Immortal Echoes (Haunting Echoes Book 2)

by Caethes Faron

  “No. Lawrence wouldn’t risk violating Zenas’s rules again. Besides, news like that would have traveled.”

  “Then he’s probably trying to win you back,” Liam said.

  “It makes sense.” Michael nodded. “He probably thought he’d be able to find someone to replace you, and of course, he hasn’t.”

  “Or he has found someone and has decided that instead of defying Zenas a second time by transforming this person, he wants to take advantage of the timing and get rid of his obstacle all together.” It had taken a long time for Amaia to come to terms with the fact that Lawrence had never really loved her. He held no loyalty to her, and his obsession with leading a clan of advanced vampires drove everything he did.

  “Whether we take him up on his offer or not, it’s beneficial to know that there are cracks and divisions in his clan,” Liam said.

  “Don’t think that they won’t fight for Zenas. Some may follow Lawrence if he breaks away, but if he doesn’t, they’ll put their disagreements to the side and do their duty. They won’t risk Zenas’s ire.” Amaia knew what happened to vampires who didn’t fight at Zenas’s behest. She had served as their executioner.

  “Did he put any sort of time limit on this offer?” Liam asked.

  “No.” That was the one reason Amaia thought Lawrence wanted them to use his assistance. It was out of character for him to not maintain power by placing conditions on his offer. The slight desperation in leaving it open could also mean that he was planning on defecting no matter what Amaia’s answer was.

  “If you pretended to join him—”

  “No, I won’t do that. He’s said Michael would be welcome, but he’s lying. He won’t allow me to have a mind link with anyone else. If I get near him or let my guard down, the first thing he’s going to do is kill Michael. I won’t endanger my mate, not even for a cause. I’m sure you can understand that, Liam.”

  Liam nodded. She knew he understood, just as she knew he wanted to accept Lawrence’s help in order to protect Meg.

  “But that doesn’t make any sense, Amaia.” Meg shook her head. “If you are his goal, he knows he can’t kill Michael. If he does, he’ll lose you as well.”

  “I’ve known him long enough to know that he thinks he can bypass that somehow. He no doubt thinks that since I’ve never followed Michael to the grave before and felt no guilt after killing him, I can survive his death even now that he’s a vampire and we’re fully mated. To him, it’ll be worth trying. If I did die, it would be no great loss to him since he wouldn’t have allowed me to live with Michael in my head anyway.”

  The thought of the man she had considered a father being willing to so casually discard her turned her stomach. At one time she had dreamed of having a happy family with Lawrence and Michael, the two men who had meant the world to her. Even now, a small part of her held an irrational love for the man. He made her vulnerable, so she could never entertain any thoughts of joining him. If he couldn’t have her, he didn’t want anyone to. Perhaps the fact that she didn’t wish him dead was proof of the heart Michael insisted she had and that Lawrence had spent so long trying to convince her she lacked.

  “We don’t know what’s coming. I wouldn’t tell him anything, Amaia. Knowledge is power, and he just gave us some. No need to return the favor.” Liam rose and helped Meg to her feet.

  Michael looked at Amaia, and she saw all the love she would ever need staring back at her through his eyes. In that moment she knew, if the time ever came, she would feel no loss at Lawrence’s death, not when it would free her to live a full life with Michael. Her sire was a shackle that she increasingly thought Michael would break someday.

  Chapter 34

  Michael grabbed Amaia’s hand before she could stand then looked at Meg and Liam. “You two go on ahead. We’ll catch up.”

  “All right. We’ll go feed. If we haven’t found each other in an hour, we’ll meet back here.” Liam took great care to set meeting places and times now. They were all getting a little edgy as the date of the battle drew near.

  As they walked by, Meg leaned down and kissed Amaia on the cheek, then gave her shoulder a little squeeze. Michael was more grateful than ever for their friends. He didn’t know how they’d get through this without them. While Michael wasn’t as close to Liam as Amaia was to Meg, he appreciated having another man around who understood the fierceness of his protectiveness toward his mate. Liam proved to be a formidable ally when planning a war as well.

