by Franca Storm
His only relief was his mission—finding his son and that fucking bitch, Oriana. I will rip that bitch apart when I get my hands on her. No mercy. She’s fucking dead! Taking my son! I’ll kill her! KILL her!
He took a deep breath to try to calm himself. He wanted desperately to pull out his flask and down half the scotch in there. But he knew he couldn’t. He was walking into a damned vampire club—and a notorious one at that—alone. He had to stay on high alert.
Suddenly he felt a hand brush the holster at his hip. Before he could even react he was slammed roughly into an alleyway around the corner, out of sight of the club. What the fuck? He looked up to see Luca standing before him, pinning him against the wall with one hand at his chest and his other clutching his stake.
“Get the fuck off me,” Ryan muttered, pushing him back. He reached for the stake in Luca’s hand, but Luca snatched it away out of his reach.
“You think you’re gonna walk into Kristoff’s club with this thing? You saw how quickly I disarmed you—you didn’t even have the chance to react. I might be quicker on the draw than him, but not by much, Ryan. You have the strength, but not the speed that we do.”
“I also don’t have a problem ripping the heads off every fucking vamp in there. In fact, I’m in the mood for a goddamn massacre right now,” Ryan shot back.
“The massacre you’re planning will be too messy and risk exposing all of us.”
Ryan breathed out a frustrated sigh and folded his arms across his chest. He knew whose words Luca was speaking. They certainly weren’t his own. Fucking hell. “Nathanial sent you.”
Luca nodded. “I’ll get you the information you want. But we do this my way.”
“Your way?”
“I’ll compel him.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “You can compel another vampire? I thought--”
“That I could only compel humans? I can compel anyone who’s weaker than me.”
Ryan pushed off the wall and muttered, “I don’t need help, especially not from you.” He started to walk away.
“You were on board, Ryan!” Luca yelled after him.
Ryan stopped in his tracks, his back to him.
“You wanted me to turn her! You agreed!”
Ryan spun around, his eyes black with barely-contained rage. “I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to be making a decision like that!”
“But now it’s done. I turned her.”
“You tried and you failed. She’s dead, Luca! I told you to bury her! You still haven’t, have you?”
“Bury her? I’d have thought you’d have wanted to do that yourself.”
“I…can’t,” Ryan said, hating the falter in his voice.
“She’s not dead.”
“It’s been three weeks! Come on, Luca! Get a fucking grip! I know it was your first time fucking a princess—my wife!--but get the fuck over it already!”
Luca bristled at his words. It wasn’t fucking! He forced himself to rein in his temper; Ryan had enough of a temper for the both of them right now. “If she were dead, her body would have already started to desiccate. It hasn’t. And…”
Hearing Luca trail off caught Ryan’s attention. He walked back to him. “And what?” he pressed, urgently. “What, Luca?”
“I didn’t want to tell you in case you got your hopes up, because I don’t know what it means yet. I won’t be able to tell until she wakes up.”
“Just say it.”
“Both Michael and I can feel white energy emanating from her.”
“What?” Ryan choked out. “What does that mean? She might not be fully vamped or something?”
Vamped? I hate it when he uses that word. It’s so degrading. Siring someone is…mythic…not some frivolous act like he makes it out to be. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “Maybe.”
Ryan’s hands shot out and gripped the collar of his leather coat. “You should have told me right away!” he growled.
Shit, I don’t know why I just told you now. Why? Now he’s going to want to come to see her. He’ll want her back, to take her from me. But…seeing him like this…his pain…I had to tell him. This good-guy thing is really ruining me. Argh! “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to give you any false hope.”
Ryan released him roughly and stepped back. “After this thing with Kristoff, I need to see her.”
“You understand that she’ll need me when she wakes up?”
“Right, all that Sire shit.”
“You’ve never been around a baby vampire before; you don’t know what it will be like.” Luca could see the distrust dancing in Ryan’s eyes. He couldn’t really blame him. He had slept with his wife and he planned to do it again if she wanted to once he’d managed to stabilize her. “Ask Nathanial about it. I can assure you that he’ll say the same thing,” he offered.
“I don’t need to. I know more about it than you think,” Ryan answered cryptically.
Interesting. “All right…so…good then,” he answered, confused by Ryan’s apparent acceptance.
“I’ll be there too.”
And there it is. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
Luca sighed heavily. “Look, Kristoff hates royals. It’s likely he’ll try to get under your skin. Don’t let him. Keep that Alpha wolf temper of yours in check.”
“Hates royals? Don’t you mean; he hates you. Didn’t you fuck his girl a few decades ago?”
“The other way around,” Luca seethed.
“Oh, so you do know how it feels then?” Ryan said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
Luca snarled, but forced himself to let it slide. His father would kill him if he didn’t. “Let’s do this. My way. Stay on me and follow my lead.”
“Is that what you said to my wife when you fucked her?” Ryan snapped harshly.
