by Ines Johnson
“Thought so,” she scoffs. “You may call me Zahara.”
“Zahara, you want to tell me what I’m doing here? What is this prophecy?”
“It has nothing to do with you. Those idiots brought the wrong man.” She rubs her hands over her forehead. The lines there don’t smooth under her touch; they remain creased, as if she carries the weight of the world there.
“Fine,” I say. “Let’s just tell them that and then they can let me go.”
Zahara drops her hand and she cocks her head to the other side. The chit looks like she only just entered her twenties. I have centuries on her, but I’m left feeling as though my suggestion is foolish.
“That’s not the plan,” she says.
“Want to clue me in on what the plan is? I may be able to help.”
Again, she scoffs, the lines on her face making deeper grooves. “Why would I send a man to do a woman’s job? What I need from you is to get on the bed.”
I look at the dusty mattress on the ground, then back at her. Is she expecting me to fuck her? It would make sense. Talk of a prophecy. Cursed lands. She is likely the virginal sacrifice. Too bad my dick had no desire to get it up for anyone but Marechal.
“I’m not going to sleep with you.”
Zahara snorts as she looks me up and down, obviously finding me wanting. “That’s rich, coming from you. Your reputation has reached even as far as Central America, Lord of the Lash.”
I wince at the use of the moniker. When I open my mouth, Zahara holds up her hand to indicate she’s not done talking.
“Marechal Durand is one of the good ones. She deserves better than a player like you.”
“She not good; she’s the best. I’m a better man because of her. I want to be everything that woman needs. So help me get back to her.”
Zahara studies me again. I’m not certain if this perusal has earned me a reassessment.
“The only way back to your girlfriend is through me.” She waves her hands over her barely covered private area. “However, I have no intention of being some exotic sacrifice to a white man. This isn’t Disney’s Pocahontas.”
“I’m not white. I’m from Gaul.”
She frowns as though that historical detail matters. “We’re going to pretend we’re doing the deed.”
“You mean have sex?”
The grooves dig further into her forehead as she sighs. “Please let there be some brain cells in that pretty little head of yours. We…” she points between the two of us, “are not getting horizontal. You’re not the right one. If we have sex, it won’t break the curse.”
There is a part of me that wants to understand the curse and the prophecy that will break it. This business has been my life for centuries, I don’t want it to fail. But a larger part of me needs to be free of this place and get back to Marechal. She is all that I can see of my future. If I follow along with Zahara’s plan, she could get me closer to the bigger goal. Then, once we’re free, I can find out more about the mystical mayhem going on.
“We’re going to act like it,” she’s saying. “We’re going to make sex noises, rumple the sheets, make it believable. You know; a little oohhh and ahhh.”
“Have you ever even had sex?” I ask. Her cries are the most unenthusiastic I’ve ever heard. Whatever her future, it won’t be in the porn industry.
My critique sobers her up. Her eyes flash at me. The cat in her is ready to come out, claws blazing.
“My hymen is my business. A woman’s virginity is not a prize. Maybe I fucked all of Central America. Maybe I’m saving it for a special man. But that man is not you. So get your mind out of my panties.”
“You’re the one who’s miming fake sex and lame orgasms. I give mind-blowing sex and screaming orgasms, if you want to know.” It’s a point of professional pride. Even though I’m turning in my membership card at Club Toxic, I still have a reputation to protect.
“I don’t want to know,” Zahara hisses. “I don’t need to know. We just need to make those males out there believe.”
“And then they’ll let us out?”
Zahara bites her lip, not meeting my gaze. “They’ll let me out. You, they’ll try to kill.”
“Right. I’m not exactly on board with your plan.”
“That’s why we’ll need to act fast.” She pulls a dagger from under the mattress. “My sisters will be at the ready once I give the signal.”
“You would kill your own people?”
“The men out there are not my people. All they want is this land. And they’re going to try and use my womb to get it.”
“Your womb?” So this prophecy is a step beyond virginal sacrifice. It requires the birth of a child as well. “You know vampires can’t have children?”
“Shows how much you know.”
Zahara steps onto the bed and begins to jump up and down while making grunting and groaning noises. I stare, aghast. It’s the worse porno I’ve ever witnessed in my life. And I am its costar.
31
Marechal
When Cari was teething, she was a nightmare. She would wail, her little mouth open wide as those first teeth broke her swollen gums and pushed through. Once the first couple were through, her toothy smile could brighten anyone’s day.
Those teeth are flashing at me now. Fear should stab my heart. Horror should pierce my consciousness. My beautiful, bright baby sister has become a monster. The little girl I’ve cared for all her life looms over me, preparing to take my life from me.
Behind me, Arneis bellows. It is a gut-wrenching demand for Cari to stop. An agonizing cry for her to come to recognize her sister, her family.
My senses sharpen as my life flashes before my eyes. The smell of dying berries is the first thing that penetrates my consciousness. I see Arnei and Cari barefoot as they stomp grapes in a barrel, while I tinker with the valve that collects the juices. I hear Arneis reciting a speech for a student election while Cari watches cartoons. Sound is all around me but my gaze is focused in the lens of my microscope. In another memory, I’m at dinner with my brother and sister, but my thoughts are on my wine glass which holds a competitor’s blend. I can’t remember a single word of what my siblings said that night, but I can remember the notes of the wine.
