A Draught of Ash and Wine, page 19
“I’m going back tomorrow,” he said.
“No!” Vic seized his shoulders, his grip careful despite the tension in his fingers. “Please, this is too dangerous.”
“I have too.” The words tumbled out of him. “I can’t live like this.”
Vic pulled him close, arms shaking when they wrapped around Johnathan’s back. “We will find another way.”
What if the next transformation was worse? Would Vic give him more blood? Deepening their bond, adding to the unseen debt of their bargain. “I’m not worth the price.” Vic’s grip tightened. Johnathan hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but they’d slipped from him.
“What? Shut up. What are you talking about?” He pulled back, true anger flashing in his gaze. “Explain, dammit.”
Johnathan clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to talk about this. Not after the intimacy they’d shared, moments of pure bliss, sullied by how much he loathed himself. He licked his lips, tasting the honeyed sweetness of Vic’s blood. “I’m not a good man. I’m barely a man. Why did you risk yourself to save me? I’m not worth it.”
Vic grabbed his face. Anger warred with anguish in his eyes. “How could you say that John?” He caught the tear on Johnathan’s cheek with his thumb. “Brave and strong and so beautifully kind after this world has taken so much from you. You were human and you dazzled me. I would have cut off a limb to save you then. I will freely tear my heart from my chest to save you now. Your worth is immeasurable.”
The hollow in his chest throbbed, the swollen tangle of his guilt and pain burst, spilling down in face in steaming tears, a festering wound freely bleeding out the buildup of bile and pus until it ran clean. Vic held him through it, stroking his hands along Johnathan back while he murmured in his ear. It took him a while to focus on those soft words, but eventually he caught them.
“Stay with me, love. Please stay.”
“I will,” said Johnathan. He captured Vic’s mouth in a slow sensuous tease of lips and tongue.
Vic brushed the errant curls out of Johnathan’s face. “Thank you,” he whispered, “for finding the words.”
Remorse crept over him for his display, but Vic pinched his chin. “This is bravery, Johnathan.” He pulled Johnathan down with him onto the bed, their limbs entangled, pressed chest to chest. Vic’s hold filled him with a sweet ache, which Johnathan clung to through the long hours of the night.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Silver for Nether, Iron for Other, Gold for Benign…
Johnathan stroked Vic’s back, the other man relaxed in slumber beside him. He’d stood over a precipice last night, and Vic had pulled him back. His gaze traced over the smooth lines of Vic’s face, drinking in his features: from the slender prow of his nose, those long red gold lashes, to the curve of his jaw. At some point, he stripped off his shirt to enjoy the contact of skin to skin.
There was a lightness in his chest. The sucking hollow was not completely gone, but Johnathan sensed the difference. Vic’s words echoed through his thoughts, burying the guilt deep. Johnathan would always carry it, but guilt was good. It would keep him human, same as the man in his arms.
He pressed a kiss to Vic’s throat, trailing a path of intent down his chest, until he hovered over the fastening of his trousers.
“Well, don’t stop now,” Vic drawled. Johnathan grinned. “That grin will be my undoing. Come here, let me—”
Johnathan sank his teeth into Vic’s exposed hip.
“Fuck!” Vic’s cock kicked against his chest. “Ah, ah, wait, John! Fuck!” Wet warmth spread beneath the fabric. Vic lay back, panting, his fingers threaded in Johnathan’s hair.
Johnathan nuzzled the rapidly healing bite. “I will never tire of that reaction.”
“My wardrobe will quickly tire of that reaction,” Vic griped, but there was a smile on his face that warmed Johnathan to his marrow.
He traced a finger along Vic’s hip bone, his thoughts returning to that nagging phrase. “Vic, were you divine touched when you human?”
Vic lifted his head to frown at him. “What brought this up?”
“Something Katherine told me.” If it was true that transformation severed the connection to the divine, then it shouldn’t matter, but Johnathan couldn’t stop mulling it over, worrying at it like a sore tooth.
