Last Vamp Standing

by Kristin Miller

  Not that she considered what happened the previous night an excuse. There was no way she could’ve known her vamp was going to unleash hell on the black market and teleport her out of there.

  And why did she always refer to him as her vamp when he sprang into her mind? Frowning, Ariana pinched her bottom lip between her teeth.

  He wasn’t hers. He’d simply touched her, feathered chills across her skin and lit fireworks in her stomach. He’d made her pause, forgetting her mission, when it was so clearly cemented in her mind. And he’d pulled her in, made her body go weak like putty and her mind seize to stone.

  That’s all . . .

  It wasn’t like she had any claim to him.

  She doubted anyone did. His energy was powerful and radiating. Too consuming. Ariana bet no woman could get close to the fire burning behind his eyes without getting burned. Not that she would’ve wanted to be that woman, testing his limits, riling those flames. Nope, no way.

  She’d never see him again anyway.

  “What you waitin’ for?” Echo asked, jarring her.

  “I don’t know.” Ariana straightened her aching back and took a good look around. The forest surrounding Black Moon looked as it always did. Thick fir trees smelled of sap and pine. Tiny clearings had been hollowed out between towering firs from projections of years passed.

  It felt oddly hollow tonight. Maybe she was comparing it to the last time she stood here, with her vamp towering over her. There had been little room to breathe. Her heart had constricted as he’d pressed her against the tree.

  That tree—the fir looming behind Echo’s shoulder. Heat flashed across her skin, remembering the feel of her vamp’s knee rubbing between her thighs as he pinned her.

  She shook her head, letting thoughts of him fall from her mind like rain—one trickling memory at a time. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Feel fine to me.”

  “It’s quiet,” she said, then listened to utter, ear-tingling nothing. On the loneliest, quietist night, something could always be heard. Even if it was the pounding of her heart in her ears.

  Everything stilled.

  “Quiet is good, no?” Echo asked, cocking a bushy brow.

  “Yeah, but it’s too quiet.”

  No birds’ wings fluttered in the canopy above her head. No crickets chirped midnight songs.

  Planting her hands on the small of her back for a good pre-projection stretch, Ariana looked up. Paused. The crescent moon was high in the sky, tilting toward Orion’s belt. Orion was a warrior—the greatest—and the moon a reflective rock, guiding the ways of their haven.

  What did it mean that the moon’s corner edge pointed directly to the hilt of Orion’s sword? A fighter in their midst? A war on the horizon?

  Something inside Ariana stirred as she kneeled on the blanket, finally peeling her eyes off the night sky. She shook off the chill creeping into her bones. The tickle shimmering across her skin was nothing but her fear of the dark that her eyes couldn’t penetrate. Had to be. Their haven had been safe. It’d been concealed from the rest of the world for hundreds of years. It wasn’t about to change now. No warriors could find Black Moon. No war could reach their walls.

  Couldn’t . . . wouldn’t happen.

  Her vamp had found Black Moon, but that was entirely her fault and had nothing to do with the stars. Besides, the only war he brought was the struggle within her. She couldn’t stop thinking about him—his musky, woodsy scent that made her want to breathe in deep, the sharp cut of his jaw she wanted to brush her fingers along, those glowing yellow eyes she wanted to stare into on a dark night like this—no matter how she tried.

  And damn it, there she went again.

  Echo must’ve noticed her hesitation. “I won’t go nowhere, Ari. Got my word on that this time.” He plopped his massive body on a trunk inches outside the ring and scraped clods of mud off his boots. “No nymph pull me away from you again.”

  She met the black depths of his eyes, trying not to notice how shallow they were. “I hope your word is worth more now than it was last night.”

  “Not you think about a thing.” He tossed a mass of red dreads over his shoulder and stroked the silver shaft of a knife on his belt. “Someone piggybacks this time and I got ’em.”

  If they had a repeat of last night, she’d have to seriously rethink her trajectory.

  Looking over her shoulder, through the trunks of firs surrounding the pit, past Echo’s looming, protective shadow, Ariana couldn’t lose the feeling someone was watching her. Watching them.

  She wondered how much the nymph saw last night. If she got wind of what Ariana was doing, what she could bring back with her if she wanted to, Ariana would be a valuable trading tool.

  “You feeling someone followed us here?” Echo asked, his voice as thick as the brush at his feet. “You got that feeling last time, you remember? Ain’t nothin’ but the wind in the trees and the hairs on your neck. No one here but you and me.”

  “Yeah,” she said on a sigh. What did it mean that she wanted someone to be there—someone with the power to seduce her in a few heated minutes? “If you say so, Echo.”

  No one followed them, Ariana assured herself.

  They’d been careful, covering their steps every inch of the way, hadn’t they? They’d trudged a new path from Black Moon to the pit as they always did. Sure, the well-trodden dirt road that wound through the forest might’ve earned her robe fewer mud stains, but Watchers had been known to travel that path to other, more sacred parts of the forest. The last thing they needed was some curious Watcher wondering what they were doing out of Black Moon.

  Someone who would follow them to the pit and find her body vacant and defenseless.

