by HELEN HARDT
“So he’s used the system before.”
“Yeah, that’s my guess. Only he doesn’t remember doing it.”
“Or that’s what he says.”
“I think he’s telling the truth, Dante. His memories are fragmented. He explained it as when he’s here, it’s like his time above is a dream, and vice versa. It could have something to do with his schizophrenia. His mind works differently, which probably affects the way he reacts to a glamour.”
“Maybe, but I’m not sure I buy it. River thought he was either manipulating us or someone else was manipulating us through him. What did you find out, though?”
“Bonneville is taking B positive women who have vampire ancestry and holding them here. If they have a genetic marker she doesn’t want, she lets them go. For example, Bella Lundy tested positive for the breast cancer gene.”
“Why?”
“Breeding. That’s my guess. Why else would she be concerned with genetics?”
“So it’s something to do with B positive women with vampire ancestry. That would be a lot of women, I’d think.”
“Yeah, but there’s something else. All the women down here, including me, are VO positive.”
“What’s that?”
She sighed. “Tell me and we’ll both know. Logan didn’t know either, and he did a hematology rotation.”
“Are any of these women pregnant?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen any of them other than Lucy, and she’s not. I’m still not sure why Bonneville took her. She said Lucy was onto her, but that doesn’t compute. Bonneville could have just glamoured her. Lucy has B positive blood, but it’s unlikely that she has vampire ancestry. Did vampires ever mate with shifters?”
“I don’t know about vampires mating with shifters, but Bonneville told me she couldn’t release Lucy because she wasn’t able to glamour her.”
“She’s in wolf form right now. At least she was. Something caused her to change. She didn’t seem to have any control over it. I wonder…”
“What?”
“What you did to her, your healing energy. Maybe it forced the change.”
“Then wouldn’t she have changed right away?”
“I don’t know. This is all just theory at this point.” She snapped a strange-looking vest on. “Bulletproof vest. Jay and River insisted.”
“Good call.”
“I suppose. They’re kind of binding. You should get dressed.”
I nodded and got myself together. “I guess we should find River and Jay and fill them in.”
“And Logan,” she said.
My hackles rose. “Hell, no.”
“He’s part of this now, Dante. He helped Lucy, and he helped me. He doesn’t deserve to be down here any more than the rest of us.”
As much as I hated to admit it, Erin was right.
But one thing bugged me. Bugged me big.
She had been absent for too long.
Chapter Fourteen
Erin
“Come on.” I tugged on Dante’s arm once he was fully clothed, trying not to let myself get hypnotized by his dark and dreamy eyes.
He nodded, and I followed him out the door. River and Jay were sitting on some chairs at the end of the hallway. Lucy, in wolf form, was with them.
“Any sign of Bonneville?” Dante asked as we approached.
“No,” River said. “Seems kind of odd, doesn’t it?”
“You have no idea.” Dante rubbed his temple.
My brother stared at Dante with pursed lips. Pretty clear he knew exactly what had transpired between Dante and me. I glared at him.
He broke away from my gaze and held up the book from my mother. “Another page opened, but only two words are clear, and we have no idea what they mean.” He handed me the book.
Vampyr Omega
VO.
“Oh my God.”
Everything else on the page was illegible. I handed the book to Dante.
“Vampyr omega?” he said. “What’s that?”
“VO, Dante. Remember I told you about the records?” I quickly explained everything to River and Jay.
“You think it’s some kind of genetic marker in a B positive vampire descendant?” River said.
“That’s my guess.”
“Vampyr obviously means vampire,” Jay said. “But what about omega? It’s the last letter of the Greek alphabet. Does this mean the end of vampires? That doesn’t make any sense. She wouldn’t be condemning her own species to extinction.”
“No.” Julian appeared.
I jolted.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. But there’s another meaning for omega.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense,” River said.
“Destruction,” Julian said. “The end of everything.”
“The end of humanity,” I said softly. “She wants to breed us out, and she thinks this vampyr omega thing is the key.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dante
“You don’t know that, baby,” I said.
But I knew.
Erin was right. This was her doing. I’d find her, and I’d get the truth out of her. “Stay here,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Where are you going?” Erin asked.
“I’m going to find that bitch and have it out with her once and for all.”
“No!” Erin grabbed my arm. “We can’t risk the safety of the others.”
“If what you theorize is true, she won’t risk their safety. They’re human incubators. She needs them.”
“You’re going to weigh the safety of innocent people, including your sister, against my theory?” Erin shook her head. “I can’t let you.”
“Then what, Erin? We let her get away with this? If you’re right, she has no intention of letting any of these women go.”
“Why Emilia?” Jay asked. “She’s already pregnant with my child.”
“I don’t know.”
“And why you, Dante?” Erin asked. “Why hold you here for ten years? What does that have to do with breeding vampires?”
