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“It’s agreed, then,” Vesemir says gravely. “The youngest of our pack, and the youngest of your nest, will be mated; and we will be allies thenceforth.”
Guxart nods. “As long as blood flows, and fangs are bared.”
*
Lambert understands why he was chosen for this. Not only is he the youngest and therefore the most symbolically appropriate adult wolf in the pack, but all of his siblings either are mated or were once mated and it would be cruel to ask them to take on another bond.
That said, he’s still fucking pissed about being married off to a fucking vampire. Arrogant bloodsucking bastards, all of them, and Lambert is going to have to spend his very long life with one, assuming they don’t kill each other out of sheer mutual antipathy first.
Which would be very bad for the treaty between the Morhen Pack and the Dyn Marv Nest, so Lambert’s going to try not to do that. But he makes no fucking promises.
He is in a black mood as the sun sets on the appointed night, the rising stars and the lanterns in his packmates’ hands casting an eerie pool of light around Lambert where he stands at the altar on the mountainside.
He doesn’t hear the vampires coming, which is fucking annoying. One minute it’s just him and his pack standing there waiting, and the next minute there are half a dozen more people in the clearing - people without fucking heartbeats, who smell of cold stone and old blood. Lambert’s not the only wolf who snarls in surprise.
One of the vampires glides forward to stand across the altar from Lambert. He’s tall - maybe an inch shorter than Lambert’s own six feet - and lean rather than broad, with a liquid inhuman grace to his movements so that he seems to flow rather than walk. His eyes are a bright, unnatural green. His hair falls in loose, dark ringlets to his shoulders, and his beard is trimmed as short as Lambert’s own. He is wearing a loose white shirt that gapes open at the throat to show off quite a lot of smooth brown skin, and is gathered in close at the wrists; his trousers cling to his legs to emphasize their length.
He is very handsome.
And his smile shows off a pair of very white, very sharp fangs.
“Hello, wolf,” he purrs.
Lambert jerks a nod. “Let’s get this over with,” he bites out.
The vampire chuckles softly, and offers a hand across the altar. “Such romance,” he lilts. “You’ll turn my head, quite.”
Twist it right fucking off, more like, but Lambert takes his hand. It’s cool in his, and there’s an odd vibration under his fingers where there ought to be the steady rhythm of a heartbeat.
Werewolves aren’t much for ceremony, but apparently vampires are, the useless bastards, so Lambert has to stand there getting more bored and irritable by the moment while the head of the nest waffles on about eternal bonds and the way both pack and nest will grow stronger through this alliance. The vampire he’s about to mate with watches him with a little smile playing around his fangs, his brilliant green eyes never moving from Lambert’s face. It’s unnerving. Lambert stares back, unwilling to give any ground he doesn’t have to.
Finally the lead vampire finishes his bout of oratory, and the vampire holding Lambert’s hand smiles wider and bends, lifting Lambert’s hand to his lips like a courtier…
And turns it over, delicately, so he can sink his fangs into Lambert’s wrist.
Lambert’s expecting it, but it’s still hard to keep from yanking away from the sudden sting. But the vampire is surprisingly polite: he takes a single mouthful of blood, just enough to form the bond between them, and then a soft cool tongue laps over the tiny wounds. They would have mended fast anyhow, werewolf healing being what it is, but they vanish utterly in the time it takes the vampire to straighten up, Lambert’s blood staining his lips a darker red in the lantern-light.
“We are bound,” he intones, and there’s a sort of low satisfied hiss from the watching vampires. The vampire - Lambert’s vampire, now - raises an eyebrow at Lambert in silent challenge.
Lambert snarls and leans forward across the altar, tugging at their joined hands; the vampire bends, too, in perfect unison, tilting his head to the side to bare his throat. The angle is awkward with the altar in the way, but the ridiculous shirt leaves the vampire’s throat bare, and Lambert lets himself slip into the half-shift he’s been holding off by sheer stubbornness all evening. He wants to be wolf - anger always makes him inclined to be furry and fanged - and it’s all too easy to let his fingers sprout claws and his teeth lengthen into weapons as formidable as the vampire’s own.