Luca snarled and rushed Ryan into the brick wall. “I thought we were past that, brother? You tore me apart with your fists and your wolf claws. I let you. Then I lifted the spell over Jada’s room so you could go to her. And—yes—I brought Cora back from the brink of death, risking my father’s wrath in the process.” He released him and stepped back. Ryan glared at him heatedly. When he made no move to respond, Luca pressed, “Well?”
Ryan shook out his leather jacket and muttered, “Let’s just focus on finding my son.”
As close to a truce as I’m ever going to get from him. Luca nodded and led the way to the club.
***
“Damn, this is like a cross between Nathanial’s dungeons and some sort of supernatural BDSM club,” Ryan commented as they walked into Infernus.
“I’m surprised you’ve never been here, given your predilections.”
“My control issues don’t go to these extremes,” Ryan said.
“Sure,” Luca responded with a smirk as he watched Ryan scan the room with more than a little interest.
In the centre of the dark room, lit only by muted pot lights above, bodies swayed to the slow, hypnotic music pulsing through the club. They weren’t just dancing—they were feeding. Vampires, humans, faeries, witches. On the brick wall to the left, men and women were chained up and being flogged and whipped by beings as naked as them. Further along, a crowd gathered as a female vampire, her dress pushed up over her ass, laid across a stone table as her partner spanked her. Over to their right was a bar that would have been the most normal thing in there if it hadn’t been for several men and women on their knees beside the stools with collars around their necks.
“There he is,” Luca said, pointing to a guy with spiky white hair sitting at the end of the bar with two vampire vixens sitting on each leather-clad knee. As Ryan followed Luca, he studied the infamous Kristoff. He’d never met him before, but he’d heard enough tales to know that this wasn’t going to be an easy task. He looked up, sensing their approach. The lines etched into his face made him look middle-aged in human terms, but Ryan knew he was far, far older than that—a few centuries at the very least. His eyes were a fiery red; a lot
like Luca’s when he was pissed. He wiped away the blood oozing from the corner of his mouth and then licked the neck of the vampire vixen perched on his left knee, soothing the puncture wounds from his bite. He whispered something to them and they both climbed off him and sauntered away.
Kristoff adjusted the collar of his silky silver shirt and the hard-on in his leather pants and turned on his stool to meet Luca and Ryan’s approach.
“I wondered when you’d finally pay me a visit, Wolf King.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed with distrust. “You were expecting me?”
“I led you here—I fed you the information that brought you here.”
“You want to make a deal,” Luca accused.
Kristoff flashed him a smug smile.
“Not happening,” Luca said. “The fact that you believe you have leverage to be able to make a deal with him means you know where his son is. Now, you’re going to tell us—freely or via compulsion.”
Kristoff laughed. “Always so heavy-handed, Luca.”
“With you it is a necessity.”
“You’re still upset about Amelia, I see.”
“Yes,” Luca seethed.
“And now you share your brother’s woman?” Kristoff said, smiling with amusement as he looked between the two of them. “Ryan, you have to understand how coveted a prize your wife is. Even as vampire she will be more. The only reason others of us haven’t tried to take her is because they fear Luca’s wrath—all vampires know of his obsession with her. I suppose you can be grateful for that much, because the rest of us wouldn’t be so gentle with her. She has a pull like no other—all vampires feel it. Hmm…and when she awakens as part vampire she will be a wild thing indeed—willing to be taken.”
Ryan growled and lunged forward. Luca threw out his arm, holding him back.
“She no longer possesses her white power,” Luca said.
“You’re lying,” Kristoff said.
“What do you think you know?” Luca demanded.
“I have spies everywhere, Luca. I have been paying special attention to her condition.”
“Why?”
“Because she has an important role to play,” Kristoff responded, cryptically.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Ryan snapped.
Kristoff shifted his weight and said, “Nathanial has been unable to locate your son, because he is in a place beyond his reach. Spiritomb: the Home of the Dead.”
Luca scoffed. “Impossible. Only the dead can pass through there. Those who have faced absolute death. No being can pass in and out of there. It is a plane of existence, not a realm to walk in and out of freely. Only death can take one there.”
Kristoff sighed and brought his hands to his face and murmured, “There is another way.”
“What?” Luca asked, surprised by the show of emotion from him. “You used black magic to help her?”
“Black magic?” Ryan asked.
Luca told him, “He trained Michael and there are rumors that he was the one who trained Oriana to wield it as well.”
“A decision I’ve recently lived to regret.” He raised his head and told Ryan, “She brought your son here.”
“What?” Ryan exclaimed, stepping closer.
“Three weeks ago, right after I felt a huge power surge—your wife’s magic. She forced me to open a portal to Spiritomb.”
“Forced you?” Ryan growled.
“She threatened the life of my child,” Kristoff said.
“You have a child? How?” Luca demanded.