  “So what were you doing in a church?” Trust Amaia to immediately get to the heart of the matter.

  “I recognized someone today.”

  Amaia furrowed her brow in confusion.

  “The first evil man I killed. He’s a baby now, with an aura just as evil and even stronger than before.”

  Understanding dawned in her eyes. “He’s reincarnated. It makes sense.”

  Naturally, she had understood this would happen. His thought of saving the world from evil had been his own arrogant excuse to allow him to indulge his urge to kill. He tried not to be too hard on himself. After all, if he hadn’t experienced what he had, he probably would have never come to a realization of what he needed to do.

  “It troubled me to see that all I had done was speed up the process of reincarnation for him, allowing him to acquire a stronger aura more quickly than he otherwise would have. That’s why I sought refuge in the church.”

  “Did it help?” Concern creased Amaia’s face. Michael loved that she cared even though her personal beliefs were so different.

  “Yes. I know now what I should have been doing all along. There is a way to rid the world of these evil people, to keep them from ever returning.”

  “Michael, I hope you’re not considering what I think you are.”

  “It’ll be easy to convince someone with an aura like that to accept eternal life. I’ll transform them and then kill them. Permanently.”

  Amaia shook her head. “That’s crazy.”

  “Why?”

  “What if you don’t succeed in killing them? The only thing worse than an inherently evil human is an inherently evil vampire.”

  “You’ve said so yourself that if the transformation doesn’t complete, they are easily killed.”

  “But if the transformation doesn’t complete, how do you know they won’t return?”

  He hadn’t thought it through that thoroughly. “Then I’ll wait until they’ve awoken from the transformation sleep. Newborn vampires can’t even move their arms properly, much less defend themselves against an attack.”

  Amaia nodded, her face pensive. At least she no longer protested. It gave him hope that she’d be receptive to the plan he’d formed as he had listened to Lawrence’s offer.

  “This also means we don’t need his help. We can create our own army if we need additional numbers. Once the battle is over, we can kill the survivors. We’ll have rid the world of them and used them to rid the world of another evil.”

  Amaia’s eyes widened in shock, and she shook her head. “There are so many variables, Michael. Are we going to travel en masse with these new vampires?”

  “We could go to Samegrelo now and turn people in the surrounding area. Surely we can find one hundred evil people within a few hours’ radius of the battlefield.”

  “Like you said, they won’t be fighters.”

  “No, but they’ll be numbers that Zenas must fight through to get to us.”

  “Sacrificial lambs?”

  “I have no problem sacrificing people I know I’m meant to kill anyway in order to protect you. That’s probably the least persuasive argument against this.”

  “We should talk it over with Meg and Liam.”

  “They’ll agree with whatever you decide, Amaia. As much as we tell people you’re just the standard-bearer, you know that’s not true. Besides, I know Liam well enough to know that he’ll think this is a good idea. He won’t have any objections. It helps him protect Meg, and beyond that he has no morals.”

&
nbsp; “Are you sure you’re going to be fine with actually carrying out this plan? It’s one thing to talk about it, another to do it.”

  Michael had considered that it wouldn’t be very enjoyable to sire vampires this way, but it’d be worth it in the end. “I’ll be fine. This will give us some of the same tactical advantage Zenas has. We’ll have a mental link with everyone we transform. They’ll obey us. You’ve always told me vampires have absolute loyalty to their sires.” Michael had already been completely loyal to Amaia before she transformed him, so he’d never noticed a difference.

  “Zenas killed his sire.”

  “Yes, but not right away. When they’re new to their condition, they have no choice other than to trust and follow the person who turned them.”

  Amaia’s lips formed a grim line, as if she accepted something she wasn’t happy about. “You’re right. This could give us the edge we need to avoid being tempted to take Lawrence’s offer. I just don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”

  “I won’t. Even if I did regret it, it’d be worth it to finally be free of this threat against us. And if we don’t succeed, I won’t be around to regret it anyway.”

