White Heart Ch. 03

Her bewilderment was priceless.

For once he felt the subtle caress as Grace finessed his mind and met resistance. Her technique was opposite to his -- where he went in with an arrow, she sent out tendrils of mist. Satisfaction brought a twist to his lips; he'd blocked her from his thoughts and discovered something about her.

If only he'd remembered the charm earlier; an ancient relic with warding power that had hung in the temple for eons, thick dust encrusting the chain. Now it was tucked under his shirt beside his cross, humming with energy.

He vaulted his horse with a lithe spring, feeling carefree, almost young again. A silent summons sent a whir of black racing past the horses -- the beast hounds would accompany them, skulking in the shadows at the four points of the compass. Travelling long distance with a vampire and a child he was taking no chances.

They set off; the ladyfolk riding in tandem behind him, their mare tethered to Lanzig his grey stallion, with the pack horse following behind. Wintervaden lay five nights to the East; they would ride through the dark and make camp before dawn. Grace could not travel in sunlight, and stopping at night with the scent of a child would draw all manner of evil.

Liam rode with his mind stretched out before them, probing the approaching landscape for surprises. The hounds ran likewise, reinforcing his psychic guard, staying in a constant mind meld with each other. They formed a protective shield that only the ignorant or mad would dare penetrate. It took extraordinary concentration to maintain, more so than usual. He put it down to the feminine whispers of his companions and silenced them with a harsh reprimand, satisfied they wouldn't connive behind his back.

Skirting the ruins of an obsolete city, they passed toppled skyscrapers and collapsed houses. The giant statue of the White Lady, so magnificent in its time, lay on its side in the mud, both arms sheared off. Those alive today didn't know the meaning of the word 'bomb', but Liam knew what the countless gaping craters signified. He was one of the few men on earth who remembered electricity, computers, cars that ran on oil... The world had since moved on, leaving nothing but cold memories and weed infested rubble.

Many eyes were upon them -- vampires, demons, mutants -- none brazen enough to interfere with their passage. The fear he inspired kept them at bay, at least for this night. The crumbling city presented a warren of hides where evil could go to ground. Soon he would launch an assault on its citizens but for now his mind passed over and on, letting the monsters be.

As night wore on they came to a refuse dump stretching leagues to the north. Polluted and dead it housed no life, not even the smallest insect. Justine became agitated, forgetting his call for silence, speaking for the first time in hours.

"A klear pit," she cried, making protective wards in the air.

"No child," Grace corrected her. "The word is nu-clee-ar."

Liam started in surprise, craning his neck to face her. "Can you read?" he asked with a frown, his question causing a perceptible crack in her composure. He sensed no small amount of frustration for giving herself away.

"No," she shook her head, her gaze not meeting his.

Un-fooled he brought Lanzig to a halt, studying her with narrowed eyes. "Who taught you?" Literacy had died out centuries ago. Only those with supreme power maintained the art.

"I don't know."

It was a lie. He knew it and she knew he knew it.

He had a sudden impulse to haul her from her horse, to beat her until her skin burst open and the truth bled out of her. He told himself, were it not for the little girl, he would do exactly that -- vent his rage without mercy. If Justine were absent he would force Grace to her knees and extract what he wanted...

Liam's violent thoughts switched to erotic images of Grace on her knees in the dungeon, her ruby lips forming a tight seal around his manhood. Cursing under his breath he turned away, urging Lanzig on. His determination to coerce the truth from her kept him moving forward, his thoughts simmering over her falsehood as the moon rose and fell above them. Soon they would camp and Grace would have nowhere to run.

They entered the Glede Forrest and crested a long, low rise, emerging in a clearing that Liam knew well. He dismounted Lanzig and reached for the girl; Justine was light as a dandelion. He set her beside a rock and came back for the woman.

Raising her skirt she swung her leg over the mare, gifting him a glimpse of creamy thigh and moulded calves, distracting his mind with the thought of other, sweeter jewels beneath her clothing. Catching her around the waist, he brought her to the ground, his stomach clenching as her hip slithered over his. Quickly he moved away before -- God forbid -- he pressed her to his reckless cock.

The hounds settled in the shadows, guarding the perimeter as he made camp in silence, spacing the two tents with a calculated distance, watching as Grace carried the child to bed. "Wait." He stopped her as she edged inside. "You will bed with me."

