Cord nodded before his gaze fell on his bonded one more time. Marcus could have sworn he heard him groan before he grabbed Salem, and the two were gone.
Marcus and Tove shared a look before she said, “I didn’t realise it had taken such hold.”
“He didn’t flinch when you said he loved her either,” Marcus said as he took Salem’s seat between the beds. Holding his hand out, he gestured for Tove to come towards him. “Come sit, I would hold you while they heal.”
With a happy smile, the tawny-haired beauty slipped onto his lap, and when his strong arms wrapped around her, Tove laid her head on her alpha’s chest with a sigh of contentment.
“It’s not over,” she said quietly.
“It’s only begun,” Marcus rumbled as he placed his cheek on her head and closed his eyes. “It’s only just begun.”
* * *
Leonid sat in the reception room of the run-down house and tried very hard to keep his features clear of emotion. They had been here for over two weeks. He, Dark Prime Castor Chernov and Pure Prime Castor Rorik. He had told them the spell that his wife, Kateryna, had deployed to protect the Vampyre Court. A spell cast in duplicity and out of fear.
When Kateryna had told him what she had done, he had told her that she damned all the Made under the mountain. He regretted those words at the time, but now he realised that they had held a truth to them. As Leonid sat in a house a few miles from that dreaded Court, he found it ironic that for all the moves of Kateryna’s advisors to keep them free of the rule of the Great Council, it was his wife who had inadvertently sealed their fate.
Lucas and Rorik were debating the nuances of words and inflections. Had Leonid been a younger Vampyre, his temper would have frayed and he would have disposed of both Castors by now. However, he was not younger. He was one of the old. His wife was the self-proclaimed Queen of the Vampyres, and in truth, no Made had ever challenged her. Their love for their Queen was true. Their love for Leonid, not so much.
He thought back to the time when the deceivers in the Court had killed him or tried to. Viktor was one of his love’s favourite advisors, and Leonid contemplated the fact that his wife may listen to his smooth lies too easily. Viktor had said he would tell Kateryna that Leonid had returned to his daughter. Would she believe him? She resented Tegan and the hold she had on Leonid, she had hated Celeste. More than once, she had hinted that she believed that Leonid felt more than fatherly towards Celeste.
It was not so. Leonid had loved Celeste, but his pride in her had been a fatherly pride, as much as it was for Tegan. He sat unmoving in the chair as the Castors’ voices drifted in and out of his awareness. It was too often since healing he found that he could easily tune out his surroundings. A sliver of fear ran through him; was it time for him to take Reflection?Eternal reflection. His mind rejected it, but his heart was slower in accepting it.
Too much of his blood had been spilled, he mused. It would only be right that he still felt out of sorts. For over two weeks, he had literally held his head on his shoulders as he tried desperately to cling to the little blood he still had within his heart.
As he had sat against the wall of the cave, looking out at the Darkness, it had been a few days before he realised that the Darkness could not penetrate the cave, and with too much effort spent, he had edged to the opening. He had felt nothing, but as his hand reached out, he could not move past the Darkness.
He had crawled back to his spot, as far from the opening as the shallow cave allowed. Leonid thought he may have tuned out too many days when he felt the sharp prick of awareness. He had heard no sound from outside since his body had sought shelter there, but that day, he heard screams. Cries of agony that would wake even the dead.
He could see nothing past the deep black that kept him in. But the yell to Velvore had him rise unsteadily to his feet. He had inched closer to the mouth of the cave, and he heard the sobs of pain. As he had debated whether or not he should edge closer or if it was a trick, a hand had thrust its way through the inky cloud of midnight.
Unthinkingly, he had lurched forward, grabbed the hand and pulled. The effort had cost him, and he had collapsed back against the wall. Had he not been exhausted, he would have fallen back in shock at what he saw.
A male whose back was literally on fire lay on the floor of the cave, and as he screamed out in fury to the Ancient, he had turned on his back, dousing the flames. Leonid had watched as the male got to his hands and knees with more grit and determination than a male with his injuries should.
The steel grey eyes and the sharp jawline told Leonid exactly who this was as soon as he faced him. The blood pouring out of him was so tempting, but the strength Leonid had used to pull him into the cave meant he hadn’t been able to rush the male and drink.
Which now, as he thought about it, the Ancients had taken the last of his energy for that very reason. The Castor had been drained, mentally and physically; he didn’t need to be Leonid’s meal as well.
However, he had shamed himself when he asked to sip from the vein and the Castor had wordlessly held out his hand. He had taken no more than two pulls when he felt how close to death the Castor was, highlighted when the Castor dropped unconscious at his feet, but Leonid had waited.
And waited.
Eleven days had passed, and the small sip he had taken from Cord had not been enough, but it was enough to let him watch over the young male.
Leonid had watched the Castor’s back heal as he lay there. He had studied the Mark in great detail. He probably should have confessed that small indiscretion to the Castor, but when he woke and was so incredibly...insolent, he had opted to keep this information to himself. Even after he gifted him his blood with no question or expectation.
Leonid had drunk from many a Castor, and he had always tasted their Flare, but never like with Cord. There was more Flare than blood, and his own healing had been quick thereafter.
When the Castor had seen the Darkness, he had laughed at the trickery. Not the trickery of the Darkness though. He had laughed at the Ancient’s trickery. Leonid had been concerned to anger the Ancient, but Cord was impertinent with how he addressed them, and when no repercussions had come, Leonid had done what he was best at: observe and study.
He had shown the Darkness to the Castor, and when Cord looked, he had seen something else. He had seen the old one, and because he had, so did Leonid. His hood had been drawn over his face, concealing his identity, but Leonid had seen the presence within the Darkness, and the presence knew. Cord had not been surprised, which worried the Vampyre, but he was beginning to think that the young male was dealing with so much that nothing was extraordinary for him anymore. When in fact, everything was out of the ordinary.
When they had returned to this very house, Cord told the others the Drakhyn at the foot of the mountain were an illusion, and then he had walked outside, into the snow, and with a simple incantation, he had broken the illusion.
No dramatics, no seeking of praise, just a simple, almost casual spell, and then he walked back into the house. He took hold of Leonid and told him he had to return him to his daughter. Leonid thought hard, going over every detail. What had the Castor seen when he saw the cloaked figure in the shadows? What else had he seen that Leonid was blind to?
“Leonid, are you listening?” Lucas asked irritably.