My Vampire Knight (Sanctuary, Texas Book 6)

by Krystal Shannan

  “How did you get in?” Miles asked, his eyebrows raised in alarm.

  “Calliope answered her phone,” he said, shaking his head. “She opened the back. The vamp is waiting outside. He’s not much to look at, but the Oracle has already confirmed he’s the right one.”

  “You spoke with Calliope?” I asked.

  “Not long. She and that Djinn vampire guy disappeared back down a dark hallway after locking the door behind us. Why?”

  “Jared is out of his mind with the other Djinn, both about to rip out throats if we don’t set up something to go for Manda. We’ve been trying to get a hold of Calliope, but she wasn’t answering her phone.”

  “We’re still going to go get that Djinn bitch?” Javier asked.

  “A deal is a deal. Asa gave us Naram. We have a chance to save Sanctuary because of it,” I reminded him.

  Javier shook his head and sighed. “It’s no good, esé. Xerxes has an army gathering south of town, over the rise. We need all hands on deck. It’s gonna rain blood in the morning.”

  “Let’s be sure it’s not our blood,” Diana said, her voice sharp and her eyes bright blue.

  The vampire snorted. “I’ll find one of the Lycans to start his tattoo. Morning comes, he’s gonna need to be able to move in the sunlight. Naram can do that, right?”

  I nodded. “I’ll speak with him. Tell Travis and Garrett to hurry. Perhaps they can work together. I know the tattoo usually takes hours to complete.”

  Javier waved a half-salute and turned to leave. “Will do,” he hollered before blurring from sight.

  “He’s just one more body. One more soldier,” Diana said, the exhaustion starting to show in her slumped posture.

  “We need more soldiers,” I answered. It was true. He might be another body. But another body in a war like this could tip the scale in our favor.

  She shook her head. “We still need another Protector to complete the spell,” Diana said, her voice slow and precise. “We have lost our mate and now our son. We have nothing left to give, Killían. If one of us dies, the other will turn on our friends. We would kill without discretion. Everything and everyone inside this castle would die by our hand, if not by the hand of Xerxes and his army. We are just as great a threat as he is…” Her voice trailed off as she walked to a window and stared up at the darkness.

  “We can’t get out now, can we?” I glanced up at Miles. His brown eyes glittered with the orange flame of his Dragon.

  “There are too many Djinn watching. We’re trapped now. Diana and I could fly out, but we’d only be able to take a few people with us.”

  “How could we choose which friends to take and which to leave? We will fight at your side, but you needed to know that if one of us falls, you have mere minutes to kill the other before we lose ourselves to our Dragon.” Diana placed both hands against the wall of the castle and took a deep breath. Loud snaps shattered the silence outside, then moonlight flowed through the windows of the room.

  The ice was gone.

  Which meant so was our shield. “Why take it down now?” I asked, trying to ignore the sickening feeling of dread creeping up my spine. We weren’t ready. Not yet.

  “We said we would fight. We promised,” Diana said. “But we need Naram at full strength, and he needs the unfiltered light of the moon to heal.”

  “He is the key to winning this war,” Miles growled.

  I swallowed down my fears and nodded. “To war.”

  The Dragons turned from me and embraced each other. I left the room, closing the door softly behind me. Eira stood a few yards away, down the hall. “How much did you hear, my love?”

  She gave me a half-smile and shrugged. “All of it.” She turned toward a window and stared up at the silhouette of the moon. “It’s good to see the sky. The moon will strengthen the Lycans as well. We needed the air. It is good she took down the ice.”

  “They said—” My voice caught in my throat, and I couldn’t finish. “If one of them…how do I? How do I murder a friend? I’ve killed so many through the centuries, but they all deserved to die. They’re asking me to…”

  Eira cupped my face and captured my gaze. “They’re asking you to protect their family. Protect those they adopted as their own. Miles and Diana are royalty. A king and a queen they have always and will always be. They worked with Rose, but they always took care of us like we were their people. Why do you think Rose entrusted the care of the Sisters to the Dragons. Bound them by an oath. She knew, if worse came to worst, they would not abandon those they considered theirs.

