Chapter Text
A serpent curled around her neck.
Viktor always likened it to the Christian bible story, of the tempter who invited Eve to consume the apple and discover knowledge. It was the most common interpretation and more than once, foolish men—vampires and humans alike, even a lycan once—had attempted to match their apples, their hellfire, their whatever they thought could mirror to what only Selene thought to be an ouroboros. A thin black rope of scales that ate its own tail, representing eternity. She could only hope that her other half wasn’t her complete opposite—that they weren’t fragile and finite.
Vampires turned their soulmates if they found them, a law brought unto them in the early years of their species’ birth. Similarly, lycans propagated their species through the turning of soulmates and children, adopted or otherwise, though Selene was aware that lycans had a higher likelihood of being able to conceive than vampires—after all, you had to be high in the siring chain to benefit from transmission of vampiric attributes. Corruption of bodily functions became less likely the closer you were in the proverbial family tree to an Elder.
It was one of Selene’s greatest fears that her soulmate was mortal…that they’d never be turned in time, if it worked at all. Or worse, that even with a turning, they’d soon be shorn from her life with an ease belying her utter heartbreak.
Kicking a lycan corpse only its back, Kahn grimaced at the slick sheen of blood that now covered his polished boot. ‘Ugh,’ he muttered, wiping it on their tattered coat, barely even glancing at the overly-exaggerated lycan features which, personally, Selene found even more disgusting to look at than usual. ‘Those were designer.’
‘You aren’t concerned that the lycans are letting their rabid run wild?’ she asked, noticing activity in the train car nearest them both. Reluctantly, the Deathdealer reached down to haul the corpse by its shoulder, getting it out of the way of the car door. A good thing, too, as Lady Amelia opened it not a second later. She surveyed the platform, remarkably impassive compared to what Selene imagined would have been Viktor’s reaction to the sight of the dead hunting party at his door.
Watching Kahn straighten as he reported on the successful baiting of the lycan pack, Selene stayed out of the way, considering the…feral, state of the wolves they’d killed that night. Their behaviour had been erratic and it had been remarkably easy to trick them inside the trap. Not one of them had been human before nightfall, either, and none of them had been controlled by any superior lycanthrope.
Another reason to hunt them all down, Selene thought idly, noticing a strange cast to the Lady Amelia’s bare arms. In some places, there seemed to be an almost blue tinge, that if Selene had seen on a mortal would have put down to the cold or even bruising. It took the sound of Kahn’s slowing voice to make her pay attention to the conversation itself, the tempo queuing her into the change.
Lady Amelia was looking directly at her, green eyes bright.
Caught, Selene briefly entertained bowing her head in subservience, but there was curiosity to the Elder’s expression. A challenge. So, Selene kept looking, Kahn’s voice fading into nothingness as a silence took over the platform. No-one wanted to interrupt whatever it was that the Lady Amelia was observing about her.
Eventually her voice curled around the words, ‘Brazen. Not many dare to look, if they know just whom they gaze upon.’ Then she stepped forwards, hips swaying beneath the silken fabrics of her crimson dress, a thousand black crystals glittering underneath the lights. Short white gloves were removed from tan hands, diamonds bracelets clinking almost imperceptibly. Selene straightened where she stood in the shadows, distinctly aware of the state of her uniform and the body to her left.
Amelia pressed her hand to Selene’s collar. The action made her diminutive height even more apparent, as her raised wrist was almost horizontal to her own cheek. Even as Selene’s breath caught in her chest, Amelia tilted her arm, putting the strange tint to her skin in full view.
‘What is it, do you think?’ she asked, almost idly. ‘Ribbons? The sky? Most have more vivid marks, but mine have always been a topic for discussion.’
They were having a conversation about marks. Selene didn’t know whether to flee from what was undoubtedly the grasp of a viper or knowingly lower herself deeper into her grave.
Those fingers crept up over the smooth leather of her jumpsuit to the skin of her neck, nails scraping delicately against the scales of her serpent. If not for the chill of the evening, Selene surely would have missed the faint brush of heat that had her stiffening under the Lady Amelia’s touch.
