Gift of Darkness: Book 3 in The Vampire Pirate Saga

by Isadora Brown

  The surface of the moving ocean rocked the Wraith like a mother might rock her newborn to sleep, and Kelia’s soul felt content—still, but satisfied—as though no one could get to her.

  When it came to Drew, she was safe. She always had been. But things hadn’t always been like this. Something in their relationship had changed. What that was, and how that affected them, she was not certain. All she knew was that she enjoyed what had happened between them and that she found herself longing to do it again.

  "My God," she murmured to herself. "What would Jennifer say?"

  Kelia’s heart ached. Even though Jennifer betrayed her at the very end, Kelia could not help but feel conflicted. The Society attempted to kill Jennifer. From that point, Kelia had no idea what happened with her because she was reduced to a Sightless, which separated her from other Slayers. Had Jennifer gone to the Society? Had they gone to her? Either way, Jennifer was still there, very much alive.

  Kelia let out a shaky breath and forced her gaze to the ocean. She didn’t want to think about the Society or any of the Slayers at all. Not when she finally felt happy.

  Something moved in the ocean. Kelia blinked and looked again. She could have sworn she had seen a fin. Did dolphins really swim this close to the shore?

  It could be a siren.

  Kelia took a step back, and the tail flicked to the surface again. This time, she was certain it wasn’t a dolphin. Shiny, dark green scales glimmered pink and blue under the moonlight. At just the edges of her consciousness, a familiar song played, sweeping all other thoughts and memories from her mind.

  Something inside of her pressed forward, even though a small voice shouted at her to step away, to go back to Drew, to be safe.

  But that voice of warning was so far away, so muffled, that the thought never fully formed in her mind. Instead, she grabbed the wooden bannister and leaned over the side to get a look at the beautiful sea creature.

  At that moment, a familiar face appeared directly in front of her.

  A Siren. Elise.

  Panic flooded into her mind. The siren’s song cut short as she snapped out from under its spell.

  But it was too late.

  "There you are," Elise said, her tail still in the water, but her long, lean torso out so she could meet Kelia. "You reek of Shadow. I take it you finally gave yourself to Drew Knight then?" She tsked Kelia, though there was a glint in her eye. "What would your mother think?"

  Kelia's heart constricted painfully. Everything that had happened to her in the past day had taken its toll if it had been so easy to forget that there was a chance her mother might still be alive.

  "Would you like me to take you to her?" Elisa asked, cocking her head to the side so her long hair spilled over her shoulder and covered her breast. She played with the wet strands as her gaze remained fixed on Kelia. "I’m certain nothing would please her more than to see you."

  Kelia swallowed. Her mother was still alive, and she had been intimate with a Sea Shadow. She took a breath. Did that make her selfish? Did it matter?

  However, as she allowed Elise's words to sink in, she stopped her self-imposed guilt. Everything that had just happened to her flooded back into her memory.

  She could no longer ignore that she was desired by this Queen of Sea Shadows. Two Shadows had kidnapped her, and a dark mage was going to do the same thing. What would stop Sirens from trying to take her to the Queen as well? Were they not created by her? Did she not breathe life into these witches, giving them means to survive in the sea? Would they not be duty-bound, then, to take her to their Queen?

  Kelia leaned back, her eyes narrowed.

  "You're lying," she said. Her voice was low, nothing more than a whisper. Adrenaline coursed through her system. Her fingers curled into tight fists that she made sure were down by her sides. She didn’t want this Siren to know that she was angry, nervous, and confused. "My mother died long ago. My father saw her die. Your kind ripped her to shreds."

  Elise stilled. There was no telling look on her face, nothing that would indicate that Kelia was right, but there was something there, something that said perhaps the Sirens were twisting and bending the truth for a reason unknown to Kelia.

  "What do you want with me?" Kelia’s voice was louder, more determined. She clenched the wooden bannister as tight as she had been holding her fists. "Why lie about my mother? What do you want?"

