Bleeder [Blood Magic, Book 1]

Chapter 28: Daddy Issues

"Come on," I said; when he didn't answer, I tugged on his arm until he yielded and followed me back across the roof. Returning to the van was much trickier than I'd expected; I hadn't planned on having to negotiate the distance in broad daylight while splattered with copious amounts of my own blood. I expended a tiny bit of my remaining energy to make my savaged wrist less raw and angry, but there was no disguising the dry, hardened blood crusting up the entire lower half of my sleeve, turning the once-purple fabric a dark, murky brown.

Somehow, we managed to get back to the parking lot without attracting any of the wrong kind of attention. Once inside the van, Keel changed tees and then ran into the store to get us some more clothes. Meanwhile, I jumped into the front seat, stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. The dashboard clock read 11:32 a.m.; we were due to meet my father in just under a half hour. Hurry, I thought, through the blood bond, and he did. Fifteen minutes later, we were as decent as we were going to get without the benefits of a bathroom and proper running water.

"What do you think he'll be like?" I asked, once we'd stuffed the rest of the clean clothes and leftover supplies into the backpack Keel had bought and started walking towards the Falls lookout point. I was wearing the sunglasses Keel had picked out the day before, worried that if the first thing my father saw were my Nosferatu-infused eyes, it might start us off on the wrong foot.

"Probably just as intimidating as my father."

I'd been so gung-ho to confront the man and make him answer for himself, for all the things I never knew and never had any say in, but now that I was minutes away from getting my chance to do that, my headstrongness was starting to crumble. I could play tough and pretend to not care what he thought about me, but on some level I did. He was still family. The first real family I had ever met.

"What did your father mean back in the loading dock when he was ranting about deals and payment?" I asked, wanting as much information as possible about what had transpired between our parents.

"I can tell you what I know, but obviously it's not the whole story," Keel warned, as we walked along the sidewalk together, just like two ordinary human teenagers taking a stroll on their lunch break – it was something I could definitely get used to. "My father wants nothing more than to walk in daylight. And the deal he made with your father would have allowed him to do it, though that's not the pretense he hired him under. When the truth came out and your father called it off, he was furious. And using you and your blood in anyway necessary to get what he wanted seemed like a just response to him."

"So that's what he meant when he said I was owed to him?"

Keel nodded.

I was still absorbing that, and the turbulent feelings it conjured up, when I felt Keel's hand slip under the back of my shirt. His fingers danced across my lower spine sending some calming energy – and another sprinkling of love – my way. It was a possessive motion, but I leaned into his touch all the same, welcoming its blissful serenity. At this rate I was going to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again until they killed me, but maybe he was worth it.

"It wasn't entirely your father's fault," Keel said. "My father tried to outsmart him; if he'd succeeded, it would have led to war, probably sooner than later. But your father refused to finish the job – and likely saved the lives of thousands with that decision. Even though the contract was misleading, my father still claimed he'd broken the blood oath that's signed whenever any cross-race transaction is entered into."

"But if the contract wasn't legit, why didn't the rest of the sorcerers step in?"

"That's the part of the story I don't know. You'll have to ask your father about that."