8. CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
Asher
T here were definitely some things Asher was worried about regarding Moss’s Change. Sure, newborns in general were a handful, but Asher and Nikola hadn’t technically been newborns when they’d Converted to both Moon and Blood. But Moss was as green as grass. Would they take more to Blood nature, being violent and insatiable, or more like a newbie Moon, which Asher had absolutely zero experience with?
Well, at least for the time being, Moss was out like a light, their body still adjusting. Nikola cradled them as they hurried down the road, their slight build making them appear childlike compared to Nikola’s bulk.
Per Katsuki’s orders, they were headed toward the nearest house with the intentions of breaking and entering. It was the best any of them could do to escape the approaching sunrise. There was one glaring upside to Moss’s Change: They could still travel relatively quickly on foot without a human dragging them down.
“Please, let me carry them,” Liam blurted, jogging up to Nikola’s elbow. Nikola’s red eye flashed, protectiveness surging through him. Asher cocked his head to the side. Okay, so that was... interesting.
Wait. Oh, Christ. Nikola had Changed Moss, so now there was going to be a sort of bond between the two, most likely taking from their Moon sides. Asher didn’t feel insecurity or jealousy, but he was apprehensive. If Nikola felt obligated to guide Moss through their newborn days, that meant both he and Asher would have to stick around this clusterfuck of a coven even longer.
Best to worry about that later. Currently, there was an antsy Blood Follower bouncing from foot to foot, brimming with energy from the humans he’d just finished slaughtering.
“Might as well make himself useful,” Asher intoned. “Happy Blood happy house and all that.” Last thing they needed was another feral mental breakdown.
Nikola hesitated, grinding his teeth. He relented, passing Moss’s unconscious form to Liam’s waiting arms. The newborn Blood Follower started to say to Asher, “Thank—”
“I wasn’t doing it for you,” Asher sneered, shutting down the conversation. It ended pretty much any conversation until their footfalls crunched the gravel of a driveway leading to a quaint farmhouse in the distance.
As they drew closer, evidence of the Midwest shone through. Wind-damaged shutters, baby blue paint, the cornfields themselves. It had a wooden front porch with a couple of bicycles, one with training wheels and the other without, and a red pickup truck that just screamed AMERICA, complete with a stars and stripes bumper sticker. Whoever lived inside would’ve never guessed that a caravan of vampires traveling from Chicago was coming to crash here.
“Alright, Kat,” Asher said. “What’s the plan?”
Katsuki looked at Trish. “You and I will do a little test, yes? First, let’s listen closely and figure out how many there are. After that, we will cast an illusion over the building that should easily hold well after we leave. Considering the stakes, I’ll help you secure it, if need be, but you’ll be taking the lead.”
Asher and Nikola got the hint that they’d be staying on the sidelines. All the same, none of them wanted to barge into a house without knowing what was in there. Asher, along with the others, grew as still as statues as they listened to the home’s interior. Asher had to tune out Liam’s distracting fidgeting.
He didn’t normally hunt in such a way, invading a human’s living space—he preferred creeping on the creeps in the wild. Although technically this wasn’t a hunt.
Asher glanced at Liam, who looked down at Moss’s face anxiously. He worried that there may be problems, holding a Blood up under the same roof as humans. Of four, to be exact, going off the subtle sleeping sounds of breathing and heartbeats dispersed throughout the two floors. Seemed like a couple of kids and their parents. His attention slid to Trish, whose silver eyes flicked between her brother and the front door. Would she be able to hold him?
For the first time, Asher noticed that Trish’s heartbeat was distinctly fainter than everyone else’s. It could be harder to tell when newborn Moon Children were underfed. They didn’t age as noticeably as, say, someone who had lived for seven centuries.
She probably couldn’t feed often, too preoccupied with her brother’s leash.
Asher registered the twitch in Liam’s eyes as Trish and Katsuki went to work, silver eyes sliding closed. He could feel the brush of the amnesiac, deep sleep blanket they threw over the perimeter, strong enough that it made Asher’s own head spin with the urge to nap.
