Bound by Flames

He glanced at me next, his stare no less hard, but the emotions that spilled over mine when he dropped his shields were wave after wave of raw, unadulterated love.

“She is my family and my country now, so there is nothing I won’t do for her, including healing a man who keeps failing her. You’re angry that I gave you blood, strengthening you and repairing the damage you’d suffered from a previous battle?” His tone became matter-of-fact. “You should have begged me to, just like hundreds of years ago, I begged someone far more frightening than me to do the same.”

Once he finished speaking, he held out his arm to me. I stared at it, my emotions in a maelstrom. Part of me was upset at Vlad for his complete disregard of my father’s wishes. Even if my dad was wrong, he was a grown man who was entitled to be. The other part of me—vampire? survivalist?—agreed with what he’d done. My dad was letting stubbornness dictate his actions, and in a war where both his daughters could become collateral damage, he shouldn’t. Vlad had made sure that Dad’s health or former injury wouldn’t be a weakness our enemies could exploit, and a career military man like my father would know that they would, if he stopped being so angry about his circumstances.

So, after only a second’s hesitation, I took Vlad’s arm. Like I’d told my father earlier, we were a package deal now, which meant whatever issues we had would be worked out together.

Samir coughed to get our attention as he came over to us, Petre and the other crash survivors behind him. “I’ve been here before, so I can show you where to go to get cleaned up.”

“Great,” Gretchen said, tearing her gaze away from Dad’s newly healed knee at last. “I need a shower like I’ve never needed one before.”

We’d lost all our spell ingredients in the plane crash, so our plan to make magical versions of grenades was put on hold. Instead, Vlad took me with him to get what we needed for the “cure,” which I now referred to as the spell-detector test.

“Maybe I should stay with my family, see if Dad can be reasoned with,” I’d suggested.

“Not a chance,” had been his reply. “If the spell on you reactivates, you’ll slaughter them and yourself. Only I am strong enough to stop you, so we stay together.”

Selfishly, I preferred that anyway. The fastest way to travel was to have him fly us, and with the cover of darkness, it was the least conspicuous, too. Still, it took the remainder of the night to get everything we needed. The last thing I saw before passing out in Vlad’s arms was light breaking over the mountains behind the hotel, the lake reflecting the image as though I were seeing double.

The next thing I saw was Gretchen, peering at me curiously from her crouched position a few feet away.

“If she bites you, it’s your own fault,” Samir said in an exasperated tone. “You should never get that close to a new vampire who’s just waking up.”

“’S going on?” I mumbled, looking around. I was in a small, windowless room that I recognized as a vampire holding cell. My hands were manacled together, but my right hand was also covered in about a foot of rubber, which had been taped onto it like a cartoon-sized boxing glove.

“Where’s Vlad?” I asked, coming fully awake at the realization that only Gretchen and Samir were with me.

“Sleeping,” Samir said, shaking his head. “Had to force him to, but he can’t keep running on hate and blood alone. That’s why you’re trussed up like this. He keeps burning your skin off while you sleep, which seems to keep the spell at bay, but if it kicks in again, he’d hear you by the time you worked yourself free to hurt yourself.”

“You look dead when you sleep,” Gretchen added, as if I’d ever want to know that. “It’s kind of freaky.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, sitting up. As soon as I was vertical, Samir shoved a covered thermos at me.

“Courtesy of one of the tourists at the next hotel, not that he remembers,” he said, smiling.

The blood was no longer warm, but I drank it to the last drop, my glare daring Gretchen to comment. She didn’t, just watched with her mouth curled in repugnance. Right. As if this was grosser than how she always ordered her steaks cooked rare.

“I’d totally do the vampire thing if I could skip the drinking blood part,” she stated when I was done.

Samir let out a strangled noise, as if he’d almost swallowed his tongue. The former Janissary who’d so impressed Vlad with his fighting skills that Vlad had made Samir part of his line, even when Vlad had hated “Turks,” apparently couldn’t handle the thought of Gretchen as a vampire. Guess there were some things that were too frightening even for a five-hundred-year-old vampire who’d captained the Sultan’s guard as well as Vlad the Impaler’s.

“We have to drink it all the time,” Samir said, emphasizing those last three words. “Sometimes, buckets and buckets of it.”

I stifled my laugh at the look on Gretchen’s face. She’d deserved that fallacy.

“Since I’m awake and not suffering from any homicidal impulses, can I get out of these?” I asked, rattling my chains.

Samir glanced up at the ceiling. “Five hours, that’s a decent rest,” he said, almost to himself.

“Vlad’s only slept five hours?” I winced. “Never mind. I’ll stay down here like this.”

Samir went over to the corner of the room, pressing numbers into a keypad. “It’s dusk, so he might be awake now anyway. I’ll check. If he is, there’s no need for you to stay down here.”