"But you were just a child. Just eleven years old."
"I turned twelve a week after I was taken," Divine said, feeling as empty as her words sounded . . . which she didn't understand at all. She'd cried a river of tears over this during her first two or three hundred years, but eventually she'd cried herself out. Divine had thought when she could remember it without an emotional reaction that she had finally got over that period in her life. Yet, here she was now having to shut down emotionally to avoid a rage of pain, shame, and remembered terror.
"The first couple of months were unbearable," Divine found herself saying, and while she was surprised to hear the words leave her mouth, they were true. Leonius was a no-fanger, which meant exactly what it sounded like. While he was immortal, he had never developed fangs to feed with. He had to cut his victims. Like immortals he could control his victim's minds and keep them from feeling the pain of his cutting if he so chose, but Leonius's mind had been sick and twisted beyond comprehension. He'd enjoyed the suffering of others. He'd cut and cut and slice and dice the mortals he fed on, feeding as much on their agony as on their blood until he drank them dry. But while it was bad for mortals, it was worse for immortals, because he couldn't feed off their blood, so those cuts were purely for pleasure. At least mortals could die and escape him. Immortals healed . . . and then he'd start in on them all over again, raping, cutting, raping, slicing, sometimes slowly cutting a limb almost completely off just to see if it would heal and reknit itself.
"But then I learned how to shut him out," Divine breathed.
"Shut him out?" Marcus asked, eyes narrowing.
"He enjoyed the pain and suffering. I thought if I stopped giving him that, he might tire of me and just kill me," she admitted. "So I started trying to close my mind to him. Eventually I succeeded."
"Is that what you did to me?" Marcus asked quietly, and when she blinked and glanced to him with surprise, he said, "At the end, just before I passed out, it was as if you suddenly weren't there anymore."
Divine swallowed and nodded solemnly. "Yes. I tried to use the same technique with you. I didn't want to pass out."
"You wanted to stay awake and tie me up," he said dryly and glanced resentfully to his bound wrists. "And obviously it worked."
"Actually, no it didn't. Not as well as I'd hoped," she confessed. "I left it too long before shutting down and I briefly passed out as well."
Marcus looked only slightly mollified, but grudgingly said, "Go on. You learned to shut him out. I doubt he was pleased."
"No," Divine acknowledged. "It was no fun if he couldn't feel my suffering. But rather than stop, it just seemed to make him redouble his efforts."
"I'm sorry," Marcus said quietly.
"Well, fortunately before he tired of that and killed me, I became pregnant."
Marcus stiffened. "Your son . . ."
"Damian is a son of Leonius Livius I, yes," Divine said wearily.
"Damian," he breathed with seeming relief and then frowned. "You say fortunately, as if that was a good thing? I mean, some women--"
"Some women would loathe carrying the child of their rapist and torturer and giving it life," she said quietly. "I understand that, but . . ." Divine swallowed and peered down at her feet, realizing only then that she'd been going to leave without shoes. She was barefoot. Sighing, she raised her head and said, "You have to understand, being pregnant meant an end to the torture and rape for us. Some of us couldn't bear to carry the child of our captor, but some saw it as a blessing, a gift. So long as we were pregnant or breast-feeding afterward, we held no interest for Leonius. So that baby was precious and we fed as often as they'd let us, desperate to consume enough blood to keep the pregnancy safe."
"How many of you were there?" Marcus asked with a frown. "I mean, I've heard the stories, a hundred women kept locked up in cages, released only to rape, torture, or feed on, but I always thought it an exaggeration."
"It wasn't," Divine said quietly. "I would guess when the immortals attacked, he had about fifty mortal women for feeding on; twenty or so no-fangers he'd turned and was raping and torturing; along with four immortal women, all of whom he was hoping to breed with; and another twenty-four no-fangers plus myself who were pregnant or breast-feeding."
Marcus breathed out slowly and then asked, "Which were you? Pregnant or breast-feeding?"
"I gave birth the morning of the attack," she said quietly. "Actually, looking back I think it was an induced labor."