  "Your mother is alive. That is not a lie."

  “No, she’s not,” Kelia said. Tears sprang in her eyes at her foolishness for letting herself believe the lie, even temporarily. She wanted a mother, certainly. She never had that warm, supportive presence in her life, though her father had tried. Perhaps, she was clinging to the hope that she would one day receive that. But now, she knew, without a doubt, that she would not. "She is not alive, you evil witch. You cannot take me down to the depths. I will not go."

  "You won't have a choice." Elise's beautiful demeanor changed in that moment. Her face contorted into a monster-like scowl, her nose scrunching, and her set of pearly-white teeth sharpened into two rows of fangs. "You won’t always be under Drew Knight's protection, you know, and when you aren’t, I will find you, I will give you to our Queen, and she will grant me the gift of life."

  "The gift of..." Kelia furrowed her brow. "You are already alive."

  "Am I?" Elise asked. "Do you think I want to be confined to the sea when I used to have legs? Do you think I want to feast on blood and flesh and bone in order to survive? Do you think I want to serve a Queen who wants nothing more than to turn insipid humans so she can gather her army and run the world? If she were to kill me as a human, fine, but I will not allow her to keep me chained to this watery prison for the rest of my eternal life. And if that means snatching you and giving you to her, I will."

  “You sound like you enjoy such a thing,” Kelia said.

  Elise tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I am forced to do this,” she said, her voice tight, controlled. “If I cannot force myself to look on the bright side of things, train myself to enjoy it, then I will live miserably. I can learn to enjoy the beast that I am. I can learn to accept her—even if I don’t want to.”

  Kelia heard her words but was not afraid. "How did you know my mother?" she asked, her voice little more than a breath. "You spoke her name. You knew her."

  "I did," the Siren said, glancing away toward the roll of the sea. "I ripped into her when your father fell under the allure of our song. We could not reach him, though that was our intent. But we managed to snatch her instead. I bit into her first." Elise rubbed her lips together, as though she could actually remember the taste. "She tasted sweet, like berries and milk. I was hoping to see if you tasted the same, but I doubt I will ever know. Not with the Queen so intent on keeping you for herself."

  A cold calmness washed over Kelia’s body. Even her anger dissipated.

  "I will kill you," she said. "You ruined everything in my life. My mother and my father are dead because of you. But I will not succumb to your tricks. Mark me, sea witch, if I had my blade on hand, I would put it through your heart and release you from this prison myself in the worst possible way. You would do best to never cross my path again."

  Elise laughed, but Kelia was unmoved. There was power in her words, as though now that they were spoken out loud, Kelia believed them. And if she believed them, she knew they would come to pass. She did not know how or when, but she was certain she would make the words true.

  "I look forward to it," Elise said. "The Queen will do much worse than I ever could, and I will ask if I can watch you scream."

  “Why not get it over with and do it now?” Kelia asked. “Stop blabbering and do something about it.”

  “You have someone in that crow’s nest, ready to slice me in half if I do,” she said. “And I find I am too pretty to die tonight.”

  The Siren laughed again before turning around and diving gracefully back into the ocean.

  Kelia closed her eyes, a tear sliding down her f
ace. Her mother was gone. There was no denying it anymore. But Kelia was alive, and Drew was waiting for her.

  She turned and headed back to his quarters. The thrill of being in his arms again was enough to make her forget about the Sirens—at least, for now.

  But when she walked through the door, Drew did not look happy.

  Chapter 21

  "Where did you go?" Drew demanded as Kelia crawled back into the warm bed. His arms instantly locked around her waist, pulling her even closer to him than she had been before she left.

  "I needed some air," she responded honestly. Her eyes closed as her head rested on his shoulder. Some of her hair spilled over her shoulder, and she knew that when she woke for the day, she would have to take a brush through it quite thoroughly.