“I don’t think so.” Vic pursed his lips. “I didn’t possess any other worldly gifts, unless charming every lad and maiden within the township to my bed counts as a blessing.”
“That sounds like a different sort of blessing,” Johnathan teased. He tapped his thumb against Vic’s hip. “Do you know what sort of blessings the divine touched possessed?”
“Seer sight is one,” said Vic, his tone thoughtful. “There are reasons Merry chose seclusion aside from the side effects of their gift.”
From the way Alazar exploited Merry’s gift, he could imagine what other people would the Seer to do. “Why would the Society want someone who was divine touched? How would it give them access to the Benign?” The Nether slithered through rifts using the faults and sins of man. Demons were driven by the need to consume, and an unending hunger that would devour everything in its path. The Other moved freely between the realms but adhered to a system of rules and customs. Their weakness was the easiest of the three to exploit. The Benign were a mystery, what humans believed to be angels, but that did not mean they were kind.
“Likely how they gain a foothold,” said Vic. His fingers massaged Johnathan’s scalp. “The Nether use bargains, the Benign require permission.” He trailed off, going still. “Maybe they use the divine touched as vessels.”
Did the Benign control their hosts like demons controlled their creations? Cerunnous subsumed Johnathan’s will for a few minutes, and he thought his entire being would be snuffed out. What would a divine creature do to the body it possessed? How would a human survive that influx of power? He imagined it would be a similar fate to what happened to humans tainted by demons. Their bodies would simply burn up. But what if they found an immortal vessel?
Johnathan sat up. “What other gifts? What constitutes a divine blessing?”
“All sorts of things I imagine,” said Vic. “Never growing sick, healing others, maybe personal wealth. Any number of small miracles.”
“None that applied to you?” Johnathan pressed.
Vic’s brow creased in confusion. “No, I told you, I was ordinary. A second son, a huge disappointment, sent off to be a man of the cloth. I was barely out of my mid-twenties when the plague hit. My human life ended with little fanfare.”
He wasn’t sure about that. Vic told him how the vampire killed most of the occupants of the monastery. The vampire must have chosen him for his will to live, crawling from his sick bed to escape. If divine touched were blessed from birth, the blessing would have revealed itself before then. Being turned rather than killed could be misconstrued as a divine gift, but it didn’t seem likely. Johnathan couldn’t let the theory go. “I wonder what you were like as a human.”
“Not so different than I am now,” said Vic. “Reckless, ignorant in the ways of the world. A great deal more arrogant than I had any right to be. Though I did maintain my charm. My mother used to say I could convince a saint to sin. I could never tell if she was denouncing me or bragging.”
That pulled a smile from Johnathan. “Surprised you didn’t talk your father out of sending you to a monastery.”
Vic snorted. “I didn’t want to.”
Johnathan blinked in surprise. “Why not? A monk leads a harsh life.”
“But it was away from my father, who hated me, and filled with lovely, lonely men. Heaven on earth compared to my father’s home. He almost tossed me to the military,” said Vic.
“So really, you talked your father into sending you to the monastery.” Johnathan laughed. Would a silver tongue be considered a divine gift? There were plenty of charismatic humans in the world. It appeared Vic lived his human life as an ordinary man. If he hadn’t been turned, he would have died to the plague, returned to dust. Johnathan sighed and pressed his face against Vic’s side. “I think I should return to the garden.”
Vic sucked in a breath. “Johnathan, please, don’t take that draught again. At least let your body heal for a couple days if you’re that determined to risk yourself.”
“I want to talk to them. There’s a puzzle here, and I’m missing something,” he said. He glanced up to find Vic staring up at the ceiling, his face unreadable. “What’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” said Vic. “They are targeting me, aren’t they?”
In the violent end of that night, he’d nearly forgotten how Sister Wilhem approached Vic with a golden net. She’d been tracking them without fail, since their initial encounter on the train. Johnathan swore he could almost hear the faint chiming of her strange instrument here in the room, as if the Sister waited for them in every shadowed corner. He’d been slowly piecing the connection together, forming a troublesome conclusion. Yes, what he’d learned of the Divine Touched didn’t mesh with Sister Wilhem’s pursuit.