I have always been there for my siblings. What I haven’t been is present, in the moment, tuned in to them. Because I didn’t know how. It was Gaius who taught me that. He just had to tie me down to do it.
Cari has slipped Hadrian’s grasp. She’s dodged around Virius, faster than my human eyes could perceive. And now she’s on me.
My back impacts the ground hard. I wince. I open my eyes to see my sister above me.
Her eyes are glowing with an otherworldly light. Her teeth gleam in the moon’s glow. I think back to that baby and her first teeth. She’d bitten me then. I’d scowled at her. But then she’d laughed, and I’d forgiven her.
This time, I don’t think I’ll survive my sister’s bite. She’s a vampire. I don’t understand how this can be. But it is.
She is a creature of the night. So is her husband, whose eyes are also shining bright. So is Virius, with a dribble of pouch blood on his chin. So must be Gaius.
I should feel powerless at this moment. I don’t. All I feel is the need to protect my family, like always. To make sure they have everything that they might need in this world. And if that need is my blood, then so be it.
I reach my bloody hand up to Cari’s face. Her nose twitches as I run my fingertips over her cheek. Her lips quiver as I cup her chin in my palm.
She leans into my hand and closes her eyes. Her nostrils flare as the blood trickles down the fleshy part of my palm. Cari’s fangs protrude further from her gums.
She doesn’t cry as she did as a teething baby. She doesn’t smile, either, but I can’t help noticing that she is just as beautiful and bright now as when she was a tiny thing in my arms. And then she is flying off me.
Hadrian has her in his arms. He turns her so that she is caught ag
ainst his chest. He steps back from me, but I can hear Cari crying.
That’s what guts me. Not the knowledge that my vampire sister was about to rip out my throat. The sound of her torment that she’d nearly done it.
“I almost did it,” Cari whimpers.
“But you didn’t,” Hadrian soothes. “You are so strong. My strong girl.”
Hadrian strokes her hair, petting her as though she were a pet. His hold on her is absolute, like she is a precious gem that he will never be parted from.
I sit up, the world spinning a bit as I do. I look for my brother, who is trying to break out from behind the wall of Virius’s outstretched arms. I look back to my sister, whose shoulders shake with tearful misery.
“Cari?”
She doesn’t raise her head. She won’t look at me.
“Cari, I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me.”
I place my feet underneath me but am still a bit wobbly from my multiple falls. Virius comes to me. He rips his shirt up and bandages my hand.
“Look, Cari.” I hold up my covered hand. “It’s all gone. I’m fine.”
Her shoulders stop shaking. She tucks her chin to her chest. She doesn’t look directly at me. I can only see her profile.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
“Tell you what?” She sniffles. “That I died and came back a vampire? I figured you’d get pissed.”
“I am pissed.” I turn my gaze to Hadrian. “You didn’t even ask me for her hand, yet you saw fit to take her life.”
At least the man—scratch that. At least the vampire has the good sense to look cowed. I may have just had the near-death epiphany that I needed to to be more present for my family. But that doesn’t mean I’ll back down in the bossiness level.
“Hadrian, you and I are going to have a talk about that,” I say.
Cari lifts her head then. She gives Hadrian the smirk she used to give Arneis when they were in trouble and knew a punishment from their big sister was coming.
“You’re taking this all very well, Mare,” says Cari.
No. I am in shock—likely with a heavy helping of denial. Vampires are real. What next? Will the Easter Bunny rise up on its haunches and walk over with a basket of bunny eggs?
“We’re going to all have a sit down and talk about this over breakfast,” I say.
“Um, Mare,” says Cari, fully facing me now as she wipes the tears away. “We don’t do sun. Allergy.”
Right. Looks like my family as well as the vineyard will be switching to a nocturnal schedule. My family has now doubled in size. And the males now outnumber the females. That will be different.
“So, bedtime soon for you three,” I say, looking at the moon as it dips lower in the sky. “Where is Gaius?”
“He’s not with you?” asks Hadrian.
“He left when Arneis came. That was over an hour ago. I assumed he was coming home.”
“He’s here.” Virius’s nose is lifted to the sky, like a bloodhound catching a scent.
“He’s not in the house,” says Cari, her gaze scanning the darkened house as though she can see all.
“Viri is right,” says Hadrian. “He’s here. On the property. But his scent… it’s far away.”
Cari lifts her nose to the sky along with Hadrian and Virius. And then, in unison, all three of their gazes drop to the ground.
“Do you smell that?” asks Virius, his eyes glowing bright.
“I do,” says Cari. “Whoever she is, she smells delicious.”
“Whoever she is she has Gaius,” says Hadrian.
A growl sounds in the night. It comes from Virius. “Whoever she is, she’s mine.”
32
Gaius
“Ahhh… ohhh… Oh my gods, Gaius, I never knew it could be like this.”
I lean against the opposite side of the doorway as I watch Zahara bounce on the bed. She looks like a kid staying up late at a sleepover. Nothing like the porn star getting her back blown out that she’s pretending to be.
