Vampires were at the top.
It turned her stomach that she needed them, needed their medicine and their science to help increase their numbers. It disgusted her even more that, for the vampire race to survive, they needed to turn humans. It made the bile rise in her throat, but it was the only way. Gone were the good old days when vampires were born and raised to be the genetic superiors they truly were. Their race was now so diluted with human blood that it was impossible for them to procreate. And with the evolution of the human immune system over the last two hundred or so years, it was proving to be fatal even to attempt to turn one.
Hence the genetic race against the clock. Hence her brilliant plan to kidnap the one person she hoped would find an answer to their prayers.
That answer was a bloody, fucking mess strewn across the floor at her feet.
On impulse, she kicked the body again.
“I hate this.” Her voice was low. “I hate not knowing what to do. I hate not being in control of everything, and I hate, hate, motherfucking hate them.” She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at the body, her eyes boring holes into Bane as he watched her seethe.
“Darling, darling, my Morrigan,” he said as he stepped over the corpse and threw a large arm around her shoulder. “Muffin, you take entirely too much to heart. We will figure this out. Another answer will come up.” He swung her around and began to lead her out of the room. “You know, he’s not the only brilliant geneti-whatsis in the country. We’ll just find another one stupid enough to come with us and chain the poor sod to the floor until he gets it right. Right?”
“You clever little boy. You always know what to say to make me feel better.” She leaned into his shoulder, the smile spreading across her face.
The large vampire’s fingers stroked her shoulder, the black polish on his nails contrasting with her creamy flesh. “In the meantime, though, let’s not worry about how to get the numbers up, aye? We have plenty of time. It’s not like we’re gonna die holding our breath or anything, now is it?”
Their hysterical laughter floated through the room and followed them as they stepped out into the hall. Neither one of them bothered to turn off the light, nor did they look back.
The fluorescent lights continued to flicker and pop, and under their flooding glow, a body lay on the floor, breathless, lifeless.
Chapter 2
Taris’ legs were crossed in front of him. His elbows rested on his knees, and his hands were buried deep into his hair. He had been sitting motionless on that one spot on the smooth tile floor for over an hour. The solitary position should have been uncomfortable, but at that moment, he had no feeling in any part of his body. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, running the entire length of his six-foot-three frame, he was numb.
He drew in a shaky, difficult breath and finally lifted his face, threading his fingers together and pressing them to his mouth as he opened his eyes once more to stare at the body that sat mere inches away from him. It made his heart thud against his chest wall again, and the feeling of the blood that was rushing through his veins made him queasy. It coursed through him with its heat and its strength. The pulsing of it sent shivers down his spine, and the blissful feeling of warmth that was spreading through his body played havoc with his mind. He wanted to look away. He wanted to get rid of the body and start over, but there was no way he could disconnect from this.
Leaning over, he pushed a lock of matted hair away from the young woman’s face. Her eyes were frozen open and beginning to haze over. He tried to shut them, but they were stiff, and he muttered a silent curse to himself, wishing he had taken the time when she first passed to shut them. He’d spent too much time focusing on the immediate implications of what was happening to realize he would have to deal with her mossy green stare.
“Where did we go wrong, Hayley?”
There had to have been some glitch in their timing, something they missed. For the last year, he had been preparing her for the change, hoping all of their research would pay off and they would finally discover the secret to keeping their race from extinction. Hayley was a more than willing subject. She jumped into the testing feet first, smiling every time he bit her, eager for every single drop of life he fed her. The thought of her eagerness made his belly knot up again.
What did they miss?
Taris leaned back, covering his mouth with a large hand as he blankly stared at her. Assessing the situation was all he could afford to do right now. He couldn’t afford to mourn her. There was no time. What few available moments he had to himself after watching her die had already been spent in a state of devastated paralysis. There would be more time for grief later. Now he had to shift gears. He had to figure out what went wrong and fix it.
