Blood Harvest (Blood Curse Series Book 12)

by Tessa Dawn

Braden dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Lord Monoceros.”

  It was time.

  Lord Monoceros knew it was time, and Braden was almost ready.

  Almost.

  Ready.

  Monoceros reached out his hand from beyond the veil, the dimension between planes and worlds, and spoke in a gentle but commanding brogue: “Trust me. Trust in the celestial deities. Trust in yourself, son—your wisdom, power, and goodness—and trust in your love for Kristina.”

  The astonished young vampire raised his head, and the gold pupils within his burnt sienna irises nearly glowed with warmth and curiosity. As Braden rose to his full six-foot-two height, Lord Monoceros could not help but appreciate the impressive adult male he was becoming: proud, broad shoulders; strong, defined musculature; and a powerful, stalwart chest that rose and fell with deep, even breaths. Even his naturally tanned, flawless complexion seemed somehow more mature, to say nothing of such exquisite, sculpted, more seasoned features.

  Braden took a graceful step toward the arc between the curtains, and the cotton voile cloth which girded his waist cascaded as he strode forward, revealing lean but powerful thighs beneath the hem of the diaphanous skirt. “I don’t understand,” he said, reaching out to accept Lord Monoceros’ proffered hand, yet stopping just short of crossing the threshold…piercing the veil by stepping beyond the curtains.

  Lord Monoceros flashed a compassionate smile. “Not yet, but you will. Until now, I have asked you to remember and choose—we, the celestial bodies, have bid you to remember and choose—we have shown you the past, and you have collected your due, several badges of honor, earned along your journey. But now…” With a gentle tug on Braden’s hand, he slowly glided backward in the hopes of ushering the vampire forward. “But now, I must show you more than your past—I must show you the present and once again bid you to make a choice: You may go on from here into the Valley of Spirit & Light, or you may return to Dark Moon Vale.”

  As curious as Braden seemed—as curious as he was—Lord Monoceros fully understood that the exceptional young male was also highly intuitive—they had fostered him to be so—and he was feeling a familiar pit in his stomach, a terrible sense of foreboding. His arm still extended, his hand still linked with Lord Monoceros’, Braden took a deep breath for courage and passed beneath the curtain.

  Good lad.

  When nothing happened, Braden cocked both brows and waited for the celestial god to instruct him.

  “Close your eyes,” Monoceros said.

  Braden closed them slowly, and the celestial deity sent three haunting visions, one at a time, into the vampire’s occipital lobe, allowing each to play out in clear, concise succession: First, Prince Jadon standing on a festive stage in Napolean’s lantern-lit courtyard, challenging Prince Jaegar to a lethal battle, “brother against brother, winner take all.”

  Lord Monoceros allowed the vision to linger, to be fully processed and understood, before introducing the second: Kristina, wearing a wet, raspberry wine-colored skirt, huddled like a fearful child, arms around her knees, on a large brass bed in an underground chamber. Once again, he paused to let Braden sort the information, and then he peered into his thoughts to make sure the vampire understood the vision, clearly.

  Dear gods, she’s in the Dark Ones’ Colony! Braden decried inwardly.

  Precisely, Lord Monoceros reflected.

  With great regret, yet greater sense of purpose, Lord Monoceros flooded Braden’s lobe with the third and final vision: a beautiful female, lying in repose, dressed in an elegant burial robe of lavender and ivory, her hands gently folded across her midriff while resting upon a soft antique pillow embroidered in cross-stitch.

  Braden jerked back as if Lord Monoceros had just burned him, snatching his hand away and instantly breaking the connection: Is this some kind of a joke? he thought. He blinked several times, and then his knees began to buckle.

  Lily!

  My mother…

  Mamica!

  As Braden hit the ground and scrabbled backward, Lord Monoceros could not help but notice that he literally kicked up earth with his heels in his hurry to scurry to the other side of the curtains, and worse than that—far worse than his immediate desire to flee—Lord Monoceros could also feel the young vampire’s heart breaking. “Yes,” Monoceros whispered, moving to block Braden’s path of retreat. “Slain by Prince Jaegar.” He paused to infuse as much healing empathy into his voice as possible. “I am so very sorry, Braden.”