“Come with me,” Johnathan pleaded. “They might know something.” He secretly hoped Katherine and Merry would scoff at his theories, explain them away. That is what he wanted. He needed to put this fear to rest.
“Fine, make me get out of bed when we could laze the day away,” Vic grumbled, but he rolled off the bed, tugging on a shirt while Johnathan did the same. He smeared a fresh coat of salve on Johnathan’s throat. A cautionary measure since they took the back hall back to the conservatory to avoid the other vampires. Johnathan thought they were over cautious when neither Tamara nor Alazar rose before noon.
The indoor garden was quiet, the birdsong muted despite the early hour. Merry sat at the workbench, pouring over the ancient book on the Nether, their fingers stained with ink. They looked up at their approach, their wary gaze giving him the once over.
“Hello John,” they said. “I wasn’t sure we’d see you today.” He noticed there were no prepared draughts on the bench. Would Merry let him try again if he asked?
A patch of cold air informed him of Katherine’s arrival. “John! How are you feeling? We were worried when you staggered out of here.”
“I’m fine,” he said, holding up a hand to halt further conversation. “Yesterday, you told me a person was divine touched from birth. Is it always obvious? Or are some blessings subtle?”
Katherine and Merry shared a look. The Geist grabbed the pouch of salt, setting the barriers while Merry dug through the drawers beneath the table. They emerged with a plain wooden box and a pair of brown leather gloves. Merry set the box on the table and leaned on it with their elbow.
Vic clasped his hands in front of him. “I assume you don’t want your other guests to overhear this conversation?”
“They are more restless than you believe,” said Katherine, her gaze on Merry.
Their host looked up. “Blessings are never subtle,” said Merry. “The divine touched are rare for a reason.”
“They rarely survive to old age,” said Katherine.
Johnathan frowned. “Why?”
Merry’s mouth closed in a tight line. It was Katherine who answered. “Persecution. Humans rarely trust that which is different.”
Johnathan knew that truth far too well. “Even if their gifts were beneficial to others?” He could understand a seer being feared. People were quick to shift the blame of their choices to the one who warned them. But what about healers? Or those who could make crops grow?
“Humans aren’t the only ones who feared them,” said Katherine. “Most creatures would kill them on sight.”
Vic fidgeted. Merry noticed, their gaze met his. “Or they turn them,” said Merry.
“It would have the same result,” insisted Katherine. “The connection to the Benign would be severed.”
Johnathan frowned at her. “Wait, it’s a direct connection to the Benign or their realm?”
She folded her arms. “From what I’ve seen and heard, a blessing is like a bridge with a door at the end. If a Benign were to transgress into this world, they would need to knock first.”
“What would happen to the human who answered?”
“It wouldn’t be pleasant,” said Merry. They twisted the leather gloves. “Where are you going with this line of questioning?”
“John, this doesn’t make sense,” said Vic. “There is nothing about me that stood out. I wasn’t blessed.”
“Even if you were,” said Katherine, “it wouldn’t matter now.”
Merry pursed their lips. They donned the gloves.
Johnathan rubbed his face. There was an answer that seemed obvious to him. “Would the Benign bless an immortal?”
“No. They would no longer be considered a child of Eve,” said Katherine.
“And there’s no way to reform that connection?”
Katherine paused. Her lips parted, mulling over his question.
“Victor.”
Johnathan tensed. There was something in Merry’s tone that made his hackles rise. He looked at their host. The box was open. Merry’s gloved hand lifted a small object from within.
“Catch.” They threw it toward Vic, who caught it on reflex.
Vic cried out, clutching his wrist. The lump of gold slipped through his fingers, landing in the grass. Johnathan surged forward, his thoughts blanking until ice encircled his waist.
“Calm down,” Katherine ordered. “You must calm down.”
“Easy, John, I’m okay.” Vic spoke at his ear.
His claws were inches from Merry’s throat. Their host swallowed, wide green eyes locked on the sharp tips. Vic was wedged between them, his injured hand tucked against Johnathan’s chest.
