Gift of Darkness: Book 3 in The Vampire Pirate Saga

by Isadora Brown

  Sylvia led them to a drawing room down the hall. More red furniture—tacky, in Kelia's opinion. When they sat, the couch was stiff and uncomfortable.

  Kelia rolled her shoulders back and kept her chin up even though she wanted nothing more than to stick her head out the window and gasp for air. There was another chair, a small wooden coffee table, and a pianoforte tucked in the corner that appeared as though it had not been used in a long while. Dust crept up on the eggshell blue edges.

  She had the sudden urge to play a few keys, to hear the music, the way her mother used to play. It was one of the only memories of her mother she had, and she cherished it.

  From her vantage point on the stiff couch, Kelia saw the night was darker still, the moon nowhere in sight. Emma sat next to her while Daniella sat in the arm chair. Kelia drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch, trying to keep her patience. She was not certain if she wanted to get this over with because she wanted to figure out this whole business with her mother or because she wanted to breathe fresh air.

  At that moment, the door creaked open, and a good-looking man in gentleman's attire—pantaloons, polished leather boots, overcoat, and tunic, all pressed and fitting on his frame as though they were tailored for him—strolled in. He had an air of confidence, and when his gaze landed on Emma, a wicked grin danced across his face.

  "Hello, Emma, darling," he said in a rich baritone. He leaned his tall frame down to kiss Emma on both cheeks. "So glad to see you. Where is Drew Knight? Oh." He stepped back, nearly bumping his long legs into the coffee table behind him. "And who are these lovely ladies with you? Drew's concubines, no doubt."

  Both Daniella and Kelia opened their mouths. Kelia was ready to correct him, straightening up and narrowing her eyes, but Emma cut him off.

  "Actually, Grayson, we're here to place an order," Emma said. "I need a three-month supply of blood, to be delivered no later than tomorrow night. I know it's late notice, but we leave early the next morning."

  The man named Grayson smiled, reminding Kelia of a serpent.

  "Emma," he said, his voice smooth. "So good to see you. Come in. We can talk business after we catch up."

  Despite the charm that laced his voice, his words did not sound like a request.

  Chapter 9

  Drew Knight had never been prone to anger, but right now, in this moment, he was livid.

  After he’d prepared his boat to return to the island, he pored over the map from Hector's ship and lost track of time. When finally he realized an hour had gone by, he took a break to check on Kelia, only to find her gone.

  The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach was only made worse when he went to check on the boats and found one of them missing as well.

  His heart—something he never truly considered he actually had all this time of being dead—lurched in his throat. It was difficult to grasp air, though he did not need it any longer. Everything that seemed natural to him, everything he did regardless of whether he needed to or not, was suddenly difficult. His instincts escaped him. All he could think about was Kelia.

  Had the Sirens gotten to her? Was he too late?

  Part of him wanted to go to land, but he didn’t know how long it would take to find her. He could smell her, he knew her that well, but he had never drank her blood, which meant he could not get her exact location.

  And if she was beneath the depths of the water...

  Drew’s pacing was not enough. He started stomping, and before he knew it, he was belowdeck, in the supply room, throwing barrels and scaring the livestock. He screamed, before collapsing onto his knees, helpless. If he left and searched the island, word would get back to Grayson Briggs. Grayson could not know what Kelia was to him. It would nearly be as dangerous as Kelia falling into the lap of the Queen.

  A sheep emitted a noise, looking at him with a blank stare.

  Drew stared back at the animal. He needed to feed, and animal blood would not be enough. He should have fed. He shouldn’t have returned to the ship until he had eaten. Things began to make his mind hazy—things like emotion and feeling, and Kelia was to blame for it all.

  He gripped his dark hair in his long fingers and let out a breath.

  How pitiful the great Drew Knight had become. Reduced to a sinner, begging on his knees for the safety of the woman he had come to—

  What? Did Drew find himself in love? Was that what he was telling himself now?

  He nearly spit.

  Pathetic.

  He forced himself to stand. No one would reduce Drew Knight to a pile of liquid. He had promised himself he would never fall to his knees over a woman after what the Queen had done to him. And here he was again, a pathetic man in a beast's skin, walking with an arrogance he did not deserve to possess.

  He cleared his throat and nodded at the sheep. He would get his crew to clean up the supplies. And he would feed. He would feed now, even if that meant seeing Grayson Briggs. He was the only man who had control over the blood supply on the Island of the Damned. The bastard was like the unspoken governor. No one stepped foot on the island without Briggs knowing.

  Drew’s deepest urge was to search for Kelia, but he would force himself to ignore it. To take back the only thing left on this world that was his: his sense of self.

  Then, after he had satiated his hunger, he would find Kelia and get her as far away from this pitiful godforsaken spit of land as possible.

  Not because he loved her, but because she was part of his plan to kill the Queen. Nothing more. And he would prove it by making her wait for his rescue.

  Brigg Plantation, a tall building with three floors, was located adjacent to the docks, positioned so that any supernatural who required blood would be compelled to step inside before they retrieved any other trinket or concoction or pleasure from the island.

