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clansayeed · 3 years

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Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ― Chapter 9: The Arrival

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ⥽

They fled New York with one purpose. Find, hunt down, and return with a way to kill a vampire god. They abandoned their loved ones and survived the City of Shadows; had their trust broken and darkest secrets brought to light. All that... and Gaius still won anyway. But now that they have nothing to lose, Nadya and her friends are finally ready to do whatever it takes to see the King of Vampires overthrown.

They just have to avoid a vampire population eager to gain favor with their new monarch, the ruthless Order of the Dawn, and whatever plans Gaius has that involve Nadya captured and brought to him alive. So... easy-peasy, right? The worlds of both dark and light hang in the balance. The time has come for the Bloodkeeper to embrace her destiny. So if anyone wants to clue her in on whatever that means, now would be great!

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing reimagining project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

TAG LIST: @googlesentmehere, @cess02, @hellyeah90sbaby, @tayab12, @saratustra4, @imnotdonewiththeelementalists, @thepotatobleh,

*join the Tag List here!

⥼ Summary ⥽

It's the night of Vlad's masquerade ball, the most prestigious social event a vampire can attend. An entire ballroom full of faces and names every vampire in Europe knows... and apparently Nadya is going to upstage them all.

content warnings: language

[READ IT ON AO3]

A pretty big chunk of their plan relies on the staff of the Tepes Estate being just as snobbish and uppity as the man they serve.

So thankfully at least something is both easily predictable and surprisingly convenient.

Staff all around, and none of them pay the pair of them much mind. Beyond the fact that they get told by more than one footman that “guests really shouldn’t be back in the staff corridors” and receive multiple warnings about how “the Count has ensured all guests for the evening, (said while looking down the biggest snooty nose in all of Prague no less) no matter their prestige, will receive adequate time to sup on the serving staff,” and that they “really shouldn’t be allowing an undisclosed human on the premises but will look the other way this time,” Nadya and Cadence are pretty much left to their own devices.

Which means scurrying out of sight before any lone particularly loyal member of the Tepes household decides to go narc and everything ends up exploding in their faces anyway.

Because there’s no way on earth these full-face masques of theirs are providing any damage cover should their plans go KABOOM!

Nadya casts another look up at Cadence as they come across their umpteenth fork in the road. Watching him decide between right or left is starting to feel as nerve-wracking as actually choosing which direction they ought to go.

“You’re sure you know where we are?” You’re sure you know we’re going the right way?

“I’m starting to feel like you have less than zero faith in me, Nadya.” He probably thinks the glance down her way is a reassuring one. But the masque over his face is almost too neutral. It’s just a mask but it feels like it’s trying too hard, you know?

“That’s not it at all. This place is just…” A lot.

He barely remembers to reach back and take her by the hand before he chooses left in a hurry. Who knows how much time they’ve wasted just trying to find their way through this seemingly endless castle.

“It takes me a moment to recall the map Serafine showed me before we left, but I’m… ninety percent sure I know exactly where we are.”

“And the other ten percent?”

“Is trying to keep an ear out for party noises. So if you’ll zip it, thank you.”

Admittedly Nadya would have a lot more faith in this plan if it wasn’t just the pair of them, proven stumbling disasters that they are, relying on the apparently flawless memory of a man who literally introduces himself as ‘the one with amnesia.’ She understands the rationale behind it, just as she understands the rationale behind everybody else going through the front door like an entourage of normal party-goers. They have three prestigious faces and what Jax and Lily lack in clout they make up for in being practically invisible as nobodies to this upper echelon of attendees.

But shoving the two bigwigs of their gang — well, the most recognizable face in any room of vampires and the obviously human girl losing her freakin’ mind amid a cluster of the heartbeat-less undead — through the staff entrance with nothing more than simple masks to disguise them and trusting them not to mess up finding their way among the rest in time for some famed big reveal they still don’t know the full-on details of…?

Well if they live through this long enough to chronicle this part of their journey, nobody is ever allowed to even so much as imply via metaphor that Nadya never trusted her friends wholly and completely.

Actually if they’re talking about chronicling stuff, better they leave these more vague and improvised parts of their master quest to the footnotes. That way they can pretend they knew what they were doing the whole time.

For example Nadya isn’t gonna let anyone write down that she got so wrapped up in her thoughts about what may or may not get written down that she walked face-first into a brick wall.

OW.

Not a brick wall, actually.

Cadence turns around and catches Nadya’s mask just before it falls and shatters on the ground. Thank you vampire super-speed.

“Are you okay?” He asks, wide-eyed and worried, hesitant to give her back her disguise to take stock of how she really looks.

That’s such a loaded question though, so Nadya ignores it and rubs the redness on her forehead instead.

“Why’d you stop?”

The vampire takes a moment to look up and down either end of the corridor and even around the next corner. When he’s satisfied they’re alone he pries his own mask off with a groan; practically peeling his flattened hair from where its been stuck to his forehead the moment he put the darn thing on.

“Because,” with pursed lips he blows his fringe out of his eyes, “I’ve been talking this entire time… and even when I ramble you usually have some two cents or other to pitch in.”

That’s fair. Nadya takes back her mask with a sheepish shrug. “Sorry, got distracted.”

“That much is obvious. Care to share?”

“Not really. Care to keep going?” Not like they’re exactly full of free time, here.

He sweeps his arm in an after you motion, but keeps pace with Nadya’s shorter stride. “I can hear the string quartet by now. We’re close, but they haven’t begun the announcements Serafine told me to wait for.” So maybe they have a bit of free time. Got it.

Only now she can’t stop thinking about what will be on the other side of the big grand ballroom doors.

And Nadya without her set of note cards to at least help her through her dumb speech all because her dumb dress has no dumb pockets.

“You know I still don’t get why they wouldn’t budge about you not being discovered.”

“You don’t see me complaining,” Cadence says with a shrug; and actually now that he points it out…

“No, I don’t.”

He doesn’t need to look at her to know exactly why she says it that way, either. It’s not the first time they’ve had this talk. Probably won’t be the last either.

His sigh sags from his shoulders to his fingertips. “‘Surprise warmonger back from the dead’ might accidentally eclipse ‘reincarnation of the vampire Goddess.’ Can’t have that, now can we.”

“Cadence.”

“Nadya.”

They turn another corner in complete silence. Nadya’s ears strain to hear this quartet of his but nope, not close enough for her poor human ears quite yet.

Finally Cadence seems to decide on something. Gathering himself up all the way to his full height while fiddling with the porcelain in his grasp. “Actually… Serafine and Kamilah gave me the option. When they talked about prestige all this week it was largely assuming I might be able to pretend just enough to add to their collective fame. But they gave me the choice as to whether or not I wanted to try.”

“And you said no.”

“Of course I said no. I don’t envy you, Nadya. You have to do this regardless of whether or not you want to. But for the first time it feels like I’m not in that position, and I want to take full advantage of it.”

His face falls, voice going somber. “Surely you can see why.”

She can. She did, in the flesh, and while he’d been useful at the time she can still close her eyes and remember how easily Cynbel had threatened Jax, hurt Adrian and Serafine; how callous he’d been with her life even though she’d agreed with him at the time… Not to mention all the implied things that come with Serafine, always calm and cool and collected, losing her freakin’ marbles every time he ended up a part of the conversation.

He continues. “I don’t think I could have pretended to be him if my life depended on it. And if you think about it, your life does depend on it in a way. I couldn’t risk you like that. Not after how kind you’ve been to me.”

Her fingers brush over his arm. Cadence either takes it the wrong way or chooses to give a purpose to something so small; he bends his elbow and lets her arm slide into his like a proper escort to a proper ball.

“A lot of people’s lives depend on me pretending to…” Nadya can’t quite say it though, so she swallows it down. “I just have no idea what I’m supposed to do when we get there.”

“Understandably.”

“Seriously,” offering him a wry and dry smile, “that’s all the advice you’ve got?”

He mulls it over for a good and proper think. The effort is more than appreciated even if it doesn’t actually yield results. At least this way she gets to vent it out before messing up royally when the time comes.

Cadence stops first — their linked arms jerk her back and to turn and face him. “I wouldn’t call it advice, per se,” gee—great, “but maybe we both suck at pretending because we ought to be accepting, instead. Accepting who we… were. Possibly, in your case. That way we still have the chance to move on.”

It’s a sweet sentiment, but Nadya can’t help the way her nose scrunches up slightly.

“I don’t think that applies to this case, Cade.”

“Fair enough. Can’t say I didn’t try.” And that makes the pair of them laugh, no matter how weakly. Something neither of them knew they needed, nor how badly they needed it.

It doesn’t last long… but it doesn’t need to.

“You’ll figure it out when the time comes Nadya. You usually do.”

Usually.

In wordless agreement she and Cadence don their pretend masques with mutual reluctance. At least he doesn’t have to breathe in his. But it’s easier this time to see what his face really says beneath that neutral doll-like expression.

She smiles at him in return. Like many things these days they can’t quite see it, but the feeling is there.

When they get close enough that Nadya’s ears no longer strain to catch the occasional tittering laughter or melodramatic voice, Cadence diverts them yet again. This time for a staircase he just so happens to catch sight of out of the corner of his eye.

He keeps her close; closer than before. Practically hovering over her like a shadow less than a step behind her the whole way up. She pauses when he pauses, she waits when he waits, and trusts him enough to know her faith isn’t misplaced but some explanation would be swell any time he’s feeling his usual chatty self.

Crouched close to the ground (which is a feat for him, for her not so much) Cadence crooks a finger at Nadya to join him in inching steps along the carpet towards the railing overlooking the main foyer below.

Nadya is, understandably, hesitant. “What if someone sees us?” What if someone smells me, hears me, all-of-the-aboves me?

“Same principle as before.”

“Keep close and your blood will cover me up?”

He nods. Not like she really has any other choice. Well, that and the more snatches of conversation she plucks from thin air the more curious she is.

And when has her curiosity ever not won out?

Cadence’s cloak comes heavy around her other shoulder and all but smothers her. She grabs the edge and pulls it tight while making sure not to jostle it from his shoulders. For some reason she can’t shake the feeling like she’s hiding behind a curtain with her feet sticking out underneath.

But they’re here, so they might as well take advantage of it. So Nadya joins him in peering through the stone balusters to the hustle and bustle happening below.

The foyer had been beautiful already during her visit with Serafine and Jax the other night — Nadya would even go so far as to assume it was nearly completed. That assumption would have been vastly incorrect.

It’s not her contacts; she’s not seeing double. Every bauble and ribbon and glittering glassy gem brought along the entire family. There’s practically no surface without something shiny added in some form or another, and in many cases that shiny thing has a shiny thing has a shiny thing of its own on top.

On their own the decorations probably look gaudy and too-much. But when you fill the room with graceful vampires all dolled up in unique fashions and splendors everything else is lost in the background. Tasteful would probably have ended up the equivalent of a fifty-buck Party Town Supply budget. So at least the Count knows his audience.

She should be looking for their friends… and she is. But Nadya tells herself it’s being a good and thorough secret agent to observe all the other guests along the way. Two birds and all that. But it’s not easy to just sweep her eyes over the assembled masses in search of a few key faces. Not when each masque is a face all its own.

You’d think there are only so many combinations of colors, designs, and styles to make before they start getting repetitive. But that couldn’t be farther from the case. She gets it now, seeing everything and everyone from way up high and afar like this. The importance of not just the masque itself, but having the right kind of masque above everything else.

Masquerade balls are about hiding and blending in; being just another face in the crowd.

Les Visages de la Gloire is the exact opposite. And even that feels like the most watered-down way to put it she can think of.

A gentle weight falls on Nadya’s back and she shudders a gasp. When had she stopped breathing? Not for fear of being caught, but at the beauty of it all that could only be described as—literally—breathtaking.

Faceless in their full face-coverings and headdresses each more ostentatious than the last; not important enough to show who they are but still in competition with each other — still with deeds to announce and reputations to uphold. Half-masks covering the left side, the right side, the top of one and the bottom of another and all of them made uniquely for a single soul and nobody else.

Some vampires have masques that match their costumes. Others clash in a way that can’t be anything other than on purpose. Even from a distance Nadya can see the difference between carefully crafted metalwork and porcelain painted with glossy lacquer; can compare wood carvings with rich varnish and contrast that with the vast rainbow of matte colors on terracotta. Most are adorned with embellishments and jewels heavy enough to make her neck hurt just by looking at them.

Nearly all take full advantage of the fact their wearers won’t end up suffocating on the other side.

And I’m supposed to show them all up without so much as a sheer ribbon over my eyes? Yeah, Nadya’s confidence takes a knife to the gut just thinking about it.

“Over there.”

Not like Cadence’s finger isn’t pointing down to a massive crowd or anything, but that’s exactly the point — forgive the pun.

