Page 29 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

“Well, I have some friends in high places.” Isaac attempted a smile, only for it to fall flat. “Friends who do not agree with our esteemed ruler’s methods. In fact—”

Isaac caught Anton’s eye and tilted his head. The floor was his.

“Isaac does himself little credit,” Anton said, stepping in. “His methods might have been… unwise, but his heart was in the right place. Unblooded should not be used as little more than cattle for the Blood Workers’ greed.”

Celeste nodded. “You’re right about that. What’s your name?”

“My name is unimportant,” Anton said, reaching into his breast pocket to pull out another of those clever pamphlets. “What is important is the name I choose, and the symbol it could become.”

She plucked the pamphlet out of his fingers, turned it over in her hand to see the careful type set across the front page. “Ah, I’ve seen these before.” Glancing towards Isaac, she arched a single eyebrow. “Haven’t gotten into enough trouble, have you?”

“Please, Tita,” he said, pulling out the old honorific, the title his mother had once insisted he use for her. They might not have been related by blood, but she had been his aunt in every way that mattered. “There is so much corruption at the heart of this nation, surely you understand.”

Pulling away, she crossed the room, rubbing at her eyes. Anton stepped forward, but Isaac caught him around the wrist, pulling him to a stop.

This was something that Celeste needed to grapple with herself.

“You know, I never had any children of my own,” Celeste murmured, “but I’ve always considered you to be like a son to me. Especially once your parents passed. But that Academy got its hold on you, promised you—”

“Pretty lies and dreams that never turned out the way that I hoped,” Isaac finished for her. “I was too ambitious. I am too ambitious. And perhaps my first attempt failed, but that doesn’t mean I am going to stop.”

Now, he had learned to be more cunning. To be careful and slow. And most of all, now he was no longer alone. He had Samuel, and maybe Shan, and most surprising of all, the man beside him.

He released his grip on Anton’s wrist, and the man stalked forward. He was so confident, so in his element, as he stood before Celeste.

“But,” Anton said, full of righteousness that took Isaac’s breath away, “change cannot come without everyone’s involvement. Unblooded and Blood Worker alike. If we are going to take down the Eternal King, there needs to be something to take its place.”

“And how do I fit into this grand plan of yours?”

“My friend,” Isaac cut in, “is well connected with the Unblooded, and I have learned the ways of Aeravin’s grand lords. But the Blood Workers, like you, who are little more than cogs in the great machine of our nation—that is what we need help with.”

“You were just like me, once,” Celeste said, kindly.

“And we’re back to my dratted ambition.” Isaac clenched his fist so hard that his nails dug into the meat of his hand. “I rose so high, only to fall again. There is no place for me there anymore, Celeste. You know this. My words will mean nothing to them.”

The look she gave him was so soft, so full of pity, that pain cut through him like a knife. But she only nodded. “You’re right, of course.”

Anton smiled. “We’re going to be expanding past literature, doing what we can to help those who need it. Clinics like yours are important, but so few in this nation, and that is not even touching all the other ways the Unblooded suffer.”

Celeste cocked a brow, slowly appraising. “And what kind of help would that be, exactly?”

Anton grinned, easy and casual. “Well, that kind of thing that could get us in grave trouble with the Guard, should they catch wind. But, according to the laws of the land—” his smile transformed into a smirk “—it’s not illegal for Blood Workers to participate in any of this work.”

“Well, Friend ,” Celeste returned, “it seems that you are a clever one, after all. If it means helping those who get hurt, I can do that. It is what I have spent my life doing, after all. And, perhaps, even steer you towards other like-minded individuals.”

“In that case.” Anton held out his hand, and Celeste grabbed it. “Call me Anton. I hope this is the start of a fruitful partnership.”

“Me too, but now—” she leaned back “—get out so I can treat my patient.”

Anton held his hands up in surrender. “All right, all right. I’ll be in the waiting room, if you need me. Celeste, until next time.”

He backed out of the room with a jaunty little salute, earning a small laugh from Celeste. “He seems like even more of a handful than you, Isaac.”

Isaac shook his head. “You have no idea.”

“I’m sure I will.” She crossed the room to grab a small dagger—it wouldn’t take much blood to build the bridge between them, but the actual work of manipulating his hormones was an incredibly delicate piece of work. “The usual then?”

