SWNOVELS Chapter Exact
The smudges of blood transferred a perfect impression of the medallion as if the mark recoiled the liquid. Instead of a line, the distinct impression of a sword crossed the dragon’s image.
Rowan’s knees threatened to buckle under the weight of the knowledge her brain refused to accept. More than their flimsy evidence, the sinking sensation of inevitability in her gut convinced her.
Experience taught her to trust her instincts above all else, and they screamed danger when she looked at that impression.
“I’ll allow you a moment alone,” Marcus decided, his eyes meeting with those of Alena, and Rowan sensed his silent understanding there.
His eyes darkened with worry, the tightness of his shoulders and jaw revealing tension.
Alena removed her shirt a second time and turned her back on Rowan. She folded it carefully and set it aside. Why?
No.
Alena didn’t want blood on it or, more accurately, her blood.
She understood the silent look now, and if she were honest, she didn’t like her impure blood touching Alena either.
It seemed wrong in some fundamental way.
“You expect me to smear my blood on you?” Rowan tested her assumption.
“Just do it,” Alena encouraged, sounding tired.
The knife scraped free of its sheath, and Alena tensed.
She now understood just how vulnerable Rowan must have felt.
The smell of blood fragranced the air, making it impossible to ignore the hunger pains that shot through her as her thirst flared to life.
Rowan’s blood touched her skin, and the connection made her blood rush through her in answer to something.
Flashes of heat and cold seared through her veins and startled her.
Did Rowan also experience this?
The birthmark changed color; it became darker and clearer as if drawn with ink.
The lines were sharper, more distinct, and Rowan hesitated.
“It changed,” she said, unease clear in her voice.
Alena nodded as if she expected this would happen.
Rowan smoothed the cloth over the mark as Alena dit earlier, and her trepidation intensified.
This seemed too much like a ritual, and she feared the act might bring something to life.
“It’s fine,” Alena instructed after a few moments, and Rowan refrained from looking at the impression on the cloth while she cleaned the blood away.
Something made her think that the circle would be complete if she saw the image.
“Marcus?” Alena called, and his footstep moved in their direction.
Rowan sensed him before she saw him, and it caused an odd swirl of heat in her abdomen.
He took the two impressions and put them on the floor before taking his seat, and after fixing their clothes, they did the same.
“The scent of your blood has altered,” he said, startling them.
“Do you think this… ritual changed our blood and awoke something?” Alena voiced her earlier thought.
A shudder ran down her spine, and unease settled in the pit of her stomach like a lead ball, but she would not allow them to see it.
“The symbols are alike,” Marcus muttered almost to himself.
“Do you not have such a mark?” she asked, and he never even glanced at her.
“Marcus is not... of our bloodline.”
Alena’s words took a moment to sink in.
“One to rule… Would that be Marcus?” She asked.
“Yes, we came to the same conclusion,” Alena agreed.
“What does sway mean?” Already knowing the answer, and if it were true, she would rather run naked into the sunlight than allow it.
“Sway means to influence or to affect. The old people used to call turning a human into a vampire, ‘the sway.’ Contrary to common belief, it isn’t something a youngling like me or you can do.
Marcus can, but his function is to rule and not to sway. It might mean anything.”
Alena shrugged.
The uncertainty seemed to frustrate her, and Rowan warily watched them.
“If you or I bite a human, they die, whether you drink their blood or not. It’s something in our fangs, like an illness, not venom. The old ones are different. Their blood is strong, and the virus is well-formed. It connects with the blood without destroying it.”
“Your father could do it; why aren’t you strong?” Rowan asked, having trouble veiling her antagonism.
She hated that Alena needed to explain such things to her, knowing she didn’t grow up with vampires, and Victor would always be the one topic that stirred her ire.
“My mother wasn’t strong because her mother wasn’t a natural vampire, but a turned human. My father should have rectified the situation, but he never would, not for all of her pleading or even for me.”
