Bound by the Vampire Queen (Vampire Queen #8)

This came from Tabor in a reverent, rumbling murmur, though his eyes did not leave the sight before them. They did not look away, either.

Witnessing was quite obviously an important part of the ritual. As the man's sobs eased, that combined focus brought something else. A sense of expectancy. A gathering energy began to grow among the ranks of the Fae, magic spreading out over the cemetery. Firewind's skin heated, and Jacob held Lyssa closer. The wind stil ed, then slowly began to build again, a quiet, mournful voice accompanying the harp. It was a song of loss, of endings and beginnings, a reflection of Samhain night. Jacob felt it in the heart and soul, the lowest well of the bel y, a yearning and utter stil ness at once, and every face he saw, including his lady's, reflected the same feeling.

The man rose then. He swayed, staring at the Fae queen, his face wreathed with all those emotions and more. Then he col apsed at her feet. Jacob started to dismount to help, but Tabor made a quel ing noise in his throat. Dahlia put up a hand, shaking her head, her blue eyes fastened on the scene.

Lyssa swal owed. The man rose from a body that had simply crumpled into the dried leaves, becoming decay and ash. He was a young man, as young and fresh as any of the Fae faces around them, yet with the same wisdom of age in his eyes.

Rhoswen turned his attention toward another figure, coming across the cemetery.

A young woman, her hands outstretched, those same years of wisdom and loss in her eyes. Past regrets and hurts gone, because now they were pure spirit, everything open to one another. The desire for such soul deep honesty, the effort toward it in their mortal lives, had won them the reward of sharing the gift of it in an immortal one.

Lyssa shifted her gaze to Rhoswen. The queen was watching them, tears on her cheeks. As she rose, all that power coalesced around her, and the music became a concentrated hum, all organic energy focusing in on her slim white form. Lifting her hands, she appeared to be gathering it in both palms, kneading it, spinning it out from the powerful anchoring energy of that couple. Lyssa remembered the wheel in the upper chamber. As the queen's hands moved, the sense of expectancy grew. The two groups of Fae had shifted forward, a solid wal around the cemetery, touching elbow to elbow.

Shadows started to shift over the cemetery as the wind picked up.

Jacob?

I don't know. Maybe—

Lyssa dug her nails into his palm as the world exploded, like a giant god throwing open a portal. It blinded them all, so that she turned her face instinctively into Jacob's chest. He covered her eyes with his hand, bending his head over hers. But then she sensed an ebbing, a dispersal of that light, and her gaze lifted again.

Throughout the cemetery and beyond, floating free of the swamp, coming from the trees, she saw spirits. The Veil is thin, not just between our worlds, but between the here and now and the afterlife . . .

She remembered Tabor's words as she recognized most of the spirits were Fae, reflecting the many species that traveled with the Unseelie and Seelie processions. Within the sacred space that Rhoswen had spun, the Fae of the living world now moved forward, reaching out so the corporeal and incorporeal touched. Lyssa saw one of the young Fae who'd been all owed to come in the carriage, reach out toward the spirit of what was obviously a father and mother she'd lost. Their expressions of joy and grief were so closely mingled, Lyssa couldn't hold back the tears that spil ed from her eyes, already gathered and waiting there from watching Rose and Arthur reunited. She looked to King Tabor, and he nodded. He'd wanted her to see, because they all shared this. Mortals and immortals both understood the loss of loved ones.

“Lyssa.” Jacob's whisper pul ed her attention away, as did the shock that fil ed him to the depth of his soul, overflowing to her. When she fol owed his gaze, more tears ached in her throat, a sob and a cry tangling there.

Three people stood at the side of the cemetery, watching them. As Jacob slid off Firewind, he held up his arms to bring her down, but neither one of them tore their gazes from those three, as if they might disappear if they looked away. When they moved toward the spirits, they held on to each other, not queen or servant in this moment, but two lovers needing the reassurance and support of the other.

The man and woman stepped forward first. In their faces, Lyssa saw separate and shared elements of Jacob's physical appearance and character. When the man reached out and touched Jacob, a blue light flared at the contact. Jacob's knees gave out. The man and woman caught him together. They held him the way they would have held him as a child, instead of the much larger man he was now. The woman reached out to Lyssa to bring her to them as well , her touch cool and reassuring at once. She was glad Lyssa had brought him to them, that the path of his life had led to this. Lyssa didn't know if Jacob's mother knew the other things this path had brought him, but that didn't matter, did it? She let herself be drawn into that circle, a part of that family.

We love you, we love you, we love you . . . tell Gideon.

