by Lucinda Dark
“I said that is enough!” Esperanza’s meager fist appeared between us, her fingers slightly gnarled with her age. She shoved Maverick back a step and another snarl rumbled up from my chest. “If I have to stick a hex on you, Torin Priest, I will not be pleased,” she warned.
“You would do well to be thankful to the woman who saved your life,” I growled at Maverick as he shook out his fist. I was pleased to see that his knuckles were already red and would most likely bruise. I, on the other hand, already felt the tingle of my healing abilities rushing to correct the damage done to my skin. The pain of his fist was fleeting. Though the pain of his betrayal would haunt me for eons to come. “How could you?”
Maverick blinked at the words as they rasped from my throat. With Esperanza’s expertise, I felt the struggles of my vampire subdued under her bindings. And though it felt like I was choking with each breath I inhaled, that was nothing like looking at the man I’d protected. The one I’d thought of as my brother. He wasn’t the only one, I knew, who should be thankful to Esperanza. Had she not stopped me, I would have killed him.
“Torin…” Maverick gritted his teeth and looked down for a brief moment before he looked back at me. “I’m sorry. I fucking am, but she was hurting. She was dying. She needed it.”
“You enjoyed it,” I spat back.
“I can’t deny that,” he said. “But you can’t say if you weren’t in my situation you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
“It’s different,” I said. “She’s my vampire’s mate.”
“What?” The corners of his mouth turned down as his eyebrows pulled together. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Esperanza answered, “that Torin’s vampire has chosen her as his eternal love. He will not be able to love another, even if she were to die. A vampire mate is quite rare and gives a vampire an extra boost of power as well as a weakness. Vampires who find their mates often experience high emotional activity as well as the introduction of special abilities.” Esperanza turned her cloudy gaze my way and for a moment, I felt her magic hum beneath my skin, searching. I allowed it. I, too, was curious as to what she would find. “I see nothing that has developed thus far save for the heightened potency of your current abilities,” she said.
Maverick looked from Esperanza and back to me. “Wait,” he said, shaking his head even as he reached up and wiped the blood from beneath his nose. He winced as his fingers touched his face. “Barbie’s your vampire’s mate and that means … what? That you’re fucking bound to her or something?”
I nodded, not surprised that I was beginning to retain the use of my limbs. In the next instant, I felt my body sag as Esperanza’s magic left me completely. “She is mine and I am hers. Forever.”
“Or as long as a dhampire lives, right?”
The three of us looked up as a hard feminine voice spoke from above us. Barbie descended the stairs dressed in a t-shirt that reeked of sex. I had to shove back my snarl of denial. Even after what I knew she’d done with Maverick, however, she was beautiful to me. Her skin practically hummed with vitality. No, it was something else. Power. Her eyes were sharp. I hadn’t even realized it until that moment, but the strain and stress had pulled at her skin before—sunken in her eyes, curled premature wrinkles into her brow and around her lips. Those markings were gone. She looked good—no, better than good. She looked positively delicious.
Thirty-One
Barbie
She is mine and I am hers. Forever.
I didn’t show the effect Torin’s words had on me as I descended the staircase. My thighs were sore and I didn’t show that either. Two sets of eyes, one an intensely rich brown and the other a violent red that slowly dimmed down into a somewhat luminescent hazel green, bored into me.
“Well?” I prompted as I stepped off the last stair and crossed my arms over my chest between the two of them. Maverick looked rough, his gaze glittering dangerously above a bruised and bloodied nose. I looked to Torin, irritation forming even as my stomach tightened with attraction. I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d seen him. Standing before him was like standing in the path of a high-speed train just before it ran me down. I tried as hard as I could to remain calm and to keep the truth from being revealed, but as Torin closed his eyes and inhaled deeply—causing a responding shiver to pass through me—I knew I’d failed. I was attracted to him, and that fact wasn’t a secret. This, however, was all my own attraction—none of it was based on my demon. She had been firmly locked away for the time being and the consequences of using her powers purged from my system thanks to Maverick.
