Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Teaser chapter
MARIE TREANOR’S
ALSO BY MARIE TREANOR
PRAISE FOR MARIE TREANOR AND HER NOVELS
“Sensual and thrilling, a wonderful combination of vampire myths old and new. You cannot miss this novel!”
—Michele Bardsley, national bestselling author of the Broken Heart series
“Wow! Steamy-hot fantasy, sizzling sex, and a story that makes you think . . . Marie Treanor really packs a lot into these pages.”
—Fallen Angel Reviews
“Prepare to be scorched, alarmed, illuminated, and fired up!”
—TwoLips Reviews
“Witty and sensuous.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“My first impression of this work was wow . . . highly recommended read from an author to watch.”
—The Romance Studio
“A very unique fantasy. The passion and heat . . . was Pure Erotic but with a loving passion that made me feel all warm inside.”
—Paranormal Romance Reviews
“A fantastic story . . . superhot sex. I cannot wait for future books.”
—Joyfully Reviewed
“A provocative read . . . witty, sensual, and sometimes dark.... Brimming with complex and compelling characters, sexual tension, danger, betrayal, emotional turmoil . . . this erotic gothic story grabs your attention and holds it right up to the very last page.”
—Romance Junkies
“Funny, sizzling, and tender.”
—Bitten by Books
“Marie Treanor always delivers a book that you’ll be talking about long after reading it.”
—Love Romances and More
“Hauntingly beautiful and entirely sensual.”
—eCataromance
“In a sea of vampire stories, her creation stands out as one of the best. ”
—Brazen Broads Book Bash
“A superbly written story filled with suspense, action, and steamy, passionate encounters.”
—Literary Nymphs
ALSO BY MARIE TREANOR
Blood Sin
Blood on Silk
SIGNET ECLIPSE
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First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, October 2011
Copyright © Marie Treanor, 2011 All rights reserved
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE
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ISBN : 978-1-101-54467-9
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To this book’s editor, Jesse Feldman, who took on an unexpected job with grace and kindness! Thank you!
She who stirs the Ancient will end his power and make way for the rebirth of the world, for the dawn of the new vampire age. She will smite his friends and cleave to his enemies, who would end all undead existence. To see the new age, she must give up the world.
—The prophecy of the Ancient vampire Luk, as witnessed by a sixteenth-century vampire hunter
Cast of Characters
The Humans
Cynthia (Cyn) Venolia: An untrained psychic who senses the presence of the paranormal. Friend of Rudy Meyer, her partner in killing vampires.
Dr. Elizabeth Silk: The Awakener; descendant of Saloman’s killer, Tsigana; Saloman’s companion. An academic recently awarded her PhD, she accidentally awakened Saloman more than a year ago. Her blood is necessary to Saloman if he’s to reach his full strength.
Senator Grayson Dante: A powerful U.S. politician and onetime Grand Master of the American Order of Vampire Hunters. Disgraced and replaced as Grand Master following his pursuit of Saloman’s sword and his quest for immortality, which involved kidnapping Dmitriu and Josh Alexander. Elizabeth prevented Saloman from killing him during the rescue at Buda Castle.
Rudolph (Rudy) Meyer: New Yorker, descendant of Saloman’s killer, Ferenc. Survivor of a vampire attack, he has allied with Cyn to hunt and kill vampires.
The Vampire Hunters
István: An expert in the science and technology of hunting. A strong hunter; having killed many vampires, he’s absorbed their strength. Member of the Budapest vampire hunter network.
Konrad: Leader of the first hunter team. Elizabeth’s friend. A descendant of Saloman’s killer, Ferenc, which gives him extra strength. Member of the Budapest vampire hunter network.
Lazar: Operations manager, supervising the hunter teams. Ex–field hunter. Member of the Budapest vampire hunter network.
Mihaela: She and Elizabeth formed a close friendship during the original campaign to kill Saloman. Also a veteran hunter with the strength of many kills. Member of the Budapest vampire hunter network.
Miklós: Librarian and second in command of the Budapest hunters, unde
r the Grand Master of the Hungarian order. Inclined to secrecy and preservation of traditional ways.
Mustafa: Leader of the Turkish hunters.
The Vampires
Angyalka: Owns the Angel Club in Budapest.
