My heart sang as she struggled to pull my wrist tighter against her mouth, drawing into her body what I could give her, until I felt light-headed and had to break the seal. She heaved a harsh breath, as her body quaked trying to accommodate the novelty of this different life. Her heart seized one last time, before throbbing with her astonishing spirit. Recognition bloomed new in her expressive eyes that didn’t lose their luminosity. If anything, as the vampire virus adapted to her essence, they grew stronger, brighter, full of her strange, new existence.
As I held her in my arms, her beauty flourished to a wondrous thing, vibrantly bright to lighten up the night. Yet she was the same, the woman who held my faltering heart in her hands.
“You saved me. Death came for me, but you outwitted him. I’d hoped you’d come, that I’d see you one last time. But you saved me instead.”
Even though it was the last thing Lucius had ever wanted me to do, I felt his pleasure, his acceptance, his outright joy that another had joined us. His thoughts were joined by Isabella, and I saw she reflected the shared feeling. She was weak but pleased with the knowledge of my newfound love.
At that moment, I felt David’s touch, sheepishly sorry to have lost himself so completely in his beast. When he discovered another’s thoughts inside my own, his mind widening as I knew his eyes would, fear and happiness mingled as one. He saw the newness of Michela’s creation and the wonder at the emotion of love, something he had yet to experience.
“Never did I want to make another like myself, but I’d barely started to love you. To lose you was a torture I couldn’t endure. Pathetic I know, but I was too weak to let you leave. When you agreed to join me, I acted without a second chance to reconsider. Forgive me.” I buried my face in her illustrious riot of hair. “I no longer thought myself worthy of love, of … wonder. You’ve proved me wrong.”
My eyes moved over her body, taking in the new being she was becoming, but her heart remained the same. Her prowess grew, one of the hunting mechanisms vampires enjoyed, bringing beauty to the eyes of the prey. The beauty within the beast, the beauty to my beast. My heart surged with a frantic new beat. Her fragrance had been like honeyed-vanilla, but it grew sweeter, if possible, more desirable. Her beautiful beast would not be denied.
David soon joined us, having disposed of Loupgarin’s underling. He understood what took me a century to fully realize.
“Life is what we make of it.” He smiled back at me, my pride in him well founded.
I realized something else, I thought of him as a brother. He wasn’t just the stray youngling picked up from the street. He’d grown to occupy a void in my life. I shook his hand, even as a smile split my tired face. There would still be times when his beast wanted to possess him, but he’d proved the rightness of my decision to spare his life.
As her strength returned, I gathered Michela close, and with David protecting our backs, we left her old life behind. Regret showed briefly in her eyes, not for the life she was leaving, at least not only that, but for the home she’d made. I squeezed her hand and said, “We can make another.”
“Together.” She looked into my eyes and smiled, happy with her decision to become my mate, my life mate, to spend her days as an equal in our love and in our lives.
*
There was still much to do on this night as the minutes ticked by. Anton Vintonie survived the night almost unscathed. Donny had not been so lucky, but with a few drops of vampire blood, he too would live. The Vintonie residence had suffered greatly. Its gaudy features had been destroyed, the room with the blood-red sofas torn apart, and now, real blood splashed the walls. But, Anton knew a contractor who specialized in covering up the bloody messes left in the wake of his business deals. This time it would be no different.
What remained of the dry husks of Loupgarin and his underlings, as well as the murdered guards at both the Vintonie house and the Lake Park home were in need of disposal. Fire was the only pure cleanser.
“David, go—gather the husks and the bodies, both in Lake Park and Vintonie’s. Bring them back here.”
Lucius arrive as David sped away, his gaze finding mine. “I’m afraid we’ll have to arrange for another accident.” He shook his head. “The old one has created so much destruction.”
I nodded my agreement. “He was poisoned by valerian and madness, nothing to do with our family.” I stood, my arms never leaving Michela, a new sheet wrapped tight around her body.
