by Kari Gregg
He would never reveal his despair to the enemy.
Never.
“I know your frustration, your weariness. I felt it once too.” Tobias tapped the dagger’s blade against Kate’s neck. “End your torment, my brother. Stop fighting your true nature. There is no need. Together, we can share the female. Join me. Tur—”
Garrick’s sword sliced into Tobias’s throat.
Blood jetted from his neck to spray his shirt viscous black.
Lucien jerked.
Kate cried out.
His eyes rounded in shocked horror. His mouth worked to complete the dark soliloquy his severed vocal cords could no longer finish. Tobias’s grasp on the dagger slackened.
It tumbled from his nerveless fingers to spear into the ground between Kate’s feet.
She shuddered, scrambling from the carnage.
Garrick’s arm drew back, biceps bulging with the weight of his sword and the strength of his next blow. The blade he wielded hatcheted into Tobias’s mangled neck until the rogue’s body dropped, his head hanging on to the stump of his neck by tattered bloody sinew. Sheathing his sword, Garrick bent to snag Tobias’s hair. “Tend to your ward.” He bunched the fabric of the rogue’s shirt in his fist and dragged his crumpled body upright.
Lucien’s pulse pounded.
His heart thundered.
Not with the adrenaline rush of battle—with agony.
He’d never admit his hopelessness to the enemy, but he couldn’t deny it to himself. Tobias was dead, and thank God for it, but his former partner had been right. Lucien was tired of running. He was sick of hiding. He did despair of winning the war. He mourned each loss as vampyr after vampyr—good men and headhunters—fell to darkness or the battle’s slaughter.
How long could they keep this up?
How long could he?
The urgent demand in the blackest corner of his soul prodded his bleak misery, whispered to him to end the struggle. Every hour, every minute, his every breath urged him to forget the war. Forget hope. Seize whatever pleasure he could find in both greedy fists.
He closed his eyes, but Tobias’s words echoed in his mind.
“You mistake the lure of turning for true danger of it. At three hundred, we become increasingly aware of the temptation. That is what Tobias scented on you, your growing awareness. My blood runs inside you, none know you better.” Garrick tossed Tobias’s head over his shoulder by the nap of the dead vampyr’s hair. “You are not as close as you fear.”
“It taunts me,” Lucien whispered, shaken.
“It torments us all.” Garrick’s attention abruptly focused to Lucien’s right. The elder’s nostrils flared. He sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes glittered like shards of blue ice. He jerked his head to the side, thick lashes slamming shut. “Take care of Kate. She needs you.”
Lucien gaped when he spotted her. Naked, skin glowing luminescent in the moonlight, she crawled away from them on hands and knees that shook so violently he wondered that she could move at all.
Garrick towed Tobias’s corpse toward the swamp.
Stiffly.
Painfully.
“Kate.” Lucien strode to her. Astounded to find her blanket still knotted in his hand, he wrapped her inside it and lifted her from the cold ground.
“No.” She batted at his hands and the blanket, but starved for blood, she was no match for him. “Get away from me!”
“You think us evil?” He shook her. Hard. “Garrick.”
His steady retreat did not slow, but he lifted his arm.
Tobias’s severed head dangled from his fingers.
“That is evil. Not me. Not Garrick. Certainly not you.” He shook her again when her horrified eyes focused on the blood, oily black in the darkness. It streamed from the stump of Tobias’s neck as Garrick marched into the magnolias. “We fight that evil every night. Of that much, Tobias did not lie—we are at war. And we are losing.”
She froze in his arms, blinked up at him.
He pivoted, furious steps carrying them back to the SUV. “Dark masters enslave young men susceptible to the virus to do their bidding, then slaughter them like cattle to intensify their power. No single vampyr is strong enough to defeat the weakest master, so we fight in pairs. Hide in the day. Attack at night. Always on the move for fear of what they’ll do if they find us. When they find us.
“An eternity of time passes with nothing except death, war, and fear to mark its passage. We lack the comfort of friendship because the man you call brother may become the rogue whose head you take tomorrow. Or he may beg you for death to spare you the betrayal of his turning.”