  Braden collided with the celestial god’s legs and pushed hard against the hallowed barrier. When Lord Monoceros didn’t budge, he dug his nails into the ground and snarled. “No!” He whipped around, sprang to his feet, and landed in a crouch. Then he raised his head, his eyes emblazoned with stark, desperate dread and feral anger, even as he squared his shoulders to the celestial god in challenge. “What the fuck is this!” He stood up slowly. “Fix it! Undo it. Send me back, ten minutes earlier, right before it happens.”

  Lord Monoceros remained as placid as still water—the lad would need his strength. “I cannot.”

  Braden glared at him, incredulous. “You can! You’re a god, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Then please…please! You don’t understand—my mother doesn’t deserve this. She never meant any harm, not to anyone, and it took us all this time, all these years, to finally work things out…to finally understand each other. You know that! You know what it took me to forgive… You know how badly I needed her love, and now, I finally have it. I finally have it! Please, Lord Monoceros, send me back, before her…murder. Let me fix it or let me die trying. Please.” He waited with wide, hopeful eyes and bated breath.

  Lord Monoceros placed his hand on Braden’s trembling shoulder. “Look at me, son.”

  Braden’s eyes were so stricken…so haunted.

  “Trust me when I tell you, I would never have wished this for you, but what has happened cannot be undone.”

  “But why not?”

  “Braden—”

  “You saved Tiffany Olaru! I mean, the goddess Andromeda saved Tiffany for Ramsey, after she was slain in the Tall Pines Village Park by Tawni Duvall. Andromeda turned back the hands of time so that Ramsey could get a do-over.”

  Lord Monoceros shook his head. “That was different.”

  “How?”

  “Because the dark lord Ademordna challenged the laws of creation when he reanimated Salvatore Nistor: He created a rift in the cosmos, a tear reaching back as far as time immemorial, threatening to unravel the very threads of life as we know it. One cannot undo the design of the universe without also undoing the laws…undoing their own existence…nay, even undoing the gods. Andromeda stepped in to protect All That Is. Not to favor Ramsey.”

  Braden winced in pain, realizing his argument was futile. “Please…” His voice, nothing more than a faint, hushed whisper, he had to say it anyway—he had to try at least one more time. “Please.”

  “Braden, listen to me carefully, son. This night, Prince Jaegar and Prince Jadon will meet in the Red Canyons at three a.m. to engage in a final, determinative battle. Should Prince Jadon prevail, he will save the celestial princesses, Ciopori and Vanya—he will save Kristina Riley Silivasi, your intended—but should he fall, their lives will be forfeit. The warriors and sentinels will try to save them, but I fear they cannot. What I have given you this night—what I have shown you in this forest—is the most powerful weapon of all, but the choice is yours. You may join your mother in the Valley of Spirit & Light, allow events on earth to unfold as they will, and no one will blame you…hold it against you. Or you may return to your body at a pre-appointed time, determined by the waning of the Millenia Harvest Moon, and fight for the house that you love…the female you love…step into your preordained purpose. I am giving you the choice to walk away from this destiny or to collect one final emblem, the badge of trust: to trust me, to trust the celestial deities, to trust yourself, and above all else, to trust in your love for
Kristina. As always, you retain free will, but what I will not do—what I cannot do—is restore your mother’s soul to her body. You must think it over and decide. Remember and choose.”

  Lord Monoceros’ words may as well have drifted into the ether like smoke from a banking campfire: thin, wispy, and swiftly dispersed.

  Braden couldn’t comprehend any of it.

  He couldn’t catch the celestial god’s meaning before it floated away, dissolved into air, and scattered as distant particles of…nonsense, lost to the atmosphere.

  His mother was gone, and the celestial deity could not bring her back.

  What would become of Dario…and Conrad?

  What would their family’s future look like?

  And that was assuming Braden could even prevail in a battle against Prince Jaegar—no, not Prince Jaegar—an eventual battle against Achilles Zahora.

  Oh, gods…

  And Kristina?

  Why was she in the Dark Ones’ Colony, unless…

  Unless…

  Oh, fuck…

  Achilles Zahora.

