by Debra Dunbar
Then I waited. It was only a matter of seconds before his voice crackled over the line. “Repeat what you said, Esme. I know I misunderstood.”
The words were tough to say, but you often had to admit a mistake before you could correct it. “Yah are right, Terrell. In all dis. Yah right.”
“My men are bleeding, Esme, and now you say I’m right. Where is your head, woman?”
“Yah knew the moment that boat turned to my shore, I couldn’t let yah take anyone from it. Bad business. But on dis one, yah had it right. Now yah and me need to be doing some business.”
“What kind of business?” he asked with just the barest of lilt in his voice.
“I need an escort to de U.S. mainland.”
“Esme, it’s a radiation wasteland. That’s why I’ve never gone back.”
“Only de ocean coasts. I need to get through de Gulf to New Orleans. I’ve got people der.”
“What happened, Esme?” His voice all but radiated pity and concern which grated every last nerve I had left.
“De man took what was mine. I’m to get it back. Will yah take me or should I call Haiti for help?”
“Hell, no, don’t call Haiti, woman. Are you insane? Anil and Jonas will rip each other apart and us in the process. You know that.” He took a long pause. “If I agree, what’s in it for me?”
I swallowed hard. This was the hardest part. “Healing for yah men now so yah don’t go back to Anil bleeding.” I waited, hoping it would be enough.
It wasn’t. “And?”
I sighed. “And yah, Anil and three of yah vampires can come to our next ceremony. Heal yah minds right. One time only.”
“Ten of my guys,” he countered in a rough, excited voice.
“Four.”
“Seven.”
“Five.”
“Done,” he said far too happily to fall well on my ears.
“But I want to leave in one hour. Just have to put things here to right, and I’m gone.”
“Done, Esme.” He paused, then came back. “We’ll get the bastard, Esme.”
I clicked off, unable to answer sanely.
The waves licked the sand shore and the rocks. The sound filled me, but not with its usual peace. Determination flowed into me with every wave and laced its way to bolster my rage. But the water also brought with it sadness. It had always been my safety and joy. Keeping my island and people from all the ugliness of the world. But now the sea kept Chloe from me. But not for long.
I squinted into the darkness. I’m coming, Chloe.
About the Author
A New Orleans native, Courtney Sloan relocated to the hills of Central Maryland after Hurricane Katrina. There she lives with her husband and fellow author, J.P. Sloan, their son and their crazy German Shepherd pup. Adding to her writing life, Courtney is also a professor at the local college and enjoys learning a world of new ideas from her students as she teaches them about writing and communicating.
Courtney’s New Orleans upbringing has left her with a love for the macabre and a flare for the next to normal. She writes speculative fiction with a variety of horror and sass mixed in for flavor.
She loves taking the world of politics that haunts us now, and adding the supernatural to create a gumbo of thrills to keep you up at night.
A self-proclaimed lover of way too many fandoms, Courtney also loves crafting. From blankets to jams to stories, it’s always better homemade.
No Scions for Old Men stands as a prequel to Of Scions and Men and the American Scion series
For a product list, go to http://www.courtneysloan.com/Courtney_Sloan/Books.html
www.courtneysloan.com/
Midnight Escape
by Jennifer Blackstream
Chapter 1
“Get your fangs out of my neck, or so help me I’ll give this dagger a wee twist and your heart will be naught but ribbons.”
Brea gritted her teeth against the tremor in her voice, trying to hold on to her sanity. Ignoring the way her heart had firmly lodged itself in her throat, she forced her shaking hand to close more tightly on the handle of her dagger, trying to keep a good grip even as Cain’s blood trickled over her fingers. She concentrated on the slickness of his blood, on the fact that she had a blade buried to the hilt in his chest, just beneath his heart. This would not end the same way it had seven years ago—the last time he’d had his fangs in her neck. Not if she could help it.
