They stood there for a while in companionable silence, Deven leaning on his elbows on the wall, Nico with his arms crossed. Overhead the sky was ablaze with stars in the black bowl of the night; distantly he could hear the city, but facing west, all was peaceful, the noise blending into the night symphony of crickets, frogs, and wind through leaf-laden trees.
“This is beautiful,” Nico said.
Dev nodded. “One day I’ll have to take you to the giant redwoods. You’d love it there—it’s like a living cathedral. Sometimes I sneak off for a night and go listen to them talk.”
Nico gave him a slightly surprised, speculative look. “You can hear them?”
“Well . . . I . . .” Deven cursed himself mentally for saying anything. There were parts of him he never revealed to anyone, not even Jonathan—and yet in the course of a ten-minute conversation with Nico he’d already let something slip that no one on this earth had ever known about him. “Never mind.”
Sensing his discomfort, Nico turned his gaze back to the view and let the matter drop.
It occurred to Deven that this was the first time he’d really been alone with the Elf, at least when he was coherent. The thought actually made his stomach twist around itself with uncharacteristic nervousness. Meanwhile, the part of his mind that was able to think rationally was flabbergasted that of all the attractive males he’d ever met, less than half a dozen had ever affected him at all, and no one had ever turned him into a gibbering idiot like this.
It was ridiculous. He was Prime, not some hormonal teenager.
Pull yourself together, for fuck’s sake.
“I did not mean to judge you, earlier,” Nico told him quietly. “I have often wondered . . . how differently would things have turned out if my people had fought back instead of hiding? The thought of killing another creature sickens me, but when something precious is threatened, how is it more righteous to run away rather than to stand your ground?”
“I must say I didn’t expect to hear that from you.”
Another smile, this time smaller, touched with some regret, from what source Deven couldn’t imagine. “I am known for saying unpopular things.”
Their eyes met again.
God, those eyes . . .
They had their own gravitational pull, and his heart was spinning in orbit around them.
“We’re not . . . related, or anything, are we?” Deven asked suddenly around the tightness in his chest.
As if he were expecting any question but that one, the Elf laughed. “No, we are not. As I understand it, you have the blood from your grandmother, who was of a different family line than ours.”
“Right. I never met her. My parents didn’t exactly invite her round for Christmas dinner.” A thought arose that had never before occurred to him, and he asked, “Is she still alive?”
“She is indeed.”
“Where?”
“In Avilon, one of only three Elven sanctuaries that survived the Burning Times. We sealed the Veil—the barrier that shields Avilon from the mortal world—not long after you were born, so she assumed you died at the hands of the Inquisition like so many of our part-human kin.”
A flash of the nightmare he’d woken from earlier appeared in Deven’s mind, and a violent tremor ran through him, the memory of that time crystal clear and horrifically close for a moment. The intrusion was so harsh and unexpected that it left him feeling weak—as the Elf had warned, he wasn’t completely recovered, and before he could brace himself against the wall, his knees gave out.
He fully expected to crack his skull on the tile floor, but Nico acted with near-vampire quickness and caught him, gently lifting him back up with an ease that surprised the hell out of the Prime. Nico’s willowy body held far more strength than he would have believed, and while he inwardly cursed himself for displaying such vulnerability, he sagged against the Elf for a moment, trying to ground . . . all the while noticing how solid Nico was, how warm . . . and how everywhere they were touching felt like it was electrically charged.
Deven rubbed his hands together against the phantom pain—for a moment he could feel it again, the radial breaks from the center of his palms, the unbearable pressure just before the bones splintered. That stench he had tried so hard to forget . . . human filth, blood, putrefaction, burning flesh . . . pushed cruelly into his mind.
Nico took his hands lightly, drawing them apart to stop the compulsive motion. “Breathe, my Lord . . . you are no longer in that place, or that time. This is your home and you are safe.”
Deven felt Nico reach into himself and offer a light current of energy, which the Prime took gratefully. The weakness faded, the world righted itself, and he laid his head on Nico’s shoulder. For just a moment they stood there, holding on to each other.
