Page 13 of Plug and Tame

Young Nathaniel looked green as he stared at the lifeless pup.

The memory dissolved.

They were back in the pitch-black cave. Kira’s heart was beating rapidly in her chest. Nathaniel pulled away, severing their connection. She wiped her teary face with her forearm.

“That was so much worse than I imagined it would be,” she said with a shaky breath.

Nathaniel didn’t respond straight away, sitting beside her without touching her. “I’ve been waiting a long time to tell you how sorry I am. I should have tried to stop them.”

Kira gave a tearful laugh. “It didn’t seem like you had much of a choice in that situation.”

“There’s always a choice. But…I fear the outcome would have been the same.”

Kira slid her hand up his back. She could feel the striated scars through his shirt.

“Is this when your father did this to you?” she whispered.

“More or less. He punished me a week after the Revolution, once the high of his victory had worn off. The councillors were discussing my…inaction. My father summoned me to the council chambers, where they had a middle-aged wolf tied to a post. He was a surviving member of Bakker’s Royal Guard. My father expected me to kill him. It was meant to be an opportunity for me to redeem myself.”

“And did you?” she said in a hushed tone, stroking his back. “Kill the guard?”

Nathaniel swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“And then?”

“And then my father whipped me.”

Her fingers stilled on Nathaniel’s back. “Why? You did what he asked—”

“He said that redemption does not save me from facing the consequences. And so…” His jaw clenched. “I don’t remember how many lashes. I fell unconscious. When I awoke, I was on the floor, and the room was empty.”

“Oh, Nathaniel.”

“I’ve thought about killing him,” he said quietly, his eyes unfocused. “But I cannot.”

“Because he’s your father?” Kira whispered.

Nathaniel gave a bitter chuckle. “Yes, but not in the way you might think. I cannot kill him without forfeiting my own life. Vampire families are tied together by an ancient magic that lives in our blood. If I killed my own father, I would be defying the sacred bond that binds us together as a family. I would be forever marked as a betrayer of my bloodline, and my soul would be tainted.”

She tensed. “What does that mean, ‘tainted’?”

“My body would become little more than an empty shell, doomed to walk the earth for endless days and nights without purpose. We sometimes call it a ‘living death’, because it’s a fate worse than death. It is likely that I would not recognise you. Most who befall that fate do not even know themselves.”

“That’s…terrible.”

So that’s why he needs me to assassinate Henrikk. He cannot do it himself.

Nathaniel cleared his throat abruptly. “I have one more memory to show you. May I?”

“Does it involve biting me?”

“Oh yes. But it need not be your neck, and I will not drink your blood.”

“So, I’ll have bite marks everywhere? Great.”

But Kira found Nathaniel’s hand in the darkness and placed her hand in his. She braced herself for his bite as he lifted her hand to his mouth.

Sharp pain stung her wrist, his lips grazing her skin for the briefest of moments before drawing back. He kept hold of her hand, their fingers interlaced. As smoke appeared once more, transporting them back to Nathaniel’s memory, Kira was disappointed that his lips did not stay on her wrist to drink.