The vampire’s left arm tightened around her waist, strong muscles flexing against her lower back, locking her against the solid line of his body, with only her dagger preventing him from completing the embrace. His right hand rested on her hip, and if he was the same man he’d been seven years ago, he’d have a blade sheathed along that arm, locked in a custom-made rig that would release the weapon with the slightest caress of the hidden trigger. At this angle, the sharpened silver would slide into her abdomen.
Gods, that would hurt.
His lips moved against her neck in a mockery of a kiss as he spoke. “I’m a right ass for what I did to you, and I deserve everything that dagger will do to me.”
At least, that was what he should have said. For all she knew, it might indeed have been what he’d said. It was difficult to tell with his mouth pressed so hard against her throat, his fangs deep in the scar tissue he’d left her with all those years ago. Her fear spiked anew, filling her insides with ice water, and she pressed harder on the dagger. Just a twitch. That was all it would take to slide the blade the scant inch it needed to reach his miserable black heart.
More muffled words. This time she caught a few. “Listen” and “help.”
She barked out a semi-hysterical laugh, immediately drawing curious looks from the few people still lingering on the dock of the seaport. The sun had set only minutes ago, and most of the sailors had been smart enough to set sail while there was still sunlight to be had. No one wanted to be caught in the harbor after dark. Not when this particular island was full of vampires desperately seeking escape. Undead creatures who would do whatever it took to be free, to leave the sunny piece of land where vampires sent their criminals to live in misery.
The island known only as Paradise.
Blood trickled down her collarbone and soaked into her linen shirt. Cain had opened her flesh, but he wasn’t drinking. Despite what had to be a nearly unbearable temptation, he remained perfectly still. A sharp contrast to the last time he’d put his mouth on her.
A flash of memory flickered through her mind. A recollection of what it felt like when he did feed--the raw drag of blood from her veins, his hand caressing her flesh, bite bringing her pleasure with every suck against her skin. It hadn’t always been painful, frightening. Just that last time. Just the night she’d finally gone to his bed…
She severed the memory before it could continue, before she could remember any more about that night. “I’m not helping you,” she snarled into his ear. “Now let me go or die—again.”
Fangs retreated from her skin, and the sensation sent a bolt of electricity over her nerves, riding the vestiges of the earlier memory. She sucked in a sharp breath and let it out on a growl as Cain pulled back only far enough to speak, the tips of his fangs still a lingering threat, his body still a solid presence against her.
“Listen to me, acushla, just for a moment. I don’t have much time, the warden will be making his rounds. I swear on the isle of Scythia herself that I’ll offer you no harm and will leave as soon as I’ve made my offer.”
His familiar Scythian accent, so like her own, reminded her of home, of happier days. She gritted her teeth. “I’ve no interest in your offe—”
“I know where the selkie girl’s skin is. I know where Marun hid it.”
Brea froze, almost losing her grip on the bloody dagger. Although she was a selkie herself, she didn’t live in the water off this island. Still, despite spending most of her life on her ship, sailing from one sea to another, she’d heard of the theft Cain spoke of.
A selkie
’s skin had been stolen, taken by a vampire—Marun, Cain had called him—as revenge for the selkie people’s role as prison guards at Paradise. They had an accord with the warden to guard the sea and make certain no vampire tried to escape. It did not endear them to the prisoners, and one selkie female had paid the ultimate price.
“You once told me that to lose one’s skin is worse than death for one of your people,” Cain continued. “Is punishing me worth continuing that torture for the girl?”
“What do you want?” She spat the words through gritted teeth, furious that he knew she couldn’t walk away now, couldn’t leave without doing everything in her power to get the skin back.
She breathed through her nose, as slowly as she could, but it was pointless. He’d taste her fear, hear it in the frantic beat of her heart. And she hated him for it.
“Acushla, relax. Pretend just for the moment that you do not despise me, or you will draw too much attention. We must be quick.”
