by Kim Faulks
Someone coughed, another groaned. I wrenched my gaze to the others and glared at Marcus.
"Lucas." The leader’s gaze narrowed with a look of dread. He shook the fear free and stumbled forward, careening into his way to grab this love struck baboon. There was a scuffle, hands and feet as the two beasts fought for control. “You don’t want to…buddy. Come on. Lucas, come on.”
"Is this real? Did this just fucking happen?" The human male moaned and turned a shade of green. He lifted a hand and pointed at me. "Did she just...and then he just..."
"Keep your shit together, Alpha," the female Guardian snapped and then turned to me with the vicious gaze of a killer and thousands of lost souls stared back.
"Now we've got that out of the way," Austine murmured, drawing my gaze.
The corner of his lip curled as he stared at the buffoon, a spark of something flared in his gaze before he turned and lifted his hand. "How about we finish this somewhere a little less bloody and a little more private?"
"I'm not fucking going anywhere—” Alpha snarled and turned to the black haired beauty. "Xael, do something. Say something."
Her lip curled. She gave me one glance, and then dropped her gaze to the Alpha of their weird pack. "Marcus, are we doing this?"
"You won't be harmed in my home. I can promise you that," Austine murmured. "But you're free to leave if you wish. Gabriel will see you're returned safe."
"I'm staying," Lucas growled as Marcus grabbed his arm. He shrugged free, dragging those brown eyes to mine and barked. "You wanted me here, so I'm here. I'm staying."
I watched the others and felt a pang of pity for Marcus as he turned to each of his pack. "We came here to hear the Prince out. So that's what we'll do, okay?" Silence filled the air before he growled. "Okay, Alpha?"
"Okay," the human snapped and stared right through me. "Just make sure there's at least five of you between me and her."
Marcus glanced my way and then nodded. "Deal, just...we'll do all the talking."
Austine narrowed in on the human, and then scanned the hallway behind him. "You're the Marine. The one who walked through Hell."
And in an instant the blubbering human snapped to attention. Gone was the tremor in his voice, leaving only steel as he answered. "I am."
"And the wolf. The one you saved," Austine murmured, and then licked his lips. "Will she be joining us?"
"The wolf?" Alpha winced. "No, she won't."
"Pity." My brother glanced to the entrance behind him. "I find her rather fascinating."
The Marine stilled for a heartbeat, before he answered carefully. “As do I, Prince...as do I.”
Austine gave a curt nod and together we turned. “Gabriel, escort our guests into the formal room.”
My stomach tightened. I stared at the others. She should be here...she should be with her mate. Nerves flared, panic shifted. That left the young Cherokee wolf and the strange seer behind, alone with the growing pack.
“Eva?”
Concern flared in my brother’s voice. I forced a smile and smoothed the mask across my face. “I’m fine, truly. Come.”
His fingers trembled with the effort as we took one slow stair at a time but he held strong, resting with one nervous glance in my direction before we continued.
He’d been shot, stabbed, burned, and nailed to a goddamn cross. But the thin black veins pulsing underneath his skin terrified me the most. They were the real danger—and not just to himself.
I stayed by his side, day and night, watching, waiting for the darkness to truly fall. I prayed to the Original—the Father of us all, and when word came that the Dragon child had been found with Demon blood in her veins I prayed harder.
But there was no more prayer. No more comfort. Only the cold, hollow knowledge of truth. No one was safe—no one would survive.
Not while the Dragon child lived.
“Jesus it's colder than Xael’s smile down here.” The Marine's voice carried.
“Shut it, Alpha. Or I might just leave you here. Looks like you and the Prince have a lot to talk about.”
Alpha snarled, and then muttered something under his breath. Their banter rebounded from the walls, drowning out the slowing sound of Austine’s steps. I turned, catching the sheen of sweat across his brow. His grip tightened, clenching flesh, grinding bone as the walls lightened, dancing with the slow flicker of the fire.
