- CHAPTER 14 -
Tempest sat on the cave floor as William knelt before her. He pulled the cloak gently from her shoulders, a gesture so out of place with the brutal man she’d witnessed in the snow. He held her arms out before him again, before turning away to grab the canteen full of melted snow from where it sat near the fire. Ever so carefully, he poured the water over her arms, wiping away the blood marring them. They’d been filling the canteens with snow and heating them over the fire to clean themselves in the back part of the cave where he’d stored the wood and their now gone supply of blood.
The scratches on her flesh were barely visible now. He patted the gashes dry with a cloth before releasing her arms. He remained kneeling before her, his eyes their stunning shade of blue as he studied her. “What you saw… what I did, it’s not who I am,” he said.
She folded her hands in her lap. “And who are you?”
“I’m not so, violent.” He sighed as he rose to his feet and paced away from her. “I’ve always been a fighter, I’ve killed before, but I always had control over myself. Since going through the change, there have been times I’ve had a harder time keeping myself restrained.”
“I thought you controlled yourself well,” she replied.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “I know vampires don’t approve of using their fangs on each other, unless of course it’s with their bloodlinks.”
“It’s not like you were doing it as a cannibalistic thing; you were doing it to keep us safe. When it comes to staying alive, screw what is acceptable.”
He gave a harsh bark of laughter before turning away. “You would have made a good rebel.”
“I’m not sure I would have had the courage to be a rebel.”
“You climbed out of a mountain in the middle of a blizzard; you’re braver than you give yourself credit for.”
“Maybe, but I think I have too many fangs to be a rebel.”
The smile he gave her caused her heart to melt. How could he look so irresistible and carefree one minute and be ready to tear someone’s throat out in the next? The strange thing was she found both sides of him oddly fascinating and reassuring. She’d never seen anything like what he’d done out in the blizzard, but it made her feel a whole lot safer knowing he could do it. Just as the tender care he’d taken with her afterward had made her feel a lot more protected and secure.
“I’m glad I didn’t frighten you.”
“You didn’t,” she assured him. “But ah… what’s a bloodlink?”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I forget it’s not common knowledge amongst vampires. You’re such an odd species.”
“So are you, now,” she reminded him.
“So I am,” he replied, but some of the sparkle had left his eyes. “A bloodlink is an unbreakable bond that forms between vampires. Braith discovered it with Aria when she was still human, which is another one of the reasons it’s believed we have vampire DNA somewhere in our line. Jack has also found it with Hannah.”
“What does it do?”
“It binds them for eternity and makes them stronger than they were on their own, but one cannot survive without the other. At least they can’t survive and remain sane.”
Tempest drew her knees up against her chest; she rested her chin on top of them as she contemplated his words. “Strange,” she murmured.
“That’s one way to describe it,” he said with a small laugh.
“And how would you describe it?”
He frowned thoughtfully before shaking his head. “I don’t know, mystical, powerful. I didn’t feel it as a human, but as a vampire, I can feel the bond joining them. It’s this almost palpable thing.”
Before she could question him any further on it, he walked to the front of the cave and out of view. She sat before the fire for a few minutes, trying to give him some time to himself. Eventually, her curiosity got the best of her. Her legs and arms felt worse than when she’d trudged through the blizzard after leaving Badwin behind. The strained muscles held her, but spasms gripped her right thigh as she plodded down the cave toward the front. She briefly stopped rubbing at her thigh to pat the horse’s neck as she walked by him.
“What are you doing?” she inquired when she found William near the front of the cave, gathering snow around him.
He lifted up a clump of snow and smashed it onto the cave floor. “Sealing this off,” he replied. “I don’t want any of them sneaking in here on us, or picking up our scent until this storm has passed.”
She stared at the oval shaped entryway; it was about three feet across and five feet high. It wouldn’t take much to block it off from the world. Kneeling beside him, she helped him to pile the snow on top of the base he’d already started. The sensation in her fingers faded away until she could no longer feel the snow she clasped within her hands, but she continued to work beside him in silence.
“What if the storm doesn’t end for a few more days?” she inquired when half the doorway was blocked. “How will we feed?”
“As much as I don’t like it, we’ll have to feed from Achilles.”
She glanced back at the horse munching on the small handful of grain William had given to him. A lot of her blood supply had come from animals, but she didn’t like the idea of feeding from the pretty, bay horse either. The blood they’d had from the foxes would get them through a couple more days; they’d be hungry, but she preferred hunger to feeding from the horse.
“What about oxygen for him?”
“The fire will start to die down and alert us if the oxygen starts to get low. We’ll have to make a hole in this wall for him. This cave goes far back too, so there should be enough oxygen for him for at least a day or two.”
“I hope so.” She glanced back at the animal within the shadows. She’d never spent much time around horses, but she enjoyed the velvety feel of his muzzle against her palm when she handed him the feed William had stored in the main room of the cave. “Does he have enough water?”