A sadness graced Lucius’s features, one I was familiar with. “I abhor the senseless taking of life. I’m sorry it was inflicted upon you.” Lucius never took life, any life, for granted. If vampirism taught us anything, it was the value of living. Taking each day as a gift. Death was not forgiving.
“Lucius, this is Michela Vintonie Jennings. I hope soon to change that.”
He held out his hand. “I wish we’d met under different circumstances.”
Michela’s pale cheeks tinted as she clasped Luc’s hand. “So do I.”
I buried my face in the fragrant lushness of her hair. “She’s more than I deserve and everything I need.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
There was one thing left to do for Michela. She’d remained secreted away, recovering and learning to be vampire for several days before we revisited her father’s home. In the bid to stop Loupgarin, her father had come face to face with the cold hard facts of the vampiric society. Something would have to be done about that and the subsequent attacks. Anton Vintonie still had questions to answer before taking his memories away. He’d have to forget his daughter too—rather hard to do, erase someone from another’s life. We came through the now open iron gates, up the long drive, and to his door. There she halted.
“What do I say to the man who has been my father, but not ever really there? He’ll forget me entirely, won’t he? At least my mother isn’t here.” She grew quiet, but what was going to happen would be for the best.
Wrapping her in my arms, I held her, whispering how much I loved her. “It’s going to be difficult, saying goodbye to your father. I wish it could be another way.”
“I don’t.” She glanced up at me. “I never wanted to be part of that life, it was forced on me, but no more. I’ve accepted this new existence, it’s already better than what I’ve live through, and besides, he brought me you.” She kissed me quick and rang the bell.
Donny answered, looking worse for the battle, new scars showed. “Ms. Jennings, glad to see you’re okay. Your father’s in his study.” There was no delay tactics tonight, Anton Vintonie sat waiting for us.
Upon our entry, Anton rose fluidly to his feet. “Michela, sweetheart, are you all right?”
“Yes, Dad, I’m fine. Better than fine actually.” She laughed, and when she smiled, the tiniest bit of fang peeked out.
Anton Vintonie wasn’t the father she’d always dreamed about like in fairytales, but he was all she’d ever had. She would miss him, but no more than when his death came. All mortals die, leaving us behind, the reason vampires never took human mates. “I’m going to miss you, Dad.” Real tears glistened in her eyes.
“Now, what are you talking about? I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.” Anton glanced from his daughter and back to me, looking for an explanation.
“I know, Dad. What I meant to say is, I’m going away. Maybe someday, I’ll come back, but not for a very long time.” She smiled and took my hand. “I’m in love, Dad. Please be happy for me.”
“You’re in love?” His voice rose in pitch. “With him?” He raised his eyes to his daughter’s. “You’re crazy! You know what he is?”
“Yes, I do. I just came to say goodbye.” She leaned over and gently kissed his beard-stubbled cheek.
“You’re moving in with him?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes or ears, and I had to smile.
“Goodbye, Dad. Take care of yourself.” She backed out of the room as I stepped into her father.
“Hi-ya, Tone.” I knew from Michela how much he hated
the shortening of his given name. No one dared to cross the boss, nobody … except me. “I have a couple of questions for you.” I grinned into his paling face. “About why Loupgarin picked on you.” Sighing, I turned to what I needed to know. “You know, when we were trying to save your ass the other night, the old vampire had some interesting thoughts. Now, why don’t you tell me why he chose your family out of all the families in Chicago to annihilate?”
Anton blanched, growing paler. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied. I could see it in his eyes, smell it as he broke out in a cold sweat. “He was just a crazy old bastard.”
“Anton … Anton … Anton …” He backed up as I came closer. “You know I can tell when you lie, so why do you try? Come on, just between us guys.” I pushed his shoulder, maybe harder than I needed to. “Why would the old vamp want you and your family dead?” My fangs bloomed into life. My beast didn’t like Anton, not one little bit. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t bathe in his blood.
He stepped away, nearer to the door, as if he’d be able to make a quick escape. I had to laugh. My beast would be on him faster than he could blink an eye. And I moved in for the kill.