"Induced?" Marcus asked.
Divine nodded. "We received word the night before that the immortals had formed an army under my grandfather, as well as Uncle Lucian and some others, and that they were marching on Leonius's camp. The women were all aflutter, half hoping for rescue, half terrified of it."
"And you?" Marcus asked. "Were you hoping or terrified?"
"I was just confused," Divine said unhappily. "They were saying all sorts of things. Some thought that the immortals would rescue the women, but purge the pregnancies rather than risk bringing another Leonius into the world. Others thought they might just slaughter everyone, Leonius, his men and the women--"
"Why the women?" Marcus asked with a frown. "They were victims in all of this."
"We'd been tainted," she said simply. "A lot of women thought we would be considered damaged goods."
"What did you think?" Marcus asked with a frown.
Divine shook her head. "I didn't know what to think."
They were both silent for a minute, and then Divine continued, "Anyway, I didn't think I'd sleep that night I was so distressed by everything, but I must have because I remember that Abaddon had to shake me to get me to wake up. It was the middle of the night and I was confused at his waking me, and even more confused when he gave me a tincture to drink. When I asked what it was he simply took control of me and made me drink it. Shortly afterward I went into labor."
Divine closed her eyes briefly and grimaced. "Damian was born quickly. It all happened much faster than anyone expected. Dima, the mortal who acted as my midwife, said if I had been mortal, I wouldn't have survived. I was torn up pretty badly."
"But you survived, and so did the baby?" he asked.
Divine nodded. "Yes. He was fine. He had no fangs but he was a strong healthy baby."
"Wait, what?" Marcus said with confusion.
"He was strong and healthy," Divine repeated, and then said wryly, "I wish the same could have been said for me. As I mentioned, I was ripped up pretty badly during the birth and I wasn't allowed the time to heal afterward. Leonius ordered Abaddon to smuggle my baby and me out of camp through a secret tunnel before the immortals breached the camp, and he did so minutes after Damian was born."
"Were other mothers and their babies smuggled out too?" Marcus asked at once.
"No," Divine said quietly. "At least, Abaddon said I was the only one and they were all there when he hustled me out of--"
"Why did he want you smuggled out?" Marcus asked.
Divine hesitated, a little startled by his sharp tone and his interrupting her, but after a minute she sighed and said, "Abaddon said that Leonius thought my uncle might let the others live, but felt sure he'd cut me down where I stood and kill Damian as well when he learned that I'd dishonored my family like that."
"Like what?" he asked with confusion. "How did you dishonor your family?"
"By having Leonius's child," she pointed out softly.
Marcus shook his head. "Divine, you were a child yourself, raped and tortured. Lucian would hardly have held you responsible for the resulting child, and he wouldn't have killed an innocent baby."
"He killed all the other women and children they found in the camp," she pointed out sadly, recalling the women she'd lived and suffered with.
"The immortals did not kill those women and children," Marcus said firmly. "When Leonius realized he was going to lose the battle, he retreated to camp with six of his eldest sons. They rounded up all the women and children and killed them. The few immor
tals were tied up with the no-fanger females and set on fire, and while they screamed and burned, he and his oldest sons visited an orgy of blood on the remaining mortals, drinking every last mortal woman dry."
"But Abaddon said . . ." Her voice trailed off. She'd known all her life that Abaddon could not be trusted. She should have held everything he'd ever told her suspect. But he'd been her only source of news back then, and he'd pretended that she was important, given into his care to be looked after and protected. His lord's dying wish.
"What happened after this Abaddon smuggled you out of camp?" Marcus asked. "Where did you go?"
Divine shrugged wearily. "The first part of the journey after leaving is something of a blur in my memory. I was weak and in pain from the labor, never given a chance to heal, or even to feed. We had to run and hide and run again."
"Why?" Marcus demanded. "To keep you and your son safe from your uncle?"
Divine nodded.
He stared at her for a minute, and then said, "You mean to tell me that your whole life has been spent hiding and running from your family because you believed they would kill your son?"
"And me," she added solemnly.
