by Iris Walker
Uh oh. Megan stiffened slightly, wrapping her arms around herself, her heartbeat ticking up in her chest. That was another thing she’d learned early on; you never, ever told a vampire what they can and can’t do. Ever. Ryan let out a tense laugh. “I can’t?” he asked with fake confusion. “Why not, darling?” She continued crying, yanking at him, and a bitter taste flooded Megan’s mouth. She almost wished he’d just drain her and be done with it. Ryan pulled the woman closer, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing. “Tell me exactly who is going to stop me,” he continued, his red eyes flaring as he tightened his grip. The woman continued thrashing, and Ryan squeezed until she stopped, letting out a whimper of pain under the vise grip. Megan tensed, bracing herself as the woman’s cries stopped, and Ryan’s arms tightened further. He’s going to crush her, she thought with an icy fear. Just as the woman stopped making noise entirely, one of the royal vampires glanced over, his eyebrows crunching together in annoyance. He raised a pale hand and snapped three times at Ryan. “Not on the couch, you fool,” he admonished, a sneer of irritation on his face. Ryan’s smirk deepened and he released the woman, letting her fall to a heap at his feet as he smoothed out his pants. She continued moaning, crying on the ground, the silence in the room becoming oppressive.
Reema let out a frustrated huff. “Would you shut her up? I don’t want to listen to that all day.”
“What?” Ryan scoffed. She gave him an angry glare, but he just laughed, shaking his head in dismissal, until one of the other royals made eye contact with him and shot him a look. Ryan let out a sigh, doing everything but roll his eyes at them, picking the woman up with one hand behind her head and the other covering her nose and mouth. He lifted her, pressing his hand over her airway until she started writhing, pulling against him, eyes wide in terror. “Sorry, love,” he said, her own struggles not even jostling him, “but the others don’t like to have any fun. They’re quite fuddy-duddy.” Her legs kicked frantically, and Megan bit down on her tongue hard enough to nearly cut it. She probably would have, too, if the vampires didn’t have a shark-like radar for blood. Just as the woman’s eyes rolled back and her legs fell still, Ryan tossed her to the side of the couch like an empty beer can. Megan felt a wave of relief roll over her as she realized that he hadn’t killed her, just knocked her out for a bit, but then she thought about the future that waited for her and wondered if it was much of a mercy. Meanwhile, Ryan stretched his arms out to either side and let out a long sigh, his eyes tilting up to the ceiling, looking for any entertainment. Reema relaxed, the tension broke, and conversation continued. The two royal vampires gossiped, the one of the left waving his pipe towards the woman on the ground. “I told you this, didn’t I? I said no good would come of it.”
“I never disagreed with you, Victor, I simply maintain that you cannot stop it once they start. It’s like a bad plague… it’s not over till it’s run its course.”
“But did I not say that allowing them to read would lead to no good? And now look,” he said, gesturing with wide eyes and manic fingers. “They’ve got all these ideas. ‘You can’t do this’ – I mean, they never used to talk like that.”
“They also used to worship rocks,” the other royal muttered.
Reema pursed her lips. “They still do that.”
“I still purport that the start of this downfall occurred when the peasants were allowed to read – I told you that, remember? The night that we stopped at that wretched tavern, and they were raving about some political man, flyers and everything. You just can’t let something like that go unchecked. Now, they rule the world, and we have to step on eggshells just to survive. It’s truly alarming, what’s been let go over the years.”
Ryan let out a frustrated breath and then rolled his eyes over to Megan. No, she thought with a tremor of panic, giving no outward indication. He turned, resting both arms on the back of the couch. “You’re a wolf, aren’t you?”
She nodded slowly, letting her eyes slip to his.
“A young wolf,” he continued, curiosity plain on his face. “Well, come here, then.”
