Vampire Instinct (Vampire Queen #7)

She nodded, looking down at the pelts beneath her hands. Usually she liked to take her fill of watching him undress, a secret pleasure she could pretend was all hers. But his words gave her a brief shadow. “How would you feel about something like that?” he asked.

The question surprised and discomfited her. “Ian was Lady Constance’s consort, sort of like a married couple, but he had a full servant, Chiyoko. I guess it’d be similar to that, right? Like if I’m your full servant, you could marry or keep as a consort that lady vampire Kohana said comes to visit you.”

“Used to come visit. She doesn’t anymore, hasn’t for a long time.” He pushed a curl off her cheek. “But that’s not what I meant. If you go back to your station and fall in love with someone like Willis . . .” Mal paused, his jaw tightening. “Elisa, I would allow you to marry. You know that, right? It would have to be someone already inside the vampire world, second-marked of course, or willing to be brought in that way, but I know you want a family. I don’t want you to be alone just because you’re my third-marked servant.”

“I don’t feel alone now.” She pleated the sheet with her fingers, neat, straight rows. He covered both her hands with his.

“Look at me.”

She raised her chin, but her eyes couldn’t quite focus on his, skittering away to the dresser, the wall. Putting his hand on her jaw, he made her look at him. Still, she got only as far as his not-perfectly straight nose. During one of their early-dawn conversations, one of those postcoital murmurings while he held her in his arms, he’d told her it had been broken before he was turned. On one of his escape attempts from the mission school.

“It would be so much easier if you were like the rest of them,” she said desperately. “You know, Lady Danny and Lord Marshall. They’re so different from me in everything . . . It’s like they’re royalty, and no one has ridiculous thoughts about being with royalty. You appreciate them from a distance, and even if you have some kind of Cinderella dream, you know it’s a child’s fairy tale. You’re like Willis, but you’re not. You’re like Danny, but you’re not. And it’s so easy to get caught up in that in-between world, thinking things about you.” She took a deep breath. Stop it; stop being a stupid ninny. “No, that’s quite fair. I’m glad you said that. Yes, if I meet someone, and want to marry them, that will be a lovely, brilliant thing to know. Thank you, sir.”

He blinked at her, but then he stilled, listening. Elisa looked up at him, but before he even said anything, she knew what it was, because it had been happening far too much of late.

“Bidzil says there’s a problem.”

The pleasure of the earlier evening evaporated, a heavy weight in her chest with the reminder of that almost in the optimistic forecast for the fledglings. “I’ll go with you. He calms down when he sees me.”

“It’s not a seizure. He . . .” Mal’s forehead creased. “Chumani says she thinks it’s best if you do come.”

As promising as the future looked for the other four, Jeremiah’s star had been moving in an altogether different direction. In fact, while Elisa had been glad to see the four at the house tonight, a large part of her had felt she should be at the enclosure, so Jeremiah wouldn’t be alone. Chumani had stayed with him, but she knew it wasn’t the same.

She went every day to him now, since he couldn’t leave the fledgling compound except for the nights Mal took him alone to the preserve. He’d become so erratic he couldn’t be trusted out among the other four. Which meant of course Mal wouldn’t let her come, either, but he would faithfully let her see what the boy was doing through his mind. The enhanced binding of the third mark gave her a far more vivid view than the brief channel he’d held open through the second mark.

Jeremiah would run across the plains at full speed as if demons were pursuing him, then would come to a halt, so abruptly his heels gouged into the ground. He’d stand in that spot, swaying. After a time, he might climb a tree and stay up there for hours, staring out into space. Whereas the other four were more and more verbal, he was monosyllabic or silent most of the time now.

When she went to see him, her reading and talking to him seemed to calm him, make the bloodlust seizures less intense when they happened. Since she was spending more time with the four outside the enclosure, they didn’t mind that she devoted all her attention to him when she was there, but she didn’t like their knowing looks, the sad set to their mouths, a reflection of what she often saw in Mal’s face. It mirrored the ominous sense she carried, and despised herself for feeling.

Mal had sent Jeremiah’s blood to the scientist. Lord Brian said Jeremiah’s blood confirmed he was escalating in his violent tendencies, the transition indicators intensifying, not abating as they should be. The young scientist said he’d like to come and study him, even if he couldn’t help. Like a lab rat. Elisa didn’t even particularly care to think about what scientists did to those poor creatures, let alone what Lord Brian might do to her boy.

