The leather-clad icrathari looked bemused. Her long braid hung over a shoulder, the tip skimming her waist. “We have a problem. We lost two vampires.”
Ashra arched a delicate eyebrow. “To the humans?”
“To a human.”
“Fascinating.” Unconcerned, Ashra stepped out of her sandals and dipped a toe into the waters of Lake Spiritus that surrounded the base of Malum Turris. “Was he one of the Chosen?”
“No.”
“Did we miscalculate?”
“No, we didn’t miscalculate. The human would have been among the Chosen months ago if he had not been excluded because of your prior agreement with Dana.”
“Dana?” The lake rippled as Ashra stepped into it, her flowing white gown trailing through the water. The icy-cold liquid teased a scarcely perceptible caress against her skin. It was a pity that only extreme sensations registered against her hardened immortal body. She sighed, a soft sound. Dana, the female vampire who led the scout teams, would be heartbroken, but agreements could only be honored up to a point. Fortunately, the tedious explanations could wait since Dana was out on a scouting mission. “You know what you have to do.”
“I sent him to Malum Turris to await your judgment.”
“Why are you dragging out this mundane, administrative issue?” Irritation edged into Ashra’s voice. “Turn him into a vampire.”
Tera snorted. “It’s not that simple, Ashra. Trust me; you’ll want to see him.”
“This had better not be a waste of my time.” Ashra raised her face to the night sky, closed her eyes, and drew a deep breath. A breeze, infused with the aroma of night-blooming flowers, wafted from Malum Turris and swept through a silent city filled with cringing humans. The sweet fragrance, like the crystal-clear waters of Lake Spiritus, came from the tower the humans called Malum Turris—the evil tower. If only they knew…
Fools. The word was laced with contempt and underscored by weariness.
Ashra arched her back. The black leather wings unfurled, and then beat down, lifting the immortal icrathari into the air. Water droplets trailed from her wet gown as she soared toward Malum Turris, Tera beside her.
The black tower was more than the centerpiece of Aeternae Noctis. Malum Turris anchored the palladium-glass dome that enclosed the city. Heralded by the whisper of gliding wings, Ashra landed on the balcony that encircled the highest floor of the tower. Her wings folded against her back, the gold-plated horned tips—a symbol of her ruling status—rising a foot above her diminutive five feet. Her footsteps made scarcely a sound as she walked into a massive circular room known only as the chamber.
The chamber was not a throne room, but the administrative center of Aeternae Noctis. The black walls were unadorned, the metallic floor bare. Florescent lights emanated from clear panels set in the ceiling, and a thick cylinder of palladium glass, specially engineered to be permeable to gases, connected the apex of the dome to the foundation of Aeternae Noctis. In spite of its deceptively fragile appearance, palladium glass was stronger than steel. The cylinder was the city’s lifeline, filtering and transfusing the air drawn in from the altered atmosphere outside the dome.
With Tera beside her, Ashra strode forward. A wall of vampires parted to reveal the other two icrathari, Siri and Elsker. A dark-haired human slumped at Elsker’s feet, his wrists cuffed behind his back. Ashra stifled a chuckle. Surely Tera was overreacting; the human was by far the weakest creature in the chamber.
Tera knelt down, wrapped her fingers into the human’s hair, and pulled his head back. The human’s face was handsome enough—the slash of his cheekbones accentuated his perfectly proportioned, sculptured features—but taken as a whole, he was not compelling enough to justify the fuss.
Ashra shrugged. “You’re wasting my time, Tera.”
Apparently undeterred, the icrathari warlord shook the human hard. His eyes flashed open. They were brilliant green, the exact color of the emerald ring Ashra wore on the index finger of her right hand. His gaze was unfocused, and the reflexive narrowing of his eyes matched the clenching of his jaw, hinting of wrenching pain.
Tera looked up and met Ashra’s gaze. “Taste his soul.”
Ashra recoiled, her upper lip curling in disgust. She had no desire to taste a human’s soul. Over the centuries, humans had grown weak, their small lives consumed by superstition and fear. It was better to live on the edge of perpetual starvation than fill her hunger with the pitiful excuse humans called a soul.