Though they can’t quite see double doors leading inside the castle from the exterior from their hiding spot, the sudden hush that falls over the idle crowd offers up an equally dramatic entrance.

It’s the kind of arrival that would be filmed in slow-motion. The kind that pans up from the purposeful echo of each expensive step; dragging over the exquisite details of their costumes in one long smooth glide all the way to the big reveal. And what a reveal it is.

Kamilah’s spindly masque may be made of steel but it curls over her sharp features with all the grace of a silken thread. It’s a face covering by only the thinnest margin of definition, with too many gaps in the framework to even pretend to conceal her identity. But after taking in the rest of the crowd… it’s obvious she’s the kind of face — the kind of presence — that simply can’t go unrecognized.

Everything about Kamilah, from her posture to her raised chin to her not-at-all-faked aura of superiority, demands recognition.

On the surface she’s the woman that Nadya knows; that she trusts and cares about so so much. But look beneath, something all too easy to do — like sweeping aside a mist, it’s impossible to miss how she’s so much more.

The Bloodqueen has arrived. And the entire foyer is speechless before her.

Without even moving a muscle the closest groups stagger back several more steps. Dozens of them nearly tripping over themselves and each other in their haste.

It’s no surprise that the space is quickly taken up by the two figures flanking Kamilah’s sides.

Serafine’s masque isn’t so much a mask as it is a scrap of lace just wide enough to earn the collective approval. As if anyone here doesn’t already know who she is regardless. But that’s how she can pull the look off if Nadya is remembering her explanation right.

No one would dare partake in Les Visages without knowing—without introduction—the woman who started it all.

Some final vestiges of their psychic connection tugs Nadya towards her; not physically so much as emotionally. Even without seeing Serafine’s features up close there’s a bittersweet ache in her chest that’s definitely not Nadya’s own.

The vampiress can offer up all the scarlet-lipped smiles she wishes. They are all hollow and fake. The simple act of being here causes Serafine nothing but distress.

And then there was Adrian.

Who, in comparison to Kamilah and Serafine, makes the women nearest him seem positively giddy and gleeful to be here tonight.

He wears his tailored costume perfectly; that wasn’t in doubt. It’s the masque that leaves him stony-faced. Gold rich and dark that catches every little flame on the chandelier over his head that covers his eyes but can’t hide the tension wracking his jaw.

He and Kamilah both wear near-identical rich crimson garnets inlaid just beneath their masque’s right eye. Shared stones for a shared Maker. But along his edges are thin metal spires, short but wicked sharp, that vary from the same gold, to steel, to a coppery hue.

A second glance confirms Nadya’s suspicions; Adrian isn’t the only one with those kinds of embellishments along the edges of their masques. Scouring a few of them from the crowd, the way they carry themselves and mirror Adrian’s ramrod-straight posture answers a question she didn’t know she needed to ask.

If the garnet labels him and Kamilah both as Turned by Gaius, then the spikes are the mark of the soldier. Any soldier; but one worth recognition for their service.

Which is everything Adrian doesn’t want. Everything he had worried over, and was working now towards overcoming in the wake of his past.

Nadya ducks her head hastily to catch her tear before it falls. Thankfully she’s quick enough. If only she could wipe away the reason for it just as easily.

Pull yourself together, girl, she scolds, and it’s just enough to do the trick and pull Nadya’s focus back to everything around them. All the stillness and nothingness and the way a room full of the undead hold their collective unnecessary breath waiting for what will happen next.

Which is exactly the kind of attention-grabbing showstopper the three of them are supposed to be. All eyes turned on the prestigious trio they are together, and away from Nadya and Cadence one floor above.

All focus on who they are, why they’ve come, what they will do; and away from the practically invisible dynamic duo that slips through the crowd towards the closed ballroom doors.

Behind her, Cadence lets out an impressed little “hah” when he finally manages to pick Lily and Jax out of the crowd. “I completely missed them. Did you see them sneak in?”

“No,” answers Nadya, but that’s actually a good thing. That was the whole point.

Without a word Kamilah takes one step forward. Her aura of command acts like an invisible shield that parts the rest; holding them at a respectable distance.

But the sudden shifting of the mass of faces and their masques gets dangerous when it turns right in their direction. If even one wandering eye looks up, they’re done for!

Without a word the vampire pulls Nadya backwards, letting the force of his bulk pull them out of eyesight in the nick of time. That was a little close, huh.

Nadya doesn’t get the chance to thank him though.

The moment she opens her mouth a loud echoing clang rings out below them, followed by the distinct shuffle of something heavy being dragged achingly close to the foyer’s marble floors.

Neither of them needs to risk sneaking a look.

Right on time. The ballroom doors have finally opened, allowing the first wave of prestige to spill forth out to the grand dance floor.

And though the shuffling of boots and sharp tapping of heels fills the vacuum of stunned silence as the attendees start to move, it’s not nearly enough noise to drown out the sudden and familiar exuberant laughter of delight that echoes across every polished surface below. The kind of laughter designed to be projected across adoring crowds; and carefully rehearsed to always seem full of intriguing promise.

What Nadya wouldn’t give to borrow a little of Vlad Tepes’ seemingly endless confidence for her own performance… looming ever-closer and starting to pick up real steam.

“Remember my lovelies! Faceless and no-names, see yourselves inside. New blood and the lucky virginal attendees right beside them!”

Her full-body shiver of discomfort is more than warranted. But Nadya only wishes she could be surprised at his… unsettling word choice.

“I’m suddenly very glad to be up here.”

She snorts at the wide-eyed stare looking out from Cadence’s mask. “You and me both.”

“Yes yes darling, oh you look a treat. And you there — you must tell me the story behind that engraving later, you simply must.” It’s really to their luck and benefit that the Count likes hearing himself talk so much. They can stay far away from the railing and still keep tabs on what gauge of prestige is next to be welcomed into the bal masqué proper.

They just have to wait until everyone—Vlad included—is inside. Everyone but the most prestigious of the lot of them. And when all eyes are (once again) on the Bloodqueen herself… they’ll have no choice but to witness Nadya’s arrival.

Having Kamilah by her side might just give her the kick in the metaphorical pants to do this thing. Not the literal though. There’s no way this practically bleach-white linen getup will survive a boot print, and especially not to the rear end.

Down below there’s a momentary lull; all but shattered by Vlad’s returning laughter now pitched higher than before.

“Why there you are, Serafine! Here I worried I had somehow lost track of your arrival in the excitement.”

His words are followed by two unmistakably wet noises; which Nadya prays are just over-dramatic kisses to her cheeks.

“Surely you jest,” she teases good-naturedly; said with all the humor of someone whose smile can’t possibly reach her eyes, “I see before me you follow the old traditions quite well. Showing the prestigious their due, their arrival witnessed by all who look to them in admiration.”

“Well of course! It makes for the grandest of entrances.”

“Ah, yes,” the elder vampiress croons, “and as the illustrious host yours would be the last, non?”

“Don’t worry darling — I would never claim credit for your centuries of contribution to our dwindling community.”

“Meaning?”

Somehow Nadya just knows Vlad throws his hair back unnecessarily as he laughs again.

“You can enter just before me, of course.”

“Then when, may I ask, might you suggest my blood-kin Adrian and I make our entrance known, old friend?”

Unlike Serafine, who at least pretends to smile while enduring the torture of his conversation, Kamilah’s question is cold and clipped. It rings with all the disinterest of the Kamilah that Nadya had met so long ago — and she’d place good money on the single raised eyebrow hiked high enough to be seen over her masque, too.

But if anyone could render Vlad speechless…

Nadya struggles to hear something, anything, until she catches the faint rustle of stiff and expensive fabric moving with haste. Vlad’s gesture of greeting, no doubt.

Just like she has no doubt that Kamilah and Adrian don’t humor him as long as Serafine has. It certainly explains the flustered, hasty way his next words tumble from his tongue with practically no filter.

“All the best surprises are the ones that sweep one off his feet. My humble gathering of our kind—nay, our family—from the nearest branch to the farthest root is made absolutely resplendent by the honor of your presence!

“Your Majesty, mon cherie —” —a beat, his attention likely shifting to Adrian— “— and Sergeant Adrian Raines, just when I had resigned myself to an evening of only the old and antiquated in renown. Here you stand before me, as handsome as the day we first met.”

Nadya quickly schools her bewildered expression — too long and it might get stuck that way. But that is flirtation if she’s ever heard it. Not good flirtation, but nevertheless.

“Vlad, as… lively… as ever.” Adrian just barely recovers, but now she’s dying to know what he had almost said instead. “Hard to believe it’s been nearly seventy-five years since last we met. Time… flies so quickly.”

“Oh pish posh,” replies the Count, “you wouldn’t know it but for the calendars. My memory of those chiseled features of yours obviously needed a refresh.”

He’s barely finished speaking when he gasps, clapping his hands together delightedly. “Speaking of memory! You’ll have to forgive my fright. As you all know surely, my recollection skills are of world-renown. Yet the sight of you all almost thrust me spiraling into self-doubt.

“And not without good reason! As I could have sworn you — the both of you, that is to say — had… cast aside your former titles.”

It’s just like before. Everything that pops into his head said without a filter all the way up until what he’s saying isn’t as vapid as it was at the start.

It must be so easy to write Vlad Tepes off at first glance. Just look at the public opinion of the guy. Nadya had, she’s humble enough to admit it. But the hard truth is that he is Vlad Tepes; he is Count Dracula.

But whether he’s all the things the myths and legends claim or not it can’t go ignored that he knows what he’s doing (even if it doesn’t seem like it). He knows how to play a crowd, how to stroke an ego. He’s a master of misdirection.

Has nobody pitched a Vegas residency to this guy yet? Seriously?

But if he thinks he’s going to out-wit someone like Kamilah he must have those leather pants on just a little too tight.

She doesn’t address his comment. Brushing it aside proves a much more important point.

“Shall Adrian and I wait patiently here while you and Serafine follow through, then?”

Vlad must be used to playing the ‘host with the most’ card, because he hesitates. But Kamilah wasn’t asking — she was just being polite.

“Yes,” he finally agrees, though surprisingly less strained than Nadya would have expected. “I would not dare nor dream of presuming your prestige. Nor would I separate the grand entrance of the progeny of our King.

“The three of you will have a most celebratory announcement, I give you my word.”

Did she hear that right?

Serafine offers a gentle tittering laugh. “I see no reason why you and I should not enter together, ma puce.”

“We shall.”

Vlad’s words die to the sound of heavy heels across the foyer floor. Too many steps to be one of her friends; but certainly more than enough for them to bring a person across the length of the room to where they are gathered.

Of course something is going wrong. They should have anticipated something going wrong. They had, her brain reminds her, and probably thinks its being helpful by doing so.

She dares to inch just close enough to catch a glimpse down below and spoiler alert — it isn’t helpful at all.

With his head held high, Marc Antony makes a bold statement in taking Kamilah’s hand without it being offered. Then he goes a step further with a half-bow and a kiss pressed to the back — or the ghost of one. He barely manages it before she yanks it from his grasp — in surprise, in anger, that’s not the part that matters.

With everyone fixated on the two oldest vampires in the room, Adrian dares to steal a glance of warning up to the railing. Wide-eyed and with pursed lips, the message when he gives the tiniest shake of his head is clear.

Nadya retreats, practically crab-walking backwards.

Cadence tries to help her sudden shaking panic with an arm over her shoulders. It’s the thought that counts.

“What,” he asks worriedly, “who is it?”

“Antony,” Nadya exhales, and the man goes rigid beside her. “It’s Marc Antony.”

#bloodbound #playchoices fanfiction #playchoices #kamilah x mc #kamilah sayeed #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #adrian raines #serafine dupont #jax matsuo #lily spencer #marc antony #oc: cadence smith #vlad tepes #fic: oblivion bound #oblv: new chapter #oblv: bound by destiny ii #; my fics

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clansayeed · 3 years

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what time is it???

that’s right

wallpaper changing time!!

#bloodbound #playchoicesedit #kamilah sayeed #adrian raines #acor marc antony #marc antony #serafine dupont #vlad tepes #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #; my edits

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clansayeed · 3 years

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Oblivion Bound Fake Caps [ 14 / ? ] ↪ Bound by Destiny II pt 2 Chapter 6: The Discussions

It says a lot about how desperate they are when Kamilah breaks first. Shoulders easing into her heavy sigh as her hair falls half across her face in a dark curtain. “Insufferable as he is Serafine, he may be our only lead.”

“There have to be other options,” Adrian insists; voice strained, “even someone he’s close to, I could take that over actually meeting him again face to face.”

“He’s gotten worse, Kamilah. And you know as well as I the danger we’d be inviting. If anyone is guaranteed to be singing the Vampire King’s praises overseas it would be him.”

“He’s a vainglorious attention seeker. I doubt he’d take the time to consider subterfuge if we played into his vanity games.”

But Serafine is adamant. “I cannot. He’s turned my gift to our community into little more than a popularity contest.”