Each word he spoke drew his lips over her skin and smeared her blood over his mouth. There’d been a time when she’d fed him willingly, looked forward to his bite. The familiar sensation of his lips on her skin had every nerve in her body screaming in awareness, and she didn’t know if it was fear or arousal—a fact that made her temper flare white-hot.
She opened her mouth, but her words were lost on a gasp when Cain groaned and drew his tongue over her skin in one long lick that turned her center to molten liquid, her already raw nerves spasming with the sensation as the balance tipped securely in favor of pleasure. She jerked on the dagger, barely remembering in time to pull it down away from his heart. She wanted to hurt him, not kill him. For now.
“Do that again,” she rasped, “and I’ll kill you.”
“I remember you.”
His words were choked, thick with emotion she didn’t want to identify. Each syllable had a helpless quality to it, a sound that said the words had been dragged from him against his will. A plea.
Slowly, very slowly, she eased away from him, hardening her face into a mask, feeding anger into her eyes. Let him see what she thought of him now. Let him see the woman he’d made her. The pirate with no home, always running, always hiding. Bit by bit she steeled herself, putting on a mental suit of armor as she prepared for her first glimpse of his face in seven years.
Cain had always been handsome. Thick black hair framed his face, falling to his shoulders in soft waves. Brea could remember wrapping her hands in that hair, pulling at it as she stared into his hazel eyes, flecks of red glowing like sinister fireflies as he moved above her. He had a medium build that often misled people into overlooking him, dismissing him as a threat. It was a mistake that had served him well, let him get close to his victims. When she’d known him, he’d had seventeen kills to his name—seventeen after his death.
She didn’t know how many people he’d killed when he’d been human, when he’d been an executioner for the Scythian royal family. But she knew that after his death, he’d had to feed that primal desire for bloodshed in a different way. He’d sought out murderers, in a way had continued to be an executioner. He fed on them, then he killed them. When that had ceased to be a challenge, he’d moved on to vampires. A fanged assassin of other fanged assassins.
All that killing. It should have marked him in some way. She studied his face, searched for scars or deep lines, anything that might have offered tangible evidence of his dark deeds. But he was beautiful, as perfect as a marble statue. If this was what killing looked like, then death looked good.
“I remember you too,” she said finally, forcing her voice to be even, unemotional. “I remember thinking your face was the last thing I would see before I died. Before you killed me.”
Pain flared in his eyes, but it was hard to tell if it was the thought of how he’d almost murdered her, or the dagger still buried in his chest. It didn’t matter.
“You have one minute,” she said calmly.
Whatever he saw on her face, in her eyes, convinced him to abandon his last thread of thought. He pressed his lips together, then nodded. “I will get the woman’s skin back if you will help me get off this island.”
Brea’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
Cain started to lick his lips, still coated with her blood. Her eyes zeroed in on his mouth, and his tongue vanished back inside. He visibly steeled himself against the urge, locking his gaze on hers as he spoke.
“You know what this island is. I’m here for killing vampires. Think about that. An island full of vampires—angry, criminal, and largely unhinged vampires. Every one of them half mad from this cursed, sunny island, and every one of them looking for an outlet for that rage.” His jaw tensed. “I am a constant target. Every undead creature on this island wants to see me dead.”
Pointing out that he was already dead just seemed petty.
She dropped her gaze from his mouth, unable to look at his lips without thinking of the past. For the first time, she noticed his clothing. His cloak had parted enough to reveal a dark blue linen shirt and black pants. The blood flowing down his shirt below her dagger was his, but the spatter on his chest, his neck… “And how many of them have you killed since you’ve been here?”
His eyes remained steady, meeting her gaze without flinching. “Thirteen.”
His answer was so calm, so matter-of-fact. Thirteen. He’d killed thirteen vampires, thirteen men. But then he’d never been apologetic about his unique moral code. He had a taste for killing wicked people, reveled in it in his afterlife the same way he’d reveled in his executioner duties when he’d been human. He liked ridding the world of evil, and he’d never made a secret of it. There had been a time she’d admired that about him.
