Eternal Reign

by Melody Johnson

  Maybe I could borrow Dominic’s IV.

  “Is he okay?” Meredith whispered.

  I leveled a look on her. “It’s your fault. Talking dirty in front of my little brother, shame on you.”

  Meredith made a rude noise in the back of her throat. “He’s your brother, but he’s not little anymore. He should move out.”

  I frowned. “He just moved in.”

  “He’s cramping your personal life.”

  “I don’t have a personal life.”

  “You would if you didn’t live with your little brother,” Meredith argued. She had a valid point if we’d been normal siblings, but Nathan and I were anything but normal.

  Night blood ran in our family genes, and Nathan was no exception. Unfortunately for our sanity and safety, we’d discovered our heritage separately and attempted to stop the rebel vampires terrorizing New York City without telling each other: I’d ended up playing bait for Dominic to smoke out their leader, and Nathan had sought out their leader to stop her on his own. If we’d had the courage to tell each other the truth and fight our enemies together, maybe Jillian Allister, Dominic’s former second, potential successor, and leader of the rebel vampires, wouldn’t have so easily attacked and transformed Nathan into the Damned—a ravenous creature whose insatiable thirst for aortic blood consumed its every thought and action.

  I’d thought moving in together and being close to family would bring a sense of normalcy back into our lives after everything had been knocked so off-axis, but besides not being able to stomach solid food, one little detail of Nathan’s time being Damned had escaped my consideration and prevented us from feeling at home, even here in the city: Jillian had wiped Nathan’s existence from everyone’s memory after transforming him and their memory hadn’t been restored when he had.

  Every friend forgot they’d known him. Every touch he’d ever shared was suddenly someone else’s touch. Every relationship he’d ever formed and every gift he’d ever given or received was suddenly nothing but a reminder of everything he’d lost. I’d even had to reintroduce him to Meredith, which was especially strange considering she was practically family. She was like his sister, too, but after thirty years of friendship, she smiled and held out her hand like a lovely, polite stranger.

  “Your life’s a clean slate.” I’d tried to bolster his spirits, but we both knew that was bullshit. Nathan was stranded, and I didn’t know the first direction in helping to guide him home.

  Meredith pointed her thumb at the door. As she sensed my somber mood, her expression suddenly turned serious. “Should I leave?”

  I pulled down the drop staircase to the roof. “This won’t take long.”

  “Quick and dirty. I’m liking him more and more.” Meredith winked.

  “Shut up,” I said, smirking in spite of myself.

  “Slow and thorough is good, too, I suppose. But if that’s what you prefer, then I should definitely leave.”

  I shook my head and laughed at Meredith’s teasing. It would be funnier if she wasn’t partly right.

  “If you’re not back by the time I finish this California roll, I’m gone,” Meredith warned.

  I pointed my finger at her. “Don’t you dare finish our food.” And then, deliberately, I added, “Dominic is not worth missing out on sushi.”

  Meredith shrugged. “Better make it quick and dirty then. I’ve only got three more rolls to go.”

  Chapter 2

  My new place was smaller than my last apartment, especially with Nathan skulking in the shadows, but more important than size, I’d needed an apartment that could easily transform into a fully functioning fallout shelter. Keagan McDunnell, one of the many fellow night bloods lost during my disastrous visit to upstate New York last week, had shared his wealth of knowledge with me about vampire fallout shelters before going missing, and according to his expertise, my new apartment needed three essential anti-vampire ingredients: large, open windows and a southeast-facing apartment to let in sunlight; original metal locks and hinges and silver stuffed in every nook and cranny; and human blood.

  With the exception of dried, stale human blood lining the apartment’s perimeter to mask the appealing scent of my fresh, circulating blood, I had the other ingredients to my fallout shelter covered. The large, bay windows in my living room and bedroom allowed the sun to flood my apartment with natural light, and I’d draped gauzy fabric over the curtain rods instead of hanging drapes to let the apartment soak in all that natural protection. The apartment had its original, rusted hinges, skeleton key locks, and chain on the door, and I’d added a few additional metals of my own. I’d splurged, drawing on my savings for real silverware, silver curtain rods, metal wall decorations, and vintage silver floor lamps. And in addition to purchasing all that hardware, I’d used my remaining silver nitrate spray on every doorframe.

  Everything I’d purchased for the apartment was to fortify it against Dominic and his vampires. The rooftop access, however, was just for me.

  Everything seemed bigger on the rooftop—the city, the sky, my dreams, and perspective—while my problems and I seemed inconsequential in the giant, cosmic scheme of things. They weren’t inconsequential, and neither was I—the very weight of my problems and their consequences were oftentimes crushing to contemplate—but when I lay on my hammock and watched the sun rise from the rooftop with just my thoughts and a glass of cabernet, I was lifted from beneath the weight of my problems. On the rooftop, with the warmth and protection of the sun on my skin, I could breathe.

  When I emerged from the rooftop access staircase of my newly vampire-proofed apartment, Dominic was lounging in my hammock.

  “That was longer than two minutes,” he chided.