Music carried along the hallway from deep inside the cavern. And with it the fresh, heady scent of Lycan blood. My fangs lengthened, sliding over my lips with the cries of pain and pleasure.
“What the hell is that?” Alpha growled.
“Step closer,” I murmured and lifted my hand to the stone pillars of the doorway. “You might like what you see.”
The human’s gaze hardened. Hate and fear echoed from those widened eyes. Flames danced along the sides of the cavern. Shadows caught limbs and slipped from their hold. Females danced in the middle of the wide altars, hips swayed, pale flesh gleamed on naked bodies as Vampires and Wolves rolled, licked and thrust from the center of hundreds of stone altars.
The sounds of their devotion filled the air. I turned as the wolf caught sight of the skulls. Pointed snouts and long fangs piled around the edges as a silent witness to the great warriors who delivered their final death.
Tonight was The Night of Blood. The night we honored the warriors and toasted the endless war. Tonight we craved blood and stoked the flames of this eternal hatred of our nemesis––the wolves.
The scuff of her shoe drowned out the catch of breath. I saw everything in her eyes. The horror, the hurt...and then the overwhelming sadness for all the deaths before us, and all those to come. For a second my smile slipped. For a slow, empty heartbeat her sadness became mine.
This cruel, savage war.
Would it ever end?
“This way.” Austine surged forward with a limp, climbing the steep rise to the first level. Doorways branched off in all directions. Our inner circle remained here in the heart of our holdings, while the remainder infiltrated the human world.
We left nothing to chance or to the whims of any other race. The blood we drank was the purest—but taken in a lab, overseen by members of our second circle.
We owned the blood banks. We owned the hospitals. We owned more than the humans would ever know. Our world was all about control—control and retribution.
“Come to me.” Hunger bled into the human's growl. He clawed over the edge of the altar and reached.
The smell of blood bloomed thick, rich...and fresh, drawing me closer.
“No.” Fear shone in her eyes, glistening like the steel of a blade as she captured his hand. “You have me, lover. Let me take of you.”
Skin slipped on skin. I stared as we passed, catching sight as she slipped along his body and bared her fangs.
The sudden cry of fear and pain smothered the sounds, followed by the guttural groan of ecstasy.
“Jesus,” Alpha whispered behind me as I stepped into my father's formal room.
The fire burned, candles and lanterns lit the space. But it was the darkness I was drawn to as the others followed.
“Gabriel?”
I turned at his name. The Guardian, Michael, glanced over his shoulder at the warrior in the doorway. “Are you coming?”
The ghost of a smile passed across the warrior’s lips. I'd never seen him smile before. The twisted effect looked awkward and alien, making him seem...real.
He took a bow. "This is where I leave you. I have errands to attend to, but I'll be back in time to see you safely home."
Concern filled his gaze. One quick glance toward me, and then he turned and left.
Gabriel had been a loyal warrior. I’d trust him with my life—just not with my secrets.
But he had his orders...no matter how vague they might be.
Find me the Huntress, no matter the cost.
I glanced around the room filled with Dragons, and felt a surge of hope. This was all I wanted—th
is one moment where the Guardians were occupied and my brother was safe.
They'd never know...they'd never suspect.
The Huntress was still out there, hunting, searching—right where I needed her.
For on this night, under her name, I'd do the unthinkable.
Kill a Dragon and end my world.
5
Eva
"We're all here, so let's start." Marcus glanced around the room. His jaw flexed, grinding the words. "Although, I have to say Prince, you could've picked a better night."
Confusion flared in my brother's gaze as he turned toward the leader of the first circle warriors. "I thought… Didn't you say…”
But there was no reaction from Gabriel, only a twitch at the corner of his eye.
"It doesn't matter," Austine muttered. "You're all here now. So, the letter..."
And only then did the warrior turn, and unearth the fear in his gaze.
