Page 143 of Dragon Slayer

Cicero cocked his head, earnest, younger somehow. “Your –Vlad. My pack is dead. I want now only to be useful. To avenge your father, and to serve you. And…” His breath hitched. “I’ve grown used to being loved,” he whispered. “I am weak.”

No, I am, Vlad thought. He was seventeen, and in too deep, and completely overwhelmed, without a father or a mentor on which to lean for advice, working in service of a family he hated, a family that had made a whore of his brother. How easy, how tempting to accept.

He wanted to be savage, to be a prince, to kill and avenge, and rescue Val. But he was, to his shame, overwhelmed. Did that make him horrible? To lean on someone who deserved freedom?

“What will make you happy?” Vlad asked.

Relief touched Cicero’s face. “To serve you, your grace.”

Vlad stood. “Come with me, then, old friend.”

~*~

Now, finally, he stood in the center of his old bedchamber. It had been made ready for him days ago; fresh candles, clean linens, a thorough dusting and airing out. He crossed to the washstand and found a fresh bit of toweling laid over the edge of the bowl; the ewer held clean water, still faintly warm when he tested it with his fingertips. The maids prepared this place for him every night, though he hadn’t used it yet.

By all accounts, they should be in his father’s old suite. He knew that Helga had seen to it personally that every trace of Vladislav had been scrubbed from that room, that lemon juice and cinnamon, and mint had been used to wipe away his scent. And he was the reigning prince now; the finest set of rooms should have been his own.

Perhaps he would graduate there, eventually. But now, this, tonight…this was his binding. It needed to happen in a place that was purely his. He needed Cicero to understand that he wasn’t binding himself to the Prince of Wallachia – but to Vlad. To a very angry boy bent on killing a good many people.

Vlad turned and went to sit on the edge of the big four-poster bed. His feet didn’t quite touch the ground, so he rested his heels on the edge of the bedframe instead.

Something in Cicero had changed since Vlad had accepted his offer. He projected calmness now, his expression soft and kind as he moved to sit beside Vlad. Close, but not crowding.

Vlad realized, to his surprise and embarrassment, that his palms were sweating. He wiped them on the legs of his pants. His voice came out rough, and he’d never felt so keenly like a boy playing at being a man.

“I know how this works. But…I’ve never done it. Obviously.”

Cicero huffed a soft laugh, his smile fond. “It’s alright; it won’t be hard. You start – offer me your wrist. I’ll go under first. Then.” He reached to pull his hair over one shoulder, exposing his throat on the near side. “Come find me.”

Vlad wet his lips. “But what if – what if I can’t do it? Val’s the dream-walker, not me.”

Cicero shook his head slightly. “You can. This is ancient, Vlad. This is how it’s supposed to be.” He reached to place a careful hand on the top of Vlad’s head, and it had an immediate grounding affect. Even with one eye, his gaze was quietly earnest. “I won’t let you get lost in the fog. Trust me on that.”

“I do trust you.” One of the only ones he trusted now.

Vlad brought his own wrist to his mouth and stared at it a moment, breath hitching. No going back after this. His fangs elongated in his mouth and he bit hard, punched through the skin.

When he offered the bleeding wound, Cicero took his arm into two reverent hands and lifted it to his face. Breathed the scent in, once, deep, eyes closed, and fastened his mouth to the open vein.

No one had ever fed from Vlad before, so he wasn’t anticipating the shock of it. A sensation like the prickling of his skin just before a thunderstorm. A wash of heat chased by cold, pleasurable little ripples.

He lost himself to it, for a moment. Was this what George had felt, all those years ago in the chapel at Edirne? The drug-like calm?

But no, a binding went both ways. He shook off his stupor.

Cicero was still too thin, undoubtedly weak, but his pulse throbbed, strong and visible in the side of his throat, a tempting stretch of clean, unmarked skin. Living blood, so rare, a feast he always denied himself. And here, wolf blood, offered freely, out of loyalty and love.

He couldn’t help the sound he made as he leaned in and bit, a low, pleased growl.

Cicero responded, a muffled huff of breath, encouraging.

And then the blood hit Vlad’s tongue.

He drank. Velvet, lush; no wine had ever tasted so sweet. Necessary, too perfect to be illicit; the taste of it wasright.

At first he only drank, and for the first time in so, so long he felt whole. Cradled in the dark, a part of something bigger and stronger than himself.

But then he found that he stood on an empty plain, stars bright above him in a moonless sky, a twilight fog swirling up from the ground, wrapping around him close as a blanket. A wolf stalked out of the shadows toward him, through the mist, a great shaggy brown beast with only one golden eye. He came up to Vlad, tongue out, tail wagging. Pressed his head into Vlad’s outstretched palm.

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