The Burning (48 page)

“No, Dee. You don’t understand. I
can’t
do this.” Freya just stood there, still. Then her eyes faded from burgundy through carmine to crimson and then back to dark pools in the dim light of the crypt.

Ann felt Deirdre’s rush of rage as a physical wave of power. “Then don’t!” she spat. “I’ll do it myself. And you can tell Father why you had a change of heart about obeying him.”

Ann saw Freya slump. “I can’t please everyone,” she murmured, as though she was surprised by that fact. Ann had no trouble hearing her, even in the immensity of the crypt. “Or there’ll be nothing left of me.”

“Your purpose is to serve him, serve the Elders, to serve our kind.” As Deirdre’s attention focused on Freya, she had stopped rubbing Stephan with the same intensity. The throb in the air slowed, and Stephan’s writhing abated somewhat. The glow faded ever so slightly.

“I’ve served him for three thousand years,” Freya said, her voice still dead. “My sentence is up, don’t you think?” Now she turned her gaze on Deirdre.

But Deirdre jerked her head back around to Stephan. “No you don’t,” she said, through clenched teeth. “One of us still knows something of duty.” She began to work his cock with fierce intensity. The throbbing that was Stephan cycled up
again until it echoed in Ann’s lungs. He groaned. The corona leapt out around him.

Freya turned and wandered toward the stairway that led up to the garden.

The throbbing was a drum that beat in Ann’s head, accelerating, getting louder. Stephan cried out, the sound seeming torn from his throat. The corona of light intensified and grew until it engulfed Deirdre.

“He’s past the point of return,” Deirdre shouted in triumph to Freya’s retreating form. “There’s no way to stop it now.” Indeed, she stepped away from Stephan, who continued to writhe in agony. The glow did not abate, but gleamed brighter and brighter until it was painful to look upon. To her amazement, Stephan’s body lifted off the coffin lid about six inches and just hung there, twisting. His hoarse cries echoed against the stone and were thrown back in torturous confusion. Ann wanted to stop her ears.

Instead, she staggered forward into the flicker of the dying fire in the huge grate. “Stephan,” she cried. “Hang on until I can touch you!”

“Ann!” Stephan gasped. “Stay back!” His last word turned into a growl of pain.

Deirdre turned back, unsure what was happening.

Ann couldn’t think for the thundering throb of power in the air. She only knew she had to touch him. “Remember the lodge,” she managed, even as she stumbled and fell.

“Too
late
!” His body was a bow. Muscles stood out in relief as he twisted in pain. His body gleamed with streaming sweat. “You’ll burn with me. Get
back
!”

Ann scrambled up. She was so close. “I won’t be hurt.”

Deirdre lunged around the end of the coffin.

Ann stood still for a single second over the twisting figure on the coffin. Stephan looked at her, all his fear for her
reflected in his glowing red eyes. “Can’t hold it,” he growled through gritted teeth.

Ann smiled down, her attention only for him. “Don’t hold it. Trust me.” And she placed both hands, palms open, on his shoulder.

The shock of power that shot through her was like lightning. Every muscle in her body contracted. All the pain of Stephan’s last hours washed over her and through her. The room went red. Ann felt her hair rising out around her in a halo. Her Companion sang and its voice in her blood turned into a choir whose song soared with incredible strength.

The glow surrounded both of them. Deirdre stepped back, in horror or in awe. Ann tried to breathe and realized she was shrieking. But she didn’t take her hands away from Stephan’s flesh. “Let go. Let go. Let go!” That’s what she was shrieking, or maybe only her mind was shrieking and she was making no sound at all.

She saw the horror in his eyes as he realized what he was doing to her. She managed a grin, though it might have resembled the rictus of a corpse. His horror turned to confusion. He looked wildly around. He was still trying to hold the energy back, trying to protect her. But he wasn’t screaming anymore. Then his eyes returned to her and steadied. She wasn’t shrieking anymore, either. They stayed like that, locked together in light for a second or an hour, who knew? The light faded a little. It seemed to drain out through her feet.