Finally, he found his voice and wheezed out an answer. “You think you’re the only vampire in Chicago? We had a bad one, a while back. She had to go. She stuck her nose where it didn’t belong, costing me money. She started asking questions, snooping around. Then that bald-headed vampire came to see me.” Anton grinned at me, like he had something on me. “He said he was the boss of all the vampires in Chicago, and if this vamp was giving me problems, he’d take care of her. He only needed one favor.”
With hooded eyes, I asked in a deadpan voice, “What was the one favor, Anton?”
“See, that’s the strange part. He said he needed my help importing some drug. He already had it purchased. He just needed someone to bring it into the country.” He tugged on the collar of his shirt. “But I don’t share any of my territory. No sir. Not the money making part of it, not any of it, and that’s what I told him. He said not to worry. He wasn’t selling, he was using.” Anton barked out a hard laugh. “Only losers use their own product.”
“Did he say what kind of drug he was bringing in?” My beast rolled a little, biding its time.
“Nope, he just needed transportation, and I didn’t need to know.” He shook his head, uncaring.
“So, how did you bring the drug in?” I moved closer, taking up his personal space.
“Well, that’s the funny part,” he said and smiled. “I was sending Bobby to Mexico on some business, you don’t need to know about. I told him to take my daughter, she needed a vacation. I needed the drug brought in. It was easy from there. Michela didn’t even know.” But the stink of the drug would be all over her.
As Anton told his story, I listened in growing disbelief, ice in my veins. In his arrogance, he had knowingly involved his daughter in drug trafficking and it didn’t bother him. It probably wouldn’t matter to the police either. Valerian looks like any other weed. It isn’t illegal to anyone, except vampires. To us, it’s a big taboo. It isn’t deadly, but with today’s chemistry, who knows? If I was a betting man, I’d wager the Hierarchy had no idea about the Magistrate’s private store. Just another reason he needed to die. And, what if my perceptions about his thoughts and plans were right? It also explained Loupgarin’s need to see an end of the Vintonies. They were the instruments by which he was tortured.
“You’re a bigger fool than I gave you credit for, Anton. Do you know what you did?” While Anton had been speaking, he’d made it to the door. With unnatural speed, I stood, barring his exit. “You don’t, do you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It was a business deal, nothing more.” But he blinked, and I saw it.
“See, Anton, the old vamp that came to see you, the one with the little drug problem?”
“Yeah?” His hands shook as he tried to hide them.
“He was using your family to bring my family to Chicago. A bit complicated, but it is what it is. What was the name of the vamp you were having problems with, the one you wanted taken care of?”
“Jules Sangreet, but as soon as I said there was a problem, she vanished. No interruption to my business. That was all I cared about anyway.”
Exhaling loudly, the whole sordid story finally fell into place. The Belagos wouldn’t have any knowledge of a Sangreet family member gone missing. But the Sangreets took the justice it deemed necessary with the unsanctioned death of one of their own, assumed to be the work of the Belagos. Stupid. Fucking. Vampire. Politics. Which in turn led the Hierarchy, in all its wisdom, to provide their own form of retribution. “He wiped out two families to help you, so you’d bring in his drug.”
“Well, that has nothin’ to do with me.” His face paled as he wiped his hands down his pant legs.
“Wrong, Anton, it has everything to do with you. Not only did he wipe out two families, but he had you bring in an illegal drug. And, you used your daughter to do it. You’re a fool. This old vamp of yours used the drug as a means of torture. He wasn’t using, he was abusing it, driving Loupgarin to madness. But guess what?”
The fool shrugged his beefy shoulders.
I shook my head, disgusted with the whole business. “He escaped and came after you and your family. He was either given the information or discovered who helped your bald-headed vampire. He swore to kill all those involved, including Michela.”
