But he only nodded. “Be safe, my love,” he murmured, bending down to kiss her, heedless of the attention of his people.
The humans’ glances turned speculative and then transformed into frank curiosity when Khiarra leaned over and wrapped her arms around Ashra’s neck, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
“Through her you will see the Night Terrors for who they are,” a quavering female voice intoned. A quirk of laughter sparkled through it.
Ashra turned and inclined her head to the ancient wise woman.
“Thank you,” Mater Matris said. “You have protected us.”
A low murmur of human voices echoed her gratitude.
The crowd flowed around Ashra as the people surged down the steps of Malum Turris and spread out across the square. Jaden turned away, carrying his sister with him. Within moments, he vanished down a cobblestoned path.
Tera approached Ashra. “My vampires will start clearing out the lowest level. I’ll be with them, in case Elsker is down there. Should I send Talon and Yuri with you?”
“No. I’ll be fine. I’ll check on Siri’s progress and then join you.”
Ashra’s wings spread and beat down hard, carrying her to the top of Malum Turris. She landed on the balcony surrounding the chamber and strode into the room. “Siri?”
Her eyes widened. “Siri!” She rushed forward and dropped to her knees beside the wounded icrathari. Siri’s throat had been slit and her stomach punctured with claw marks, but her chest moved almost imperceptibly with each breath.
The air shifted behind Ashra, heralding the unfurling of massive bat-like wings. She rose to her feet. Without turning, she acknowledged an approaching presence. “Elsker.”
“Ashra.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Beside Elsker, a large daeva cradled its winged infant.
Taking on an icrathari or a daeva, as ancient, as strong, and as powerful as she was, would have proved challenging enough. Taking on both at once would be suicide.
She took a step back, but the control panel blocked further retreat. She straightened and raised her chin. “Why, Elsker? Why did you betray us?”
He shook his head; his voice was sad. “This isn’t a betrayal, Ashra. It is a plea for change.”
“A plea, accompanied by a hostile invasion?”
“The world is changing. It’s not just the four of us struggling to salvage and protect whatever life is left on this planet. The daevas—they’re like us. If we work together, we can have a different future, one unburdened by humans.”
Ashra tilted her head. “Is the child yours?”
Elsker’s expression tightened.
“Answer the question. The daeva child, is it yours?”
The daeva hissed.
“And yours?”
The daeva inclined its head, the gesture stately. A silver ring glittered on its finger.
Elsker swallowed hard. “We met on one of my scouting expeditions nine months ago. We fought; she spared my life. They’re not the monsters we’ve made them out to be. They need only access to superior technology—technology that we have locked away here in Aeternae Noctis—to trigger the evolution of their society to higher levels, levels that could perhaps find a way to restore life to the surface of the Earth.”
Ashra arched an eyebrow. Life on Earth. Could peace and collaboration with the daevas be the answer?
“There is hope, Ashra, hope for all of us, but not if we are perpetually burdened with those ungrateful, pathetic humans.”
His callous dismissal of the humans, the youngest children of the Great Mother, raised her hackles. She bared her incisors in a snarl. “Jaden’s ungrateful and pathetic human friends saved our city today. Without their help, the daevas would have killed the vampires and taken over Aeternae Noctis.”
“Change isn’t free, Ashra. The lives of the humans and the vampires are a small price to pay. We don’t need them. The Earth belongs to us—the icrathari and the daevas. We reunite our species, join our futures.”
The faint sliver of a shadow fell across the doorway behind Elsker and the daeva.
Ashra’s pulse skittered, but she forced herself to appear impassive.
Jaden peered into the room, met her gaze, and touched a hand to his ear. Apparently, Siri had not closed the communication channel from the chamber, and Ashra’s conversation with Elsker had been conveyed through the mobile com device Jaden wore in his ear.