"Divine," he said slowly. "Lucian wouldn't have done that. He would not kill an innocent child."
"But he was no-fanger like his father," she pointed out. "And my grandfather and uncle were out to destroy all no-fangers."
"Your son can't be--" He shook his head and muttered something about dealing with that later, then said, "Yes, the immortals were determined to put down no-fangers back then. But not edentates."
"Edentates?" she echoed uncertainly.
"That is an immortal without fangs. They are called edentate. Any child born fangless is considered edentate unless and until they go crazy and show the tendencies of no-fangers, a liking for torturing and killing, etc. But not all edentates turn no-fanger. Your son would not have been killed. And you certainly wouldn't have been."
"But I didn't kill myself," Divine pointed out.
"What?" he asked with bewilderment.
"The reason there were so few immortal women in the camp was because they usually killed themselves rather than suffer Leonius's raping and impregnating them. I saw two of them do it during the year I was there. One got free and when the guard pulled his sword, she just threw her head over it, decapitating herself. Another threw herself in the fire and burned to death. Abaddon said they had honor and their families would have been shamed had they not done it. That their families probably would have cut them down themselves had they found them in Leo's camp alive and well, never having tried to escape or kill themselves. He said Uncle Lucian was the same, arrogant, cold, hard . . ."
"Abaddon again," Marcus interrupted angrily. "Divine, he was lying to you. He lied to you about what happened to the women in the camp, and he lied to you about this. How long did he pound those tales into your head?"
"I don't know. Ten years, I guess," Divine said, staring at him wide-eyed. It was the first time she'd seen him really angry.
"You were with him for ten years after he smuggled you out of camp?"
She nodded. "At first I needed him. I had Damian, I was breast-feeding, I--"
"You were a child," he added grimly. "You needed someone to find you hosts to feed on while you breast-fed, and you needed someone who could provide a roof over both your heads."
"Yes," she said, bowing her head.
"There is no shame in that," Marcus said, his tone less angry. "Besides, as I said, I suspect he was using mind control on you. You seem to see Lucian as some kind of bogeyman, and for him to go from a substitute father to bogeyman like that, mind control must definitely have been involved."
Divine rubbed her eyes wearily. She suspected Marcus was right and wondered how she hadn't seen that for herself centuries ago.
"How did you eventually get away from him?"
"He was away looking for hosts to bring back one night and I . . ." She shrugged helplessly. "I just packed up Damian and ran with him."
"Just like that?" Marcus asked with a frown.
Divine nodded.
"What happened to bring it about?" he asked after a pause.
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," she said slowly.
"You thought you needed him to survive. Why suddenly did it seem better to be away from him?"
Divine bit her lip and then reluctantly admitted, "I caught him calling Damian by the name Leonius."
Twenty-one
Marcus dropped his head back against the headboard and closed his eyes. Divine might have named her son Damian and taught him the rules about not harming mortals, but Abaddon had busily been undoing all her good work from the boy's birth. It was obvious to him that Damian and Leonius were one and the same son of Leonius Livius I.
"It infuriated me," Divine admitted, drawing his attention again. "And scared me. I was suddenly desperate to get Damian away from him."
"He called him Leonius," Marcus murmured, and then lifted his head to peer at her and simply asked, "Did you take Leonius from that hotel in Toronto two years ago?"
"No," Divine said firmly, and he felt a moment's relief, until she added, "I took my son, Damian, from it."
"Ah crap," Marcus muttered, closing his eyes again.
"He is not like his father," Divine said quickly. "My uncle has been hounding and hunting him ever since the immortal/no-fanger war just because he carries his father's blood, but Damian's not like Leonius. I brought him up with the same rules my grandfather taught me. He knows not to harm or kill mortals. Yet Uncle Lucian has hunted him, killing Damian's sons in the process, innocent little boys, most of them under ten."
"What?" Marcus asked, shocked at the very suggestion. When Divine nodded her head, he stared at her blankly for a minute and then said, "Divine, I don't know what happened to your grandsons, but I guarantee you that Lucian would not kill little boys. At least not unless they were no-fanger and killing mortals willy-nilly."
