“I am going to kill him,” I growled, running my tongue over my teeth when they ached in response to my anger.
“There’s no need.” Warin touched his finger top my lips, parting them to rub the pad of his thumb over my canines. It instantly eased the ache. “In playing Zeth’s games, Aleric has created what he sought so desperately to avoid. He has lost me. He is alone now. And he will be alone forevermore.”
Despite my anger, a small pang of pity bloomed in my gut. I’d seen how much Aleric loved his brother—how he would do anything to protect him. Losing Warin was the worst punishment the volatile vampire could endure.
But Aleric’s pain wasn’t my problem. He’d apparently killed me, after all.
I pushed the thread of pity away and focused on my lover. My Sire. “And Zeth? How do we stay safe from him?”
Warin snorted. “My love… Zeth isn’t going to come near us. Feel your power.”
I frowned in confusion, but did what he asked. The moment I focused inward, the energy inside of me rose like a tidal wave, sparking against my senses.
“Holy crap!”
“The completed soulmate connection,” Warin said softly. “Two halves of a whole are far stronger together than apart. Zeth will not be able to harm us ever again.”
“Especially not if we take the fight to him,” I said, glee flooding my system as images of tearing into the haughty Ancient played before my mind’s eye. My canines ached again, deeper this time, until something released in my gums. A soft snick startled me, but the flood of relief was so intense it took me a moment to realize the sound had come from my own mouth. Carefully, I prodded at my newly elongated fangs with the tip of my tongue. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Warin rumbled a laugh. “You should feed, Liv. Some blood should quell any urges to run off and start a war with an Ancient on your first night.”
I eyeballed the bag of blood. It didn’t look super appetizing. “How about you take me hunting?”
He grasped my face lightly between his hands and pressed a kiss to my forehead before he peered into my eyes. “I will teach you everything there is to know about this life, my love. We have eternity together—and I want to show you every last corner of the world. But I’m not taking my newborn Daughter anywhere before you finish that blood bag—and the citizens of Michigan will thank me for it.”
“Fine, fine,” I huffed, reaching for the blood bag. “Making me eat damn donor blood for my first meal. You’re lucky I love you so much.”
“Yes,” he said softly, kissing my nose. “Yes, I am.”
Epilogue
Aleric
* * *
“Back to London so soon?” Aleric arched an eyebrow at the Egyptian as he leaned against the limousine’s passenger door.
Zeth leveled him with a cold glare. “If you think this breaks our agreement, youngling, you are sorely mistaken.”
“Really?” Aleric offered the Elder his most surprised expression. “Because I could have sworn your hold over me just vanished into thin air. Warin knows now.”
“Yes. He does,” Zeth said, tone as infuriatingly superior as always. As if he hadn’t just lost—and lost so spectacularly he was running away with his tail tucked between his legs. Not something that happened often to the Ancient being. In the eight hundred cursed years Aleric had known him, it was a first, for sure.
“Yet you and I are still bound by our word… if your remember. He may have bonded with his soulmate,” Zeth spat out the word as if it tasted foul on his tongue, “but you are still in my debt. Don’t ever forget that, Aleric Waldlitch. You won’t like it if I have to remind you. I promise you that.”
Aleric suppressed a grimace. He knew all too well what happened to the wretched souls who didn’t uphold their end of Zeth’s twisted bargains.
“Besides…” Zeth pulled on the limousine door, slamming it shut so Aleric had to jump back, though the tinted window was still rolled halfway down. “I’m all you have left now. I wonder, would your brother even care if something unfortunate should happen to you? Would he coming looking for you? Mayhap he would simply feel… relieved?”
Aleric gritted his teeth under Zeth’s defiant, golden gaze.
The black-haired vampire’s lips curved in a small smile. “I shall be in touch, Waldlitch. Do make sure you pick up the phone when I call.”
Aleric stared silently after the black limousine as it made its way down the driveway and out onto the road. He didn’t allow Zeth the satisfaction of seeing him press a hand to his chest where the torn bond with his brother jabbed painfully behind his ribs, saving the gesture for when the car had disappeared behind a hill.
Yes. He was alone now. All alone. The fury in Warin’s face had echoed through their bond so violently that Aleric could still feel the agony as his brother cut him off.
Through his eleven hundred years, he had never been alone before. Not truly. Warin had been there, through the death of their Sire, through every moment of every night. He’d been muted, since Thea’s death. Numb. But he’d been there.
Now there was nothing but pain. Pain, and a gaping hole threatening to swallow him up.
Aleric gritted his teeth and looked to the sky. Maybe… maybe if he could bring Zeth to his knees, Warin would find a way to forgive him.
One day.
It was only the faintest thread of hope, but it was all he needed. Zeth had to pay for what he’d done. The humiliation of running from a vampire several thousand years his juniors, and a newborn witchling, was not enough. It had to be… something more permanent.
Something that would render the ancient being incapable of extracting the debt he had manipulated from Aleric.
Aleric let the cool night air fill his senses and wash away the raw pain in his chest, suppressing it until it was only a dull, throbbing ache. There. Better.
And now… now it was time to locate a necromancer. Ideally so clueless they could be easily manipulated into doing his bidding… yet strong enough to make life miserable for a vampire as old as time.