“A story for another time.” He moved closer to them and lowered his voice. “Opening the portal requires tremendous power and a sacrifice from the person casting the spell—the ultimate sacrifice.”
“What does that mean?” Ryan asked.
Kristoff took a deep breath before revealing, “The life of the one you love.”
“Amelia,” Luca realized.
Kristoff nodded. “She was my wife.”
Luca was taken aback. He hadn’t known anything of Kristoff’s love for her. He’d played it close to his chest, passing it off as merely a casual thing when he’d taken her from him all those years ago. He almost felt sympathy for him. Almost. He’d still betrayed him. Nothing could change that. “How do we open the portal again?”
“You don’t,” Kristoff said. “Opening a portal there more than once a century could cause irreparable damage; ripping apart the fabric of reality and risking pulling back the curtain between life and death.”
“I don’t give a damn! My son is there!” Ryan thundered.
Kristoff held up his hand. “It doesn’t mean we can’t pull your son out.”
Luca scoffed. “What? So we just reach in somehow, poke around and hope to hell that we grab hold of him in the process?”
“Before they passed through the portal, I spelled the wolf pup with a magickal tracker.”
Ryan cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “Why would you do that?” What’s the catch here?
“Because he wants something from you in return. What is it Kristoff?”
“Passage into the Dark Realm for myself and my daughter. Seeing as though none of us can kill Oriana, the only safe place for us is in the Dark Realm thanks to Cora’s barrier—another sign, by the way; that her white power is still in her somewhere. If it was not, the barrier would have dissipated.”
Luca noted his comment about Cora’s white power. But the last thing he was going to do was to discuss it with Kristoff. He was dangerous and Luca wasn’t sure what his end game was yet. It would be foolish to admit anything to him; to admit that there was white energy emanating from her. “That would require my father to pardon you for your crimes,” he said instead.
“I realize that,” Kristoff snapped. “But Ryan has a close relationship with him. It shouldn’t be that difficult if he requested it of Nathanial on my behalf.”
Ryan folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the bar. “Before I even consider running this by Nathanial, tell me how we pull my son out.”
“First, get me passage into the Dark Realm. Once my daughter and I are through the gates, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
Ryan growled and lunged at him, but Luca held him back once again.
Kristoff’s eyes met Luca’s. They were now glowing with red fire—he was attempting to compel him. He laughed. “You don’t think I have taken precautions against the possibility that you would try to compel me, old friend?” His gaze snapped to Ryan’s as he said, “And, look around, Wolf King; I enjoy pain. You can’t torture it out of me.”
He smiled at them as he stepped around them and walked away into the heart of the club.
“Fuck,” Ryan seethed.
“We need to leave here before you do something stupid,” Luca said, gripping his arm tightly and leading him to the exit.
Once outside, Ryan ripped his arm from Luca’s hold and thrust his fist into the wall, roaring with frustration. “I will kill her for taking him! My son!” He kicked the wall and then turned back to Luca. He watched as he blinked hard and gasped suddenly. “What? What is it?” he snapped, impatiently.
Luca locked eyes with him as he said, “Cora’s awake.”
CHAPTER FOUR
As Luca led the way through the vampire mansion with Ryan following close behind, screams and thuds rang in his ears. Michael rushed towards them, his expression one of confusion and disbelief.
“She should be weak right now; she’s a baby vampire and she hasn’t fed yet,” Michael exclaimed as he reached them.
“Those are her screams?” Ryan asked. It didn’t sound like her; they were screams of a monster, rather than of the woman that she had been. Vampire snarls.
“Yes,” Luca said, pushing Michael aside and continuing towards the door at the end of the hall.
“This is dangerous, Luca. It must be the white energy still within her!” Michael called.
“Calm down! I will see to her!” Luca thundered.
Michael mut
tered something under his breath and took off the other way.
Luca stopped outside Cora’s bedchamber and nodded to the two guards positioned outside, silently relieving them of their posts. They obeyed instantly and walked away. His key poised over the door lock, Luca turned to Ryan. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here. You won’t like what you see. Return in a couple of days.”
“Just open the fucking door,” Ryan growled.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Luca muttered as he unlocked the door. “Hurry,” he told Ryan, ushering him inside quickly and slamming the door shut behind them.
Ryan choked out a gasp as his eyes fell on Cora. She wore a slinky black chemise that barely covered her ass. Luca had obviously dressed her. The thought of it made his blood boil. Her hair was mussed up and greasy from having not showered for the last three weeks of her coma-like condition. Or death, as Ryan had believed. She had her back to them as she slammed back and forth into the furniture in violent bursts of vampire speed, trashing everything in her path. She was snarling and screaming in fury.
And then she suddenly spun towards them. A gut-wrenching pain, the likes of which he hadn’t felt since her death in the White Realm, ripped through Ryan as he saw her face. Her eyes were black, devoid of any shred of humanity. Her features were contorted and her ivory fangs glistened against the muted light in the room. She wasn’t the woman he’d loved.
