Page 11 of Blood Legacy (Eternal Descent (MistHallow Academy) #1)

11

LUKE

“You can run, but you can’t hide. Not from me, anyway.”

I look up from the paperwork that was a blur in front of me and smile. “Constantine. I wasn’t trying to hide, exactly.”

“Then what?” His dark eyes take in the office with a keen interest. His navy suit is immaculate, as always. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-five even though he is nearly three thousand years old.

“Sire of my sire. What are you doing here?” I sit back and fiddle with the pen.

“Answering with a question,” he says, his indistinct accent like honey over chocolate. “Wonder who taught you that?”

I sigh. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Maybe,” he says slyly.

“You know this is inappropriate. Parallel universes are delicate.”

“Oh, you don’t need to tell me,” he states. “My wife has a terrible habit of fucking with them.”

“Aefre. How is she?”

“Well, thank you for enquiring.” He sits and stares at me in that unnerving way he has. “I find this universe bizarre.”

“Why because you aren’t the high and mighty here?”

“Yes,” he answers with an almost sadistic smile. “I am dead. It is hard to fathom.”

“The rules, the laws, the hierarchy, everything is different. This reality sits on the very edge of what you have witnessed. That’s why I chose to come here.”

“Because I don’t exist as I do in your true reality?”

“Not just you.”

“Lucius is here.”

“I’m aware.” I gesture to the scrying mirror. “Who told him?”

Constantine shrugs elegantly. “Who knows? Can I ask about your counterpart?”

“You mean the Luke Blackthorn who was here when I arrived in this universe?”

He nods once.

“He, by all accounts, is dead.”

“You took his place.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“It was the only way. He, like me, had a twin.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got tangled up in nasty ancient business and found himself delivered to the great beyond.”

Constantine snorts. “Gods and their whims. You have made quite an elaborate life for yourself here with luck on your side.”

“I am better off here.”

“Except…”

“He will come.”

“And how will you react to that?”

“As I always do.”

“With grace and that masterful control that he taught you.”

“That you taught him. Let’s not forget that piece of history, shall we?”

“I make no apologies for my past. Although, my wife thinks I should.”

“Maybe she is right.”

He lets out a genuine laugh, “Oh, dear boy. She is always right.”

“Is that why you’re here? To warn me about Lucius?” I ask, feeling the familiar weight of dread settle in my stomach. I toss the pen down, not bothering to hide my irritation. “I don’t need this right now, Constantine.”

“What you need and what you want are rarely the same thing.” He stands, moving to examine the artefacts displayed along my bookshelves. His fingers hover over a silver dagger.

“What do you want, Constantine? You didn’t cross realities at great cost to yourself for small talk.”

“No,” he admits, “I came to warn you. Lucius isn’t just coming for you. He’s coming for her.”

Ice slides down my spine. “I know.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“He only wants her because he thinks she is my weakness. I can assure you, she is not.”

“It’s not me you have to convince.”

“I shouldn’t have to convince Lucius, either. She is a nobody.”

He smiles. “I wasn’t talking about Lucius.”

I clench my jaw but don’t respond.

“So no one here knows who you really are?”

“They have no need to. My story holds up under scrutiny.”

Constantine gives me a look that speaks volumes, moving away from the shelves to stand by the window. “Does it? Even with her?”

I stand abruptly, my chair scooting back to hit the wall. “There is nothing between Miss Aragon and myself.”

“Perhaps not physically,” he concedes with a knowing smile. “But the bond is forming whether you acknowledge it or not.”

“How do you even know any of this?”

“I have my ways.”

“Spies?”

“Maybe,” he says again in that devious tone that makes me sigh. “Call it protection, Luke.”

“You are protecting me?”

“Someone has to.”

I move to the window beside him, looking out over the moonlit grounds of MistHallow. Students traverse the paths between buildings, oblivious to the dangers that lurk beyond these walls. That lurk within them.

