal houses, the House of the Sun, the House of the Moon, and the House of the Stars. Wasn’t Gavin the name the hallucination of my sister had used? Gavin, the vampire with silver eyes?
Out of nowhere, a vision flashed through my mind. A memory .
I was in a public restroom with a tall stranger, as beautiful as he was mysterious. His eyes glowed silver as he fed me his blood from a puncture on his thumb, and I felt inexplicably revived.
“What the actual fuck?” I stared at the card, more of the resurfacing memory from the bar two nights ago replaying in vivid detail in my mind.
My heart thudded in my chest, each individual beat like the hammer of a drum as I processed the recollection.
The stranger was a vampire, obviously, and he had fed me his blood. That must have been why I had felt and looked so much healthier the past day and a half. I had been severely malnourished for years, Javier’s tincture being my only source of immortal blood for the past two decades. As a living vampire, immortal blood was a dietary requirement for me. It was why my health and vibrancy had been waning increasingly as I rationed my dwindling supply of Javier’s tincture.
The mysterious vampire had bent my mind to his will, something that should have been impossible. I didn’t know much about a living vampire’s gifts, but I knew we were supposed to be immune to mind control. My psychic weakness must have been another symptom caused by extreme malnourishment. The realization was surprising but not nearly as shocking as his ability to bend minds at all .
He wasn’t just an undead vampire; he was a guardian, elevated beyond the base level of vampire hierarchy via a mysterious ritual called the Second Rite, the First Rite being the process of initial transformation from human to undead vampire. From mortal to immortal. Javier had been covered in the striking, glowing sigils that gave the guardians their increased powers, including varying levels of control over mortals’ minds.
Though with Javier, I had only caught glimpses of his sigils a few times, glowing silver like they had been created out of pure moonlight. His sigils’ appearance was usually our first clue that the blood tincture was too potent and needed to be tweaked. Javier and I had sought a fine balance, wanting to keep me healthy but also needing to suppress my otherness.
The only vampires more powerful than guardians were queens, mature living vampires. A queen’s extreme power was balanced by her mortality. Though I was wholly ignorant of the specifics of a queen’s gifts, I did technically fit into that category, weak and powerless as I was.
My need to hide among humans, to suppress my intrinsic powers so I appeared human, was the reason Javier had developed the blood tincture in the first place, rather than simply feeding me his own immortal blood, which would have been much simpler. However, in its raw state, his blood would have amplified my magic, making me a more obvious target. He had planned on awakening my powers and training me when I came of age at nineteen, but he had been long gone for years by then.
Regardless of that massive snafu, his strategy to keep me hidden had worked. I hadn’t encountered a single immortal since outrunning the shifter assassins from the House of the Sun, who had come for me after Javier disappeared. The same bastards who I could only assume had been responsible for his disappearance.
Until two nights ago. Until that encounter in the bar restroom. Until some vampire guardian named Gavin found me and fed me his blood before slipping his card into my pocket and vanishing.
“That’s enough for now.”
His voice whispered through my mind.
“Not yet.”
His words had implied his intention to see me again. To feed me again.
My salivary glands tingled, and my mouth watered as I recalled the rich, seductive taste of his blood. Like dark chocolate with just the hint of some exotic spice. My core tightened as I recalled how it had impacted me the moment it touched my tongue. I craved him like I was starving. Like I was addicted to his blood.
I swallowed roughly, the card quaking in my trembling hand. Before I realized what I was doing, I had pulled my phone out of the side pocket of my leggings and dialed the number on the card. My thumb hovered over the call button as I recalled the vampire’s eyes. His silver eyes.
Eyes I had seen in my dreams, in which he had filled me with both his body and his blood.
Another voice whispered through my mind. My sister’s voice.
“Find Gavin, the vampire with silver eyes. Only he can protect you now.”
Again, I wondered if Amaya had really been there on my bed the other night. Now that I was aware of the fresh immortal blood in my system, it seemed even more likely. I honestly didn’t know the details of my suppressed powers, but I didn’t think seeing ghosts was outside the scope of reason.