It was simple, short, forever, all at once. No other words needed, just that essential touch, that contact between worlds. Feelings were all that mattered in the afterlife.

Perhaps a breath passed, perhaps an hour. Either way, the magic knew when it needed to end. As they faded, Jacob's mother left a last whispering kiss on his mouth, her eyes so ful of love. We're happy, we're safe. We watch over and love you both . . . tell Gideon.

When they disappeared, Jacob was stil on his knees. Lyssa knelt beside him, her hand on his shoulder, her lips pressed to it as her tears wet his bare skin. As he kept his head bowed, a new hand came to rest upon it, a tactile blessing. “Turns out that you were far more appropriate for her than ever I imagined.”

Lyssa looked up to see the familiar, dear spectacled face of her former servant. In a heartbeat, she was on her feet and had jumped on him, as driven by emotion as a young girl. Her arms locked around his shoulders, holding Thomas in the tightest grip possible, no thought of queenly reserve in her mind. More tears spil ed forth to wet his monk's cassock while his always surprisingly strong arms closed around her.

I've missed you, my lady. Has this young miscreant been treating you properly?

Had he known how it would feel, to have his beloved voice in her mind once more? That it would make it almost impossible for her to speak either way for a few moments?

“Not at all,” she whispered at last. “He's impossibly insolent and disobedient. I think it has to do with his teacher.”

Thomas pressed his face into her hair, his mouth against her temple, as much a blessing as his hand on Jacob's head had been. “You may be right.” When he let her feet touch, she stil kept a close hold on him, staring up at his face. “I'm so very sorry.”

“There are no sorries to be said. Not in this place.” His eyes were swimming, and it was an amazing thing, to think there were tears where he dwel ed, but these were tears of joy and love mixed with the regret. “You are speaking to my soul, just as Jacob was speaking to his parents' souls. A lingering part of our unconscious, because of course in the years that have passed, they have transitioned to other lives, other roles. But the soul is eternal, multifaceted, capable of reaching out through time and dimensions separate from where our physical bodies are now, from the lives we're leading now.

“One day, when we are all together again, these memories, these moments, will return to the forefront of the soul, and we will remember. The past and present will come back together. Right now, it will enrich our unconscious selves, wherever they are, offering an unmistakable sense of comfort and joy.” He met Lyssa's gaze. “There are those who have much atonement to do, so much that they could not be here tonight. But he thinks of you, my lady, and he weeps.”

Lyssa trembled in his grasp, another sob fair choking her. Jacob had come back to his feet now.

Putting one hand on Thomas's shoulder, he laid his other on Lyssa's waist, connecting them, strengthening her. Thomas turned his gaze up to him fondly, since Jacob was several inches tal er. “I see things took some unexpected turns.”

“It's to be expected, with a Mistress like this.” Jacob managed the spirited reply, though his voice was thick. “It's so good to see you.” The fervency to his words belied their simplicity, and Thomas gripped his forearm, nodding.

“My time is short. This night only all ows a glimpse, a moment, for to risk more than that is to unwisely draw the living too much into the embrace of the dead. But there is one more I brought you to meet.” Turning away, he beckoned with a gentle motion. Out of the mist that stil swirled through the cemetery, hiding as well as revealing, a toddler came. A tiny, dol -like child, her thumb in her mouth. She had eyes as blue as Jacob's. Hair as dark as Lyssa's fel in fine silk to her shoulders. Thomas squeezed both of their hands, a mute regret to let go of them, before he picked her up, cradling her on his hip. She studied them both with curious, big eyes.

“This is another soul who has gone on to other lives, quite a few of them in fact. She's become a remarkable person. However, this is the child she would have been in her first life, as beautiful a spirit as the two who created her, with the help of a loving God.”

A sweet smile curved the child's lips when she looked toward Jacob. When she reached toward him, he took her, but let her lower body slide into Lyssa's arms so they were both holding her. The child laughed, putting her palms on each of their faces.

“She recognized Jacob first, because the knight did take care of her in the afterlife, my lady. Just as you hoped.”

Lyssa nodded, letting her daughter press her little fingertips to the tears on her face. The toddler made soft, childish noises, too young for words, but no words were needed. Jacob put his mouth to her forehead, as Lyssa's hand slipped to his nape, her other holding her daughter. Hers. Her family. Almost all of them. She ached for Kane, so hard it was a contraction in her womb, a painful memory of birth.

Feeling it, Jacob held her closer, held them both closer. “He's here,” he murmured. “Just as Thomas says. Some part of his soul is here, with us, feeling this. And we'l tel him all about it.”