His news was greeted with joint protests, but the hard bite of his eyes brought silence. He sent the child in to deep sleep with one mental push. Grace reluctantly left her charge, meek until the tent flap closed behind her.

"You can trust me with the child," she declared, following him to bed, her chin set at an obstinate angle.

"We have opposing definitions of trust." Lifting his shirt over his head he shrugged it off, noting the way her eyes roamed over his body. His expression turned hard. "I bet my life on the fact that you can read. What else have you lied about?" he asked.

The angle of her jaw, her pupils flickering up and down, were omens that she wasn't as sweet tempered as she seemed.

"Only that which you are sure to disbelieve or misunderstand."

"Riddle upon riddle," he scoffed, seating himself cross-legged on his bedroll. "Like the preposterous statement that you can be trusted with a child."

"I can."

"Of course you can," he agreed, but his pale eyes raked over her. "The question is why? You can read, you refuse to partake in human flesh, you have kept yourself pure." It wasn't his way to acknowledge she would still be pure if it wasn't for him. He locked eyes with her, considering. "You have a conscience of sorts."

"Yes." She said it with conviction; and a hint of impatience with him for labouring the obvious.

"You may sit," he indicated the foot of the bed. It was early for proper ceremony -- by rights he should stand her for ten turns of the clock -- but somehow, traditions seemed to dissolve around Grace. "You must be hungry."

There was bare hesitation in her movements as she sat; a furtive look in her eyes that she veiled by staring at the ground. It stiffened his spine; sharpened his concentration. Wasn't there a blush to her cheeks, a newfound redder tint to her lips?

His mind turned inwards to agonised bloody images of a torn throat and tiny, trusting hands. A child silenced in the night.

All the blood drained from his face.

"What have you done?" he roared, launching from the tent and speeding across open ground, a blur under the shadows. Grace was mere seconds behind, following him to Justine's bed.

"How could you think--" she began, dropping to her knees. "Shut up," he stopped her.

The child was peaceful in sleep; for a long time Liam just watched her, not quite trusting the rise and fall of her chest. She didn't stir when he turned her over, inspecting her neck and limbs for puncture wounds. Tucking the blankets around the girl, Grace tried again.

"You must know by now, I would never--" Grabbing her by the arm he hauled her out of the tent in to the cold and shook her.

"But you've drained something haven't you? Haven't you?" "Yes," she trembled in his grip, "a rabbit."

He stepped away, his mind ticking, analysing. Not once had she dismounted her horse without him. Not once had she left his sight. The only means he could think of involved magic or supernatural allies. One hand strayed to his chest, brushing the crucifix that hung around his neck. He wasn't aware he'd made the gesture.

"How did you get the rabbit?" he asked, touching his belt. "If you lie to me..." His stake was in his hand, needle-sharp and fire-hardened.

She moved in front of him, undaunted. Again, that spark of courage he so admired yet simply couldn't credit to a vampire, or a woman.

"I will tell you all," she said.

***

It couldn't be true; his mind rebelled at the thought, unable to grasp it or turn it, his stomach churned with acid.

"Call them," he rasped, his throat working in short bites.

No matter what she said, he couldn't believe it. They answered to no-one but him -- the connection was sacred, it couldn't be severed.

He didn't feel the shiver. Not a whisper or breeze or thought.

One moment he was watching her, his eyes hanging on the flawless quality of her skin in the moonlight, and the next, the next...the hounds were rushing in from the four points, crawling on their bellies to her feet.

To her feet...

Agony and wrath...

He leapt on her, knocking her to the ground, the wooden stake driving towards her chest before a blinding tonne of fur smashed in to him, his shoulder erupting in agony. Howling, he fought the dog off, regaining his legs only to sway on his feet in shock. His hounds...nurtured for more than half a millennia, were the only creatures on earth he held faith in. He couldn't comprehend that the rancid fangs of one of his own canines had been lodged in his flesh.

And all because of her...

They circled her as she approached him, their bodies slinking low, paying homage. It infuriated him, watching his animals worship her like a queen, even as she walked and talked and looked like one. So beautiful...

"Let me see to your shoulder."