The communications channel…
She shifted her weight, a subtle motion. Her left hand slipped behind her, fingertips crawling against the surface of the control panel. She did not know the control panel as well as Siri did, but she knew enough to find the button to trigger the emergency beacon to summon Tera to the chamber.
To keep Jaden alive, she would have to hold Elsker and the daeva’s attention until Tera and the vampires arrived. She glared at Elsker. “The future belongs to all of us, vampires and humans included. I don’t care who you consort with in your free time, but when you lead an occupying force into my city, you become my enemy.”
He snorted. “Consorting with the human turned your mind and heart against the city. You cannot win, Ashra. Secede, and we will show you mercy.”
Jaden inched into the room on silent feet. His drawn swords glittered as sunlight danced along its edge.
No, Jaden. Please, no. Not yet. Her gaze darted to Elsker’s face. “The same mercy you showed Siri?”
Jaden lunged.
The daeva arched, screaming in raw anguish, clawing at the sword that emerged through its stomach. With a shriek, it dropped the infant.
“Megun!” Elsker whirled around and threw himself at Jaden, talons extended.
Jaden kicked the injured daeva away and brought up his other sword to deflect Elsker’s attack.
Ashra’s full attention was consumed by the battle with the daeva. Though wounded, Megun was ancient, immortal in a way that only their kind could be. Her wound healed, flesh stitching around the injury, but could not close around the embedded sword, nor could she remove the sword from her back.
Ashra leapt at Megun, her wings bearing her aloft to avoid contact with Jaden’s blade. Megun lunged up, her claws tearing at Ashra’s chest and shoulders, but Ashra wrenched Megun’s head back, exposing her neck.
Ashra’s upper lip pulled back, and her elongated fangs glistened. She sank her fangs deep into Megun’s throat, and then jerked her head back, ripping out the daeva’s throat. There was no elegance, no murderous beauty, just the raw violence of an immortal tussle to the death.
Blood, deep gold, dripped from her mouth. She placed one hand underneath Megun’s chin and another at the base of her neck. With casual strength, she ripped Megun’s head from her shoulders.
Jaden screamed, the sound infused with pain.
She spun around.
Elsker dropped Jaden to the floor. Jaden’s throat was torn, his chest ripped and bloody. He slumped into an unmoving heap.
Her heart skipped a beat, but she narrowed her focus on Elsker. Her hate-filled gaze darted back to his face.
He spat on the floor. “You’d take a human over one of us. How low you’ve fallen.” He ground his teeth. “It drove me wild to see you accept Jaden the way you never accepted me.”
“What?”
“Love isn’t easily dismissed.” Pain filled his eyes. “We were once engaged to be married.”
“It was thousands of years ago—”
“Three thousand years ago…before Rohkeus, before he saw you and claimed you, not as his royal consort but as his concubine. I loved you, but you chose to be his mistress, his whore, instead of my wife.”
“I loved him.” That fact was as clear, as obvious to her as the fact that she loved Jaden with the same need, the same intensity.
Elsker slammed his fist into his chest. “And I loved you! Do you know what it did to me to see you go willingly into his arms every day, every night? Even after I arranged for the human to assassinate him, you never looked at me again, not ever with love.�
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Ashra’s jaw dropped. “You killed him?”
Behind Elsker, Jaden stirred. Teeth gritted, he dragged himself to his knees and silently reached for his fallen sword. His other hand grasped the dagger sheathed at his waist.
Elsker taunted Ashra. “Do you think the assassin could have killed him if I had not told her how? If I had not lured him outside the city before the break of that first dawn? Yes, I killed him, just as I’ve killed the human vessel of his soul. I’ll make sure you join him now.”
Ashra’s expression did not change as Jaden’s dagger plunged through Elsker’s stomach. I gave up Rohkeus a thousand years ago and Elsker three thousand years ago.
His features contorted with agony, Jaden rose over Elsker and swung his other sword.
Elsker’s head rolled off his shoulders. His body collapsed beside Megun.