“Between the faces gathered in this room that is one contest I’m sure we would win.” And Kamilah nods her chin at Cadence without any attempt to be subtle.

“Especially with him.”

“He is the one who will put us all at risk.”

While they continue their thinly veiled argument that definitely totally doesn’t at all have anything to do with Cadence whatsoever, Nadya leans in conspiratorially to whisper in Lily’s ear. “You think we should stop them, or…”

“Maybe they’ll tire each other out?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Greeeat…”

credits: transparents courtesy of the choices assets database fake screencap template, original character/s & their designs made by me

#playchoices #playchoicesedit #bloodbound #kamilah sayeed #adrian raines #lily spencer #serafine dupont #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #fic: oblivion bound #oblv: bound by destiny ii #; my fakecaps

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clansayeed · 3 years

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Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ― Chapter 7: The Hierophant

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ⥽

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing reimagining project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

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⥼ Summary ⥽

In Prague, Nadya and the others seek the audience of the most famous name in histories both mortal and vampire. It's probably for the best that she doesn't get her hopes up.

content warnings: language

[READ IT ON AO3]

Prague is cramped roads and buildings of all sizes and heights all mostly the same four or five different earthy, rusty tones. Cobblestone streets and narrow alleys she can’t help but look at even in passing and think, with the hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention, there goes another hiding place for something wicked and foul.

That isn’t to say Prague isn’t beautiful. Because it is. One of Nadya’s favorite things about living abroad in college (and only in the very smallest back of her mind in Paris and the other cities they’ve hopped to and from here while on the run for their lives and the very fate of the human race) was all the old architecture she got to walk past every day like it was the most natural thing in the world. And Prague is full of opportunities like that.

In her most Nadya-esque fashion, she chooses to focus on that instead of what may or may not lurk in the shadows. She chooses to look at the beauty and history around her because you don’t see stuff like this every day.

That, and because she knows it doesn’t matter what hiding place she might spot — doesn’t matter whether that alleyway or this abandoned road is empty or not. There are things out to get them — out to stop them — regardless of whether or not she’s lucky enough to catch a glimpse.

That’s just their new reality.

Prague is chillier; a fact not made any better by the fact none of the bodies she can cling to in the cold have an ounce of warmth for her to leech. Prague is also kinda rainy; and more often than not when she has the chance to push back the curtains of their modest hotel room the sky is the same shade of grey it was the day before. That’s totally fine — just add some snow and it’s almost like home.

Prague is also the long-time home of Vlad Tepes, the vampire more popularly known around the world as Dracula.

Don’t forget that bit.

Lily certainly hasn’t.

“C’mon,” she’s brought this up half a dozen times now and it always ends the same way but when has that ever stopped her before, “he can’t really be that bad.” Because she’s convinced herself that Kamilah, Serafine, and Adrian are all being a touch too dramatic when it comes to their biased opinions on the most (in)famous vampire in history.

And part of Nadya is inclined to agree… but it wouldn’t be fair not to take into account how literally none of the aforementioned vampires are prone to excessive hyperbole. So maybe he can really be, well, that bad.

Kamilah simply sighs and continues sipping her wine in idle silence. She stopped entering the discussion early on; probably of the mindset that Lily will see exactly what they all mean when the time comes. Whatever that means.

At this point the only one who will actively engage with her is Adrian. Which says a lot — that’s really out of character for him. “I thought much the same before I met him in person, but the truth is much stranger than the fiction when it comes to Vlad.” He’s said something to this effect every single time, too.

And don’t think Nadya hasn’t noticed how he usually ends up shifting where he sits and-slash-or stands. Or how Serafine is usually there to offer him an affectionate touch in some form or another. There’s a story there, she’s certain of it. But she trusts him to bring it up if or when it becomes relevant to their current dilemma — and if it isn’t then she looks forward to teasing him when the world is safe and Gaius is dust in the wind.

Because it’s important to note that truth and fiction are as different as oil and water when it comes to the man, the myth, the legend. Who apparently did his fair share of noteworthy conquests in his human years and even his first couple of decades as a vampire; but somewhere down the line wound up going from famed ‘impaler’ to something that — based on Serafine’s general description anyway — is shaping in Nadya’s mind’s eye to look something like a cross between Vegas-sensation Mario Bautista and KISS without the face paint.

“There’s something to be said for the measure of success Vlad has been able to attain while living in the heart of the Order’s battleground,” says Serafine almost absently, “but any praise for him should live and die there — even that I find myself questioning from time to time.

“He has been widely reviled from the moment he brought that ridiculous novel to light. Not only for placing us in the public eye but for doing so with such utter… disregard for our truths.”

Jax raises an eyebrow. “You’d think spreading a bunch of lies that humans end up believing wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” But everything on Serafine’s face disagrees.

“One might think, perhaps. But if anyone was less suited to such an ill-fitting ego…”

“So he’s got a big head,” Lily shrugs, “what’s the big deal?”

The Big Deal is, apparently, how Vlad Tepes has gone from boasting ass to full-on diva in the centuries that followed. Something Serafine seems to take more than a little personally. “And one could suffer his endless tales when they revolved around little more than himself. When he shifted his focus to the Church of the First things became… complicated.”

Needless to say the entire premise of ‘Vlad Tepes—the Dracula—considers himself to be a prophet for the First Vampire in all but official theophany, and serves as Europe’s go-to for all things related to the devotion of Rheya Herself’ is something Nadya has been struggling to wrap her head around for… this whole time.

Maybe seeing it all with her own eyes will do something about that, she thinks, if only so Lily will finally stop trying to poke and prod for answers their friends don’t seem eager to provide.

Unlikely, but, you know.

“How a person takes in faith is unique to them, and a deeply personal experience. Regardless of their…” Serafine purses her lips for the right words. Or at least ones that are a little more in English and a little less like curses. “… unchecked vanity.

“While I cannot speak with certainty as to whether or not Vlad was a true believer in the ideals of the Goddess, whatever he did feel was enough to earn him a place at Gaius’ side during the pivotal years he spent spreading Her belief.

“What he lacks in all else he makes up for in his ability to sensationalize anything that comes tumbling out of that vacant head of his.”

Which explains the whole ‘singing Gaius’ praises’ thing; the largest source of disagreement when it finally came down to whether or not they were willing to risk it all for what Vlad might know.

And while it was unanimous that they would have preferred to wait and see what more concrete information they could dig up, time isn’t on their side. “Still an awful lot to risk on a mere hunch,” comments Cadence — whose natural affinity for research has made spontaneously vanishing away to Prague more than a little stressful for him.

“I just can’t understand how anyone would even consider believing his claims to have seen the Eternal Tree for himself when there’s literal published proof he’s a pathological liar.”

But this is something they’ve been over, too. Not that Nadya doesn’t totally understand venting the same frustrations in the wake of inaction. But it’s not faith in Vlad Tepes that she has.

Her faith lies in Kamilah. That is more than enough.

“Time and time again I witnessed retribution served by Gaius unto those who claimed to have been touched by the First in some divine form or another. He would not suffer anyone speaking falsely of Her — for good or for ill. Vlad’s claim to have seen the Tree with his own eyes wasn’t exactly kept quiet, yet he remained untouched and, unfortunately, very much alive.”

Which pretty much confirms it’s the one impossible thing he’s actually telling the truth about. This is a good thing!

“And you’re sure you are up to the task, petit?”

Nadya knows Serafine only asks because this is something they can’t do without her. Serafine could try to suss out the truth from him on her own but it would only waste more time.

For once though, Nadya feels… not-as-uncertain as she usually does about these things. She wouldn’t be so bold as to call it confidence, but how hard can one ordinary (fame aside) vampire be after she literally pulled Gaius’ oldest memory out of thin air?

“I am.”

“And if your way doesn’t work, we can always go my route.”

And perhaps the most disconcerting thing of all is how those who would normally oppose Jax’s methods of sword-related threats and violence remain pointedly and purposefully silent. Not that anyone is particularly inclined to draw attention to it.

Just like they don’t draw attention to the way Kamilah tactfully uses the rim of her wine glass to conceal the barest twitch of her lips.

Though none of them are surprised at his offer however, Serafine seems to have outright expected it. She throws him a coy smile across the table; a devious glint in her eye.

“Actually Jax, I’m glad to hear you are up to the task. As what I have in mind will not be possible without your help.”

Sometimes the best plans are the ones that take the most direct route to get to where you’re going. And there’s really nothing more direct than what Serafine has in mind.

The estate is a little under an hour away from Prague itself; swathed in lush and vibrant countryside — or that’s what Nadya imagines. It’s kind of hard for her to see out of the tinted limousine windows as they venture on their lonely road after dark.

Not that the place itself is hard to see. Like a beacon in the night the Tepes manor and surrounding land is lit up in the night. Even with the moon hidden behind roiling clouds the moment their car pulls in and begins ambling up the long gravel pathway they are met with what’s practically a battalion of lamp-posts to show them the way.

All she can think about is how long it must take someone to travel the grounds and light up every single one.

The rest of Vlad Tepes’ lands are hard to see properly. On account of the towering and neatly-trimmed hedge walls that flank their path. “Vlad’s labyrinth is somewhat of a popular novelty,” Serafine explains quietly, “though our heightened senses take most of the intrigue and mystery from the search from start to finish.”

But some well-manicured bushes are nothing compared to the splendor of the actual castle itself. With its sprawling Gothic architecture in spires and buttresses it’s truly everything one would expect when they hear something like ‘the Castle of Vlad Tepes.’

Flickering flames in old stained-glass windows somehow both perfectly preserved and still allowed to age with grace. Not unlike vampires themselves, Nadya thinks fleetingly, and lets herself drink in the passive appreciation of it while she can.

Before something inevitably goes wrong and, much like in the way of Marcel’s castle back home, has her thinking back on it with a sour taste in her mouth.

“I still can’t believe you just called the guy up.”

Jax has barely paid any of it a second glance; not the journey or the destination. He’s stayed in pretty much the same position the entire drive; arms never uncrossing from his chest and, to literally no one’s surprise, with his sword never leaving his lap.

“How would you rather I have gone about arranging this little parley then, hm?”

The two vampires stare one another down in silence. Suddenly the cabin feels a lot more cramped and heated than it did just a moment ago. Nadya tugs at the collar of her shirt in discomfort.

“I’m not saying I had a plan, but if I’d had time to make one it wouldn’t be walking through his front door.”

But the younger’s irritation only seems to amuse Serafine, who purses her lips into a thin line to keep from smirking at him too obviously.

“Ah, oui. I suspect you would have gone looking for a secret entrance of some kind… perhaps a sewage tunnel by which to secret yourself in and out undetected?”

Jax just shrugs. “Can’t say I wouldn’t.”

“I can.”

Two words and just like that all the mirth is sapped from the air around them. Nothing fills the void left behind; it stays hollow and empty with foreboding.

“If such a passage did exist, which I can assure you it does not, would the Order not have used it long ago in much the same way?” She raises a single eyebrow at Jax, continuing before he has a chance to answer her.

“While your modern methods are indeed a fresh eye on an old war, Jax, they seem to blind you to the full scope of the kind of life we have lived here for all these centuries. Safety is but a fleeting dream to us. No shadow goes undisturbed for signs of the enemy. Every shelter — from a boarded-up chapel on the wayside to a sprawling manor house such as this — has been deemed safe only after proceeding with the utmost caution.

“Even someone as brazen as Vlad would not dare risk his own life by doing anything else.”

Nadya swears she can hear Jax’s teeth grind in his set jaw. That may be the gravel under the tires though.

The limo starts to slow down as they pass through a break in the hedges to reveal a wide arcing roundabout that stops just shy of the castle’s imposing front doors.

“So what you’re saying is if this goes to shit tonight there’s really no escape plan, huh?” Jax finally asks, and with a much softer voice than either Serafine or Nadya would have expected.

It makes the vampiress throw him a sympathetic look. One he pointedly ignores, but when has that ever stopped her before?

“Have you such little faith in my charming disposition?”

It’s a meager attempt to lighten the somber mood at best, but it’s enough to at least ease his suddenly white-knuckled grip on the sheath of his katana.

“More like a lack of faith in your judgment.”

“Inspired by?”

“Whatever the hell you see in Raines.”

It’s as though the driver has been taking his sweet time waiting for a break in their tension to finally get there. Which can’t possibly be the case; since the partition has been up from the moment they pulled away from the hotel and the ones they left behind… can it?

He cuts the engine abruptly. Something about the reigning silence makes Nadya’s heart start to inch its way up into her throat. Jax, sitting closest to her and no doubt hearing the spike in her pulse, reaches out and squeezes her shoulder.

“You okay there?”

She gives a noncommittal shrug, glad when he doesn’t drop his hand. “Situationally or existentially?” The joke, unfortunately, doesn’t quite land.