“Don’t stop.” She bangs her hands against the rock face wall. “Don’t stop. Ahhh.”
I moan at the performance. It does not do my abilities any justice. Just as I’m about to launch a formal protest, I hear movement from outside.
Zahara’s eyes flash bright. She moves off the mattress. Her bare feet are quiet as she prowls across the room.
Though her feet are quiet, her mouth is not. She continues to make the cooing sex sounds. To me, she sounds like a cat in heat. An apt description, considering her animal nature.
She motions to me with her hand as she comes to one side of the door. I move into place at the other. But Zahara is still motioning. She points at her mouth, still making the mewling sounds, and then at my mouth. I groan but acquiesce.
“There you go, baby. Take my long cock all the way into that sweet pussy of yours as I fill it with my seed.”
Zahara chokes on her mewls. Then she gags. Her face contorts into absolute horror and disgust.
What did she expect? I’m not an actor. My performance is based on real-life events. And it looks like my rendition has produced results.
The door begins to move. The fake sex reaches a climax as we both hold our breath. Up overhead, the moon is no longer sending light down the shaft. Sunrise is likely only an hour away. Or less.
A sliver of torchlight illuminates the cave. The crack opens wider. A hand reaches in. I grab it. I pull the man inside and crash his body against the wall.
“Zahara,” shouts the male, “take him.”
But Zahara doesn’t take me; she takes the man. The male shifter has half a foot on her, but she still manages to wrap her claws around the back of his neck and pull his back flush to her chest. Her dagger is at his throat as she frogmarches him out of the room.
“Move,” she commands.
I see five other males just outside the door. All of their gazes are menacing. All of their sharp claws are ready to tear flesh.
I am equal parts lover and fighter. Five women, I could please with some effort. Five males would be hard to kill on my own. Not to mention having to look out for a small female shifter with a sassy mouth and only a dagger.
“I never would’ve guessed it,” says the captive leader. “You were always so frigid, but you get a little dick in you and it turns your pretty head.”
“Of course you would think this was his idea,” Zahara says, jerking her head back to me.
It galls me to stand behind a woman when violence is afoot, but unlike the male shifters, I can see that this pretty little head has thought all of this through.
“You let a colonizer in between your thighs and you forget your people, your mission.”
I want to argue that I was born before the French sailed to the Americas. But that argument isn’t paramount now. The sun’s rays are waking, and I have to get on the other side of these men to get out of here.
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten my mission, Hok’ee,” says Zahara.
“Then take this dagger off my neck and point it at the leech.”
The males surrounding us dig in their heels. None of them ball their fists. All splay their claws, ready for attack. But in their ready focus on the scene before them, they aren’t looking behind them.
“This land belonged to our ancestors,” Hok’ee goes on. “The white man stole it. But with your royal blood and this demon’s seed, you will birth the Midnight Son and the land will become fruitful again. The prophecy says so. We can be rich.”
“That’s your problem, Hok’ee,” said Zahara. “This has never been about the land for us.”
“Us?”
Behind the men, dozens of cat eyes flash in the darkness. The women pounce on the males. Some turn fully into their animal forms of tawny yellow and black spots, or reddish-brown and black spots. The women outnumber the males, and the fight is over before it really began.
Zahara steps around Hok’ee, who was left unmarred, just a tiny prick at his neck from her dagger. Hok’ee drops t
o his knees, along with his other men.
“You really thought I was going to let you use my body for your gains?” Zahara scoffs as she cleans her dagger on the white shift she’s wearing. “Misogyny is the colonialism of the twenty-first century.”
If my heart wasn’t already taken, I’d have a boner for her. There is nothing like the smell of a strong woman. My nose twitches as I catch the scent of another strong woman coming into the cave.
Marechal. She is here. But how?
Then I smell my brothers alongside Marechal’s sweet scent. My entire world appears at the mouth of that cave. My brothers, my new siblings, and the love of my life.
But a pack of jaguar shifters stands between us, their claws unsheathed and ready to fight.
33
Marechal
So, vampires aren’t going to be the only shock to my system tonight. There are big cats transforming into women before my eyes. It takes the meaning of being a cat lady to a whole new level. But I’m prepared to step through them because Gaius is on the other side.
As I take a step, I hear a low hiss coming from both animals and females. Upon closer inspection, these are not simply big pussycats that would sit in a ray of sunlight from the window. These are jaguars, with sharp claws and pointy teeth.
“Lay a claw on her, and all bets are off.”
I would never have suspected that such menace could come from Gaius Serrano’s silky tone. From across the room, his eyes flash pure threat and destruction.
“I’ll stay if you let them go.”
His gaze is on me but he’s talking to a woman standing at his side. I peer into the dimly lit room and make out Zahara. She isn’t looking at Gaius. Her gaze is dead set on me.
“I already told you,” she says, “you’re not the one I want.”
Zahara takes a step forward. The pack of women and big cats part to let her pass. Beside me, I feel movement. Virius, who had been standing in front of me like a shield, steps forward as well. His movements are stilted, as though he’s being pulled to Zahara by some unseen force.