“Go deep,” Tera said.
But why? Ashra’s brow furrowed. She glanced at Siri and Elsker, but the two icrathari shrugged, apparently no more clued in than she was. She looked back at Tera. The icrathari warlord known as Ashra’s Blade was the epitome of calm understatement. If she was so insistent, she must have had a reason.
Ashra knelt beside the human. Without flinching, she placed her hand against his muscled abdomen. It was bloody, his flesh ripped by a vampire’s talons.
The man tensed at her touch, and his eyes flared wide with agony when her soul-sucking powers leeched into him. His breath came hard and fast, his chest heaving with the effort as he twisted in Tera’s unyielding grip, trying to break free.
Ashra’s eyes narrowed. The human was weakened—tapped into his life source, she waded through his dazed thoughts and shivered from the echo of each spasm of pain that wracked his body—but still, he fought Tera on the physical plane and Ashra on the psychic dimension, denying her access to his memories and to his soul.
She frowned and slammed her will against his, tearing an anguished scream from his throat, but still, his will did not crumble.
Askance, Ashra looked at Tera. “Did you taste him?”
Tera nodded. “It wasn’t hard the first time; he didn’t know what to expect, but apparently, he does now and is doing a fine job of fighting back.”
Was that grudging respect she heard in Tera’s voice? “Does his soul really matter?”
The icrathari nodded again.
Ashra’s shoulders shifted with the motion of a silent sigh. His resistance left her with little choice. She leaned forward and glided her lips over his in a whisper of a kiss.
Human myths spoke of succubi and incubi—demons that, with a touch, could stir lust in their unwilling victims. All myths were based in reality. The maddening beauty and soul-sucking powers of the icrathari had spawned the legends of succubi and incubi. With a touch, the icrathari could lure their victims into a state of sexual ecstasy, bending the will and baring the soul.
The human tensed against Ashra, resisting the intimate contact. She almost recoiled. Had the centuries dulled her innate powers? Surely she had not forgotten how to lure a man.
She closed her eyes and remembered love.
As always, Rohkeus’s fine-featured face—those beautiful gold-flecked green eyes, so unusual for an icrathari, and teasing smile—came to the fore. With a dreamy half-smile, she deepened the kiss, driving the memory of love before her like a sharpened stake.
At last, the man relaxed, succumbing to the kiss. She leaned into him, heedless of his crimson blood staining her white gown. He was warm, feverish even. Just skimming over six feet, he had more than twelve inches on her, but his physical strength, compared to hers, was puny. She was well aged; over four millennia old, she was the oldest of the icrathari and the strongest. She could have broken his neck with as little effort as a human child snapping a twig.
Her hand trailed across his muscled torso. He made it easy for her to be gentle. His body trembled as if he longed for her. His mouth was hungry for her kiss. He arched up against her, as if craving more. His need was like a living creature, wild and aching for her touch.
Eyes closed, Ashra shivered. Only one other person had desired her as much.
And he was dead.
She forced her way through the memories of pale bodies tangled upon cool silk sheets. When her soul-sucking power leeched out, it found no opposition. Images of the human’s life rewound in a blaze of vivid s
ights, sounds, and sensations.
Ashra looked up at Tera, her smile little more than a barely perceptible curve of her lips. “He fancies himself the protector of the child of prophecy. Was she among those taken tonight?”
Tera nodded.
Ashra chuckled, the sound without humor. “It’s a pity her genetic heritage wasn’t sufficiently superior to prevent her from being culled.”
“There’s more. Go deep.”
She pushed past the blackness at the start of his memories, expecting deeper darkness. Instead, the colors shifted into shades of ochre and gray. Memories, older than his body, resided in his soul; memories of an Earth long since lost to them—a planet surrounded and nourished by water; images of tall buildings glistening beneath a benevolent sun, and of thriving cities filled with the bustle of humans; memories of quiet and intimate conversations beneath a silver moon, the same silver moon that now graced Malum Turris with its light, though a thousand years older and viewed only from beneath the protection of the dome.