Deven thought back to the last time something like this had happened, but this time he had no painful history with the person holding him. That night had caused so much suffering that it was hard to think back on it with anything but shame . . . but the memory of that stolen moment in David’s arms still brought a stab of longing for what had once been beautiful . . . out of reach now, forever, which was absolutely a good thing for everyone concerned.
Before Deven could speak, the Elf drew back and led him over to one of the seating areas on the balcony, gingerly helping him sit down on a chaise longue and lean back into the cushions. The loss of contact was almost physically painful.
Nico moved back to stand at the wall again, putting a few feet of distance between them.
“I did die at the hands of the Inquisition,” Deven said after a while. “I was dying on the floor of my cell, rotting from the inside out from infection, when a woman came to the prison and bought my freedom. She knew I wasn’t going to survive, so she brought me across—but doing that to someone already so weak should have killed me outright. She couldn’t even keep me unconscious for the transformation because I would never have awoken. I don’t know how I lived through that night, but I did.”
As he thought of Eladra and his years with the Order of Elysium, dizziness washed over him again with the onslaught of guilt, and he fought as hard as he could to push it away where it couldn’t destroy the tenuous balance the Elf had given him.
There was sorrow in Nico’s face as he said, just loudly enough to carry, “You have a strong heart.”
“Either that or I was too afraid of hell to die.” He didn’t really intend the words to come out as bitterly as they did, but the thought of Eladra brought the reasons for his mental breakdown back to the forefront of his mind, and it was hard, after all of that, not to get caught up in the emotions that went with it. He looked away from the Elf and shut his eyes a moment.
He didn’t hear footsteps, but Nico crossed the balcony and sat down beside him, and Deven felt the pressure of a hand on his forehead.
The pain vanished.
“Whatever the reason you survived,” Nico said, “I am grateful you did.”
The undeserved compassion, even affection, in the Elf’s voice was almost too much, but he managed to keep himself centered and said, “I should keep you around so you can zap me every time I get upset about something.”
A smile. “I would not normally intervene—difficult emotions have their place—but I am concerned that in the state you are in, dwelling too much in the past will shatter the energy matrix and we will be back at the beginning. I know how difficult the process has been for you and wouldn’t put you through that again unless I had to.”
“We need to change the subject, then.”
“I think it would be wise.”
“All right . . . tell me more about your home, Avilon . . . where is it?”
“Between,” Nico said. “It once existed here on earth, but when we were threatened with extinction, the Elders drew the Veil around it, essentially removing it from ordinary space and time. To leave it, or to return, one must cross through the Veil, an act requiring tremendous power now that the old portals are gone.”
“Did you know why I was calling?” he asked.
“Not at first. The Speaking Stone was in the Temple, locked away in a back room; no one had laid eyes upon it in decades. But the Acolytes were helping to move some old archives and artifacts from one room to another, and they found the stone, glowing red and pulsating. No one in the Temple knew what to do with it, so they brought it to me.”
“It just happened to be found when I was calling you? That’s one hell of a coincidence.”
Nico looked at him, amused. “Do you honestly believe in coincidence, my Lord?”
He had no answer for that. “Then what happened?”
“As soon as I touched the stone I could see you, and as shocked as I was to find out you existed—probably the only creature left on earth with enough of our blood to have our eyes—I knew immediately what was wrong, and I knew I had to help.”
Deven stared at him, unbelieving. “You were willing to leave your home and come to this world you knew nothing about, all alone . . . and then stay here for weeks to fix a broken-down vampire whose entire life has been devoted to death . . . just because I’m one quarter Elf?”
“Not just because of that,” Nico answered.
“Then . . . why?”
The Elf lifted a hand and brushed his fingers across Deven’s lips. There was a touch of humor in his eyes, but his voice was full of a sudden vulnerability that made Deven shake inside. “Is it not obvious?” he asked softly.
They stared at each other, so close together he could hear the Elf’s heart racing, and Deven almost, almost let himself sink into what he knew could very easily happen . . . but he shook his head, turning away from Nico, away from those damned eyes.
