Ellowyn Found: An MM Vampire Trilogy Omnibus Edition Books 1 - 3

by Kayleigh Sky

  Camiel.

  The vampire’s head jerked up. He frowned, but turned his gaze to Essie and spoke. She nodded. He got up and conversed with the other vampire, who approached the door and opened it. Camiel stepped out and crossed to the edge of the patio.

  “Are you here?”

  Rune emerged from the shadows. “Who is the enforcer?”

  Camiel blinked at him. “One of the king’s.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  “But you know he’s from the king?”

  “I know him from the coven meeting.”

  It was a lie, but some truth rang in it too. Rune stepped past him.

  “Be careful, sire.” Rune stopped and gazed over his shoulder. Camiel continued. “Sometimes tests are best not taken.”

  “I have been tested. What do you see?”

  “Blood.”

  Rune chuckled. “The wine of life.”

  He crossed the patio, stepped through the door into the foyer, and lowered his chin. “Princess.”

  “Majesty.”

  Essie placed her hands on the arms of her chair, but Rune said, “No. Please stay where you are.”

  She sank back. “I am honored.”

  Camiel returned to the couch. Rune glanced between him and Zev’s enforcer, the energy sparking between them palpable. But underneath that energy was another that teased his senses, sweet and spicy, hot and cold.

  “You have a guest?”

  Essie raise an eyebrow. “Yes, I do. My grandson was here earlier, but he returned home. Please sit, Your Majesty. I’ve ordered refreshments.”

  Rune took the chair on the opposite end of the coffee table between them. “You mustn’t use that title anymore.”

  Camiel smirked. “I didn’t receive the message not to call you that.”

  Rune smiled. “I didn’t give it to you.”

  Camiel shrugged, and Essie inclined her head. “I wish I had that right,” she said. “I enjoy the comfort of manners.”

  “It is not my place to use it anymore,” Rune said.

  Essie nodded. “Yes. The world is changed from what it once was. I suppose we must make do, but I would enjoy a revival of some of the old ways. I’m old though, so it might be more than I can ask.”

  Rune smiled. “What old ways would you like to see again?”

  “I am an old lady, but it seems to me we had more honor once. Your friend tells me I might be of assistance to you.”

  “I’ve lived in the human world longer than I lived in our own,” he said. “We speak human languages more than our own. I used to know a little Maja, but now I don’t remember much of any of it. I’m here in the hopes that you remember the old languages.”

  “Some,” said Essie. “But like you I don’t hear them very often anymore. I have an extensive library with some of our own books. You’re welcome to use them if they will help you.”

  Rune didn’t answer. A human servant descended the steps with a tray of drinks. She set the tray on the coffee table and offered Essie a glass of a pale yellow beverage. Rune waited until the woman gave him his and departed with the tray. He inhaled the pungent scent of lemons and took a swallow. The lemonade spread coolness through him. He sank into his chair. “I would like to show you something. I can’t read it myself. The words look familiar, but I don’t remember them.”

  “Of course,” said Essie. “I would like to see it.”

  Rune stood, removed the card from the pouch under his shirt, and stretched across the coffee table. Essie took it in the fingers of both hands, keeping to the edges of the card, and smiled as she gazed at it. “This is quite lovely.”

  “Yes.” Camiel stared at Rune. “It was a gift.”

  Essie studied the card for a moment longer, then clucked her tongue. “I’m afraid an isolated word is difficult to decipher. Some of the older languages took meaning from the words that surrounded them, so one word would have multiple uses. As you say, this is familiar, but I can’t tell you what it means.”

  “I have something with more words on it.” Rune stood again and unfolded the piece of map he’d taken from Thomas.

  Leaning to the side, Camiel craned toward Essie to get a look at it too.

  “This is… surprising.” Essie gazed at Rune and frowned slightly. “I’m at a loss. These symbols are from a very old language. Much before my time even. It’s strange to see it twice in one week.”