If I had another taste of immortal blood, maybe I could unlock more of my powers. Or better yet, maybe this vampire could help me understand all that I could do. He obviously knew what I was. Vampires didn’t go around force-feeding regular old humans their blood. It wouldn’t do a damn thing for a human beyond grossing them out.
A shiver cascaded down my spine as, once again, I recalled the decadent taste of his blood. I licked my lips, parched with a thirst water could never sate.
More of Amaya’s warnings whispered through my mind.
“They’ve found you. You can’t stay here.”
If my sister had been real, if her ghost had actually appeared to me and spoken to me, then the House of the Sun had found me, and I was in extreme danger. I didn’t have a choice. I had to reach out to this vampire.
I pressed my thumb to the phone’s screen to make the call before I could chicken out, then tapped higher on the screen to turn on the speaker. It rang.
And rang.
And rang.
“This is Gavin Lee.” His voice was a silken baritone that sent a wash of goose bumps over my arms.
I inhaled a shuddering breath, and the words came tumbling out of me in a rush. “Hi, um, my name is Sophie. We met the other night at the Kraken. You gave me your card and, well, I think I need your help.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “I’m surprised to hear from you so soon,” he finally said, continuing before I could ask him why. “But you’re correct. You do need my help.” Again, he paused. “I am, however, curious as to why you think you need my help. Has something happened?”
“Besides you ?” I blurted, the words riding out on a semi-hysterical laugh.
He chuckled. “Yes, besides me .”
“I—” I licked my lips, the explanations catching in my throat. But if the shifter assassins really had found me, there was no time for caution. “I saw my sister. My dead sister. She told me—” Again, I hesitated, waiting for him to laugh at me. Waiting for any sign from him that I was losing my mind.
“What did she tell you?” he asked, his voice hard, focused. Like he believed me.
My heart rate increased, and my chest felt tight. “That they’ve found me,” I said breathily.
“The House of the Sun,” he said, not a question.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Fuck,” he growled. “Go into the bathroom, turn on the shower, and shut the door. Let me know when you’ve done that.”
Panic rising, I crossed the cramped living room to my bedroom door, then hurried into the attached bathroom. I started to shut the door but had to wait for Sombra to slink in before shutting it the rest of the way. My hand shook as I turned on the shower faucet, and the small bathroom filled with the sound of running water.
“Okay,” I said, putting the toilet lid down and sitting. I fumbled to switch the phone off speaker and held it up to my ear, hugging my middle with my other arm. “It’s done.”
Sombra leapt gracefully onto the edge of the tub and perched there like an obsidian gargoyle, watching me.
“Listen to me very carefully, Sophie,” Gavin said, enunciating each word. “You need to leave your apartment as soon as we end this call. Do not pack a bag. The shifters are likely surveilling your place at this very moment, and since we’re within the full-moon window, you’re in incredible danger.”
That meant the Sun assassins could shift into their other, deadlier forms. I may have been ignorant of many of the finer details of the way the immortal world worked, but I knew that much.
I gulped and nodded. But then I realized he couldn’t see me, so I forced out a hoarse, “Okay.”
“Do nothing differently than you would normally do if you were heading out to run some errands,” he added.
I clutched my side, my fingers digging in painfully through my T-shirt. “Will I be coming back?”
“Not for some time,” he said.
I glanced at Sombra. “I have a cat. I can’t just leave him.”
“Then you’ll put the cat in its carrier and act like you’re taking it to the vet,” he said evenly.
How was he so calm? My whole body was trembling, and I felt like my heart was going to hammer through my sternum.
“The shifters will follow you,” he went on. “But they should have no need to approach so long as they think nothing has changed. I’ll meet you in the parking lot of the veterinarian’s office. Once I’m with you, they’ll retreat to regroup, which will give us an opportunity to make you disappear.”
I nodded dumbly.
“Now, tell me what you’re going to do.”