  Still, what had Lord Monoceros given Braden in the forest—what had the Tree of Light really shown him? What could he possibly possess now that he didn’t possess before, that would give him any chance in hell of prevailing in that kind of a battle? Other than a satchel full of silver badges and one single sparring session, where he had learned to wield some energy… Braden could never defeat Achilles.

  He sank to the earthen floor, drew his knees to his chest, and wept.

  He hated for Lord Monoceros to see him like this, to witness his true inherent weakness, but Lily…his mother…Mamica!

  And Kristina too?

  It was just too much…

  Way too much.

  The celestial gods had chosen the wrong vampire.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dark Moon Vale ~ 3:00 a.m.

  The Red Canyons were shaped like a long, narrow ribbon, nearly fifty miles in length, on the westernmost end of Dark Moon Vale. On the far northern end of the expansive gorge, one would find the house of Jadon’s illustrious Academy, Mineral Plant, and the distal back acreage of Napolean’s compound. On the far southern end, one would discover the tattered ruins of the Dark Ones’ Sacrificial Chamber, the series of caves where the descendants of Jaegar once routinely carried out the hideous ritual of ushering new sons into the world, whereby their innocent, tortured mothers would die wretchedly upon giving birth. Auspiciously named by the early settlers the densest forest in the vale—which flanked the ribbon for miles and miles, jutting east of the canyon—was collectively called the Valley of Shadows, and the flatter, more arid land to the west denoted the staggered border of the Vampyr’s valley, where the public lands ended and private lands began.

  Now, standing on the valley floor—in the center of the canyon and across from his twin brother, Jaegar—Prince Jadon glanced upward at the high, rocky crevasse, the eastern shelf of the towering ribbon, and watched as Princess Vanya and Princess Ciopori perched on the rocks, each one seated before a member of the Colony Guard, their legs left to dangle off the precarious edge of the cliff.

  He held his breath for a moment and tried to slow his breathing.

  He knew—or at least he believed—no one would touch his sisters until the battle was over.

  But they were so far away from their mates…from the Master Warriors…

  So far away from Prince Jadon.

  And Kristina…

  She was seated several yards to Jadon’s right, several yards removed from the princesses and further back from the ledge, but also flanked by a member of the Colony Guard, the male called Zeus. As it appeared, it was not Zeus’ job to slay her but to retrieve her, should the battle go in Prince Jaegar’s favor, and knowing this only added one more element of concern for Prince Jadon—it further heightened his tension.

  At least, Prince Jadon thought, should he blessedly prevail, Ramsey would no longer need to hunt a Dark One to ascertain Kristina’s whereabouts through torture, and the king, the tracker, and Santos Olaru would no longer have to enter the old sacrificial tunnels in a perilous mission to rescue the captured female. She was right there, out in the open.

  “Gods be merciful,” Prince Jadon whispered beneath his breath, knowing that both Julien and Ramsey had now been charged with a far more lethal duty, and he turned his head to examine the opposite side of the cliffs, where Oskar Vadovsky and Salvatore Nistor knelt before the two powerful sentinels, each awaiting their fate based upon the outcome of the battle. Much like Kristina, the council chair and the sorcerer were also seated on the edge of the high bluff, only abutting the western ledge, opposite the princesses, and miles away from their dark, supportive brethren. It was as if the battle were taking place on the floor of a grand, organic, earthen opera, and the VIP theater boxes, on both sides of the auditorium, were filled with the eventual spoils of war.

  Prince Jadon didn’t like this at all.

  But the princesses had agreed to the stakes—to be the stakes—and Prince Jaegar had insisted upon fighting for the females. It was the one condition the entire battle had been predicated upon: He would only fight for the right to slay his sisters; anything less, and the ante would not have been high enough to seal the devil’s bargain.

  In truth, the dark prince had been right not to trust the house of Jadon.

  Prince Jaegar had probably known all along that the house of Jadon had no intentions of honoring the wager, that the moment Jadon fell—if he fell—Napolean’s warriors would rush in to save the females. And it had been equally hard to object to the rules of the gambit as the Dark Ones were willing to turn Oskar and Salvatore over, prior to the battle, so that the house of Jaegar could not easily interfere in the dark vampires’ swift execution, should the gods grant favor to the nobler prince and allow him to prevail in combat.