And then she saw acceptance in his eyes. She felt it through her hands. He thought he would kill them both. But he accepted that she would have it no other way. He let go.

Power shushed around them, through them, but it didn’t carry pain. The throbbing slowed. Stephan settled back onto the lid of the coffin. Ann’s feet grew heavy. She settled with him. With a shock she realized that she must have been suspended, as he was, in the piercing corona of light. The light
had faded, but a glow remained around them. Stephan’s eyes held wonder, relief, and . . . peace. He loved her. A moment of peace was handed back and forth between them before it faded into the close, damp air of the crypt. She saw Stephan’s eyes register the intrusion of a thought. Ahhh, there was still the matter of Deirdre.

Ann turned slowly to face her.

Deirdre’s eyes were no longer red. They were just wide with shock. She stood like a pillar of salt on the floor of the crypt. Ann could feel the power still humming around her and Stephan. If she touched Deirdre, what would happen?

But it was not her place. She looked back to Stephan. The glow had faded to a thin line of light that delineated his form. His erection was faltering. He was full, but not as painfully rod-straight as he had been. She had not noticed before the gold ring round the base of his cock. And his nipples had vicious little metal clips attached to them.

Stephan put his left hand over hers, where she still pressed her palms into his shoulder, and sat up on the coffin lid. Quietly, she released the clips from his nipples. The gold band dropped, clinking from his cock. He watched her without a sound.

His body tensed. His head raised, eyes snapping with intensity, as he looked up and past her. He was making a decision about Deirdre. His eyes went hard. She moved a hand to his bicep, not wanting to lose the touching yet. Then his brows creased. He looked from her to Deirdre and back again. The hardness drained from his expression. He took a breath and let it out, shaking his head. “Not worth it, Ann,” he murmured. “She’s not worth killing.”

In that moment, she was prouder of him than she had ever been.

“So you can use her to diffuse the conflagration.” Deirdre had found herself. She stalked toward them, eyes burgundyred. The compulsion wielded by a very old vampire, the
Eldest of the Daughters, cascaded over them. “So I’ll have to remove her.”

It was Deirdre who lunged for Ann’s arm. But Stephan grabbed Deirdre’s shoulder and pushed her away. At his touch, the corona flashed up. Deirdre held to Ann. They were a circle of coruscating power. Ann felt her Companion surge in her veins. The room was shot with red.

“You’ll never let it go, will you?” Stephan growled, his eyes red-black and angry. Now he let go of Ann and took hold of Deidre’s shoulders with both hands. He thrust her from him, flinging her through the air. As he did, he released his power, just let go.

Deirdre burst into flames. They didn’t start at one point and spread. They didn’t start all over and grow. One minute she was in the air, her red eyes snapping with anger, and the next she was a glowing ball of flame, with no eyes at all. By the time the burning orb hit the ground there were only broken bits of charcoal to scatter on the floor. Flames licked at them and flickered slowly out.

The shock of it froze Ann. Stephan stood transfixed, shaking with rage. The only sound was Freya’s cry.

“Dee,” she sobbed. “Dee.” Freya came running across the stone floor under the shadowy arches from the direction of the stairs up to the garden. She threw herself down among the bits of charcoal, looking about her frantically as though Deirdre might still be there somewhere. Ann watched, unable to gather enough of her wits to say anything. At last her body moved of its own volition to Stephan. He put his arm around her and tucked her in against his side as she hugged his naked body.

Freya’s sobs slowly subsided. She rocked back on her heels, tears streaking her cheeks, and looked up at them. “Aren’t you going to kill me, too?” She asked it without a real objection to that outcome, just curiosity.

Ann felt Stephan shake his head. “I didn’t want to kill
her,” he rumbled. A breath shuddered in and out of his chest. “If you don’t have any designs against us, why should I want to kill you? You were the only one who had a shred of kindness for me.” He tightened his grip on Ann’s shoulders.

“You might as well kill me. I have nowhere to go now.” Her voice had gone flat again.

