Page 33 of Sleeping With the Vampire

“This guest was surprised to see him. She wanted to talk to him, but he seemed very focused and didn’t hear her calling.”

Lucca’s eyes narrowed and I could see the anger building in him.

“It seemed like information I should share with you,” I said.

“I’ll leave you to rest and get better,” I said, quickly turning around and walking down the stairs. I was shocked by the tears that I felt prickling behind my eye lids. As I got to the bottom of the stairwell, I nearly bumped into Ragnar and Layrr.

“I remember you! Nice to see you again. Izzy, right?” Ragnar asked laconically with a smile.

I nodded.

“You’ve been to see Father?” The other one, presumably Layrr asked. He was shorter, stockier, his face tense. Ragnar was an arsehole but I was fairly sure he was the honest kind of arsehole.

I left without saying goodbye, keen to get out of vampire country before dark.

Chapter 12

Lucca

The secondary infection is unexpected.

One minute we are standing at the top of the castle, discussing what our next move should be, when I feel unsteady. I had only been partially wounded the day before, it had not been a very serious injury and after a few hours, I was walking around again.

But this was different.

“Are you all right?” Finn asked.

I leaned against the wall for support, and took a moment to respond. I felt very strange all of a sudden, nauseous, my head swimming.

“Come, sit down,” he said.

“We must… we need to…” I couldn’t find the words, my head was thick. I felt my sons lay me down and call for the healer to come quickly. As for what came next, they told me later what happened, as I, at this point lost consciousness.

It was established that some of the bullet had broken off and had not been removed when they had cleaned the wound. The shards had not entered the blood stream right away, but when they did, the damage was instantaneous as they were laced with silver.

This poisoned my entire system, attacking my already weakened body. A younger man would not have survived but I had already been given a fair amount of vampire blood and now received more infusions to help me fight the infection.

The healer told my sons I had a fifty percent chance of survival, which were not odds they were comfortable with, understandably. At this point, I was delirious, having vivid dreams that seemed extremely real and were deeply disturbing. At times, I would be lucid, briefly, and notice them in the room. I kept asking for Sunil, but he was not there.

“Where is he?” I apparently asked.

They shook their heads, they didn’t know.

The theory was that it was difficult to travel from the Capital to the west of the country, the roads were dangerous. But Izzy had come right away, without any trouble, she had been able to navigate the treacherous ways and come to the castle to check if I was all right. I dreamed of Izzy, the way she had been before we had become intimate, bonded by blood.

The way she was when I met her, fierce and independent. How strong she had seemed, so wise and mature for her years. I had drawn her into this drama of my life, and now she was inextricably linked to violence and chaos that had become our world. She had left the castle and I had no idea where she was. I had sent no protection with her, no crow to watch her.

I’d been so angry that she would point the finger at my sons with such flimsy evidence to support her theories. For a brief moment, I had even suspected her of being in league with those plotting to overthrow me. It was a moment of madness, brought on by a feverish mind, a weakened system. When my head was clear, I knew there was no way Izzy was involved in anything like that. She was completely pure and trustworthy, I had no reason to doubt her at all.

But Sunil, he had explaining to do.

During one of the first dreams I had, Zendan the Great appeared to me, the way he had been years ago. I had never said goodbye to him, he had been killed in one of the big battles of the Great War. In many ways, he had been a father to me. At thatpoint, I had no family of my own and he had taken me under his wing, called me his son. He had been in favor of me marrying his daughter and strengthening his house.

Then the war turned as darkness poured from the underworld, and we saw how humans were being exterminated, how vampires were turning against each other. We had a conversation at his stronghold, on the island Valleira. He said to me that we needed to align ourselves with the best forces, we needed to bring an end to the war before the demons and the brogs overran our earth. They would destroy themselves in the end, but not before they had destroyed us.

Without human blood, vampires would struggle to survive, we would feed off each other and eventually die too. The balance needed to be restored. Zendan sent me off to negotiate with the other vampire families, to see if we could establish an allied front to negotiate with the humans, who at that point had some weapons and a few strongholds in place. It was while I was away, that Valleira was attacked and Zendan’s force was wiped out. When news of his demise reached the other houses, it speeded up the peace process as all of us saw the end approaching.

Now, Zendan came to me, his face ragged and worn, as it was towards the end of the war.

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