“Oh, God.” Nausea erupted in my stomach and clawed its way up my throat.
“No, son,” my father said.
“What if, Dad? And you? And Uncle Brae?”
“Would anyone care to explain what the hell you’re talking about?” River said. “We’re not mind readers here.”
“Dante is afraid Dr. Bonneville harvested our sperm,” my father said.
“Oh, God.” From Erin this time.
“Where would sperm be kept?” I asked Erin.
“A cryobank. Fancy word for a freezer.” She swallowed. “The blood bank has a freezer in the back. Units of blood are stored there for longevity.”
“Dad, Andrew Gaston told us that his father considered you and Brae to be perfect vampire specimens. He was obsessed with you. You’d be the perfect sperm donors. This is so fucked up!”
“You think that’s why they were taken?” River said.
“Bill once told me he didn’t think I was the primary target,” I said. “What if he was right? What if she knew taking me would draw Dad and Brae out? And she was right.”
“Then why keep you, Dante?” my father asked.
“I don’t know. She got her jollies from feeding me and forcing me to drink from her, I guess. From dropping me into a fighting pit and making me— But no. She told me I did have a purpose, and that if I failed, there was another.” I looked to River.
“Keep me out of this,” he said.
“Braedon and I might have been the targets, but once we got here, she didn’t let you go. And she thinks River could replace you if need be.” My father shook his head. “It must all add up somehow.”
Images and thoughts buzzed through my mind at a rapid pace. The feedings. The fights. The rewards.
Once bonded, never broken.
Fight or die in the arena.
Darkness rising.
And we shall rise again.
The last fiv
e words popped into my head after those I’d heard so often while here. Yes. New words, except they weren’t new. She had uttered them many times while I’d been in captivity. Each time after I’d proved victorious in a fight. Each time after she’d fed from me…
“And we shall rise again,” I said slowly in a voice not quite my own.
The dark energy rose inside me, churning my insides into goo and forcing its way to the surface.
But I knew it now, could control it now. I could use it for my own purposes. “I need you all to trust me,” I said. “To have faith.”
“In what?” River asked.
“The dark energy that tries to take me over—I’m going to let it come through. I need you to have faith that I can control it.”
“But Dante,” Erin said, “you didn’t know us.”
“That won’t happen again, baby. I promise.”
“But—”
“Please. Have faith.”
I knew what I was asking. People had been asking me to have faith for so long, and I’d resisted. I understood now. I was asking for complete trust and confidence when I hadn’t shown I’d earned it. At least not where the darkness was concerned. Days ago, if someone had told me I wouldn’t recognize Erin—or River or Jay, for that matter—I’d have scoffed in his face and told him he was nuts.
But it had happened. They were justifiably afraid. And so was I.
Erin grabbed my hand. “If I can have faith in anything, Dante, I can have faith in you.”
“Me too, cuz,” River agreed. “You haven’t let us down yet, and if that dark crap possesses you, Erin can bring you back. We know how now, thanks to this.” He pointed to the book that Jay still held.
I grabbed it from Jay, trying to pry open its pages. “Show me!” I yelled. “Show me your secrets! What did she do to me? What effect did her blood have on me?”
To my surprise, the book opened.
Chapter Sixteen
Erin
I stared at the page that had opened before Dante as he read aloud.
“The blood of a female vampire is a powerful philter. When ingested by a male, it increases muscle mass, strength, and accuracy. All senses become more enhanced, and additional powers emerge. However, it should be used only in the direst circumstances, as the negative side effects outweigh the positive. The male fed on female vampire blood will eventually undergo a metamorphosis—a profound change in form, psyche, and temperament that will eventually end in an inevitable painful death.
“The blood of the female vampire, however, pales in comparison to the much more potent blood of the male, especially that from a young vampire on the waning moon of maturity.”
The rest of the paragraph was illegible.
I attempted to swallow the mass clogging my throat.
An inevitable painful death.
Dante had ingested female vampire blood for ten years. His muscles were certainly strong, and his senses acute. Additional powers? Check. Strong glamouring and telekinesis, for starters. As for a profound change in form, psyche, and temperament? The dark energy that lived in him was most likely the beginning.
And inevitable painful death?
No. Just no. Dante would not die.
He said nothing for what seemed like an eternity.
Then—
“Bonneville did say she’d found a way to combat the negative side effects.”
“You haven’t died a painful death, thank God,” Julian said. “That seems proof enough that she has negated the side effects.”
“But the darkness,” Dante said. “It could be…”
“Don’t let this change what you know, Dante,” Julian said. “You just got done telling us that you could control it. That we should have faith. We do. You are stronger than anything she did to you. Never forget that.”
He nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallowed. “It doesn’t mention anything about my change in blood chemistry.”