‘Speak freely, Viktor leánya,’ the Elder said, plainly amused by her reticence, calling her Viktor’s daughter and smiling at her silence. Selene forced her starved lungs to slowly expand, oxygen with it bringing the scent of her perfume, muted to Selene’s vampiric nose but strong enough to lay a film across her tongue. Jasmine, she identified, before finally answering in a flat voice.
‘It looks like bruises.’
Amelia smirked, her nail scraping across her serpent again—a slow drag of heat—before she murmured, ‘Interesting. My council members haven’t managed a hit on me in decades.’
Surprise filled her. ‘You train?’
‘Of course,’ said the Elder, before stepping away with a faint roll of her eyes, dismissing her with a turn of her heel. In seconds, she was calling for her retinue and the limousine, but Selene was left there feeling lost at sea. Even as she watched Amelia disappear into the depths of the automobile with a pleasant smile, she felt the urge to follow, a tether based deep in the spongy matter of her brain stretching in a way that made her serpent burn with the fires of a thousand suns. It was only her training that stopped her from scratching desperately at her own neck.
It’s because of the Lady Amelia, Selene thought in horror. Oh, this was so much worse than a mere mortal.
‘Selene? You alright?’ asked Kahn, brow furrowing as he came up beside her. A grunt dragged the lycan body away from beside her, but Selene’s gaze was glued to the tail-end of Amelia’s limousine. Was it false, or could she feel the elastic tension of their connection stretch and stretch across the many hundreds of yards as it drove further away?
Forcing out the codeword ‘Aristophanes’, Selene was witness to Kahn’s horrified expression before it turned to a face of dread. In seconds he had grabbed her arm, forcing her focus all on him.
‘Snap out of it,’ he ordered her in a hiss, eyes cerulean as they could ever be, pulsing with a supernatural light that made her own hazel fade into cyan in turn. ‘Wait until we’re back in Ördögház. Go, now, and if anyone asks, I sent you ahead on classified business for Amelia’s security.’
Kahn let go of her, jerking his head roughly as Selene came out of it, nodding shakily. She walked over to the car park, more vulnerable than she’s felt in centuries. Her soulmate was an Elder—and despite her fear, Selene had never felt more alive. The tether never became stronger as the minutes flew past, but it did remain just as noticeable, telling her which direction Amelia’s car was taking her as she drove at top speed towards the manor. Selene even managed to arrive before they did, stalking through the lit corridors and avoiding contact with other vampires as she fled to her rooms.
When she shut the door, Selene found it hard to breath. Her head burned and she wondered if this was what it felt like to everyone. If it did, she wondered, spiralling, then why did they speak of their bonds like it was the most important thing in their life? Yes, Selene wanted Amelia in a way she didn’t understand, but this heat wasn’t want itself—no, it was pain. Worse than sunlight, worse than fire…was this where the idea of telepathic torture came from? Her mind spun, even as she felt something digging deep into her brain, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
Kahn found her there, near catatonic on the floor. Selene hadn’t even realised she’d fallen, her muscles screaming at her as he cursed under his breath and dragged her onto the chair in front of her vanity.
‘Half-bonded,’ he muttered grimly, scraped his knife across her palm. She reacted instinctively, hissing in pain and drawing her hand away, the two differing sensations of pain warring for dominance. Kahn’s expression didn’t change. ‘You’re lucky that you’re quiet, usually. You’ll never get close enough to activate her end of the connection.’
‘She fights,’ Selene suggested, which had Kahn twitching.
‘Are you deaf? She said her own guards hadn’t managed to get in a hit in centuries.’ The quartermaster shook his head, taking a small shuriken from his belt. It was smaller than the type Selene preferred, less than two inches across with an empty circle in the centre meant for some kind of explosive or tasing device—but when he pressed it into her bleeding palm, Selene realised the edges were just as sharp as any of her own.
Squeezing, Selene felt the spikes pierce her skin, bringing with it a distraction from the ache in her head. ‘Understood,’ she muttered.
‘Use it,’ Kahn instructed, tone brooking no argument as he stood. ‘I have to go. I’d take you off the roster if it wasn’t suspicious enough that you sped off. Undercover on-duty in ten minutes. Get changed.’