  “Then I suppose it’s time we get to Samegrelo.”

  There were still details to work out, not least of all the transformation kills and sources of blood they’d need to feed the new vampires, but they had time to figure that out as they traveled. Michael already knew he’d be willing to bend his morals to an alarming degree to protect Amaia.

  Chapter 35

  “There’s no way around it. If we’re going to do this, it’s going to be messy.” Amaia stood with the others in an abandoned barn they’d found near the battleground. An owl sat on a rotting wooden beam above them. Its steady breathing as it slept served as the only sign of life in the building.

  “Yes, but the people in this area are already superstitious. They’ll suspect something, but that won’t be anything new. Besides, with the battle, no vampire is going to care. As long as we don’t give anyone definitive proof of our existence, it’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Liam said. He was usually known for his prudence. To be willing to undertake any risk of exposure spoke to his emotional involvement. Amaia didn’t mind. She needed him to be a little reckless.

  Amaia held Liam’s gaze as she spoke. “As long as we’re clear about that. We’ll start tonight, as soon as it’s dark.”

  Their plan sounded like something a careless newborn would do, not something a group of four intelligent vampires would attempt. At this point, there wasn’t anything for them to lose. In fact, if Amaia were going to die, she’d prefer to make the existence of vampires known to the humans, just for the fun of seeing the horror on their faces. However, she held out hope that they’d survive, so she’d restrain herself.

  They’d decided to collect their victims from a secluded prison they’d found that housed the more heinous criminals from the surrounding areas. It was the easiest way to get to a large number of people at once. Any other idea they had would take too long or didn’t sit well with Michael. The best way would have been to attack one of the remote villages. It would take days for anyone outside the village to discover what had happened. By then it’d be too late, and the superstitious people would likely stay away. A prison break would be discovered more quickly and cause panic in the nearby cities. They’d make it look like a riot, but the townsfolk would live in fear of the escaped convicts. It wasn’t ideal, but it’d do.

  Once they had the prison, they’d do their own kind of triage. Anyone with a black aura would be transformed so they could be permanently killed after the battle, fulfilling Michael’s newfound purpose. The prison was one of the largest Amaia had seen. Between the guards and prisoners, they should gain a significant number of newborns. The rest of the humans would be used as transformation kills or sources of food. None would survive.

  “If there aren’t any questions, I’m going to go for a run.” Amaia looked to Meg and then Liam, making sure they had each spoken their piece. There’d be no turning back after tonight.

  “We’ll meet back here after the sun sets.” Liam nodded to Amaia and led Meg away with a hand on the small of her back. The little show of affection was the only sign of Liam’s nerves. Normally too reserved for any public display, no matter how small, he must need Meg badly now.

  “Do you want to be alone?”

  “No.” Michael’s presence soothed Amaia. The comfort of their silence as they ran together made it easier for her to think.

  She had agreed to become a vampire to ensure that no man would ever be able to control her. She’d craved the independence and control over her own life. It didn’t escape her that she’d never been free. First she’d been captive to Lawrence and his desire for power. She’d escaped him only to belong to another man.

  But Michael had been her choice. She wanted him more than anything. It still stunned her that he found her a worthy companion. He saw in her things no one else ever had. Like a mirror, he showed her parts of herself she had denied existed. Freedom and independence had never been her aim. To be truly known by another person and loved anyway is what she had thirsted after.

  No, to be loved because of the truth someone else saw in her, not despite it. Michael never pretended the less attractive parts of her didn’t exist; he merely saw them as part of the woman he loved. He loved her precisely because he could see the parts of her she kept hidden away from everyone else. There was something immensely freeing in that.

  She ran with no thought to a destination, letting some unknown instinct direct her feet until she crested the hill she had stood on with Zenas during that battle nearly half a century ago. The memory of that night flooded her consciousness and halted her feet. It looked exactly the same. It even smelled the same, or at least the same as it had before the battle. Give it a few days, and she felt sure she’d smell the familiar tang of blood, venom, and death that she’d smelled before.