  “I don’t know how to fight Djinn,” I said, tucking Eira against my chest in a tight embrace. “How do you kill something that disappears beneath your blade?”

  “You hold it in place,” an unfamiliar male voice echoed through the hallway.

  My mate straightened in my embrace and pulled away to peer down the dark corridor.

  Two forms emerged from the dancing lamplight. Calliope first. Then the male vampire Djinn, Godric.

  “Tell your men to fight in groups of three—two to hold the victim and the last to cut off his head.”

  “Why do you help me slaughter your own?”

  Godric glanced away for a split second before looking me straight in the eye. “They fight for a monster. My people would not do such a thing. Calliope tells me Rose had a vault below the town. A vault filled with quppa boxes.” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “Those Djinn would fight against a monster.”

  I huffed out a surprised breath and glanced at Calliope. “How do you know they are there?”

  “Bailey saw them when she first arrived. That girl can’t hold her liquor, and I can be very persuasive.”

  “I’m sure,” Eira muttered beside me.

  “There are hundreds of them, Killían. Rose was apparently quite the collector,” Calliope continued. “We’re going to get Manda. We have to hold up our end of the deal.”

  “I know,” I answered. “Will you be back before sunrise?”

  “I hope so.”

  Something in her voice unsettled me, but I didn’t speak again. She and Godric retreated back into the shadows of the hallway, and I listened until I couldn’t hear their footsteps any longer. It felt like a goodbye. Eira touched my arm, bringing me back to the present.

  “We need to speak with Naram and then to the people in the castle. They must be prepared to fight as Godric instructed.”

  “I need you to go back to your bedroom—”

  “I will go for now, but if you don’t come back for me later tonight, I’m going to seek comfort in the first male arms I can find.”

  I clutched her shoulders and kissed her hard before sending her on her way with a firm swat to her delectable ass. “Don’t you even dare, my love.”

  Her hips swayed back and forth as she walked. I waited until the bedroom door clicked shut behind her before jogging down the long corridor the opposite direction. My heavy boots echoed loudly on the stones beneath them, probably waking everyone on this hall, but I didn’t care. Soon enough, we’d all be awake. Awake and fighting for the right to live.

  I stopped at the door to the suite the Dragons had given Naram.

  “Enter,” came a male voice. Deeper than I remembered Naram’s. I reached over my shoulder to grasp the hilt of my blade before opening the door and stepping inside, one foot at a time, giving myself time to scan the room.

  The man before me was not the Naram who had arrived at the castle this afternoon. This man stood nearly seven feet tall, as tall as Miles and just as broad. His skin glowed in the gas light; his brown eyes sparked with the same darkness I’d seen in Rose’s on several different occasions.

  “You don’t need a sword.” Naram gestured to my still-raised hand gripping the hilt of the sword on my back.

  I lowered my arm and took another step inside. “You’re…” I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  “Bigger?” He grunted out a half-laugh. “When the ice came down a few minutes ago, it was helpfu
l. The moon reflects sunlight. While it’s not as good as direct light, it’ll do, and I’m feeling much closer to my old self.” He held out his arms, and I cringed at the burnt flesh around his wrists. “Soon, even these wounds will heal.”

  “Do you have enough power to enchant a Protector’s tattoo? We’ve found the seventh, but he’ll be unable to fight in the morning unless—”

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. What is a Protector?”

  “The prophecy. The eight Protectors. The Sisters have visions of those that can be placed—”

  Naram snorted. “There’s no time for that nonsense. Xerxes will be moving in soon, am I right?”

  I grit my teeth through the second interruption. Nonsense? Did that mean the prophecy wouldn’t work? But I’d seen the ceremony. The magick it took for Rose to enchant Eira’s tattoo. I’d seen the Sisters’ have visions come true, including the one that had just brought us Protector number seven. It wasn’t nothing. It couldn’t be nonsense. “Can you do it or not?” I asked, crossing my arms and squaring my shoulders to Naram’s.