We are two apex predators presiding over an academy full of weaker creatures and yet the restraint we both have in an iron grip stops us from devouring this place whole.

“I’ve taken steps,” I say finally. “He is in this world and is free to roam, as I am. There is no disturbance to the balance. His counterpart doesn’t exist. I made sure of it. I am cloaked, as is MistHallow. He may be here, but he has no idea where I am. If he did, he would’ve darkened my doorway by now. But that still leaves Miss Aragon at his mercy. DuLoc can protect her.”

“Ah, yes. Your brilliant plan to push her into another’s arms.” Constantine’s voice drips with sarcasm. “Tell me, how is that working for you?”

“You wouldn’t understand. Your obsessive nature didn’t get passed down through the vampire genes.”

“Didn’t it?”

I grimace at him. “You are insufferable.”

“I know. It makes life more interesting.”

“For whom?”

“Me, obviously.”

I shake my head, fighting a reluctant smile. “I’ve forgotten how utterly maddening you can be.”

“And I’ve forgotten how stubbornly blind you can be.” Constantine’s expression shifts, becoming serious. “The DuLoc boy cannot protect her from Lucius. You know this.”

“He’s a pureblood from an ancient line?—“

“He’s a child playing at power.” Constantine cuts me off sharply. “Just as she is. Neither of them understands what Lucius is capable of.”

I turn away, unable to argue. I know better than anyone what my sire can do. The memories of centuries under his control flash through my mind—the pain, the humiliation, the breaking and remaking of my will until I became what he wanted.

“What would you have me do?” I ask quietly. “Claim her myself? Make her mine in every way that matters? That would only guarantee Lucius’s interest. He takes everything from me.”

“Everything,” Constantine repeats my word with a knowing look. “Interesting choice of words.”

“A figure of speech,” I snap.

“Is it?” He moves closer, his ancient eyes seeing too much. “You’ve spent fifteen hundred years running from him, Luke. Fifteen hundred years denying yourself any real connection because of what he might do. At what point do you stop letting him control you, even from a distance?”

“When he’s dead.” The words escape like venom. “And we both know that will never happen.” I lay down the challenge, but he doesn’t take it. He is the only one who can stop Lucius.

“The bond that’s forming between you… I can taste it from here. Fighting it will only cause you both pain.”

“I’ve endured worse pain.”

“Yes, but has she?”

The question hangs in the air between us. I think of Gaida’s face when I rejected her in the laundry room, the hurt in her eyes, the defiance in her stance even as I crushed her hopes.

“She’s stronger than she looks,” I say finally.

“All the more reason why she might be worthy of you,” Constantine says. “Don’t dismiss her because you think you have lived too long to be with her, Luke. If I had done that, I would’ve lost the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He vanishes from sight, and I growl. This conversation has only infuriated me more.

I pace the length of my office, Constantine’s words echoing in my mind. The bond. He could sense it. If he could, Lucius certainly will.

My fist connects with the stone wall, cracking it beneath my knuckles. Pain shoots up my arm, a welcome distraction from the turmoil in my head. The break heals instantly, the bones knitting back together with sickening cracks.

Constantine thinks I’m running, that I’m still letting Lucius control me from afar. Perhaps he’s right. For fifteen centuries, every decision I’ve made has been influenced by the spectre of my sire. Where I go, what I do, who I allow myself to care for.

And now Gaida.

The memory of her in that laundry room haunts me. The scent of her desire, the defiance in her eyes, the hurt when I rejected her. The way she called me a coward.

She was right.

I move to my desk and pull open the bottom drawer, removing a small wooden box. The lock responds to my touch, and only my touch, clicking open to reveal a vial of dark liquid. Blood. Lucius’s blood, taken centuries ago when I finally escaped his control. A small insurance policy I’ve never had the means to use before. Now with Dark Magick here at MistHallow, I have the necessary power, I just need to find the right curse to end his life. Even though it will cause me immeasurable pain to get rid of my sire, I know I am finally in a place to get this done.