Blood Rider

Lee crouched by the wall. The invisible wall that separated her from her prey. She held herself in stillness and waited patiently. She watched her prey.

“You’re freaking me out, Lee,” the wolf-kin said. The heat of the wolf-kin essence brushed on her skin. The sweet, heady scent of her blood called to her. She wanted to rip into that through, grip on and fucking bleed her. She was so empty.

Her muscles were taut and coiled with pain. She panted in short shallow breaths. On the table lay a bleeding man, the copper tang of his blood filled the room. A circle of it was painted on the floor around him. Lee licked her lips. She swallowed slowly.

She looked past the wolf-kin, to the witch. The witch sat in a trance state. Also out of reach.

Across the room, there were three chairs occupied by three humans. Two wizards with strong blood. The third, a Changed woman, whose scent was alluring. She wore a gilded robe of blue, with a fur-lined cloak. Her hair was dyed a rich red and her face carefully done in layers of face paint to mask the signs of ageing.

It hurt so badly. The gnawing pain. She was so thirsty and yet trapped. Trapped and mocked by the fresh bodies around her. When one of the wizards began an incantation, Lee felt the crackle of ley line magic fill the room. The wolf-kin growled, low and deep.

“Lee, you can do it. I know you don’t want to kill me, but you will if you fail. I know you don’t want Justina to die. Turn this against them. Please, Lee, you have to focus.”

The wall disappeared with a crack. Lee stood up, held herself still and then slid out of the cell. Keeping her eyes on the other two captives and her audience she began to circle the room. She snarled at the wizard as she passed. Walls around her. Locked in. Caged. She hated being caged. She remembered all about cages. Cages, lies and traitors.

Her eyes locked on the man on the table. He was awake now. He moaned and feebly pulled at restraints. Lee smiled thinly and circled around him slowly. She flared her nostrils and took a deep breath in, tasting the scent of his blood. Vampiric blood and Changed blood. When Lee stepped up to the circle of blood the wolf-kin yelled something out. She stepped over it and felt the pop in the air as a spell circle closed around her. That didn’t interest her so much as the blood, as the feeding, as the overpowering need.

“Say it,” one wizard said. “She needs to be able to turn. Say it now.”

“You are welcome in my house, Lee,” the other wizard said.

Threshold dropped around her.

The man was laid out like a feast, legs and arms spread out. She went for the jugular. She grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head to the side and holding it still with a firm grip. She swooped in and with a guttural sound of pure satisfaction, she ripped into his neck. He made a choked sound of pain until the drugs hit him. Lee gulped down the blood, her body quivering with the influx of energy. The euphoria hit her hard and she whirled with it.

She wouldn’t have stopped, expect the image of Lucien draining her mother dry invaded her mind, snapping her out of the bloodlust. She shivered and pulled back, stared down at Will and knew he was dying.

Lee closed her eyes for a moment; a wrenching sorrow staggered her for a moment. She hated what she was going to be forced to do. Drake was right, there was no way she couldn’t re-Sire William with her blood. Re-Siring using took place if someone refused to be part of someone’s bloodline or clan he could go to another clan and offer himself to their Master and ask to be re-Sired. If he died the horde would be out of everyone’s control until Drake fixed it. And he would die from being drained to death because as a fledgling he didn’t have the power in reserve to survive that. Certainly, right now he didn’t. All that death and for no benefit. If she didn’t do it someone else would. With a snarl, she ripped into her wrist and held it to William’s mouth. “Drink.”

He latched his teeth into her and took back some of what she had taken and some of her richer blood. As soon as he began to tug at her wrist and swallow Lee felt him. Felt him deep within her and something in her responded. A deep primal part of her surged outward. She felt the bond between them snap. She felt his demon respond, grasp onto her, as her essence grabbed onto it. “Mine,” she whispered. “You’re mine.”

Through that link flooded all the others linked to Will and she took them all. She felt every one of them and the pull she felt was so strong, it was almost a natural unfolding in her. The link to the Nevernever wasn’t like what she thought. It was within her and opened wide to them. Every spawn drank from the energy that flowed from her into them, and they all turned, completely and utterly into her fledglings. She felt the power flood into their demons, felt their demons sink properly into their hosts and felt the conversion begin. She staggered a bit from the power of it and then she smiled. These were hers. No one else’s. No one would take away what was hers.

