She hadn’t showered, and her skin was slick with sweat, and her scent had to be potent.
She could smell him, his particular rich scent, like dark woods with deep shadows, cool streams on a mountainside a half a world away.
The moment stretched, long and tense, and she thought, at first, that she had intruded. Vampires – herself, even, she was realizing – were prickly about territory. Like big, solitary cats. Only mates and family and those they needed for some reason were welcome in their personal environs.
But then his head tipped, and his pupils expanded, and…oh. This wasn’t about territory.
“Come in,” he said, and dropped his head over his desk again, seemingly disinterested. He buzzed with energy, though, tightly-checked.
She’d never been a coward, and now didn’t seem like a good time to become one – even if she was in over her head. So she walked up to the desk, head held up, strides sure. She would never cower, not for anyone or anything. If Vlad could tell that her insides quavered, so be it.
She didn’t take the chair there, because she didn’t think antique fabric and sweat were a good combo, instead stood at parade rest. “Did you need me for something, sir?” He held a fine-tipped green Sharpie and was tracing routes on the map with it. “I’m really better with weapons and battle tactics than I am with logistics.”
He made a sound, and it took her a moment to realize he was chuckling. When he lifted his head again, he was almost smiling. His eyes were bright, if nothing else, the lines at their edges touched with humor. It was such a subtle thing, but it lit him up; he even smelled amused, if there was any such thing.
She bared her teeth in knee-jerk defense.
His chuckle tapered off into a purr, and it soothed her. A helpless, automatic reaction.
“What?” It came out softer than she’d intended.
“You are very different from the major,” he observed, easing back in his chair, hands braced lightly on the desk’s edge. “He wants to be rid of me, but you want to impress me.”
“No, I don’t,” she scoffed, but her breath quickened. Betraying her. “We’re both soldiers. We’re both just following orders.”
“Yes, but even the best of soldiers has his own ideas about the war he’s fighting in. About his commander.”
“Do you read minds, sir?” she snapped. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Unbothered, he said, “No, I can do no such thing. I’m merely well-studied in the art of observation.”
“And you think I want to impress you.”
“I think you want to impress everyone.”
She’d already been preparing a rebuttal, but it just sort of…froze up in her throat. She swallowed it down. “What?”
His smile held no warmth, and she realized, in a moment of alarming clarity, that it reminded her of her own smile, on the rare, bitter occasions she flashed herself one in the mirror. “For reasons I don’t yet understand, I think you’re afraid no one will think that you are the fearsome warrior you’ve styled yourself. You are a harsh woman.”
Stand down, a logical voice in the back of her head warned. There was never anything gained by goading a superior – much less a legendary one with a reputation for viciousness.
But. He wasn’t wrong about her.
And she wasn’t technically in the Army anymore. It wasn’t like he could demote her.
(Kill her, sure. But. She wasn’t going to think about that.)
“I thought you just impaled people. What’s with all the riddles?”
He chuckled again. “Not riddles. Simple observations.”
“Is that your trick?” She folded her arms. “You talked yourself in circles until your enemies got so frustrated they just impaled themselves?”
“You don’t know anything about me, do you?” Hint of a purr in his voice, and Adela knew she was being baited. This was a game for him, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to play it.
In what was maybe the riskiest, dumbest move she’d ever made, she turned her back to him and started for the door. “I know you’re bullshitting me,” she said over her shoulder. “Call me back when you actually want to talk strategy.”
The thing about her new strength and speed? It had come from somewhere; it had come from him.
She heard him move, but she didn’t react quickly enough. One moment her way was clear, and the next he was heeling the door shut and leaning back against it, blocking the way with his broad shoulders and implacable stare.
She pulled up short. Still…in for a penny, in for a pound.
She propped her hands on her hips. “Am I not allowed to leave?” She knew he could smell her fear and anxiety, probably sense the way it crawled across her skin, leaving goosebumps behind.
He didn’t smile at her. She knew him well enough to know those were rare things; just because he’d flashed a semblance of one a moment ago didn’t mean he’d show her one now. But his gaze burned. He didn’t come into her mind; she knew herself well enough to know that she wasn’t being manipulated. The way he looked at her, though – it tugged at her. Something visceral and blood-deep she didn’t understand.
She gritted her teeth. “Stop.”
He didn’t.
“Please.”
He edged forward, into her space. Leaned down, so their faces were level. When he opened his mouth, his teeth were very white, his fangs very long; they seemed to extend as she watched, too big and prominent.
He said, “Why?”
A fine tremor stole through her; no doubt he could see it, feel it. “I don’t like it.”
A grin, slow and awful. His breath warm against her face. “Yes, you do.”
Oh, God. What would his mouth taste like? What would it feel like to slide her tongue between his fangs?
He inhaled, scenting her, and she swayed forward–
Vlad straightened and stepped back. Stepped around her and headed back for his desk.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. She turned, following him with her eyes, hungry, and aching, and hating herself. She watched him settle in his chair again, calm as ever, and it took her a moment to realize he’d spoken.
“What?”
“It’s instinct,” he said, bored, looking down at his maps. “I’m your sire, and you feel an instinctual urge to be close to me. Even if I repulse you, the instinct is there.”