Ashra threw herself forward, catching Jaden as he dropped to his knees, his sword falling from his fingers. “No, you can’t die, not now.”
His eyes fluttered and closed. His heaving breaths subsided into shallow gasps of air.
Tera and the remaining vampires, Talon, Yuri, Lucas, and Xanthia among them, burst into the chamber. Lucas hurried to Siri’s side and dropped to his knees. His examination was brisk. “Get her to the infirmary. I can save her.”
Yuri stepped forward, scooped up the injured icrathari, and ran from the room.
Ashra held out a hand to stop Lucas from leaving. “And Jaden?”
Lucas shook his head. “His injuries are fatal. He will not survive as a human. He won’t even survive the half-hour transformation to a vampire. I must tend to Siri now.” He turned and followed Yuri from the chamber.
Ashra stared at the man she loved. The human.
She bent over him. “Jaden?”
He did not respond. His skin was cold, clammy.
Could she transform him against his will?
No one had ever successfully transformed into an elder vampire, not since the founding of Aeternae Noctis.
But how could she let him die?
“Stay with me,” she murmured.
His eyes—Rohkeus’s eyes—opened and focused on her face. His lips moved, silently shaping the words, “Let me go.”
Talon shook his head. “Don’t do it, Ashra. He won’t transform. He can’t.” His dark eyes locked on Jaden’s. “He’s afraid. You can smell his fear.”
The pungent scent rose from Jaden’s skin. He was rank with terror. His green eyes—brilliant green—stared at her. Rohkeus’s eyes. Jaden’s eyes.
If he were only Rohkeus, she would have let him go. She had learned to live with only her memories of him. They would suffice.
But this was Jaden. They had barely begun their journey together. How could she face the rest of eternity without this magnificent, exasperating man who clung to his humanity and challenged his mortality at the same time?
How could she find love without him?
She leaned close and pressed her cheek against his. “You found your way back to me once,” she whispered fiercely. Her breath traced a path down his neck. Her fangs sank into his jugular and tore through the skin. His blood spilled onto the cold steel floor. Gold-tinged crimson swirled with pools of spilt icrathari and daeva blood, blending into the brilliant hues of a sunset.
She drew a sharp nail over her wrist and pressed the open wound against his lips. He fought her, turning his face away, but he was too weak to resist. She held his head still and forced her golden blood past his lips.
His throat worked as he swallowed. Sips became gulps as the blood took hold, flooding his veins, purging his mortality. He trembled from violent shivers. His eyes flashed open, the pupils dilated and unfocused.
His human body died and was reborn as an immortal. His savagely ripped throat and chest healed, the jagged edges tugging seamlessly together. The wound in his jugular shrank, the flesh knitting beneath a flawless layer of skin. The last droplet of blood that seeped out was gold.
Ashra pulled her wrist away from his mouth.
Madness flickered in the depths of his green eyes.
Blessed Creator, I have lost him. She spoke through the crushing pressure on her chest. “Take him outside the city. Bury him.”
Tera nodded. She bent down and gathered Jaden into her arms.
“Wait,” Ashra called out before Tera flew away. She breathed a final kiss to Jaden’s cheek. A single tear trickled from her eyes. Her voice was an unsteady whisper. “My love will find you.” She sank into his fevered warmth, inhaling his scent. Her eyes closed, and she drifted in the memory of his embrace.
Tera’s voice cut through their farewell. “I have to bury him now. He’s changing, faster than I expected.”
A low sob shuddered out of her. Ashra pulled back and turned away, braced to lose the man she loved.
Chapter Nineteen
A raging fever consumed his flesh. The pain washed like acid down his throat, swirling through him, dissolving everything it touched. Arching in agony, he dug his fingers into his hair, and stared aghast at the golden blood dripping from his fingertips. His nails, now sharper than a knife’s edge, had cut into his skin.
Am I dying? What’s happening?
