Token Huntress (22 page)

              Letting myself into Tythian and Whitney’s room, I saw no one was there. I stood beside the door for a moment, wanting to do something else for Tythian. I didn’t know if such a gift would give him closure, but I certainly wanted to try. I took two steps forward past their dining table. A black hole spread across the wall and Tythian lunged for me, throwing me across the room. I hit the ceiling hard and landed on the floor face first. I coughed, but again he had already grabbed me and thrown me across the room and into the wall where I bounced onto the bed. His hair was wild, bits of dirt and leaves through it. His usual clean clothes were spoiled by mud and torn into shreds. His eyes were crazed and unflinching.

              “How dare you think you are welcome here? This all happened because of you,” Tythian growled angrily. He was no longer the formal Tythian I had seen, but a wild mess. His fangs were most intimidating, reminding me of a predator in search of its prey.

              “I didn’t kill her! But I was the reason why she lied and told Fier she had done it, she was protecting me,” I gasped. He silenced me, irritated when I spoke. His speed outmatched mine. I hadn’t the chance to defend myself against him as he grabbed my throat. He was so close to completely crushing my windpipes. “I came to you to give you something.” His grip did not loosen so I could show him to the gift I had in mind. He had no interest in such a thing.

              “I want nothing from you!” he growled savagely. I lifted my hand in a defensive gesture, my other hand scraping over his firm grip.

              “It’s not from me, but Whitney!” It instantly grabbed Tythian’s attention. The mention of her name had his eyebrows furrowing deep in both thought and confusion. The mention of her would be the only thing that would bring him back to reality, and hopefully to a less savage state.

              He dropped me onto the ground. I gasped an excruciating breath, moistening my mouth. After a moment of recovering myself and looking back into his expressionless face, I slowly walked around the edge of the room and into his wardrobe. He watched me warily and I made sure to not make any sudden movement in case he would snap again. He had blood all over his shirt. I found the hidden shirt that she had begun creating for him, to find that it was now finished.

              “She started this a little earlier this year,” I said. This was the last thing he had to connect to her. He still watched me warily, looking at the object I presented to him. I could tell by his expression he was thinking. And I left him to his thoughts. Although I now had the ability to manipulate other’s mind and talk with them, I could only do so if they accepted me.

              I slowly absorbed this knowledge from Chase earlier. What he knew I gathered as well. Chase could always read my mind even without my permission because I was his familiar. But others had to grant us permission. We could sense emotion from them and that was how we were able to manipulate them. If we pinpointed that emotion it was like the whole thought opened in front of us. And from there we then had access to their mind for that period of time as we manipulated them. It was best described as a puzzle; if you guessed the piece correctly you could easily manipulate your own piece to fit in next.

              Slowly Tythian reached out for it, taking the material between his thumb and index finger. He kept a hard expression, though I knew he was mourning on the inside. With small steps he wobbled over to the edge of his bed. Tears began to shed as his grip tightened on it.

              “I never meant for this to happen,” I said, stepping toward him to sit beside him. “I know you don’t like or trust me, but if I could have protected anyone, it would have been her. It just all happened so fast. I cannot in anyway make amends for the damage I have caused. I struggle to show sympathy, so I hope presenting this to you can offer you some sort of comfort.” I realized my words weren’t the greatest, nor were they probably what he wanted to hear. They made me sound insincere, but I wasn’t. I just didn’t know how to properly deal with such situations.

              “Before Fier killed her, she asked me to look after you.” Tythian flinched under my words. “I know you don’t trust me and to be honest, I am still fighting my entire upbringing by not killing every vampire I see in here. But if any of my members on my raid team asked something of me on their deathbeds, I would keep to it. And this is no different to that. I will mourn my comrade’s death with pride and dignity. So I won’t let you derail yourself into a saber because it may seem easier.”

              There was a long pause and still Tythian said nothing, only staring at the odd material of the shirt. “I don’t understand, why do you follow Fier when you are obviously the oldest vampire here?” Again he did not say anything, ignoring me as he stared at the shirt. My eyes caught a glimpse of the light pulse of his neck. I straightened my back, uncomfortable with this new craving.

              “Ah yes, that’s right, you are vampire as well. The cravings are hard at first, aren’t they? You probably just want to dive into my neck and feel my blood ooze over your lips,” he said passively. I was disgusted in his description of it, but I couldn’t deny the thought. He stood up and my nose followed his scent as he walked. My fangs had already slipped out without my command. I placed my hand over them, annoyed with myself.

              “Let me ask you the questions now, huntress,” he said, reaching for two glasses and a bottle of blood. He poured one glass and gave it to me, his blue eyes pooling over me as he assessed my fangs. “How are you possibly vampire? You reek of human, and because of what I know already, you are huntress. But you are part vampire as well, which isn’t detected unless your fangs slip out. By the size of them, I am guessing you have had them all your life. Why now do you discover such truths about yourself? What do you know, I am curious. I have never seen such a thing, so I want the answers. Now.”

              “I actually came to you for that,” I said, not appreciating his tone. “I thought maybe as the oldest vampire I have met, you might know how to take it away.”