  Rune shot a glance at Camiel, whose eyes had gone wide. He turned back to Essie. “What do you mean twice?”

  “This is similar to a map my guest now has.”

  “Your grandson, you mean?”

  “No. My grandson was not my only guest. I am entertaining a young human who needed a place to stay. Three days ago a courier of some sort suffered an accident on my property. We suspect foul play, and the authorities are investigating, but it is unclear how he died at this point. He was discovered by my guest. Before the courier died, he insisted my guest take an envelope he’d brought with him. It contained a part of a map he was quite emphatic my guest take. That map looks like the other half of this one.”

  A soft touch brushed across him again, and he gazed into the empty hall. But he was there. Mine.

  “Who is this human?”

  Essie smiled. “His name is Isaac.”

  17

  Taking a Stand

  Isaac hid in the hallway, only ducking into one of the rooms when Tess, a housekeeper, scurried by with an empty tray. At the sound of her fading footsteps, he darted back into the hall and slunk along the wall. His lungs kept pumping air into his chest—too fast—and his pulse pounded in his ears. The voice that had pulled him here, soft with a chuckle in it, wrapped around him. Mine. The sound of it rolled over him, and he closed his eyes as though fingers caressed him, brushing through his hair. But Rune’s words dashed his hopes he’d come for Isaac. Mine, be damned. Isaac wasn’t his. No, Rune was still on his quest. Looking for a treasure that had only brought misery to people.

  Isaac resented the emotions inside him. They weren’t his, and he wasn’t going to claim them. He hadn’t fallen in love with Rune. He didn’t even know him. Jessa had wanted Otto. He’d fallen for him, and being fated loves had nothing to do with what was in Jessa’s heart.

  Only hurt was in Isaac’s heart.

  “His name is Isaac,” Essie said.

  Isaac pushed away from the wall, squeezed his hands into fists, and approached the doorway. He froze when heads turned his way, and Rune pinned him with his stare. But Anin smiled, and he relaxed again. Camiel grinned at him. “Well, well. If it isn’t the little jail breaker.”

  “I’m not little,” he snapped.

  Camiel rolled his eyes. “That’s right. Willowy.”

  Isaac wiped the glare off his face before stepping into the foyer and glancing at Essie. He wasn’t about to acknowledge Rune. Hell no. Rune could take a flying leap. He didn’t get to bounce in and out of Isaac’s life. No fucking way.

  He smiled back at Anin before turning to Essie. “Is something wrong? I heard my name.”

  “Not wrong, but we have an interesting situation,” Essie said. “Would you mind sharing your map?”

  Hell yeah.

  He frowned and looked at the others, gaze skirting over Rune. “I guess not. But why?”

  “You know why.” Rune’s voice went all growly and… fucking sexy. Bastard. “You were listening in the hallway.”

  Total bastard.

  “I was not.”

  Essie smiled. “Do you mind? It’s yours, of course, and your decision.”

  Relaxing his hands, which had tightened into fists again, Isaac nodded. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

  He threw a glare at Rune—I’m not scared of you—and hurried to his room with Rune’s laughter in his head.

  Princess Essie had given him a room she’d give to any guest. It wasn’t near the servants’ quarters, which he suspected were spacious and comfortable, but close to the ma
in part of the house. He had a view of another patio, this one brick, and a rectangular swimming pool. It reminded him of the Senera’s, and when he’d first seen it, he’d been struck with a crazy homesickness for a place that had never been his home. Hardly anybody swam in it, and he was too shy to ask for permission, and maybe he didn’t need permission, but he wasn’t comfortable enough to assume that. Beyond the swimming pool was an endless panorama of oak trees, the nearest ones strung with fairy lights.

  Isaac crossed to the nightstand and removed the map. He unfolded it and returned to the foyer. He didn’t hurry this time, and when he entered the room, he stood with the map in both hands, not offering it to anyone. Rune stood, and Anin took a step forward too, though he kept to the side. When Rune stared at him, he dropped his chin.