“At least this one is above ground.” He tries to reassure her. But apparently neither of them are allowed the luxury.

“The parts you can see…” Serafine says; her last words before the door opens to signal their arrival.

The night air is cold and makes Nadya’s eyes water as she steps out between her companions. She would have rather had Kamilah or Adrian at her side but that just wasn’t possible.

Serafine had made a point that couldn’t be denied. Between Kamilah’s assumed death and Gaius’ known ability to hold a grudge longer than most modern civilizations had been around, those two were pretty much screwed if anyone just so happened to recognize them.

With Antony and Isseya off the radar since Kamilah’s return and none of them having any hint or clue as to whether or not Gaius had started extending his reach overseas yet, they were better off housebound (metaphorically speaking) for the time being.

As it is they’re risking enough bringing Jax along, but apparently the fact he hadn’t made “much of an impression” on Gaius, to put it in Kamilah’s own words, was to their benefit. They were playing safe over sorry with Lily and her newly-acquired quirks too.

It was easy to write off the fact that Serafine hadn’t even allowed Cadence to volunteer before shooting him down as being, well, Serafine and Cadence being Serafine and Cadence. But there’s still a lot they don’t know about whatever had happened to their friends when the group split up — whatever it was though was enough to ease that tension in ways nobody would have expected.

“The intention is to meet with Vlad as quickly as possible, and ideally without arousing suspicion from him or any who might be in his entourage.” Serafine had explained. “Seeing as Cynbel of the Trinity has been famously dead for over a century now, seeing him suddenly reappear in the midst of Gaius’ ascension might as well be the definition of suspicious.”

The argument was fair and valid and lucky for them to have that kind of forethought, honestly. But when Nadya thinks back to the vague air of their talk back at Ahmanet in London and pairs it almost absentmindedly with the way Serafine and Kamilah exchanged a long and almost nervous glance at one another when Cadence’s back is turned…

Let’s just say at this point she’s just waiting around for the other shoe to drop. Or the other-other shoe. Like the kind of shoe an octopus might wear or something.

All of that and only Nadya is left; always the odd one out. But the Bloodkeeper can’t not do this, so what choice does she have?

They just have to hope Kamilah was right when she assumed Gaius would want to do everything in his power not to let Nadya’s name and face spread too far or wide. That he wouldn’t dare run the risk of someone else getting to her before he could.

Neither option appeals, for the record. But at least she’s not the only one risking her neck.

The driver gestures for them to wait at the base of the castle steps, letting them know they will be shown in shortly. He doesn’t linger, job completed, and soon Nadya is throwing a glance over her shoulder to catch the bright red tail lights before the car disappears back around the hedge line and out of sight.

Serafine’s hand comes down in between her shoulder blades somehow both heavy and comforting. A simple touch that eases the tension beginning to knot there that Nadya hadn’t even realized existed.

“Your heart is racing, Nadya,” she states the obvious with a gentle smile of her own, “we may be able to account his notoriety for your nerves but please… try to control your breathing.”

She nods, wide eyed, and swallows through her dry throat before inhaling deeply through her nostrils, holding, and letting it out as a warm breath on her lips. In, and hold, and out, and in, and hold, and out several times before she glances and sees the tiniest nod of approval from the vampiress.

“You’re pretty calm, given everything.”

“Why would I not be?” asks Serafine in obvious surprise. A little too sincere, in Nadya’s opinion.

“The way you’ve been talking about him sounds a lot like you guys aren’t old friends.”

Her rouge-tinted lips purse wryly. “No, I would not associate myself with him so plainly.”

“Then why did he agree to meet with you?”

A fair question, too. One that has Jax listening attentively even if he doesn’t look away from the doors still not yet opened to greet them.

Given the gravity of the situation, Nadya’s grateful that the woman doesn’t seem to need the time to carefully choose her words on this. Hopefully that means she isn’t sugarcoating it.

“The truth is that I did not reach out to him, but rather chose to finally accept a long-standing invitation.”

“Invitation to what?”

Serafine’s answer is drowned out by the sudden opening of the front doors; old heavy wood on ornate hinges designed more with the aesthetic in mind. Their harsh squeal cuts into the trio’s ears and makes Nadya flinch violently.

Soft yellowing light spills out into the night. A haze that stretches down the stone steps and all the way to where they stand gathered on the gravel. Nadya quickly throws the back of her hand over her eyes as she blinks away hazy colorless dots in front of her sight.

It’s just one big gaping hole of uninterrupted brightness… until a shadow starts to cut a long path through the din. It stretches longer and longer until it nearly reaches all the way back near the break in the hedges; a towering figure that, once her eyes adjust to the new lighting, doesn’t quite match the reality that stands before them.

“As I live and breathe — what be this vision before me? It could not be the captivating sight of one Serafine Dupont, surely!”

There’s so much to unpack there but Nadya’s brain is already frozen and buffering on account of the singular thought that consumes her entire being.

Those are some tight leather pants.

The fact that Vlad is wearing all black only adds to the formidable, if shapely, shadow he cuts across the front path. He gestures widely and exuberantly and with no small amount of purpose; the kind of motion that makes sure his large billowing sleeves move in precisely the right way and give him the perfect amount of flair.

Even without the combined warnings from Kamilah and Serafine prior to this exact moment, Nadya’s certain this first impression is all it would take for her to know exactly the kind of man Dracula is.

A one-hundred percent unrepentant drama queen.

Neither Jax or Nadya miss the sight of Serafine quickly steeling herself. How she tucks away any lingering distaste (though maybe it’s the whole psychic-connection thing but Nadya swears it’s not that hidden if she can still feel the remnants of it) and slips on what could very well pass as a genuinely sincere smile for how natural it looks.

Oh, she’s good.

“Vlad,” she coos, somehow both a greeting and an endearment both with one meager syllable. “I see the years have remained kind.”

With his hands on his cocked hips Vlad lets out his own rich bellowing laugh. The kind that has Nadya looking subtle as she can over her shoulders to see if there really is anyone able to hear him waiting in the shadows; witnessing them all like a permanent audience for his constant theatrics. Her senses may be perilously human but Jax doesn’t seem to notice anything off… hopefully he’s got a better grasp on their surroundings while their host holds Serafine captive with a gaze.

“Whereas you, my exquisite creature, look absolutely radiant. Perhaps even glowing as much as I am!”

The ‘Count’ is definitely younger than Serafine, which makes his comment more than a little suspect. About as suspect as the fact that he hasn’t moved from his place at the top of the steps… nor has she moved from her place here below.

They’re having a good old-fashioned stand off. Each one waiting for the other to yield their ground and move things along. But it’s different between the pair of them, that much is obvious.

Vlad shifts on the heels of his boots with an expectant lilt to his smile. He’s used to being greeted with respect and reverence — which Serafine isn’t not giving him — but it means he makes others come to him.

And everyone (Vlad included) knows quite well that Serafine only does what she wishes and nothing more. Hence the way she stands graceful, calm, and poised. Hands folded lightly over the bodice tight against her blouse.

She tilts her head to the side so gently her hair falls around her shoulder in a dark pillowing cloud.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she asks bemusedly, “aren’t you going to come give us a kiss?”

With his hand forced and no time to find a reasonable way to turn the tables Vlad has no choice but to acquiesce. “Of course, of course!” Then he’s skipping down the worn stone steps two at a time, the rhythm of his heels following him all the way down. “I just needed a moment to take all of you in, darling. Alive and well and vibrant as ever.”

He embraces his fellow survivor with open arms and a kiss to each of her cheeks.

Another good reason Adrian didn’t come with, Nadya finds herself thinking — the only distraction she can muster to keep from cringing at how he gets a little too friendly on her face with his lips, we need Vlad alive after all.

And after that display… that might have been something up in the air.

Vlad coaxes Serafine back to hold her at arms’ length; only he doesn’t actually let her go. Some small attempt to reconcile his failed power play, maybe.

It doesn’t matter. Just as she did before Serafine breezes her way through anything he might do to her — a simple gesture and roll of her shoulders to adjust her hair has Vlad all but staggering back like she’s thrown him backwards with all of her strength.

“You say such things as though they may have been in doubt.”

His recovery is a meager and tight-lipped smile. “My ears on the ground have a lot to say about changes abound on your side of the continent. Absolute chaos, from what I’m told.”

Tension ripples through Jax and has his hand drifting to the sword affixed to his belt. Nadya throws him a worried look; all wide eyes and silent pleas, but from the looks of it she didn’t need to bother.

They might as well be invisible for all the attention the famed vampire gives them. Not when he has whatever old grudge fuels the calculated exchange between himself and Serafine to put his energy into. But never in her life has Nadya been more glad to be considered chopped liver.

Serafine doesn’t immediately answer. The inaction makes Vlad’s eyes flicker in ruby shades of delight; makes his smile grow wider and a little more meaningful — he thinks he’s won somehow.

“Surely you know of what I speak,” hand over his heart and eyes downcast in cheap, tacky grief, “as I can’t begin to imagine why you wouldn’t have been in Paris during the Dark Solstice. A morbid affair, from what I’ve heard. Almost no survivors to speak of.

“Save yourself, of course.”

Tension crackles between the vampires like electricity. It amps up the long pause that lets his words settle in like a rot; one he’s content to let spread so long as he can’t see it, or as long as nothing of his is damaged by it. Though if he lets it fester everyone’s gonna succumb eventually… or some other metaphor like that.

“You’ve always given credence to such boisterous tales, Vlad.” The woman replies a mite too calmly.

“You deny the Order has reared its fearsome head on your side of the continent?”

“Did I say that?”

“You did not say otherwise.”

“No…” Her voice trails into something soft; hand coming up the brush the back of her knuckles over the high arch of Vlad’s almost alabaster cheekbone. He could bat her hand away, step out of her immediate reach; anything to abate the way he’s shaking very obviously now in his boots. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t move an inch.

He just takes it.

Topped with the cherry pink of Serafine’s angelic smile.

“No I did not.”

And just like that she’s restored some sort of hierarchy between them. One that existed long ago and that Vlad Tepes had apparently forgotten in the intermission that followed. There’s less fear in him when he finally relaxes, when she lowers her hand to clasp his with a gentle little squeeze. But there’s a difference between showing fear and being afraid.

Serafine continues with a newfound confidence. “But your concern warms my heart, old friend. Such as my heart warms to know that with our differences aside we can remember the one thing that binds us. That which is more important than anything else.

“By the Will of the Goddess.”

She takes their joined hands and twists them gently. The darkened copper of her skin in stark contrast to his as she coaxes his palm facing upwards.

Nadya watches intently. She wonders for a moment if Serafine intends to draw blood from the bright vein under her thumb… but it passes over like a kiss and nothing more.

“By the Will of the Goddess,” Vlad repeats — far more winded than he had been mere moments ago.

To Serafine’s left Jax shifts on his boots restlessly. Not that anybody asked but Nadya’s seriously impressed with him right now; given his track record with these kinds of things the fact that he can resist rolling his eyes and looking for all the world as though he’d rather take his way through this in favor of the bare minimum of neutrality is worthy of some serious accolades.

Not that he gets any. But Serafine can take a hint.

“Vlad, ma puce, let us move this inside, shall we? I’ve yet to introduce my delightfully stoic American friend here; and he’s been so patient with us hasn’t he?”

It isn’t hard for Jax to pretend to be utterly disinterested in Vlad as the man finally seems to acknowledge his presence — simply because he’s not even pretending. But Vlad had been; that much is obvious. As he looks the younger vampire over with a lazy enough eye.

One that makes it abundantly clear that he had noticed Serafine was not alone; but that he simply didn’t see why he ought to make the effort to care.

“American you say,” — oh of course he says it like that; snooty upper crusty and like he’s actively trying to get Jax to put him at the top of his hit list; maybe even higher up than Gaius at this point — “how… bold of you.”

But his attitude aside, it’s impossible to miss the shift in the way Vlad’s eyes rake over Jax to take him in fully and as a person, less like a piece of Serafine’s luggage left aside.

His eyelids lower a fraction, likes like smoldering embers as he drags his gaze up to finally take in Jax’s handsome features through thick lashes. If there was any doubt left as to what the man’s mind conjures up with the sight before him — there really isn’t though — that’s pretty much dashed the moment he swipes a hint of his tongue out to wet his lower lip.

“Yes, bold indeed…”

Before he can say anything else there’s a loud noise from just beyond the castle doors. A heavy thud that sounds an awful lot like heavy furniture or something else being dragged across a floor.

Jax’s shoulders sag in visible relief as the sound jostles Vlad out of his thoughts and back to the present. He turns back to Serafine.

“Yes yes, do come inside! The American too, I suppose… You can even bring your little snack.”

It takes Nadya entirely too long for her to realize she is the snack. That doesn’t sit well, to be honest.