“There was no intent to hurt him,” they said quietly. “This was a test.”
Johnathan sucked in a breath and jerked his hand away. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, shocked by his reaction. Katherine released him. Vic stepped away, staring down at his wounded hand. It hadn’t healed.
Merry offered a frayed smile. “This was partially my fault. I forgot your instincts.”
“Hounds are very protective,” said Katherine. She bit her lip, glancing at Vic. “Did you suspect?”
Vic shook his head. “How is this possible? I’ve handled gold before.” He looked up at them, his expression lost. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
“You’re right,” said Merry. “But you’re not the only impossible one in this room.”
Johnathan’s stomach dropped. This was exactly what he didn’t want to hear. “This is our price.”
“Oh my God,” said Katherine. “You think the blood bond did this?” She searched their faces. “No. That can’t be. It would connect Victor to the Nether, not the Benign.”
“It’s a connection that can be used,” said Johnathan. “A reformed path over a broken bridge.”
Vic sat down hard. “Shit.”
“They’re coming here for you,” said Merry.
Katherine stared at them. “Well, we can’t let that happen.”
“I should tell Alazar.” Vic’s throat worked.
“No!” the three of them shouted in tandem.
“They would destroy you,” said Merry.
Vic’s gaze hardened. “No, they wouldn’t.” He sighed. “We have to tell them. The Society will be here any day.”
“Yes, and they will be caught between the defenses of the Estate and the arrival of our allies,” said Katherine. “You might have faith in your past relationship with them, Victor, but Alazar is ruthless. If Tamara caught onto your ruse, she would destroy Johnathan in an instant. Don’t risk it.”
“They are not all cruelty and rage,” said Victor.
“Then tell them when the others arrive,” said Merry. “Don’t put yourself at their mercy alone.”
Johnathan slid beside him, gently turning over Vic’s hand. An angry welt remained, the skin of his palm still inflamed. “What do we do until then?”
“The Society is closing in,” said Katherine. “They’re find this place sooner rather than later.”
“We strengthen the wards,” said Merry. “They might find us, but I’ll be damned if they get in.”
Vic leaned against him, his gaze shattered. “I didn’t want to believe they were after me,” he admitted, his tone apologetic. “I guessed, but I didn’t want to believe.”
He ached to comfort him. Neither of them could have seen this outcome. How could they when they’d stumbled blindly into the thick of this mess? He bent over Vic’s injured hand, pressing a careful kiss to the raw skin. The scent of old metal pricked at his nose. His tongue darted out. Vic jumped.
“You licked me?” A hint of bemusement breaking through his bleak expression. “That’s so—” He sucked in a breath as the burn vanished.
There was a beat of silence. Johnathan looked up to find Merry and Katherine staring at them with a mixture of fascination and fear. The implications sat heavy in the air between them, but no one said a word. It wasn’t until Vic expressed his desire to return to their room that he pulled their host aside.
“Make the draughts,” said Johnathan. There was a web closing around them, their actions crippled by the secrets they were forced to keep. Johnathan wouldn’t let the Society or the Benign take Vic. He had to find a way to control the Hound, even if he needed to break himself a hundred times to do it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Johnathan’s resolve did not sit well with Vic. They’d argued extensively, spinning in a familiar circle, but in the end, it was Johnathan’s choice. Not a victory, when each forced transformation left him weaker than the last. Deepening the conflict, he’d refused to take more of Vic’s blood. His body did heal, the process slow and painful but it did heal. Despite his disapproval, Vic held Johnathan through those long hours, while shudders wracked his body. Each morning, he begged Johnathan to stop, his mouth closing in a tight white line when he refused.
For three days, Johnathan walked down to the garden alone, submitting himself to be ripped apart. Merry and Katherine kept watch, but Vic could not. It was more than a need to distract their comrades. He could tell how shaken Vic was by the revelation, sensed his rising guilt in every agonized look and hesitant touch. Their roles had reversed, and Johnathan didn’t know how to fix it.
