Bloodchild (16 page)

And he was probably right about
that. Aedan had thought he could, but the events of the previous night had made
it clear he was deluding himself.

“And you left him with her?” Dame
Vivien’s voice was booming now and shaking with what might have been worry, or
maybe anger. “With the same woman who swore to kill you? What if she kills him
instead? How could you leave him there?”

“She won’t hurt him,” Aedan said,
although that wasn’t the entire truth.

Ciara would hurt Bradan as she
trained him, the same way she’d hurt Aedan decades earlier, but it was all part
of the training, and nothing severe enough to put his life at stake.

“He’s done nothing wrong, and he’s
not in danger. As for leaving him there… it wasn’t my choice. I tried to
convince him to come back—”

Dame Vivien’s scoffing interrupted
him.

“Oh, yeah, I can imagine that,”
she said dryly. “You wanted him here with me. I’m sure you tried your very best
to convince him.”

“Dame Vivien—”

“Don’t ‘dame Vivien’ me now,” she
snapped, glaring at him. “I’ve done everything you asked of me. Every single
thing except for staying away from Brad. And now you’ve taken him away from
me.”

“I didn’t—”

She shook her head and backed
away, her hands fisted at her sides. Behind him, the double doors banged open
on a gust of air.

“Get out,” she said, tears thick
in her voice. “Stay away from me.”

There was nothing to do but obey.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Adjustments

Vivien rarely practiced after
dinner. A good run, a hot bath, and a book to read was her usual routine before
bed. Tonight, though, she was too keyed up to sleep. And since she now had two
guards who could channel at her disposal, she made full use of that fact and
trained with them.

The ballroom somewhat resembled
the one in Rhuinn’s palace, minus the columns. Paintings and tapestries on the
walls and high windows that let light in without endangering vampires seemed de
rigueur in such a place. However, Vivien hadn’t chosen this location to train
because she’d have her first duel in a similar place. Instead, it was about
having space, enough of it that three channelers could wield the Quickening and
conjure up large structures without feeling constricted.

Early on, it was clear to Vivien
that both Olric and Savel didn’t dare go all out against her. She couldn’t
fault them for it. Here they were, on their first day working for her, and she
asked them to attack her. She’d have been wary, too. At least, they were
training for the first duel; she could imagine they’d have flat out refused to
train her if they’d needed to draw blood, like in the second duel.

With repeated demands that they up
their game, little by little, both of them started to be more imaginative as
they tried, separately and together, to constrict her or distract her. Even
then, she only was in real trouble twice—and both times because she’d let
herself think of Brad. Whether it meant that she was good enough to best two
channelers or that they were still holding back, Vivien wasn’t sure, although
she hoped it was the former.

She was better now at knowing when
she’d channeled for so long that she needed to rest. She pushed herself a few
minutes past that limit before thanking the guards for their help and putting
an end to the session. They left at her prompting, and she turned to the only
person remaining with her in the room—the person she’d been trying very hard to
ignore for the past couple of hours.

Aedan had sneaked into the
ballroom not long after she’d started training, and had taken position against
the wall between two paintings. He hadn’t said a word—be it encouragement,
praise, or suggestion—but she knew he had observed the fight very closely.
Another time, maybe, she’d have asked him what he thought of her chances
against Rhuinn, but tonight as she took long strides toward him, there was only
one thing on her mind.

“Explain it to me again,” she
said, stopping an arm’s length in front of him, and even though she tried, she
couldn’t quite keep the anger out of her voice. She did her best to calm down
before she added, “Why did he stay with Ciara? It doesn’t make any sense that
he’d do that. She’s my enemy. Why would he go to her?”

She realized she’d already asked
earlier, but, too upset by Brad’s absence, she hadn’t taken in Aedan’s answer.
He replied with no indication that he resented having to repeat himself.

“She’s not your enemy as such,
Dame Vivien.”

As Vivien straightened up and
readied a retort, Aedan raised an appeasing hand.

“What I mean is, Rhuinn is your
enemy, and she is sworn to him. She herself cares little about you, one way or
the other.”

If he meant to be reassuring, he
failed by a fair margin.

“That still doesn’t explain why
Brad stayed with her,” Vivien objected, almost proud of herself when her voice
didn’t waver on Brad’s name. “Because
he
cares about me.”