  Ariana had never had a problem with someone following them in the past, but thanks to her recent experience she figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Echo cleared his throat a little too awkwardly and paused. Like he meant to say something. Ariana craned her neck and peered over her shoulder.

  “Something on your mind?” She could barely make out the robust curve of his nose and the hard line of his jaw in the dark.

  He shook his head—Echo had to know now wasn’t the time, that she couldn’t stay in the ring much longer than necessary—but spoke anyway. “I never ask how you do it. You know, how the thing you do work. You go away, you lie there like you ain’t alive, you come back with someone else. How is it you be in two places at once? Your body here, your body there?”

  Ariana faced forward again and shifted her weight over her knees. “It’s the maware that was bestowed upon me when I transitioned into an elder. I can’t explain how it works. It just does.”

  “No,” he said quietly, his voice a distant rumble. “I mean, when you go where you go, are you for real . . . or is the you that’s lying here for real?”

  It never occurred to her that he’d wonder about where she went when she projected from this place. He’d never asked before. She’d figured he didn’t care. As long as he did his job and kept his mouth shut about where they went and why, nothing else mattered.

  Thinking about how little time they had, Ariana tried to put it as clearly as she could. “Once I project from here, it’s like a picture of me shows up somewhere else. Only it’s a picture that can walk and talk and touch like everyone else.”

  “Like one of those creepy wax statues that look real?”

  “Kind of.” She’d never seen a wax figure walk and talk, but whatever.

  “How long it last?” He kicked at a low-hanging branch and snapped it clean off. “You stay out there forever if you wanna?”

  She scratched at her leg, where the mud from her robe was starting to seep to her thighs. Her blood was already starting to sizzle in her veins, firing her muscles and weakening her knees. Her body had begun to anticipate the projection, gearing up for t
he supernatural event, before she willed it. The mark on her forearm buzzed with warmth. She wondered if it’d ever fill in completely and what form it would take.

  “Ever watch one of those old movies, Echo? The black and white ones with the flickering images?”

  He nodded and looked up, his red hair flopping in his face.

  “After a while my projection begins to feel like that. Like a flickering film that starts in my chest and rolls through my body. That’s when it’s my cue to leave. Whomever I touch when that moment comes returns to the pit with me.”

  “But you always tell me how much time to expect before you go. How you know?”

  His sudden interest was starting to bother her more than the wet itchiness of her robe. “I get an idea of the strength of the projection right before I fade out. Each time is different. Sometimes I have hours. Sometimes all night.” She supposed it depended on how strong she felt. Or how confident. Or the circumstances surrounding the projection.

  “You get a feelin’ tonight?”

  “Not yet.” She really didn’t like the fact that her Primus had ordered her to return before she was ready. Not one bit. As much as she hoped the disdain wouldn’t affect her projection or her mission to bring back an elder from the market, she couldn’t guarantee it.

  “Better get started,” Ariana said as she settled on her side. Resting her head in the crook of her arm, she pulled her knees to her chest. As her weight relaxed into the blanket, the dampness of the ground soaked through the fabric, chilling her. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, slow and deep. Muscles relaxed. Joints jellied. Her mind began to pull away from her body.

  “Tonight won’t be long,” she whispered as a branch crackled deep in the forest. “Thirty minutes . . . an hour at most.” Her voice didn’t even sound like her own anymore. It was high-pitched and whiny. Too soft. The way it probably sounded to everyone else.

  “Everything gonna be okay,” she heard Echo say as if through a tunnel, far, far away. Her mind slipped further from her body, separating until she felt as if she were hovering over the mud pit; no longer lying within it. His voice was deep, muffled underwater. “No matter what, where you go, things be okay.”

  That’s what she was counting on.

  But as she faded out of Black Moon’s range, letting tingly blankets of sleep cascade over her arms and legs, another voice rang through her ears. It was masculine, loud, and commanding. Authoritative. Another, very dominant, presence hovered outside the circle.

  Ariana forced her racing heart to slow. Stress would only make the impending projection weaker, and that’s not what she needed when headed into the bowels of the black market.

  Echo was her Watcher. He’d protect her. He was armed.

  If the intruder was someone who meant to harm her, Echo’d take care of it. He was a beast. Able to take care of business with a massive swing of his arm. If it was another nymph wanting to suck off of Black Moon’s healing powers, he’d tell her to scat. At least that’s what Ariana hoped.

  It was too late to come back to her body anyway. Too late for her to worry about it. She’d already accepted the projection whole-heartedly. She was on her way to the elder black market on the Embarcadero. She could almost taste the salt on the sea breeze.

  “Now get her body off the ground, Echo,” the stranger ordered much too calmly, rattling Ariana’s brain like a thunderclap.

  What the hell? They know each other?

  “Yes, sir,” Echo answered dutifully.

  No! No! No!

  “Good man.”

  Damn it! Go back! I want to go back!

  Ariana’s mind thrashed helplessly, knowing there was nothing she could do if they wanted to rape her, kill her, or drag her away and bury her alive beneath a goddamn fir tree. All she had left was the astral-projection of her endangered self with no idea how long the projection would last or where she’d be when she finally snapped back to her body.

