Night's Kiss (The Ancients)

by Mary Hughes

  Ryker slapped a hand to his slashed arm. Blood ran in rivulets from between his fingers.

  For a moment, mourning Shredder, I didn’t get it.

  The king’s red gaze cut toward me, his expression bleak. “Escape. Now.”

  The blood began soaking his thin knit. I frowned at it, brain scrambling. His arm wasn’t healing. Why wasn’t he healing…?

  The liquid gold. It could destroy any vampire. Even the king.

  Ryker was dying.

  “No,” I gasped, mouth dry. He’ll survive. He has to. To finish fighting Strigorul, to buy time for Rey…and because I just needed him to, with a yearning so elemental it pulsed from my very being.

  Ryker’s armor and faceplate faded. His revealed skin was tinged green.

  “No, no…” Grief tightened my chest. My muscles began to tremble.

  He tried to fight, swiping at the Destroyer.

  Left-handed, Strigorul caught the king’s wrist. Grinning in predatory triumph, the monster grew machete-size talons on his right hand—and speared them through Ryker’s chest.

  Ryker gasped.

  My stomach heaved.

  The Destroyer’s eyes gleamed in glee. His lips pulled back from bloody, jagged fangs, less a grin than a malevolent rictus.

  And then… Oh, the sound when he yanked his arm sharply back. A sick sucking I’d never forget.

  The Destroyer withdrew his hand and held it high.

  Half of Ryker’s ruined heart beat weakly in his fingers.

  A cry of horror squeaked from my mouth; inside, I screamed silently. Without a beating heart, Ryker’s body would shut down.

  The horror echoed the nightmare of my parents’ death. This was why I hated vampires like Strigorul. Ryker wasn’t just going to die.

  He’d die, helpless.

  And despite my grand vow, I was powerless to prevent it.

  Ryker’s gaze went wild. My grief rose as a sob in my throat; I covered my mouth to stop it from escaping.

  My king’s eyes found me and fastened onto my face as if I was the only thing keeping him standing. A red tear shimmered in one. “G-go.” He pushed the word out with the last of his breath, swaying.

  The tear welled over. Trickled down his sculpted cheek.

  I tottered on trembling legs to his side. Laid my palm on his face, the tear wet against my fingers. His skin was cold. “No. I’m not leaving you.”

  I said it in the churning frozen fear of the moment. But the words rang between us with a deep knell that could only be truth.

  God. I had feelings for a vampire.

  “Pah.” Strigorul dropped Ryker’s half heart to the ground, shaking his hand a few times as if it were sludge. “The great ancient is nothing but a mooning boy. Locotenent al Umbrei, fall in! Prepare to follow me.”

  A red-badged vampire saluted. “Leader—should we not take the ancient Enkidu for our lord Umbra?”

  Strigorul spat. “The sword is poison. He is no longer ancient, so useless for our needs. Still, we will have Elias. Come!”

  He jogged away, headed west. The black-uniformed vampires, at least those who weren’t piles of dust, started after him, forming tight disciplined lines.

  Going after Elias.

  Going after Rey.

  I had to protect my sister.

  “K-Kat.” Ryker’s whisper was more breath than voice. “Go. S-save…s-sis…” Lumps appeared beneath the king’s green skin. Barely on his feet, he began to shudder, as if his body was coming apart at the cellular level.

  Save my sister. Yes.

  To do it, I’d have to leave Ryker. He’d die alone.

  I stood there, my heart beating in painful indecision.

  He’d misted in to protect me, even knowing what Strigorul would do. He sacrificed himself to save me.

  Misery stung me at what was coming. Still my feet wouldn’t move.

  The king fell to his knees with a heavy thud of flesh and bone hitting pavement. He swayed there a moment. The skin I could see was no longer green but deathly pale.

  He collapsed onto his side. Blood trickled from his destroyed chest, dripping in rivulets from his sweater, pooling on the pavement. His skin turned gray. He was gasping, as if he wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

  Ryker was dying. I could go kill vampires—or I could try to ease my king’s last moments.

