Page 109 of Promised in Blood

I lick my lip and taste her. A lingering trace of her arousal from when I had my face buried between her thighs a little over an hour ago. Fire ignites in my veins. I need to be more careful. Had that been a drop of her blood, he would have smelled heron me and known she was something different. I clear my throat and recompose myself. “Of course I know what that means, but all those lives I took brought me no peace. If it had, then I would surely go on killing until every trace of any bloodline that had anything to do with their deaths was erased from existence, but it did not.”

“If we cannot live in peace, then we should thrive in anarchy,” he says, recounting part of an ancient prophecy that I thought I had forgotten long ago. It was one we quoted often as children. Having little understanding of its true meaning, Giorgios and I used it to justify our reckless adolescent behavior.

I reply with the response my mother would give us every single time. “If we only feed chaos, then there is no hope of finding peace.”

He falters at her words, but only for a fraction of a second. “Hope.” He snorts. “Hope is for fools. Those who believe in prophecies and that all things must be in balance. There is no balance. The strongest and cruelest of us will always survive, and that is the simple truth. The destruction of the elementai was proof enough of that.”

Only a few months ago, I would have agreed with everything he just said. But now, I remain silent. Now I know better.

“I will find out what you are hiding from me.” With that, he stalks out of my office, leaving me to stare at his retreating back as dread settles deep in the pit of my stomach.

Chapter

Thirty-Eight

ALEXANDROS

It takes me not even a moment to find Giorgios amongst the cacophony of voices that fill my head these days. It seems as though my mind can tap into every person I have ever connected with, and all at once. And I can isolate each one as quickly as pressing a button on a remote control.

Giorgios.

Good evening, brother.His familiar voice fills me with a sense of nostalgia and, despite my reason for reaching out to him, I feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

It disappears quickly.Our father paid me a visit me today.

He is silent for a moment, no doubt as shocked as I was.For what purpose?

He knew of your visits to me these past months. He asked what we were hiding from him.

I assume you told him nothing.

I told him I had a pledge that I thought you may be interested in siring.

Good. Smart thinking, he says.Do you think he suspects anything close to the truth?

If I did, then I would already be long gone, not calmly having this conversation.No. But it is a grave concern that he suspects anything at all. We will have to limit your visits from now on.

I agree, brother.

I am sure he will pay you a visit shortly.

He groans.What a pleasant surprise that will be.

I smile in spite of everything. He is a good brother, and I have seen far too little of him the past several years. And now it looks like we will not be able to see each other for the foreseeable future.

He will learn nothing of the girl from me, Alexandros. I may not have your skill, but I can hold my own. I have had many years of practice.

I know, Giorgios. I believe in you.

Thank you, brother. I must go. I have some business to attend to, and she does not like to be kept waiting, he says with a dark chuckle.

After bidding him goodbye, I close my eyes and tune out the voices that once again fill my head. They slowly fade to a quiet hum of white noise. The voices are so much louder and more vibrant than they used to be, and I am surprised at how easily I can tune them in and out.

And the walls that I built to keep out those I am bonded with, both through choice and through family, are stronger somehow.There is no escaping the fact that the shift occurred when I bonded with Ophelia, although I have no idea why. When I bonded with Elena, I never experienced any shift in my powers. But she did not channel any of mine either.

She was one of the most powerful elementai of her generation. We met when she was only sixteen. She was a powerful and alluring elementai even at her tender age, but it was my brother who found her beauty intoxicating. They would spend hours reading the old philosophers and speculating about the Lost Prophecies of Fiere.

But it was I, the son of House Drakos, who could communicate with dragons and was therefore chosen as her suitor. Her father and mine deemed it the most appropriate match, and being the obedient children that we were, we did not question it. Vampire and elementai can choose to bond, or not, with any of our respective kinds. There does not have to be any kind of attraction for the bond to take root. And my bond with Elena was a strong one. We were as committed to each other as any vampire and elementai before us. And we were happy. Even for the seven hundred years before we had our first child. A healthy vampire boy, who looked just like me but had her hazel eyes. He was an only child for almost two hundred years until his little sisters were born.

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