The vampire doesn’t flinch as Lambert bites down at the juncture of neck and shoulder. His blood tastes old and stale on Lambert’s tongue. Lambert bites just deep enough that he knows it will scar before he pulls away, forcing the wolf back under his skin, and finds himself staring directly into the vampire’s eyes again, their faces only inches apart.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lambert sees the bite-mark heal to silvery scars.
The vampire leans forward to press a very delicate kiss to Lambert’s mouth, old blood and new mingling between their lips, and straightens up again. So does Lambert.
He can feel the bond settling into place: mate-bond and blood-bond, not quite the same but apparently compatible enough anyhow. “My mate,” he rasps reluctantly.
His packmates lift their voices in a triumphant howl, just as they would for any mating, even this mockery of one.
The rest of the vampires fade back into the forest, silent as shadows, and Lambert finally lets go of his new mate’s hand. “Now what?”
“Now I believe I am to return to your den with you,” the vampire says. “As a gesture of trust, my sire said, since your pack has offered such generous protection to our nest.”
“Right,” Lambert says, jerking a nod. “C’mon then.”
The vampire vaults the fucking altar from a standing start, landing neatly at Lambert’s side. “Lead on,” he purrs. Lambert glares at him and turns to stalk away, following in the wake of the rest of his pack as they spread out through the forest. All of them probably want a run after that, but it’s Lambert who can’t go romp through the forest in his fur. No, he has to take a fucking vampire back to his fucking den.
The vampire stays at his shoulder, a silent shadow, until they reach Kaer Morhen. Lambert strides through the gate of the old keep and is almost all the way to the door before he turns to find the vampire standing just outside the threshold.
“What the fuck,” he demands.
“I cannot enter without invitation,” the vampire says mildly. “Nor can I return to my nest. If you truly wish to be rid of me, you can simply leave me here until dawn.”
“And break the fucking treaty?” Lambert snarls, turning to stalk back towards his unwanted mate. “Damn, you do think well of wolves, don’t you?”
The vampire raises an eyebrow. “You want this, if possible, even less than I do,” he points out as Lambert halts in front of him. The threshold is an invisible line between them, far more of a barrier than the altar was. “And in your -” he glances down briefly - “boots, I would not want an unknown vampire in my place of safety.”
Lambert scowls. How dare the bastard be reasonable about this? “You gonna fuck us over?” he demands, leaning into the bond to get a sense of what the vampire is feeling, since he’s got no heartbeat or emotional scents to provide clues. “Gonna stab my packmates in the back?”
“No,” the vampire says. As far as Lambert can tell, he means it. “I mean to make this work, if I can. My nest needs the safety of your mountains, of your pack. The hunters grow ever bolder.”
Lambert’s frown deepens. “You said you didn’t want this either,” he points out.
“I had hoped to bond for…affection, rather than protection,” the vampire admits, and shrugs elegantly. “Alas, such is life. Or undeath, as the case may be.”
Lambert snorts, amused despite himself. “Who the fuck actually says alas anyhow?”
The vampire smiles, baring his fangs again. “I do.”
Lambert tilts his head in grudging curiosity. “You’re the youngest of your nest, but I didn’t ask - how old are you?”
The vampire waggles a hand. “Not quite a century. And you, wolf?”
Lambert grimaces. “Thirty next year, and if you say a fucking word about my hairline I will end you.”
“Understood,” the vampire says, though there’s a quirk to his lips that Lambert doesn’t trust at all. “What other cautions do you have for me?”
“Uh.” Lambert frowns. “You call me a puppy and I’ll break your pretty face. You hurt any of our pups and you’ll be a long time dying. And if you fuck with my alchemy setup and blow your own hands off I’ll fuckin’ laugh.”
“Understood,” the vampire repeats, nodding solemnly. And then his smile widens again. “You think I’m pretty?”
Lambert growls. The vampire laughs softly. “Sorry, sorry, but you’re awfully fun to tease.”
“Asshole,” Lambert sighs. “What’re your lines, then?”
“Lines?”
“Like not calling me pup, keep up,” Lambert says, waving a hand impatiently.
“Oh.” The vampire looks taken aback. “I prefer not to be called a parasite, if you don’t mind. And if you’re going to kill me, I would prefer a stake through the heart while I am dead to the world during the sunlit hours. My first death was entirely unpleasant enough; I don’t wish to see my second coming.”