  His eyes flashed white for split second, and I felt a wave of magick swirl around my body. “Of course I can.” He growled and rolled his neck. “Lead the way, elf,” he said, gesturing to the door behind me. “I can enchant your Protector or anyone else you wish that has a magickal bloodline. It’s all for nothing, though; the spell won’t work. It’s just story Lamassu tell their children about how we’ll one day get back to Veil.”

  “But you know it?”

  “Yes,” he hissed. “I know it.”

  “You say anyone with a magickal bloodline. All the Protectors have witch blood in the ancestry somewhere. If we had an actual witch, could she be a candidate for the spell?”

  “You’d have to turn her into a vampire, but yes,” Naram said, his tone bitter and annoyed. “Willing to kill one of your own? Maybe your people here are more cutthroat than I first imagined.”

  What if Hannah could be the eighth? I wasn’t about to kill her though. He had that wrong.

  “You have witches in town, don’t you? But Rose wanted only those called by the Sisters. My wife was a purist. She believed all the legends and stories of our people. She thought fairytales were real. She thought we would be welcomed back as the rightful rulers if we could get to Veil.” Naram huffed out a snarl. “As if the Drakonae would simply step down from their throne and hand it to us.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go home,” I said, snapping more harshly than I meant at the hulking man walking next to me down a dimly lit hallway. “A great number of us wish for nothing more than passage back to Veil.”

  “Let’s just go see your seventh Protector, shall we? The old spell doesn’t work without eight, though, so I’m not sure how this will help you.”

  “There is a witch in town. I will speak with her and see if she’s willing.”

  “Willing to die? Become a blood drinking parasite? Take on the curse of the House of Lamidae? That’s a lot to ask a girl.”

  “What curse?” I stopped walking and grabbed his arm.

  Naram yanked away from my grip and stared down at me, his eyes flecked with white iridescence. “The legend says when the prophecy is fulfilled, the curse of visions will be lifted from the Sisters and transferred to the Chosen.”

  “The Chosen? The Protectors?”

  He nodded, and my stomach dropped to my feet. “What will that do to them?”

  “They’ll see things, I imagine. Magick like that can’t just be gotten rid of…magick is its own living entity. That’s why you can feel it around you at times, yes?”

  I nodded, quite aware of the control he had over magick and what it felt like swirling menacingly around my body.

  “Magick has to have somewhere to go. If it leaves one place, it must flow into another. If the spell were really to work, the legend says the Sisters would become human and the Chosen would become the new House of Lamidae, capable of wielding the power to open a gateway to Veil.” He started walking forward again, and I jogged a couple of steps to catch up with him before we descended the front staircase.

  “Why didn’t Rose tell us this? Why are you telling me?”

  “I loved Rose. I will always love her. She completed my soul. I will help you do whatever spell you want, but I’m going to be honest. My goal is to make my brother suffer and die in the worst way possible before I breathe my last. I will have vengeance for my mate, and the rest of you shouldn’t stick around to witness it.”

  I watched Naram go down the large staircase, anger in every step. One of the two most powerful supernaturals in the world. Just as lethal as Xerxes and possibly more blind to the world around him. And they were going to be face to face come sunrise. And from the sound of his warning, he was going to do something stupid.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Chapter 27

  GODRIC

  Calliope just stood there. Across the room. Staring at me.

  And weeping.

  Not uttering a sound, but tears flowed down her cheeks as if she were trying to fill the room with an ocean of salt water. Anything she could conjure to keep me from touching her. Every time I moved closer, she countered with a step away. Each step was like a stab to the chest with a butcher’s knife.

  She wanted me, but she was terrified of being with me. And what kind of father would curse his own daughter? What had he done to make her so—broken? I’d thought my family was messed up, but she was giving me a run for the title of most-screwed-up child. The ugly nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach said I’d only gotten the tip of the iceberg with her. She was hiding something. Something much worse.