  My heart thumped painfully in my chest. Even two days ago, that would’ve been a no-brainer. Rey had Race and Hattie, though, and through them, the entire Iowa Alliance.

  Ryker only had me.

  With an agonized cry, I dropped beside him. Please, bubbled up inside me. Please don’t let him die.

  Someone moaned.

  Me.

  His lips formed a word. Go. Silent, no breath behind it.

  “I’m not leaving.” My throat was so tight with pain and emotion, the words rasped like a metal file.

  His wavering gaze came to mine and steadied. I took his face between my hands. His skin was loose and grainy, like crumbling sandpaper.

  I managed, “I’m never leaving you.”

  The truth sliced me to the core. Weighed my chest down with dark grief. Not just feelings.

  I love him. I love the vampire king.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I’m not leaving.”

  No one in his long life had not rejected him, outside of Elias. No one stayed with him, ever. Especially not in his hour of need. He’d evolved to need no one.

  He couldn’t believe her. To believe would break him.

  Ryker’s body was faltering. Half a heart couldn’t beat very well. And the stuff in his blood burned. This is different from the last time. Razor blades of pain had become a shredder of agony. Not pulling but tearing him apart.

  Last time I beat it.

  This time…I won’t.

  Anguished, dying, he desperately didn’t want to be alone. Only this once, please. A fool’s prayer. No one stayed with him. Ever.

  Kat would go, despite her words. She needed to go, to be with her sister. He understood—even as his heart withered and died.

  Goodbye, Kat. His eyes slid shut in final defeat. Alone again.

  “I’m not leaving.” She held him with trembling hands. “I’m here for you, Ryker. Always.”

  His eyes snapped open. She was still here. The truth of her words was in her beautiful eyes and steady gaze.

  He believed.

  It broke him, hard.

  He opened to her, revealing the cracked depths of his soul. “I-I…” Tethered to her gaze, he tried to tell her. He needed no one, yet he needed her. He pulled oxygen out of his very cells to give the words breath. “I n-need…you.” I need you.

  Her eyes sparkled with tears.

  His poor, mangled heart managed one last weak thump. His vision narrowed and brightened, a tunnel for his dying spirit.

  Focused on her.

  Briefly he hung there, between life and death. Tied to her gaze. He could live forever in her eyes…

  A connection surged between them. Brighter than death, stronger than pain, filling him to the brim with searing love.

  The mating bond.

  The bond he’d feared most, because his mate would destroy him. Now he rejoiced. In her, his world was remade. He was remade.

  She was the other half of his heart. Rejection didn’t matter. His fear of it had been his prison.

  In admitting his need for her, he was freed.

  …

  Kneeling, glued to Ryker’s black eyes, my heart began to throb. Beating harder and harder against my breastbone, as if it would jump from my chest, join with the torn half of his, and make both of us whole.

  What the hell is happening?

  Time had stopped. Anger deserted me. Revenge deserted me. I knelt there, sick an
d scared, but locked in Ryker’s gaze, strangely effervescent, too. Staring directly at his blazing, beautiful soul.

  As if forever had embraced us both.

  “What did you do?” My voice emerged a hoarse whisper. “What the hell did you just do?”

  He didn’t answer, curling suddenly into a fetal position, agony on his face.

  Hands cold and shaking, I tentatively stroked his head. Trying to comfort him. Barely holding in my own screams.

  He lay there, only the gleaming pain in his eyes a sign that he was fighting hard.

  The liquid gold. My fault. I wished with all my heart I’d never helped Alexis in her discovery.

  “I’m sorry.” I took his hand. Bent and pressed a shaking kiss to his cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  His gaze found mine one last time. Then…

  A rattling breath. Tense muscles went slack. His lids slid shut. He went completely still.

  “No.” I dashed my forearm against my eyes to try to clear my blurring sight. All that blood. Soaking his dark sweater, pooled on the pavement beside him. So much blood.