“You’re my mate,” Torin finally said.
“You’ve called me that before,” I replied. “Or at least, your vampire has. What does that entail exactly?” My fingers clenched against my elbows and I held them against me as Torin took a step closer.
“It means,” he began, “that I cannot and will not love another. You’re it for me, Barbie. My vampire has chosen you and so have I.”
“That…” I drifted off awkwardly. What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?
“Will you give me a chance?” Torin asked, moving ever closer. When he touched my side, I nearly jerked out of his reach as a bolt of electricity shot through me.
“I just fucked Maverick,” I deadpanned.
Torin shook his head, the longer strands at the top of his head, sliding down the side of his forehead. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his hand gripping onto my hip with real force as his chest brushed my arms. I stiffened.
Quickly dropping my arms, I reached out and put a palm to the center of his chest, keeping him at bay. “I’m a vampire hunter,” I said.
He reached up and clasped my hand in one of his. The rest of the room disappeared, Maverick and the nearly blind old witch included. “Not just any vampire hunter,” he whispered, low enough so I was sure I was the only one who could hear. “A demon-possessed hunter.”
“Exactly,” I whispered back. I felt like I needed to keep the same level of volume as him. “A demon-possessed vampire hunter with a fucking vampire? It’s not—”
“A dhampire,” he corrected me, interrupting my last sentence. “The only one in existence that I know of. I think we’re two very unconventional creatures, you and I. But Barbie Steele, if you think I wouldn’t change my very DNA for you, you’re dead wrong. A vampire mates once in its eternal existence. You are it for me. Even if you deny me. Even if you leave me or put a stake or one of those magical holy swords I gave you through my half-living heart, I’ll still love you.”
I shook my head hard. “You’re only eighteen,” I said. “You don’t know what love is.”
“Love doesn’t have an age, Barbie,” he whispered, moving to stand in front of me fully, blocking even the light from above with his shadow. “Humans are taught to love from a young age. You loved your family, didn’t you? Isn’t that why you’re consumed by your desire to avenge them? Let me help you, Sweetheart. Let me love you. Give me a chance.”
My chest pumped up and down as he leaned close, his head dipping as he pressed his lips to the top of my head before he dipped down and pressed another to my temple. My eyes slid shut and I inhaled deeply, dominated by his very presence. “I…” My mouth was drier than the Sahara Desert. I closed my lips and swallowed roughly. Opening my eyes, I used the position of my hand still on his chest—half captured by his—to push him back slightly. “I think we have more important things to worry about right now,” I said.
It was a fucking cop out and I knew it. “The girl is right,” Esperanza spoke up. “Especially since I sense something rather nefarious exuding from your person, Torin.”
Torin took a step away from me, turning his gaze on the old crone. “What?” Maverick frowned, looking between us.
When Torin moved back another step, the air finally rushed into my lungs. As quietly as I could manage, I took a deep breath and released it. It wasn’t quiet enough, I realized a moment later when Torin looked at me
as he reached into his leather jacket and retrieved a white envelope from inside.
“Have you read it yet?” Esperanza asked, her murky, glossed over eyes moving from the envelope in his hand to his face.
Torin shook his head. “I haven’t had the opportunity.”
“You should, sooner rather than later,” she replied.
As they spoke, I sidled around them and towards Maverick. “Are you okay?” I asked.
Maverick fixed his gaze on Torin and Esperanza, but nodded as he answered my question in a gruff, abrupt, “Fine.”
I frowned, but let his tone and attitude be as Torin tore open the envelope. I had a feeling that whatever was inside wasn’t good—or else Esperanza wouldn’t have drawn attention to it. Torin let the envelope drop to the floor at his booted feet as he read over the contents of the letter. Strong, full lips pinched down before the upper swell curled back in a grimace. His eyes slid from left to right as he read, his brows lowering. The farther he read, the more tension seemed to overtake him. His shoulders grew stiff and unyielding, his normally bright eyes darkened. His nostrils flared.