He jerked the door of the SUV wide. “And each one of us, to a man, will kill the other at only the hope of finding a mate who will end our solitude, ease our temptation to turn.”
“Let me go,” she said when Lucien settled her into his lap in the backseat, her voice a small, desolate whisper.
He exhaled a weary breath. “Ours is a brutal world.” He anchored her to his side when she shifted from him. “But it is one you must accept. Our need for you is too great.”
“Please.”
He snorted. “Where shall you go, bébé? Dark masters have searched for us since I took you from David’s stronghold. To keep or kill you matters not to Krystiyan and the other masters, only that no more of us survive by mating with you. Our fighters, to the last vampyr, will kill each other to reach you too. Both sides of the war hunt you now.”
“I don’t care.” She pushed against him. “Let. Me. Go.”
“And leave you unchaperoned to Garrick?” He tucked her against his chest, where the cut he’d made earlier still seeped blood. “Don’t be a fool.” He nudged her mouth to the wound, though she tried to yank her head back. “Drink. Your hunger gnaws at me.”
“I’m going to be sick.”
This time, when his mind touched hers, he sensed her revulsion immediately. He smothered a burst of relieved, giddy laughter. “Drink.”
“I’m not a vampire,” she said, but her body slackened against his. “I’m not.”
“You’re exhausted. The transition has not gone easily for you.” He kissed the crown of her head. “Just a taste, Kate. To see. To try. Then, you will sleep.”
“No.” But she sniffed at the blood trickling from his chest.
He waited.
“I’ll throw up.”
He smiled. “You won’t.”
“Oh yes, I will. Seriously. I got beaned in the face with a volleyball once and—”
“You were human then. Now, you are…” He fumbled around the words she was not ready to accept. “You are more.”
Still, she hesitated. “What if I don’t like it?”
Lucien let wonder spill over him.
He’d forgotten.
So long without intimacy, he hadn’t remembered what it felt like to truly connect with another. Yes, he’d had Garrick. For two centuries, Lucien had loved him. He’d trusted his vampyr elder like no other, as a brother, mentor, and friend.
But Garrick had left him.
And this was…different.
One by one, he felt tiny links binding him to her. Caring for Kate, loving her, forged an invisible chain that coiled around all the shattered pieces of him.
She held him together.
She made him feel whole.
“You’ve fed from these veins for three weeks, ma petite. Trust me. You will not throw up, and you will like it.”
She stiffened in his arms. “Three weeks?” She gasped. “How could I be gone…missing…for three weeks?”
His shoulders jerked in an awkward shrug. “Young women vanish every day. Your disappearance was hardly remarkable.”
She stared, eyes wide, her skin ashen. “But people would’ve looked for me. My mother. The police—”
“The police raided David’s stronghold while we were on the run, before Chicago.” His lips curved into a tight smile. “No one is looking for you, Kate. They think you’re already dead.�
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Chapter Four
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Southern France
AD 1727
He groaned at the sharp jab to his stomach.
Oh God.
“Quiet! One of the masters has arrived. Do you want him to find us?”
Garrick wanted to sleep for the next twenty years. His head throbbed. His muscles shrieked. He couldn’t think through the fog of misery.
But he could wretch up a mouthful of the coppery blood that had been fed to him, smearing dark crimson on the rough wool shirt before him when he opened his eyes.
He slammed them shut again.
His limp body bounced upside down and over Luc’s shoulder as the young vampyr carried him toward the lake that skirted the stronghold.
Christ save him.
Nathaniel was dead, and everything of the dark master that lingered in Garrick’s abused body was dying along with him.
“Stop whining. Part of me is in you now too.”
Garrick struggled for equilibrium in the hellacious agony, though Luc’s topsy-turvy grasp as he carried him kept Garrick’s senses spiraling. He’d survived the loss of a master before Nathaniel. He knew the torturous leech of the dark master’s blood would fade. Eventually.