“Go back and tell him not to bother sending anyone against us. The result will be the same.” Stephan was leaning heavily on Ann now. She realized how exhausted he must be.

“I can’t go back there. Not after this. Not after what I did.”

Ann almost said something, but she bit back any impulse she might have to interfere. This had to be Stephan’s call. How he felt about this last of the Daughters, how he reacted now was part of his journey, not hers.

“He isn’t forgiving of failure.”

“He will want atonement,” she agreed, her voice soft with contemplating what kind of atonement her father might require.

Would he leave it at that? Ann waited. When he didn’t say anything more, she chanced a glance upward. He was chewing his lip.

Stephan straightened. “No. You must go back to tell him that you will not atone. That is the only way you can survive being his daughter. There is no crime here.” He took his arm from around Ann and stepped forward. She let him go. “You refused to participate in something you thought was wrong. Right and wrong transcend a father’s orders. They transcend the Rules. Why should you feel guilty? Why should you atone?” He raised her from where she knelt. “Go to Mirso, Freya. Tell him. Then walk away.”

“Away from Mirso?” Her voice was small and frightened. Dust from the floor and smears of charcoal, stained her white dress at the knees. “Mirso is the only refuge for our kind.”

“Perhaps there is no such thing as refuge,” Stephan said
softly. “Maybe that is the final truth about our condition, our tragedy.”

“A tragedy I probably deserve.” She heaved a sigh.

“Forgive yourself, Freya. There is time to survive this and become whole. We are eternal. You have all the time in the world.”

She looked up at him. “There are some burdens that are too heavy to survive and become whole.” She straightened. “I’ll tell him, though. I’ll consider it my penance. But I’ll tell him about Kilkenny. The balance between our kind and humans is still in danger. There are still made vampires out there.”

Stephan turned to look at Ann. “Not all made vampires are a threat to us, Freya. Can’t there be degrees of good and bad?”

Freya gave a bitter chuckle. “I am the last person you can ask that question.”

“Then let Kilkenny go . . .”

Freya’s eyes darted about the crypt. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“Will you train another Harrier if he asks you?” Ann couldn’t help but challenge her. That might be the real danger.

“No.” The shake Freya gave of her head was a bit more certain. “I can’t go through that again. Not that he might not find someone else to do it. But it would have to be an old one, as we were.” She looked up again at Stephan. “In some ways, you were exactly what he had been looking for, for centuries. You are incredibly powerful. Even still you may not know how powerful. Your only fault was that you were an independent thinker.” She smiled ruefully.

“You are, too,” he said. His voice was kind as it rumbled through the darkness.

“I hope that’s true,” she said. She looked at Ann and back to Stephan. “We never realized that a sensitive like she is could both increase your power and ground you to keep it from destroying you. We had our plan so carefully outlined.”
She shook her head. “Find a naturally powerful male, increase that power through sexual stimulation and control, then teach him controlled release. We created a perfect weapon. And of course, if we both increased his power and stifled its release, he could be destroyed. We discovered that accidentally.” She gave a chuckle without a shred of mirth in it.

The stain on the wall. He had very nearly become another stain tonight.

“I thought sharing the power would diminish it,” Freya mused. “And emotion? Emotion was supposed to sap your strength. Who could have guessed it was by sharing and giving in to emotion that you would realize its potential? That’s what you did, didn’t you?”

Stephan nodded. “It took all the courage I had. I thought I was killing her.”

It was Freya’s turn to nod. “I felt the emotion in the air at the moment you decided.” Again she glanced between them. She sighed. “You’ve climaxed with her, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “It didn’t hurt her.”

“Because she isn’t crazy.”

Ann was a bit tired of being talked about in the third person. “And we cared about each other. It was the healing experience it was meant to be, not hurtful.”

Freya raised her brows, considering. “I wouldn’t know about that. For us it was always just a job.”

A job their father gave them. That was the saddest thing Ann had heard her say.

Freya looked down at the bits of charcoal smoldering at their feet, a lost expression on her face. “Well . . .” She turned slowly, and without another word walked toward the stairs up to the garden.