Dmitriu: The younger of the two vampires created by Saloman. More powerful than most modern vampires, he’s nevertheless always avoided power struggles and sought a peaceful life among humans. A year ago, he directed Elizabeth Silk to the crypt where she awoke Saloman.
Luk: Saloman’s cousin, the friend and mentor who turned him into a vampire. He fell into insanity toward the end of his existence, growing jealous of Saloman’s power and of his relationship with the beautiful Tsigana. He then attacked Saloman, who slew him.
Maximilian: Saloman’s elder creation. After betraying Saloman, he seized power and lost it a century later to the more brutal Zoltán. He lives now in isolation, hidden on an uninhabited Scottish island, from which he emerged a year ago to support Saloman in his battle against an alliance of Zoltán, Elizabeth, and the vampire hunters.
Saloman: The last of the Ancients. Their race is older than humanity and had the ability to achieve immortality by reviving their dead and drinking living blood. His body was hidden in a Romanian crypt until revived accidentally by Elizabeth Silk a year ago. Having taken his revenge, his remaining ambition is to rule both the human and vampire worlds. Travis: Leader of the vampires in North America. Based in New York, he managed to take over the leadership of the whole continent after Elizabeth killed his rival Severin. A recent ally of Saloman’s.
Chapter One
When the earth moved, the vampire Saloman felt a surge of exquisite pleasure almost akin to sexual release. The tension in him snapped, broken by the rush of rare, intoxicating fear.
Dawn approached, and he was too close to the earthquake’s center for safety, too isolated in these Peruvian mountains to be discovered should he become buried under an immovable fall of rock. Already he could hear the thunder of incipient avalanches and landslides drowning out the lesser destruction of man-made edifices, but if he honed his supernatural hearing, he could just about make out the distinctive thuds of collapsing wood and masonry in the distant villages. The sounds of wreckage brought him a certain amount of satisfaction. The villages were already empty of life—he’d seen to that over the past couple of weeks.
He, Saloman, was one of the very few able-bodied beings left on this mountain. Even the animals had fled, their instincts warning them that the earth was angry. Unlike them, Saloman savored that anger, that knowledge of a unique power far superior to his own, a power before which even his strength could do nothing. And so he lay on this hard mountain ledge in the dark, reveling in his rare moment of helplessness, smiling up at the black, wavering sky while the earth under him heaved and cracked, splitting rocks and trees, hurling down the flimsy village buildings.
He knew the risk; he didn’t want to end his existence or to return to the tortured sleep of death. He didn’t want to leave this world. He didn’t want to leave Elizabeth. And yet still he had come closer than he should to wait for the earth to shake—partly because he wanted to feel the massive power of it, partly because, like the rebellious boy he’d once been, he wanted to dare the danger.
It was an indulgence he shouldn’t have allowed himself. He acknowledged that as the ledge of rock split under his back, hurling him off the edge. At the last moment, he grasped onto the one stable corner, giving himself a modicum of control as he jumped the fifty feet or so onto the hard, jagged ground below—more from memory than sight, since the tumbling boulders and dust impaired his night vision.
By the time he’d found a flatter foothold sheltered enough to prevent any more stones from landing on his head and shoulders, the quake had stopped. The mountain, however, hadn’t. It continued to spit rocks down toward him, and below he could hear them gathering pace and volume. By morning, the mountain would have changed its shape.
Fear was good. He was glad he’d come up here to remember what it was like to be afraid. Confront your fears, his cousin Luk had told him, even before Saloman had died and been reborn a vampire. Luk had turned him, and had taught him well, just as if he’d known that Saloman would be the last of their Ancient race. Saloman had learned to face soul-destroying loneliness; he’d fought and defeated everyone who threatened him. There was no one left who could invade his mind and find him wanting—which had been his first and most intense fear, the one that had formed his boyhood and never quite left him. And yet he could think of his father now without pain or hurt or terror, and he knew that if it had been possible for them to meet again, he would not be afraid. He had no reason to be.
Saloman lay down once more, gazing up at the steady sky while the mountain rearranged itself with noisy, dust-filled aggression. He smiled, because no one else could possibly have done what he just had. No one had ever done what he was doing now.
Watch me, Elizabeth. I will prevail. The world will do my bidding. You can’t doubt it.