“...Fair,” Lambert says grudgingly. The ease with which the vampire talks about dying is genuinely disconcerting. But he’s being startlingly easy-going about this whole thing, and he doesn’t feel like he’s lying, and -
“What’s your name?” he bites out.
“Aiden O Conaill of Dyn Marv,” the vampire replies. “And you, wolf?”
“Lambert Morhen,” Lambert replies - he gave up his shitty birth-father’s name as soon as he was adopted into the pack as a child, and has never regretted it for a moment. “Alright then. Come in, Aiden O Conaill. Be welcome in Kaer Morhen.”
Aiden shivers and steps across the threshold with an almost reverent air. “Thank you,” he murmurs.
Lambert huffs uncomfortably and turns away. “My den’s this way.”
Aiden follows a step behind him, and Lambert is more than a little disconcerted by how easily he’s adjusting to having a vampire at his back. It has to be the bond, because the hair on the back of his neck ought to be standing up, and he ought to be ready to sprout fur and fangs at any moment, and he ought to be thinking dark thoughts about gutting the bastard for being so close, but he’s…not.
Which is fucking bizarre.
He stomps his way up through the corridors to his den, his rooms where no one goes without his permission, and shoves open the door. “Here,” he bites out. “My den.”
Aiden pauses just inside the doorway, looking around curiously. Lambert eyes him, waiting for a verdict. His den is his, with his weapons in a rack and the shelves full of his books on the walls and a big table covered in various half-finished projects under one of the windows where it gets decent light during most of the day. The rugs are shabby and well-worn and the chairs are beat to the perfect level of comfortable disreputability and it’s all Lambert’s, damn it.
“It’s very…you,” Aiden says at last, and glances over at the shuttered window. “We should probably spend tonight within these rooms, for appearance’s sake, but come morning I suppose it would make the most sense to find me a place in the cellar, perhaps?”
“Everybody’s going to be able to smell whether we fucked or not,” Lambert says bluntly. “Appearances don’t mean much in a wolf pack.” He hesitates. He should agree to stashing his unwanted mate in the cellar. It would make sense. It would keep Lambert’s rooms free of intrusion. Aiden’s a fucking vampire.
“There’s no windows in my bedroom,” he bites out. “Draw the bed-curtains and it’s dark as midnight even in the daytime.”
Aiden tilts his head, the scar on his throat catching the light from the banked embers in the hearth and gleaming softly. “Do you want me to spend my days here?”
Lambert huffs and shrugs. “You’ll be dead to the world. Not like you’ll be making a fucking nuisance of yourself. I stick you down in the cellar and the pups’ll probably decide to tie you to a ceiling joist or some shit.” He glances up to meet Aiden’s brilliant green eyes and away again. “This whole fuckin’ treaty is about protection anyway, right?”
“It is,” Aiden replies, with a very strange note to his lilting voice. “And I find that for the first time, I believe the treaty is not destined to fail by our very natures.” He steps forward and reaches out to touch Lambert’s cheek, the barest brush of cold fingers against wolf-hot skin. Lambert looks up again without meaning to, and finds he doesn’t want to look away from the indecipherable emotion in Aiden’s unnaturally emerald eyes.
“Thank you, Lambert Morhen,” Aiden murmurs. “Perhaps our sires were not entirely fools, to seal the treaty with our bond.”
“Yeah, well.” Lambert doesn’t actually know what he was going to say there. “I won’t be the one to fuck it up first.”
Aiden smiles, broad and fanged and surprisingly sweet. “And I shall endeavor to do likewise. It seems we have an accord.”
“Guess so,” Lambert says, baffled by how much he doesn’t hate having Aiden so close.
Aiden nods and steps back again, giving Lambert space. “For tonight, then, if we need not worry about appearances, will you show me the areas of the keep which I am allowed to access?”
“Sure,” Lambert says. “Start with the top, I guess, and work our way down?”
“That seems eminently sensible,” Aiden agrees, and falls in just behind Lambert’s shoulder as Lambert leads the way out of his den.
It’s already far too comfortable, having the vampire at his back. Having his bondmate at his back, right where he ought to be, where Lambert can protect him and be guarded in his turn.
This is still likely to turn out to be a disaster far worse than any explosion Lambert’s experiments have ever caused. But it isn’t yet.
For right now, that’s enough.