by Michele Hauf
“Connie, Connor, Constantine.” Charish waved the matter away with a gesture. “He goes by so many names. Well, you know our breed has to change our names every century or so. He insisted this could be the deal to save our family.”
As if shot in the chest by a high-powered rifle, Vail staggered. What the Santiago matriarch had so casually revealed. Could it be?
Blinking, as if surfacing from a fog of dust, he gripped Charish by the lapels of her fitted suit coat. “Constantine?” He revealed his fangs to the woman, but she didn’t flinch.
“Pretty,” Charish commented snidely, “but just for show, eh? I’ve heard about you and the faeries.”
“You called him Constantine?” he insisted again. “Your fiancé. Constantine de Salignac?”
“Well, yes. How do you know his last name—” The woman stiffened suddenly, eyes going wide, and clutched her throat. Crimson trickled over her grasping fingers and spilled onto Vail’s hand.
Reacting, he shoved Lyric behind him. She stumbled, bracing herself against the wall. He leaped to catch Charish as she collapsed in his arms. The tip of a wooden stake pierced through her bleeding throat. He reached to pull it out, but retracted, not knowing if the stake had been poisoned.
Down the street a dark fog billowed. It thickened and expanded, like darkness clouding over a midsummer revel.
“Lyric, get in the car!”
“What happened?”
“Just get in the car. And don’t come out, no matter what.”
“But my mother?”
“I’ll get her onto the backseat. Get in there. Now!”
She scrambled into the car and Vail kicked the door shut. With little time to make sure the mother was safe, he gently laid Charish on the sidewalk and spun up to meet the fog, which quickly formed into the shape of a man.
Thin yet regal, the silver-haired sidhe lord’s violet eyes locked on to Vail’s fierce gaze. Zett’s red coat was open to reveal bare skin, covered over with luminescent marks that resembled mortal tribal tattoos, yet these pulsed and glowed as if alive, and some could even produce magic if touched with alternating fingers in a coded manner. At his hip a weapon belt revealed another wooden stake. The faery had the skill to throw the stake from long distances and hit his mark.
“Why the mother?” Vail called. “It’s not her you want.”
“Exactly.” Zett’s voice slithered silver upon black waves. His long fingers weaved before him as if concocting a ritual, yet he did not make a move to strike with what Vail knew could be powerful dust. “I need the vampire bitch’s daughter. But she decided to renege on our bargain, and so she must be punished.”
Vail fisted his hands and spread his feet, thrusting back his shoulders. He stood before the fallen vampiress, prepared to block any magic Zett should send at him. “You made a mistake when marking Lyric. Let her go. She’ll not tell anyone.”
“You know about the mark? That’s two vampires too many who possess such knowledge, Vaillant the Unwanted.”
The word was just a word, but it never failed to strike at Vail’s soul when issued in Zett’s scathing tone.
“What if I offer the gown instead of Lyric?”
He had no such right, but he wasn’t thinking on game, and was allowing the faery to make him nervous because his thoughts were ruthlessly divided. Charish was engaged to Constantine? And Lyric had known, except she’d never associated the name Constantine to Connor. All this time, he’d been so close!
Zett sucked in a breath, and Vail felt the air grow heavy. The Lord of Midsummer Dark could command the elements. The very earth would rise up as his throne if commanded. “Where is the fucking gown, Vail? I need it.”
“Enough to sacrifice the one you marked?”
Oh, he did like to see Zett riled. Rarely did a sidhe resort to using mortal oaths. Zett stood as high as Vail, yet his slender frame looked awkward and spiderish. However, Vail knew that delicate bone structure hid a powerful mien, and Zett would not stop to harm anyone who stood in his path to power.
“That gown would grant you power untold. And a certain status amongst the Unseelie. Still trying to steal the lost king’s throne?” Vail put out, and then braced for Zett’s retaliation.
The Lord of Midsummer Dark did not disappoint.