Before she’d learned the truth. It wasn’t justice he thirsted for. It was blood, violence. Pure and simple. He deserved to be on this island. He deserved to suffer here on a piece of land that received more sun than any other part of the world. As he’d suggested, it was where mad vampires belonged.
But the selkie’s skin…
“Fine,” she said stiffly. “I will help you leave this island if you return the missing skin to me.” She narrowed her eyes and jutted out her chin. “But you will remain in the hold, locked away, for—”
“I cannot travel by ship,” he interrupted. “I have no grave dirt to sustain me on the voyage.” His eyes darkened to brown, and the slight hitch in his shoulders told her she wouldn’t like what came next. “I need you to go into the sea and bargain with your people for a gatestone.”
Brea’s jaw dropped. A gatestone was a magic object, a means of passing from one physical point to another in the blink of an eye. There were few creatures who could find them, most of them created by witches or some other magic wielder. The sea created wild gatestones, but they were precious. Very precious.
Cain hissed, and she realized her arm had sagged, dragging the dagger down. She snapped her mouth shut and gritted her teeth before pulling the blade free. Cain clamped his lips together, rolling his neck as he shrugged off the pain with a muffled grunt. Brea snuffed out the brief flare of sympathy, keeping her dagger ready for another plunge into his chest should it become necessary.
She opened her mouth to argue, but Cain spoke before she could get a word out.
“Don’t try to tell me they won’t give one to you. And don’t argue about their accord with the warden, either. You and I both know that getting that skin back is more important than anything else. There would be a clause in the contract that says as much.”
He was right. Brea didn’t know the details of the selkies’ arrangement with the warden, but no selkie would prioritize such an accord over the retrieval of a stolen skin. It would be like sacrificing one of their own, choosing to let them be eviscerated all for the sake of a vampire’s political needs.
She sucked in a breath through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth. “Fine. I’ll get it in the morning.”
“No.”
Cain
leaned forward, and she jabbed at him with the dagger, a snarl curling her lip as the point stopped just short of his healing flesh. He curled his fingers together, visibly stopping himself from reaching for her. That pleading look was back in his eyes, something that hurt every time she pulled away. She focused on her blood staining his mouth, remembered when it had been her blood pouring down his body, leaving her dying in his bed. He flinched as if he’d read the memory, and looked away.
“You have to get it tonight—right now.” His gaze swept over the harbor, over the buildings beyond, but he didn’t turn his head. “There are spies everywhere, and our presence together will have been noticed already. We have to do it all tonight or we will never succeed.”
Brea fought the urge to take a step back, to give in to the urge to run. Her mind whirled, trying to follow all the tangents, all the possible ways this could go horribly, horribly wrong. “You’re rushing me. I don’t like it. What aren’t you telling me? What are you hoping I won’t see?”
This time she knew the pain in his eyes had nothing to do with the dagger, or the wound that was even now closing, leaving behind perfect pale skin that she remembered all too well.
“You trusted me once,” he said softly. “Acushla—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, the sound of the endearment grating on her nerves. “Yes, I trusted you once. And I remember how that worked out, even if you’ve conveniently forgotten.”
He fell back as if she’d struck him. His gaze dropped to the salt-crusted boards of the dock, remaining there as if the weight of the past was too much to fight. “I’ve relived that night so many times,” he whispered. “Brea, please—”
“No. No, don’t you dare apologize.” Her hands shook, and she dropped the dagger to her side to hide the trembling from him. She chose to believe it was fear that put the tremor in her body, fear and no other emotion. “Don’t you dare put it on me to forgive you. I trusted you. I—” She shook her head, furious at the lump swelling in her throat, even as the fear slid down her spine like ice water. “Just stay here. I’ll be back.”