  Drew clenched his jaw as he looked up at the towering building. Candles flickered through the curtains. There was more than just the consumption of blood here. Briggs was a savvy businessman. Pairing the necessity of blood with the carnal pleasure of sex racked in a consistent profit.

  Drew had avoided this place as long as he could. He hated setting foot here. It always reminded him how young and naive he had been in his Infancy, after he severed his Bond and thought he could do whatever he wanted. Briggs was a bastard, always out for more coins. Always out for himself.

  The Queen had sent her children to retrieve him. If Wendy had not held them off, if Emma had not helped him escape, Drew knew his life would be much different. And Wendy would never have been captured by The Society.

  In due time, Drew would get his revenge on Briggs. In fact, in Drew's ledger, Briggs came just underneath the Queen.

  But now was not the time to think of that. Now was the time to feed and to plot. Briggs would get what was coming to him. Just not yet.

  Drew stepped toward the building. The billowing puffy smoke was always a sign of good business, but what was considered ‘good business’ here made Drew’s stomach churn.

  He reveled in the last few breaths of the crisp night air, for the minute he stepped into that place, he would be bombarded with women who wanted him to bestow pleasure with both his body and his fangs. So much so he would feel as though he was suffocating. He would be hit with a heavy aroma of lingering desperation and floral scents that never truly smelled floral at all.

  Drew used to live for that smell. At the time, he had associated the scent with desire, with pleasure, with everything he wanted as a young Shadow. Now, it reeked of past transgressions, ghosts that still haunted him, ghosts that he could not escape from.

  Just as he made to open the doors, two spritely women pushed them open. Both of the ladies were heavily painted, extremely exposed, and eying him as if he were something that could feed their own hunger.

  Before, when he had just been turned, he would feel flattered that such beautiful women would desire him. He was growing into his looks, into the new way he appeared to others because of what happened to him.
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  Now, he could see past the facade. He could see the wrinkles around their mouth, that crinkled their eyes. He could smell the smoke that lingered on their skin. These were not beauties; they only pretended to be so.

  "Drew," the first one said. "We worried you weren’t coming."

  "Your witch insisted you were indisposed," the second one said, not hiding her annoyance.

  Drew bit back a grin. He was not surprised to hear Emma had come on his behalf, but was pleased to hear she had been her blunt, no-nonsense self. It was always a treat when her attitude was not directed at him.

  "Come in, come in," they both beckoned.

  As Drew walked in, the flickering candles lit a path up the staircase to a variety of bedrooms, all decorated based on a theme the pleasure-seeker craved for the evening. There was a foyer with girls and women, still waiting to be used for the evening, all dressed in what was deemed as finery. But really, the clothes just made the wearer look cheap. Lacking.

  It was the facade Drew detested the most. When he’d patroned the Briggs plantation frequently in the past, he’d let himself buy into it, willingly turning a blind eye on how abhorrent the whole thing was. Returning here didn’t just disgust him with the establishment. It disgusted him with himself and forced him to remember the wrongs he had committed.

  If he had not needed blood, if he had known he could get it in another way...

  And yet, here you are, acquiring blood in this way, a voice flitting through his mind pointed out.

  Drew nearly growled. He knew the hypocrisy. He hated himself for indulging. But finding Kelia was much too important to let his newfound morals get in the way, and he would not be able to find her without something in his stomach.

  "What can we get for you, Drew?" The first woman curled up to his side. "Your witch and her friends are putting in your order with Grayson now, but perhaps—”

  "I'm sorry," Drew said slowly. He stopped heading into the foyer to look at the first woman as the second one closed the doors herself. "Did you say my witch had friends with her? Plural—as in not just one?"

  The first one nodded eagerly, batting her long eyelashes. "Yes," she said, her voice enthusiastic. "A scowling redhead and a blonde who blushed about as profusely as a virgin who’s never been around sex before.”

  "She hasn't," Drew muttered.

  "Oh, I did not know.” The woman laughed. “I guess I’m good at reading people. Like right about now, I bet what you really want—”

  “Is my witch with Grayson now, by change?” He curled his lips up into what he hoped was a charming smile.

  The woman nodded, smiling, as though she was happy to be able to assist. "Would you like me to take you to them?" she asked. "They're in the drawing room."

  She sounded so desperate, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

  "I can find my own way, thank you." He placed his hands together and tipped his head before spinning on the heel of his boot and heading down the hallway to the drawing room.

  His insides seethed with unbridled anger. He could not find it in himself to even speak. Them? As in, more than one witch was in there with Grayson? As he reached for the door handle to the drawing room, his hand shook.

  Just a second there, mate, a voice said in his mind. Do you really think it's the best decision—going in there stark-raving mad? Grayson would sniff you out in a second. Perhaps feeding will take off an edge. You could fill your belly quickly. There are plenty of women who want nothing more than for you to stick your fangs in their throats. Then, once you've calmed down, go back and find them still there. Show no hint of emotion. At least wait until you are safely back on your ship before you turn into the beast that you are.

  He considered he really might be stark-raving mad to be talking to himself in this way. Realizing his conscious had a point, he sucked in a breath and slowly released it, trying to gain the will to walk away. He was not a man of patience, especially when he suspected something untoward could very well take place in a moment's time, but as furious as he was, Kelia was capable, and Emma and Danielle were with her.