  Blowing out a sigh, Camiel slapped the couch with both palms. “Well, can we see it?”

  “May I?” Essie asked.

  The other half of the map lay on her knees. Isaac stepped forward and stared down at it. It was written on the same rusty parchment in the same faded blue ink with the same pens scratches. He turned his over. “Does it have these same marks?”

  “Writing,” said Camiel. “It has writing on it.”

  “Yes.” Essie turned her half of the map. “This has two stanzas and yours—”

  “Has one.”

  They had to be connected. A surge of adrenalin sent his heart racing. But this map was his, and he wasn’t giving it up. Why not? Why do you care? He had no idea. No more idea than why he’d left Senera Castle, or why he’d followed Asa to Dinallah Manor. Was it Rune? Leading him without talking? Shaping his thoughts?

  You’d better stay out of my head.

  You wouldn’t know I was in yours if you stayed out of mine.

  That’s stupid.

  Rune’s eyes flared.

  “Isaac,” Essie said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He stretched the map to her. Rune strode over, crowding him out. He moved behind Essie’s chair. Camiel rose and stood beside him, peering over her shoulder. She arranged the two maps on her lap at the seam where it appeared they’d been torn. The edges were clean, only slightly fuzzy in the way of something torn along a fold, but not cut. The middle folds aligned. The ink matched. The scrawl looked like the same hand had done it.

  “They could be forgeries,” said Camiel.

  “Of what?” Isaac asked.

  “It’s a treasure map. And they aren’t forgeries.” Rune reached down, drawing his fingers over the surface of the two halves without touching the parchment. “No,” he murmured. “They’re real. What do the other sides look like together?”

  Essie turned them with slightly shaky fingers. The pages rattled like dry leaves. The lines and arrows and designs matched in style and placement.

  “Pity, we have no fucking idea what it means,” Camiel drawled. “I’d be up for a treasure hunt.”

  Rune pointed with his pinky finger at one of the pictures. “That’s not a tree. I thought it was at first, but it’s different from the ones on the mountains.”

  The mountains were triangle shapes across the bottom of Isaac’s piece of the map. Interspersed in the open space of the triangles were the shapes of pine trees.

  “Cactus?” Camiel mused.

  Rune nodded. “I’m wondering. Something in the desert. But is this above ground or under it?” He turned his gaze to Isaac. “I need that.”

  Isaac gaped. “My map? Why? So you can get rich? Buy off the cops who probably want to talk to you? You might be royal, Prince Rune, but you have to follow the law too. And you aren’t using my map to get out of your problems. It’s mine. It came to me for a reason.”

  “What reason?” Rune bit out through his teeth.

  “I don’t know. But I believe that.”

  “Me too,” said Camiel, shooting a curious glance between them.

  Rune ignored him. “Isaac—”

  “Oh, you know my name?”

  “Listen to me. You don’t know what’s at stake.”

  Isaac stood as straight as his spine would let him, but Rune still loomed over him. Bastard was everything that made Isaac melt. Ooey-gooey-melty-puddle kind of looks. His upper lip twitched over fangs he was probably struggling to hold in. But he couldn’t make himself seem safe, not with those ember-hot eyes and full mouth in a grim line. He was pissed, and a pissed-off Rune was… scary.

  Isaac took a breath. “I know it matters to you. I know you did a lot to get here. I know people are trying to kill the king and that there are vampires who don’t want humans to be free. I know a lot of things are going on. I understand that. I was there when Mr. Wrythin and my coworker were killed. And I was there when somebody attacked Jessa at Comity House, and I know what you did to get Jessa’s necklace.”

  “Which I gave him.”

  “So I know a lot’s going on. I know you can take it from me, but…” He was right that the thing he was about to say was true, and the sense of power that washed over him told him he was doing the right thing. “You won’t.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “No.”

  I’m thinking of you.

  “Like hell you are.”

  Isaac felt the stares coming from Essie, Camiel, and Anin, but he didn’t look away from Rune’s glowing eyes.

