Page 27 of Love Heals
Chapter Ten
Jared stared after Silas as he rushed out of the room and up the stairs. Vlad noticed the younger vampire’s disappearance too, but before Vlad could make a move, Jared positioned himself in the door that led out of the living room, blocking his exit. He knew that he couldn’t stop the vampire, not truly, but he needed to make a stand anyway.
He'd promised Silas his protection and he wasn't about to break that promise ten minutes after he'd given it. He'dneverbreak it.
"Your bravery is to be commended,” Vlad said. “But I don’t intend to harm your lover.”
“You won’t.” Jared didn’t bother correcting Vlad’s assumptions. Silas wasn’t his lover, but he didn’t care what the older vampire thought either.
Vlad glanced away from him, addressing the group again. “I'm not trying to harm any of you." He turned to Luke. "I've saved your life as well as that of your boyfriend. The least you could do is give me the benefit of the doubt."
"You've also dropped in on us unexpected," Remy pointed out. "Don't expect perfect hospitality when you break into our house in the middle of the night."
"Yeah, seriously not cool," Aldrich added.
Vlad closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. Then he raised his hands. "All right, let's try this over again. I have information that can help you, would you hear me out?"
"About the gem?" Collin asked. "Because we'll be the ones to decide how to go about asking Silas for the activation code, so to speak."
Jared wanted to clap his little brother on the back for standing his ground like that. He wasn't the biggest fan of Collin's choice of partner, but he couldn't deny that Collin had grown a lot over the past year, especially since becoming a parent.
"I have more information than just that," Vlad said. "How much do you even know about what it means to be a dhampir? Would you not like to know more about your own powers? Would you not like to know what to expect to see from your baby as he grows up?"
That question left Collin fumbling for words. Jared couldn't blame him. There was a great lot of things they didn't know, even after reading through all of their dad's journals. Truth was, too much knowledge had been lost over the years since vampires had started to wage war against their kind, eradicating most of them.
Vlad wasn't doing himself a great favor by bringing that up. Maybe he could read that the mood in the room was turning hostile again, because he continued speaking without waiting for a response. "Your powers are not random," he explained. "They can be predicted by looking at the specific mark you bear."
Without thinking about it, Jared glanced down at his left ankle, where his own birthmark was hidden by his sock. He never used to think about it much before all of this started happening. Now he frowned at it every time he saw it, wondering at its meaning. It didn’t look noteworthy, really. Just a sideways B, facing up.
Vlad stepped up to Luke and Collin, "I assume you two already know what your powers do?"
"I can protect people," Luke said in a quiet tone of voice as he pressed himself against his boyfriend's side.
"I can obliterate them," Collin said, with a look in his eyes that said he wouldn't mind trying that power out on Vlad.
"Very well," Vlad said, as if he couldn't see the way Collin was looking at him. "How about you?" he asked, turning to both Remy and Elena. "Would you like to know what hidden powers slumber within you?"
Remy glanced at Luke and Collin, then back at Vlad. "I'm not sure how that would be helpful without knowing how to activate them."
Vlad nodded. "Good point. I hear that it's been getting harder over the centuries as your powers dilute. The original dhampirs didn't have any trouble wielding their powers." He paused, as if stuck on a particular memory. Jared couldn’t tell if it was pleasant or not, though. He got the feeling that maybe Vlad wasn’t sure himself as the vampire turned to Collin. "I suspect the same will be true for your offspring."
Collin didn't say anything in response to that, only stared at Vlad as if he was a particularly nasty fly he wanted to swat.
"I can't tell you what you are without seeing your mark," Vlad said, addressing Remy again. "I understand if you don't want to expose it to me. I do know that you have a healer in your midst, which is lucky." His gaze found Jared.
"A healer?" Jared asked. Did Vlad mean him by that? No, that didn't make sense. He'd never healed anyone.
"You must be," Vlad insisted. He pulled something out of his pocket. A piece of paper with a simple drawing on it. He showed it to Jared. Jared swallowed, because what he saw on the paper was his birthmark. "Does this look familiar to you?" Vlad asked.
Jared's jaw clenched. He hated when people asked him questions they already knew the answer to.
"If this wasn't your birthmark, your brother would be dead," Vlad said as if that statement was nothing more spectacular than a line on the evening news describing the weather forecast.
"What do you mean by that?"
"It was your blood he drank after Nicolai tried to turn him," Vlad said. "And it was your blood that saved him, because you love him, and because you're a healer. A power that lies dormant in your blood, but that activated for Luke when he lay dying before you."
Jared clenched his fists at the memory of Luke on the cold ground. To think that he could have died... All because Jared hadn't been more careful in keeping an eye on him.