His senses screamed into full revolt. The sweet yet repulsive scent of decay and rot filled his nostrils. The skittering sound of settling sand particles pounded through his head. Glimmers of light filtered through the enshrouding dark, piercing his skull with shafts of pain.
Ashra’s blood…changing me. Oh, God. No.
His head spun as he struggled through fractured memories. Talon’s voice, distorted into a ghostly whisper, echoed in his skull. “If there is fear—any hint of fear—the transformation fails.”
Fear.
Like a living shroud, it choked him, suffocated him. Blinded, he fled from a body he could not control. In his mind’s eye, he ran, pursued by sights, sounds, and smells that pulverized him. Terror chased him to the brink of sanity. His mind skidded on the edge of madness.
He looked down.
The fall was endless.
He teetered on the precipice. The overpowering sensations he could not understand and could not control closed in on him. He had to jump. There was no other way.
“My love will find you,” Ashra’s voice whispered.
You did this to me.
“My love will find you.”
Why? I begged you to let me go.
“My love will find you.” The echo of her voice, rich with love, faded. The warmth it offered lingered.
Embrace the blood.
I love you, Ashra.
Your love is enough for me. It has to be.
Jaden closed his eyes, settled into the cocoon of the earth, and willed his fists to unclench. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the musky scent of soil. Sensations pummeled him from all sides. The shrill, panicked scream of madness pierced his soul.
Embrace the transformation.
Insanity clawed at him, shredding him to pieces.
There is no other way.
Ashra waited. From the balcony surrounding the chamber, she watched the changing landscape outside the dome. She had ordered Siri to disconnect the projectors at the top of Malum Turris. The illusion of the flawless, beautiful Earth shattered. The people deserved to know what lay beyond the dome; they deserved the truth.
Only then could humans, vampires, and icrathari find a way to survive on their altered planet. Together.
Xanthia, aided by teams of human engineers, had hotwired the damaged engines. The city moved at a crawl, inching forward on six of its twelve engines. Speed was no longer crucial now that they knew that the heat of the sun could not penetrate the palladium glass dome. It was important only to make progress. The city moved, slowly covering a hundred miles a stretch. It stopped directly above the solar charging stations to allow teams of vampires and humans to replenish the fuel canisters.
Uncaring of the activity that bustled around her, Ashra inhaled deeply, a shud
dering sound.
Jaden had not returned.
The transformation would not have taken more than six hours. He would have had to travel to catch up with the city, but the distance should have meant little to an elder vampire.
Eight hours became ten.
Ten became twelve.
Hope, already dim, faded.
Finally.
The sun had set.
The searing pain of his transformation had passed hours earlier, but instinct kept him in his shallow grave. There was no place, not even for an immortal, out in the scalding sun.
The dry soil flaked away easily as he dragged himself out of the ground. The sky was dark, but the surface of the Earth was still warm to the touch.
There was no sign of the city.
Jaden raised his face to the night sky. The jagged edges of the mountains stood in stark relief against the sky. With his enhanced eyesight, he could see every crevice. He could hear the faintest whisper of sound. The air caressed his skin like a lover’s fingers; he could feel the tremors vibrating through the air.
Tremors caused by a massive domed city moving through the air.
With a smile, he turned toward the direction of the city. His muscles coiled, the motion as fluid as a predatory pounce. He ran with the effortless grace that only an elder vampire could attain.
Dawn was a threatening sliver of light on the horizon when he leapt up to land on the metal platform in front of the outer doors. He raised a hand to pound on the door, but it slid open before he made contact.
Talon grinned at him and extended a hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
Jaden grasped Talon’s hand and allowed the elder vampire to draw him into the city. Ashra stood five feet away, her arms wrapped around her stomach. Her golden eyes widened, and her lips quivered. The terrible fear eased from her eyes, but wariness remained.
Her hesitancy seared him. How could she doubt what he felt for her? She had spared his life, saved his life, and—out of love—granted him immortality. He held his arms open and without a word, she walked into his embrace.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know you did not want this fate.”
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