She braced a hand against the high back of a chair and just breathed for a moment, open-mouthed, feeling her fangs press into her lip. “You’re joking.”
He didn’t look up. “I most definitely am not.”
Shame came first, a hot wave of it flooding through her. She’d been – God, she’d been aroused. Still was. Had wanted to push her fingers through his hair and slide into his lap and… She cut the fantasy off with a forceful mental shove. This man – this monster – had slaughtered thousands. His own people. She’d watched him cut a man’s head off just days ago. How could she want him? What kind of monster did that make her?
But then came the relief. It was only instinct. She couldn’t help it. And clearly, he didn’t feel the way she did, had only been toying with her…
She took a deep breath and drew herself upright. “Sir, what’s our plan of attack? What’s our objective?”
He lifted his head then, and she thought he looked approving. “I’m going to lead an expedition into Romania to retrieve my uncle. I could use someone with modern warfare experiences to help me work out the particulars.”
Another deep breath. Just instinct. She was a soldier; things were different – she was different – but there was a war on, one in which she was needed. She could do this.
“Will you feel well enough to be a part of my team?” he asked.
She snapped a salute. “Yes, sir.”
~*~
EPILOGUE
It was raining. A soft patter of autumn drops that drummed against the roofs of cabs and the umbrellas of pedestrians.
A man selling newspapers shouted and
waved a polka-dot umbrella at them. “Great deal! Super cheap!” But Val waved him off with a laugh. He wanted to feel the rain in his hair, sliding down his skin, soaking through his clothes. Cold and real.
Beside him, Mia tugged her hood forward over her face.
“Darling, if you want–”
She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. “I don’t mind getting wet.” She smelled like him, and like her, and like rain, and like heaven.
He kissed the top of her head and tugged her along down the sidewalk. They were almost there. Up ahead: the glowing gold neon of the sign: The Lion’s Den.
Another laugh bubbled up in his throat; he couldn’t stop laughing. Richard the Lionheart’s wolf had broken into the manor, and here was the rampant lion over the door of a bar that Nikita and Sasha frequented.
Val had the sense they were being drawn together: a last bastion of immortals. Legends, and liars, and heathens. Perhaps the beginnings of an unholy family.
He would start with these, though, now.
He tugged open the door of the vestibule and ushered Mia inside with a hand at her lower back. She pushed her hood down and blinked raindrops off her lashes, sighing with relief. Here, in the air lock, the windows were fogged; umbrellas and dripping coats hung from pegs on the wall.
Val knew a moment of nervousness. He paused to let his lungs work, breathing in and out through his mouth. Scents of pub food, and liquor, and lots of bodies, smoke, damp.
Mia rubbed his arm. “It’ll be okay.”
His laugh came out like a cough. “I hope so.”
“Come on.” She looped her arm through his and they went through the inner door.
It was a delightful bar: dim, and crowded, and full of inviting nooks and crannies. His nose drew him around a bend and into a smoky main room, backlit bar gleaming gold along one wall. At a big round table in the corner, backs to the wall: there they were.
Sasha had a pack again, one built of misfits: Trina, Nikita’s great-granddaughter, and her vampire partner, Lanny. The young, innocent bystander they’d taken in: Jamie. And of course the tsarevich, Alexei Romanov.
Sasha and Nikita sat side-by-side, shoulders touching, overlapping. Beneath the table, Val saw that Nikita’s hand rested on Sasha’s thigh, undemanding, but possessive. Their scents, even across the distance and tangle of other senses, were intertwined, undercut by the musk of sex.
Val smiled. It’s about time.
Suddenly, Sasha’s head snapped up, eyes wide and searching as he scanned the room, nostrils flared. He’d caught the scent of vampires.
And then his gaze landed on Val. He stared a moment; Nikita’s gaze followed, hand tightening on the wolf’s thigh.
And then…Sasha smiled. And then he laughed. “Val!” he shouted.
And Val was home.
THE END
~*~
This concludes this chapter in the
Sons of Rome saga. Be on the lookout for
Book Four, Golden Eagle,
Coming Soon
Afterword
Prince Radu Dracula, brother to Vlad Tepes, was raped at age nine by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet. He was taken to the sultan’s bedchamber, and, when the sultan’s intentions became clear, young Radu was able to take up the sultan’s own sword, and stab him with it. A non-lethal wound, but one that afforded Radu the chance to flee out into the garden. He spent the night hiding in a tree outside the seraglio, until Mehmet finally found him, and took him inside, and ravished him.
This is one of the true stories that inspired this book. Little is documented of Prince Radu’s time with the Ottomans. We know that he was kept as a hostage until he was eventually placed on the Wallachian throne after his brother’s arrest, and we know that he was an especial favorite of the sultan’s, kept on as a lover during his captivity. We know, also, that the sultan took other hostages – the sons of nobles, even the cabin boys of merchant vessels – into sexual servitude. Sultan Mehmet was an intelligent man, one with a clever approach to warfare, creative and unbendable.
But when I read what he did to these boys…Dear Reader, I cried.
