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“What haunts you, Blair?”
She shifted in his arms, slowly turning beneath the covers to face him. “How much do you know about my life before Nina found me?”
“Honestly, not that much,” he admitted, reaching out to link his fingers through hers. “I know she found you, took you in, and somehow changed you.”
A line formed between her eyebrows. “I was born into slavery, Kaien. I spent my girlhood, my teenage years, in chains. I watched as my father was sold and my mother’s back broke under the whips of our owners.
She traced her forefinger along the line of her wrist. “I can remember the heaviness of those chains, the way my flesh was always raw beneath them. They pushed us and pushed us until we could go no further, until our feet and our bodies failed us.
“There was an ache to our hunger—worse than even now when I need blood—it was constant, deep.” She searched his eyes, grieving. “What made it worse was that it was a hopeless hunger. I knew no help was coming, and that I’d get only what food would keep me alive and nothing else.
“But it could have been worse. I was one of the few young women that escaped the clutches of the men who sought only carnal interests. The women who’d simply disappeared into the palace—we never heard from them again.”
Kaien squeezed her hand, hating the thought of someone harming Blair—in any way.
His attention shifted to where she’d been injured just days ago. The wound on her abdomen was nearly healed, but it didn’t stop him from gently pressing his healing energy into it to finish the process.
Her sigh of relief was music to his ears, and it took less than a minute for the skin to be blemish free once more. Her murmured ‘thank you’ was said with a smile that warmed him from the inside out.
At his prompt, she continued her story. “Humanity was the collar around my neck and society was its chain. Civilization, what my masters prided themselves on, was utterly despicable to me. Who enslaved others with no chance of freedom? Who beat other humans to within an inch of their life and expected them to work harder while blood caked their battered bodies?”
Her eyes were full of raw pain. “I knew I’d never escape. I’d never bear a child free to roam as they pleased. I’d never live to see grey color my hair.” Her hand gently strummed through the blonde strands, smiling a little. “I still won’t ever see it grey.”
“Do you ever wish my sister hadn’t found you?” Kaien asked.
Blair was silent for a moment. “If Nina hadn’t found me, I most likely would’ve died. The fact that she did—and changed me—I’m more grateful than anything else.”
He frowned. “How did she find you? Nina’s never told me more than bare minimum.”
It was another thing Kaien had trouble reconciling: the fact that Blair had simply shown up and Nina had been quiet about her origins. Now that he knew the truth, perhaps his sister had done it to ensure Blair’s pain would be shielded.
“Someone attacked us,” Blair said in response to his question. “I have no idea who and no idea why, but they didn’t stop with just taking out our masters. They came for the slaves and didn’t take any prisoners. Everyone was screaming, and none of us knew what to do.”
“You couldn’t run?”
“We were too frightened. I didn’t even see the sword that carved through my ribcage.” Blair’s fingers touched a place on her ribs, slowly tracing upward. “All I could do was gasp for breath and watch as the rest of my group was slaughtered. They cheered while we were all dying, then rode away in victory.”
Her grip tightened around his. “No one returned for us. All I could do was close my eyes and pray for the peace and finality of death. It never came for me—but Nina did.”
“I remember her walking into clan lands with you in her arms,” Kaien recalled, the image seared in his memory. “I wondered why she brought a human into immortal territory.” He paused. “Why you were so special.”
“I wasn’t,” she chuckled. “Just the last one alive, I guess. She hummed while she took care of me, washed my wounds, and cleaned the mud from my hair. Then, she licked the blood from her wrists—my blood—and fed me from her vein.”
“Thatonemoment: it changed everything.”
Kaien couldn’t agree more. Vampires were created through the exchange of blood: the sire took blood from the human, modified it inside their own body, then fed it back to the human enriched with the sire’s own. Giving a mortal vampiric blood alone wouldn’t change them. Heal, certainly, but not change.
He knew the rest of the story: Blair had awoken later that night, the second vampire.
In the centuries that followed, the strengths and weaknesses that were inherent to Blair’s acquired nature presented themselves. Dependent on a diet of human blood, Blair craved the liquid frequently to sustain herself. Sunlight caused irreparable harm if she was exposed to it, and she was powerless against sleep during the daylight hours.
After decades together, it became boldly apparent that Blair no longer aged, rather, she’d become immortal like the woman who’d sired her. At first, Blair stayed by Nina’s side, living among her Raeth clan as one of their own. The two became inseparable, the closest of friends and confidants. Though Blair was but decades to Nina’s centuries, they’d formed a bond to which nothing else could compare.
When Blair set out on her own, Kaien had begun psychically checking in on her at regular intervals. He’d never told Nina.
“Nina was the first person I remember who was kind to me.” She grunted a laugh. “Maybe that’s why I hold so tight to her.”
Kaien shook her head. “You’re not the only one. We all do, Blair.”