Anton paled further, backing away farther into the room. “I didn’t know. I mean, I wouldn’t hurt her or want her to be hurt.” He stumbled backward. “I love my daughter, it’s been rough since the loss of her mother …” and for the first time, Anton Vintonie appeared human.
It didn’t cut much slack with me, he’d still let Bobby bring an illegal vampiric drug into our city, used for torture. Still, I almost wanted to feel sorry for him. “You jeopardized your family, your daughter, for money, for power? Do you know what that makes you, Anton? I mean, besides an ass. That makes you a man with a bull’s-eye on his forehead, and your daughter too. You know she died, right?”
Anton’s breath caught in his throat. He coughed, trying to clear the obstruction. “What do you mean?”
“She’s turned, and it’s your fault.” My voice lost all hint of emotion, any bit of humanity. Deadly calm came to it. “But don’t worry, I’m going to take good care of her.” I stepped in one more time.
“Wh-what are you going to do?” He was visibly shaking, as he plucked his shirt away from his neck. Then self-consciously, pulled it up tighter.
“Not what you’re thinking.” I laughed in his face. “I wouldn’t drink from you if I was dying of thirst and you were the last source of blood on Earth. But I can tell you this, it’s only because she’s your daughter that you’re breathing today. If it was anyone else, I would have snapped his neck by now.” I sighed in a whisper. “And I promised her I wouldn’t.”
Now, instead of trying to escape, Anton Vintonie backed further into the room, his knees met with one of the replacement sofas and he sat down, hard. When I saw the sofa, I almost laughed. It was the same damn blood red color. He watched as I squatted down, pulling on his gaze. It takes time to wipe away a lifetime of memories, but that was okay, I had all night.
Vintonie tried to find his strength, to show me how furious he was. “You’re lying. She’s fine, she was just here. You aren’t taking her. She has a husband and he’ll be back for her.”
Willing him to face me, I said, “Wrong again, Bobby’s gone, like never to return.”
Shock crowded his features. “You did that?”
“Yes, I did, and I’d do more. I love her, Anton, and I think you finally realize your mistake, what you’re going to lose, but only too late. For that, I’m sorry.”
Now, he was trapped, unable to turn away, as my eyes bore deeply into his. He lost his concentration and limply sagged back down into his bloody red sofa. “Your daughter no longer exists in your li
fe. She’s never existed. You had a child but you lost her a long time ago. If you should pass someone who has a familiar face, you won’t recognize her as the child you once had. Do you understand, Anton?”
“Yes … I lost my daughter a long time ago,” he repeated back dully.
“That’s right, Anton, she’s never existed.” He resisted for a few moments before acceptance. We repeated the exercise until he recited it, as if bored, without a momentary hesitation. While I had the chance, I delved deeper into his mind, excising a few of the memories that persisted … a birthday party, riding lessons, images of another life, another time … some edged with happiness, some framed with regret. All of them consumed with my words.
There were few who knew Michela as Anton Vintonie’s daughter. Donny would have to be dealt with, as would a few of his surviving guards.
It was a fact she’d been hidden most of her life, sheltered by her mother as a child. Then, sent to expensive foreign schools and college as a young adult, concealed as the wife of a hoodlum in marriage. Her mother feared the violence Anton’s contemporaries might bring, causing her to keep her daughter veiled from his life. When she was at school, she had used her mother’s maiden name. It was the name she chose to live by now, Michela Elizabeth Stoffield. Never again would she be known as Vintonie or Jennings, and I was hoping one day she chose to become Michela Elizabeth Draco.
Chapter Thirty
It was another two nights before my strength returned to normal, ready for the next challenge.
“You know what I have to do?” I asked Lucius and Isabella. I told them of the images that had bombarded me after my encounter with Magistrate Dumas. I no longer just suspected involvement of Rafael, but I was certain of the fact. I’d purposely left Michela and David out of this discussion, both still too young, learning to embrace this new life.
Lucius closed his eyes, and Isabella leaned her head against his shoulder. “Yes, I know it has to be done. I only wish there was another way. One where you weren’t in jeopardy.”
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