  "I don’t mean to sound like a possessive man, Kelia," Drew said, his lips finding the spot on her shoulder where her tunic fell away and left her skin bare. The way he said her name made her shiver, made her insides tumble into each other. "But I don’t want you to leave my side when I am sleeping. I cannot even trust my own crew." His fingers caressed her curves, tracing gentle patterns in her skin. "I cannot risk anyone taking you once more."

  Kelia nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to open her mouth and tell him that she had been visited by a Siren just now, ready to pull her underwater in order to bring her back to the Queen.

  "Why does the Queen want me?" Kelia asked. She turned so she stared up at the ceiling.

  Drew shifted so he rested his head in his hand, looking down at her with shadowed eyes.

  The candle had gone out, and the rain had started to fall once more. Kelia wasn’t sure what time it was because of the darkness, and she shifted next to Drew, trying to accumulate more warmth, whether from him or from the blanket.

  "She wants you because she is a miserable, bitter thing," Drew said with a sneer. Kelia was surprised he responded in the first place. She didn’t think he would let himself talk about the Queen at all. "And she wants everyone else to be as miserable and bitter as she is."

  Kelia pressed her lips together, pushing her hair from her shoulder, and looked up at him, waiting for him to say something more. Deep down, she knew there was more to it than that. There had to be. She knew miserable, bitter people back when she was a Slayer. That did not mean they wanted to possess Kelia—or anyone else for that matter.

  Drew dropped his gaze to where his hand caressed her body. "She fancies herself in love with me," he finally said, lifting his gaze so they could lock eyes. His hand stilled on her side. "And she fancies you are someone who means a great deal to me. She’s a jealous monster who thinks that if she removes you from the equation, I will fall madly in love with her. Alas, such a thing is not true, and will never be true."

  Kelia swallowed, but it did little to moisten her scratchy throat.

  "Why don't you love her?" she asked, her voice raw. It came out almost in chunks, where some of the words were hard pressed to leave her mouth at all.

  "Besides the fact that she ripped my very soul from my being in order to keep me by her side for all of eternity?" Drew asked.

  Kelia took in a shaky breath. His fingers on her bare skin did things to her body that she did not want to think about.

  "She is evil, pure and only,” Drew continued finally. “There is no redemption in her soul. She is cold and calculating. She is selfish. She only cares about her desires. She craves humans because they continue to make her young, but she allies herself with the East India Company because they created her. And surely also because they are too stupid to realize they are being used as pawns in her game. She wants nothing more than to scorch the earth with death, to raise an army and be Queen of everything. Anything less than that will never be enough to satisfy her greed. Her insecurities. But she needs the key that will grant Shadows the ability to walk on land during the daytime."

  Kelia's eyes snapped open. "There’s a key for that?"

  "Aye." He trailed his hand up her side, pulling on the material of the tunic so it fell away, leaving more of her chest exposed. "To answer your question, darling, she wants you because of the effect that you have on me. An effect that she doesn’t want anyone but herself to have."

  Kelia stilled.

  "And what effect is that?" she asked, her voice dropping to a low whisper.

  Without a reply, Drew pulled the tunic off Kelia and pushed it over the side of the bed. The cool air pinched at her skin, and she burrowed under the blanket, pressing herself against his bare chest to reclaim the heat he had just taken away.

  Finally, he spoke. "You are the person I want to be with,” he said. “You, and you alone. I’ve given you something I never gave her."

  Kelia paused, and she peered up at him, her eyes filled with questions and concerns.

  “I don’t think I could be a Shadow, Drew,” she said quietly. She couldn’t look at him. Instead, she started playing with the edge of her sleeve. She was a coward, she knew, but she would not lie to him. Not about this. “I don’t think I can promise you forever.”

