Page 53 of Dark Reckoning
“Open your mouth,” Kakashi commanded of me and I did.
With his knife, he cut himself and bled into my mouth, then Aldéric did the same, but not Sage. My body surged with the blood of the two dark mages. The power I felt flowing into me before only intensified and I cried out in pleasure and pain. That was when the blade of the knife slit across my throat in a flash of white-hot pain. My eyes bulged in shock and I jerked as my blood erupted from my jugular. Both Kakashi and Aldéric were upon me, drinking from the gash. They took what they needed, but not enough to drain me dry. My wound was slow to close and Kakashi continued to do the spell. He drew sigils on my body in blood, the ones that matched those branded into the sides of their necks, and I was helpless. Then the three mages held hands as Kakashi did the incantation. It seemed as if Sage was completely out of control of his own body. The room began to get hotter and then there was a lightning bolt of pain that shot up my spine just as a burst of fire shot from the sigil, engulfing us.
My first instinct was to run, but I couldn't move and, as the fire blazed, I realized it didn't hurt me. Suddenly, the flames vanished, dying down into a smolder, but it wasn't over. The blood from the five points began to rise into little wobbly, shapeless bubbles. The incantation continued and the blood shot inside of me, my body absorbing it through my skin. If the power I felt before was enormous, what I felt now made me feel invincible, like a god. The orgasm from the unconventional feeding that hit me was the strongest I'd ever experienced and I felt my seed squirt all over me and I could only imagine the mess we were all making.
Finally, Kakashi stopped chanting and I felt the weight of my body crash, and I fell limply to my side. All around me, Sage, Aldéric, and Kakashi collapsed to the floor as well, fully drained. My body hummed with energy and I shook from the last vestiges of my climax. All I wanted to do was sleep, but not while in this state. Not when I had questions.
“You... mother... fucker,” Sage rasped out in struggled breaths.
Kakashi was the first among us strong enough to sit up. “What... are you... complaining about... now?”
“I'll... tell... you... in a minute,” Sage managed to get out.
I realized I was out of it during a great deal of the spell. Moments where I blacked out and my body was not my own. “Is... is it done?” I asked.
“It is,” Kakashi replied.
With some struggle, I sat up and looked around. Blood was all over the floor and some on the walls. The four of us were covered in blood and not all of it was from the human. Though, the human's blood was the one that was on the walls. The human's corpse had deep wounds carved into it in the shape of sigils that matched the ones on the floor. That prompted me to look down at my own body, because I remembered sigils being drawn on my body in blood during the incantation. I wiped the blood away, smearing it, and the sigils were there, like tattoos. There were three of them.
I looked up at Kakashi. “What are these?” I pointed to them.
Kakashi rose and came over to me, then knelt to look me over. He pointed to the one on my right pec. “This is what has linked you to every vampire alive. The other emperors are all dead. This one is my symbol and it links you to me. This one to Aldéric,” he said, pointing to two smaller symbols on my left pec.
I wasn't all too fond of being marked this way. “Will they fade?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. Small price to pay, I think, for all that you've gained. The sigil that you had the night you killed your emperor, the one that was on your chest... that is still there, beneath the surface. It only made itself known to Emperor Galen when it was time to perform the ritual. But these, they will forever remain.”
Well, I figured when he put it like that... I couldn't really complain. My enemies were dead and I was even more powerful, I could feel it. I also felt the link to every vampire. That was the sensation that had me so exhausted before. I was overwhelmed by it, by them. I wondered what Emperor Martin looked like now. I had to see him. To see his corpse would confirm that he was truly dead for me.
“Hey, why didn't I have to drink from him?” Sage asked as he rose to his feet.
Both Aldéric and I were the last to rise, but we were all standing there talking now.
“Because you didn't need to be linked to him. This spell, only Aldéric and I needed to link ourselves to Salino,” Kakashi said.
“So that you could get his immortality?” Sage asked.
Kakashi smiled. “Exactly.”
“And you've never done this spell before? How do you know there aren’t going to be any repercussions?” I asked.
“I don't. Not really. Had the Dark God not been released, I would have been more concerned. But the worst has already happened. Say in the event that I do end up needing to drink blood, still, it's a small price to pay for what I've gained. Nothing I'd worry about in the least,” Kakashi said.
“What if it's only my blood you can drink,” I asked. Because that was how it was with Adrian.
“Then I'll drink it. Would you dare to refuse me?” Kakashi asked and his expression dared me to say otherwise.
“I suppose not.” I looked at Sage and I could tell he had many questions twirling around in that inquisitive mind of his. As did I, and one came to me. “If and when we send this Dark God back to hell, will we be linked to him again like it was before?”
Aldéric shook his head. “No, the initial link that bound you to him is gone. You can no longer gain power from him. By the way, you're all immune to fire now. With everything that vampires can do, to want any more powers is simply being greedy.”
“Gaining more power wasn't the reason I was asking, but I see that's what you're assuming. I just prefer not to have to give him a ritual every millennium and certainly not to sacrifice good vampires to appease him. But more importantly, if you kill him, will it kill all vampires,”
“No. I see you don't understand the complexities of the contract that was broken that night. To keep it simple, all vampires are free of El-Kazir,” Kakashi said.
“That sums it up, thank you,” I said, then something he mentioned before triggered my next question. “Wait a minute, you stated that we are now immune to fire?”
Kakashi cocked an eyebrow, which made him look even more devastatingly handsome. “I bet you love those sigils now, don't you?”