But since Trish was busy concentrating on the Moon magic, the rope tying Liam down slacked. Asher watched his pupils expand, a flush of excitement blooming beneath his skin. The only reason he didn’t bolt toward the house was because he’d fed just an hour ago. But Asher wasn’t about to risk shit right now.
He landed a hand on Liam’s shoulder with a warning glare. Liam jolted, as if remembering he wasn’t alone, his head snapping toward Asher with a wild look in his eyes. A look Asher knew all too well.
“Easy,” Asher rumbled, pushing a forceful wave of submission through the point of contact. It came easily to Asher, the same song he’d sang for decades, if only in a different key.
Liam grimaced in discomfort, his knees threatening to buckle. Nikola’s hands went up, meaning to catch Moss if the Blood Follower crumpled. But Liam kept standing. Asher was sure he was being a little more aggressive than Trish’s sisterly love.
“There,” Katsuki said, clapping once. Trish’s eyes flew open, immediately falling on Liam.
“Lee?” she asked. Asher let go of him, physically and mentally.
Liam exhaled with relief as his sister took over the reins. “I’m good,” he breathed, giving Asher a curt nod. Asher did not acknowledge it.
Asher scrutinized the basement they chose to hunker down in, hoping it wasn’t supposed to rain. The smell of mold and the water-damaged concrete told of frequent flooding. But it was better than being outside as the sun rose.
He begrudgingly admitted that, as much as he hated the catacombs, the dark security of places like this basement made the most sense for a runaway vampire. There was probably something to the myths of tombs and coffins.
“Here!” Trish said, appearing at the top of the staircase. The hell? Asher hadn’t even noticed that she’ d vanished. Did she sneak off so no one would try and stop her? She had a bundle of blankets and pillows that threatened to spill over as she bounced down the stairs. Even more impressively, she’d ganked a couple of phone chargers. “Now we don’t have to sleep on the cold floor.”
Asher grunted his gratitude as they laid out their makeshift nest, Nikola far more eloquent with his thank you. Asher watched Liam lay out Moss tenderly, as if putting to bed a child who’d pass out on the car ride home.
He felt a strange pang quite unlike him, at least what he knew about himself. Almost like regret—or pity. Maybe if Liam had been shown more love and acceptance growing up, he never would’ve been such a shit head in high school. He wouldn’t have had to wait until adulthood to shake off that armor, only for his past to come bite him in the ass and turn his newfound love against him.
Asher shook off the thoughts. It didn’t matter now. Grander was the objective, not the drama between Moss and Liam.
The newborn stirred. Liam drew back while Nikola leaned in closer. Heterochromatic eyes opened, taking in the rank basement. Moss groaned, rubbing their eyes, and sat up slowly. Nikola hovered without touching.
“Where the hell are we?” Moss groveled out. They looked around the room, their nostrils flaring, noticing their heightened senses. Asher knew from experience that they were looking at individual dust motes, grimacing at every smell of wood rot and wet soil, listening to the sounds of burrowing insects and foraging mice.
It had to be overwhelming, from what Asher could remember, but it seemed that Moss wasn’t suffering the immediate, crushing thirst of a newborn Blood Follower.
Moss’s heart rate ticked upwards, their eyes darting about anxiously as they began to fully wake up .
Liam and Trish exchanged panicked glances. Newborns were unpredictable, and none of them had much experience with hybrids, so they would need to tread carefully.
Nikola took over, kneeling and speaking with soft words. “What is the last thing you remember, Moss?”
Moss shook their head, as if to rattle free the disjointed memories. “Uh, the SUV. Being followed... gunshots. Liam... losing control of the vehicle... darkness. Just darkness.” Moss swallowed hard. “We crashed, didn’t we?”
Nikola nodded gravely. “We did, but we all got away. But you, well, you were pretty roughed up when we got you out of the rubble.” Moss narrowed their two-toned eyes. “You died, Moss, for a brief moment. We had to... we had to do what we had to do to bring you back. You are a vampire, Moss.”