  “Is this it?” Michael asked when she stopped.

  “Yes. While you were dying thousands of miles away, I was here, killing fellow vampires who were no more guilty than I was.”

  “It was battle. You did what you had to.”

  “No. I didn’t have to do anything. Zenas even ordered that we weren’t to advance. It was over. I ran into the field and ripped heads from bodies. A madness overcame me. I needed there to be a reason for my presence, a distraction from what I felt for you.”

  Instead of words that Amaia felt certain Michael couldn’t conjure, he comforted her with touch, lent his support in the broad expanse of his chest cradling her back to him, his arms folded around her waist. Amaia rested her head against him in silence, grateful that he didn’t speak any false words to ease her conscience. His actions served as a reminder that she did have a conscience, and that’s why she needed comfort.

  “I know it’s strange to you since I enjoy killing humans, but there is something deeply wrong about killing another vampire that I’ve never been able to reconcile.”

  “It makes a certain kind of sense. There’s no use thinking about the past. This isn’t the time for sentimentality. They are a threat to us, Amaia. We will kill them when the time comes, every single one of them if we have to.”

  She knew they would, and she knew she’d lose herself to the high of battle. It was a great paradox that despite her aversion to killing her own kind, she had enjoyed the vampire battle in which she’d fought. The freedom of losing herself to the sheer physicality and primal nature of it was too intoxicating.

  How had her life advanced to this? As an orphan in London, all she had wanted was to escape the poverty that held her captive. As a young woman, all she’d wanted was Lawrence’s love and approval, and now all she wanted was to live with Michael. Yet, for all she had tried to avoid politics and power, a battle would be fought soon with the most powerful clan in the world, all because of her.

  A certain amount of shame pricked her at the knowledge that if someone
else stood in her place right now, she would not join the fight. She held no ideals, no beliefs, no morals. She fought because if she didn’t, she’d die. The only cause that could rally her was a threat to her and Michael. No, she’d defend Meg with her life if need be, and by extension, Liam. Friendship had its own mystical power that commanded her loyalty. The fact that she’d give her life for Meg was reason enough not to seek out more friends. There were enough liabilities in her life as it was.

  “What are you thinking?”

  The sun lowered over the horizon, bathing the landscape in red and shadows. It’d be beautiful if it didn’t remind Amaia of the slick red of blood-covered rocks, both a memory and a prophecy. Birds sung as they flew to distant trees. Their song would quiet on the day of battle. A sense unique to animals, or at least that animals heeded better than humans, would keep them away when the valley filled with vampires.

  “About the past and the future. It’s eerie being here again. No matter what we do, hundreds, maybe even thousands will die, all because I couldn’t leave you alone.”

  “Don’t let your vanity run away with you, my dear. In my limited experience, vampires are not the most altruistic of beings. Everyone who fights will be here for their own reasons. They want the clans destroyed. They couldn’t care less about you and me.”

  Amaia’s laughter danced above the morose atmosphere that had settled upon them. “Thank you. How you know exactly what I need to hear, I’ll never know.”

  Michael’s lips grazed her neck. “The real you is not such an enigma. I hate to see guilt weigh on you.’

  “Especially when I’ve never felt any when it comes to humans.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But I know you think it. I don’t mind. Humans are food. This is just senseless killing, all so Zenas and Sabine can retain power. They don’t care about their children. They’d sacrifice them all to save themselves. It’s all so senseless. Unless…” They had chosen this place in the hopes of it giving them an advantage, and she had overlooked the most obvious one. She knew the fatal mistake she had made. She had thought of this battle the same as past battles, constrained by the same rules. But there were no rules. It needn’t be a fight between hundreds. It could just be a fight with one. This battle wasn’t just about decimating the other side. There would be no victory without Zenas’s head. The rest of the fighting was only to put the clan in disarray.