“What does it say?” Once again Esperanza was the first to prompt him.
“It’s a summons,” he replied.
I took a step forward and bent to retrieve the envelope, flipping it over as the stamp symbol of melted wax—an old school seal I hadn’t seen used on anything in the modern era—caught my attention. Esperanza said something else to Torin, their voices a mixture of murmurs in the back of my head as my whole focus centered on the red double crossed swords as they jumped out at me. Just above and below it was a name—first and last. One I recognized.
“Arrius really thought he needed more for the Steeles? This was easier than any of the others.”
Arrius. The vampire who’d ordered my family to be slaughtered. No, not just Arrius. The name engraved in the wax seal proclaimed him Arrius Priest. And that’s when it clicked. How had I not seen it before? Torin had not just known who and what I was, he’d known about my family.
Blood pounded in my ears, the rush of it louder than everything in the room as I lifted my head and stared at his face. The envelope fluttered from my fingertips back to the ground and ripped under my bare feet as I stepped forward. Half turned as he was, he didn’t see the first punch.
“Barbie!” Maverick’s stunned shout didn’t deter me as I rounded again and threw another one. Torin stumbled back, the letter in his hand falling to the floor as well as power slammed through me. I grabbed him by the front lapels of his jacket and turned, swinging him into the stairway railing, the wooden frame of it cracking under his weight. I pulled back and delivered a third punch as Maverick’s arms came around my middle and yanked me back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he cursed.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Shock and betrayal rippled through my flesh. I kept my gaze focused on Torin’s face. His eyes darted once to the fallen envelope and then back to me as he groaned lowly and shut his eyelids, closing me off. He scrubbed a hand down his face. I was so fucking stupid.
“Your father,” I spat even as I struggled against Maverick’s arms. I could’ve gotten out. I could’ve forced him to release me, but that would’ve resulted in the use of more of Satrina’s powers as well as possibly hurting him. That didn’t halt the words that spilled from my lips, though. “Your father was the one who ordered the hit on my family,” I said.
“Barbie—” he started, opening his eyes as he dropped his hand from his face.
“How many others have that name?” I cut him off. “It was him and you knew. That’s how you knew about them, how you knew about me.” So goddamn fucking stupid. It hurt. God, did it fucking hurt. The promises he’d made me. The … other things we’d done. I didn’t realize it until that moment, but I’d begun to trust him. Torin Priest. I’d given him—a dhampire I should have despised simply for his existence—my trust and now that the rug had been metaphorically yanked out from beneath my feet, I was in freefall.
Nothing hurt worse than his deception. Not even the pain of demonic consumption. Angry tears threatened to rise forth, but with a sharp inhale, I shoved them back to the furthest recesses of my mind. I would not cry in front of him.
“I was going to tell you,” he said.
I shook my head, surprised by the level of fury that boiled in my blood. “You had every opportunity!” I screamed.
Maverick snapped, pulling me farther away. “What the fuck are you two talking about?”
I shoved away from him, turning on the both of them and glaring them down, my fingers itching to do real damage. I knew, without a doubt, had I had the swords in my possession, Torin Priest would have been dead. And it would’ve been by my hand. The desire to destroy him was that powerful. “His father is the one who killed my family,” I gritted the words out, answering Maverick’s question.
Maverick’s mouth dropped open as he blinked at me in utter shock before his attention flipped to Torin, who had yet to move from the broken railing I’d thrown him into. “I cannot fucking believe this,” he breathed.
“Believe it,” I snapped. “I should’ve fucking known better than to trust a fucking vampire.”