He ran his long fingers through his dark brown hair, tugging at the rubber band that was exhibiting a pathetic attempt at holding it back from his face. He managed to pull most of it loose while he was sitting there. He tilted his head to either side and sent a ricochet of pops echoing through the room before he forced himself to stand. He looked down at the body one more time before turning toward the bedroom door.
She had to be moved, but at that moment, the walls were confining him. Everything was restrictive, from his jeans to his long-sleeved, button-down dress shirt. He wanted to rip them off, strip himself of everything. Maybe then he would feel a little better about the situation.
He was stumped. No, that word was too plain, too common for how he felt. His brain and his heart, even his very being felt lost. The question kept running through his mind. What went wrong? It was almost callous for him to be focusing solely on the fact that they had failed, yet again, instead of the fact that he was now shutting the door to a bedroom in which there lay a dead woman.
But she wasn’t just any dead woman.
She was bright-eyed, warmhearted Hayley, who came up with the immunity theory in the first place. So convinced was she that it would work that she took it upon herself to begin testing her grand notion—without his knowledge. He remembered her brilliant stare and the way she all but tried to con her way into playing God with an entire race of people’s futures.
“This will work, Papa Bear. I promise you, this will work.”
She had smiled at him, even though he caught her lingering at the side of his bed, X-ACTO blade in hand, ready to knick him as he slept. He had been so furious that his first inclination had been to toss her back out onto the streets where he had found her ten years before. She was only thirteen years old the first time he had seen her, so giving her the boot would have been made easier by the fact that she was now a grown woman.
When she called him Papa Bear the first day he took her in, that really got to him. The older she got, the more it fell into obscurity, but when she needed it the most, she would pull it out like an old trick. And curse him if it didn’t work every time. She tried for years to get him to reciprocate an equally cheesy and completely irrelevant nickname, but Taris steadfastly refused.
Just as he’d initially refused to indulge in this wildly dangerous notion.
“It won’t work, Hayley, because we aren’t going to do it, and that is final.”
But it wasn’t final. Hayley spent months and months compiling data and outlining the reasons behind her theory. Once she presented it to him, Taris saw the merit in it, saw the possibility.
“Taris, think about it.” Her eyes were wide, focused on him, and for a moment, he remembered those same eyes staring at him from behind a dumpster several years earlier. “It’s the human immune system that is rejecting the change because it sees the new blood as a cancer or an illness. If we do it my way, it could completely cancel out the rejection.” She was so confident.
Her plan was relatively simple compared to the ones that had been previously proposed and tried. Slowly introduce the dominant blood into the system, gradually increasing the dosages over an extended period of time. It would allow the body to build up a tolerance to it and thereby allow the exch
ange to take place. It made perfect sense. At least, it seemed like the most logical plan they had at the time.
Reluctantly, Taris allowed Hayley to test her theory personally, though he only gave in after she forced his hand and threatened to test it elsewhere. The idea that she would put her life in jeopardy at the hands of a complete stranger sent a wave of panic through him, and knowing that she was perfectly serious, he finally gave in. Of course, where she would manage to find another vampire was a notion he didn’t immediately consider.
But if she was going to play a game of existential roulette anywhere, she was going to do it within the safety of his home and under both his watchful eyes and those of his sister, Kalin.
Months of constant supervision, countless discarded test-tubes, and thousands of small flesh wounds later, Hayley was able to ingest almost half a pint of Taris’ blood without any kind of adverse side effects. The fact that she was as giddy about drinking blood as most girls were about their senior prom gave him a big case of the head scratches. Not once did she explain her motives. At first, he thought it was the prospect of a lengthier, perpetually youthful life—that precariously coveted state of being that plastic surgeons and health gurus alike struggled to give to the masses. He asked her, repeatedly, but every time, she just shrugged, turned away, and smiled mysteriously. She always smiled. Now that her system could tolerate the dominant blood, she smiled even more because she knew she was finally ready.
