Chapter 373: Ways to Kill a Vampire
A/N: My Lycan Mate placed 3rd in the Werewolf competition! Woohoo! If you haven’t seen the announcement, check the "events" notifications in your inbox to view all of the winners.
Thank you so much, my dear readers. You are the reason Graeme and August even had a chance. I was surprised and overjoyed, and I am so very grateful.
This story is truly so close to my heart, so to be recognized for it is the best thing I can imagine.
And thank you so much to Peaches1 for the magic castle! I saw that incredibly generous gift right before I found out about the contest results. It was truly a magical night!
******
Penelope went from anger at the female who had helped Zagan make this cage she was stuck in to fits of laughter.
"Am I his mate?" she laughed. "No. Absolutely not."
Nedra just stared at her, running the possibility through her mind. Would the Winter even know if she was his mate? He had trapped her in here for a reason.
"It’s not me who was supposed to be in here," Penelope explained. "I ended up in here by mistake."
"So who was the cage intended for?" Nedra asked, worry edging its way back into her voice at the renewed possibility that this room was in fact intended for one of her children.
"Why do you care so badly?" Penelope crossed her arms defensively. "Isn’t this a question you should have asked before you made this cage this for him? Why do you help him anyway? Are YOU his mate?"
It was such a ridiculous question that she had been asked. Let this female feel the offense of that accusation. Who would want to be a vampire’s mate? Who would the Moon Goddess curse with such a destiny?
Nedra pressed her lips together. "No, I’m not," she said simply. "It’s not a simple situation I’m in here, but I apologize that you’re stuck in this room because of me. I don’t take joy in it."
Penelope held her arms out, showing the cuffs that her abilities had been shackled with. "Are these your creation, too?" she asked.
Nedra’s eyebrows shot up. She was in this cage with cuffs on as well?
"It appears he is taking extra precautions with you. What have you done to him?" she asked curiously, tilting her head as she studied the Winter in front of her.
"I haven’t done anything to him! I was roped into this to help him with August," she exclaimed.
Nedra put a finger up to her lips. "Keep your voice down," she shushed, glancing at the wall that separated Zagan’s room from this one. The wall was thick stone, and it was unlikely he would hear them unless he was focusing his attention this way, but that didn’t mean they should take any chances.
"Why should I care if he hears me? I’m stuck in here regardless," Penelope growled. "Why did you sneak in here? To see your handiwork?"
"Who is August?" Nedra asked, ignoring Penelope’s questions.
Penelope sighed and walked back to the bed, sitting on the side of it in defeat. August still hadn’t returned, and she was getting worried. She never should have agreed to her taking the risk of looking around the castle. What if something happened to her other than Zagan finding her? She couldn’t imagine what could be worse, but at least Zagan would bring her back to the room.
"I believe she is the one who can kill him," Penelope said.
"No one can kill him," Nedra scoffed. "I have already tried."
"No, there is one who can," Penelope argued. "One that is more purely fae. One who can give him the beating heart he needs—the life he needs—in order to take it away."
"There is no alyko like that, and no fae would ever get close enough or allow themselves to be captured in order to do it. It would create a war with the whole race of vampires. Why would fae care to jeopardize their kind to kill one stupid vampire?" Nedra questioned.
"Have you not heard of the human pandemic?" Penelope asked, eager to prove this narcissist wrong. She thought she was the most powerful alyko that existed? Why had Penelope never heard of her?
Nedra’s eyebrows pinched together. She didn’t keep track of what was going on in the human world unless Selah visited with news of it.
"Clearly you haven’t. There’s a human pandemic with a virus that has been created to reengineer human DNA on a multicellular level using genes from a variety of creatures, including lycans," Penelope began only to be immediately interrupted.
"How would they have lycan genes?" Nedra asked, honing in on that one detail. This couldn’t be true. Lycans were meant to be hidden. Had they been discovered? That was a major threat.
"The fact that entire human genomes are now capable of being sequenced—and that humans are offering theirs to be sequenced in mass quantities in order to discover their ancestry—has made it quite easy for researchers to discover that these fragments of latent genes exist from creature communities that are thought to be extinct," Penelope explained.
"What? How do you know this?" Nedra asked, mouth agape. This was terrifying. "And they have used this DNA to create a virus to... alter humans?"
"I am a neuroscientist working with one of the universities on the project. Once I knew this insane plan was actually working, I thought I could help..."
"You would help in something like that? Why?" Nedra scoffed.
"You are helping the vampire," Penelope hissed. "I decided to help steer the project in a direction where one of the products of this insane plan of theirs could possibly be a purer fae—capable of putting an end to the threat that has plagued alyko now for years."
Nedra stared at her in silence, trying to absorb all of this information. It was so much.
"And so this... August... is the result of that experiment?" she asked.
"Yes," Penelope answered. "She is also mated to the Alpha of a lycan pack, so it is much more complicated now than I imagined it would be. I am hoping that will help her somehow with the ability to give the vampire both life and death."
"August is a female?" Nedra asked, running this too over in her mind. "Alyko do not usually have mate bonds."
"This one is different," Penelope said simply. "Why did you suppose I was the vampire’s mate then?"
"Ah, well that is an entirely different situation. It’s just something I recall reading many years ago, and in the case of a vampire’s mate, the individual could be any kind of creature—human, alyko, fae, vampire... you name it. It’s the only way I believe it is possible to kill him," Nedra explained.
"You believe a vampire’s mate could kill him," Penelope repeated. "Why is that?"
"I read it—a mere scribble, mind you—in an ancient text on mythical creatures. I was looking for a way to kill him as well. Not thinking I could ever find a fae willing and failing to accomplish it myself, I was researching as much as I could. But vampire’s rarely, and I mean RARELY, have mates," she said. "Seeing you locked up here next to his room rather than in containment made me think you might just be that rarity that he would want to keep close."
"Interesting..." Penelope replied. "What exactly did this scribble say?"