But it’s the first time Vlad’s even acknowledged her existence and… it’s a little underwhelming if she’s being honest. Not that she wants to earn Vlad’s attention in any form — especially with how touchy-feely he’d been with Serafine — but maybe by this point she’s just gotten so used to strange reactions from vampires that being completely and utterly ignored is… a whole lot of strange for its own reasons? If that makes sense?

It does make sense, if Serafine’s face is anything to go by. How she darts a quick look between Vlad and Nadya and just barely manages to wipe the confusion from her face before it becomes something worth noting.

It could be worse… so she counts her blessings.

Without further pleasantries the man takes long strides back up the steps. He assumes they will follow right at his heels, and they do. Though if the looks shared between the three of them are any indication nobody is feeling as confident about this whole mess as they did before they exited the car.

And they can’t even mention it. What with the whole vampires having supersense-hearing and all.

Vlad doesn’t stop at the top of the stairs. He continues striding right on through the doorway and immediately he’s met by an attendant on either side. Each face is pretty in the way model runways are pretty; with a sharpness to their features that makes them look almost feline and, these two at least, with some kind of gold-colored highlighter that accentuates the sharpness of their umber skin in the distant candlelight.

One steps behind him to catch the suit jacket he shrugs off of his shoulders, while the other who places a fresh glass of a brown liquor in his waiting hand.

“I hope you can forgive the mess of the place,” Vlad pauses to sip his drink and thanks one of the pretty faces with a knuckle stroked along their long throat. They remain impassive to the act but the intimacy can’t be denied.

“You know how crazy things can get when planning the social event of the year and all that.”

Only it’s not a mess so much as it is just a bit… bustling. From the front walk Nadya’s human hearing hadn’t caught onto the noises coming from inside the place but seeing it all now she’s considering getting her hearing checked.

One would expect an estate that looks like that on the outside would be no less decorated within, but decorated is pretty much an understatement. Though if anyone were to make sure any place they lived was decorated to the nines regardless of the time of year it would be Vlad.

Despite knowing that, the hectic bustle of bodies between propped open grand doors and up and down a staircase that branches off on three of the castle’s main floors, though the staggering height of the place from afar tells her there are more levels than what she sees here.

Everything is decorated with the kind of taste that comes from old and inherited wealth and is topped off with a modern edge.

Banisters roped with thick twines of velvet in various shades of reds and golds and what look like real diamonds acting as little more than baubles dangling from the tassels at the hems; furniture scattered around the large foyer in plush cushions and couches that look at first like the genuine antique but on second glance are gold-inlaid replicas built with modern crafting techniques and with longevity in mind.

Another thud comes from a handful of attendants moving a large chaise from one side of the hall through another doorway.

On the ground floor there’s a giant ladder propped up against the far left wall and an attendant balancing atop it. They hold themselves perfectly still, almost delicate, while they secure dark nearly blood-red ribbons around the bottom rungs of a chandelier. They must be nearly done, judging by the same material already wrapped around the chain securing it to the ceiling, and the dark color of the fabric dulls the light and leaves the room hazy both from the continuous heat of the flames that don’t quite permeate the thick texturing.

By the time this place — or this space at the very least — is done being decorated it will certainly be beautiful. But it will be a dark kind of beauty — gothic in a way.

Exactly the kind of event decorations you would expect from Count Dracula; but there’s a respect to be had for the fact he leans into the aesthetic with gusto.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Tepes,” praises Serafine through a hitch in her throat. She’s looking around the foyer with a wistful kind of wanting; a small sparkle held in her eyes that has nothing to do with the lavish decor and everything to do with the invisible hand squeezing her heart up into her throat.

Given recent events especially, the vampiress is no stranger to grief and longing.

And Vlad beams like the way she speaks is more of a compliment than the words themselves.

“Only the best for the best of us, as I’m sure you remember.”

“All your earlier words about the Order, yet you insist on throwing your bal masqué.”

“It is specifically because of these troubling times that we must continue with our most important traditions, Serafine!” He feigns shock with a hand on his chest. The ice in his tumbler tinks together delicately in his grasp. “I thought you, of anyone, would agree.”

He’s goading her and getting more obvious in how he does it by the second. She’s taken it with grace up until now but there’s a tight edge to her tone starting to chip through her armor.

“Tradition, in times of war, can be put aside if that’s what ensures it has chance to be continued.”

“When are we not at war? The Order is no less vicious now than it was before…” He stops and sips his drink again. Casting a passive appraisal around the continued decorating.

“Unless,” with a click of his tongue, “there is a different war you speak of.”

Nadya doesn’t know what’s scaring her more right now; the fact that Serafine had let something that dangerous slip to begin with or the fact that Vlad had caught on so easily. She risks a look at him out of the corner of her eye… much to her relief his sights are still set on Serafine.

An easy grin curls his mouth. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment; let me make sure the parlor’s been made to greet us.” And when he takes his leave of them off to the right and around a set of double doors there’s a saunter to his gait that wasn’t there before. His smugness lingers in the air like a bad perfume.

The moment he’s out of earshot Jax rounds on Serafine with barely-restrained frustration.

“What the hell are we playing his games for? We don’t need to do any of this to find out what he knows.”

With pursed lips Serafine continues to watch the preparations taking place around them. Jax’s frown deepens.

“Serafine.”

“I heard you Jax, don’t worry.”

But that’s still not an answer. Before he ends up raising his voice even more, Nadya reaches out and lays her hand over Serafine’s where she wrings her fingers together at her waist.

“Serafine…” If only she didn’t sound as worried as she is; as the woman’s continued silence makes grow inside her. Serafine doesn’t push her away, but she doesn’t seem welcome to the touch either.

She finally lets her head hang with a weary sigh. “I had thought that given all that transpires around us, Vlad might have chosen to postpone this for the sake of his own safety.

“If not because of Gaius, then because of the Order.”

“Because they’ve been attacking more often, you mean.”

She nods. “But that’s assuming far too much of him. Cunning though Vlad may be, he isn’t very bright.”

“He’s certainly…” Jax’s growl drips with venom, “something.” Nothing good.

“So are we keeping with the plan?”

Squeezing the woman’s hand is enough to finally wrench Serafine’s attention back to Nadya. “No, we are not.”

Jax tenses. “Why the hell not?”

“Because this —” Nadya’s hand falls to let her offer a sweeping gesture to the foyer’s decorations, “— his bal masqué? It changes things. It changes everything.”

She says it in a way that has Nadya feeling like she’s missing a few key facts. She and Jax exchange equally confused glances, and make Serafine sigh heavily for it.

“There’s too much to be explained here. We must leave while we still are able.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that he knows who you are, Nadya.”

It’s like a large gust of wind blows out every candle in the room. Not literally — but the warmth of them is sucked from her bones easily enough. It leaves Nadya feeling hollow as much as she is cold; makes her wrap her arms around herself like that will somehow protect her. She shakes her head slowly… but the disbelief isn’t as intense as she would have hoped it to be.

“But he —”

“— is a performer before he is anything else,” interrupts Serafine; and she’s not wrong. “While he may not have guessed you would be at my side tonight, he has likely known your face and who you are for as long as Isseya and Antony have.”

“So Gaius has been in contact with him then.”

Serafine doesn’t even have to give Jax a verbal response.

“Then we need to go. We need to leave the city; regroup somewhere else.”

“We’ll take our leave of him tonight, yes… but—” —there shouldn’t be any ‘buts’— “—we will be back. We’ll be here for the bal masqué, with the others; and, Goddess-willing, better prepared.”

Uhm… what?

“Why the hell would we do that?” And Jax just barely manages to check his volume, though he’s no less angry. “It’s a party for fucks’ sakes. What’s the big deal?”

“Not here.”

The swordsman throws a look over his shoulder towards the doors Vlad should be coming back through any minute now. “He’s not just gonna let us leave. Especially if —”

Especially if he knows.

But Serafine seems to think otherwise.

“He will. He knows we’ll return; I would even hazard to say he is counting on it.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Unsurprising.”

Before he can try and push the issue Serafine wraps a strong arm around Nadya’s shoulders and all but shoves her towards Jax. “Take her and go. I will deal with Vlad and give you what time I can.”

He just barely manages to catch Nadya before she falls into him. Reaching out to steady her and make sure she has her feet before rounding on their companion. “What the he—”

But he’s too late. Serafine is already five long strides away — far enough that he’d need to raise his voice to catch her. And they both know he won’t take the risk in alerting Vlad’s house staff. They’ve all been dutifully working this entire time, but if the woman dusting picture frames or the couple laying down ornate Persian rugs are anywhere as deceptive as their boss they may be ready to strike at any time.

That thought does not sit well with Nadya’s meager dinner.

“We should try and leave.” While we still can.

His jaw visibly tenses, but already he’s starting to slowly nudge the pair of them back through the open doors. “Fine. But she and I aren’t done with this.”

They catch the distant sound of Serafine’s laugh just as they walk through the doorway. The cold bites Nadya’s hands and face harder than before but sheer panic is more than enough to keep her putting one foot in front of the other. When they’re out of the building and back in the darkness, Nadya and Jax don’t hesitate to pick up the pace. Any faster when they hit the gravel and they’ll be full-on running into the night.

Well… they are running into the night. That’s the point.

“What’s with all the vampires on this freaking continent and the fact they can’t give a straight answer to save their lives?”

“Well they can’t all be like you.”

At the glower he gives her Nadya just barely manages a smile through chattering teeth. It definitely helps her feel less panicky.

“And that means what exactly?”

“They can’t all be bold Americans, obviously.”

Jax groans, fully under-appreciating her brand of awkward humor, and takes Nadya’s hand to bring her along as he speeds away.

#bloodbound #playchoices #playchoices fanfiction #kamilah x mc #jax matsuo #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #serafine dupont #vlad tepes #fic: oblivion bound #oblv: bound by destiny ii #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

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clansayeed · 3 years

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Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ― Chapter 5: The Long Story

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ⥽

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing reimagining project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

TAG LIST: @googlesentmehere, @cess02, @hellyeah90sbaby

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Oblivionverse tag list!

⥼ Summary ⥽

Freed from the Order's clutches, reuniting with Kamilah after all this time isn't at all like Nadya had imagined it would be. But they all have some catching up to do... And what Kamilah has to say will change everything.

content warnings: language, canon-typical violence, blood

[READ IT ON AO3]

Did anyone else know Kamilah had an entire building as offices set up in pretty much every major city, or was she supposed to just… like… find this out on her own?

Walking through the doorway into a near-exact replica of the woman’s New York penthouse should feel like a relief. Between the practically-identical furniture and layout to the fact that Nadya’s pretty sure she hasn’t let go of some part of Kamilah since they had managed to get that awful cage open; she’d even go so far as to say it should feel like home.

But it doesn’t.

And even though she over-thinks every possible reason until her head hurts, Nadya just can’t figure out why.

“You’re sure they’re okay?” She asks again; not because something might have changed in the five minutes since she last pressed about how Brandon and Greer had gotten out of the Order’s raid alive, but because the repetition helps make it feel a little more real.

Only Jax has clearly reached his limit on the matter. “For the last time, yes. A few cuts and bruises but surprisingly they held their own. I keep telling you I got them out myself but since you refuse to believe me…”

“No no,” hastily, swallowing around her dry mouth, “I do. I just…”

“Blame yourself?”

And it’s clear from even the tiniest glance that’s not a weight she’s carrying alone. Not saying that makes it easier, but…

A familiar touch brushes through her hair and Nadya leans into it on instinct. Kamilah’s fingertips tickle the spot underneath her ear and the tension just sort of… oozes out of her shoulders. “I’ve arranged for their recovery in a safe place. One that cannot be connected to any of us, and free of our kind entirely.”

There’s a knowing glint in her eye when Nadya finally looks up. Thank god, if she could cry any more she just might, that means Gerard made it out okay.

They haven’t even sat down and already Adrian is ducking out onto the balcony, new burner phone already pressed to his ear and a familiar worry etched into his frown.

“I guess Serafine was friends with the owner of the club where you were…” Cadence doesn’t say the words ‘attacked,’ ‘kidnapped,’ or any variation thereof for which Nadya is immensely grateful. “So when we had a solid lead on where you two had been taken, Adrian all but insisted she stay behind and help see to the injured.”

She’s almost hesitant to ask. “How did you find us, anyway?”

After all, the ride back to central London had been long. Well… long for a starving vampire and an exhausted human anyway. The Order had gotten them at least an hour out before the rescue team had swooped in and saved the night.

Her question is met with a long pause. Any other time Nadya might have guessed he was just gearing up for one of his long-winded explanations of this tracking method or that mysterious contact in the shadows. Not this time though.

Not when he pauses mid-step and knocks his shin into the dark-stained wooden corner of the coffee table.

She tries to meet his eyes but something off near the kitchen is far more important. Nadya glances over her shoulder to the sight of Kamilah in the doorway, frozen like a statue with an expression just as stony.