              “So you can return to the Guild? Please child, I am not daft,” he said with an amused expression. “And what of Chase? You have had this in mind for some time now. But I am certain you have both become one another’s familiar. In fact, he is all I can smell on you.” And then he smiled devilishly, before taking a swig of his blood. Never had I seen such an expression on him. “It’s hard to tell the difference between sex and blood, isn’t it? I remember when I was young also. I think I murdered hundreds of women in the 1600s, with great pleasure as well. But it was for my familiar that I changed everything about me. So what makes you think you can so easily walk away from Chase. You are both bound, you cannot.”

              “I am dead if I stay,” I said angrily. Even if I am part vampire now, I clearly understood that I could not hide in here for much longer. And with such heightened emotions, at any point I could snap and try to kill them all.

              “You are dead if you return to the Guild,” Tythian announced. “And because of you, Chase will follow you to his own death.” I consumed his words like I did the blood. It had a very crisp and bitter taste to it, it wasn’t pleasant at all. I must have pulled a face of disgust. Tythian pushed himself away from the chair he was leaning on.

              “It doesn’t taste good and it never will. Only fresh blood is flavorsome. The blood of your familiar, however, is oh so sweet. I only twice drank from Whitney until her illness became apparent,” he said, looking at me and knowing that I had fed off Chase already. “It adds a hypnotic erotica sense to the pleasure. Although not healthy, you can’t simply live off one another, it would eventually make you both sick, draining of the same blood. It does however make sex that much more pleasurable.”

              Talking to Tythian now, he seemed like a completely different person all together. But still he held onto the shirt tightly. “Let me guess, you haven’t had the chance to properly talk to Chase about it, but you have come to me for answers?” Tythian said coldly. “I will make you a deal, little vampire.”

              “A deal?” I repeated. He sat next to me, looking at me calculatingly, intimidatingly. This Tythian was scarier than the one I knew when Whitney was alive.

              “I am going to kill Fier. I don’t know if Chase will agree to it, after all, he is a father figure to him. But I don’t care much for Chase’s feelings right now. Of course his guards are now in large numbers. So I need a decoy, and I need a few days to try and convince him I was only upset. And when his guard is down, I will kill him.”

              “And what’s in it for me, if I am to be this decoy?” I asked, considering it.

              “Nothing, you see as of right now I am letting you live. If you are as apologetic about me losing my familiar as you so boldly state, then you will do this. Her blood is on your hands.”

              I didn’t like the thought of being blackmailed, but his strength emanated off him, and this was very much a threat. And it now seemed like Whitney was his only reservation of killing me.

              “Chase will know this, he can read my thoughts,” I counteracted. It was a small error in his cunning plan.

              “Not entirely true, you will learn in time how to develop your shared gift. You can block certain parts of your memory. As he described it to me once, all he does is envision a black bubble over the thoughts and no one will know. He has done that to all the vampires here, so if they are captured or flee, they will have no recollection of our location.” He paused for a moment in thought. “If you are part vampire, then what happens to his other gift, The Descendant?”

              “The what?” I asked, blocking this conversation from Chase. I bubbled the conversation. That was confirmation enough that I would go along with his plan. To kill the leader of the Council would indeed make it easier for the hunters to infiltrate here once I had fled and returned to my own people.

              “It must now be a little under one hundred and fifty years since he blocked that gift. If you have received that and are partial vampire then…”

              The door slammed open as Chase stood at the door, panicked. He was standing there naked. My eyes bulged as he walked in angrily.

              “You do realize you are walking into my room naked. I don’t understand why your head is still held high,” Tythian said, having another sip.

              “I did have the sheet wrapped around me, but it fell off as I ran here. What were you thinking Esmore? Tythian could have killed you.”

              “Well, as much as I do enjoy the theatrics of two familiars fighting, I will pass. If you don’t mind, I would like to be alone for a while,” Tythian said.

              I put the glass of blood down on the dining table, following Chase as he walked in front of me and held the door open for me. I stared at his behind, trying to disguise my lust. I suppose if I were a male, I would have no shame in showing it either.

              Before he closed the door behind me Tythian grabbed Chase’s attention one more time. “And Chase, do consider the other gift she may have contracted from you. You may want to teach her to get herself into check. If she is part vampire and The Descendant is active, you have already sealed her fate.” Chase went pale before closing the door. Instead of speedily walking to his room, he simply held my hand.

              “I know what you are going to say,” Chase protested. “I don’t own you, and you can do what you want. But please be smart about it.”

              “I just wanted answers and to give him my condolences,” I said quietly.

              After a long moment of silence Chase broke the tension.              “You have concealed your conversation with him. Will you already conceal things from me?”

              “Sometimes it is better you don’t know,” I said fairly. I only hid it to protect him, but he was very right, already I was hiding things from him.

E
ventually we stumbled across the bed sheet, which still had blood stains on it. Chase collected it and tied it around his waist as we walked silently back to his room. It was only when we got to the dark and dreary room that he spoke. “What did you two talk about?”

              “What is The Descendant?” I asked in reply.

He did not seem surprised by my question, only saddened. “What had Tythian told you of it?”