Moss’s body went still, as still as only the undead were capable of.
“Are they red or silver?” Moss whispered.
Nikola looked over at Asher. “You are like Asher and me. You are both Moon and Blood.” Moss cursed, examining Trish and Liam standing close to each other, as if studying the differences between them.
“Who did it? Who Changed me? You?”
Nikola hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yes. I was, uh, the closest to you.” Asher noticed that Nikola was dodging anything to do with Liam going feral. He was sure Moss would ask what had happened to their pursuers later.
But for now, Moss didn’t say anything. Asher registered Nikola’s nerves spike, manifesting in the form of anxious rambling. “You are taking this far better than I had at first. You’ve had the benefit of being exposed to the vampiric world. I spent my first hours accusing my vampiric father of being a mad man. ”
Moss’s laugh was sharp with sarcasm. Nikola winced, realizing he’d said the wrong things. Asher crept closer. “Your vampiric father? Oh, what? You think you’re my father now? Newsflash, I already have two fathers, and now I can’t even return to them without putting their lives in danger.” A sob broke from their chest. “Christ, I didn’t ask for any of this. You took my choice away from me!”
While Asher understood where the kid was coming from, he didn’t appreciate the hurt causing Nikola’s features to drop. “Yeah, sorry,” Asher said. “You were a bit too dead to ask permission. That what you want? Would you rather be dead than undead? It’d be real easy to fulfill that wish, y’know. Dawn is soon. Solar suicide is only painful for a few seconds. Or I could do the honor.” Liam growled, his hackles raising, but no one called out the bluff.
Their jaw clenched and unclenched. Asher and Moss had a long staring battle that Asher won when Moss looked down at the floor. “I’m not going to thank you,” Moss mumbled.
“We ain’t asking for thanks,” Asher said, coming up behind Nikola and reassuringly squeezing his shoulders. “But this is your reality now, so it’s best to get your shit together until we are a little more settled.”
Moss’s scarlet eye flared with a light Asher recognized all too well. No one else saw it but him.
He was the only one not exclaiming in surprise when Moss lunged. Asher expertly sidestepped, clotheslining their throat. As they gagged, he swept their leg and pinned them to the ground, a knee on their chest and a hand around their throat.
He held up the other hand at Liam without looking at him, knowing the guy was seconds from foolishly intervening. “There it is, the Blood anger,” Asher said calmly, ignoring the way Moss fruitlessly thrashed under his restraint. “You’re going to chill out, kid. Because I said so. There we go, we can do this the easy way, eh?” Asher was beginning to find that narrating his powers of manipulation helped to guide it, as if his words were a tool, or as if the suggestions made them more effective. Moss settled down, eyeballs rolling and breaths sawing.
“I know that little voice goading you to kill. I got it, too, and it used to be way louder. But listen. We ain’t the Horned One’s, not entirely. If we wanna keep the Moon’s grace, if you don’t wanna be the mindless monster you were so scared of becoming, we can’t kill to feed, and we can’t kill every bastard that pisses us off. For Blood Followers, the act of taking a life gives us power, but we ain’t fully Blood, so that doesn’t apply to us.” Asher felt Liam’s gaze sharpen, and he resisted arching an eyebrow at him. “It’s a fucked-up world out there for creatures like us—kill or be killed. Sometimes we gotta kill to protect ourselves and our covens. But that’s the only exception. And, unfortunately for you, I ain’t that exception right now.”
Asher wasn’t really the type to talk newborns down, but something seemed to get through to Moss. They let out a huff, turning their face away and audibly grinding their teeth. Eh, they’ll come around. Asher stood up off them and theatrically brushed off his knees.
“Dawn soon,” he said to Moss, who acted like they weren’t listening. “We best get some sleep.”
Now that the drama had passed, everyone began to settle down as the fatigue of the rising sun settled in. Moss laid down on the very edge of the nest, as far from everyone as possible. Nikola gave them their space, floating toward Asher. But Asher was fixated on Liam.
