In hindsight, I should have been more specific about where I wanted to show up. The twilit, gravel drive outside the Prime’s Seattle compound certainly hadn’t crossed my mind.
Where your heart wills.
Sighing, I trudged toward the massive walnut doors. At least it wasn’t raining. Also positive, the transfer between worlds had dried Muriel’s dress. The fabric was salt-stained and wilted, and my crusted white braids corkscrewed at odd angles against my shoulders, but I didn’t have energy for vanity. I was alive and dry. I had my magic back. And I was home.
Kind of.
The doors swung inward as I approached. Adam stood on the threshold, wearing the official robes of his office. His brown eyes bled to white at the sight of me.
“You’re alive,” he breathed. “What happened to you?”
Beyond him, the vast entry hall of the compound was shadowed, vacant of its usual bustling populace. Uneasy, I tried to smile. “Escaped a psycho Fae queen, talked to an Oracle, met my father, almost drowned. Got my magic back, though, so it’s all good.” I rolled my shoulders back to ease their tension. “Where is everyone?”
“The weekly assembly is taking place,” he replied, stepping back to allow me entrance.
The sense that something wasn’t right grew as I walked past him. “Why are you out here?” I asked, but the real question was, Where’s Connor? I reached for the compagno bond, but it was muted.
Adam’s eyes, back to brown, settled on mine. “I sensed the portal.” He paused, staring at me hard, like I was a stranger who looked familiar.
Tendrils of fear stirred in my gut. “Adam?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”
Tears filled his eyes and he blinked rapidly, then jerked forward to hug me hard. “It’s been a year, Fiona. A year.”
The words took a few seconds to make sense. I lurched backward. My ears rang. My stomach turned. I bent in half, breathing past the urge to vomit. When I straightened, my vision swam, then cleared on Adam’s face.
“The fuck it has!” I finally mustered. “I’ve been gone”—I rapidly did the math—“eight, maybe nine days!”
He shook his head. “You and Connor last shared domhan nearly ten months ago.”
“No, no, no.” I turned, pacing back outside, needing the fresh air to combat suffocating anxiety. “That makes no sense. That would mean I was in the Western Sidhe for two months, and the Eastern for ten.” I spun back to Adam. “But I was only there a day. One day!”
He wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Time flows differently in the Sidhes.”
I snapped, “I know, but—”
It leads where and when your heart wills.
Why hadn’t I thought to ask? Why had I just assumed the same amount of time would have passed on earth? What have I done?
I sent myself a year into the future. And the only reason for it I could come up with was the most simple, selfish one: I hadn’t wanted to face the world I left behind.
My disquiet tripled. “Why is the compound dark? Where’s Connor?”
Adam sighed. “Come inside.”
Misplaced fury engulfed me. My clenched hands dripped sparks that sizzled on the ground. Thunder rolled in the cloudless sky. When I spoke, my voice resonated strangely, “Where is he?”
Adam’s aura flared into visibility, his eyes bleaching as he summoned defensive magic. “Resting. He’s safe. Relax.”
Relief was so potent it made me lightheaded. I released my charge, bringing shaking hands to my head. “My father? Uncle? Is everyone okay?”
“Yes. Come inside,” he said again. “I’ll take you to Connor.”
I strode forward, back into the hall, and Adam let the doors swing closed. Our footsteps echoed on the marble floor as we walked its length; to either side of us, the arched corridors were likewise vacant and shadowed.
We entered a small, familiar elevator. Adam pressed a button embossed with -1, and the car slid downward. “The weekly assembly is underground?” I asked skeptically.
“No,” he said softly, “but Connor is.”
The doors chimed as they opened, but I stopped Adam from leaving by grabbing his sleeve. “What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded.
He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to keep anything from you, I’m just not sure how to say it.” When I just stared at him, he sighed. “There’s an aspect to the compagno bond that Connor never shared with you. To protect you.”
“I’m shocked,” I drolled.
A tired smile graced his mouth. “You know that no vampire may drink from you but Connor, correct?” I nodded. “Well, he may drink from no vein but yours.”
I stilled as the words sank in. “No—no way. You must be mistaken. Janelle wouldn’t have kept that from me. She gave me that arrowhead, for God’s sake. She wouldn't have helped me disappear if it meant starving Connor.”
“She didn’t know,” he said mutedly. “There are levels of the bond, apparently. The one you and Connor share is Fidelitas usque ad mortem. Loyalty until death.”
My mind reeled. “But why?” I whispered.
Adam barked a dry laugh. “Why does anything happen where you’re concerned? You’re a catalyst for disaster.” I scowled and punched his arm, giving him a little zap of electricity for good measure. He flinched, but the effect was worth it: the first genuine smile I’d seen on his face in a long time. “I really don’t know. Janelle said it might be due to how the bond was formed, as a lifesaving measure.”