“Dhampire,” Torin bit out as he slowly stood back up. He cracked his neck and readjusted his nose. It took me a moment to realize that it’d been sitting at an awkward angle on his face beneath the blood that dripped steadily over his lips and down his chin. I’d broken it. But with his healing, it’d be like nothing had ever happened in a few hours even if right now it looked bruised and swollen—just like Maverick’s ironically.
“A vampire by any other name is still a cock-sucking liar,” I replied sharply.
“It’s complicated,” Torin argued. “I did intend to tell you about him, but I had to be careful.”
“Bull—” A firm grip rested on my arm, cutting me off. Esperanza’s fingers squeezed me as she stared up with her unnerving gaze.
“I have known Torin Priest as long as he’s been alive, if not longer, dear,” she said. “Give him a moment to explain.”
“Why should I?” I demanded. I tried to tear my arm away and found my limb locked in place. I paused and glanced down at the witch as she tightened her grip.
“Arrius Priest is not a creature to be trifled with, child,” she said sternly. “He is a monster far more dangerous than anything you’ve ever come into contact with. Everything he does has been perfectly crafted and his reach is far greater than you could ever conceive.”
“Katalin knows about you,” Torin said suddenly, drawing the old witch’s attention.
“I know,” she said. “She’s known that you’ve been coming to see me for quite a while.”
“She has?” Torin paused mid-shirt lift as he attempted to wipe most of his blood from his lower face with the dark fabric. My eyes darted to the hard plains of his abdomen and chest and I cursed myself for it, wrenching my eyes away.
Esperanza nodded and continued, turning back to me. “Fifty years ago, Arrius Priest approached several black witch covens across the world, including my own. He offered a lot of money for one or several of us to assist him in his venture to create a child,” she said.
I frowned. “Vampires can’t have children.” Their systems were no longer built for it. The moment a human was turned into a vampire, their human systems shut down and perished. They could no longer eat or enjoy human food. They couldn’t reproduce and their very humanity was slowly leached away. The older a vampire was, the less human they were.
“Not normally,” Esperanza agreed. “But it appeared that Arrius had come into possession of a journal from one of the original vampires of creation.”
“The child of a human and demon,” I whispered the words, shocked. From what my parents had managed to uncover, the original vampires had all lived thousands of years ago. There was no definitive record of what had happened to them. We only knew that they no longer roamed the Earth. Perhaps they’d died or perhaps they’d simply crawled int
o their tombs, fallen asleep, and never woken up again. It hadn’t even occurred to me that they’d left things behind for their descendants and future spawn to find. An oversight.
“Yes.” Esperanza nodded. “I was one of many in a long line of witches he convinced to help him. There was but one difference between them and I.”
An eerie silence moved through the space between us, and Maverick was the first to break it and ask what we were all thinking. “What was the difference?”
“I succeeded where they failed,” she replied.
“How?” I asked.
Esperanza looked up at me, her eyes flicking over my features, her grasp on my arm immoveable and stronger than she appeared. “I will tell you the story of Torin’s creation if you agree to hear him out,” she said.
A scowl twisted my lips as I cast the man in question a dark glare, but I couldn’t deny my curiosity. Torin shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t possible for a human and a vampire to have children, so how then, had his father managed to do what no one else could? What had Esperanza learned? After a brief moment of uncertainty—of feeling not only Maverick’s gaze on my face, but Torin’s as well—I relented with a sharp nod.
Esperanza released me and turned towards the living room of her old Victorian house and like a collection of self-possessed dolls, Maverick, Torin, and I followed her.
Thirty-Two
Barbie
“Arrius Priest is a vile, rotten bastard.” I kept my hands steady and Esperanza nodded her agreement at Torin’s statement. Maverick sat at my side, his face pinched with confusion as he waited. He didn’t seem particularly surprised by Torin’s obvious hatred for his father, but I couldn’t trust it. He hadn’t told me. Torin had known for months who was responsible for my family’s death and he. Hadn’t. Fucking. Told. Me. He was no longer innocent until proven guilty. He was guilty, fucking guilty until proven otherwise.