  “You don’t have to do this alone. I’m here. I’m your mate. I’m not going to leave. I don’t know what happened to you in the past, but you’re mine, Calliope Hart, and I’m not giving up that easily.”

  Still nothing. She only stared. And the pain in my chest grew and expanded, digging its claws into me until it had spread over my entire body. The monster in me wanted to kill something to make it right for her, and the Djinn side of me just wanted to take her and hide her away somewhere safe. Somewhere she wouldn’t have to worry and live looking over her shoulder. Fuck what my sister needed. Fuck all of them in this castle. My mate needed me.

  But I didn’t take her.

  I couldn’t.

  I needed to follow through with what I’d started. I’d given my word, and that should mean something. I’d been cast from my family because they didn’t trust me. Leaving now would make me what they thought I was.

  “Godric, thank the gods I finally found you. Where the hell—” My sister’s voice cut through the silence of the room. I turned toward her, shocked to find a frightened red-headed woman in tow behind Asa. “Nevermind…”

  Asa glared first at Calliope and then at me, narrowing her eyes as if she were about to launch into one of her rants, but then her face released the tension, and she jerked the woman standing behind her forward. “I found the witch muttering to books in the library. We are ready to go get Manda. The last time I saw her, soldiers were taking her to the place they call the Pentagon. I’ve been there, but not inside. There are wards protecting that building like they have on this castle. No teleporting inside.”

  “How are we going to get her then?” I growled out, crossing my arms. Angry that I hadn’t had more time to get to the root of what had my mate terrified to touch me. Neither side of me liked that one iota, but I would deal with it soon. Right after I stole my niece from the Pentagon. Damn. “You know that used to be one of the most fortified buildings in the entire country.”

  “No. I didn’t,” Asa snapped back. “I was inside a Quppa box for the last few millennia.”

  “Look, I’m not sure what you think I’m going to be able to do, but I’m not that powerful,” the redhead said, her voice trembling.

  My sister snorted. “I can tell, but between you and the Siren, we should be
good. You know how to take down ward spells, yes?” The redhead nodded, and then my sister turned her unwavering focus on Calliope. “Sirens can amplify magick. When she casts to break the spell, you funnel your power into it.”

  Calliope wiped her cheeks and nodded.

  “What about the warded pieces on Manda’s body? We can’t teleport even once we have her, right?”

  “That’s where I come in,” a familiar male voice rumbled. Jared walked into the room, giving a subtle nod to my sister before focusing on Calliope. “You alright, Calliope?”

  Calliope straightened, flipping her long, nearly black tresses over her shoulder and gave him a smile that would’ve dazzled a mere mortal. “Good. Ready to do this.” She sounded perfectly put together, but I knew the difference. I could hear fear making her heart race. I could smell her tension in every bead of sweat on her brow. I could taste her sadness in the air through the tears she’d just wiped away.

  “Thank you for helping me,” the Phoenix said.

  “Do you think your fire will be hot enough to free her, Jared?” Calliope asked, her voice cool and collected, not revealing a shred of the chaos wrestling inside her body.

  “It’s the only chance we’ve got. Miles won’t leave Diana. And we don’t want to risk it, anyway. I’m the only one left that burns, so to speak.” He met my gaze. “Can we count on your help, Godric? With two Djinn working together, we’ll make progress faster.”

  I tipped my head. “I promised my sister I would,” I said, shifting my gaze to pin down Asa. She didn’t smile, but she didn’t yell at me, either, so that was progress. “Anyone else joining this party?”

  “The only other person who really gave a damn about Manda was Charlie.” Calliope released a sigh and let her shoulders fall just slightly. “She won’t leave her children.”

  “I don’t blame her,” I answered without hesitation. “Asa, you need to jump me there first so I get the location locked in, but first, we have to get outside the barrier protecting this castle again. Can we still use that back entrance?”