  He dropped his hand to his side and spun on the heel of his boot in order to head back to the foyer and find a woman to feed on quickly.

  It did not take long to find someone willing. He tried to dismiss the fact that the woman he’d chosen had blonde hair and ocean colored eyes. He hadn’t chosen her because that was what he desired; he chose her because he needed to feed quickly, and she was convenient.

  She certainly could not hold a candle to Kelia’s beauty. There were no freckles on her nose, her cheekbones were more sunken than sharp, and she was bony. When he selected her, she eagerly took his hand and led him up the stairs and down the familiar hallway.

  Nude pictures of beautiful women lined the halls, alluring and sensual. The carpet was the color of blood, pristine and like-new even though Drew knew this carpet had been here for many centuries.

  The woman dragged him into an open room and shut the door behind them. This theme reflected the evening. Everything was black. Candles flickered, giving the room a warm glow. She walked over to Drew, confidence in each step, before she reached him and pulled him down into a kiss.

  Drew broke from the kiss, placing his hands on her bare shoulders and stepping back.

  "Ah, I do apologize, darling," he said. "I think you may have misunderstood. I just want to feed."

  She stopped, tilting her head up and looking at him with wide, blue eyes. It startled him how much like Kelia's they looked in that moment. His breath got stuck in his chest.

  "You have a reputation here, Drew Knight," she said. "You feed and fuck through the night until you are forced to the sea. You tip well. Your reputation precedes you. Has something changed?"

  Drew swallowed and shoved another charming smile onto his face. He forgot about his reputation. Part of him hated his younger self for being so clumsy with how he was perceived. Sighing through his nose, he curled an errant strand of hair behind her ear. He could not be anyone but what they expected him to be. If he was, they would immediately suspect him of something. They would question the change. Hell, he was questioning the change.

  "I just have an appointment I need to keep," he said. For some reason, he could not stomach even the thought of taking her to bed. Part of him hoped he was becoming more selective when it came to carnal pleasure, but he knew. He knew he had no desire for anyone who was not Kelia. "The blood, if I may? The tip will be just as great as always, I assure you."

  She hesitated, but eventually nodded and pulled her hair over her left shoulder, exposing her neck. There was something decidedly intimate about feeding from her throat, something Drew had never noticed before in his years and years of feeding.

  Even as he stepped toward her, his body tensed. He did not want to do this. He wanted to stomp downstairs and rip open the door to the drawing room. He wanted to make sure Kelia, Emma, and even Daniella were all safe. He did not want Grayson Briggs to be interested in any of them.

  Especially not Kelia.

  But he needed sustenance. If he did not get it, he would not calm down. His emotions would run rampant, and he would completely lose control. His anger would bubble over, and Grayson would figure it out. And then he would have something more to hold over Drew.

  He couldn’t allow it.

  With that thought, he extracted his fangs and plunged them into the woman's neck. She let out a gasp before a small moan of pleasure spilled from her lips and she closed her eyes. Her blood tasted used, slightly salty, more sweet. Many Shadows must have fed on her before. But it was food. He did not require it to be perfect; all he cared about was satiating the blood lust.

  There were measures at the Plantation that prevented Shadows from losing control over themselves and draining their feeder to the point of no return—death or transformation—but Drew was old enough to know when to stop, well before those measures would come into play.

  When he was satiated, he gently squeezed the woman's sho
ulders and pulled his fangs from her neck. He licked the blood from his lips.

  She was tired, the way a woman was tired after an orgasm. She reached in her belt and pulled a wrinkled handkerchief and placed it over her neck.

  "Thank you," Drew said, releasing his hold on her. He took a step back and placed three silver coins on an ebony nightstand. The tinkle of the coins on the marble filled the silent room.

  "That's too much," the woman said, her voice slow and strained.

  "I promised I would tip well," Drew said with a wink. He opened the door. "I like to think I'm a man of my word."

  He stepped out feeling refreshed, feeling satisfied. There was a jovial spring in his step even though happiness was the last thing he was feeling. Urgency made his heart beat extra.

  So much for the feeding helping to calm him. Before he knew it, he was dashing down the stairs and all but breaking down the drawing room door.

  Chapter 10

  When the door slammed open, Kelia's head snapped to the entry as her entire body tensed. Her hand went to her hip, fingers grasping the hilt of her blade, prepared to defend herself if necessary.

  But as Drew slid inside, a frown on his sculpted face, her fingers eased from her blade. Her body, however, was still tense. His expression seemed passive, perhaps even annoyed, but she could tell there was anger burning in his dark eyes, simmering like a cooling fire, ready to start aflame at any moment.

  "Drew Knight!" Grayson stood from the couch, and Kelia wasn’t sure if he was genuinely excited to see the Shadow or if standing ensured Grayson could defend himself if need be. "I’d hoped I would be able to see you. Judging from the color in your face, I would say you fed. Did you do more than just eat, my friend?" He shot Drew a little wink. "And here I thought you kept the human as a feeder."