Bound by Flames

Vlad pulled out his cell phone, dialing. “Mencheres,” he said moments later. “I need the ingredients for your cure.”

Chapter 32

We’d crashed in Slovenia, but we didn’t go to Vlad’s house there. No surprise, he no longer trusted whoever might be waiting for him. We trusted Samir and Petre because they’d tried to save the plane, which meant that they weren’t spelled, and the two surviving men from the homeless shelter were human, so the necromancer wouldn’t bother with them.

Instead, we went to Lake Misurina, in Italy. On the outside, the small hotel Vlad pulled up to struck me as a formerly grand structure that time and progress had left behind. It also had a supremely gothic feel, with mountains that towered like dark giants behind it, while the lake in front reflected the hotel and backdrop as if it were a huge, glassy mirror.

Inside, the hotel appeared spotless and renovated with all the latest amenities. It also wasn’t occupied, which became obvious when Vlad walked us right past the empty reception desk.

“Is this place empty?” I asked, my voice echoing off the high ceilings in the grand entryway.

“Most of the time,” he replied. “This is a safe house for members of my line, so it’s kept up by locals, but they don’t remember why it hasn’t been reopened as a business.”

“Whatever, please tell me there’s a hospital nearby,” Gretchen said, helping our dad keep his balance since his cane had blown up with the plane. “He needs a doctor.”

I also didn’t like the grayish tone to my father’s skin, but his heartbeat had been steady the entire way here, which consisted of driving and flying via Vlad Air. That might have given my father another heart attack, if Vlad hadn’t mesmerized him beforehand into thinking that we drove the whole way.

“I’m fine,” my father gritted out. “I just need to lie down for a little while.”

“No doctors,” Vlad stated. “We can’t have our presence exposed to more people than absolutely necessary. Besides, what I have will heal you faster and more thoroughly.”

At that, my father whitened. “I will not drink your blood.”

“And I will not let you die after I soiled my mouth with yours breathing air into your lungs,” Vlad replied at once. “Leila loves you and she’s been through enough without dealing with the loss of her father, so you don’t get to refuse, Hugh.”

I didn’t know which appeared to shock my dad more: discovering that Vlad had given him mouth-to-mouth, or hearing that he had no choice about drinking Vlad’s blood. I was still very concerned about my dad’s health, but I didn’t want him to be forced to do something against his will. Maybe if I talked to him, he’d see that this was his best choice, and it could be my blood instead of Vlad’s, too.

“Dad, I think you should—”

“Open wide,” Vlad interrupted, then slashed his wrist with a fang and clapped it over my father’s mouth.

My dad’s eyes bugged, but with Vlad gripping him from behind, he couldn’t dislodge the red-smeared wrist from his open mouth. He could only attempt to kick Vlad in silent, furious protest, but with one leg crippled, he was having a hard time doing that, too.

“I’ll get to that next,” Vlad muttered.

I watched this, torn. On one hand, I hated seeing my father manhandled. On the other, this was for his own good and it beat the hell out of seeing him dead, which I briefly had.

“This won’t be a regular occurrence, Dad,” I said, trying to make the best out of a bad situation for him. “When it’s safe, we’ll get you to a doctor and you won’t have to drink vampire blood again.”

“Of course not,” Vlad said, shocking me by dragging my dad down onto the floor next. “At least, not after this.”

With that, his hand crushed my father’s bad knee before I could scream at him to stop. Then he bit his wrist again, willing out such a spurt of blood into my dad’s mouth that it overflowed on both sides. My father coughed and gagged, his shout of anguish cut off by that crimson flow.

Gretchen gasped. “Look!”

I didn’t need to because I hadn’t taken my eyes off my father’s knee. A split second after seeing Vlad crush it into pulp, I realized what he was doing. Months ago, he’d said he could heal my dad’s knee. My father must have remembered that, too, because his disbelief turned to understanding as the bloody, misshapen lump began to knit itself back together.

If Vlad hadn’t crushed it first, the healing properties of vampire blood wouldn’t have caused new bone, tissue, and tendons to replace the old, damaged ones. I didn’t need to see my dad bend his leg in a way that he hadn’t been able to do in years to know that the “irreparable” injury from the roadside bomb that had crippled him was now gone.

Vlad forced him to swallow one final gulp, then he released him, giving him a charming smile as he stood over him.

“If you think this is unforgivable, wait until you see what I’m going to do to my other father-in-law.”

At that, Gretchen finally found her voice. “You’re a bigamist? Leila, did you know this?”

“That wife died over five hundred years ago,” I said, watching my father’s expression to judge if he was going to lose it. “Dad, I know you’re upset . . .”

“Don’t coddle him; if nothing else, he’s a soldier,” Vlad said, drilling my father with a hard stare. “You’ve seen my abilities, yet if the vampire who sired me were still alive today, I would be considered weak compared to him. That’s how powerful he was, and when I first realized it, I was terrified, but I surrendered my humanity to him because it was the best way I could protect my country and my family.”