The faery touched the luminescent symbol just below his throat with his middle finger, sliding it around the circumference of the design. With a hiss, he commanded the rain puddles on the street, water slicking across the rooftops, and all the rain yet spilling down the windows and gutters into a hurricane that swept toward Vail.
Vail was hit with sharp, piercing water that cut open the skin on his face and hands. The water swirled about him, crushing him in a liquid cage that he could not penetrate with a punch or kick.
Gasping, he swallowed icy water and sputtered. A shout sucked in more water and he choked, heaving up gasps. He put up a hand, but before he could command his own dust, he remembered he was now clean. Defenseless against sidhe magic.
The cyclonic spin of water dropped to the sidewalk, splashing up around Vail. Had Zett given up so easily? Never.
Thrusting back his shoulders, Vail marched toward the faery prince. Zett gestured to the building exterior, and with his other hand tapped a mark at his hip. Bricks loosened from the wall and aimed for Vail. The vampire blocked them with an elbow or a punch that shattered them into dust.
“You can do better than that,” Vail taunted.
“I see the mortal realm has been good to you,” Zett said, stepping backward.
“I’m clean of ichor now. It makes me strong,” Vail corrected. And indeed, he did not feel defenseless, as he had expected.
“So you’ve come into the taint of mortal blood?” Zett spit to the side, showing his disgust. “No surprise. You always were just another filthy longtooth.”
Vail lunged and delivered a fist to the faery’s jaw. Ichor sprayed the air, yet Zett snapped back with an evil grin. “You want to play it that way?”
“I’m still owed a duel against you.”
“You think you have a claim to stand against me after I rightfully banished you for your crime against me? Ha!”
“Hell, yes.” Zett would deem it a crime that he’d been denied his way, though Faery did not mark it as such.
The faery lord narrowed his piercing eyes. The symbols on his skin glowed fiercely. “Why are you protecting Lyric Santiago? Have you finally bonded with your own kind? Have you taken her as your lover? I would congratulate you, but I’d rather rip your veins out through your throat and strangle you with them.”
“By your leave.” Vail offered an arm and tapped the thick vein. “Begin with this one.”
Zett blew faery dust into a billowing cloud.
Vail dropped to the ground, avoiding the cloud but sensing it would rain upon him in seconds. He snapped his legs forward and came up on the other side of the cloud as it dispersed and settled. Wheeling around, he grabbed Zett by the back of his neck and willed down his fangs.
“Go ahead, Unwanted One.” Zett chuckled. “Bite deep and drink well.”
How he would love to bite into the man’s neck and tear out his veins. But he was clean now. And getting stronger, thanks to Lyric’s support. He would not risk succumbing to the addiction after all her hard work. And yet the faery smelled sweet…so sweet.
“Vail!” Lyric leaned out the back window.
“Ah. There is the beauty who will become my bride.”
“You would sooner die than marry a vampire. You requested she deliver the gown so you could do away with your mistake.”
“True. Well then, I’ll have to rip out her veins instead and tie them into pretty bows about her body.”
That horrible image zapped Vail’s fall into the sensory allure of the faery and made him wish for an iron stake so he could plunge it into the faery’s heart. He rubbed fisted fingers in his palm, testing the edges of his rings. “Like I said, the gown for Lyric.”
“You don’t have the gown.”
“If I dare?” Zett cocked his head to the side.
“You bastard, you are selling your own to the vampires! I don’t believe the Unseelie court would abide that.”
Zett kicked, landing Vail on the hip. He staggered, but lost the pain of the hit immediately, and delivered a solid right hook, catching the faery on the jaw and tearing through his skin with the iron rings. Zett screamed as the iron burned his skin.
The faery lord leaped away from Vail and hit the brick wall and clung to it, a foot off the sidewalk. His jaw smoked and oozed ichor. “You will not win this one. I will have the gown, and the miserable vampire bitch,” he cried, then pushed off and leaped into the sky. He slipped through to Faery, leaving behind only a glitter of dust.
Vail didn’t give him a moment’s bother. He scooped up Lyric’s mother and slid into the back of the limousine, and ordered the driver to take them to the Santiago home.
