Chapter 63 63. Chapter
Aurora
The smoke in the great hall slowly settled, but the air was still heavy with the smell of burned wood and ozone. The fire inside my body had not gone out completely. It had only pulled back beneath my skin, where it gnawed at my insides like a hungry beast. Every breath burned my throat with heat.
“Come here,” Elijah said in a quiet but commanding voice.
I did not resist. He sat down in the massive, throne like chair carved from dark oak, and I let him pull me onto his lap. The moment I felt his thighs beneath me and leaned my back against his chest, a soft, helpless sigh escaped my lips. Elijah’s body was ice cold. Not the dead, stiff cold of a corpse, but the clean, sharp cold of a mountain stream on a winter night.
I wrapped my arms around his and pulled them close, pressing as much of my skin against his as I could. I rubbed my face against his neck, breathing in that frozen calm he carried with him. It felt like stepping out of a burning house into cool rain.
Donovan stood across from us, leaning against the fireplace mantel. I could see how anger and helplessness tore at him, how much it hurt him to see his sister seeking shelter in a vampire’s arms. But after what he had witnessed in the basement and in the great hall, he did not dare speak. He knew that right now Elijah was the only thing keeping me from turning into a living torch.
“Better?” Elijah murmured into my hair as his hands closed around my waist. Even through my clothes, his touch cooled me. I enjoyed his closeness. His power wrapped around me like invisible armor, and the dark sense of safety he gave was something only he could offer.
“Yes,” I whispered, feeling my pulse finally begin to slow. “Talk, Donovan. You said there were secrets. Why are they so afraid of us? Why was it not enough to hide me as defective?”
Donovan sighed deeply and stared into the fire, which now burned calmly behind its iron grate. “Because the Council lied to you about our father. He was not just a wandering Ruler, as the chronicles claim.”
“Then what was he?” Elijah asked, and I felt his arms tense around me.
“Our father, Alaric, was part of the innermost circle of the High Council,” Donovan said. “He helped create the laws that hold the current balance between Hunters and Vampires. But he discovered something the Council has hidden for thousands of years. He learned that the source of magic is dying, and that both races are slowly weakening.”
Donovan paused, then looked at me. “They believed Alaric went mad when he fell in love with our mother, a pure blood Hunter. But he was not mad. He was experimenting. He wanted children in whom the power of both races would not cancel each other out, but strengthen each other. Beings who could command the elements and the darkness at the same time. You two,” he said, pointing at us, “are not together by chance. Elijah, you are descended from one of Alaric’s closest allies. Your fates were tied together before you were even born.”
“So that is why they hunt us,” I said quietly, while Elijah’s fingers began to tap softly against my side. “Because we are living proof that the Council’s system is a lie.”
“It is more than that,” Donovan shook his head. “Our father left something behind. A seal that can only be opened by the combined power of a dhampir bloodline and a Ruler. They say that seal holds the secret to renewing magic, or to destroying it completely. The Council fears that if you learn how to use your shared power, you will wipe them from the face of the world.”
Elijah lifted my chin so I had to look into his eyes. His gaze was dark and hungry for answers. “A seal. Do you know where it is?”
Donovan’s expression hardened. “Beneath the Clan’s center. Deep under the Citadel. Getting there would be suicide.”
“Or a declaration of war,” I said softly, feeling the fire inside me stir again. This time it did not burn. It gave me strength.
I pressed closer to Elijah, enjoying the cool of his skin and the safety of his embrace. I was no longer just a girl on the run. I was a key to an ancient lock, and the only man who could open it was holding me in his arms.
“Then we prepare,” Elijah said, and his voice sounded like judgment approaching. “Aurora will learn all four elements. Donovan, you will teach her the techniques. And I will provide the stability.”
I looked at my brother. He nodded silently.
The war was no longer waiting outside the door.
It was already inside the house.