She catches the faintest shake of the woman’s head right before Cadence plasters on a smile a little too wide to be sincere.

“That doesn’t matter now. You’re safe, so best not to dwell.”

“Bullshit.” mutters Lily beside her, and Nadya reaches up to pet her head on her shoulder in solidarity.

There are definitely more questions to ask.

Questions like where the hell did Kamilah come from?

Or weren’t Cade and Serafine supposed to be leading their hunters on a false trail towards literally anywhere else?

And, possibly the most dire of them all, how close are those same hunters now that we’re all in a pretty conspicuous not-so-safe house?

All of them good questions, objectively. But they will have to wait.

Kamilah returns from the kitchen bearing a sterling silver serving tray. Steam and the familiar scent of Gerard’s favorite herbal tea tickles at the tip of her nose; she’s grabbing for it before the tray even meets the table.

Beside the cup and saucer is a blood bag, and not for the first time does Nadya find herself wondering why they didn’t think to hide out here sooner.

You’d think with the scabbing skin still slightly smoky around her wrists and the clear bags under her eyes that Lily would dive into the offered meal like it’s Taco Tuesday… which is something Nadya will now never be able to unsee, which is awesome. She doesn’t though.

Doesn’t even reach for it. Just stares at the thick plastic and how it catches the light overhead silent and transfixed.

And Lily’s not the only one.

Across from them Kamilah sits, rigid and alert. Jax grasps the back of an armchair with white knuckles and a set jaw. Even Cadence bites at his thumb nail with nerves he’s probably not even conscious of.

Nadya sets her teacup down to quell the sudden tremor in her grip.

It’s obvious from the sweat on her upper lip and the slits that were her pupils that Lily needs this.

What she doesn’t need is the pressure.

“Am I supposed to be waiting for Raines to nab a seat for the show?” She bites out, fangs clenched together. She’s making a conscious effort to keep her lips over her top row of teeth which muddles her words a bit.

Unfortunately nobody seems to get the hint to back off but Cadence, who silently decides to go join Adrian instead… with the balcony door closed firmly behind him.

Kamilah and Jax exchange a long look. No words; just quirked eyebrows and Kamilah’s inclined head.

Jax takes his cue and comes around to sit, elbows on his knees and every inch of the ‘stern parental figure’ look resolute on his weary face.

“It was life or death — for all of us. No plan, no escape; I want you to know I think you did the right thing, no matter what. It was kill or be killed.”

Familiar words for them all. They make Nadya’s hand clench into a fist on her lap. She shoves it between her legs at the knees.

This isn’t about her right now.

Lily raises her chin defensively. “You got a point there, Jax?”

Oooh this is bad. Very very baaaad.

“I saw something during the fight.” He laces his fingers together between his spread legs. “And it might’ve just been the chaos, the adrenaline… But if there’s even a chance it wasn’t…”

“Lemme clear that up for you.”

Lily snatches the bag faster than Nadya can blink. Faster than Kamilah and Jax seem to have expected, too; judging by their startled looks.

Faster than a vampire her age and in her condition should be moving, in summary.

She holds nothing back. Brighter eyes a little too much on the edge of carnal looking at the promise of sustenance with glee right before she sinks both sets of fangs in deep. It pops and ruins all future mental images of water balloons for Nadya in the process. But even through her messy eating Lily doesn’t spill a single drop.

Jax leans back and sighs with something like relief, but everything else on his face says the complete opposite. “It was just a flash,” he mumbles as if to himself, “and with everything going on I swore it was a trick of the lights. But then they took you and…”

“The Order is not in the habit of leaving survivors,” Kamilah explains for him; and she would know, “let alone taking captives.”

Lily drops the bag into her lap when she finishes — when there’s literally nothing left inside. Like… not even the weird little blood bubbles left. She looks like she wants to rip it open like a bag of hot cheetos and lick the insides just in case.

On the plus side, her wounds are already starting to heal. New skin fresh and practically glowing.

And thankfully not tinged that Feral-like grey.

“Well they’re good at it, habit or not. Their tech is so high it makes high tech look like dial-up.” She rubs at her wrists; the ghost of the memory dark in her now-human eyes. “And it sucked butts and all but…” how is there a ‘but’ to this of all things?I

“But even I’m not gonna say it wasn’t probably the only thing that kept us alive in the end. So. That’s all I’ll give them — only because we didn’t, you know, get shipped off to some vampire-Guantanamo Bay.”

A heavy silence hangs over them then. Nadya can’t even imagine what the club must look like now — what it must have looked like when Adrian and Jax had finished their share of the fight only to look up, look around, and see no sign of either of them. All the ash, all the bodies… and one of them, Nadya remembers with much displeasure, that she was even responsible for.

Kamilah doesn’t let the moment doesn’t last long though. Good, she really doesn’t need that flashback right now.

“Now that we’ve come to the inevitable source of tension,” she hesitates; rocks pretty much everyone else’s world because no one would ever look at Kamilah Sayeed and consider she was even capable of feeling uncomfortable like she is right now, “perhaps now is the time for explanations of your own.”

And she looks to Lily as she says it but that’s not where she ought to be focusing that judging eye of hers. So Nadya bites the bullet and waves her hand slightly — the shaking helps it look a little more sincere. “Actually, Kamilah, if you’re looking for someone to blame that… that would be me.”

Neither Lily or Jax come to her defense. That tells Kamilah all she needs to know about whether Nadya’s serious or simply blaming herself as per usual. She shifts on her cushion; crosses one leg over the other at the knee and keeps her spine almost uncomfortably straight.

Not that any of her proper etiquette could even begin to prepare her for this. She forces the slight furrow from her brow before she speaks again.

“Very well Nadya. As succinctly as possible, if you would.”

But there’s really no succinct way to go about describing what went down in the King’s Manor. From trying to keep Adrian’s privacy by glossing over his meltdown that led the crypt-Ferals to find and surround them all to how badly Nadya had gotten injured during their escape; to everything still kinda fuzzy but no less terrifying about their confrontation with the Duchess in the cathedral and… and what all that had meant…

Kamilah holds up a calm hand to interrupt her. Nadya closes her mouth so fast her teeth click on the still-swollen part of her cut lower lip. She winces but toughs it out.

“You’re sure you weren’t caught between the reality of the moment and a memory? You actually spoke to a…” But she can’t say it. Even Kamilah’s surprised she can’t say it. Sure it breaks all the rules they’ve known for centuries and implies terrible horrible tragic things — lives that could have been saved and fates that could have been changed — but that’s just another Tuesday for them.

So she just nods once. After a glance to Jax and Lily and their unnerving solemnity… still, Kamilah struggles to wrap her mind around the concept.

“I see. Please… continue.”

The color drains from Nadya’s face when she realizes what comes next. Thankfully Kamilah takes it as her usual anxiety; there’s an empathy lurking in the cool depths of her eyes that says I understand, you’ve been through so much, and I wasn’t there to protect you that Nadya feels more than understands. But that’s more than enough… or it would be if that were the thing she didn’t want to talk about.

Jax clears his throat and comes to her rescue. “We figured it was a long shot. But if whatever makes her blood special was strong enough to undo centuries of insanity on a fully-fledged Feral, then maybe it was strong enough to stop Lily from getting to that point at all.”

We. He means Cynbel of course.

But Kamilah looks rattled enough. The last thing they need is her going outside for a breather and pushing Cadence over the balcony railing.

So with Jax’s help they manage to piece together a sound-enough truth for the vampiress that she doesn’t feel the gaping holes in their memories. One that gives importance to the things that matter, like Lily and her shiny new fangs and the importance of their discovery.

And one that omits things like Nadya accidentally did the thing you were afraid of from the moment you met the man, the thing you wouldn’t tell anyone about; the reason the Trinity is tangled up in all this and puts us last in terms of millennia-old vampires on our side.

At the end of it all nobody knows what to expect, least of all Nadya. She has fifteen different kinds of apologies on the tip of her tongue and runs the risk of all of them spilling out at once.

Kamilah doesn’t let her get nearly that deep in, though.

She turns bodily back to Lily with indescribably scrutiny. “And how do you feel, then?”

“Do I feel like a monster, you mean?”

“No,” she continues clipped; terse, “if I had even an inkling to that being the case you would not be here as you are. But think back to your… first Turning.”

It settles around them thickly in the air that there’s a very good chance nobody in the history of vampire-kind has ever said that and meant it the way Kamilah does now. The importance of it gives her the responsibility to continue. “How does it feel this time; knowing what you are, what has made you this way? My concern here, Lily, is the threat you may unknowingly pose to yourself more than any threat you may be to others. The latter can be dealt with easily.

“But if you feel different? If your soul feels… different, then we must act now in the early days. While we still can.”

Act now. What a kind way to imply such a terrible deed.

Lily throws a sideways glance at Nadya before she speaks. After all they’d already had this talk, right? “I do feel different,” and she cuts Jax off before he can even open his mouth with a finger held up and a shake of her head, “no, I have the right to finish. Because I do feel different. I am different. But I don’t feel any less like myself Kamilah, and I know that’s what you mean.”

“The answer need not be so plainly given. In fact I think we would all prefer if you took time to be absolutely certain.”

“It’s my soul and my body. I think I’m pretty fucking certain.” There’s a harder edge to her voice now. Anger bubbling beneath the surface but not in a way that bares teeth or fangs. Just real and pure anger — the kind without an outlet. “I may not have had a choice in anything that’s happened to me so far but I do now. So either you take my answer here and now or you never really planned on believing me anyway.”

It’s a bold accusation. Makes Kamilah blink, lips pursed… before she gives Lily a short and curt nod.

“Very well. The only one fully able to doubt you is yourself. Especially given your… circumstances.”

Lily clicks her tongue in a “tch,” at the word but that’s all. No, really, that’s all. Everyone’s content to drop it there not just because they have nothing more to say but because they don’t want to add to it.

Things are tense enough as it is.

A tension which breaks when the balcony door slides open and the four of them watch Adrian and Cadence return with a hesitant melancholy. Kamilah quirks an inquiring look at Adrian; he runs his palm down his face with a heavy-hearted sigh.

“She wants to stay and help as much as she can,” he answers her unasked question about Serafine and her whereabouts, “and just asked me to call if we had a solid lead on what to do next. She’s pushing herself a little too hard, but I get where she’s coming from. Even if I wish she’d take it easy.”

Kamilah’s brow furrows. “The final confrontation with Antony left her with more than a simple injury. But alas, I can’t say I’m surprised at her tenacity.”

Antony. Just the man’s name brings all the events in Paris flooding back to the front of Nadya’s mind. The Order was a looming threat — probably now more than ever too — but the immediate one was like… two thousand times worse.

Four thousand if they’re counting Isseya alongside.

“So you’ve caught them up then,” asks Cadence, “on… everything?”

He gives a particular look Nadya’s way that she’s very much not a fan of. It gives her a gut feeling she’d thought—hoped, fleetingly—that they had left behind when they fled Paris. The one where everyone around her knows something about her that she doesn’t know — something they’re trying to spare her from.

Her stomach gurgles in agreement as all the knots start to collide with each other. She slides a hand over her middle and looks away from him before it gets any worse.

Kamilah face twitches in the barest flicker of irritation; schooling her expression with practiced ease but that’s just another mask. Just another cover-up. “I had not yet found the opportunity… Cadence.” She says his name in the same clipped and terse way Serafine does. Like her tongue is trained to know better. Her brain not falling for a trick played on her eyes. But that’s not the case anymore.

“I’m hoping it has something to do with why Isseya led us to believe Gaius had executed you.”

There’s an unfinished argument in the way Adrian looks at his mentor and friend. Kamilah tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and nods. “Indeed. I promised you answers when the time was right.”

“When we got Nadya and Lily back.”

“Yes—that needed to remain paramount to anything you may feel compelled to do in the near future.” When I tell you what I know, that’s what she doesn’t say. And she’s definitely got their attention now. All of them watching, waiting; silent and with Nadya on bated breath.

“It was an unnecessary evil; one I would not have gone through with had I any other choice. But we knew the fight was lost — that we had been betrayed by some of our last contacts in the Northeast. Between Miss Espinoza and myself —”

“Why isn’t she with you?”

Lily interrupts unabashedly. Judging by the look bordering on sympathy Kamilah gives her (disturbing in and of itself but about this… well there’s a brand new knot that joins the rest) she was expecting this to happen.

“Because she knew one of us needed to stay behind, much like before when it was you who we sent on ahead.”

“Why does that feel like a cop out excuse?”

“Because it doesn’t nearly begin to paint the picture of the truth.”

“You’re one of the handful of oldest bones roaming the earth Kamilah,” Lily snaps, though she catches herself — her anger — and does her best to reel it in before they have to revisit their earlier talk too darn soon, “excuse me for not believing that out of the pair of you she was the one could do more good if she stayed behind.”

There’s a war across Jax’s expression, half a thought forming on his lips before Kamilah raises a soft hand to stay him.

