by Tessa Dawn
“Well,” he said derisively. “Did I do well? And yes, you did fine…for now. But you still owe me a secret.” He leaned against her as she helped him to the bed and then dropped him carelessly, causing him to fall in a battered heap on top of the already soiled blankets. He quickly rolled off his back, biting down on his tongue to keep from crying out. “My clothes.” He pointed toward the tattered rags crumpled in the corner.
“Oh, pooh!” she whined. “Do you have to get dressed?” She stepped forward, curled her hand around his manhood, and slowly stroked it up and down. “I can’t wait to see this marvelous instrument in all its magnificence; won’t you make it hard for me, Nachari? Please…at least give me a taste of what’s to come.”
“My clothes,” he repeated.
Rolling her eyes, she huffed her annoyance and retrieved his clothes. “Here.”
He took them and grimaced through the pain as he dressed. “Now then,” he groaned, leaning back onto the bed—he didn’t care that he fell in an awkward position; it was too much work to correct it—“there is still the small matter of trust…and a secret.”
Noiro sat heavily on the bed, jostled his aching body callously, and snorted. “Fine, fine. We may as well get it out of the way.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “Now then, let’s see…a secret.” Her devious eyes lit up. “Your brother Shelby was a very pure soul. I hear he is well respected in the Valley of Spirit and Light.”
Nachari sighed, trying to gather his patience. “The deal, Noiro, was a secret: something I don’t already know and can’t easily find out. Something that would place you in jeopardy if anyone knew you told me.” He frowned. “Try again.” He shut his eyes and recited a short Latin incantation beneath his breath so the demoness couldn’t hear. The spell was not strong enough to force her compliance, but it was definitely sufficient to confuse her mind—push her further in the direction of doing his will.
She threw back her head and shook out her hair as if the unruly mane was an erotic crown of glory. “Fine,” she snapped, sounding both irritated and bored. “Fine.”
He waited quietly.
“The boy,” she began.
Nachari sat up, alert.
“What boy?”
She turned up her nose in disgust. “The sniveling little accident-waiting-to-happen. You know, the one that follows you around like a lost puppy dog.”
Nachari frowned. “Give me a name.”
“Ha, ha,” she mocked. “As if you don’t know. Braden. Braden Bratianu. Satisfied?”
“Go on,” Nachari urged, suddenly feeling afraid for his young protégé: What could Noiro possibly know about Braden that he didn’t?
“The young acolyte Braden will never have a destiny. He is not born of the Curse. He was made. And while he may have been protected by the god Pegasus at the behest of his stepfather Dario, the Blood neither cursed him nor chose him.”
Nachari sat very still for a moment, contemplating all he was hearing. Could the demoness possibly be right? And if so, what did this mean for Braden? “Elaborate…”
Noiro stood up and began pacing around the clammy room. “What more do you need to hear? Shall I spell it out?”
Nachari bit back a curse. “Please do.”
She wheeled around on him. “The boy is a vampire because Dario turned him; however, he is not a product of the Curse! He was not born to a cursed male, nor is he a descendant of one of the original cursed males. Therefore, the gods have not chosen a mate for him—the Curse simply does not apply in his case.”
Nachari inhaled sharply as a dozen questions raced through his mind. “Can he mate with—or marry—a human female, then? And if he does, will he have twin sons? Is he immune from the required sacrifice?”
She shrugged, clearly indifferent. “He can try. No. And yes.”
“What do you mean?” Nachari pressed.
“I mean he can try to mate a human female if he wishes. However, I think we both know how badly such a thing would turn out. After all, he is a vampire—that much is a fact.”
“And the required sacrifice? His twin sons?”
Noiro smiled then, not so much with joy as cunning, the antics of a woman who had the power to shock and unsettle a Master Wizard. “No Curse—no sacrifice.”