  I glared down at his reclined form and crossed my arms. “Don’t get comfortable. This is one of the few nights I have with Meredith, and I don’t want to waste it.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “You see Meredith every day. Sometimes you see her every night. And she’s obviously not good for your health.”

  “I work with Meredith every day and sometimes every night. We’re having girl time tonight. There’s a difference.” I narrowed my eyes on his last comment. “How does she affect my health?”

  “She’s human; with your weakened immune system and night blood, your body is obviously having some kind of allergic reaction to her.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  “The sneezing. You—”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, and that’s a lot, considering we’re talking about you. I don’t care how weakened my blood is, I am not allergic to my best friend.”

  Dominic patted the minuscule space in the hammock next to him. “Come here, and I’ll explain it to you.”

  I shook my head. “I believe that would constitute ‘getting comfortable’.”

  Dominic leveled his eyes on me, those otherworldly, icy-blue eyes. They often looked through me—seeing my innermost fears and desires—more than they looked at me, but they looked at me now. He knew how I felt about him. He didn’t need proof of it by reading my mind when he could taste it on my skin, feel it like the heat from a wood-burning stove wafting from my thoughts, hear it in the cadence of my breath. He knew, but I’m sure the confirmation of it on Technicolor display was gratifying too.

  He grinned, confirming my suspicions. “Would getting comfortable really be so bad?”

  I nodded. Dominic was my ally, but that didn’t change who and what he was. “Getting comfortable could be deadly,” I said.

  “Being comfortable and becoming complacent are two very different things, and I would never accuse you of complacency.” He tilted his head, smiling. “Is this a hard-and-fast rule of yours, remaining uncomfortable?”

  I sighed, knowing from experience what was coming next. “No, it’s not a hard-and-fast rule. It’s more of a personal preference.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “You prefer to remain uncomfortable?”


  I rolled my eyes. “Fine. A cautionary measure.”

  He growled, deep and predatory, but it didn’t have anything to do with anger.

  Involuntarily, I took a step back.

  “Cassidy DiRocco,” Dominic rumbled through the growl. I could feel my mind perk at the call of my name, like the way a dog cocks its ears forward to receive its next command. I envisioned a silver-framed mirror protecting my mind, like he’d taught me, but I knew that it wouldn’t work against him. Not anymore.

  “Come and lie next to me in this hammock,” he commanded.

  Instantly and uncontrollably, I stepped forward. I went to him as he commanded, my actions not my own, and lay next to him in the hammock. To my credit, I lay opposite him—my head at his feet—but that was only because he hadn’t specified the exact position I should take.

  Dominic shook his head at me from across the hammock, his lips tugging into a reluctant smirk. “Even now, you’re impossibly obstinate.”

  I smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Did you try to deflect my command?”

  “Of course. I’m obstinate, remember?” I scoffed.

  His lips twitched. “Well, besides your stubbornness in refusing to lie ‘next to me’ properly, I didn’t sense any resistance from you. Not like I used to,” he added softly.

  I sighed. “You didn’t see my mirror?”

  He shook his head.

  “When I spoke to Dr. Chunn, she mentioned that the female body typically takes sixteen weeks to replenish blood cells after donation. It’s possible that—”

  “We don’t have sixteen weeks,” Dominic interrupted. “It’s been five days since your blood transfusion. The Leveling is in three days, and if you haven’t regained the advantages of your night blood by now, it won’t matter if you regain them sixteen weeks or sixteen years from now. We need them for the Leveling.”

  “I’m sorry my recovery isn’t on your schedule,” I said dryly.

  “Me too,” Dominic said gravely. “If you don’t have them for the Leveling, I need to consider an alternate plan to protect my position as Master.”

  I crossed my arms. “It’s not my fault that this happened. I didn’t ask for a blood transfusion. I didn’t want to lose what little protection I had against you and the other vampires. I was dying, and the doctors were just trying to save my life. They succeeded, if you haven’t noticed, but you’ve been less than grateful.”

  “You’re damn right I’m less than grateful. If I was there, I could have—”

  “But you weren’t,” I interrupted. “You weren’t there, and the doctors did the best they could.”

  Dominic looked away. “I’m just telling you what must be done.”

  “And what exactly must be done?” I demanded. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  He stared off into the distance, across the expanse of city lights. We couldn’t see the stars here, not like I could upstate when I visited Walker last week. Some people might miss details like that—the natural serenity of country living—but despite the promises that Ian Walker had made me—and he’d made and broken many, as had I—the country had not been the reprieve from the doom and gloom of my life that I’d needed and anticipated. Worse, Walker hadn’t been the man I’d needed or anticipated.

  Under the pretense of writing an article about country versus city crime rates for Carter, my cranky boss and editor in chief of the Sun Accord, I’d visited Walker at his hometown of Erin, New York, for three reasons: to learn more about vampires from a man who’d known about his night blood his entire life, to uphold my end of a deal I’d struck with Dominic to find Nathan, and to explore my developing and deepening feelings for Walker. I’d thought that, of those three reasons, the third was the most likely to blossom. He’d thought I’d only had one reason to visit him. We’d both been disappointed.