His stomach knotted.
He groaned again.
Luc cursed under his breath and dropped like a stone behind a cart piled high with hay.
Garrick plummeted with him, sliding off the vampyr’s shoulder and onto the hard ground of the outer courtyard. His bones screamed in protest. Garrick only wished he could scream too, but pain locked the air in his chest. Rolling into a fetal ball, he sicked up another mouthful of blood and soaked a palm-sized puddle of dirt viscous red.
“I thought we lost the ability to vomit once we became vampyr.” Luc darted a glance at him, then returned his attention to the nickering horses and creaking carriages at the gate. “Guess not.”
Brat.
Garrick could’ve told Luc that, with the death of his master, Nathaniel’s blood had rejected its century-long host—him. He could’ve said that all the dark master’s slaves shared some small measure of discomfort, he the worst only because as eldest, he’d fed from Nathaniel most often. He could’ve told Luc that sneaking from the stronghold was impossible since the alarm sounded in the blood each of them carried in their veins.
Instead, he gritted his teeth.
And spat out another thick glob of congealing blood.
“We’ll have to run for it.” Luc refocused his attention from the gate to Garrick. His eyebrow lifted to an assessing arch. “The marsh isn’t far, but we’ll reach it faster if you aren’t on my back.”
“Can you walk?”
Garrick uncurled his aching body. He stretched out his legs to test their steadiness. “How far?”
Luc glanced over his shoulder. “Half a furlong.”
Over open ground?
Garrick would never make it.
Panic glinted in Luc’s eyes, so the slave knew it too.
Slave?
Garrick stiffened his spine, though fresh agony jolted up it.
They’d killed Nathaniel; Luc was a slave no more. If the young vampyr could swing the sword that parted Nathaniel’s head from his carcass and carry Garrick from the stink of the stables after? Garrick would damn well reach that marsh.
He squared his shoulders. “Ready?”
Luc nodded.
Garrick pushed himself off the ground. The protesting grind of his knees made his joints feel stuffed with splintered glass. When he would’ve toppled, Luc draped his arm around his waist to hold him upright. Garrick shivered, fighting another wave of brutal nausea. “You still have my sword?”
Luc’s gaze darted to the sheath cinched to his hip.
“Draw it.”
The other vampyr shifted to slip the weapon free.
“If I’m too much of a burden and you’re forced to leave me, I ask only that you take my head with you.” Garrick lifted an arm to wipe sticky black blood from his chin. “Just my head.”
Luc’s mouth thinned. “Let’s go.”
They sprinted to the tall grasses of the marsh.
Garrick panted. He swore.
His right leg buckled.
Luc grunted at his weight bearing them down, and fingers clawing into Garrick’s side, he dragged Garrick toward the lake. Toward freedom.
They’d crossed precious little of the field when a cry from the gates echoed across the field.
Garrick forced his gelatinous legs to pump, dread prodding his spent body forward. Faster. Must move faster. “They’re coming.”
Luc’s chest rose and fell in ragged gasps.
The footsteps of their pursuers thumped distantly behind them, but no matter the banquet of blood Luc had feasted on, he was a child among their kind. He wouldn’t last. Terror boosted the vampyr’s pace, his blind fear stinging inside Garrick’s head like angry hornets.
The wind shifted.
Garrick’s nostrils flared.
The dark, unbearable craving nearly drove him to his knees.
Zechariah.
He stumbled, his feet turning in the direction of that beckoning scent.
Luc dropped the sword to grab him with both hands, dragging him to the shoreline, just a little closer. “What are you doing? Run!”
Garrick’s stare swiveled over his shoulder, seeking—
“Stop,” the dark master shouted. “Garrick, stop. Please!”
For the span of one heartbeat, Garrick’s eyes played tricks on him, transposing Nathaniel’s sly features over Zechariah’s face. Though he knew it for a lie—his body burned with the dying embers of Nathaniel’s cursed blood—hate knotted his belly.