* * *
THE CAR PEELED ONTO the pebbled driveway before the Santiago mansion. Lyric sat next to Vail but hadn’t looked at her mother. He sensed her fear and confusion. She was returning to the one place she had escaped, and with the one person who had betrayed her.
Though, it hadn’t directly been Charish. She’d been pushed by Constantine to put her daughter into a dangerous position. Vail was not surprised at all.
After the car parked, he lifted Charish, who felt much heavier than when he’d initially picked her up from the ground. He swung his boots out onto the dew-dappled grass, aware of Lyric exiting out the other side.
The stake still stuck out of Charish’s throat. Fingers to the woman’s neck, he felt for a pulse and could not find one. Her chest did not rise and fall. Impossible. The only way she could perish from being staked in this manner was if Zett had used poison on the wood—then Vail realized this wasn’t a stake, but rather, elf shot, which always contained poison.
Even so, the blood that spilled from her neck glittered. Like ichor. Take it. Vail winced as the strange hunger clenched his gut.
“Hurry,” Lyric said. “We’ll bring her inside. She keeps a doctor on staff.”
“Lyric.”
“Vail, why are you sitting there?”
He bowed his head, and Lyric stopped. She stood straight, hands once fisted, falling loose at her sides.
Moonlight glinted on the toes of Charish’s red shoes. The vampiress’s head hung limply over his arm, spilling blond curls under the silvery shine.
The world stopped breathing. Everything was silenced. No wind shimmied through the tree canopies. Not a cricket chirped in the tall grasses. A night bird fluttered its wings in the fountain, stirring up a noiseless spatter.
With “I’m sorry” on his tongue, Vail stood, yet when he opened his mouth, Lyric said, “No, don’t speak. Just—come this way.”
She turned and, wobbling once on her high heels, she inhaled a breath, seeking composure. Lyric walked toward the mansion, her shoes the only sound. Click, click. Click, click.
Vail carried Charish’s body in his arms, but it suddenly felt airy, almost as if…
Flakes of black ash fell over his arms and down his thighs to land on his boots and the sidewalk. Her clothing dropped in a pile. All vampires older than a century ashed with death. She must have been alive after taking the elf shot. The poison had worked slowly, and she’d only expired as they’d arrived at the mansion.
“Lyric,” Vail whispered.
He didn’t want her to turn around. Didn’t want her to see, to associate her mother’s death with him. He should have been more alert. Could have grabbed Charish from the sidewalk before being injured. He could have done so much more.
Zett had won this round.
Lyric stopped and looked over her shoulder at the ash at his feet and the traces littering his arms. She did not turn completely around, only bowed her head.
He stepped over the ash and pulled Lyric in for a hug but she shoved him away. “I don’t need that. I don’t even—”
Love her were the unspoken words Vail heard louder than his heartbeats. “Yes.” He pulled her unresisting body against his. “You do.”
She nodded that she did, and tucked her head against his shoulder. “Take me inside.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“GATHER THE ASHES,” Lyric heard Vail direct the limo driver.
A chill breeze sifted through her hair, icing her skin. The world had changed. She needed… She needed.
Vail lifted her into his arms, and she melted against his neck and chest, threading a hand up to clutch his hair. She didn’t speak. It was hard enough to keep from sobbing loudly. It didn’t feel right to cry, yet mutinous tears streamed down her cheeks, and her fingertips sought the dark she wished would swallow her whole.
Vail didn’t speak or ask her questions, but instead silently carried her inside. His strength buoyed her. He had sensed correctly she could not stand on her own.
The mansion was dark and quiet, morbidly so. The vampires who had previously occupied it in the nineteenth century had chosen the dark woodwork and wallpaper. She’d never liked the foreboding atmosphere.
Vail walked down the long hall in the south wing that was lined with windows overlooking an English garden. He stopped and Lyric felt his muscles tense against her slack body. A long mahogany table stretched before the garden window, covered with blue cloth and centered with a burst of dying white roses. Her mother’s favorite.
She wanted to cling to him. She and Vail. Forever.