  "We can discuss that at a different time, though I do respect your sentiment.” He stepped toward her. “My feelings are not something I share freely.” He pushed errant strands of hair away from her face and leaving chaste kisses in their wake. Kelia’s eyes closed on their own accord. "I find myself unable to be without you. And if anything were to happen to you..." His words were jagged edges, his fingers gentle. "Promise me, no matter what happens, you will stay by my side."

  "Drew," Kelia said. "What if I need to help someone? What if Emma or Daniella or Wendy...What if they need my help?"

  "What would they need your help for?"

  Kelia felt the color drain from her face, and her heart cracked. She stilled underneath Drew's touch, certain her reaction was clear to see on her face.

  Drew seemed to realize what he said because his hands dropped back to her waist in a firm grip.

  "That wasn't what I meant," he said. "Surely you must know—"

  "I know I don't have the same capabilities Emma or Wendy or Daniella do," Kelia said. "But that doesn't mean I can’t do something. It could be as small as creating a diversion. I can also occupy someone's time with my blade. Perhaps a Shadow has speed and strength, but I am telling you that I’m not just some woman who needs your protection. I have a place here—a place that is not defined by your feelings for me."

  "I did not mean—"

  "I know very well what you meant." She pulled herself away from him, turning so she faced the wall. From where he rested, he would only be able to see her bare back, hunched over, as she grabbed her tunic and slid it back on. "You see me as a human who needs your protection."

  "That is not how I see you at all," Drew said. He was not shouting yet, but Kelia noted the way his voice got louder. "I see you as a stubborn woman who can do whatever it is she sets her mind to. I see someone who will do anything for those she loves. You are forgiving and skilled, observant and curious. I would never think to categorize you as distressed or even a damsel for that matter."

  Kelia tied her tunic loosely before dropping her hands on her thighs. She took in a deep breath, and then another. She did not know how she felt, except for angry. And hurt.

  She didn’t want Drew to see her as helpless. And she had nothing to prove to him. If he did not already see her as someone he could trust to fight at his side, then what sort of relationship would they have? It would not be equal. There would always be a power difference between them. She didn’t have to be the one on top, but she didn’t want to feel as though she was constantly on the bottom, either. They would be side by side.

  "What would you categorize me as, Drew?" She turned so she was standing, looking at him with a tilted head, hair over her shoulder. She was already reaching up to braid back. "If not a damsel, then tell me: When you look at me, what do you see? And no pretty words or compliments. I want the truth."

  "Those pretty words and compliments are the truth." Drew stood on the othe
r side of his bed. She was certain his eyesight was much better than hers. Besides his silhouette, it was hard to see anything else. She longed to touch him, to feel warm with him once again, but she would not leave her ground when it was so important to her to stand it. "You are one of the few people I see as my equal."

  "Do not lie to me, Drew."

  “What makes you think I'm lying?"

  Beyond the shadows, Drew stepped around the bed, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed. Her heart pounded against her chest with each step he took, each step that brought him closer to her.

  "Would you trust me at your side in battle?" Kelia asked. "Would you let me defend you, if I must? You don’t even want me alone on the deck of the ship because you think someone will snatch me away."

  "Someone did snatch you away," Drew pointed out. "Two someones, or have you already forgotten? My crew is not filled with the Shadows I thought they were. And I will not risk you falling into their hands."

  "What about Emma?" Kelia asked when he was a mere step away from her. She wished he had not closed the space between them. It was difficult for her to focus when he was so close to her, looking at her with his fiery brown eyes. "What about Wendy? Why are you not worried about them falling into the wrong hands? Both already have on your watch, just as I have. Why not worry about them?"

  "I don’t feel for them the way I feel for you," Drew growled. "Don't be daft, Kelia. Don’t pretend you don't know what it is I feel."

  "I only know what you tell me, Drew." She reached out to touch his shoulder. She didn’t know why she did it, but she needed to feel something of his, something safe. "I can’t read your mind. Wendy is your sister, and you've known Emma for decades. Why are they not locked in your room for protection the way I am?"