“He should,” William replied as he filled the last hole in their makeshift doorway. At his feet, he’d mounded a couple piles of snow against their wall. “And if not, we’ll melt these piles down for him and to clean ourselves. The piles will stay intact this close to the door.”
“They will.” Tempest stared at the wall of snow blocking the cave before them. The lonely call of the wind howled outside, but the wall had dulled the noise. Her numbed hands rested against the wall as she strained to hear anything beyond the wind. “How many more of them do you think are out there?”
“I don’t know. There were a couple dozen in the basement of that prison. I don’t know anything about the towns in this area. I have no idea how many vampires were in them, or how many towns the troops that entered Badwin have been through. It’s been over five months since I last saw Kane; that’s plenty of time for him to do a lot of awful things, in a lot more places.” Her eyes turned back to the wall before them. “They locked those vampires up in the prison because they didn’t want them to send back a warning.”
“Why wouldn’t they just kill them?”
She hated the haunted look in his eyes when they met hers. “The ones beneath the prison were already too far gone when I found them, but they were also working on tearing their way out of there. It was only a matter of time before they managed to free themselves. By then, the idea of telling someone would have been gone from their memory. They would seek out nothing but blood and no one would see them coming, or expect them, until it was too late.”
Tempest’s hand flew to her mouth as realization dawned. “They’re the perfect weapon.”
“Nothing but a killing machine,” he agreed. “They will attack anyone traveling through here and keep them from revealing what they may have discovered. I don’t know what is going on with those vampires in your town, or who that woman is claiming to be the queen, but they are relentless about achieving their goal.”
Tempest rested her forehead against the snow; her fingers
dug into it as her mind turned to Pallas and the children. “We have to help them,” she whispered.
He rested his hand on her shoulder. “I promise, we will. Come.” He tried to turn her away from the wall but she remained where she was, staring at the white formation before her. “Tempest.”
Reluctantly, she allowed him to pull her away from the wall. “What if those things are already out there, waiting for us?” she whispered.
“It’s a possibility, but if they come in here, they’re going to have one hell of a fight on their hands.”
“Do you have a weapon I can use?”
“I have stakes, have you ever handled one?”
“No and I never wanted to.”
He grinned at her. His arm slid around her shoulders as he pulled her closer. The gesture threw her at first; it was so comforting and familiar she didn’t know what to make of it. They barely knew each other, but he was wrapping his arm around her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Oddly enough, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Nestling closer against his warm body, her eyes closed as she inhaled his scent. He smelled of fresh snow and the warm fire he’d stood close to earlier. His tantalizing aroma reminded her of summer and warmth. Maybe it was because of his fiery hair color, or maybe it was because he reminded her so much of the wilderness and something uncontrollable, like fire.
He released her when they returned to the main part of the cave. He went to one of his bags sitting against the wall. From within he pulled out half a dozen stakes and laid them on the ground. “Were you expecting a war?” she inquired.
“Always be prepared,” he replied before scooping them up and walking over to her. “Do you mind?” he asked and waved at the cloak she wore.
She glanced down the front of her. “Ah no,” she replied uncertainly.
“Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”
Her head flew up, her eyebrows furrowed over the bridge of her nose when he winked at her. She’d seen glimpses of the playful man beneath the steely exterior he’d been exhibiting over the past couple of days, but he’d always quickly slammed his walls back into place. Now, he remained smiling at her and more open than she’d ever seen him.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she teased back.
The smile he flashed her lit his eyes and revealed all of his teeth. Grabbing hold of one side of the cloak he’d given her to wear, he pulled it open. He took one of the stakes and slid it into a pocket she never would have known was there, before sliding two more into loops sewn into the material. Letting go of that side, he grabbed hold of the other side and slid two more stakes into two pockets.
He released the cloak and tugged at the neck to pull it more snuggly against her. “I never wanted a wooden stake so close to my heart,” she said.
He laughed as he stepped away from her. “I doubt any vampire ever did.” He took hold of her arms again to inspect them. “The scratches are gone.”
“Good.”
He handed her the last stake, wrapping her fingers around it. “How does it feel?”
“Strange,” she admitted.
“You’ll get used to that. Does the cloak feel weighted down?”
She took a few turns around the cave to test out the feel of the added weight of the cloak. The cloak swirled around her ankles and hung tighter against her neck, but it didn’t feel much different than it had before. “No.”
“Can you move as freely?”
“Yes.”
“Good, now come at me with the stake.”
“What?” she demanded as she spun toward him.
He grinned at her as he widened his stance and gave her a, come and get me, gesture with his hands. “Come at me. Unless you don’t want a crash course on how to stake someone.”
“I don’t think crash course and stake are words that should be used together.”
“Perhaps not, but you’re still going to come at me.”
“I’ve only rushed at one vampire before.”
“And how did that end?”
The smile slid from her face. “I might have killed him,” she admitted in a low murmur. His hands fell back to his sides; he stopped smiling. “He was trying to stop me from leaving Badwin; I knocked him over the side of the cliff and onto some rocks below. He may have still been alive…”
“You did what had to be done,” William interrupted sternly.
