Page 133 of The Firebrand
“He did not want to be a vampire.”
“True. We do not always get what we want. After the Awakening, his cravings were so strong that he wandered lost for a very long time. It happens.” Castia drew a breath. “He came to hate us. Not us. Me. Alarik is only a disappointment. I tell you this, Braelyn, so you will see Rein does not trust others—perhaps only Indigo and that commander. And you, I think.”
“You think it’s trust he’s lost? I suppose he has, but that’s not all. He lost faith in himself. Rein is a good man who fights to control the savage, killing instincts brought out during the Awakening. Can you imagine? Every day he wages the same battle. Every day he’s afraid he will lose. Right now, he’s afraid he’ll kill me.”
“I agree. Yes, he trusts himself least of all. The mating rite summons him to bond. As I said, it is not a calling he can refuse without great personal torment. Yet he will suffer agony rather than risk losing you. You see, to complete the ceremony, he must have absolute faith in himself and, at the same time, risk losing you.”
“I know he fears drinking from me, afraid he won’t stop. But the possibility I’m his mate makes him almost irrational.”
“Rightly so. The Bludhunt Sacrament is a test, a macabre sacred ritual of lust, fear, blood, and sometimes death. It began as a means to cull the weak. Only the strongest vampires survived to mate and produce offspring. As with most of our rites, it has grown more savage with time. The female runs. The male hunts her. By the time he catches her, he is beyond reason, gripped by a sexual blood lust. When he takes the female, he cares only to feed, ravage, conquer. If she lives, their mating is good, sanctioned by our breed.”
“You doubt I can survive the rite.”
“I cannot judge, but I believe if you leave him, he will spiral into the abyss he fears.”
It was Braelyn’s worry also. “Did you and Alarik go through this Bludhunt?”
“No. I have never fed from Alarik.”
“You don’t love him?” Braelyn knew in some strange vampire way, Rein’s obsession with her blood stemmed from his love for her. He feared it was the bludfrenzy 2.0, bigger, better, deadlier.
Castia stroked her neck, the gesture absent-minded. “Clan Melius has the means to assure compliance with its wishes. It wished I not mate Alarik. I complied. I am not, however, without my own strengths. I negotiated. My deal with them was that I could bear children. Alarik so wanted a family.”
Braelyn saw a flash of regret in Castia’s startling blue eyes, so much like her son’s.
Rein’s mother threw back her shoulders, bracing her resolve. “Somehow, to this point, you have defied all odds. I see how Rein looks at you. I see how you smile at him. I may have failed to be the mother he needed—I may have failed to be Alarik’s mate—but I have been fortunate enough to see that kind of love in someone’s gaze.”
Braelyn realized, despite Castia’s cool restraint, she had once dreamed of a different life with her lover, the father of her children.
“We agree Rein does not trust himself, but how much do you trust my son?”
****
LizetteLee huddled in the corner of a cell, cold, dirty, and terrified. Two days ago, at least she thought it had been two days, she walked out of the WMR radio production studio in New York as she did every day. Her mind on tomorrow’s topic, she neared a van parked at the curb. A man opened the door, slid out, tossed a dark bag over her head, and dragged her into the back of the waiting vehicle. That’s the last she remembered until she woke up in this nightmare place.
Her kidnappers were not human. Humans did not have fangs or prominent canines. They did not have horns or claws. They did not turn on lights with a flick of the wrist. They did not shift into four-legged animals. As a call-in radio psychologist, she was a goddamn scientist. She dealt with facts. Fact—she was not in the real world as she knew it.
Deal with it.
Every day she took calls from people who confessed problems. A cheating boyfriend. Fear of flying. Loneliness. Abuse. No matter what the caller’s situation, she led them through the same steps. First, clarify the problem. Second, make a plan. Third, carry out the plan. Don’t worry if you fail the first time. Start again. Yes, she dealt in reality.
But here she was.
Following her own advice, she began the steps. Identify the problem.I am being held captive in a cell. Make a plan.I will find the weaknesses in my prison and escape.Carry out the plan.I’m working on it.
Releasing her fears, she shook her arms, her fingers while she walked around the cold room, looking for flaws. No windows. The walls were concrete. Lizette’s hands traveled along the cool cement. Solid. No cracks. Grasping each iron bar, she rattled it, looking for a loose one. She surveyed the furnishings—a metal bed with a mattress, blankets, a hose, a toilet.
Can I use any of those as a weapon?Perhaps the metal bed and hose.
But her plans were interrupted.
A man—no, not a man—a grungy behemoth on two legs stood outside her cell with her jailer, the silver-haired, cold-eyed man, the one the guards called “boss.”
“Make a choice, berserker. I don’t have all day.”
They moved on.Thud. Thud. Thud.The giant’s boots echoed down the corridor, fading as he went from cell to cell.Thud. Thud. Thud.The sound got louder when he returned.No.Though she wanted to scream, no sound came out. She clasped her hands over her head, crouching to make herself smaller, scooting back against the corner into a shadow.
The nightmarish, seven-foot-tall brute, clothed in animal pelts, one wrapped around his waist and another across his burly shoulders, cocked his head to the side, tapping his spear on an iron bar. “Open the cage. I would examine her.”