I met that plea with a stony look of innocence. It'd taken a kind whisper, one word on behalf of his future King, and the meeting had been set in stone.
"My father was a good man and a good King. But he was weak, a man so caught up in his position he failed to see the loyalty of those around him."
Austine raised a hand and motioned to the doorway. "We weren't always like this you know—closed off from the world, hiding in caves. We once surrounded ourselves with humans, mages, and powerful allies, like the Huntress and her group of immortals and mortals called the Chrysalis society. But these leaders were different, hungrier, greedy for something more than blood and flesh. These leaders wanted power—the kind of power my father wielded. They wanted to create a superior race—one that would replace all others. The Huntress befriended him, seduced him, wanted him to bend the knee and follow this society all the way to the gates of Hell."
Pain flared hot and bright, turning deep brown eyes to amber. He looked so much like Father in the right light. The way he stiffened as though in pain. The way he trembled when he spoke. But Austine's chin was rounder, his cheeks higher.
Regal had always suited him, more than it did me.
I sought the picture above the mantle and shuddered. The likeness was cruel, as though with one simple word my father would crawl from his gilded cage and scream. They will know, Eva! They will know what you have done!
But that painted mouth remained mute, and his bitter blue eyes sparkled with silent screams.
"But he came to his senses when he saw what they really wanted—their own race—a race that would ultimately be a threat to ours, and so he cast them out," Austine continued as I stepped backwards, to stand half in the shadows and half in the light. "Until the Huntress forced her way back into the clan, and brought my father to his knees."
"Forced him?" the love-struck Guardian growled. "How the Hell do you force a Vampire King to do anything?"
"Easy," Austine answered and turned his head to stare at me as I melted into the shadows. "You abduct his only daughter.”
I pressed my spine into the wall and pushed. The cold ate my bones, and gnawed my flesh, turning body into stone and then into bones and blood, as I passed through the wall and out the other side.
His voice still haunted me as I left the darkened room for the flickering firelight in the cavern outside. "When Gabriel found her my sister was barely alive. Black blood seeped from her eyes, her ears, her wounds. They wouldn't let me see her, wouldn't let me come near her for a very long time. But it was our father who suffered the most. Gabriel was the one who found him, a pile of ash at my sister’s feet. They killed him, and they killed him in front of her. Eva changed from that day. She was never what you’d call happy—but she was never like this, never so cold, never so hard..."
Never so cold...never so hard.
Pain flared, spearing through the center of me. I swallowed the hurt and surged forward. I had hope—once. The memory, so fleeting and fragile. I would've clung to anything in those days. I turned my head, and glanced over my shoulder. I would've clung to him and destroyed the one good thing I had left.
I swallowed hard and kept to the shadows leaving the wounding words behind. The blur moved to my right and a figure stepped forward. Her blonde hair caught the dim light. "Princess." White irises glowed, bleeding into the most vibrant blue as my first circle protector stepped into my path, "May I accompany you?"
I shook my head. "Not tonight, Annabelle."
She gave a nod and slunk backwards. Her gaze sat heavy against the nape of my neck as I left her behind, and strode into the great room. Flames danced from the sunken pits, revealing the ninth circle and the Lowest Kynd. They were the bitten, the created—not born like Austine and myself. They were baseless and animalistic—their humanity barely a speck in their soulless eyes. I held onto what I had, to the memory of a loving mother and the bond of my brother, and carved my way through the horde. They scurried like rodents, licking the stony floor and consuming every last part of the second circle warrior as he found his final death and turned to ash.
The orange glow danced on naked bodies. From the mass one female wrenched her head upward and turned. Midnight eyes glinted. In this moment she was nothing more than an animal, hunger, pain, lust—that was all she knew.
A hiss slipped from blood-smeared lips.
How simple—to react with no repercussions, no fear of what might be. To her I was nothing more than a threat, not royalty, not her maker.