At least Aedan didn’t try to deny
that much, or to point out it was untoward for a guard to be as close to his
dame as Brad was. Or had been.

“He does care about you, and
that’s why he stayed with her. He was scared he’d hurt you. He realized I
wasn’t teaching him how to resist his instincts well enough to keep you safe.
So, he sought another teacher. He didn’t choose her because of her link to your
enemy. He chose her because she’s the head of our clan and best suited to teach
him.”

Vivien turned around and took a
few steps, her gaze fixed on nothing in particular ahead of her. Brad had been
the one familiar element she’d clung to since she’d first come back to Foh’Ran.
He’d comforted her, explained things to her, taught her. He’d grown as close to
her as she’d dreamed, back on Earth, before she knew who they both truly were.
And now all she had was someone who looked like him but was so different,
making it that much more difficult to bear his absence.

“I bet you’re happy he’s gone,”
she muttered, looking back at Aedan. “Now you don’t have to try to get him away
from me all the time.”

Aedan blinked slowly, opened his
mouth, then snapped it shut without uttering a word.

“If you’d tried to teach him
better,” she continued, needing desperately to lay the blame on someone, “he
wouldn’t have needed to go away.”

Again, she could see Aedan try to
contain himself. This time, he failed.

“I did the best I could,” he said
in a tight voice, and for once there was no honorific to punctuate his words.
“He’s my brother and now my Bloodchild. How can you believe for even one second
that I want him anywhere but here?”

At the contained pain in his
words, Vivien realized that he was hurting as much as she was, and she was
twisting the metaphorical knife.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said,
sighing. “It’s just… he’s been gone for hours, and already I miss him so much.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I miss
him too.”

“I love him.”

She didn’t know why she said it
but it felt good to voice the words, even if Aedan was bound to lecture her on
what was proper or not.

Except… He didn’t. And instead he
said, “I know that too. And I know he loves you in return. We'll be there in
two days. When you see him, you can demand that he come back. He wouldn’t be
able to refuse if you gave him a direct order.”

She stared at him at that and
shook her head.

“I asked you not to go,” she said,
“and you went anyway. How is that any different?”

Aedan racked his fingers through
his hair. For a moment, Vivien could have sworn it was Brad in front of her.

“It’s all about rules,” he said,
and let out a huff. “We vampires have many of those. It is one inflexible rule
that a new vampire be presented to the head of his clan within three days of
rising, and that was why even an order from you couldn’t stop us. But Ciara
teaching him… there’s nothing customary about that, let alone a rule. His oath to
you takes precedence. He believes he serves you best by being away from you,
where he can’t hurt you, but if you ordered him to do something different, he
wouldn’t have a choice but to obey.”

Vivien mused over that for a
while. The thought was appealing, much more so than it had any right to be.
With a few words, she could summon Brad at her side. How could she order him to
do anything, though?

He wasn’t just her guard; he was
the man she loved. She wanted him back more than anything, but not enough to rob
him of his free will. She’d never liked the idea of the oath Brad and Aedan had
taken, but she realized it had been their choice and she could, albeit
grudgingly, accept that much. Taking advantage of the oath, however, would feel
like breaking their trust.

“I’m going to go change,” she
said, “and then go for a run. I imagine you’ll want to come along?”

It was as close to an apology as
she was ready to give him, but, judging from his small bow and even smaller
smile, it might have been enough.

* * * *

Bradan didn’t know whether Ciara
bothered knocking before she barged into his room. He woke up in a jump,
blinking owlishly, every one of his senses on high alert and convinced that he
was under attack.

It took him a few seconds to
orient himself. Ciara had shown him to a stark room the previous night, with a
bed, a dresser, and a washing basin in a corner. No windows, which made sense:
sunlight was dangerous. On the other hand, that meant he’d need to rely on the
oil lamp on the dresser—the same oil lamp that Ciara was now lighting. Blinking
again, now to adjust to the sudden brightness, Bradan watched her drop a small
bundle of dark-gray clothes on the dresser.

“Are you awake yet?” she demanded,
turning to him with her hands on her hips. “It’s past midmorning already. Do
you intend to lounge all day like a simpering High Lord? Didn’t Aedan teach you
that following human hours is the first step in learning to live around
humans?”