The memory of the man’s broken body faded from her mind. “The way he looked at me when he first saw me terrified me,” she admitted. “What he would have done to me should never be done to any woman; I saw it in his eyes.”
A muscle in his cheek jumped and a vein pulsed to life in his forehead. His playful exterior vanished once more. She missed it almost immediately and wished she’d never brought up what had happened on the mountain. That intense look never left his face as he strode toward her, but she didn’t have the impulse to flee from him. The touch of his hand on her arm belied the look of death on his face when he lifted the hand holding her stake.
“You did what had to be done and don’t ever hesitate to do it again.” The playful man may be gone, but his fingers slid over hers in a gesture meant to soothe. “You must put your survival ahead of everyone else’s in a fight. If you’re not alive, then you won’t be able to help anyone. Remember that Tempest and strike first.”
“I’ve never wanted to kill anyone.”
“No one does, but sometimes that choice is taken from us. Now remember that and come at me.”
He walked away again and stood ten feet away from her. “Won’t we make too much noise?”
“Short of lighting a bomb off in here, not much is going to travel beyond the wall and wind. Come on, you’re older than me; there’s a good possibility you could take me down.”
She snorted in disbelief; she may be older but she could feel the power coming off him in waves. She’d felt more of it from other vampires, but he was strong. He also had the training to move with lethal intent as she’d witnessed in the snow before.
She planted her hands on her hips as she studied him. “I think you’re spoiling for a fight.”
His eyebrows wiggled in a playful manner as he spoke, “Maybe I’m just trying to get my hands on you some more.”
“Funny,” she retorted, but he continued to stare at her with a challenging twinkle in his eyes. He gave another, come on, gesture with his hands. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Would you prefer it if I came at you?”
Her head tilted to the side as she considered that. She bit back her retort of there being many things she would prefer him to do than that. She didn’t think her playful reply would be taken as such, and she wasn’t sure it would have been entirely playful. His woodsy, fiery scent lingered from his last touch and she could still feel the pressure of his body against her skin. She longed to touch him again.
“I actually would,” she finally admitted.
“I can arrange that. Don’t accidentally stake me.”
“I won’t.” She didn’t plan to lift the weapon against him.
The position of his feet changed; the smile slid from his face as his eyes ran over her. What have I done? She may be older than him, and he may have once been human, but he moved faster than she’d ever thought possible. He hadn’t been able to pick up much speed against those creatures in the snow, but now he could.
She dashed to the side, trying to avoid his grasp, but his arm wrapped around her waist and he lifted her clear off the ground. The cave spun around her in a dizzying blur before he placed her on her feet and danced away from her. She was still trying to figure out where she stood in the cave, and he was already leaning casually against the wall with an amused smile.
“Keep your hands up,” he instructed her. Tempest lifted her hands before her. He shook his head before walking over to her again. He lifted her hands higher so her elbows protected her chest and her hands were almost in front of her face. “You’re keeping
your two most vulnerable parts protected, your heart and your head, if you do this. Keep your arms loose and flowing. Stay on the balls of your feet so you can move easily, and get out of the way faster.”
He moved her through some more paces, teaching her how to move and flow while keeping herself protected from what could be a killing blow. She tripped over her feet more times than she cared to remember. Throughout her life, as she would run and climb in the mountains, she never considered herself clumsy, but after this exercise with William, she wasn’t so sure. She heavily questioned her agility and wondered how she’d managed not to slip off the side of a cliff with her sudden inability to stay on her feet.
There was something about William that divided her attention between what he was trying to teach her, and the man himself. His body was so warm when he stood beside her, his hands so powerful and strong on hers. The callouses and scars marring his hands caused her skin to tingle and reminded her he was a warrior, a man who had survived far more in his short life than she would ever experience. The smell of him kept making her head turn into him in order to inhale more of his intoxicating scent.
“Keep your attention on me always,” he said as he moved around her. That will be easy to do, she thought as she turned with him. She followed him as he moved around the cave, his hands raised in the air so his palms faced her. In the flickering light, she noticed nearly identical scars running across the palms of both of his hands. They were both slices that ran the entire length of his palm and across his fingers.
Before she could ask what had happened, he spoke, “Hit my hands.”
“Really?” she asked as she stared at the palms facing her. “I’m not sure I can do that.”
“Of course you can.”
He stopped moving and stepped toward her. Taking hold of her hand, he folded it into a fist. Heat pooled through her; she found herself staring at his lowered black lashes with their red tips while he adjusted her thumb outside of her fingers. His arm brushed against her chest as he moved. His hand froze on hers when his eyes lifted to look at her.
His mouth was only inches away from hers. She fought the impulse, but she found her eyes falling to his lips. A small thrill ran through her as she was struck with the sudden urge to kiss him. Those firm, warm lips pressed against hers was all she could think of, as he remained unmoving and so temptingly close. She swayed instinctively toward him, her body pulsed with excitement, as they became so close to each other she could see the strands of gold and brown intertwining in his beard.