“No, she’s right. And that continues to weigh heavy on my conscience. But if you would let me continue then perhaps you may find comfort in the nobility in her actions rather than the cowardice in mine.”

Lily mulls it over with grinding teeth. She does eventually relent; sagging against her seat with her arms over her chest. That blue cuff Nadya bought her on their first night in Paris caught between thumb and forefinger like a totem that doesn’t quite bring the peace it should.

“As long as you’re aware of your being a coward.”

“Kamilah’s many things — but a coward…” Adrian looks to her like she’ll pick up defending herself where he leaves off. She doesn’t. So he falls quiet as well, falls in line just like the rest of them. They’ve done enough interrupting.

Anyone else, asks Kamilah silent and with nothing but a single raised eyebrow. No one dares, not now.

“It was not an ideal decision, nor was it the smartest. But we were forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Either we could act impulsive and with little thought and hope it would be enough to skirt by, or we could stand and do nothing, be nothing, and watch every effort to fight back be reduced to nothing before our very eyes.

“I said already that we had no allies left. That is only partially true. None that we could fully trust… but in dire circumstances one does what they must to keep their eye not on the battle, but on the war.” She takes a moment for herself; a long silence before she manages to look Adrian in the eye with the weight of her remorse. “I convinced Marcel to grant me access to the secret tunnels beneath his castle upstate.”

“That’s where Gaius is holding his Court, isn’t it?” Nadya asks; and earns herself a genuinely surprised look from Kamilah.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“It’s a long story…” Please don’t make me tell it now.

And she’s grateful that Kamilah doesn’t. Because she gets it. “It seems most of them are these days…” But back to this one for now.

“I hope he will find it in his heart one day to forgive me. We’ve known one another for many centuries, Marcel and I. But needs must.”

Adrian rubs his mouth slowly, like he can feel her guilt in his bones. “At least tell me it was worth it.”

She nods; the entire room sighs in relief.

“Gaius holds his Court in much the same way he used to. The same pomp and fanfare but with different faces in the same roles. Priya sits at his side as some self-appointed princess,” and Kamilah is well within her rights to sneer the word like she does, “while Cecil’s men act as some adjunct guard service. Marcel is there, as was to be expected. And rarely is Valdemaras allowed to stray from his sight.”

Cadence shifts uncomfortably at the name. “The few times I got Isseya to open up, she made it sound like he was being held hostage. Insurance, almost.”

“If there’s one thing Gaius excels at it is finding the weaknesses of others and exploiting them to his own ends. I won’t say the Trinity are without fault; they haven’t exactly made it difficult to determine what they care about the most…”

And in a startling turn of events she actually does the exact opposite of what Nadya would expect of the Kamilah they had left behind. She’d fully anticipated the woman turning away both literally and symbolically; angling her own weaknesses away from Nadya where they’re the most vulnerable.

Instead she and Nadya lock eyes across the table. Pain, frustration, relief deep enough in honey-flecked irises and pupils dark and deep enough for her to drown in. Wouldn’t be a bad way to go, would it?

“But in this case their cooperation is just as damning as their complacency.” The moment passes. Nadya watches her walls go back up from the outside.

“I’m all for a bit of recon,” cracking his knuckles for something to ease his nerves, Jax leans in before she can resume, “but get to the point Kamilah. What the hell does Gaius want with Nadya?”

She doesn’t immediately answer. Adrian, though, looks at the younger vampire like he’s grown a second head. “What would possibly make you think it has anything to do with Nadya?”

What makes you think it doesn’t?

“What about this points to literally anything else, Raines?” Jax answers with a question of his own. One of the few rare times he and Nadya seem to be on the same page about all this.

Before he can make things worse Adrian bites his tongue. That he doesn’t have an answer is written in the worry lines on his fact.

“The guy sent two millennias-old vampires to hunt her down. Her, not you or Sayeed or anyone in this room who could actually pose a threat to him.” There’s a second where he almost looks like he might give Nadya the no offense card but she just avoids eye contact instead.

He’s fine with that. “I’ve had coincidences enough in the last few months for several lifetimes over. This, Kamilah suddenly showing up in the middle of it, isn’t one of them.

“Is it, Sayeed?”

“No, Jax, it’s not.” Though she might have put it in kinder terms; tried to spare certain mortals in the room.

“Then get to the damn point.”

Before things hit a boiling point Nadya coughs into her fist; fake and loud and with more voice than necessary but it works so that’s all that matters. “I can handle it Kamilah,” like she’s got any idea if that’s what holds the woman back; she doesn’t — but this is bigger than her, “I bet it doesn’t even make it in my top 3 of weird since we left.”

She tries to break a smile and ends up with a weak and strained grimace instead.

“Very well. Nadya, Gaius wants you returned to him, at his Court and in front of his subjects, alive and human.”

“I kn—”

“Because he plans to kill you. He plans to Turn you himself.”

Paris, Several Nights Ago…

“All the risks I have taken for you and you still return here?”

She keeps her voice to a low hiss in his ear; a viper full of venom in her fangs despite how she seems very intent on crushing him like some type of constrictor.

Not that she needs to whisper. Doubtful that their accomplices on either side of the fight can hear or see much beyond their frenzied duel somewhere around the alley corner. Steel scrapes against steel and rings out like church bells. Followed by the now-familiar battle cry of Serafine as she rushes in for the kill.

A kill she always tries for — yet always seems to fall short of the mark.

But even with Antony out of immediate sight Isseya doesn’t pull her punches when she sends Cadence flying back into the nearest building wall. His neck cracks uncomfortably, the brick behind him split in several places and just barely indented with his large and sprawling frame. But he shakes it off like he has all of her other attacks. He really has no choice but to do anything else.

He tries to look apologetic as he brushes red dust from the shoulders of his jacket. “It’s just the way things worked out, Isseya.”

“Don’t say my name.”

“I —” He can never tell with her. In Prague she was benevolent. In Rome she speared a rather heavy branch just a couple inches from his heart. In Venice she had him pinned against the wall, could very well have snapped his neck into unconsciousness or the unthinkable worse, but had pressed her lips hard-near-bruising to his temple before vanishing into the night instead.

Why is it they always end up grappling with one another, leaving Serafine and Antony to continue their seemingly endless duel? It makes sense in Cadence’s head that they’d get better results if they switched dance partners.

Another scraaape of swords comes from one alley over. If he’s going to try and convince her now is about the last chance he has left.

“You don’t have to keep doing this.”

“Says a man who has nothing to lose.”

“I think we both know that’s not the case.”

Isseya grits her fangs. Suddenly she can’t look him in the eyes. “If you wish to waste the windows of opportunity I give you, Cadence, then there’s nothing more I can do.”

He watches and waits; sees her momentary distraction for the advantage as it is and strikes. He pins Isseya to the other side of the narrow alley, forearm pushed tight against her throat. A move meant to hold her still more than anything else; one of those moments Serafine calls him foolish for.

The ones where he tries to reason with a woman who has none left to give.

“You could have killed Antony a dozen times over by now,” he growls, “but you cling to the lie that Gaius’ way is the only way. Why, Isseya? Why won’t you… Why won’t you let me help you?”

His voice cracks at the end. They both notice, thankfully they can both ignore it too — what with the seconds they have left alone ticking down faster and faster.

There it is — just a flicker, but that doesn’t make it any less real. The smallest chip in her composure; proof that every effort in every city, every bruise and broken bone and every pleaded attempt he’s mustered hasn’t been for nothing… not quite yet.

“Because I cannot lose another,” her voice a whisper on his skin, “I would not survive it. I can still save him even if… even if…”

Even if you are lost to me forever.

Isseya shoves him back.

Cadence lets her, god help him if you ask him why.

“Antony’s a smart man,” she says instead; it takes the other a moment to realize she’s continuing a conversation they had started more than a week ago. In an alley much like this on the far side of Berlin, “he figured out a long time ago that you two are nothing but distractions meant to divert our course. No doubt he is all but convinced I had something to do with your first escape… but without proof he won’t risk my beloved’s wrath.

“Not with something as valuable as the Bloodkeeper —”

“Nadya.”

“What?”

Cadence huffs through clenched teeth. “Her name is Nadya. She’s a person, not a thing. So stop saying that word like it keeps her from being a living, breathing human being.”

Whatever he had expected her to do, it couldn’t have been close to the laugh his words elicit. Nor how Isseya looks at him with her chin raised and a newfound challenge in her eyes.

“I love it when you do that.”

She steps forward. Cadence steps back. The brick molds perfectly against him like a shadow.

“Do what, exactly?”

“That,” with a flippant gesture, “that thing where you’re so unlike him without even trying. It makes it easier to keep up the chase.” Just like it will make it easier to end things the same way.

Over their heads a shadow eclipses the moon. The pair look up to see the rapidly-moving forms of their companions, still locked in an argument all their own that will soon inevitably catch the attentions of one or more late-night Parisians.

“If Antony knows the others are long gone then why do you continue tracking us?” He snaps in her face to draw Isseya’s attention. There’s a sickening feeling Cadence can’t place — like this will be the last time he’ll be able to get anything out of her until the tides turn. “Why not continue your mission?”

He takes advantage of the proximity between them and searches her eyes earnest and open. He even dares — risks it all, really — and lets his fingertips ghost the inside of her wrist where it hesitates just shy of holding him hostage.

The moment passes between them like a live wire. Not for the first time, and if the universe intends on royally screwing all of them over before this is done then Cadence is certain it won’t be the last. But her sympathy, like her sanity, isn’t Isseya’s to control. It’s not even at her whim.

Serafine’s cutlass flies through the air and clatters loudly to the pavement beside them.

Too late — the moment is shattered.

Isseya flinches back. Yanks her arm away from him like his touch is a burning brand. Before she can say anything else there’s a cry from above. Serafine’s body follows the path of her sword almost perfectly; a swan dive without the water to break her fall and when she collides with the earth it’s to the tune of her breaking bones.

Time’s up.

Cadence’s jeans scrape and wear at the knees as he skids to Serafine’s side and aid.

He gently turns her over, checking for anything worse than the odd angle of her shoulder socket and the deep cut struggling to stitch itself closed along the curve of her jaw. She groans softly in weak protest.

“Ever think about ditching the sword for something a little more permanent?” He mumbles, half to himself and half as a laugh. It’s something Kathy would do — he’s had that thought several times through their ordeal.

It’s actually a greater source of comfort than he can begin to describe.

Unlike Serafine, her opponent joins them from the rooftop with a stalwart kind of grace. His footfalls barely a tap-tap as he lands just shy of a crouch. Fluid movement in how he stands and makes his way to Isseya’s side. His blade — an old Roman gladius, because Cadence has learned from experience that the older they are the more they tend to lean into the cliche — catches a glinting silver on the distant street lamp. Bright all except where the metal is dotted dark red with blood.

“Good thing we aren’t keeping score, old friend.” Antony remarks. His face twitches in a sick kind of satisfaction as together their hunters watch Cadence help Serafine up, her arm slung over his shoulders to bear the burden of her while she forces her body to heal on her time, rather than its own.

“Unless you wish to count this as an extension of our Nassau campaign, of course.”

“How did the Romans ever get anything conquered if all you do is talk?” Cadence remarks; though his own injuries aren’t as severe in the moment it would be foolish of him not to acknowledge how the constant running and chasing and fighting and more running and the cycle unending has taken its toll.

Antony’s brow twitches; he’s barely given Cadence a second glance since the last time they were in this very city. Not that he’s complaining… seeing as his turn with the brutal General seems to be looming inevitably closer now.

There’s a sickening pop too close to his ears but Cadence resists the urge to flinch. Slowly Serafine steadies herself on her own two feet, grabbing her cutlass from the alley floor to grasp the handle tightly and with the same unwavering conviction.

“He’s right Antony,” and even weak as she is she manages a voice like velvet; crooning in her mockery, “you must be getting soft in your old age. I don’t remember this much chatting in Nassau.”

It would be infinitely more impressive if they seemed to have actually unnerved the man. Instead he’s somehow more impassive than ever.

Beside him, Isseya gives a short and exasperated huff of frustration. “You know you cannot keep this up for much longer, Dupont. Doubtful you’d even last the midnight flight to your next safe home.” She steps forward — tries and fails to mask the pain that comes over her as she watches Cadence throw his arm across the other woman’s front as a shield.

“Just tell us where they’ve taken the Bloodkeeper. One little location… we won’t even bring you back to Court. We will leave you to lick your wounds in the gutters as freemen.”

“Doubtful though, that it would last very long.” Muttered in muted amusement beside her; there’s a dangerous thing to be implied in Antony’s words and eyes.

All the more reason to keep this going for as long as possible.

Serafine snaps her fangs. “Why does Gaius even want her?” The same question she’s asked before; and will continue to ask until they manage to piece together an answer from the scraps they’re given.