“Tomorrow, you really will be my Papa Bear,” she said as she kissed him on the cheek, hugged Kalin, and flitted off to bed. She beamed like a new bride, the smile splitting her face from ear to ear as she blew him a gigantic kiss before closing her bedroom door.
That was yesterday.
And now, she was dead. Lying in a heap on his bedroom floor, her brilliant green eyes clouding and her long, blonde hair matted to her skin by drying blood. She was gone.
Taris walked through the living room, straight into the den, and didn’t stop until he reached the bar on the other side of the pool table. He didn’t bother going behind the bar. He simply leaned over it and grabbed the first bottle he could get his hands on. With a flick of his fingers, he twisted off the cap and threw it against the wall before flopping down onto one of the large black leather recliners. He tipped the bottle up, taking a long draw. The smooth burn made him close his eyes.
“Is she gone?”
Taris shivered. Kalin’s smooth voice drifted across the room. He squeezed his eyes even tighter with every step that drew her closer to him.
“Yeah,” he whispered, his already rugged voice made even more gravelly by the heat of the straight Scotch. “She, uh…she didn’t make it.” His eyes slipped open as he lifted the bottle to take another deep draw. The seal of his lips was broken by the jolt of Kalin plopping down next to him. He turned to look at her.
Kalin looked like a nightmare. Her elegantly straight black hair was thrown up on top of her head in a mess of bobby pins and small plastic clips. Replacing her usual attire of tailored pants and designer shirts were a pair of old hospital scrubs and an oversize sweatshirt. Her eyes were rubbed raw and bloodshot, their brilliant amber hue taken over by distress and grief. She knew before he told her. Somehow, she knew.
Taris took another pull from the bottle before absently holding it out to her. She looked down at the offering for a moment before reaching out with shaky hands to accept it. She tilted it up and took several long gulps.
“Drinking isn’t going to make this any better,” she coughed, wiping her mouth. Absently, she lifted the bottle again, taking another long sip before handing it back.
“What are we going to do now?” Her voice was so small, so broken.
“We start over. Until we get it right, we start over. This time is no different.” Taris scanned the bottle’s liquid level and took another swig.
“But this time is different, Taris.” Kalin lifted her legs, clutching her knees to her chest. “I loved her. Like my own, I loved her.”
It was an innocent enough statement. It was simple and kind and mournful, but something about those few little words caused Taris’ heart to pump into overdrive and his blood to boil out of control. He shot up from the couch, sending the half-empty Scotch bottle shattering against the opposite wall, just shy of the wide-screen television. He couldn’t stand still. His longs legs were shaking as he paced around the glass coffee table.
“You think I feel any better about it? Do you? I fed her. I fed from her! I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want her to do this, but she did, and I’m a selfish fucking prick because I let her!”
His breath was coming and going like a steam engine, loud, full of heat and power. The pacing wouldn’t stop. The heat in his body wouldn’t let him be still.
“I can still feel her rolling around in my gut, and it makes me sick.”
Kalin’s weary eyes were on him. They were filled with more than just her grief for Hayley. In them was empathy, the knowledge that no matter what kind of a spin he put on it, Taris was just as torn up inside as she was. Possibly even more so. With every loss they suffered, he bled a little himself, died inside just a little bit more.
“Taris, I’m sorry. You can’t blame yourself. Cub knew what she was getting into. She knew what she was doing when we started this. Death was something she was willing to face.” Kalin gently set her feet flat on the floor and rose from the couch. He was still pacing when she stood in front of him and forced him to stop by putting her arms around his waist and pulling him to her. Her head met the very top of his shoulder, and she used all of her strength to stop him from pushing her away. With a sigh of resignation, he threw his arms around her shoulders and squeezed her tight to him.
“She loved us, all of us.” Kalin’s voice was muffled against his chest. He could feel the vibration when she spoke. “She wanted to save us, Taris, the way we saved her. This time was different because of who we lost, not because of what we did not gain.” She pulled her head back, and as she did, she met his eyes. They were the same strange amber color as hers, only they were touched with something different. They were frosted, hazed with the sheen of unshed tears. Tears were something she had never seen in him before. Not ever.