  “Please let me prevail,” Jadon whispered, considering the flip side of the same treacherous coin: Of course, Prince Jadon got it—treachery flowed two ways. The Dark Ones had no sincere intention of keeping their end of the bargain, either. Should Prince Jadon prevail, they would be just as likely to try to rush in and save the chairman and sorcerer.

  He rolled his shoulders to release some tension.

  His heart was pounding like a medieval tabor, causing his chest to ache.

  Calm down, Jadon, he told himself. Vampires can travel very, very quickly, and your sisters are warded—well protected—shielded in their hidden, enchanted breastplates. If the Dark Ones try to pierce their backs or retrieve their hearts, the effort will be instantly and magically thwarted.

  Despite the piteous, existential attempt at self-reassurance, nothing could mitigate the fact that Ciopori and Vanya’s throats were fully exposed to the Dark Ones’ blades—

  Stop it, Jadon!

  So be it…

  It is as it is.

  It only means there is no room for error…

  Prince Jadon could not make any mistakes.

  He took a deep, cleansing breath, then watched…and waited…as a host of the house of Jaegar’s soldiers pushed forward, crowding behind the guards and the females like an army of devilish black-and-red fire ants swarming atop the eastern cliffs, possessed with bloodlust and equally determined to slay the detested queen ants. Then he watched…and waited…as the much smaller but far more fearsome force of warriors from the house of Jadon gathered along the western cliffside—beside and behind Ramsey and Julien—their eyes fixed forward, alert, and trained decidedly on the canyon floor.

  As the Millenia Harvest Moon waned—only a third of the soft, glowing reddish orb could now be seen in the midnight-blue sky, illuminated by distant, fading starlight—the silence in the canyon grew deafening. Indeed, all would be listening, even more than watching, to hear one of the princes’ hearts stop beating, the sound that would signal the end of the battle and clearly delineate the victor.

  The smell of pine and juniper filled the air in the theater.

>   A cool, noiseless breeze swept through the ominous canyon.

  And electricity rose and fell as Niko and Jankiel called upon the powers of the celestial deities to bathe the ribbon in a hazy, dim light, sealing, insulating, and protecting the valley’s humans from the destructive forces of nature and the devastating effects of vampiric emotion.

  It was done.

  The stage was set and ready.

  And the stakes could not be higher.

  Facing his evil twin for what, perhaps, would be the last time in his existence, Prince Jadon drew Napolean’s Sword of Andromeda and watched silently as Prince Jaegar drew a broadsword of his own.

  Her hind end resting on the back of bare heels, Kristina sat forward on her knees, five or six feet from the edge of the cliff, and wrung her hands in her lap.

  She couldn’t look.

  She wouldn’t look.

  Oh, hell…

  Shit!

  She had to look.

  Zeus’ hot, rancid breath was like damp, sticky steam wafting along the back of her neck, and the cold breeze was carrying the scent to her nostrils, almost making her gag. She turned her head to the side and glanced toward the princesses, hoping to both avoid the stench and catch Ciopori or Vanya’s eyes, but both horrified females were staring forward and down, transfixed by the battle—or the tragedy—about to unfold on the canyon floor.

  Dear gods, this wasn’t happening!

  Kristina narrowed her gaze and leaned forward.

  She squinted her eyes to get a better look at Prince Jadon, only to realize if she could just relax—just enough to manipulate a bit of her energy—she could use her supernatural vision instead. She could dial the battle in…and out…as needed.

  She concentrated on her breathing and tried again.

  Unbelievable…

  Prince Jadon Demir was really, truly…alive.

  Or at least reanimated for a time.

  And he was standing on the valley floor, opposite Prince Jaegar, in an ivory pair of trousers, high leather boots, and a ruffled, long-sleeved tunic, with sleeves bound at the wrists. Draped around his strong, broad shoulders, he wore a shimmering gold cloak—Fabian or one of the wizards must have fashioned it for him with magic—and Prince Jaegar was dressed the same way, only his trousers and his tunic were as black as his soulless eyes, his uniform matched his thick, wavy hair, and his cloak was deep bloodred.