The Last Stand -- Blood War Trilogy Book III
Page 16
She sighed, disappointed as a teardrop dribbled over her pale, smooth face.
Ilanna dropped her gaze to the grave of Gabriella, felt the movement of new life inside her, and dreamed of a peaceful, hopeful future.
* * *
Schloss Fronberg
Schwandorf, Bavaria
The screams and howls of orgasmic release echoed into obscurity and Deanna rolled off her lover’s body.
She lay close to his side, body lacquered with sweat, panted breath heaving from her lungs. Staring at the dark ceiling, Deanna waited for the aftershocks of her orgasm to gently subside. Scented candles wafted an aroma of rosemary into the room but it failed to hide the stench of animalistic testosterone and her musty passion.
His fingers crawled across the disheveled silk bed sheets and his hand curled into hers.
Glancing to the side, Deanna studied his chiseled, handsome features: a countenance she’d come to know intimately yet one that still appeared mysterious when shrouded in shadow orchestrated by fluctuating candlelight.
“I love you, Trace,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and smiled. “I love you too, Deanna.”
Shifting her gaze to the other side of the room she stared through the arched window at night’s deep blackness. She couldn’t see stars beyond the glass, but reflected flame from the candles stuttered in the window in imitation. This was it; the new story of her life had begun, the old tale consigned to a diminishing memory.
The girl with a dislike of men had gone, the woman with an uncertain future had been replaced, the child with murdered parents no longer an orphan.
Whatever challenges the pack would encounter in the years, decades and centuries ahead, she would stand beside her man and face them head on. Her new family would protect her as she would shield the pack with her life. Such were the rules of her new existence, and she embraced it willingly.
Who knows, maybe someday she’d have something else just as important to defend.
Hidden by darkness within the room Deanna traced the fingers of her free hand across her sweaty abdomen and rubbed the area surrounding her navel. Maybe; someday . . .
Bed springs groaned as Trace shifted position, and Deanna smiled with delight as the dominant lycanthrope lowered his body onto hers.
Locking legs around his back, she let the animal take control once more.
* * *
Santi Quattro Coronati
Rome, Italy
Stepping to the window of the master bedroom Anton leaned against the frame and stared at the sparkling lights of Rome. Golden hues speckled the city’s darkened landscape, its more famous monuments illuminated proudly throughout the metropolis. A thin blanket of summer cloud shielded the heavens, as if attempting to hide the coven and its shame.
Anton’s eyes darkened with ignominy as he recalled how devoted he’d been to Markus yet had still been betrayed. He could scarcely believe the Elder had gone so many centuries deceiving the coven; lying to his wife, his Eliminators, and the servants who protected him. It was hard to understand how the vampire had not been exposed when this whole atrocity occurred four hundred years ago. For him to be a part of its conception confused Anton; how the Elder allowed himself to be tempted by a werewolf, why he’d hidden the child for as long as he had then let the hybrid free seemingly without thought or concern for the coven.
The fact that Markus’s actions may have contributed to the death of Gabriella filled Anton with a deeper sense of anger towards the deceased Elder.
Standing motionless he watched the metropolis, a city full of memories, and wished he could rewrite history.
Trying his best to forget the treachery of his leader, Anton doubted a hundred years would be long enough to numb the pain.
Without Markus, what would the supernatural world now become?
It came as no comfort that the loathing of hybrids had spanned both the coven and the pack. A shared enemy meant a shared revulsion but with that now gone, exhaled forever with the final breath of the last dying hybrid, Anton wondered if an older, more capricious abhorrence would rear its ugly head again.
Hatred for each other simmered beneath the surface in all of them. If the vampire guard and he had not been so vigilant down in the catacombs a full scale battle might have ensued; a skirmish that would certainly have kick-started the war once more. Both vampire and werewolf sought justice, yet once the first accusations were tossed between members of the crowd the situation had quickly become hostile. Even now, thinking back on those frantic moments deep under this building’s foundations, Anton couldn’t remember how he’d managed to subdue the crisis.
The volatile situation told him one thing however: history could be repeated.
He could no longer remember how the last truce had crumbled four hundred years ago but once the frustrations at not finding and eliminating the hybrid children escalated, the return to hostilities had only been a matter of time. There existed a strong possibility of that happening again; one spark could ignite an inferno of hatred and plunge the supernatural world into an orgy of violence and bloodshed once more.
Anton had already ordered a gathering for tomorrow. He’d been left in charge of the coven while Ilanna convalesced in Romania and he didn’t intend wasting that time brooding over past mistakes and shattered idealisms. He needed to formulate a new chain of command. There were enough vampires worthy of promotion to fill the positions, but such moves needed to happen now while this fragile peace enabled them to do so.