Megan moved without hesitation, a small, forced smile on her lips. She’d learned from Todd that especially with vampires like Ryan, it was important to treat them like a step up from whatever you were doing before. Never show them fear or hesitation, and never act like you didn’t want their attention. Megan skirted the unconscious woman and sat down on the couch next to Ryan, letting him rest his arm on her shoulder, letting him hook his finger underneath her chin and study her with admiration. As long as he wasn’t treating her like the unconscious woman on the ground, she counted her lucky stars. “Have you even shifted yet?” Ryan asked, flashing his red eyes at her.
She shook her head.
“Oh, just a baby,” he said with a small smile, touching his fingertip to her nose. “But you still heal like a wolf, correct?”
She nodded.
“I’ve always wondered about that healing sleep that you all do,” Ryan continued, looking her over. “How does it work? How much injury causes it?”
She waited for him to continue, but she realized that he was serious, that he was waiting for her response with a quirked eyebrow. “I – I don’t know,” she said softly.
“If I broke your arm, would that heal on its own?” he asked, cupping her elbow with cold, slender fingers. “Is that enough to start the healing sleep?”
Megan’s mouth went dry, but she fought to keep her composure. Her voice sounded small, shaky. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, you’re scaring her,” Reema muttered.
Ryan let out a little laugh. “No, I’m just wondering. God, you’re all so serious. Live a little,” he balked, pulling something out of his pocket. “Like, if I were to do this,” he continued, twirling a dagger in his hand. In a swift movement, he plunged it into Megan’s leg, and white-hot fire ripped through her, a cry escaping her lips.
“The couch!” one of the vampires yelled. The world around Megan blurred as she was dragged at lightning speed to the tile floor by the windows. Megan crashed onto the ground, every heartbeat causing a fresh wave of pain to roll through her. Ryan knelt down next to her and pulled the dagger out, inspecting it. Megan’s hands instinctively clutched at her leg; the bleeding had slowed, but the tissue hadn’t even started to knit together yet. “So it takes more than one stab to start it…” he hummed, driving the dagger deep into her gut, and a sickening groan rolled out of her.
“For God’s sake, do you have something against tranquility?” Reema snapped.
The large doors to the war room swung open and angry steps clicked against the tile, coming closer to the vampire terrorizing her. A steely, commanding voice cut through her pain-fueled delirium. “Ryan, leave it.”
Ryan wiped his dagger off on Megan’s suede outfit and sheathed it, turning on his heels and following his master out of the antechamber. Megan groaned, her breath coming in short pants. She heard one of the royals click his tongue in irritation. “He’s just going to leave her like that,” the vampire balked. “Unbelievable…” She heard footsteps approach her, and the vampire talking to Victor appeared in front of her teary eyes, his pale hands grasping either side of her head. “In my day, we’d have been rung up a tree for such barbarics. But no, the boy doesn’t clean up after himself, doesn’t even finish what he starts,” he grumbled, a split second before she felt her head crack against the cold tile, darkness blooming in her vision.
Reykon
Reykon slipped through the streets of downtown Nashville, on an autumn night, complete with crisp air and blinding lights. The city itself had a western feel to it, with long rows of boxy buildings, save for the neon signs sticking off the shops’ corners and flashing in a carnival-like blitz. No seizure warning? Reykon thought with bitter amusement.
Bitter because he’d much rather be hanging out at the beach shack, with the love of his life and Chadwick. And because traveling by foot, anonymous, through human cities brought him back to those days
where he was beholden to Magnus, sent on mission after mission. Silent infiltration, tailoring himself to catch the eye of his latest assignment, before dragging them back to the stronghold.
