Rebels [Blood Magic, Book 4]

Chapter 23: The Gift

Maps and meetings and magic. Magic and meetings and maps. Each day was the same, only the configuration of the hours changed. As the days became weeks and the date of the operation drew nearer, the restless dead continued to reveal more of League headquarters to us. Some ghosts even introduced us to friends; other spirits who held vendettas against the sorcerers long into their afterlives and saw this as a chance for vengeance or justice. As they spoke through Lucia, we listened - their enrapt living audience - and I came to realize that the two concepts were often jumbled up in the pain of lives cut short. I wasn't sure we could do anything to bring them peace, but I wanted to try.

It wasn't just the ghosts I was growing more comfortable with. I got to know the infiltration team very well - even the final three recruits, who were added roughly a week after I began attending operational meetings. Tyler, Deshaun, and Nicola were in their twenties, bridging the age gap between the sorcerers and weres and us. They were to be the muscle to our magic. Something we were sorely lacking without Bruce. Each had a specialty: Tyler was melee weapons and hand-to-hand combat; Deshaun knew firearms, but he also wasn't bad in a fistfight; and Nicola excelled at stealth, explosives, and traps. When we hit the ground at League Headquarters, they'd be the ones carrying the human armaments and would deploy them if necessary. They were perfect additions in that they had no interest in fae magic; they had their own tools, preferring them to anything we had to offer. I found myself drawn to the trio from the get-go and always jumped at the opportunity to hang with them when they suggested Keel and I join them in the church's makeshift gym to blow off steam. None of them ever held back when they sparred. Ever important as I learned to fight through the residual shoulder pain, because our enemies wouldn't pull their punches either.

"Hey, hang back a moment, will you?" Tyler said, cornering me after one of these impromptu workouts.

I waited as everyone filed out of the room around us. Once they were gone, Tyler closed the door.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," he said. Sweat had turned his royal blue Adidas tank top nearly black in places. I'm sure I didn't look - or smell - any better.

"Sure," I said, tying my sweaty T-shirt into a knot beneath my bra and letting the night air from the cracked window cool my bare stomach. I couldn't wait to hit the showers. Fifteen long, luxurious minutes beneath the jets was just what the aching muscles called for. Then a little Rub A535 for the bum shoulder.

"I'm sure you've noticed that I'm not like the rest of you." Tyler ran his hand through his close-cropped blond hair. Is he nervous?

I nodded, having no idea where he was going with this. But he was different. Unlike Deshaun and Nicola who were sent to the church by the weres, Tyler was human. A rarity among our flock.

"There's something I need to talk to you about." His hand was in his hair again and he was no longer meeting my eyes. Instead, he stared past me at the empty fitness space. I tuned into my Nosferatu senses and heard his heart galloping in his chest.

I reached out and put my hand on his arm. He flinched a little but didn't pull away. "Whatever it is, Tyler-"

"Santos brought me here for your father." It came out in a rush.

I blinked at him. "What?"

He finally dragged his eyes up to meet mine. There was unease in them, but also hard determination. "Your father requires a bondmate; he'll be at an extreme disadvantage in this initiative without one. Santos brought me here to take on that role."

"And my father?" I asked, unsure why this was any of my business. I suppose it was nice to be informed, but...

"He was thankful for the gift."

"Gift?"

"I'm a human who knows of the supernatural world, a sought-after thing for a sorcerer in need. As you know, mundane folk who stumble upon monsters or magic have one of two fates: death or a life of servitude. Unlike many, I was given a choice, and I chose the latter. The Breens housed and trained me, perhaps preparing me to bond with one of their own, but now I'm being offered up to a greater service."

I stared at him. There were more than two choices. My mother was proof of that. "You're being forced to do this?" I asked.

Tyler shook his head. "It is my path."

"Then why pull me aside?"

He'd stopped looking at me again. "Because a bond can only be formed when a person is on the brink of death, and there is always an inherent risk in this. Risk we cannot afford. As such, I've come to ask permission to seek your husband's assistance in this endeavour."

"What?" I said again. There was no part of this discussion that wasn't head-spinning.

"Ugh, I just knew I was going to make a mess of this," he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I'm good at fighting, not so much at talking."

"It's okay," I told him.

"What I'm trying to say is that Nosferatu compounds succeed in part because they are able to keep their human..." he paused, searching for a word, "stock alive. I'm told they can sense when a person is nearing death."

"They can."

"If that's the case, I'd prefer Keel to do the draining, rather than the traditional ceremonial dagger."

I stared at him, still unable to connect all the dots. "But why ask me?"

He didn't seem to hear me.

"And given that there are hungry vampires beneath this roof it seems wrong to waste blood," he went on, as if now that he'd started talking, he was on autopilot.

"Also true, but why are you asking me, Tyler?"

He leaned back against the wall, looking exhausted. "Ephraim won't ask Keel himself, and I'm not to approach him until you've granted me permission. Bonding, when it's not done in reaction to an accident or tragedy, tends to be a private, sorcerer affair. I think your father feels it's uncouth for me to want to involve a Nosferatu, and to be honest, I think he's hoping I'll give up and accept the blade. But..."

"You want to make sure no mistakes are made."

"Something like that."

I wasn't sure if I should try to get more specifics - this conversation was already awkward enough - so I just stared at Tyler's trainers and picked at a frayed thread that was protruding from the knot in my T-shirt. "Aren't you afraid to be bitten by a vampire?"

"Are you?"

I raised my eyes to meet his; they were blue. Beautiful and soulful and deep as an ocean. If he bonded with my father they'd change as Bruce's had. "I was."

"Would you think I was chickenshit if I admitted that I was more scared of having my wrist sliced with a ceremonial blade?"

"Not chickenshit, but maybe weird."

"Do you think Keel would do it?" There was a pushiness to his question, a quiet desperation I'd hear in his heartbeat if I was still listening.

"I don't know."

"Will you ask him?"

I gave Tyler a long, hard look. He couldn't be more than twenty-three or twenty-four. He'd been raised for this, but my brain still put a picture of him mortally wounded in my head. This mission to League Headquarters was the most dangerous thing we'd undertaken yet, and what if he bonded with my father only to die during the operation? What would that do to Dad? Yet, at the same time, Tyler was right, taking on a mission such as this unbonded was equally hazardous.

"No, I won't ask him," I said. When disappointment blossomed on his face, I quickly added: "But you will. Come up to our room in an hour."

Tyler still looked unsure, like maybe he shouldn't have brought it up at all. Something my father was probably counting on.

"Hey. Keel's not going to turn down a free meal, even if he thinks it's weird."

What I didn't have the heart to tell him, not then anyway, was this was far from the weirdest thing we'd ever done. And if he joined forces with us in this incredibly intimate way, it likely wouldn't be the weirdest thing he'd ever done for long either.