Despite his catastrophic failings Markus had built a powerful coven during his years in charge; Anton didn’t intend on letting the Elder’s death weaken its foundations.
The apparent camaraderie and loyalty that had surfaced between vampire and werewolf over the past year did not fool him. Such an allegiance had been born through a combined effort to eradicate the hybrid bloodline. With that troublesome species extinguished there was no one left to fight but each other.
After six centuries of warfare Anton couldn’t dissolve his mistrust for werewolves.
They were animals, feral monsters; warmongers.
The pack was probably forging plans right now.
Anton gritted his teeth, stared at Rome’s glittering skyline, and vowed the coven would be ready.
* * *
Abandoned World war Two bunker
Thirty kilometers southwest of Berlin
Twenty feet below ground, Isaac sat in his leather seat and stared at the document in his grasp. A little over twelve months old, the paper had not yet faded, and retained the faint odor of the printing press. Passing his thumb over the signature, Isaac could make out the ridges of pen strokes.
Markus’s autograph: his acceptance of guilt for six centuries of war. The vampire’s signing meant nothing now with the famed Elder finally dead. Not that it changes where the real blame for this war lies; nor will it alter this conflict’s eventual outcome.
The document was legal and binding in supernatural law, and even though Markus had been decapitated, his body burned then scattered into the murky waters of the Tiber River, the culpability had not shifted away from the coven. A high-ranking vampire had witnessed the signing; had scrawled its name on the document. With the main signee now deceased, the law that governed both of their species demanded the witness bear responsibility.
Isaac smiled and traced the Eliminator’s signature with his thumb. Anton, my dear friend, do you understand the burden you have inherited?
Folding the signed document, Isaac pushed it into the breast pocket of his shirt and looked up. The room held the appearance of an out-of-date laboratory but the instruments were in pristine condition. A metal tray sat on a trolley near the far wall, with the shapes of concealed scalpels, forceps, and needles pushing against a thin covering sheet. Banks of computer terminals were fixed into rusted metal shelving, wires twisted to the rear of the unit and hanging in tightly wrapped bundles. Printers and computer towers were hidden behind doors built into units un
der the work bench. Tied in organized loops, the wires used for attaching electrodes to the exposed brains of their subjects were protected from contamination within sealed plastic bags hanging from hooks on a nearby wall. The entire room was dust-free.
Sometimes Isaac wished the same level of cleanliness applied to his scientist.
Max’s hair looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in more than a month, stubble uneven on his chin. His laboratory coat, something he wore whenever down here even if he wasn’t torturing prisoners, hung from his gaunt frame, its whiteness tainted in places by dried food stains and overspill from coke cans. The scientist—having just briefed Isaac on his latest findings gathered from the memories of selected hybrids in Alpbach prior to their assassination—leaned back in his worn leather chair and linked his fingers across his skinny belly.
“When should we start preparations, Sir?” The scrawny werewolf’s voice held an edge of impatience.
“When I say so, of course.”
“But I feel it would be wise to strike now. Markus is dead; Ilanna has returned home to Romania to grieve her loss; Anton is probably overwhelmed by the void left at the head of the coven because of Markus’s death. Our time is now.”
“Relax, Max.” Isaac’s smile broadened; he crossed his legs and linked his fingers behind his head. “You leave the military decisions to the likes of me and Trace. Besides; we have all of eternity. The future is ours.”
Isaac tapped his breast pocket, and in his mind saw nothing but lycanthropic domination.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Now living and working in Norway, Dylan J. Morgan was born in New Zealand and raised in the United Kingdom. He writes during those rare quiet moments amid a hectic family life: after dark, with limited sustenance, and when his creative essence is plagued the most by tormented visions.
DOMINIO DELLA MORTE, is a collection of 19 short horror stories, and is currently available in print and eBook formats.
His best selling debut novel, HOSTS, is now available to purchase directly from Amazon in Kindle format.
His novella, OCTOBER RAIN, has recently been re-released by Hazardous Press and is available in Kindle format from Amazon.
www.dylanjmorgan.com
Dylan J. Morgan’s Kindle books online.
DOMINIO DELLA MORTE
US: http://amzn.to/ZQA8Jh
UK: http://amzn.to/ZQzLhY
HOSTS
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UK: http://amzn.to/WPOhQE
OCTOBER RAIN
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UK: http://amzn.to/R5LEgg
BLOODLINES (Blood War Trilogy Book I)
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UK: http://amzn.to/16xyziL
MONSTERS AND MORTALS (Blood War Trilogy Book II)
US: http://amzn.to/14nl5Dc
UK: http://amzn.to/1cGEGre
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