  She was going to kill Echo.

  If he didn’t kill her first.

  Chapter Four

  DANTE DIRECTED HIS cab to park two blocks away from the Embarcadero, on the corner of Washington and Drumm, where buildings lining the street seemed to darken and fade into late-night mist.

  Juan Carlos wouldn’t be too keen on Dante making an encore appearance. Especially since the place erupted after he teleported, and the ringleader lost the trust of his high-paying clientele.

  After paying the cabbie, Dante slipped into the night, watching shadows, checking over his shoulder. He passed a few bums, gloved hands outstretched, eyes trodden downward, and quickly studied the group of kids in their twenties hollering obscenities at a closed apartment window three floors up.

  Everyone was suspect. Juan Carlos could have therian guards stationed anywhere.

  Among the mundane night owls strolling along the sidewalk, Dante spotted Ruan right away. He was six-foot-something menacing, trying to hide his massive stature beneath a full-length leather trench coat. He’d kicked his boot up on the wooden beam at the edge of the pier and was leaning far over, staring at the sea. His shoulder-sweeping blonde hair was stylishly messy, whipping around his face with each gust of chilling bay wind.

  Ruan spun around, leveling his emerald gaze upon Dante before he stepped on the sidewalk. “You’re late.”

  “You’re obvious.”

  Folding his arms and ankles, Ruan leaned back on the rail. “Looks like you made it out alive after all.”

  The last time Ruan saw Dante, they were in the black market. He’d tossed Ariana over his shoulder and teleported them to . . . well, wherever they’d gone.

  “Heart’s still beating.” Dante put two fingers to the pulse on his neck.

  Ruan smiled. “We took bets on whether or not you’d show up.”

  “Listen, I’d love to sit here and bullshit, but I’ve got things to do. Why’d you call me back here?”

  “There’s a lot of stuff you missed out on after you teleported, but we can talk about all that after.”

  “After what?”

  “After we go back into the black market and bring out an elder.”

  “Have you lost a fang? We can’t go back in there.”

  “We don’t have a choice anymore.” Scanning the sidewalk for any sign of therian movement, Ruan said, “Savage wiped out San Francisco’s haven.”

  “What?” Hundreds of vamps sought shelter there. . . . “What the hell happened?”

  “Remember that black shadow that attacked us in the alley behind Mirage last week? It was a death shade . . . that was linked to Savage. He’s killed more elders than we can possibly imagine and bound their death shades to him. He’s powerful, Dante, and out for revenge. He’s moving up and down the state, systematically wiping out every haven on the map.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “We’re housing groups of refugees at ReVamp, but we don’t have the blood supply to sustain them much longer. That’s why we need you.”

  “Me?” Dante jerked back from the confusing blow. He didn’t have a damn thing to offer. “What can I do about the blood supply?”

  “Nothing really, but connect the dots with me, would you?” Ruan leaned around the corner of the stone building on the front of the pier as a cab slowed to a stop at a light. He continued when the yellow money drain kept on keepin’ on. “Refugees keep piling into ReVamp, and we don’t have the resources or the protection they need. But we’ve heard there is a haven that’s large enough to house, protect, and feed everyone.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “We don’t exactly know where it is.”

  “Of course you don’t. That’d be too easy, wouldn’t it?” Dante shrugged, his shoulders tight with the energy strumming through him. Seemed Slimeball had released more adrenaline into Dante’s bloodstream than he originally thought. “Still d
on’t know where I fit in.”

  “We think Juan Carlos has an elder inside who knows something about the haven. Something that could help us find it. You got us into the black market before, you’ll do it again.” His emerald eyes glowed with determination. “Except when we go in this time, we head downstairs into the cells.”

  The stakes were too high—Ruan had to know it.

  The plan could work, theoretically, if Dante could get them in again. If they could locate an elder in Juan Carlos’s maze of cells. If the elder had the information they needed.

  “I know this sounds like a suicide mission,” Ruan whispered, “but Savage is pressing our hand. All we have to go on is the Intel we’ve been given.”

  “Which is?”

  “If we want to protect ourselves from Savage, finding this haven is our best bet. It’s fabled to have elders within its walls that keep the place hidden. Only those welcomed inside can see it for what it really is.” When Dante stared, cocking a disbelieving brow, Ruan continued. “It’s the vampire version of Atlantis.”

  Dante couldn’t bite back the sarcasm. “That sounds promising, Ruan, truly. You’re willing to risk both our necks and head into the dragon’s den again to grab an elder, who may or may not have the information you need, in hopes of finding this haven that may or may not exist?” He laughed as a full wave crashed into the side of the dock. “I think someone tainted your blood supply with sewer sludge—it’s messing with your brain.”

  “There isn’t time to joke. We’ve got to move.” Ruan’s gaze settled on something down the street. He bumped Dante in the shoulder and led the way to the space between Pier 3 and 5. “You’re going to contact the girl you know inside, and you’re going to ask for a private showing of the cells downstairs.”