“Can you hear me?” Drake asked.

Lee slanted him a look and smiled.

“I command you to speak,” Richard said. “Come here now, Lee.”

Lee felt this fleeting tug at her mind. A slight urge to listen to him. A slight pull. Made her skin tingle a little.

“I hate cages,” she said finally, softly. “Hate them. You know that Drake. How dare you cage me.”

She felt Jak through her openness to the Nevernever. He was enraged and now coming towards her rapidly. She felt him within her mind. He was more real than her spectators. His emotions more vibrant and calling to her.

Lee looked over to Richard and his queen and she laughed. She pulled her wrist from William, but she didn’t close that vortex of Nevernever within herself. She didn’t know how to get into it through. How to move through it.

“Look at me,” Richard demanded.

Lee looked at him, feeling a sharper tug. She snarled. He wanted to control her and her fledglings.

-Lee?-

Lee jolted. The mental voice wasn’t Charlie.

-Follow me, Lee. Come to me.-

Justina?

-Who did you think it was? God? How many voices do you hear? I’m in the Nevernever and you’re an open gateway to it. Follow me and I will bring you across.-

“Lee! Snap out of it and come here,” Richard demanded.

Lee smiled cruelly at her audience. They thought they had all the power. First with Threshold and then this ring of control. What sort of power would they have if she brought them across too? She reached out to Justina, feeling where she was, listening as Justina told her to reach out to her and instructing how to make the crossing. It felt right. The Nevernever called to her.

She pulled the space around her, the world, into it. The Nevernever unfolded around her and all the humans within the room. The world warped and twisted, and became a surreal outline to the world overriding it, a world of darkness, endless deserted land with black spires rising in the distance and ethereal smoke rising from the ground.

“What have you done!” Richard yelled.

Lee smiled. “No smile on you now.”

“She pulled you all into the Nevernever,” Justina said, walking up to Lee. “I must say that was a bit unexpected. She is pure born though. She is part of the Nevernever.”

Lee saw a vampire appear out of the twisted nether. It looked like her, but more demonic. It was her, but more demonic. Her lithe, pale form making her look primal and pure at once. Her eyes as black as pitch, her ears pointed and magnificent black wings spread out. Beautiful. Powerful. “Hey,” Lee said. “Nice, ah, wings.”

“Hey, Sunshine,” Charlie replied with a feral grin.

“Fuck me,” Richard said. “What is this?”

Lee laughed. Richard didn’t know the details of Lee’s madness. At least Drake had not spilled that. “That’s me. My better half.”

“Come here, darling,” Charlie beckoned.

Charlie walked slowly past the stunned humans and grinned at Tia. “Tia. So nice to see you out of my eyes.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tia said, her bulging aura the equivalent of having her hackles raised.

Charlie stood in front of Lee. Lee shrugged. “How do you suppose we go about this?”

Charlie stepped closer. “A bite for a bite.”

They embraced and then bit into each other’s shoulder. A nip really. A sip. And Charlie was just gone. Lee stretched and flexed. She cracked her neck and eased her shoulders up and down. “That feels so fucking good.”

It felt good. It felt right. She felt power and hunger and rage.

“Oh, fuck, the bitch is back,” Tia said.

Lee glanced at her, seeing more of her, smelling more of her, tasting her and then disregarding her. She felt so much fuller. Her aura pulsed along the landscape. She stretched her wings out and laughed.

Just then Jak appeared out of the Nevernever haze. His form also in his demonic form. Their eyes met and Lee knew this man was hers. There was no doubt. He just was. The world pulsed around him, flexing with him. She held up a hand to stop him from coming closer and was no surprised when the ether of the Nevernever pulsed at her gesture. She needed to get her shit straightened out, without her mate interfering.

“You will do as I command,” the Changed queen said, twisting the thin ring of silver on her hand. Lee could feel the tug of energy flowing from her into Drake and then threaded out to at least a dozen others including the queen and Richard. She felt them almost as clearly as she now felt her fledglings.