The newbie Blood Follower had just had a taste of the rush of power that came from killing. So, Liam was stronger, and Trish would be weaker by tomorrow night.
With that in mind, and Nikola’s hand in his, Asher prepared for bed closer to Liam, well within reach.
Moss was quiet and subdued by dusk. Liam came over to Moss, hovering over their shoulders without touching, talking in hushed whispers. Asher could’ve spied with ease, but he let the two be, turning instead to Katsuki and Nikola.
“Y’all managed to keep us hidden throughout the entire day,” he said. “Color me impressed. How about we take it a step further and feed while we can before we hit the road?”
Kat considered it with the tilt of their head. “Would be unwise to let the opportunity pass us by. But we must consider that we have newborns under our care.”
Asher snorted in agreement. “Yeah, with three-fourths of Blood between them.” Asher turned toward Trish, who was hanging out nearby and doing a piss-poor job of pretending that she wasn’t eavesdropping. “You need to drink, too, y’know.” She jumped as he addressed her. “Don’t neglect yourself.”
She didn’t get the chance to respond before Nikola swooped in. “Moss won’t need to feed for a couple of sun downs with my blood running through their veins, but at some point, I will need to satiate them.”
At the mention of their name, Moss looked over, cutting off whatever conversation they were having with Liam. Asher said, “Yeah, I think Liam is good for a bit, too.”
“Wait, what?” Moss said. “What is he talking about?”
Asher opened his mouth to retell Liam’s dance with the Horned One, but Liam held up a hand with a sharp gaze. Asher arched an eyebrow. “No. I’ll explain.” His scarlet eyes flickered back to Moss, his cheeks flushed and his jaw set. Asher personally didn’t care that Liam had taken out all those humans. He was actually happy someone had, and that it happened to be someone who was already built to kill.
But how would Moss take it?
“The men who shot at the van are no longer following us,” Liam stated matter-of-factly. Moss’s eyes darted away, worrying their lip as they started to piece together what was about to be said to them. “I can’t really... remember everything. It’s all a blur of blood and rage. But I didn’t do it to stop them or to protect anyone. I did it because...” Liam shook his head, gesturing vaguely. “You died , Moss. One second you were there, and then you weren’t. And you weren’t even the one they were trying to kill.”
Liam’s voice warbled, his fists curling at his sides. He spun around, trying to hide the tears pooling in his eyes. Moss gaped at Liam for a second. Asher expected horror or disgust from the recently Changed.
But Moss surprised him by whispering, “You took out those cops... for me?” Liam glanced back tentatively, the red glittering. Moss rushed forward, tagging Liam in a crushing embrace.
Asher turned away, if only to give the two their privacy. He didn’t care one way or another if Moss could overlook Liam’s past or not. It wasn’t like they had to deal with him back then .
How those two viewed each other wasn’t the objective. Nikola, however, eyed them suspiciously. “I am still wary of leaving the newborns alone together, especially if Trish is away feeding. And I do not think they should be here as we feed.”
Asher thought his old man was being a tad bit paranoid, but Kat nodded. “I will venture out into the fields with them as the rest of you feed. I’ll return here when we meet up to lower the field.”
Trish glanced back at her brother still wrapped around Moss. “I’m—I’m not sure if I should—”
Asher cut her off. “Nah, save it. You need to take care of yourself, too. I mean, shit, how often can you really feed babysitting your bro all the time? Actually, color me curious. How do you manage to keep your brother from losing it while he got his teeth in a human?”
Trish cringed at the wording. “Uh, he doesn’t, you know... I’ll feed first, go back to him to take from me, then I usually find someone else.”
Nikola frowned in concern. “That isn’t sustainable in the long run, for you or for him.” Asher and Nikola shared a glance, with it the same thoughts about a future where Trish would eventually have to let go of that leash. But not yet. Liam being an untethered newborn Follower was not what they needed on the road. “Tonight, you feed. Come, your abilities will be put to good use.”