The deluge of questions left
Bradan tongue tied, and he struggled to answer the last one.

“I… yes, he said… but with no
windows, I didn’t…”

He scrubbed his fingers through
his hair, feeling slow and dim. And very, very hungry.

Ciara clapped her hands once,
making him jump.

“All right, pay attention now. You
are to wear these clothes at all times. Gray lets humans know that you are an
untrained vampire so they can be on their guard. If you are not with me, you
are to remain in here. You’re not allowed to roam through the castle on your
own. I will take you to our kitchen to feed three times a day. If the hunger is
such that you need to feed in addition to those three times, you will need to
tell me.”

For the first time, she paused in
her recitation and grimaced briefly.

“If I were your Maker, I’d be able
to tell, but I’m not. I’ll have no idea so you need to tell me. Even if it’s at
the most inconvenient time, even if you fed just an hour earlier, do
not
hide your hunger from me. Do you understand?”

Bradan nodded. So far, she sounded
like Aedan.

“What if I’m not with you when the
hunger gets too strong?” he asked. “Am I allowed to come find you, then?”

She grimaced again, her gaze
flitting down to his hand and the tattoo there.

“That is a problem. Normally, you
would be allowed to, but our king has placed restrictions on you, given whom you
swear allegiance to. If one of the other guards finds you alone, they are under
orders to kill you. I’ll do my best to check on you as often as I can.”

The news left Bradan wordless for
a moment. He hadn’t imagined he’d be welcomed with open arms in the palace, but
he also hadn’t thought that he could be killed just for being out of his room
on his own.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be
careful not to be where I shouldn’t. When will you start teaching me?”

With no warning whatsoever and
almost faster than he could see, she drew the knife from the sheath hanging
from her belt and threw it at him. Time seemed to slow down, and Bradan could
see more than a blur coming toward him; he could see every detail of the knife,
the way it twirled in the air, the gleam of the oil lamp reflected against the
silver blade.

In that moment, he knew with
absolute certainty that he could take hold of the flying knife with the
Quickening. He’d never been able to when training with Aedan. Unable to
visualize the knife clearly whenever Aedan threw it toward him, he’d never
managed to do more than deflect it through the use of a shield. Now, though…
Now he would seize it, pluck it right out of the air, and…

And nothing.

The Quickening refused to obey
him. No, he remembered, horror-struck. The Quickening was lost to him.

It was all he could do to fling
himself to the floor before the knife could strike his arm. Instead, it
embedded itself into the mattress. Breathing hard, he stared at the knife for a
few seconds before turning wide eyes to Ciara. She crossed her arms as she
observed him critically.

“You tried to channel, didn’t
you?” she asked, nonplussed.

Swallowing hard, Bradan nodded
once.

She made a sound of disgust.

“You’ve been a vampire for three
days, and you haven’t figured out yet that you can’t channel anymore?”

“Of course I know that,” he
replied, getting back to his feet. “I just… It’s a reflex. I have to get used
to it.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

“I thought you spent most of your
life in the Otherworld like your dame.”

“I did. But I still trained with
the Quickening every chance I had.”

“You trained with Aedan, you
mean.”

“Yes. We were guards. We had to be
ready.”

Her gaze sharpened, silver
glinting in her eyes like a blade.

“So you admit you two knew one day
she’d be back and you’d have to fight. He knew when he came to the palace he’d
have to break any oaths he swore to me or the king. Didn’t he?”

Too late, Bradan realized he’d
said too much. Ciara had guessed all this before, but he’d just given her
confirmation. Deciding he’d said quite enough, he kept his mouth shut.

“Every time I think I’ve reached
the bottom of my anger toward Aedan,” Ciara said after a few seconds had passed
by in thick silence, “I realize there’s yet something else I’ll have to punish
him for, someday.”

As much as Bradan wanted to defend
his brother, he doubted anything he could say now would help, so he remained
quiet as she approached him, and fell back into a stiff posture he’d seen Aedan
adopt so often in front of Vivien.

“Very well,” she said as she
pulled the knife free from the mattress. “I will teach you. And we’ll see if
you take your duty to your clan and your clan leader more seriously than your
brother does.”

The last was offered with a sly
grin. As he followed her out of the room, Bradan could only wonder what she
meant exactly.