Just visiting a city like this made him feel dirty, wrong. Guilty. But they did have work to do, and he was the only one that could do it. Because Chadwick’s little mirror plane hadn’t copied any restaurants or grocery stores when terraforming in the shadows, Reykon was in charge of food and supply runs. Not to mention, the whole reason Reykon was with Chadwick in the first place could be traced back to that night in Sedona, a little over six weeks ago. Chadwick had altered him, making him a pretty much unparalleled strongblood when it came to strength and speed. None of the strongbloods had been told that those symbols inscribed onto their skin weren’t for focusing magic; but rather for the suppression of their true power. It made sense, because now Reykon had enough power to launch Ezra Abernathy Xander across a football field. If you’re going to have creatures like that running around your house, it’d probably be smart to keep a tight lid on them, and Reykon certainly didn’t put it past the masters to keep such a wicked conspiracy to themselves. But the problem in releasing Reykon from his bindings was that Chadwick had taken that information from the caster’s guild, and they were very, very protective of it considering they were the ones that gave strongbloods to the vampires in the first place and after the insurgence, there was severe sentiment that the casters had done it for the long game, hoping that one day the strongbloods would overthrow their masters. Even after so many centuries, the casters were afraid of vampiric revenge. And they’d truly thrown everything they had at Chadwick; the Legion was constantly looking for him.
Their goal was to find a bunch of rogue strongbloods that they could persuade to take on the new strength and spread the word about the vampires’ injustice. Then, Chadwick could wrangle up a few casters and dispel the procedure to them, making it common knowledge. According to the laws of supply and demand… well, you know the rest. But seeing as they had neither strongbloods nor casters, there was a lot of catching up to do. Reykon rounded the corner, smiling amicably to a woman with headphones in, and then nearly barreled into a group of protesters. Reykon saw the yellow symbol with a red X gashed on top, immediately recognizing them.
Element 119: a group of radical human protesters gaining a ton of traction ever since the “act of domestic terrorism” that had resulted in a massive, earth flattening explosion on the outskirts of Sedona. Just the thought of that night sent a bitter taste spreading across the roof of Reykon’s mouth. That massive explosion had occurred because the caster Noomi had sacrificed herself to let the rest of them go, to give them enough time to flee and handle the Legion dogs by herself. The explosion itself was caused by the leftover vampiric essence that Charlemagne had funneled into an essence vial (that’s a whole other can of worms hanging over their heads). The stuff was ridiculously unstable, kept in line by the vampire’s rigid body structure which gains strength over time. But once the essence is pulled out of the vampire, only two things in the universe can contain it without going nuclear: the essence vials, mined on some distant plane that the casters controlled, and his wife, Robin Wright.
The size of the explosion that Noomi had caused by breaking the vial totaled a thirty-mile circle of land, killing countless humans and decimating entire counties. Naturally, the humans had caught onto this because the vampires were in no position to do their normal CYA. Military troops were rushed in immediately, and because all of vampire-kind was flailing in pandemonium, there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to stop any of it. They discovered that the substance responsible for the explosion was some sort of mysterious, hyper-plasmic energy that nobody had ever seen before. Scientists declared it as the 119th element, a brand-new super substance that more research was needed on. Not only were there a couple tense, paranoid weeks where humans thought aliens were attacking, but there was a crime spree the likes of which nobody had ever seen before.
Reykon, and every other rogue out there, knew that it was because the vampires were killing each other and that any time that happened, the humans and the strongbloods in their strongholds were cut down first and foremost. Not only did that mean no warrior slaves to clean up after their messes, but it also meant that there was a shortage of humans to drink from. This caused vampires to start picking people off the streets and most of them weren’t too careful about it. In short: as far as the humans were concerned, the world was falling apart and nobody knew why. Humans were freaking out about terrorism, aliens, and general end times, and violence just kept spilling out from the vampires’ compounds. Reykon avoided the protesters carefully, skirting around them as a woman shouted something about the middle east hoarding nuclear weapons. He kept his hood up and his head down, looking for any indications of a rogue cluster hiding out in the city. Reykon tracked the most packed blocks of the city, tracing circles for about an hour until he caught a glimpse of a figure walking in the alley.
You’ve gotta be kidding me, he groaned.