She saw herself as he must have seen her, a much-younger icrathari, still hopeful for the future, never realizing that the Earth they had all known and loved was irretrievably lost. Had she ever looked that vulnerable? Had her smile ever been so beautiful, so filled with love as she looked upon—
“Rohkeus?” Oh, blessed Creator, was that stricken whisper her voice?
Ashra pulled back and stared at the human. Her mouth dropped open. Her heart pounded in her chest, its beat erratic. It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be—
She looked up at Tera. The other icrathari nodded.
Rohkeus’s soul reborn…in a human.
Ashra threw her head back and laughed, a despairing sound.
Elsker stepped forward. The sole male icrathari was slightly taller than the female icrathari, and dressed in a black silk shirt and linen pants. His silver hair was cropped short, and his light blue eyes were wide. “Rohkeus reborn? That’s impossible.”
Siri shrugged, her red gown shifting around her curvaceous frame. Her silver hair, cut short, framed her face. “Stranger things have happened.” Her pale violet gaze raked over the human. “At least he had the good sense to choose a pretty body.”
Ashra shook her head, the movement jolting her out of her daze. Her prince, her love, reduced to a human? Her slender fingers coiled into fists. Her golden eyes glittering, she pushed away from him, though her body trembled from the loss of his warmth. No, the human was not Rohkeus; he could never be Rohkeus.
Steeling herself against the gasp of pain that escaped from his lips as the anesthetizing effect of her kiss faded, Ashra rose to her feet with sinuous grace. “He is not one of us. Not anymore.” Nothing had been more devastating than losing Rohkeus to a human assassin. To see his soul reborn in that contemptible and weak race was an insult to the person Rohkeus had been.
“Should we turn him into a vampire?” Tera asked.
“Kill him. Set Rohkeus’s soul free.”
Siri seized Ashra’s hand before she could turn away. Siri’s lips, painted the same provocative color as her dress, shaped an O. “You’re not serious. How many people are offered a second chance at the love of a lifetime?”
A second chance? Her traitorous pulse raced even as her lips curled with disgust. “He’s human.”
“We can make him immortal—a vampire.”
Ashra swallowed hard. “But not an icrathari.”
Siri’s gaze fell. “No, of course not.”
“Kill him.”
“You can’t.” Siri stepped forward, placing herself between Ashra and the barely conscious human. “This is amazing. It’s never happened before—a soul reborn.”
“Rohkeus is dead, and I rule Aeternae Noctis.” She turned to Tera. “I told you to kill him.”
Tera hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then she shook her head. “I won’t do it, and neither will Siri or Elsker. If you want him dead, you’ll have to do it yourself.” Tera released her grip on the human’s hair, and he slumped forward. The warlord glanced at the vampires who had observed the entire exchange with obvious fascination. “Take him to a holding cell. Make sure he’s fed and watered.” Her cool gray eyes narrowed. “There will be no vengeance meted out on him for Sasha and Raphael’s deaths.”
“For now,” a vampire murmured.
The barely conscious human was dragged from the chamber, leaving a streak of crimson on the steel floor.
Ashra fixed an indifferent expression on her face and turned to Siri. “What of his sister, the so-called child of prophecy?”
“She is with the other children who were culled tonight. They’ll be processed.”
“Anything unique about her? Did you taste her?”
Siri nodded. “I took a sip. She’s a precocious child, but quite ordinary.”
Ordinary, except for her brother.
“Should we process her, or dispose of her?” Siri asked when Ashra remained silent.
Ashra looked up, a thin smile pasted on her lips. “Do we fear a child?”
Apparently, no one dared answer her rhetorical question.
Good. Ashra turned on her heel. “Process her.” She walked past the silent icrathari and vampires. She had to change. She had to get the human’s scent off her clothes, and exorcise him from her mind and heart.