He felt it clearly: The Elf was hurt. “I am sorry,” Nico said.
“I can’t,” Deven told him, trying to keep the words gentle. “It isn’t you, it’s . . . all the memories you’ve stirred up seem to have one common denominator: I hurt people. I’ve done nothing but cause Jonathan pain for sixty years. He’ll say he doesn’t mind—and the truth is he probably doesn’t . . . but I mind. I have so many deaths and so much suffering on my conscience already.”
With a deep breath, Nico rose and stood silently until Deven looked up at him.
The Elf was smiling regretfully. “Well done,” he said.
“Well done?”
“I thought, after spending so much time in your mind, that you could not surprise me.” Nico reached down and touched Deven’s face, fingers slipping around to his lips before he withdrew the hand, stepped back, and bowed. “If you have no more need of me, my Lord, I shall retire.”
Deven nodded, not entirely trusting himself to speak, but before he had much time to consider any possible fallout of the last few minutes, he heard a familiar footfall approaching, and Jonathan called, “What happened?”
Dev had no idea what to say. The Consort joined him, his face concerned; his hazel eyes fell on the still-open door from the terrace into the guest suite, and Deven felt himself flushing with undeserved shame.
“You weren’t answering your phone,” Jonathan said a bit sternly. “I was starting to freak out a little.”
Deven groped in his pockets and sighed. “I must have left it in the bedroom—I’m sorry, love.”
Jonathan leaned forward and kissed his forehead, and thankfully he didn’t push the issue. “Well, aside from that . . . you look like you’re feeling better. You look like you again.”
Deven nodded. “That’s why I texted, to tell you how well the magic was working. What were you doing in town, anyway?”
Jonathan frowned. “There was a . . . weird disturbance. Normally it would have been strictly an Elite matter, but they thought it was far enough from the ordinary that they called for one of us to evaluate the situation.”
“What situation?”
“Just after sunset two vampires, a couple, were walking down McMillan Boulevard and were attacked. One was killed; the other managed to escape and run for it until she found a patrol. The attackers followed her and went after the Elite as well. There was a pretty bloody battle, but we were lucky—none of ours was killed, though there were some significant injuries. Two of the attackers went down, but the rest got away.”
“So . . . was it a gang we know, or something new?”
“Oh, it was new, all right.” Jonathan looked like he could scarcely believe his own words, and after the next sentence it was clear why: “The attackers were human.”
Dev gave him a quizzical look. “Humans that could keep up with a vampire on the run and then take on an Elite patrol and live to tell the tale? How does that happen?”
“The Elite who fought them said they were way stronger and faster than humans are supposed to be—as fast as vampires.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It gets worse.”
“Of course it does.”
“The Elite patrol leader found these on the bodies.” Jonathan reached inside his jacket and took out a plastic baggie, handing it to Deven.
He stared down at the bag for a long minute before he said, “Get David on the phone.”
• • •
Miranda didn’t remember the first human she had killed as a vampire. She’d been in the grip of her transformation to Thirdborn and the whole day was a blur. She knew it was a woman who had killed her own baby, and afterward the Queen had given the woman’s husband an anonymous donation to help him move on. She knew that gift for what it was: blood money. She didn’t know how else to atone.
It was, as David had said, depressingly easy to find another one like her.
Once upon a time the combined misery and evil of the human world had assaulted Miranda’s mind as men had assaulted her body, and since then she had stayed away from minds like theirs, feeding only on perfectly average women, those who were healthy and wouldn’t suffer for it.
She no longer had that privilege.
“Slowly, beloved,” David murmured in her ear. “Don’t make yourself sick.”
Her Prime’s hand pressed against her back, reassuringly strong, as she pressed against the body she had pinned to the wall. Blood flowed freely from the four perfectly round holes she had punched in the woman’s throat, and this part, at least, was familiar. Prime and Queen both kept a hard hold over the human’s mind, stilling her struggles. She might feel some pain, but essentially her mind was already asleep and would not awaken. It was a kindness the human didn’t deserve; she had scammed dozens of elderly people out of their savings, leaving them penniless and often homeless.