He could drown in her eyes, the dark rings drawing him in, holding him buoyant in a tranquil sea. Grace... She'd plagued him, aroused him, defied him. He'd wanted for nothing for so long, now his desires ran to three simple things: to undo her mind, to fuck her senseless, to end her life.

Nothing could happen with the dogs by her side, with everything once his, now hers. He sent her one hate-filled glance then he ran, disappearing like smoke through the trees.

First his family, then his brothers gone, now the dogs taken from him, their allegiance no longer trusted. He would loathe Grace more if he didn't feel the loss so keenly; the pain in his heart more debilitating than the night he'd found Ariel in Sander's bedroom...

His chest tightened; he recognised the thought for the self-deception it was. He could ponder the dogs but he could not touch on his dead wife -- that was a memory that stayed locked else it drove him mad. He ran faster.

A giant tree loomed in the distance, its leafless limbs reaching to the heavens. Dead for centuries, its root system was deeply ensconced, too secure to topple. Once the entire forest had been filled with monolithic flora, now this lone specimen was the last of its kind.

Not unlike him.

Liam stumbled in to the tree, leaning against the solid trunk, his fists clenching and unclenching, the loneliness of his existence haunting him. His eyes were gritty and he swiped at them with the back of his hand, the prospect of his long, bleak future, stretching before him, a painful tapestry in his mind. How had he come to this sudden, aching vision of isolation?

His mother's expression when he'd told her; her eyes skipping away from him, her blonde fringe falling forward to cover her face... "Do as you must." Her voice -- full of pride -- instilling in him an unrealistic confidence, but later he'd heard her arguing with his father, the urgent fear in her tone. "He is yet twelve, the youngest to ever take trial." She'd begged her husband, "hold him here for awhile longer. He cannot go without your leave." But his father, a cold and distant man nearly thirty years her senior, had backed his son.

Hand in hand behind the line of priests, they'd witnessed him as he walked out into the desert. He had never looked back, never regretted a single step...

"Gods!" The sob ripped from his throat, shocking him, disgusting him. The more he tried to stem the swell of emotion, the more his eyes stung, flashes of his life tumbling through his mind. Ariel in her bonding dress, her smile radiant as she pledged to him... Ariel holding Sander up for his kiss, his son tangling chubby fists in his hair... Ariel changing, her face suddenly long, then sharp, then bloody, every shred of humanity gone...

"No!" He raged. "Not this."

Sander only three years old, his tiny throat shredded. His filicidal wife, his beloved Ariel, with congealed smears over her mouth and chin...

Slumping against the tree, the rough bark pressing in to his naked chest, Liam struggled to recall the prayers that returned self control. His thoughts were fuzzy, drowned in visions of his broken family. What point was there in Keeping the Way when hope was beaten and dead? The teachings eluded him, the words he had known nearly all his life, lodged deep inside, blocked.

The Gods had deserted him.

The last of his formidable guard shattered; his face caving in as he shed the only tears he'd succumbed to in five hundred years.

"My son," he cried, his voice tearing in half the way his heart had done so long ago. "My son." He laid his forehead against the bark and sobbed, deep shuddering breaths racking his lungs, rivulets of salt tracking his cheeks. Lost in despair he didn't hear Grace approach, didn't know she was there until a gentle hand touched his back.

With that soft touch he lost reason, springing to the attack with a vicious war cry.

She grappled with him; her strength superior to his as she forced him down, staking him to the ground with her body. Liam twisted in shock beneath her, his fist coming up to cuff her but she countered in a rush of movement, batting his wrist away before he could blink. She bent over him, her mouth open to speak. He heard the brutal hiss; smelt the acrid stench of smouldering flesh as her collarbone came in contact with his crucifix.

To think he had wished for it, wanted her to change....

Helpless, his mystical strength surpassed, he gave himself up to fate, waiting for his aberrant life to end as he stared up in to her beautiful face, Grace's fine-boned, elegant visage...

His blood froze as her dark-rimmed eyes bled out, scarlet tears sparkling on her lower lashes, her pupils turning black and lifeless as stone, then firing again with a malevolence that made his soul quake. Almost were-like, she bayed at the sky, her canines elongating as she rolled her neck and arched her spine, her sinuous body undulating above him.

