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Lorien didn’t heal overnight. He did not heal, because in order to heal, Lorien needed to feed from real humans. Not wolves. Humans. He had been quietly starving the whole time they’d been out in the forest. They all knew it, but little could be done about it.
He could go quite some time without feeding if he had to, but the forest had been so much more empty than he’d imagined. His mental image of such places was that they were replete with bulky hunters in obvious high-visibility vests, making easy prey. In truth, none of them had scented a human since they departed the main trails.
“You’re going back,” Henry said, determined. “You need to feed, and you need to heal, and you need to be somewhere you can have a foot of concrete above you to keep the midday sun at bay.”
“Fine,” Lorien croaked. He might have liked to have said more, but speech was too painful. He was also ready to go, though he did not want to admit as much to himself. He wanted to stay with Henry, but there was nothing for him in this world of the exterior. Decades of vampiric existence should have taught him how dependent his kind was on humans, but he’d fallen into the same mental power trap most of his kind did. He’d thought because humans were food, they were lesser, that he didn’t really need them. But he did. And not just their blood, but their constructions, their buildings, their cities, their societies. The outdoors was no place for him.
Before he left, Will had a request. “Could you check in with Maddox? Just see how he is? And then maybe send word?”
Lorien nodded. There was some gratitude between them now, a bond of shared hardship, and Will’s attempt to save him from the sun had not gone unnoticed. He’d once assumed Will would let him die if he could, or even that Will might kill him if he could. The first thing he’d seen after the sun burned him was Will’s concerned and even caring face. Will was becoming a better person. Maybe even a good one.
“I’ll come for you,” Henry told him, embracing him tightly as they waited at the edge of a forest trail. In the distance, the whine of an ATV engine told them his deliverance was near.
“I know,” Lorien said.
In truth, he was in so much pain he almost didn’t care anymore. He just wanted it to stop hurting. Henry couldn’t stop the pain. Henry couldn’t protect him from the weakness of what he was.
Lorien’s transport back to the city was organized by Henry’s phone chain of allied wolves. The first one brought clothing. It smelled like wolf, but it was heavy and it blacked out any exposure to the sun. Soon, Lorien was covered from head to toe, wearing a bandana, dark sunglasses, and a ball cap. He would never have dressed like this if it was not quite literally a matter of life and death. Or death and a more permanent kind of death.
Lorien yearned for the thronging streets, and for the scents of mankind. The food, the body odor, even the faint foulness that could be detected through grates. He was ready to fully immerse himself in the man-ness of man, to be surrounded with food again, and to feel powerful instead of weak.
He did not make conversation on the series of handovers that occurred between the forest and the city. The last one ended him up in a cab, headed toward Maddox’s address. It was his first chance to see the city he had longed for.
Something was wrong in the city. There were hardly any people on the streets, and those that were out and about were wearing masks that covered the lower halves of their faces. He was not returning to the same bustling, lively place he had left.
The driver was shut away in the front, likewise masked and not talking. There was a sickness afoot. He was glad for the excuse to hide his face, and even more relieved that the back of the cab was fully sealed. The temptation to feed on the human driver was intense. He just had to hold on for a few more minutes. He would be home soon, and just as he had many times before, Maddox would make it all better.
10
Maddox sat, brooding in his drawing room. Once this room had been busy with humans working to his orders, maintaining the balance between human law and vampire politics.
The reason for Gideon’s awakening had become terribly clear over the last week. Sickness stalked the streets. People were scared. Precautions were being taken. Maddox had asked his humans to stay away, and now they had no choice. Police patrolled the streets, demanding answers from anybody who might have the nerve to be outside. Darkness reigned in a way it had not for a very long time. Ordinarily, the affairs of men had little impact on vampires, but with the humans being sequestered away, tales of hunger and vampire starvation were beginning to grow. It was a slow disaster that was growing by the day, and Maddox was powerless to do anything about it. He was increasingly powerless to do anything about anything.
Suddenly, the front door of his house opened unbidden. Maddox rose to chastise whoever had been foolish enough to simply walk in. If it was Candy, they were going to have more than words. But it was not Candy. It was some pathetic, burned creature smelling of seared flesh, and…
“Lorien!”
Maddox had not been expecting to see his young ward. Lorien’s appearance made him instantly fear for Will — at least until he saw the younger vampire’s face, bubbled and disfigured.
“What have you…”
“It’s nothing,” Lorien said. “Just a little sunburn.”
He proceeded to prove that it was nothing at all by collapsing at Maddox and Gideon’s feet. Gideon had appeared, of course. The disturbance at the door and Maddox’s emotive response to it had called him.
“One of yours?”
“Fledgling of a friend,” Maddox explained, scooping Lorien up. He had a dangerously pale pallor and was absolutely filthy. There was mud on his clothes, and as Mad lifted him, bits of leaf drifted out of his pockets and coasted lightly down to the floor.
“A friend of the pup?”
“Not a friend,” Maddox said. “More like a reluctant companion.” He decided it was better not to mention that Lorien was also involved with a wolf. Gideon might truly become enraged if he began to think that a trend had been started in his absence.
“He has an elegance about him,” Gideon observed. “Rather pleasing young vampire. I believe I met him in the ruins of the Library. He was afraid then.”
Maddox nodded but said nothing. Gideon’s hunger was always strong when he woke, and not just for blood. He was a lustful, primal creature at the best of times. Lorien would appeal to him, coming as he did pale and broken and vulnerable. He was Gideon’s type, through and through.
“Let me take him,” Gideon said, extending his arms. “I will feed him. Those wounds must be painful.”