Nachari let the information settle as he tossed it around in his head. Of course, if he ever made it back to Dark Moon Vale, he would have to gather his fellow wizards and Napolean and fact-check the information with the light gods, as it were. Even he was not foolish enough to trust a demon with a matter this important, but what if…what if Noiro was telling the truth? Then that would mean—
“Ah, yes…you are finally catching up with me,” Noiro crooned, an eerie self-indulgence in her voice. “Braden Bratianu can sire female children.” She laughed riotously then. “Pity he’ll never have anyone to sire them with.”
Nachari swallowed hard, his mind barely able to weigh the implications. “How do you know this?”
She looked away wistfully. “A brief tryst I had with the dark lord S’usagep—the twin energy of your revered Pegasus.” Her lips turned up in a wry smile. “Mmm, that was quite the…aerobic…affair.”
“And?” Nachari prompted, not at all interested in hearing about Noiro’s demented sex life, past or present.
“And,” she continued, “haven’t you ever wondered why so many of your destinies come from broken homes or tragic pasts? Why they’re orphaned or without much to speak of in the way of friends and family? It’s certainly not by accident.” She reached out to stroke his chin, and he had to force himself not to withdraw from her touch in disgust. “In this one matter, preparing a female human for her vampire husband, I’m afraid our twin energies interfere a great deal.”
“So, you’re saying that S’usagep interfered with Dario Bratianu and Lily, then?”
She laughed out loud. “Oh yes. As much and as often as he could.” She stuck her lip out in a pout. “Poor S’usagep did everything he could to steer Lily away from her destined path: She was never intended to marry a human prior to meeting Dario, and she was certainly never intended to bear a human child with a human man. But S’usagep worked tirelessly at hooking her up with anyone he could—anyone but Dario.”
“And that’s how Braden was born?”
“Quite the accident—that kid,” she said.
Nachari frowned, wishing he didn’t have to wait to tear the evil deity’s head off her shoulders. “I’m afraid I have to disagree,” he argued. “Braden is turning out to be quite the miracle: Perhaps you dark lords should stick to what you’re good at—scheming against one another in the underworld.” After all, Lily had divorced her first husband and ultimately married Dario Bratianu anyway—just as the Celestial gods had destined. So Dario had been forced to convert little Braden under the protection of Pegasus, even though he wasn’t his natural-born son, so what? The child had come through the conversion just fine, the first human turned vampire outside of the Curse; he was a blessing to everyone who knew him. Especially to Nachari.
Noiro’s cruel eyes narrowed even further in anger, if that was even possible. “Watch your tongue, boy. You are still a prisoner in my domain, and I can still have you skinned alive!”
Nachari shrugged, suppressing a shudder. “Been there, done that. And frankly, I’m not impressed. Besides, my skin would just grow back, and it would waste a lot of time…” He glanced at her speculatively. “Your biological clock is ticking rather loudly, isn’t it, Noiro?” He laughed, his own chiding pointed and derisive. “As are the clocks of many other female demons down here, I might point out: Perhaps I’ve chosen the wrong female.”
Noiro gasped with indignation. “You promised!” she shouted.
“Shh,” Nachari warned. “Lower your tone. Do you want to draw Ademordna’s attention to our conversation?” For a moment, he thought about the high-stakes game he was playing with the wicked demoness: What if, for some ungodly reason, his plan didn’t work? What if he crafted his spell, took adva
ntage of Noiro in order to escape the Valley of Death and Shadows, and it didn’t happen? He would be forced to remain in the underworld indefinitely, and Noiro would definitely hold him to his false promises.
The thought turned his stomach.
He would rather die a thousand deaths—spend a dozen eternities in hell—than father an aberration of nature with the vile female demon. In fact, he would rather enter Ademordna’s throne room every day and night until the end of time than enter Noiro’s malevolent body even once. He shook off the thought. His plan would work.
It had to work.
She was staring at him with a combined look of both rage and terror in her eyes, and her hair began to sway about her shoulders, not in a beautiful, lustrous way but like a bundle of snakes wriggling about her misshapen head. “Shh,” he whispered again, reaching out to cup her slimy chin in his hand. Ever since he had scolded her about changing her appearance so often, she had come to him wearing her true face and persona: a serpent-looking atrocity with wide nostrils and a forked tongue. While it was almost unbearable to look upon her, it was necessary in convincing the desperate creature that he had truly come to want her—exactly as she was.