Nodding silently, Selene watched her friend leave, waiting until he was outside to do as she was told. As she showered and changed into one of her more formal dresses, a long navy affair she’d never worn but Erika had gotten tailored for her twenty years previously—because no matter what Kraven thought, she could and did have the ability to wear more than just her leathers—Selene considered that challenge she saw in Amelia’s eyes again. The way that expression had shifted into one of immediate dismissal came after Selene questioned her ability to fight, a not unusual scenario, but one Selene should have known better than to bring up. Amelia was an Elder, after all. She led armies once upon a time—and it was even rumoured that she helped Markus figure out the original vampire transformation.
Selene had been stupid, she realised. Only a little, but a little was enough. Amelia had only ever met Selene through blood memories, when faced with the father-figure she adored above anything, who wanted her trained well and trained hard. Amelia knew Selene was capable—except, when had feats of strength ever been traits women considered in each other as important? Amelia probably thought Selene privileged and naïve, just from that one encounter, and though she seemed the sort to enjoy being proven wrong, it was still a bad first impression. Even disregarding their status of soulmates.
The spiked shuriken was tucked beneath a thick leather band around her wrist, digging into her wrist painfully as she considered herself in the mirror. Two minutes until she was supposed to join the welcoming ball. By now most of the crowd knew to stay away from her when she stood by the walls in shadow, refusing the join the festivities, but with Amelia’s arrival had already come new faces from other covens.
I don’t look like me, she thought. Scowling at the stranger in her reflection, Selene threw off the spindly heels for black boots that were only half-hidden by her silk and gauze skirts. Erika had taken off the sleeves of the dress in the interim between gifting it to Selene and her final decision to wear it, now—there, at least, they agreed. No jacket, she reminded herself, re-strapping her knives around her thighs and a spare gun in the leg of her boot. Amateurs wouldn’t spot them, but anyone who thought her more than just a pretty vampire lurking on the edges was the sort to find them, anyway.
The best—and only—part of her costume that night Selene enjoyed was the choker neckline. It neatly and completely hid her soulmark.
Just thinking about it made the pressure flare, a glance at the clock proving it time to go downstairs. Selene didn’t waste time, too stubborn to let her fear of discovery overwhelm her—but it was only through ignoring the many stares did Selene manage to make it down to stand at Kraven’s side. Viktor’s regent raised an eyebrow at her attire.
‘Deciding to play nice, Selene?’ His eyes roved up and down, the beginning of a smirk forming as he mocked, ‘The killer can look beautiful.’
Selene saw one of Amelia’s court sitting behind them on one of the velvet chaise lounges, chalice of blood in hand. They were blatantly watching, but were ignored automatically because of the colour of their skin, their lip quirking when they saw Selene looking. Selene avoided their gaze, looking to Kraven.
‘I don’t care how I look, but appearances matter, at times,’ she said reluctantly. A waiter offered a tray of glasses and Selene gratefully took one, feeling slightly woozy as the pain in her head flared suddenly, a door on the balcony opening to admit a crowd of people.
Distracted, Kraven looked up, raising his glass to the figure above. ‘To the Lady Amelia! May she be gladly welcomed to Ördögház!’ As the party crowed and whooped, Selene looked upon her soulmate, who leant on the balcony railing like a queen looking over her subjects.
Amelia wore a suit, finely fitted to the shape of her body, but her shirt was unbuttoned low down her chest and made Selene’s stomach flip at the plain expanse of skin underneath golden necklaces and white ruffles. Her soulmark was nowhere in sight.
Raising a hand, Amelia made a speech, but Selene was overwhelmed again and heard naught a word. It took one of Kraven’s friends knocking into her for the shuriken to jab sharply into her wrist, drawing as much blood as it did pain. Immediately, Selene took her usual route to the wall to escape the press of bodies—fortunately, while Kraven simultaneously made for the stairs.
I should have refused Kahn’s order, realised Selene as she walked around the scattered furniture, though the heat wasn’t flaring as it had before. Perhaps the sheer proximity made up for the lack of full bonding-
‘Selene.’