“I need to take care of her,” he whispered as he pulled away from the embrace and slowly walked toward the door. Once in the large doorway, he stopped. He didn’t want to turn around, but the clearing of Kalin’s throat caused him to tilt his head enough to see her staring at him, hugging herself in that gigantic sweatshirt.
“She deserves to be with us, Taris. You know that.”
“I know.” He turned and walked out, not bothering to look back.
As he walked toward the bedroom, Taris could hear the uncontrolled sobs breaking loose. The incredible loss she felt hung thick in the air around him. Actually hearing her pain ripped a new, completely different hole in his heart. This was not a wound that would heal easily, and the wrenching cries coming from his sister drove that point home harder than a railroad spike. Kalin truly did love Hayley. Like her own daughter. From the moment the skinny girl set foot in the door, his sister had doted on her, given her every luxury she would never have been afforded out there on the streets. There was nothing Hayley wanted for: clothes, education, the little things that spoiled a young girl…all were given to her freely and with love. Kalin even let Hayley call her Mom.
The attention and affection Kalin had showered on the girl were just more reasons why he had to solve their lack-of-population problem, and fast. It wasn’t logical for women of his race to adopt human children. Human children had human life spans, not the extremely lengthy ones the vampire race were privilege to. The end result would be nothing but broken hearts that lasted infinitum. The pain he could hear emanating from his sister was proof positive that he needed to find a way to prevent the rejection of the change. It was the only way she could ever actually have a child of her own, a child who would live to term within her womb—a child who would be as they were. F
inding a cure was the only way a vampire mother could have a vampire child.
Taris gripped the knob to the door and took in a long, slow breath before pushing it open. In the back of his mind, a small part of him halfway expected to see Hayley standing in the middle of the room, dancing around in her new body with her new life. He wanted to hear her silly laugh fill the emptiness. He wanted to see her smile and watch her twist her hair in her fingers.
All he got, however, was the same lifeless body he had left lying there just a short time ago. Steeling himself, he took a few strides over to her and scooped her up into his arms. His heart smacked against his chest wall in a sickening thud when he felt her form beginning to grow rigid. Her skin was already getting cold, and her eyes were still open and fixed on him. It took everything he had not to collapse under the weight of his own guilt as he walked out of the room and through the house to the basement crypt. They would give her a proper burial tomorrow evening, with every ceremonial rite that would have been given to blooded kin.
Instead of burying her on the hill with the others, he would place her behind the house, in their family cemetery. Tomorrow, they would bathe her skin and make her as beautiful in death as she was in life. In the meantime, he had to allow her body to rest. He had to allow her soul to be completely free of its human confines before committing her to the ground. It was their custom, and if Kalin had ever been right about anything, it was this. In Hayley’s attempt to save the vampire race, she had indeed become one of them.
After making the silent journey to the crypt below the house and placing Hayley’s body on the large funeral stone, Taris locked himself in his room. The silence that permeated the house was deafening. It used to be full of music and laughter. The stories of boyfriends and first dates, the loud singing, and the late-night wine and horror movie marathons were all gone. Now there was nothing, and that fact was threatening to drive him insane.
Taris leaned against the large paneled door and didn’t even bother with the buttons of his shirt. He grabbed the collar, and in one swift motion, he ripped it off, shredding it into two halves and dropping it to the floor. His bare feet padded across the cold tile. He didn’t care that he stepped through the crimson puddle that encompassed a large section of the floor. Bloodied footprints were tracking behind him as he walked through his bedroom. He crouched down onto his knees and reached underneath his bed, retrieving a slim, ancient box. The dark, antiqued wood smelled like smoke and pine, and Taris inhaled, taking the scent deep into his lungs before he walked back to the large bloody spot on the floor.
Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1) Page 2