The admission betrayed both wistful sadness and bitter anger but mostly hurt.
Red seared through her blood at seeing how much Alena loved Victor. It proved that love hurt, and she couldn’t bear to look at her sister at that moment.
When she did, she found Alena staring at Marcus, who was watching her.
Was there a touch of hatred in Alena’s expression?
If Victor had made his daughter stronger, she would have fought Marcus for her rightful place and forced his hand.
He would have needed to kill her or lock her up.
It hurt to understand that the monster who sired her and killed Ilse might have been a considerate father to Alena.
By denying her the one thing she wanted most, he kept her alive.
There was more to it; he was Victor, after all.
His agendas had agendas.
They weren’t telling her everything, and she could understand their reluctance.
Trust.
Five letters with so much power.
If she stayed past tonight, they would have to decide what they wanted and choose with wisdom.
If what they said had any basis, and she suspected it did, then it might be the end of them all if they failed. This was no significant waste in the greater scheme of things, but humanity would fall easily without vampires.
And they would stand no chance against this darkling that wanted to end them.
Those who hunted the vermin plaguing these villages with her had been bandits, weak vampires, and humans.
The humans had tolerated her presence because they could not defeat these monsters without her.
She prevented them from seeing more than ‘the change’ and kept herself under such tight control that sometimes her soul wanted to tear from her body, showing them what they could handle and no more.
Marcus and Alena were free to be themselves. They possessed no such qualms, but she would never accept her nature and admit that some unnamed thing in her blood made her a monster. She would always fight both it and herself.
She didn’t know how to find peace with her past and life.
Marcus became edgy, and she understood his concern.
The things that followed them were immune to sunlight. They never grew tired or stopped to take a break, and a whole day passed while circumstances trapped them in this place.
The caves led deeper into the mountain but went nowhere, with only one exit.
Marcus rose to his feet when the need to do something, anything, overwhelmed him. He was probably unused to wasting time or waiting for death to find him.
Alena glanced at Rowan and then away.
She didn’t know how to feel about all of this or how it affected the dynamic between them. Most of all, she had no inkling how to act around her sibling.
She watched Rowan rub her wrist. The wound had neatly closed, and the scar was almost gone.
“What happened to your back?” Alena asked with a slight frown.
The wound on her wrist had disappeared as if it never existed. Even though she suffered many injuries leading a warrior’s life, none left a scar.
Fast healing was part of Victor’s legacy, proving this gene passed to Rowan. So, how was it possible for her to have a scar?
Rowan wanted to reveal nothing.
Although she didn’t want to bare her soul to Alena, her mind cataloged their similarities and differences.
The concern in Alena’s eyes made it difficult for Rowan to shut her out.
Alena would not understand her reluctance unless she knew the truth, and she would rather not have Alena know.
She didn’t want to see either pity or disgust in her sister’s gaze, and she worried about how she would react to either.
“I... c-cant.”
The words would not come past the constriction in her throat.
Even after all these years, the memory chilled her blood and spiked her anger, but it was also a hurt beyond words and healing.
“But I did not harm you,”
Alena’s words came with difficulty, and said she realized harm was done.
Rowan nodded.
The responsibility for this didn’t rest on her sister’s shoulders.
She had no hand in what Victor did or the consequences of his actions, nor was her sister responsible for his abandonment of her.
Rowan was honest enough to admit these facts and accept them.
“Nor did I harm you,” she challenged, and Alena hesitated before nodding.
“Tell me,” Alena asked again.
If they wanted to make this thing work, whatever it was, they needed to make some concessions.
Answering this question would open the door to her past, leading to a place she would rather have avoided.
Alena’s affinity for the truth didn’t allow her to contort it further. Rowan was as much a victim as she was, and this divide between them was Victor’s doing, not theirs.
Her father was not perfect, and she knew best the cruelty of his wrath, having seen it often when some unfortunate thwarted him.
There was no doubt in her mind that he had caused whatever happened to Rowan.
Directly or indirectly.