"They weren't no-fangers. Most of them hadn't turned yet and were mortal still," she responded.
"Mortal still?" he queried blankly.
Divine shrugged. "Some of the boys seemed to be mortal and then turned when they were somewhere between five or ten."
"That's not possible," Marcus said at once. "What's more, if Damian is no-fanger, he is not your son."
She blinked in surprise at that comment, and gave a short laugh. "I'm sorry, Marcus, but you're the one mistaken this time. Damian is no-fanger and he is definitely my son. I gave birth to him."
"You couldn't have," Marcus said firmly. "Divine, I explained about nanos. They are carried in the blood. A mother passes them down to her child."
"Or the father does," she said with certainty.
"No," Marcus said stoutly. "He doesn't. He can't. It's in the blood, not in the sperm."
"Well, that still doesn't mean an immortal mother can't have a no-fang-- edentate child," she corrected herself. "No-fangers and edentates are immortal too, aren't they? We all have the same nanos."
"Ah, damn," he whispered suddenly with realization. "I didn't explain that part to you in the RV."
"What part?" Divine asked uncertainly.
Marcus breathed out a sigh and then explained, "No-fangers and edentates don't carry the same nanos as immortals. The first no-fangers and their prodigy carry the nanos from the first batch the scientists came up with. But those nanos turned out to be somehow flawed. A third of the subjects died when given them, and a third went crazy. The other third were fine. And then when Atlantis fell, none of them produced fangs and they had to cut to feed. The crazy immortals without fangs were called no-fangers. The noncrazy immortals without fangs were called edentates to differentiate them.
"Immortals," he continued, "are the result of the scientists going back and tweaking the nanos. I don't know what they did, or how they changed the programming, but the second batch of nanos produced the immortals that simply go by the name immortal. None of them died or went
crazy when the nanos were introduced to their bodies. And when Atlantis fell, it was only in the immortals with the second batch of nanos that the fangs developed."
"Oh," Divine said with a frown.
Marcus sighed and then continued, "Because the nanos are carried in the blood, the child becomes what his mother is. A mortal mother will have a mortal child every time no matter what the father is, and the same is true of an immortal. An immortal mother with the second batch of nanos can only produce an immortal child. But both a no-fanger and edentate mother with the first batch of nanos will pass those on to her child and produce an edentate who has a thirty-three percent chance of remaining edentate, a thirty-three percent chance of turning no-fanger, and a thirty-three percent chance of dying.
"You carry the second batch of nanos, Divine. The child you gave birth to in that camp, and any children you produce in the future, can only be immortal. If Damian isn't an Immortal, with fangs, then he is not your birth child."
"But . . ." She shook her head, confusion rife on her face. "I gave birth to him."
"Is it possible your child was switched for Damian?" he asked gently. That seemed the only explanation. "Was the baby you gave birth to ever out of your sight?"
"No, I . . ." Divine paused and frowned. "Well, Abaddon did take him out of the room briefly to clean him up, but . . . he was only gone moments before returning with him bundled up in swaddling."
"This Abaddon must have switched Damian for your child then. Damian must have been the child of Leonius and a no-fanger woman." He raised his eyebrows in question. "Were there any no-fanger women who gave birth around that time too?"
"Yes," Divine murmured, looking defeated. "One of them had a child the day before."
Marcus nodded. "Damian is probably her child."
"Yes," Divine agreed, and then she suddenly straightened. "But he is still my son, Marcus. I raised him, I breast-fed him, I cared for him, taught him, kissed his scraped knees and boo-boos. I raised Damian. He is my son."
"I'm sorry you feel that way," he said sadly, and she glanced to him with surprise.
"Why?"
"Because if Damian is the man who was shot several times, including an arrow through the heart, and was picked up outside the hotel room in Toronto, then he's a stone-cold killer, and a no-fanger, not edentate."
Divine was shaking her head before he'd even finished. "No. He's not a killer. I taught him--"