  Something Hattie had said buzzed in my skull. I couldn’t remember, too distraught.

  God. I’d spent most of my life killing vampires. My parents’ murders cried out for it.

  Yet if I could have saved this vampire, I would have.

  I loved him.

  His skin began to crumble under my fingers. With a pained cry, I released his hand. It slumped like a sand sculpture.

  One fingertip collapsed into dust.

  “No. No! It was my night to die, not yours.” Tears burned my eyes. I began to rock slightly. He’d stayed to fight Strigorul, made himself a scapegoat so Rey and Elias could get to safety.

  He’d sacrificed himself for me. Given up, not just years, but centuries of life.

  Anybody else and he’d have been a hero.

  My heart lurched. One hot tear dripped down my face, an outward sign of my weeping heart.

  “I want a do-over,” I shouted at the sky. All these years, I’d chosen revenge. Now… “For him. For Ryker.” My shouts died to a hoarse whisper. “I choose love.” I clenched wet eyes.

  On the back of my lids, my mother’s dead face rebuked me.

  “Please,” I whispered. “I know I promised. And I’ll kill every one of them. But not this one. Please.”

  Her image shifted. Morphed. The mother of my heart became my birth mother, the one who’d given me away.

  The one who’d chosen love, too.

  Her lips moved. Blood. She was trying to tell me something. Maybe only my subconscious, but this time I listened.

  “They don’t eat blood,” Hattie had said. “They need it for their veins.”

  Vampires needed blood to circulate their power. Like their healing power.

  I swore. Opening my eyes, I pulled Angel from my vest and wiped him absolutely clean of serum. “Damn it, king.” My words were clogged. I sniffed. “If I get mono or some other double nasty from this, you will pay.”

  I shoved my sleeve up my arm, slashed my forearm, cranked his face up, and shoved my bleeding arm against his lips.

  Seconds passed, a lot of them, enough that I started getting light-headed. A cold shaft of fear speared me that neither of us would make it.

  I almost lifted my arm.

  His tongue, warm, rough, touched my skin.

  The moment hung there, like a dancer suspended midleap. Hope lit. Rose on a prayer. Was he…? Could he…?

  He lapped gently.

  Relief broke inside me, so stark and hard it was painful. I was bawling again, silently.

  The warmth of his lapping seeped through. A shiver started at the top of my head, rolled the entire length of my body. When I lifted my arm, the gash was gone, my skin was completely whole, and I was strong and energized.

  Ryker’s hand slapped weakly at the pavement beside us, searching for his halved heart. Swiping the pulp from the ground, I dropped it into the hole in his chest.

  It began to seal before my very eyes.

  Hell. Vampires healed quickly, but that was insane. The dark web buzzed with rumors about the really old ones’ powers. I’d thought them exaggerated. If anything, they’d understated it.

  His eyes opened. Face still pale, though less gray, he raised himself on one arm to meet my eyes. “Wh-wh…” His voice cracked, dry. He swallowed with difficulty and tried again. “Why?”

  The question I didn’t want to answer. Trading my lifelong revenge for a vampire I’d only known a few days? Instead, I managed, “I should have gone when you told me to.”

  “Yes.” He blinked rapidly as if his brain was coming back online, sucked in a bushel of air, and released it on a sigh. “I’m glad you didn’t. Why?”

  That strange connection between us reverberated, demanding the truth.

  “Because you’re worth it, damn it.” I leaped to my feet. “Or you’d better be. Come on, king. The Destroyer took off after my sister.”

  Ryker rose slowly to his feet beside me. His fingertip had grown back. “Don’t you want to gather your weapons?”

  Poor, ruined Shredder and my Jewels lying amid vampire sludge. “Later. We have to save Rey.” I strode off briskly in a generally westward direction. “On the way, you can tell me what this thing is between us.”

  …

  Ryker started after Kat. He’d been dead. His body had started to crumble.

  Yet now he was fine. No, better than fine. His blood almost glittered with delight in his veins.