I groaned. “Okay, so you’re telling me Connor can’t drink from anyone but me. Why is this an issue? I know I’ve been gone . . . a while, but when I met him he’d been fasting for a year and he was fine.”
The emotion in his eyes was hard to place. Then it registered. Pity.
I grabbed his arm again. “Adam?”
His throat worked as he swallowed. “When you met him, he hadn’t drunk from the vein in a year. But he’d still been drinking every few months from our blood bank service. It’s true that because of his age, he can survive on very little. But he cannot maintain normal function on none.”
Every last drop of blood could be drained from me and I would still live, a comatose and withered husk.
Connor had told me as much last year—two years ago?—but I still struggled to accept the implications. “I was gone six months in Montana. He was okay, though, right?” I didn’t wait for an answer, rambling, “He must have been so hungry. That’s why he came to L.A. He needed my blood. But he never forced the issue. He never asked.”
I remembered the last time he’d fed from me, in his hotel room before we’d gone to Denver.
Over a year ago.
“Please,” I whispered, “take me to him.”
Adam nodded, moving swiftly down the dimly lit hallway. As we walked toward the door at the end, the icy pressure of multiple vampiric auras pressed against me. Of Connor’s dark power, there was barely a ripple.
“His nest is with him?”
He made a small, sad noise. “Yes.”
There was no more time to prepare. Adam opened the door, entering before me. My eyes strained in the poor light, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. The last information I had on Connor’s nest was that it was thirty vampires strong. But there were less than that number here. Fifteen, possibly sixteen people lay on cots spread across the room, though I wasn’t sure they could still be called people. They were dry husks with long, brittle hair and wizened hands folded on their chests. Men and women were indistinguishable, all faces locked in silent screams, fangs protruding grossly from shrunken lips.
Adam’s hand clamped on my shoulder, steadying me. He pointed to a dark alcove at the head of the room. “There. Janelle did what she could to make him comfortable, but . . .” Emotion choked his voice. “Please, bring him back.”
I ran down the central aisle, not looking to either side for fear I might scream or throw up. At the border of the alcove, I dropped to my knees before Connor. He wasn’t withered like the others, his skin still alabaster with an undertone of gold, his hair lustrous chestnut, grown long and braided over one shoulder. Almost, I could believe he slept peacefully. But his skin was stretched too taut over the bones of his face, the outline of fangs pronounced beneath his lips. And his unique, dark power was a dim vibration.
My gaze veered to the long, beautiful fingers of his hands, clasped over his chest. The nails were filed to points. I didn’t question why someone had thought to do that. I didn’t care. I lifted the hand nearest me, his arm moving easily, and brought the nail of his index finger to my wrist. Muttering an oath, I jabbed the point into my skin. The nail was so sharp I didn’t immediately feel pain, and by the time it hit I was too busy trying to angle the dripping blood over his mouth. To my frustration, it slid down his chin.
“Wake up, wake up,” I chanted, slipping bloody fingers between his lips.
His power flexed. A groan of hunger came from deep in his throat, making my heart race and muscles deep in my body clench. It occurred to me that if I was mostly sane, I would be afraid, repulsed, even running for my life. But instead, certain unmentionable parts of me were throwing a party, a disturbing tidbit of self-knowledge I filed away to examine never.
Fiona . . .
Connor’s mental whisper was faint, but he was there.
Yes, I said eagerly. Drink.
His arms twitched. Full lips parted on fangs that looked a helluva lot thicker and longer than I remembered.
Closer. Throat.
“Okay, sure.” I angled my body over his until we were chest to chest, then drew back my braids so my neck lined up with his mouth. My body trembled, held tenuously in place by faith that he wouldn’t kill me. “You won’t kill me, right?” I bleated. When there was no immediate response, the enormity of the moment bubbled over in a poor attempt at humor, “Hope you like your blood with a side of sea salt.”
I’m sorry, but this will hurt.
I stiffened, my willpower cracking. “Just do—”
He struck. No finesse, no numbing, no hesitation. I wailed in agony as skin and muscle tore. His fangs sank so fast, so deep, that a jabbering part of my brain was convinced he’d bitten right through me. Plasma erupted defensively, a blistering corona, but Connor merely absorbed it with a growl, sucking harder as my charge enflamed his need.
I reared back, screaming, but it was no use. The vampire—no, Connor—came with me, his arms locked around my head and waist. Immersed in a red haze of pain, I barely noticed as he rolled, dragging me beneath him. Barely noticed as his cold skin grew warm, as his convulsive gulps lessened to sips, as his hold on me transitioned from a prison to an embrace.
Black spots danced on my eyelids. I teetered on the precipice of unconsciousness, then tumbled headlong over it.