Chương 11: The First Kin

They looked up at me with pleading eyes. Not for themselves, naturally. Adrian's hand remained wrapped around Celeste's, his thumb brushing weakly across her knuckles as though comfort still mattered while the curse destroyed him from the inside. Celeste had gone pale beneath the damage, but her gaze kept darting toward him, terrified he would disappear before she did. They were absurd, clinging to each other while death tore them apart, and somehow that made the sight more touching than I cared to admit.

Beneath my irritation, something darker stirred… satisfaction. If I go through with this, Celeste's endless chatter will follow me into eternity. Adrian, at least, understood the value of silence, though she possessed an alarming talent for pulling him into her orbit until he forgot it entirely. They were inseparable, each one shaped around the other so completely that taking one without the other had never truly been an option. Inconvenient as that realization was, I wanted them both, and I crouched between them.

"How attached are you to being human?" They both stared at me. Celeste blinked first.

"That is a very strange question."

"We are dying," Adrian rasped.

"Strange seems appropriate."

"I'm serious. How much does being human and belonging to the mortal world truly matter to you?" Celeste tried to answer immediately, and then stopped. Her lips parted and closed again, but for once, no words tumbled free. Adrian lowered his gaze toward their joined hands.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"I've never considered humanity something separate from myself."

"Most people don't." Celeste swallowed, and even that small movement appeared painful.

"Would we still be ourselves?"

"Probably." I shrugged. Honestly, I had no idea.

"Probably?"

"I have never done this before." Despite the pain clouding his features, Adrian's eyes sharpened.

"That is not particularly comforting."

"I'm not attempting to comfort you." A weak, breathless laugh slipped from Celeste before pain twisted it into a wince. I looked between them.

"Accepting my help means abandoning your humanity." Their expressions shifted as fear, hope, and confusion moved across their dying faces. Mortal emotions crowded their fading faces, each one demanding attention I had no intention of giving. Their feelings were not my burden. They could choose to live or gamble on finding each other in some imaginary next life, and that decision was their own. Adrian forced himself to focus.

"What exactly would happen?"

"You would become my kin." They spoke together.

"Kin?" Of course they did… I sighed.

"Yes, Kin... Reborn through my blood, bound to me, and changed by whatever I am." Celeste's brow furrowed.

"Reborn?"

"Not as infants, if that is where your dramatic little mind has wandered." Her mouth closed, and then opened again.

"That was not what I was thinking."

"It absolutely was." The faint smile on Adrian's face gave her away. Celeste tried to glare at him.

"Don't look amused while dying."

"I'm trying to make the most of the experience."

"Stop." I rubbed my temple, already regretting the possibility of saving them. They had not even been turned yet, and eternity already sounded unbearably loud.

"You should remain yourselves," I explained.

"Your bodies will likely be restored to their strongest condition and held there. At least, that is what mine appears to do. My regeneration repairs wounds, broken bones, burns, and apparently curses. I cannot promise you will inherit all of it, but my instincts suggest you will receive some version." Celeste stared at me.

"That is why you weren't afraid of the curse."

"That is why it barely inconvenienced me."

"And why you insisted on walking ahead," Adrian murmured.

"I walked ahead because I am exceptionally difficult to kill, while both of you are proving remarkably fragile."

"Practical."

"I try." Celeste searched my face.

"What are you?" I paused. That was the irritating part.

"I don't know." Neither of them spoke.

"The closest word I have is vampire." I gestured vaguely toward myself.

"I drink blood, possess fangs, heal absurdly quickly, and appear stronger and faster than anything I have encountered. However, sunlight does not burn me, fire does little more than warm my skin, and my heart continues beating. Perhaps 'vampire' is inaccurate. I could be some form of hybrid." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Another possibility surfaced.

"Possibly… a primordial." The word felt strange upon my tongue. Celeste's eyes brightened despite the death creeping through her.

"That's incredible."

"You're moments from dying, and you still found time to be impressed?"

"I am a mage."

"As though that explains everything."

"It explains quite a lot." Adrian squeezed her hand.

"It does." I turned my attention toward him.

"If you accept, your abilities may change. They might strengthen or twist into something new. Your bodies could become nearly immortal, but you would remain tied to me for as long as you exist."

"How long might that be?" Celeste asked.

"I don't know." I raised both hands.

"That answer is becoming a pattern."

"Yes." Adrian didn't look away.

"What happens to us if you die?" A faint smile touched my lips.

"I imagine you would die with me." Celeste released a slow breath as Adrian turned toward her, and once again, an entire conversation passed between them through nothing more than a glance and the tightening of their fingers. It was the sort of wordless understanding poets adored because it made everyone else feel inadequate. Then Adrian asked the stupidest question I had heard all day.

"Would becoming your kin prevent me from loving Celeste?" Panic seized Celeste's face, sudden and raw, as though the thought of losing Adrian's love had cut deeper than the curse ever could. I looked at him, then at her, before slowly turning back to him in disbelief.

"What are you talking about?"

"You said we would be bound to you."

"As kin…"

"Yes."

"Do you imagine a mother romancing her son or daughter?" Both of them went completely still. Then they exhaled with obvious relief. I rolled my eyes.

"Your marriage is safe from me. Continue being nauseating together at your leisure." Celeste managed a tiny smile.

"Then I honestly see very little downside."

"There are several."

"We protect our source, live for a very long time, and remain together."

"Source?"

"It sounded safer than calling you mother." The word struck something inside me before I could stop it. Mother… I hated that. Adrian turned toward Celeste.

"I think we should accept."

"So do I," she whispered.

"Otherwise, we might spend a very long time searching for each other in another life."

"If such a thing even exists." They both looked at me.