“Blood types weren’t discovered until 1900, and the Rh factor in 1940,” I said. “This was probably written way before then. It’s still possible that ingestion of her blood caused the spontaneous change. And the change doesn’t harm you. That’s a plus.”
“I suppose that’s something,” he said.
“Dante, we trust you,” I said. “We have faith, like your dad said. You are stronger than all of this.”
“Am I?” he said, shaking his head. “Am I truly stronger than everything here? Because apparently male blood is much more potent. She drank from me, remember? A young vampire on the waning moon of maturity.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dante
“Your blood is a gift,” she said. “If only you would give it freely.”
I said nothing. She could take my blood. I couldn’t stop her. I’d chafed my wrists bloody struggling against her leather bindings.
“You have no idea how precious you are,” she said.
“Then let me go,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Would I let the Hope Diamond go if I possessed it? The crown jewels of England? The Mona Lisa?”
“I’m not yours.”
“You are. You are mine. You represent what all vampires are capable of. What we can become. You will see, Dante. You will see.”
Something in this book had spooked Bill.
The portion of the Texts I’m talking about has nothing to do with our history. It has to do with what we’re capable of.
“She’s not only trying to breed vampires,” I said, “she’s trying to make us stronger. If drinking female blood strengthens our muscles, and she’s found a way to negate the other side effects…” I shook my head. “Maybe she’s trying to create a vampire army. It’s like Erin said. The end of humanity. Vampyr omega.”
“Not so fast, son,” my father said. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. That might be what she wishes could happen, but it’s impossible. Even with a few potential breeders, we’re still vastly outnumbered by humans. The only realistic thing she can accomplish here is to increase the vampire population by a small percentage.”
“I need to find her. She will answer to me, Dad. She will.”
“She’ll answer to all of us eventually. We’ll see to that. But we need more information. The book hasn’t told us what feeding on male vampire blood can do. We need that information so we can figure out her strengths and her weaknesses.”
“I’ve controlled her. I kept her behind that door.”
“You did,” my father said. “That’s a good thing, and it probably scared her.”
“Why won’t the book tell us what male vampire blood does?” I shoved my hands in my pockets.
“Apparently the book doesn’t think we need that information yet,” Erin said.
I grasped the book, my knuckles white, ready to hurl it down the hallway, when—
Lucy howled. We all turned toward her as the snapping of what could only be bones breaking filled the air. Her howls morphed into cries and then into screams. She changed. Fucking changed right before our eyes.
And God, it looked and sounded like bone-crushing pain.
Finally, a soft whimper, as she lay, stark naked, on the cold tile floor.
“Lucy!” River ran toward her, stripping off his jacket and placing it around her shoulders. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
She nodded timidly.
“Luce,” Erin said, “your face. Your body. It’s all healed.”
Lucy looked down. “I…don’t understand.”
“I don’t either.” Erin turned to me. “Maybe what you did healed Lucy in every possible way.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea.”
“What did you do?” Lucy asked.
I couldn’t speak.
“Your heartbeat was erratic,” Erin explained. “Logan wanted to try to shock you back into a normal rhythm, but the paddles wouldn’t work. Dante came in, put his hand over your heart, and it went back to normal.”
“What?” She closed her eyes, obviously
disoriented.
“It’s okay, honey. We’ve got you. Can you stand?” River helped her to her feet.
“Logan’s here?” she asked. Then, “Right. I remember now. The change clogs my brain a little at first.”
Erin nodded. “He helped save you when you were injured. Although your injuries seem to be healed now. You were beat up pretty badly.”
“I tried to fight…”
“We know, honey.” River rubbed her shoulders. “You should never have been in that situation.”
“I’ve been fighting every step of the way since I got here. Their drugs didn’t work on me, and I’d escape by shifting. I tried to get out. I ran more than once, but the doors were always locked.” She looked down. “Oh!”
“What is it?” Erin asked.
“My stab wound. It’s healed also.”
Erin approached her. “Let me take a look.”
I looked away. I’d already seen Lucy’s breasts when I healed her, but I didn’t want to be rude. Besides, River was giving Jay and me a look to kill.
“I think you performed a miracle here, Dante.”
“Thank you, cuz,” River said.
A miracle? I’d healed a person.
“I know what you’re thinking, son,” my father said.
Did he? Did he know I was considering the words of my mother in his dream?
A nearly divine purpose?
I’d resisted the godlike definition of divine, but if I was truly performing miracles…
No. I was not becoming a god. Certainly not with the darkness inside me.
“Supremely good,” was all my father said.
I nodded. Supremely good. Whatever powers her blood had given me, I’d use them for supreme good. I could control the darkness. Hadn’t I just begged them all to have faith in my ability to do just that?
“Yes, thank you,” Lucy said. “I don’t remember much until I changed in the hospital bed. I’m not sure why I changed, except that I have fewer nerve endings as a wolf, so maybe it spared me some of the pain of healing so quickly.”