From half a field away, Garrick recognized the glimmer of remorse in Zechariah’s green eyes, but also the red glint of his awakening vampyr when those same eyes swept Luc. “Wait!” The master lifted his hand in pleading appeal to Garrick. And to Garrick alone. “It’s not too late, son.”
Garrick’s jaw hardened.
He glared at the master with icy contempt. “I’m not your son.”
Zechariah jerked to a stop, boots digging into the hard-packed earth. “Don’t do this.” His gaze flashed again to Luc and again dismissed him. “I can right what went wrong here.”
“Come on, Garrick! Let’s go.”
His heart lifted at Luc’s plaintive, insistent voice in his head. Luc. Not Nathaniel, Zechariah, or any of the other masters. Luc, who cared for him, had fought for him, and was fighting for him still.
The corners of Garrick’s mouth curved in malevolent glee as Luc pulled him from the dark master. Away from this life. “Don’t approach us again.” He jerked his chin at Luc. “Either of us.” He met Zechariah’s shocked gasp with a grim stare that condemned he and the other masters to hell. “I renounce all of you.”
Zechariah paled. “You can’t mean it.”
“I cast my lot with the rebellion.” Garrick laughed, a hard and bitter sound that stood the hair at his nape on end. He let Luc maneuver him into the marsh, his stare never wavering from the dark master. “The next time you see me, prepare to raise your sword, because I will raise mine.” Garrick’s voice lowered to a throaty purr. “I’ll kill you. All of you. Even you, Zechariah.”
* * *
Southern Louisiana
Present Day
“The police are still stumbling across shallow graves on David’s estate. The authorities will need months to sift through evidence to identify his victims,” Lucien said. “Until those DNA results come back, everyone believes you number among them. They think David killed you.”
Kate’s dark eyes, fringed with sooty lashes, glistened. “Didn’t he?”
“You are more than you once were, and the human part of your life is over. There is no going back, chère.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “But your heart is still beating. Your lungs draw breath. My blood runs in your veins. You are alive, and I cannot regret it.”
“You can’t regret it?” She choked down bitter laughter. “Oh, that makes everything peachy, then. As long as you’re okay with it, I mean.”
“I’m glad you agree.” He snickered. “If it helps, for your sake, I wish a master hadn’t found you first. But for my sake and for the sake of our people, I thank God that I found you as well. I regret how your transition began, but I cannot regret that it did begin. You are only becoming what you were born to be.”
Her breath hitched. “I can’t do this. I can’t be—”
“You already are. You already have.” He smiled. “One step at a time. The rest will come, and we will deal with your new life and your new nature little by little. As you are able to accept it. For now, you need only worry about your hunger.”
She shuddered.
He nudged her head into the crook of his shoulder, her mouth temptingly near the blood her body now craved. “Feeding this way is natural for us. Our women are too important to hunt and biologically ill equipped for it. So you will take blood from the vampyr sworn to protect you. That would be me, your guardian, and later, if you choose, Garrick.”
“No.”
Lucien chuckled at the speed of her denial. “The point is you need never bite a human.”
Her body sagged in relief.
“The wound is there, open for you.” He cradled her close to his body and pitched his voice to a soothing rumble. “Four hours ago you began to rouse from the transition. You resisted feeding, but you did drink. Just let the memory come; let it guide you.”
“What if—”
“Shh,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “Shut your eyes. Concentrate. I held you just like this, like a child curled on a father’s lap. That is what a guardian is: a vampyr father who seeks your comfort and safety above his own. He soothes your fears and eases your passage into the wonderful life awaiting you. A whole new world is just a sip away.”
“You’ll probably give me rabies.” Her nose wrinkled. “Or AIDS.”
Her fingers bunched the material of his shirt, both pushing him away and pulling him in. Lucien would’ve howled with happy laughter at her perversity if he wasn’t sure he’d drive her away, but delight of her lit his heart. “We smell illness inside humans and so avoid feeding from the sick and the dying. Even if I were to take in tainted blood, neither one of us would grow ill. Our immune system destroys rival infections too efficiently.”