A vampire, staggering through the alley after a drunk man relieving himself on the side of a building. Reykon drew in a sharp breath and glanced around, making sure there was nobody watching as he slipped down the alley. His steps were silent as he stalked his prey, calling on the abilities and feeling unparalleled power course down his arms. The vampire in front of him froze, turning with a stiff movement, drilling those furious red eyes into the strongblood.
“Nice try,” Reykon said with a menacing grin.
Something flickered across the vampire’s face, a moment before he blurred up to Reykon. With his new abilities, Reykon could anticipate the vampire’s moves perfectly, thrusting his hand out and catching the monster by the jaw. The human about twenty feet away jerked up in surprise, ducking out of the alley without even zipping up his fly. Reykon slammed the vampire up against the brick building, his fingers tightening around the creature’s throat as he leaned in closer, hissing in the monster’s face. With his other hand, he reached back, unsheathing his sword from its discreet holster and pressing the tip of the weapon over the vampire’s heart. “I’m going to give you one chance. Lie to me, and you’re dead.”
Reykon could see the frustration and shock crashing together behind the bloodsucker’s eyes. Vampires certainly weren’t used to being bested by strongbloods and boy, did it feel good. “Where did you come from?” Reykon spat, releasing the hold just enough for the man to speak.
“House – house Yacolt!” the vampire cried.
“Why did you leave?”
“Overrun. By Cain!”
Reykon raised an eyebrow. “How many survivors?”
The man’s eyes widened as he tried to shake his head underneath Reykon’s grip. “How many?” Reykon hissed.
“I don’t know! I fled before the fight,” the man croaked.
“Deserter,” Reykon said, spitting the word out like it was a rotten vegetable. Reykon drew up his immense power, that explosive strength that Chadwick had released in him, and he plunged the sword through the vampire’s chest hard enough to drive it through the brick wall. He released the sword, eyes glinting as the pinned vampire struggled. In an instant, Reykon took his head in both hands and twisted it gruesomely, separating it from his body with a sharp jerk. He tossed it into the dumpster and then removed his weapon, wiping his hands on the vampire’s mutilated form before hauling him up and tossing him into the trash heap. He stood for a moment, letting the power cool down and slip back to his core where it rested. He caught his breath, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand just as a wave of goosebumps raced across his neck. Instinct screamed at him, and he turned swiftly, crouched to attack another vampire, and instead finding a group of five tense strongbloods, staring at him in wonder.
Robin
“There has to be something we can do!” she snapped at Chadwick, frantically watching the surface of the seeing pool, watching her only blood sibling die in the arms of Darian Xander.
> “Unless you want to bring them here,” he threw back, his eyes wide. “He’s a vampire master, Robin. This place will be gone.”
“She’s my sister,” she whispered, voice ragged. “I can heal her. I have to try.”
Chadwick’s eyes centered on her, and they studied her face, her desperation, a moment longer, before he looked away quickly and let out a huff of frustration. “Goddamnit,” he hissed, tearing away from the pool and racing around his lab, gathering supplies. “But you’re explaining this to Reykon.”
Robin’s heart hammered in her chest, her fingertips icy cold with the fear that they were too late, that she was beyond repair. Even with the burning sunset, Robin could see how close to death Lucidia was, how gray, how pale… She pushed the image away, forcing herself to focus.
“I don’t like vampires, Robin,” Chadwick said, racing over to the teleportation arch with an open volume, dust billowing off of it. “I never have. Only him, and only her. If he comes with anybody else…”
“I got it. Thank you, Chadwick, you have no clue.”
“Pulling three people through a teleport at the same time is no joke, alright? And he’s old and powerful, so it’s gonna be even more of a flex…” he whispered, his head shaking at the calculation. “You’ve got ten seconds. I can’t keep it open for longer than that.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding frantically.
“Robin…” he warned.
She turned to him, chest heaving with prickly fear.
“After this, we’ll have to leave,” he said softly.
“I know, Chadwick. I’m sorry. But she’s my family.”
“I understand,” he said earnestly, turning to the portal. “Get ready. Both of them need to come with you at the same time.”