The vampire stopped, looking to the courtier who had been watching Kraven—who now, apparently, was approaching Selene. With dark skin highlighted in golds and greens, there was a certain lack of elegance to the man in front of her, the casualness of his otherwise perfect evening ensemble designed to make people underestimate him. When he raised a hand to take her own for a greeting kiss, Selene could only stiffen as his tongue sought the dribble of blood that had escaped from beneath her cuff.
‘One so dedicated to her career should not mutilate herself so…’ he said, standing closer. Selene’s back was to the wall and with his broad shoulders, she was hidden from the rest of the party as he undid the buckle of her leather band, delicate and gentle as a flower despite the clear power behind his grasp.
After a long moment observing the wounds on her skin, he tucked the shuriken away into the inside pocket of his jacket, continuing, ‘But we all have our reasons. Amelia was intrigued by you, earlier. She said you were more unusual to look upon than she expected.’
‘Who are you?’ Selene cut in.
‘Itzal,’ he introduced himself, retying her cuff with a playful smile. ‘One of Lady Amelia’s old friends. We have been together…oh, nearly as long as she’s been alive, give or take a century. Almost an Elder myself.’
She bit out the words, ‘An honour.’
‘Ah, but the honour is mine,’ Itzal murmured, before saying, ‘You watched her with eyes I have not seen since Maia and Edgar. I do refer to Amelia, here,’ he clarified. They could both hear the pounding of her heartbeat. His playfulness faded into a detached kind of curiosity. ‘Soulmates have always been a special interest of mine. With the progression of science, we have discovered that there are two traits which manifest on contact with our other halves.’
Lowering her wrist, Itzal didn’t pay any mind to Selene’s panicked eyes, only lecturing further. ‘First is the mutation of pheromone output, creating a unique scent only detectable to our soulmate. This is automatic upon entering a space where your soulmate has left behind previous scent. Second, however, is the more active metamorphosis of our bond-centres, a part of the brain forming connections, using the pheromones as a guide to the correct person.’ He gestured briefly up above. ‘Though without the physical touch of receptive skin to kickstart the change, you get the-’
‘Half-bonded, I know,’ said Selene, interrupting. She steeled herself. ‘You know. What does Amelia want me to do?’
‘Nothing,’ Itzal replied, eyes flashing. ‘She isn’t yet aware. I guessed—you confirmed. You are using pain to distract yourself from the lack of receiving soulbond. It will not work.’
Selene looked away. The stories from across human history all said the same thing: the bound of the half-bonded, whether accidental through lack of true touch or by curse of not being compatible both ways, went mad from the pain they felt. Once, before the debut of science, there were more mythic origins, but Itzal’s recap of the most recent scientific discoveries had spread like wildfire all across the world. Selene was bound in a half-bond, meaning she had both a mutated pheromone output and an active bond-centre that was constantly reaching out, waiting for the matching soulbond made of electrical signals and brainwaves. Waiting for Amelia.
The Elder, however, only had the mutated pheromone output from entering Selene’s previously occupied space. Selene hadn’t touched Amelia’s soulmark, let alone with bare hands, so there had been no transfer of DNA to ‘receptive skin’, as researchers called it, to activate Amelia’s bond-centre.
Itzal held up his hand, asking, ‘May I have a hair, Lady Selene?’ His question was perfunctory and his purpose clear.
It terrified her.
‘No,’ she said, sliding out from between him and the wall. ‘Stay away from me.’ Finding Kahn by the doors, she used a hand-sign to tell him she was skipping out, already fleeing the party. Selene would rather go mad than let almost-Elders control her life like that.
It was only when she was halfway to her quarters that the vampire realised her mistake, stopping in the middle of the corridor to grasp her cuffed wrist.
‘He didn’t need my hair,’ she whispered to herself, the pain rising like a tide and swallowing her in it. She barely made it to the window-seat. Selene curled her arms around her drawn-up knees, burrowing her face in her skirts.
The shuriken, she half-wept at the thought, he has the shuriken.
He didn’t need her hair.
He already had her blood.