Lee grinned. “Do as I say, not as I do,” she taunted. “This is the Nevernever. What human spell do you think exists that affects this reality? Justina has a great deal more power here than Drake and Richard. Fuck, why do you think I pulled you into it? I can leave you here. See how long you survive in this landscape.”

“Lee,” Jak said.

“I know, it’s so disappointing. You come roaring to the rescue and I have things under control. You will stop killing my fledglings now.”

“The spawn have retreated to this estate,” he said. “To the physical one, anyway. What is left of them. Your hold on them isn’t yet solid and we’re not sure they are made proper this time. They should be eradicated.”

Lee pointed at him. “You will not touch them. They are mine.”

Jak smiled slowly, but broadly. “Then they are yours.”

“They are mine,” the human queen said.

“Well, you did give them to me,” Lee said, grinning widely. “You cannot fault me for taking them.”

“They are volunteers from my citizens, vampire. They are my people in life and in death. I’ll not have them taken into the Clans.”

“Who said I was taking them into the Clans?” Lee asked, ignoring the hiss of surprise from her mate. “Funny how it is fearing the clanless will begin their own line. I’m pure born, that is what I was born for. It is my right. Jakin may want me as his consort, taken fully into his Clan, but that does nothing for me. I will protect my own. You gave me them, like a finely wrapped gift, a whole line of Changed to be linked to me. In moments I am the Sire of a line. Isn’t that a fucking trip?”

Tia stepped behind Lee, into her personal space, as wolf-kin tended to do when offering support. “I’m laughing, Lee. It is hilarious.”

Lee nodded. “It really, really is.”

“I will not allow a line to be outside the Clans. You belong with us,” Jak said.

Lee shrugged. “I’m Council born and bred. Not Clan. So I know a lot about balance of power. I just solved the horde problem, but now they are bonded to me, Jak, and I will not let them go. This queen, this woman who fears death so, is right. All I have turned were her people, living as Changed in the world of the Chosen. They do not belong to the Clans or the humans. They belong to me and I will decide how they live.”

“What are you saying?” Drake asked, since everyone seemed to be shocked into silence. Or rapidly considering their options.

“It means she is refusing Clan protection,” Jak said, but he said it more with amusement than anything.

“And taking Chosen protection,” Justina added. The twinkle in the witch’s eyes likely was smothered mirth.

“Not exactly,” Lee said. “This queen and I are going to bargain. A devils bargain, if you will.”

“What does the contract involve?” the queen asked. This wasn’t a human who cowered in fear. Having taken away her ability to control the spell link she was likely quite open to negotiations.

Lee grinned. “You’ll like it, I promise. You will keep your army of vampires. They will protect you and yours from the wrath of the Council and Clans. I will permit Drake to leach off of me and grant you life essence through the link. I will allow you to use the spell to call me to you when needed. I will follow the rules you set down for my fledglings to live this side of the river.”

“And in return?”

“Very little really. Just autonomy. I rule the vampires this side of the river. Completely. I decide when and if they do something on your behalf. Drake will be our go between. We are permitted to feed on any people we capture for your justice, but I will regulate our feeding habits. We can negotiate this. I know a place we can feed for a price.”

“If I do not agree?”

“I will leave you here. I know of the escort you have with you now. Of your standing army and ambitions in the north. I know you think you would be able to take me down if I release you from this prison. My fledglings are here even as we speak. It would be a bloody battle for sure. But if you decline the contract and we avoid that battle, then the spell will be shattered and all the perks with it. I will take all the turned with me to the south side. Clan and Council justice will fall on you and yours. If you take this, then we have a balance again. You will have the power to negotiate again.”

“You will assist me in my northern campaign?”

“I do not see why not. I like your cause and plan of action. The Council and I are parting ways.”

“Then I agree to the terms. I will arrange a meeting with you to set down the details.”

“Excellent.” All Lee had ever wanted, her and Charlie both, was not to be controlled by others. In such a world they lived in it was a useless dream. Now that she had power, all she desired was to be free from the desires of others.

She didn’t release the Nevernever, but rather blocked it flowing through her, until it faded and reality became firm once again.

“I will hold you to it,” Lee said.

Jak faded from visual sight but she still felt his presence in the air and knew she would be having words with him shortly.