Chapter 3
Consciousness returned slowly. The chill of the floor seeped into Jaden’s bones. He shuddered, the motion shooting fresh spasms of pain through him. The cold, at least, had shattered the lethargy brought on by concussion and blood loss. Trembling, he dragged himself upright and pressed a hand against his midsection. His hand came away wet and sticky with his blood.
His teeth gritted against the pain, Jaden assessed his wounds. The deep incisions across his stomach were the worst of his injuries. The rest, mostly aching bruises and lacerated skin, would have been minor, if not piled on top of a weakened condition.
How long had he been out? He didn’t know. He did not know for certain where he was either, though he had enough hazy memories to hazard a guess.
Malum Turris.
Had anyone ever entered Malum Turris and escaped to tell the tale? Not in his lifetime, certainly, and not in the collective memory of the people of Aeternae Noctis.
His gaze traveled around the featureless room. Only a few feet longer than his own height, it was differentiated on one side by a sealed door. He inhaled a shaky breath. He had to find Khiarra—somehow—but first, he had to stay alive.
Jaden dragged himself to a metal plate and cup in a corner of the cell. The water in the cup was cold and clear; it eased his parched throat, and the dry crusts of bread on the plate softened when he dipped them in water.
The food and drink gave him strength to push to his feet and examine his cell. The walls and floor were constructed of a polished metal much harder than steel. The door had no keyhole, lock, or handle, yet it was sealed fast, separated from the wall by a thin opening, too narrow to slide a blade through, not that he had any.
He threw his weight against the door, but it did not move. He pounded his fists against the door until his hands were bloody, but could not dent it. No one came.
Drained, Jaden slumped to the floor. The wounds on his stomach had started bleeding again. He pressed his hands against his abdomen, and clenched his teeth against the groan of pain. How could he find Khiarra when he could not even find a way out of his cell?
He scanned the room again, but the only other thing he saw was a thin, cylindrical object tucked into a corner of the ceiling. The tube swiveled to a fixed rhythm, as if scanning the cell. His brow furrowed. What was it? What kind of magic did the icrathari command?
Exhaustion washed through him. He dragged his knees to his chest, curling into a small space to preserve his body heat. He closed his eyes, and the dreams that haunted him for five years returned—flashing glimpses of a pale-skinned, golden-eyed woman with waist-length silver hair. For the first time, a half-formed name tickled his mind,
and his lips shaped around an unfamiliar word.
“Ashra.”
In the comfort of her suite and in a fresh change of clothes, Ashra turned away from the screen and from the images of courage mixed with desolation. The human was a fighter. Slumped against the wall, obviously exhausted from his efforts to free himself, his gaze searched the room, still seeking an escape. He was in pitiful shape, though, and would likely die within the week.
It would be a slow death, an erosion of his health from hunger, thirst, cold, and blood loss. With his death, Rohkeus’s soul would once again be free, no longer trapped in a human body.
“I can give you no greater mercy than this, my love.” Her voice caught on the edge of tears.
On the screen, the human turned his head and seemed to look directly at her. He must have seen the small camera attached to the corner of the room where the ceiling met the wall. His eyes were Rohkeus’s eyes, down to the flecks of gold set in the emerald depths. Like Rohkeus’s eyes, they were windows into his soul. In the human’s memories, she had witnessed his strength and devotion. Did he have Rohkeus’s compassion and wisdom too?
The human curled into a fetal ball. Despite the distance enforced by the camera, she could see him shiver, trembling from the cold. She raised her chin in defiance of the throbbing ache in her chest. Three days. She’d give him three days to live, no more.
His eyes closed.
With relief, she drew in a deep breath of air. When his eyes were closed, she saw the human, not Rohkeus.
She turned away from the screen and reached for a glass of water.
His hoarse voice whispered her name. “Ashra.”
Her glass fell from her fingers and shattered upon the metal floor. She spun around and stared at the screen. He was a human, a pitiful mortal, injured and dying, but he had called her by name.
Her heart pounding in her chest, she leaned closer. His lips moved, shaping unintelligible words interspersed by soft groans and grunts of pain. Had she only imagined her name?
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