In fact, I cried an embarrassing amount while writing this book. It was the most difficult, the most emotionally draining project of my career to date. But I’m so proud of it, and I have learned so much about Vlad Tepes, about his family, that is never spoken about in popular culture.
I might have always wanted to write a book about Vlad the Impaler, but this particular book required two years of intensive research – and I’m sure there are details over which a historian of the period would find fault with me. Some bit of dress, or food, or social custom. But though I would like to be, I am not a historian. My goal was to portray this period, and these two conflicting kingdoms, with as much accuracy as possible, while maintaining the urgency and relevancy of the story.
In regards to names, I chose to write the sultans Murat and Mehmet with the T as opposed to the D which often appears in Western-based sources. My Eastern sources used T, and so that was the way I chose to spell their names. Likewise, the place name “Edirne” was used in place of “Adrianople” when it was being referred to by Ottoman leaders/captives, and as “Adrianople” in the mouths of purely Western characters.
I’ve used the term “crusader” to describe Vlad and his fellow Eastern European lords, because that was how they styled themselves. And while the battling back and forth was between Christian Europeans and Muslim Turks, I made a decision early on not to use religious rhetoric when describing the animosity between Vlad and Mehmet; in truth, I don’t believe their conflict was ever about religion. Mehmet himself was quite secular in real life, even going so far as to attend Catholic worship services after he’d taken Constantinople. And while Vlad was born Eastern Orthodox, and converted to Catholicism so that he could join the Order of the Dragon, his hatred for Mehmet, and the Ottomans, was, I believe, wholly personal in nature. Therefore, this novel is not a commentary on the Christian/Muslim dynamic, nor on the Crusades in general, because the clash of the 15th Century had little in common with the first four Crusades that took place in the Holy Land. This book is instead a character drama; a battle between two kings, if you will, and God plays no part in it.
In regards to research, it was difficult to find sources that were not biased in some sense, be it Western or Eastern, and even then I found the wording to be, for lack of a better term, strange at moments. Oftentimes, it became quite clear that both Sultan Mehmet and Prince Vlad were capable of extreme butchery. Given that Vlad is a central protagonist of this book series, Mehmet must needs be the antagonist, and he is written as such.
In regards to dates, all battles, capitulations, and conquests are true to life. I also included as many real names and happenings as I felt was possible while maintaining the story’s integrity. For instance: Emperor Constantine was truly beheaded; the blockade-running captain Antonio Rizzo was truly impaled, and his scribe was truly taken into Mehmet’s collection of sex slaves; Vlad’s ally Mihály Szilágy was truly cut in half after having been tortured. The timeline of Vlad’s multiple ascensions to the Wallachian throne begs to accuracy, as do events such as the killing of Albu the Great, and the forced labor of the boyars that Vlad then killed, and replaced with boyars of his own making, commoners raised up to these titles.
The Forest of the Impaled is a true story. As is Mehmet’s retreat in the face of it. Think what you will of Vlad, and doubtless this act of mass impalement was monstrous; but turning back the Conqueror of Constantinople was no slight accomplishment for a Romanian prince. It is for this, among other things, that Vlad is not a villain in his native homeland.
I hope you’ll think me fair, and I hope you’ll overlook any anachronistic details. I also hope that you enjoyed this installment of the series, and that you’ll press forward from here. In the next installment, we return to New York, and to Nikita Baskin’s group of allies.
And I hope that you’ll be curious, as I have been, about the story of th
e plucky Eastern European nations who stood against a monolithic empire. Who held their own. I hope you’ll go forth and look up stories of Vlad, and Skanderbeg, and John Hunyadi. Prior to researching this book, I knew little of the history of Romania, because theirs is a history never told in American classrooms. I entered this project without one inch of skin in the game – this isn’t my history; these aren’t my ancestors. But what I found, when I started digging, was absolutely remarkable. In a world full of pro-expansionist dictators, the lords of Eastern Europe in the 15th Century stand out as rebels (though Hunyadi was a bit of an expansionist himself, I’m afraid). Those who would defy; those who would seek sovereignty, caught between the gears of political machines they had no hope of shaking off – but which they rattled all the same.
I hope that you will look up the Ottoman Empire, and its contributions to art, and science, and medicine. To culture, and architecture. And I invite every reader to draw his or her own conclusion about the real events that unfolded in this century.
But this is, after all, dear reader, a story about characters. About the men and women who populate this saga that I’m writing. And my loyalty must lie with them, as their muse and recorder, as the one chosen to tell their tales. Biased? I’m sure that I am. But so are all artists. Valerian is a creature of my own making, and to him I will always be loyal. And in regards to the true prince upon which my Valerian is based…I looked at all the facts, and I wanted to be his champion, too.
Thank you for reading. I’ll see you when we get to Golden Eagle.
About the Author:
Lauren Gilley is the author of over twenty novels. She writes contemporary and historical stories with a focus on found family, and overcoming tough odds. She blogs, sometimes, at hoofprintpress.blogspot.com, and accepts emails at [email protected]. She lives in the South; when she’s not writing, she’s mucking horse stalls, or walking her giant dog.
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