Since he was less communicative, she’d tried talking to him in her head, but he didn’t respond. She’d told him they’d figure out something about the bloodlust, that he’d always have a home here, that Mal had promised nothing bad would ever happen to him. When she said such things, Jeremiah looked at her with eyes that had gone so flat . . . so empty. Every once in a while it could make her shiver, because it reminded her of Victor or Leonidas. When she thought such a terrible thing, she immediately banished it from her mind. Jeremiah was still Jeremiah. While she couldn’t seem to penetrate the distance between them now, she would. They needed time; that was all.

They were on their way in a matter of a few moments, roaring out of the valley. As they rounded the sharp curve on the highest overlook, Elisa emitted a sharp warning cry. Mal cursed, hitting the brake at the same moment. At the top of that knoll, staring out at the expanse of plains, the moon hanging down and spilling silvery light across them, was Jeremiah.

“Stay in this Jeep,” Mal said, his tone adamant. Elisa nodded, though her hands gripped the dashboard.

Mal had every sympathy for the boy, but he got out of the Jeep in full predator mode, eyes trained on the fledgling, his hands loose and mature body ready to handle whatever needed handling. Chumani was alive; he could feel her life essence, but she wasn’t answering his call. He cursed himself for not staying linked to her. On top of that, he was far too aware of Elisa, tense and worried in the Jeep behind him, but not worried about the right things. He could keep Jeremiah from her, but things could always go wrong.

The boy didn’t turn, not even when Mal was right behind him, but he did speak.

“Joomani’s fine.” The sibilant words were slurred even more than usual by the fangs. “I . . . held her air. Made her sleep.”

Hardly reassuring, since Jeremiah sounded detached, not in touch with the reality around him. Then he turned and Elisa let out a tiny cry. The excessive slurring was because his fangs were gone, ripped out of his mouth by his own hands. He was holding one in each bloody palm. Not holding. He’d staked his hands with them, so that they were pushed through the palm, the sharp curved tip emerging on the other side.

Elisa.

She was out of the Jeep and halfway to him, but Mal’s explosive command reverberated inside her mind, stopping her. All vampires had some level of compulsion on those they marked, but it was the first time he’d ever used it, more instinct than skill, his will cracking out and whipping around her like a single tail, bringing her to a halt as if he’d grabbed her around the waist. It was just enough to help her regain her senses, but she swayed in place, everything about her aching toward Jeremiah.

As the fledgling stared at her, Mal saw the gray-green gaze change. From flat deadness, to a haunted pain so raw and agonized that it drew Elisa another tiny step toward him, despite the compulsion’s hold.

Recognizing a lost cause when his servant’s heart was involved, Mal moved in closer. As much as he wanted her far away from this situation, he knew what was going on here was something different from what he’d observed these past few weeks in the boy’s declining state. He wanted to put himself between Jeremiah and Elisa, but he kept seeing the boy holding her, trying to protect her face and chest. He’d give it a few moments, trust his gut.

“’Top dere,” Jeremiah said thickly, raising one of those gruesomely punctured hands. “’Ay back, Leesa.”

“You’re hurt. You need help.”

He shook his head. “It burns. But doesn’t . . . ’urt. Nutting ’urt.” He looked at his hands, then up at her. “I wanted t’ talk to you . . . like dis. Out of cell . . . my will. Fer once, nutting contwolling dis moment . . . but me.” He cast a fierce look Mal’s way, an appeal and veiled challenge at once. Because Mal sensed the desperation in it, he gave him a slight nod, not conceding to the challenge, but granting the appeal. But he stayed very, very close.

Jeremiah looked back at her. “How old . . . I?”

“We don’t know, sweetheart.” Elisa’s mouth was taut with pain for him, her eyes bright with it. “They didn’t—”

“’Wenty-foor.” He spoke the words softly, softly enough that Elisa stopped, having to replay it in her mind. Twenty-four. And then her eyes widened. Mal knew she was twenty-two.

“Ruskin took me when . . . nine. F-fifteen years. Wit’ him . . . longest. Should be . . . dead. O’er and o’er. Victor, Leo . . . nias. Pwotected me. Dey . . . normal, like . . . all were. Leo . . . not mon’ter. He was . . . friend. Den . . . wasn’t. Can’t haf fwiends . . . in hell. One day . . . will be me. Looking at you de way dey did, wanting . . .” He swallowed. “Wanting to tear you into pieces. Do ’orrible dings to you, no matter how I feel.”

Elisa took another step forward and Mal sent her the quiet message.

Elisa, he’s right. Don’t move any closer. He’s holding on to control by a thread, and you must help him with your stillness.