“There are hundreds of psychics more skilled he could have.”

“You know the Bloodkeeper is no ordinary psychic.”

“Nor is she a formidable threat to someone of Gaius’ age and skill.” Serafine looks to Isseya imploringly. There’s a lot to be said for the fact that the less sane of the pair is the more reasonable one. “You’ve been in her mind, Isseya. And don’t think I didn’t see the damage your snake of a progeny did there, either. Whatever Gaius would want with her will no doubt go beyond what she’s capable of at her age!”

The Trinity vampire gives a callous shrug. “It’s no concern of mine.”

Beside her Antony’s shoulders shift slightly — it takes more than a fair moment for them to realize he’s laughing. Somehow he was less intimidating with the large broadsword raised and ready than… this.

“If you had any idea what she really was… who she could be…” Antony clicks his tongue, glancing off to the side as if to say ‘you are no threat, I don’t even have to keep you in my sights.’

“No doubt you and anyone else who stands against him would be singing a different tu—”

The dagger, slender as it is sharp and keenly disguised without flair in the darkness, barely so much whistles through the air before the blade strikes true. Embedding itself deep in the vampire’s back just to the side of his spine as if in warning. Light as a feather but enough to throw the ancient vampire slightly off-kilter.

He stumbles on his words — rare for a man like him — and staggers one, two steps forward from the shock of it.

“You were always better suited for the stage, domine. What with the way you’re always running your mouth.”

The flash in his eyes, red and bright and vicious is enough to make it clear that Antony recognizes that voice. In fact if he thinks about it Cadence recognizes it too. As Isseya does, as Serafine does. But it shouldn’t be possible — the look he and his injured companion exchange long and in silent awe is proof enough of that. It should not be possible.

And yet.

Despite the odd angle at which the dagger rests deep in his back Antony manages to pry it free with a strange sort of grace. The kind befitting a man of his age and his role in the history of the world… always on the battlefield in some form or another. It slips from his flesh and muscle with a wet noise; catches the light in a strange array of glinting silver and crimson where it catches the light when he looks it over with cool indifference.

Anyone so well-immersed in their kind would know these blades from sight alone; who they belong to and exactly what kind of darkness they’ve invited in alongside it. Antony, of course, is no different.

By all accounts it seems to do nothing more than bore him. “And here I was under the blissful impression I would never again have to hear your snide and unjust superiority, Sayeed.”

His words are punctuated with the hollow metallic clatter of the dagger dropped from his hand and left abandoned by his feet. As inconsequential as the rest of the rubbish strewn up and down the narrow alleyway.

But when Antony finally turns towards the shadows to face the emerging Kamilah, that boredom is all but a fleeting dream. The hardness in his eyes is unmistakable. Already the gears are turning in his mind — evaluating the terrain, the advantages he has and even more importantly the ones he does not. It’s what’s kept him alive this long, that much is obvious.

Though judging by the way the former Bloodqueen looks him up and down positively murderous that may not be enough to save him this time around.

Her eyes never leave Antony’s, but Kamilah raises her voice to speak over the stone wall of him.

“You look a little winded there, Serafine. I do hope you haven’t lost your touch with a blade.”

Serafine who offers a meager, wispy laughter in reply. “I should hope not, Kamilah darling, but here we are.”

There’s a tic in Antony’s jaw. His teeth grind together audibly.

“I see the rumors of your demise aren’t the certainty they were made out to be.” And none of the vampires gathered miss the look he flits to his companion in the dark — barely even a twitch of his head but oh so damning nonetheless.

After all, it had been Isseya who told them — told Adrian and Nadya and Cadence himself — that there had been no survivors of Gaius’ final assault on New York’s remaining vampires.

No survivors typically means, well, no survivors.

But Kamilah Sayeed would be the exception to the rule.

She isn’t foolish enough to avoid Antony any longer than she needs to. “If I didn’t know better I would swear you almost seem glad of it, domine.”

“Glad of the opportunity to pry you like a thorn from my side, perhaps.”

Are they seriously bantering right now? Cadence shifts and holds Serafine closer when he feels her weight sag against him just shy of fully collapsing.

They stalk one another in the narrow space. Apex predators in the shadows — neither of them yielding or backing down; that simply isn’t their way.

But in the steely determination of their eyes Cadence swears — and maybe he’s just imagining it here, but he’s seen a lot of crazy things these last few weeks and this seems by far the least insane of them all — that a silent conversation passes between them. Not in their minds but in their movements and expressions. In centuries, millennia of history between them both. From when they served the same king to now, here, on opposite sides of the fight.

“One might wonder why a reputation such as yours would be so willing to vanish into thin air.” Antony muses low, practically under his breath. Kamilah blows a single strand of hair out of her eyes — the only part of her out of place.

“Reputation means little with so much at stake.”

“Never thought I’d see the day when the Bloodqueen no longer cares what her subjects see when they come face to face with her.”

He’s goading Kamilah — that much is plain as day. But the part that stuns Cadence (and Serafine at his side, judging by the tension rippling tight through her shoulders and how she fights off the pain of her wounds and hunger like she’s preparing herself to jump back into the thick of it) the most… is how it’s working.

Whatever that silent not-conversation they’re having is about, it’s enough to rattle her. Well and truly.

Suddenly Antony stops. Kamilah’s hand tightens around the hilt of her dagger; poised and ready to strike. But the Roman doesn’t use his gladius. He doesn’t need to.

Not when he can cast just as deep a wound in the knowing way he smiles at her through the darkness.

“You know what he’s planning then.”

He’s not asking so much as stating a fact. One Kamilah doesn’t deny. A quick glance down to the woman hanging from his shoulder tells Cadence everything he needs to know… frankly he’s happy to not be as out of the loop as he feels.

Even Isseya, when she shifts on the balls of her feet and draws Cadence’s attention away from the old foes, seems to only have a piece of the proverbial puzzle.

He’s really starting to hate puzzles.

Victory drips like poison from Antony’s smirk. He eases up in gait; leaning back to give the vampire he once called Queen a look far too cynical to be admiration, but the hint of it is undoubtedly there.

“I can’t say I’m all too surprised. Gaius was convinced your fixation on the Bloodkeeper girl would be a blind spot for you. Despite a fair few of us in his Court insisting it would pan out quite the opposite.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered?”

“On the contrary,” his frown returns deeper than before, “because now he may think twice before assuming to know more than his advisors.”

Advisors, Court. So much going on right now.

Antony waits — they all do — for how Kamilah will respond. It’s not something done out of politeness so much as it is a petty nail in the coffin; not the final one but damn well close enough.

She takes them all by surprise. Again. “I’ve never pretended to enjoy your ridiculous Roman politics Antony, especially outdated as they are. But there is nothing to gain from entertaining the ideas Gaius has come to believe over his century of imprisonment.

“Surely you don’t actually believe his claims.”

“Whether I agree with his ideas or not is inconsequential. You know as well as I do there is very little to be done when he demands something of one of us. Gaius demands the girl brought to him alive, it’s as simple as that.”

Antony shrugs — like he hasn’t met Nadya, hasn’t seen her cry in fear and rage and desperation. Whereas Cadence can’t seem to get the shrill noises out of his head no matter how hard he tries.

If this is what it means to live as long as them, he thinks, maybe I’m better off choosing compassion over years.

But… no. That’s not who Kamilah Sayeed is. He’s seen it with his own eyes — Serafine has too. Even now the very mention of what Nadya is (and what she might be, something they seem to be skirting around awfully carefully with their verbal chess) makes the woman stand taller; lights a different kind of fire in her eyes.

Now if only she would take the pair of them out and be done with it. But Kathy’s always had a thing or two in critique about his damned wishful thinking.

“Never in all my years did I expect to see the Marc Antony so willing to roll over at his Maker’s whim.” Kamilah sighs in something like disappointment. It just gets her another one-shouldered shrug while the man tap-taps his gladius against the pavement.

“All power is earned one way or another. You earned yours your way Kamilah, and I continue to earn mine… and the freedom it grants me… by doing what I must.”

An almost serene smile eases the tension in the man’s own shoulders. “And now, faced with yet another large shift in the way of the world, all I have to do is bring a girl to a king. Though I’ll admit I had started out thinking this would be a relatively simple task…” glancing aside, he looks knowingly, accusingly at Isseya and her stony mask of neutrality, “but I suppose that’s what I get for rushing in without a plan of attack.

“But if the girl truly is who Gaius believes her to be, if she can truly give him what he’s promised any vampire willing to abandon your feeble rebellion and bend the knee, then what’s a prolonged chase in the wake of a new age… of an immortal age.”

Cadence spares a fleeting, desperate look to Isseya for answers. She doesn’t have any to give.

And this is Nadya they’re talking about, yes? Nadya with her headaches and hallucinations and less control over her visions as she would let them all believe.

That Nadya?

“What the hell are you talking about, Antony?” he barks in growing anger; catches himself by surprise at the protectiveness in his voice, too. And he’s not the only one who hears it — Sayeed does too. “She’s the Bloodkeeper, that’s all there is to it!” Right?

He set himself up for that one though, to be fair.

Antony chuckles. Eyes flashing red and the hint of a fang curling at the seam of his mouth. “And do you know what that even means? I wouldn’t be surprised if you did, but you’ve forsaken that part of yourself, haven’t you? And with it — answers.”

That’s getting them all nowhere. To Kamilah; “Please, Nadya’s desperate to see you again, Sayeed.”

Whose face falls before their eyes. The chill chased from her glare and her grip on her dagger wavering ever so slightly.

“I will not let him have her,” she says; and louder still, “I will not let Gaius take her away from me. He’s gone mad, well and truly, to believe in the myth of a myth. I would die before I let his obsession consume Nadya — before he would take her life on the chance that she…”

Chance that she what?

But Kamilah can’t bring herself to say it. There’s power in words; in speaking them aloud and giving life to them. Cadence knows that better than anyone.

But before he can even think of how to reassure her there’s a soft moan of pain near his ear that takes priority. Serafine sags heavier against his side; Cadence side-steps and balances them both to compensate for the added weight.

She won’t stay conscious for much longer (if she could be considered conscious now…) and this time is already far more different than their other encounters. Not just with Kamilah firmly between them and Antony’s game of cat and mouse either, but because the game seems to have finally played out longer than necessary.

They need to go. Now.

“I can’t recall ever seeing you rendered speechless, Kamilah.” Cadence isn’t the only one who knows they’re running on borrowed time. That’s why Antony goads her back his way — closer and closer still.

He thumbs a smear of Serafine’s blood from his gladius.

“Don’t tell me the renowned and vicious Bloodqueen is scared of — what did you call it — a myth of a myth? Or perhaps it’s the prophecy itself that disturbs you. I believe I recall your struggle for his affections so many years ago.”

Fuck. It works too well.

Kamilah rounds on him with renewed fury. “You have no idea what you speak of. And if you wish to live to see the dawn you’ll know never to speak of it again!”

“Ah, yes, well… I can understand the pain of an old flame extinguished; a love lost. I think all of us can,” but when he gestures with a sweeping arm no one dares, “or at the very least we might imagine what it must feel like to have your very being compared with a memory; a ghost.

“Everyone at Court knew, of course. How the Bloodqueen never quite measured up to the Goddess Herself.”

Kamilah Sayeed isn’t a woman to issue hollow threats but that’s not what this is. This is fear freezing her in her tracks, anger shaking her body to its core; an unfortunate truth — not all of it, but enough — being forced on her against her will.

“She cannot be brought back from the dead.”

Antony cocks his head to the side. “Are you quite certain? At any rate there seems to be little harm in trying.”

“If you dare…”

“What, Kamilah? If I dare what? What will you do — better yet what will you have the power to do when he gets his chance? Because it looks to me as though you would not be able to lift a finger, or a dagger at that.

“You would stand there as you stand before me now, held captive by your own weakness. Forcing yourself to watch Gaius Turn her, the Bloodkeeper fed the Blood of the First from his veins. And all would gather to see and bear witness as that blood would bring Her back in new form and face.”

Kamilah takes half a step back — a reflex she can’t control. Much like Cadence can’t control the feeling of his stomach dropping out from underneath him.

No one can truly rise above their own fear.

“He will never lay a finger on her.”

“Denial doesn’t become you.”

Out of the corner of his eye Cadence sees a flicker in the dark — Kamilah’s grip on her dagger renewed; made stronger by her own words. And oh how she practically shouts them into the night sky.

“Nadya is not the First Vampire!”

But the Roman remains unfazed. “Perhaps not yet…” he muses, and always with the same damned smirk.

“But she could be. And the King is quite determined to find out.”

#bloodbound #playchoices fanfiction #kamilah x mc #kamilah sayeed #adrian raines #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #lily spencer #jax matsuo #serafine dupont #marc antony #oc: cadence smith #oc: isseya #fic: oblivion bound #oblv: bound by destiny ii #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

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