All part of the mind game, the web he was weaving, to get home to Deanna.
He ran his finger gently along the line of her jaw, leaned in slowly, and placed a chaste kiss on her lips, lingering just long enough to make her want for more. “A kiss for the first talisman. I said I would give you what you need, and I will.”
She looked surprised then. Pleased, if not wary.
“But,” he added quickly, “not until I have what I need.”
She slowly licked her lips, and her narrow, forked tongue almost made him heave, but he suppressed the urge without revealing his disgust. “And what is it that you need, sweet wizard?” She ran her hand suggestively along his inner thigh, first the back of her fingers and then the pads.
Nachari used an ardor spell to force his manhood to respond. It wasn’t arousal, simply a biologic redirection of blood flow. When she drew back in utter delight and laughed, he lowered his voice to a soothing, seductive tone. “I need you…” He lifted his hand to trace the outline of a jutting nipple, erect at the apex of a heaving breast, and stopped just short of making contact. He brushed her hair behind her shoulder instead. “To give me…” He ran his hand along her shoulder, down her spindly arm to her waist, and pressed it firmly against her lower belly.
“Yes,” she whispered, breathlessly.
He sat back on the bed, resting on his elbows. “…the remaining three talismans I asked for: a snake, a scorpion, and a spider from the remaining three provinces.” He licked his lips slowly and smiled that infamous Silivasi smile—a gift rarely bestowed upon the wicked hag. “The timing of all of this is really up to you.”
Noiro shook her head vigorously, as if coming out of a trance, and if truth be told, she was coming out of a spell of sorts. Despite the errant, uncooperative energy of the Abyss—the contrary laws of physics that rendered Nachari’s magic too ineffective to control the barbaric machinations of his eager tormentors while he was under their constraint—his powers had grown astonishingly strong during his horrific stay in hell. The demon lords had managed to do more than the entire council of wizards at the Romanian University during Nachari’s 400 years of study: They had forced him to retreat within; challenged him to create powerful alchemy using inferior elements; taught him the very patience, focus, and creativity that only came with centuries of practice. They had allowed him to channel pain into power.
They had turned him into an even greater, more powerful wizard.
Noiro was a deity.
An immortal lord of the underworld, wholly evil and without conscience, yet she bent to his will like putty beneath his hands. Despite all the years of being told of his incomparable beauty, his devastating effect on women, Nachari Silivasi knew that there was only one thing responsible for the successful manipulation he had achieved with Noiro.
Magick.
Deep. Powerful. And growing.
His.
“You will bring me these soon?” he whispered.
Norio shut her eyes and swayed back and forth, his words washing over her like molten liquid in a golden stream. “Should my lover wish it, I would bring you the head of our Supreme Ruler, Ademordna himself.”
Nachari stared into Noiro’s eyes, reading her sincerity, not daring to look away or break the connection.
If only it were that easy.
If only Noiro possessed the power to challenge the King of the Middle Kingdom of the Valley of Death and Shadows, his tormentor and relentless captor, to destroy his greatest enemy—
But she didn’t.
Not by a long shot.
Still, there was no point in telling her that now. She would need such bold arrogance to complete the tasks he had given her. And there was no time like the present.
“I’ll let you know if it comes to that, sweet love,” he whispered. “But for now, bring what I’ve asked.”
fifteen
Dark Moon Vale ~ Two weeks later
Deanna looked into Kagen’s bottomless dark brown eyes, each shimmering with reflections of silver light, and searched for reassurance. While his handsome, kind features were shadowed with both concern and compassion, he simply couldn’t give her the guarantee she needed: that she would come through the conversion just fine and everything would be all right in the end.