"What? It's a reasonable concern." Even though I've personally experienced it, who knows if they would get the same opportunity?

"You're terrible," Celeste murmured.

"And yet I'm the one offering to save you." She smiled… That expression was becoming increasingly irritating. Adrian returned his attention to me.

"We accept." Celeste nodded.

"Together."

"Obviously." I rolled my eyes for the fifteenth time since starting this conversation. I studied them, disgusted by how completely they functioned as one and reluctantly impressed by it.

"All right. I hope neither of you comes to regret this." I looked from one to the other.

"Who goes first?" A foolish question…

"Celeste," Adrian answered immediately.

"Adrian," Celeste replied at the same time. I closed my eyes.

"Of course." Rather than let them waste their remaining breaths arguing, I moved toward Celeste. Adrian fell silent, though his grip tightened around her hand. Celeste went rigid as I leaned over her. Fear raced beneath her skin, quick and unmistakable, yet she neither flinched nor pulled away.

"I have no idea whether this will hurt or not."

"That is not reassuring."

"I'm beginning to suspect you expect far too much from me." Before she could answer, I sank my fangs into her neck. There was no hunger in the bite. I was not taking anything from her. I was giving something back. Instinct guided me where knowledge could not. Something passed from my body into hers, not quite venom; though that was the closest comparison my mind could produce. A burning thread of my will traveled through my fangs and entered her dying body. Celeste gasped as her back arched from the floor.

"Hot," she whispered.

"It's so hot." Adrian tightened his hand around hers.

"Celeste."

"I'm here," she breathed.

"I'm still here." I continued until the instinct inside me declared it was enough. Then I released her and moved toward Adrian. He did not flinch. His eyes remained fixed upon Celeste until my fangs entered his throat. The same searing force passed into him. His jaw locked against the pain, one hand digging into the stone while the other remained wrapped around Celeste's. Changes spread through both of them almost immediately. Violet threads burned through the black decay left behind by the curse.

Their wounds began closing slowly, then faster as the corruption dissolved beneath their skin. The unhealthy gray pallor vanished, replaced by a clean, unnatural paleness. Their breathing faltered as both hearts stumbled, stopped for one impossible moment, then resumed with a slower, heavier rhythm. New fangs pressed into place behind their lips, but instinct warned me the ritual was not yet complete. I sat back on my heels and raised both wrists.

"One more step." Celeste's eyes had become glassy with fever and pain. Adrian's were clearer but far too bright in the dim chamber.

"Bite down and take what you need. Follow your instincts." They hesitated, but only for a moment. Hunger awakened behind their eyes, the same awful and beautiful need that had driven me toward Lord Vane's throat. Their gazes dropped toward my wrists as their pupils widened and their new fangs gleamed. I nearly laughed.

"There is no dignity in pretending. Drink..." They obeyed. Celeste bit into my left wrist. Adrian took the right. It did not hurt exactly. Pain seemed to be something easily cast aside in this new body of mine. The sensation was uncomfortable and strangely intimate in a way I preferred not to examine. Their mouths pulled blood from my veins, and with every swallow, the connection between us solidified. Threads… That was what it felt like. Two threads fastening themselves somewhere inside my chest.

One thread stretched toward Celeste and the other toward Adrian, binding all three of us together. They didn't feel like chains or anything as crude as ownership. This was something instinctive and absolute, a connection my blood recognized before my mind could name it. Kin… The word rose within me again, and this time, I let it remain. Their bodies drank from mine while the chamber seemed to hold its breath around us. Faint violet light glimmered beneath their skin as the last remnants of the curse dissolved.

Every injury the witch had inflicted disappeared, leaving behind smooth, untouched flesh. At last, instinct told me the process was complete.

"Enough." They released me immediately. The punctures in my wrists closed before a single drop could reach the floor. Celeste collapsed onto her back, breathing heavily, while Adrian caught himself on one elbow and immediately turned toward her. As always, his attention belonged to Celeste, just as hers belonged to him. For several moments, they stared at each other in silent wonder before Celeste released a soft, disbelieving laugh. Adrian reached toward her cheek as though he needed proof that she was real.

"You're alive."

"So are you."

"Apparently."

"Dramatic even after rebirth," I muttered. They both turned toward me, their expressions changing as the bond between us settled into something unmistakable. It was not obedience or worship, but recognition. Celeste slowly pushed herself upright.

"I can feel you." I stiffened.

"Pardon?"

"In my blood." She placed a hand against her chest.

"You are there." Adrian gave a quiet nod.

"A presence." I didn't care for the sound of that, especially when I realized I could feel them too, two new sparks burning within the darkness. Two impossible lives I had dragged away from death because the thought of watching them disappear had become intolerable.

"What are we now?" Adrian asked. I looked down at them and understood that they were no longer human, but I still refused to call them children. Another word rose within me instead, steady and certain. Kin… I stood.

"You are my kin." Celeste smiled faintly. Adrian inclined his head, not deeply, but enough to acknowledge the weight behind the declaration.

"And what does that make you?" Celeste asked. Celeste's question pulled memories I preferred buried back to the surface. I saw my mother looking away as I was sold, heard my father call me a burden, and remembered Elias thanking me for purchasing his future. Then I looked at the two beings kneeling beneath the witch light, alive only because my blood had decided death was not allowed to keep them, and a low, disbelieving laugh escaped me.

"What is this life?" I whispered to no one in particular. Then I straightened.

"For now, I'm the person you should avoid disappointing." Celeste's smile widened, and the corner of Adrian's mouth rose with it. I could only sigh at the sight. Wonderful… I had not gained followers or servants. I had bound two lives to mine through blood and choice, creating something dangerously close to family. They were my kin now. I only hoped I wouldn't regret this in the future.