He will never betray me as others have.
He set her down on the table, but did not back away. Instead, he arranged her legs to hug his thighs and pulled her close, bowing over her head to kiss it. His fingers slipped through her ugly brown hair, but his tender attentions made her feel a princess with gorgeous locks. He stroked along the curve of her spine, reassuring, soothing.
She nuzzled her face against his neck. The bite marks she had pierced into his flesh were healed, but the scent of him, rich, vivacious and dark, crept through her pores on a glamorous sigh. She’d never known such quiet strength. It felt like a gift, empowering yet peaceful. With his silence Vail gave her acceptance and courage. She had lost her mother. But she had not lost hope in the eyes of her lover. This man would protect her always. Perhaps even, love her always.
She wrapped her arms about him and surrendered to what would be, and lost herself in Vail’s quiet calm. “Love me,” she whispered.
“Always.”
And that reminded her. Lyric took the lily bracelet out from her pocket and gave it to Vail. “Your stepmother gave this to me.”
He didn’t touch it. “When did you speak to Cressida?” he asked urgently.
“Earlier today, right before we left your place. She warned me you’d be tormented by a dark hunger, and if I loved you, I should make you wear this.”
He nodded but didn’t touch the bracelet. Instead, he simply asked, “Do you want me to wear it?”
Inside, Lyric was shouting no, no, no, and she found herself saying, “Asking you to wear this doesn’t feel right to me. I think the dark hunger she was talking about is your innate blood hunger, the vampire’s desire to drink mortal blood. Something you insist on denying.”
She placed the bracelet on the table beside her leg. “I don’t want you to wear it, but I would never dream of asking you to do as I insist. It is your choice. I need to be alone,” she said. “To sit in the gym in the east wing. It’s where I go when I don’t want to talk.”
“With your silks?”
She smiled at him, but it was forced. “Will you wait for me?”
“Yes, go, do what you need to and take as much time as necessary. I won’t leave, Lyric, I promise.”
She kissed him and padded away into the dark mansion.
* * *
VAIL WAITED until Lyric disappeared around a corner, and then strolled outside to the small groomed garden. In the center of the
cozy garden, surrounded by a cobbled patio, a fountain dribbled rainwater. A jade cricket sat on the toes of the cherub holding center stage of the fountain.
He dangled the lily bracelet from a forefinger. He could feel the vibrations of Faery in the simple stem of May bells. He could feel the power. Crave it. Yet what power was it?
You have your own power now. Or you can. You need to take it.
And what then? What would drinking mortal blood do for him? Give him power? To do what? Rhys insisted he claim such power, yet he couldn’t figure why it mattered.
Lyric had understood him. She knew exactly what he’d been taught to believe, and that he’d chosen to believe those things, knowing they couldn’t possibly be true.
He had desperately wanted to ask her about Constantine, but now was not the right time. She’d referred to him as Connor. Why hadn’t she made the connection?
Don’t blame her. She couldn’t have known.
What twisted joke was this realm playing on him, to put him so close to his father and yet deny him that knowledge?
He tapped the circlet of May bells against his mouth. This bracelet had protected him from the blood hunger, that much he did know. Cressida’s sly means to keep him forever a prisoner of Faery, though he could never again set foot there.
He believed Cressida did care for him in her own twisted manner. But he also knew she would have been happier had she chosen Trystan instead of him.
Had Vail been the baby left behind, he would have grown up with two vampire parents and may have been in a very different place right now.
Trystan may have had a time of it in Faery. Or not. The Unseelie held a tentative truce with werewolves, and allowed them free rein in Faery. Trystan may have enjoyed growing up there, and who knew, he may have been promised to Kit. But he wasn’t a half-breed, so Cressida would have been angry about that, as well. He did not wish Faery upon his brother.
Vail dropped the lily bracelet onto the water’s surface. It floated, dancing around the circle of the fountain.
It wasn’t difficult to admit now that he was glad Trystan had not been chosen. Trystan was Rhys Hawkes’s blood child. The two deserved to be together.