Isaac swallowed hard. “Yes, but… there are other things going on in my blood, Celeste. Things that I do not fully understand, nor would I expect you to. But… I need this as well.”

She placed her hand on his, stopping him.

“I understand, Isaac, believe me. I understand how important this is, and I will take care of your transition needs again. But, if there are other things you need, please know you can talk to me about them. I might not know the solutions, but I am a Blood Healer.”

“Thank you.” Isaac closed his eyes and held out his arm. “But I might not be entirely human anymore.”

It was barely a whisper, hanging between them.

The word he was too afraid to say, the knowledge he was too terrified to claim.

It was there, even though he refused to look at it—the changes that he had wrought, the hunger that wouldn’t end.

The myths he had discarded as nothing more than nightmares meant to frighten children, coming to nest in his own body. Hatching into something horrid.

Vampire.

The images Shan had shown him still haunted him, somewhere between a dream and nightmare.

Celeste did not judge him, just carrying on with her business.

Isaac had been on the receiving end of this particular work more times than he could count, for all the treatments he had undergone since he hit puberty.

But this felt different, the motherly touch of Celeste’s fingers as she tied a strip of fabric around his upper arm contrasted with the genuine fear at what she would find.

The needle slipped under his skin, so quick and so precise that it barely hurt at all, and they watched his blood pool in the vial, a deep, dark red that almost bordered on black. Celeste pulled in a sharp hiss through her teeth at sight of it, and Isaac ducked his head.

It was worse than he had thought.

Celeste filled only the one, slipping the tourniquet from his flesh as she ran her thumb over the wound, smearing the blood with her thumb before lifting it to her lips. Pausing before it even touched her tongue, Celeste used her other hand to pin his wrist to the table. “Son…”

He didn’t even look down at himself. He had felt it happen, too. The puncture, small as it was, closing itself of its own accord, without even a touch of Blood Working. “I didn’t do it,” he breathed. “Not consciously.”

“Unconscious Blood Working,” Celeste murmured to herself, before taking in that bit of blood. He still didn’t watch her, even as he knew that his blood was odd, but he felt the moment the bridge thrummed to life, binding them together.

Felt her presence brushing against him before recoiling in shock.

There were no secrets here, not bound as they were.

Isaac forced himself to watch the way her finger pressed hard against her lower lip, marring the frown forming as her brows came together in thought.

“Oh, child, what have you done to yourself?”

“Quite a lot, it would seem,” Isaac returned, his voice rough in his own throat.

“It wasn’t so bad, at first, not until—Dunn.

He was a Blood Worker, not Unblooded like the rest, and I wasn’t able to absorb the power from his blood without absorbing his Blood Working as well.

” He wrapped his arms around himself, nails digging into his own skin, agitation coursing through him.

He could still picture it, the sneer on the Eternal King’s face as he was mocked, as he was called an amateur .

But in the end, compared to one who was Eternal, that was all he could ever hope to be.

And now he was facing the consequences of that. But that was not the most important question. “Can it be stopped?” he whispered, hating how breathless with hope he sounded.

“I… don’t know,” Celeste murmured, dropping her head so that she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “You were right, it is Blood Working beyond anything I have ever seen. I do not know why or how, but it is changing you at some fundamental level.”

He heard the question she dared not ask, the curiosity that burned but she was too kind to press.

If he did not wish it, she would let it drop, and he was so thankful that she took her oath as a Blood Healer so seriously.

Patient care and comfort and privacy, things many others just gave lip service to, were things Celeste never pressed.

But he did not want to hide it from her, perhaps the only person left who might have some sort of understanding.

He breathed the word. “Vampire.”

Celeste shrunk back, fear grabbing her. Isaac did not begrudge her in the slightest—had their positions been reversed, he would have responded in much the same way.

But she didn’t question his pronouncement, didn’t deny its possibility, just looked at him with such tenderness and heartbreak that he feared he was going to shatter.

“Please,” he whispered, his voice low and begging, “let’s just continue with the treatment.”

“I’ll get to work then,” she said, pushing past all the strangeness in his blood and his flesh and focusing only on the thing that he had come here for.

He was so thankful for that.