  In that brief, disastrous excuse for a vacation, I’d missed the city. I’d missed the bustle and life and conveniences I’d taken for granted, like streetlights and taxis and the absence of wild animals. I’d especially taken for granted the protection of Dominic’s presence.

  Before my visit upstate, I’d felt constricted by his visits and considered his limitless reach an unwanted invasion of my personal, physical, and mental boundaries.

  Until he’d been out of reach.

  I would have died last week without Dominic, killed by my own brother when he didn’t know anything but how to kill. When I’d needed Dominic most, despite the risk and distance and my own reluctance, he’d been there. He’d protected me against Walker when everything had turned south, and he’d more than upheld his end of our bargain concerning Nathan. He’d nearly died saving him, and undoubtedly would have if not for the metaphysical bonds he’d forged between us, linking our life forces. Granted, he’d forged those bonds without my prior knowledge or consent, which I found unforgivable, except for the pesky fact that I’d been grateful for their presence when we’d needed them most.

  On a day-to-day basis, those bonds were easily forgotten, or in Dominic’s case, easily hidden until I’d discovered them. It wasn’t until he’d been shot through the heart with Walker’s wooden stake and I’d coughed up physical blood from the metaphysical injury that I’d realized how our lives were linked and the repercussions of those bonds. Now that I knew, if I concentrated hard enough, I could feel the sting if Dominic had a hangnail, but unless one of us was egregiously injured, Dominic held the bonds in check, keeping my pain and ailments and injuries within my body and his within his body.

  I stared at the scarred side of Dominic’s face as he continued studying the expanse of city below us, and I had the sudden, insane impulse to kiss those luscious, imperfect lips. In this form, his lips were the only feature that was imperfect, and I cherished that reminder of his former life, a life that despite our age, gender, and moral differences, was very similar to my own: we were both at one time night bloods, and we bore physical reminders of our mistakes.

  He met my gaze, and I looked away, embarrassed by my thoughts and urges. We wanted two very different futures for ourselves and this city, but the one want we agreed upon—very recently and only sometimes, although with increasing and alarming regularity—was his lips against mine. He hadn’t kissed me since that crazy moment upstate in Erin, New York, when he’d healed me and I’d been drained enough to become high on his blood, but I’d thought about that moment every day since. I’d relived the smell of his longing and the heat of his breath and the demand of his lips in the quiet solitude of my hammock on this very roof every night.

  But I wasn’t alone tonight.

  I forced myself to meet his gaze. Judging by the intensity in his eyes, he thought about that moment as often and with as much longing as I did.

  “I’ve never faced a situation quite like this before,” he said. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, as though he needed to clear his throat. “A human knows of our existence, knows about me and the inner workings and location of my coven intimately, and I have allowed her memory to remain intact. If my coven knew, it would ruin both of us.”

  I frowned. “Who are you talking about?”

  Dominic blinked at me. “My dear Cassidy DiRocco, I’m talking about you.”

  “Oh,” I said. I remained quiet, waiting for his next words. My gut churned; I didn’t like the direction this conversation was headed.

  “What would you have me do?” he asked. “Would you prefer to keep your memory of the existence of me and my coven, putting us both at risk, or become blissfully unaware?”

  He knew my preference, and if he didn’t, he didn’t know me as well as I thought he did. “I’d prefer to keep my memory.” I gave him a look. “Obviously.”

  “Think on it, Cassidy. Without your night blood, you have no protection against other vampires, and if I don’t survive the Leveling, Jillian will come for you. She knows where your loyalties lie. She will not tolerate you or any of my supporters, but if you no longer remember me or her or any of us, if you
don’t know that vampires even exist, she may allow you to live. You might be able to carry on with your life as you did before we met. Isn’t that what you truly want, anyway, to live your life as it was before you met me?”

  I shook my head. “What I truly want is for vampires to not exist at all, but they do. To pretend anything else would be a lie, and didn’t you once say that I’m in the business of exposing the truth?”

  Dominic nodded.

  “I have no interest in living a lie, no matter how pretty that lie is. You know me better than that, or at least I thought you did.”

  “I suspected you would say as much, but knowing what may become of me and also knowing what Jillian may do to you, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least offer that option.”

  “Wiping my memory doesn’t ensure my safety anyway,” I argued. “If Jillian comes for me, I want to know exactly why she’s here and why I’m being killed. I wouldn’t change anything I’ve done for you or Nathan, so if Jillian wants to kill me for it, that’s her prerogative. I don’t want to forget it happened.”

  Dominic reached across his body and touched my ankle. “You say that now, but you may feel differently when she breaks you. I couldn’t bear to witness your suffering.”

  “You won’t be witness to anything. If Jillian comes for me, you’ll already be dead,” I reminded him.

  He leveled a look on me. “I couldn’t bear the thought—”

  I pulled my foot from his hand. “Save it. You watched Kaden break every bone in my body, literally, limb by limb, as he tortured me to get to you.”

  “I intervened before he went too far,” Dominic growled.

  I laughed. “Your threshold for ‘too far’ is much higher than mine.”

  “We did what was necessary for the bigger picture.”