  “Interesting,” Camiel murmured, a smile teasing at his lips.

  Isaac stuck his chin out. “I go with the map.”

  Rune’s eyes blazed before he allowed a low chuckle. “You aren’t up to it.”

  “You have no fucking idea.” Like Isaac hadn’t been through hell and back. For fuck’s sake, vampires had bitten into his flesh. Drank his blood.

  Rune lowered his voice. “I don’t even know where we’re going yet. It might be dangerous.”

  “So what? I’m grown. Besides,” he blurted and sprang around the back of Essie’s chair to stand at Anin’s side. “My boyfriend’s coming with me.”

  “Anin.” Camiel twisted and stared at the vampire who’d gone rigid at Isaac’s side. “You surprise us.”

  Anin said nothing, and Isaac stared into Rune’s glare.

  What is this?

  What I said.

  Essie smiled. “I had no idea.”

  “Young love,” said Camiel. “Isn’t it nice.” He practically spat the last word.

  “What the hell,” thought Isaac. He looked at Anin, whose face had gone bright red.

  Essie’s smile widened into a grin. “I’m enjoying myself too much. But sire.” She stretched the other half of the map to Rune, “I am always at your service. I can’t imagine a better reward than to pass from a world at peace.”

  Rune took the map from her. “Thank you, Princess Essie.”

  “You look like your father, but you remind me of your mother.”

  A wave of sorrow flowed across the room into Isaac’s chest, but a second later a flare of anger hit him like a wall of flame as Rune turned to him.

  “Come if you must.”

  Isaac lifted his chin and glared back. He wasn’t a punk kid, and nobody was pushing him around anymore.

  “I must.”

  18

  Under The Surface

  After he shut the drapes against the dawn, Rune sprawled face down on the bed in the room Essie had provided him. But sleep? No. The best he hoped for was the dream world of half sleep. A world where he was home within the arms of cool rock. Untormented by the heat of his fury. The little bastard. Proud though. Isaac’s stuck-out chin had flooded Rune with a bizarre happiness at the same time he’d wanted to grab the kid’s nape and shake him. This wasn’t the twenty-year-old who’d fed Jessa before Rune had met him but sensed a tie he’d studiously ignored. No time for the romantic fancies of his youth.

  Zev had known about his fated for a long time, but Rune had sensed his only when he’d come aboveground and then… Well, survival had taken over and had never let up.

  He dozed on the fluffy coverlet, the mattress like a cloud und
erneath him.

  An hour passed, and distant sounds reached him. So comfortable and normal and safe. Mal. Would she know how to decipher the map? She taught history. Had knowledge of the older languages. Was Jessa happy? At last?

  But he couldn’t go home. Not yet… Maybe never.

  He drifted back to the caves and the cities and the black, bottomless lakes. Letters and words swirled in his head, and his mother floated out of the dark. She resembled her image on Camiel’s card, seated on a throne, jewel-encrusted rock surrounding her. You took it off.

  His bracelet.

  No, I lost it.

  She smiled, that mysterious, amused smile that held so much back. So much like Camiel’s. It means nothing, you know—and everything.

  Typical. His entire life was a blur of mystery, secrets, and vampire intrigue. Why not a sunny afternoon at home by the pool?

  And Isaac.

  Rune needed to get that map away from him. Keep Isaac safe.

  A loud bang jolted him onto his elbows. Fuck. He held his aching head in his hands until a laugh came from outside and pulled his gaze up. The bedside clock read seven to ten. He rolled onto his hip, squinting against the radiant frame of sunlight around the drapes, got up, and shuffled into the bathroom.

  Hazy images from his half sleep floated across the mirror. Abadi. Celestine. Senera Lake. What if the images on the map weren’t of objects on the surface? What if only the mountains were? What if they indicated a place that led underground—because where else would the treasure be?

  He stretched behind him to turn on the shower then returned his gaze to the mirror. For a moment, his face receded as though hidden by a warp in the glass. Who are you?