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Dominique didn’t return the smile. “Why me?”
No reaction registered in the face of the ancient blood-drinker whose heart no longer beat. Dominique’s own youngling heart thumped ever faster. After a full minute of this, maybe longer, he burst out, “Answer me, damn you. Why did you do this to me? What do you want from me?”
At last, a single, grudging nod. “A fair question, Nico.”
One Dominique had asked—begged, pleaded, screamed—more often than he cared to recall during his first horrific months as a blood-drinker. There had never been an answer. This time looked to be no different. Though Kambyses appeared at least thoughtful as he turned, slid open a glass door, and walked outside.
Dominique debated leaving while he still could—if he still could. This was pointless—always had been—and yet the promise of answers loomed larger than ever.
Biting back a curse, he followed his sire onto the balcony terrace overlooking the manicured grounds and driveway. Starlight glittered on the churning sea beyond. Kambyses stood at the balustrade, looking out, a still figure made of night. Dominique stopped several steps behind him and unclenched his jaw long enough to say, “Do you think you might grant me an answer tonight?”
“The answer lies in your name,” Kambyses said with a sigh. “Dominique. It suits you well.”
Baffled, it took him a second to recall the meaning of his Christian name and make the connection. Then he scoffed. “You are not the ‘lord’ my parents intended for me to ‘belong to.’”
“You are so young. Not even in your third decade,” Kambyses continued as if Dominique hadn’t spoken. “Can you fathom twice that much time? Or a century? Can you imagine existing for two?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Or ten?”
Dominique said nothing. This was the most this man had ever said to him—the most human he had ever appeared—and his words drew him into a world he had barely glimpsed. The world of the ancients. A world where time had no meaning.
Kambyses faced the sea again. “Empires rise and fall in moments. All the world’s creatures are born, live, and die in seconds. Like mist.” He made a flicking gesture with the fingers of one hand. “I lose myself in thought and a year passes.” There was a long pause before he added in a whisper, “I drop into the sea and a hundred have gone.”
Horrified fascination held Dominique riveted.
“Can you imagine a thousand years?” The words were just a breath. “Or five?”
He stifled a shudder at the sudden chill worming in his gut. He knew Kambyses measured his age in millennia, but this was far more than he ever imagined—or could imagine.
“There is no history I have not witnessed. There is no horror and no joy I have not tasted or caused. I am the only constant in a world of eternal change. Not even my children are immune. They perish at the hands of time, at the hands of mortals. Sometimes at the hands of their brothers and sisters.”
“And sometimes they’re made and pitted against each other by an ancient madman who no longer cares that he is toying with lives.” It was a gamble to confront the ancient madman in question like this, but not much of one. He had done it before and never received a response, much less gotten killed for it.
Kambyses turned to regard Dominique’s stance, his leathers, his weapons—the same blades with which he had slaughtered the younglings Kambyses had set against him in pointless battles. “They were not worthy. You are. You are the one.”
Foreboding knocked at the back of Dominique’s skull. Along with…excitement. “The one…what?”
Kambyses moved closer, soundless as a ghost. “I suspected it the night you left. The longer I couldn’t find you, the more I hoped it might be so.” He stopped barely an arm’s length away, his hawk eyes bright with madness. “But I knew it for certain the night I felt your blade pass through one of my own.”
A knot formed in Dominique’s throat. The ancient Roman he had killed only this past summer, against all conceivable odds. The one who had threatened Cassidy. Even then, he suspected a connection between Aurelius and Kambyses and feared the consequences of his actions. There would be a price to pay. Apparently, he would pay it now. He didn’t dare move.
“Aurelius was my companion for an eon, and one of the strongest. To vanquish him required great cleverness. And the strength of character and resourcefulness of one who is worthy.” Kambyses’s tone grew hushed. “You are that one, Nico. The clever one. You, Dominique, are my chosen one.”
Every instinct told him to run. Every sense told him it was too late. “For what?”
“To be mine. Completely.”
Growling, Dominique backed up several paces. “No.”
“I can convince you.”
“Compel me, you mean. Yes, that is what it will take to bind me to you.”
“You know I never have. You will remain with me as you did before: by choice.”
“Choice? My choice is to never have known you.” His lips curled into a sneer. “My choice is to be rid of you for good.”
Kambyses did something that startled Dominique as nothing else could have. He laughed. Amusement smoothed his rough-hewn face. “You will never be rid of me any more than you can be rid of yourself. I am part of you. Don’t you feel that in your heart?”
“Only the worst part, yes,” he replied with less heat than he intended. He was unaccountably disarmed by this connection, however uncomfortable, with this eternal being.