Gods help him; the musky smell of her, the downward thrust of her hips, brought his cock to a painful full mast even as his mind recoiled in terror. Liam forgot to prepare his way, forgot to think or utter his last vows as she lunged at him, her razor-sharp teeth snapping at his jugular.

He bucked at the first cut but only his feet jerked; she kept the rest of him immobile, his head arrested in her hands. Staring wide-eyed at the lightening sky, Liam's last thought was that he would never know the colour of the sunrise.

There was a snap and a wrench at his neck, jerking his head sideways. The jolt seemed to lift a veil; his will to live suddenly shining through him like the burning sun. He bolted up beneath her, capturing her with his thighs and knocking her back to the dirt. Stake in hand, his fatal stroke plummeted downwards then faltered.

Grace was deathly still; crystal tears bathed her cheeks, flushing the blood from her eyes. Her fangs had retracted, her lush mouth sensual and innocent as ever. Pushing in to her mind, he sensed nothing but trust and surrender -- she would give herself up to fate just as he had embraced his.

The discovery angered him, confused him, enraged him all over, that a vampire could act in the Way of the White, a lowly woman no less. He pondered a dishonourable death, holding her until the sun came up, then he remembered how easily she'd overpowered him. Resetting the stake at shoulder height, he intoned, "libera te ex inferis," and aimed the killing blow.

Were it not for his obtuse reluctance...his superhuman speed and control... As it was, the sharpened wood slashed across Grace's chest carving a shallow gash as he diverted it to the ground.

Caught between her lips was a length of black chain; the charm he had acquired in the temple dangled from it, the oval gem fluttering against the pulse beneath her jaw. Raising his hand to the identical place on his own neck, his eyes fixed on the charm, the dark fire of the opal in stark relief against Grace's pale skin. Liam searched his skin for tell-tale wounds...and found nothing but a scratch.

Her lips brushed the back of his hand when he lifted the necklace from her mouth, dragging his awareness down below the waist. The throb in his groin was unbearable. Clenching his teeth, he got off her.

"You were after this," he held up the charm. "Why?"

Grace sat up, so smooth and refined. Liam turned away before his trouser seams burst. "That is The Warden," she answered. "Did you not know what you were wearing?"

"A simple thought block," he rebuffed her, ashamed to admit that he knew nothing substantial of The Warden, a trinket he'd had in his possession for five hundred years. "I wear it for protection when I travel," he uttered a complete untruth, enduring the resulting shiver of conscience.

"You do not," Grace snapped. She wasn't dim-witted; she knew he had worn it to keep her out of his thoughts. "If you'd worn it before you would surely be dead. You've survived the burden for a third of a day when most wearers succumb to suicide in the first five handfuls of the clock."

Liam straightened. Had she saved his life?

"The Warden is a prison." Grace got to her feet, brushing the dirt from the back of her skirt, her hands drawing attention to her buttocks, the thought of which promptly dried his throat. "It blocks thoughts, emotions, dreams, abilities, and holds them inside, magnifying the most painful parts. The punishment is two-fold; if the wearer is not driven to despair and suicide, the gem will steal their strength until the heart refuses to beat." She moved closer, holding his forearm with a feather touch, her knowing gaze searching his face. "Your strength will always be greater than mine."

"I could kill you at any given moment," he clarified, exasperating her.

"So you have mentioned, although you've had a sword at my throat and a stake at my heart, and still, here I am!" Her words softened. "The dogs only came to me because you were fading. You haven't lost them, I promise you," she squeezed his arm. "You haven't lost them."

The chain slipped from his fingers, reassurance flooding him, followed by the revelation that she'd reduced his body to nothing but a handprint of skin; the only part of him sparking with life where her fingers rested in open affection.

Grace was an abomination. By law her life was forfeit; but her touch, her words, her serene face and hypnotic eyes... Her essential goodness revealed time and time again... Liam forgot the vows he'd made: the heartfelt decision to never kiss another after Ariel; the laws of proprietary that ruled if he did so choose, it was sacrilegious and criminal to take the lips of a demon.

Bridging the gap between them he crushed her to his chest. At first his mouth rushed to meet hers, but the touch of her quivering lips under his, the realisation of how slight she was, gentled him. He paused, unsure, then she swayed in to him and the last of his reserve melted away. She broke their kiss; rescinding the contact only to renew it again and again. His eyes closed; his mind awash with a profound sense of coming home.