Blood Roses | #ONC2022 ((ON HOLD))

III

I first met Sabien the night I turned sixteen.

But he didn't allow me to touch him until I was eighteen.

And he didn't claim me until I was twenty-one.

He said he wanted me to settle first, and though it made sense, I knew the real reason why— would I be more human or vampire. Would I live decades or centuries.

Lucky for us, my father's blood was stronger than my human mother's.

It was also the first night I found the blood roses, which now decorated every possible surface of Sabien's manor. Blossoms of white speckled with red, they were the only flower that grew in the endless night. He told me they held a power like mine— irrepressible in the darkest of times, indestructible despite the stress upon them. I personally thought they were beautiful and smelled amazing, so there were no complaints from me either way.

Noone stopped me as I let myself into the manor like I owned it. Close enough, anyway. It had been five years since I started living with Sabien, and though most of his vanguard knew me, there were still the visiting lieutenants who felt it odd to find a human female so comfortable in the presence of the vampires.

No one bothers to correct them anymore, so long as there's no outward disrespect. It only took one incident and word spread through Sabien's clan that his dhampir was off-limits.

I could only imagine what would have happened if Sabien got his hands on the bastard before I did.

Marco, Kayne's partner, nodded to me as I turned the hallway towards the main meeting room.

"Did you leave him to walk?" he asked me with a knowing grin.

"Of course I did," I said with a wink. "You need to teach him to be quieter when he's trying to stalk someone."

"He's never been good with quiet," he offered suggestively as he started walking with me.

"I know," I said as I give him a smirk. "We can hear him all the way on the third floor."

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and we both started laughing.

"I'm happy to see you find your tardiness humorous."

We both looked up to see Sabien in the doorway of the meeting room, leaning against the jamb with his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a black button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tucked into jeans. Ever the casual Vampire Lord, but I knew better.

Marco immediately straightened, any sign of amusement disappearing from his face. I, on the other hand, walked right up to the Vampire Lord of Boston with a smile and leaned up on my tiptoes to give him a gentle kiss, brushing strands of his dark hair from his face.

"Next time you need to listen to me when I tell you I have plans and will arrive when I can."

"That should have been two hours ago," Sabien said with a frown, his black eyes trained on every feature of my face.

"You know how Delia can be."

"I also know how the pack can be."

"Cam would never let anything happen to me."

He cast a glance into the meeting room behind him. I could just make out my friend's alto voice booming over the others. "Maybe if you were here two hours ago."

I cringed slightly. "Is it that bad?"

"Sending Kayne to retrieve you was the best compromise." The Vampire Lord's attention turned to the hallway and the manor behind me. "Where is he, anyway?"

I heard Marco snort beside me and couldn't help but smirk as I closed the distance between me and Sabien. "I'm here now, and I can calm Cam."

Sabien's gaze returned to mine, a gaze that I could get lost in, and have, many many times before. But his brows furrowed and his frown deepened. "This is more than just a boundary dispute, Lil."

"What do you mean?"

Instead of answering me, he nodded to Marco, who remained at the doors as they closed behind us.

"They found a dead wolf," he whispered in my ear as we walked in, his hand pressed to the base of my back as if to keep me moving forward.

"Wolves die all the time," I replied, my voice barely a whisper knowing anyone listening would be able to hear us.

Sabien shook his head. "Not this wolf," he said as we approached the front of the room. "And not like this."

If his hand wasn't at my back I may have crumpled, or turned to run.

But no... he kept me exactly where I needed to be to see the mangled, mutilated, and completely drained corpse of Dagger, Camilla's Second-in-Command, on display for all to see at the front of the meeting room.