  It’s not mine. Kat’s blood flowed there now, too. Her essence was still sweet on his tongue and in his nose. He could find her anywhere now.

  Her blood had renewed him, but more. The golden serum no longer sliced at his flesh. He must have transferred it into her cut arm when he’d licked her wound closed. Deadly to his vampire factor, but from what he’d overheard from Doc Alexis, the serum would have actually helped Kat’s healing by killing harmful microbes.

  Jogging after her to catch up, he took physical inventory. He’d managed to shunt most of his power into his body’s cells before Strigorul had dumped half his heart and blood supply on the ground. He was diminished, though not by much. And one thing more. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness. The thing he’d never forget.

  He and Kat were mated.

  His stomach quivered. He’d feared that bond. Admitting his need, mating with her, had freed him from the fear. He’d died, a happy male. But now?

  Now he was alive, and he’d screw this up somehow.

  …

  Ryker caught up to me and easily kept pace. “Where are we headed?”

  “To get that bastard who killed my parents.” I ripped it out.

  He studied me a moment. “Remind me never to piss you off. Well, not unless there’s makeup sex after.”

  “What the—?”

  “You’re a passionate woman, Kat. It’s one of the many things I like about you. Killing Strigorul is laudable, and I’m certainly happy to help you with this particular goal. But what makes you think fighting him again will end up any differently?”

  He’d left me speechless twice. He liked things about me? Yeah, okay, I loved a vampire. Could I like him, too? “How did you figure out who I mean?”

  “I recognized his battle mask from your description. Why would you think we can beat him now?”

  “Good question. I don’t have an answer. So why don’t you answer for a change. What happened back there, before you…died.”

  His mouth opened on a flip answer.

  “Don’t,” I snarled. “Don’t you dare tell me ‘nothing,’ or I swear you’ll wish you’d died for real.”

  He raised both palms in apology. “It’s complicated. We should deal with one thing at a time. This crisis with the Destroyer takes prec
edence. May I suggest we ask the Alliance for help?”

  I screeched to a halt. “You? Asking for help? You hunt alone.”

  He stopped beside me with a graceful shrug. “I didn’t say it would be easy.” He took both my hands in his and searched my eyes. “It will be worth it.”

  Was he not simply talking about working with the Alliance? Was he talking about us?

  Crap, I’d just gone through one big messy emotional upheaval. That’s my limit for today. I managed, “The Alliance will probably only kill you again.” I started off.

  He kept pace. “Would you miss me?” He gave me that heart-thumping smile, undimmed by his brush with death.

  There was the leading question from hell. Should I tell him I loved him?

  Not when I had no idea how he felt about me. I need you didn’t necessarily involve love. I settled on, “Miss you? Nah. It’d just piss me off to have my healing efforts undone.”

  “I’m destined to be misunderstood,” he said with mock mournfulness.

  “You’re destined to be a dickwipe,” I retorted. “Nathaniel Keydew. N. Keydew. EN-kidu. I get it now.” I rolled my eyes. “Sooo clever.”

  “M’lady, I’m devastated.” He swept a short regretful bow.

  “How did you manage to pack seven feet of smugness into that skinny blond body?”

  “Practice. Before we go too far, we should search each other for tracking devices. Thoroughly.”

  Searching that big masculine body, thoroughly…? But I managed to keep my search professional. Mostly. I might have petted a little.

  “Now, really,” I said as he ran his big, dark hands over me to distract myself from shivers of delight. “How’d you do Keydew?”

  “It’s similar to shapeshifting, except I can adjust cell density. It requires some flexibility.”

  I pictured a contortion artist folding themselves into a suitcase, replaced it with Ryker folding himself into Keydew. Too weird for me.

  “That’s it.” He stepped back. “We’re clean.” Then he asked if he could carry me, arguing it would be faster. When I finally said yes, he swept me up and sped off into the night.

  “Kat…” All banter dropped from his tone. “I understand you’re angry with me for not telling you who I was. Really angry.”

  Not as angry as I probably ought to be, but he was going somewhere with this, and I let him.