The sound rebounded, filling the room like a nest of snakes. To kill another of our kind was brutal and sadistic. We weren't thriving, not like the wolves, and the humans. We couldn't breed our way to salvation. Couldn’t…wouldn’t––it was all the same.
We were stagnant and cold. We were the undead, rodents of the immortal world, forced to endure the survival of our line one newly turned Vampire at a time.
The Blood Oath we made with the Guardians saw to that.
I held out my hand as I stepped into the fray. Power rippled, sending a hum through the room, and the Lowest Kynd answered with shrill screams of pain and fear, and scampered out of my way.
Pain, they knew it well. Didn’t we all?
They know what you are.
Remnants of his voice filled my mind. I knew pain because of him. I knew darkness because of him...which made my decisions simple. There was no other way.
I left behind the Vampire savages. A first circle warrior lingered at the entrance to the exit.
“Princess…”
He bowed as I passed. Another hovered in the darkness, dropping his gaze as I slipped past. “Princess.”
I never stopped, never slowed, only nodded to each one as I made my way along the passage, until the light from the outside world bled into mine.
I blinked into the blur, and covered my eyes. I didn't want to leave the darkness, didn't want to see what waited for me in the world above.
They know what you are...
I closed my eyes to the words and dropped my hand. Fingers skimmed the swell of my breast and lingered low against my belly. They didn't know. Not yet. But one day soon they would, and when that day came...
A shudder coursed along my spine, stealing the ice in my veins. It wasn't just my life that depended on this. Austine's face filled my mind. He was the future, the rightful King. I'd do anything to protect his life, even if it meant ending my own.
I dropped my hand and surged forward, finding the murky light as I cut across the open wound of the Shadistin world and looked up. Stony icicles speared down from the ceiling, in between them the world opened up. We were of the shadows—born in the shadows and lived in the shadows—but there were many of us who walked up there, amongst the humans to make sure the Shadistin world continued.
I lengthened my stride, covering the base of the cavern and searched for an opening. The outside world above invaded with the savage gash. I tensed my muscles and shoved my heels into the ground before finding the edge, and leapt. Air buffeted my face, pressing the leather mask against my mouth as I left my st
ony world behind. My heel sank into the grass. I stumbled, and stared at a bank of trees at my right.
The sting of sunlight was instant. I winced and wrenched my hand up to cover my face. The outside world closed in—the sights, the smells, and sounds—and for a second it was all too much.
I took a breath. Birds called from somewhere high up in the trees. I focused on each piercing trill until the scurry of something bigger stole my focus. The deep, earthy scent of fresh turned soil carried on the wind, and under that was the perfect smell of fresh blood and a fresh kill.
The ground made no sound as I took a step, and then another, spearing through the belly of the forest to skirt the wide hills.
The pungent stench of wolf floated on the sweet, earthy breeze. Movement slipped through the trees. I slowed to the sudden drag of breath. My nails dug deep in the woody flesh of pine as the deep guttural snort echoed, surrounding me on all sides.
Hunkered bodies moved like an incoming wave, slipping between the trees and the brush to surge along the steep rise in front of me.
I pressed my spine into knots and the branches, and held my breath. Shrubs moved, bending to the bodies that passed. I closed my eyes and waited, ready for their growl of warning—ready to kill if I had to.
The air rippled with the faint whiff of power. I knew this part of the forest, and the vile things that happened here. The hair rose on my arms with every breath. It wasn't just the earth, but the air—the energy—as though the forest remembered.
The Echo pack left behind more than empty pigpens and chains. With each shuddering breath I could taste the rot and filth of this land. Blood and terror would stain this earth forever.
I should've known it was her—the cruelty, the terror, the vile sale of humans and wolves carried the taint of her foul energy.
By the time the first reports came in it'd already been too late—she was gone, along with most of the pack.
And then the Guardians came with their fire and their rage to burn it all away.
The snap of a twig wrenched my focus ahead. The forest seemed to sigh from the past, as though it too were one tired of living.