It was his own thought. He didn’t send it to her. He wouldn’t even tell her about this; he would let her find out for herself. Perhaps he’d even go to her, so he was with her when she made the discovery. Hunger tore through him. Blood and sex and Elizabeth. A reward before the next stage began.
He sat up, unable to be still any longer. His lesson in humility had, in the end, fed his self-belief. Only he could have survived the earthquake from here; he alone could unite and direct the world. No one could stop him. And as the world learned his power, who would want to? He’d find his way down the mountain and drink some human blood before he began his journey across the world to Scotland.
But as he rose, a scream of rage and terror slammed into his mind. Saloman let out an involuntary cry, grasping his head in both hands to prevent the pain, the anguish, instinctively trying to squeeze out the howling voice that should have been mere memory and yet felt as real as the rocks sliding and crashing their way down the mountainside. The flash of impossible presence surged and then vanished as swiftly as it had come, leaving Saloman to drop his hands slowly from his face.
Which was when he realized he had no time to analyze himself for sanity or injury. In a moment, he was going to be buried deep under an avalanche. Saloman hurled himself forward and leapt into darkness.
Six thousand miles away, in a Scottish café, Elizabeth Silk caught her breath and shivered uncontrollably.
“What’s the matter?” her friend Joanne demanded, placing two large mugs of coffee on the café table before resuming her seat beside Elizabeth.
“Oh, nothing,” Elizabeth said evasively. There’s a vampire in my head. Or at least there was for an instant. What would Joanne make of that? “Someone walked over my grave.”
The trouble was, it felt like Saloman, although her instant telepathic reach to him hit nothing. Not surprising. Her abilities had grown by leaps and bounds in the past few months, but she still operated best with peace to concentrate, even when Saloman chose to receive her. Something had happened, she was sure, though whether it involved physical danger or emotional upheaval, she had no way of knowing. Once, she would have denied the possibility of the latter. Now she knew him better, knew him as a being of profound feelings, even though they were often beyond her ability to understand. If something had occurred, if he needed her...
Thrusting her unease aside, she smiled and lifted her cup to her lips.
“I meant in general,” Joanne said dryly. She was a short, eye-catching woman with purple-tinged, frizzy hair and a razor-sharp mind. “You seem a bit glum.”
“It’s only ten in the morning and I was up until three.”
“Doing what?” Joanne asked.
“Writing. I think I’ve finished the book based on my thesis. I’ll send it off to your agent tomorrow.”
“He’ll be your agent too the day after,” Joanne said with a confident grin.
“I hope so. I’m finally happy I’ve struck the right balance between academic
and popular—which is pretty important with a subject like vampires and superstitions!”
“You’re right there,” Joanne said, raising her mug in a toast. “Hats off to you. So that’s out of the way—what now? Glasgow?”
“Ah. Maybe that’s why I look glum. I didn’t get the job in Glasgow.” It had been a rare opportunity, a permanent, full-time post at Glasgow University. Elizabeth had applied, knowing she would have to be stupid not to, and yet her heart hadn’t been in it. Perhaps this had come across at her interview.
“Idiots,” Joanne said roundly.
Elizabeth gave her a lopsided smile. “Thanks for the support. I wasn’t even certain I wanted it, so I’ve no right to whine about not getting it.”
“I’m pretty sure there’ll be a vacancy here at St. Andrews next year,” Joanne said. “What else is still in the pipeline for now?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Nothing truly inspiring. A college in London, part-time. And a maternity leave post at the University of Aberdeen.”
She hesitated, until Joanne nudged her and commanded, “Spill!”
Elizabeth laughed. “Well, there’s a one-year appointment at the University of Budapest.”
Joanne sat up straight. “Budapest!”
“It’s more my thing, includes teaching a special course in the historic value of superstitions, and there’ll be research opportunities in other areas. Also, I do speak the language, more or less. . . .”
“And your man’s there,” Joanne finished with unnecessary relish.
Elizabeth felt her skin color, and took a hasty gulp of coffee to try to cover it. “Only sometimes,” she mumbled. “He travels a lot.” Then, since Joanne continued to stare at her, she lowered the cup and sighed. “I don’t want him to think I’m pursuing him.”
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