She looked at the sterile hospital gurney and the taut leather straps where her ankles, thighs, wrists, and forearms would be bound and felt her body begin to tremble. “Are you really sure those are necessary?”
Kagen glanced at his brother Nathaniel, who quickly looked away. And didn’t that just tell her all she needed to know. “Unless you allow me to…hold you, they are.” His voice was tender but matter-of-fact.
Deanna nodded then. Kagen had offered to take Nachari’s place, in a manner of speaking, to position his body behind hers with his arms and legs wrapped firmly around her in order to provide the necessary restraint for the conversion, but she had refused the offer.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want the assistance.
Hell, it wasn’t that she didn’t need the constant contact, the comfort.
But it just didn’t feel right.
It would just be too intimate, and she felt like she owed more…devotion to Nachari. “No, that’s okay. We’ll try it this way,” she said.
Nathaniel whistled low beneath his breath and then looked at her apologetically: He obviously hadn’t meant to make the sound. “If it gets…too rough…Deanna, then either myself or Kagen will release the bindings and hold you, instead.” He paused as if searching for an adequate explanation. “You can’t expect us just to watch…without helping in whatever way we can.”
Her smile was faint. “Yeah, okay.” She glanced at the clinic door then. “Where is Jocelyn?” She looked at her watch—for the tenth time. “She said she’d be here.”
By the look on Nathaniel’s face, it was obvious that he was speaking to his destiny telepathically. After a short pause, he said, “Looks like she got held up in her self-defense class, but she’s on her way.” He paused, listening. “She says she’ll be here in five minutes.”
Deanna swallowed hard and looked at the hospital bed—at the magnificent male who was lying so serenely beneath the crisp white sheets—and took a deep breath.
She couldn’t believe this was happening.
That the actual conversion was about to take place.
That she had committed her life, her future, and even her species—changing from human to Vampyr—into a beautiful stranger’s hands, when she hadn’t even met him.
She swallowed convulsively, bearing down on her resolve. The decision to go through with it had been primarily hers. While Marquis would have forced the issue earlier—all of Nachari’s brothers believed the transition would make a difference; if nothing else, the sharing of DNA might provide Deanna with c
ritical information about Nachari: where he was and what was happening to him, what was still keeping him away—the Ancient Master Warrior had backed off at the request of his younger siblings. They all wanted Deanna to come to Nachari of her own free will.
And she had.
Or at least, she was about to do just that.
She turned away as Kagen checked the connections on the intricate medical apparatus a final time. The seamless appearance of two razor-sharp incisors elongating beneath the Master Wizard’s upper lip, following an injection of some sort of stimulant, had already unsettled Deanna enough. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen fangs on Kagen, Nathaniel, and Marquis a time or two during her stay in Dark Moon Vale, but seeing them on Nachari—well, that was an entirely different matter.
It just brought it all home.
Made it all too real.
Nachari Silivasi was a vampire.
And gods willing, by the end of this procedure, she would be a vampire too—converted by this mysterious male, whom she’d never even met, with the help of his brother, the vampire Healer.
The catheters that protruded from beneath the extended fangs were equipped with a tiny pump, intended to extract venom directly from Nachari’s glands, carry it along a short, narrow tube, and infuse it into a small port that led to Deanna’s internal jugular vein for however long the conversion took.
Anxious tears threatened Deanna’s eyes. Oh, God, please don’t let me panic, she thought, staring once more at the clinic door. Weighing one last time whether to stay or run.
“Deanna.” Kagen’s soft voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Huh?” she asked, turning around to face him. He had the necessary tubing in his hands. “Why don’t we go ahead and prepare the central line while we wait for Jocelyn.”
Deanna looked at the intimidating apparatus and swallowed a lump in her throat. “Yeah, uh, okay.”
Nathaniel practically glided across the floor in that sinewy, cat-like way that he always had, and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Sister, breathe.” She felt a powerful influx of relaxing energy flow through her as a result of Nathaniel’s touch, and it allowed her body to relax for the first time. “This part will be painless—I will see to it,” he reassured her.
