Undefeated

by HELEN HARDT

  I sighed. “That would be another issue, but let’s not make assumptions. She had VO positive incubators lined up until a day ago. There was no reason for her to harvest eggs or freeze embryos.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Dante said.

  I sighed again. I hoped I was right too. Another moral dilemma was the last thing we needed.

  Chapter Ten

  Dante

  “One thing I don’t get,” Erin said. “If she’s trying to breed vampires, and Julian and Braedon were the best specimens, why would she put Braedon on steroids that could make him infertile?”

  “Because she’s nuts?” River said with sarcasm.

  Erin shook her head. “Bonneville is a narcissist and a vampire supremacist.”

  “Like I said. Nuts.”

  “Yeah, relatively speaking,” Erin continued, “but I’m not sure Braedon is on steroids.”

  “Even a Gabriel vampire can’t grow muscles like those naturally,” River said.

  Erin walked back to my uncle’s table. He was resting comfortably after I’d removed the shackles from his wrists and ankles.

  “Something’s not right,” she said, smoothing her hand over his bicep.

  “What do you mean?”

  “His musculature. At first glance, it looks like he’s pumped up, but if you look closer”—she bent down—“it’s not right. His musculature has changed somehow.”

  “Yeah, it’s gotten bigger,” River said.

  “No, I mean it’s changed. It’s not…normal.”

  Braedon turned toward Erin, his eyes sunken and fatigued. “No,” he said. “it’s not normal.”

  “What happened?” Erin asked. “What did she do to you?”

  He coughed. “It’s a prophecy or something. She says it to me all the time.”

  River and I joined Erin at Uncle Brae’s side. “What kind of prophecy?”

  “I don’t know. She hasn’t gotten specific.”

  “A prophecy?” Erin rubbed the side of her head. “Maybe I’m wrong about her being a woman of strict science.”

  “Not necessarily,” Dante said. “If she read about some kind of prophecy in that damned book and figured out a way to make it happen scientifically, she hasn’t changed at all.”

  “Has she injected you with anything?” Erin asked my uncle.

  “It’s possible.” He coughed again. “There’s a lot I don’t remember. Sometimes it comes back to me.”

  “I get that,” I said. “It’s the same for me. The memories came back more easily once I got out of here.”

  “How long has she been making you drink her blood?” Erin asked.

  “Seems like forever,” he said.

  “As long as you’ve been here, then. Same as me. Why not my father?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “I do,” Erin said. “Rather, I have a theory. Julian and Braedon are identical twins. My guess is she was testing the effect of her blood on Braedon and then recording the differences between the two.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Research,” Erin said. “Twins are a perfect way to test theories, since they have identical genetic makeup. It’s what that freak Dr. Mengele did to twins at Auschwitz during World War Two.”

  “Fucking bitch,” River said. “Whatever she did to you, Dad, we’re going to find a way to undo it.”

  Braedon shook his head. “No. I want you out of here. Just get out of here, all of you. Forget about me.”

  “Are you kidding?” River said. “No way!”

  “It’s too late for me, son. Please. Save yourselves. I can’t bear the thought of her keeping you here. Of you being subject to—” A hacking cough cut off his words.

  “I’m not leaving,” River said.

  “You are,” Braedon said. “I’m still your father, and you’ll do as I say. I thanked God when Julian got out, but then I felt him die.”

  “Uncle Jules died on purpose,” River said. “To help us. To help you. Don’t let his death be in vain.”

  “On purpose? He took his own life?”

  “He did,” I said. “And I agree with River. If you don’t fight this, Uncle Brae, he’ll have died in vain. Where is he, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” Braedon asked. “He’s dead.”

  “Big news, Dad,” River said. “Ghosts exist. Uncle Jules is still around.”

  “Then why…”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It took me a while to see and hear him at first, though Riv and Em saw him right away. It still sticks in my craw a little.”

  My father appeared instantly. “Tell him I’m here.”

  “Uncle Jules is here,” River said. “Here, in this room.”

  “Is he visible?”

  “He is. And audible.”

  “Why can’t I see or hear him?”

  “Your vision might be compromised,” Erin said. “But you should be able to hear him. Just believe. Believe that everything you’ve been taught about life after death no longer has any meaning. Believe that a person keeps his own unique identity, even in death.”

  “Not possible.”

  “That’s what we were taught,” River said, “but I assure you it is possible.”

  “Dad,” I said, “Uncle Brae said something about a prophecy. Do you know what he might be talking about?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “What about Bill?” Erin asked. “Whatever he saw in the Texts spooked him because it had to do with what vampires are capable of. Maybe he saw the prophecy.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “That would make sense. Apparently it’s something the council doesn’t know about.”

  “Or maybe they do,” River said. “Maybe that’s why Levi Gaston didn’t want Bill spilling any council secrets.”

  “Could be either,” Erin said. “The council knows something they want to keep mum about, and Bill also knows something that the council doesn’t. We don’t know which is which, and both could have nothing to do with any prophecy. We just don’t know.”

  I dug in Erin’s pack and pulled out the book. No new pages had been revealed. I raised the book. “Damn!”

  “Easy, babe.” Erin gently took the book from my hands. “We need this.”

  “It’s not moving quickly enough,” I roared. “Spill your secrets, you stupid-ass book!”

  “Control, son.”

  Control. Fucking control. “Your twin brother is lying here, his body mutilated by God knows what, and you talk of control?”

  “I know. But Braedon is actually doing better. I feared for his life earlier, but seeing his son has had a profound effect on him. I no longer feel that the end is imminent.”

  “Talking to my brother?” Braedon asked.

  “Yeah, Dad. He’s here. Open your mind, and you’ll be able to hear and see him.”

  “Jules?” Braedon said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Tell him he has nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Uncle Jules says you have nothing to be sorry for,” River said.

  “If I had more strength right now, I’d get up and force him to reveal himself to me.”

  “It’s not him,” I said. “Believe me, I understand your frustration. Everyone here saw him before I did, and he’s my father.”

  “He’s my brother. My twin brother. We began life as one.”

  “Give it time. Open your mind,” I said. “He’ll appear.”

  “You’re weak right now from the electrocution,” Erin said. “Try to rest. Rest and believe. When your body isn’t so exhausted, it will be easier.”

  “Yeah, get some sleep, Dad,” River agreed.

  “Her goon can’t come in and torture you anymore,” I said. “Erin took his pin.”

  Erin smiled and tugged on my arm. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” We walked outside, where Logan was still sitting on the floor. I bared my teeth as a growl rumbled in my chest.

  “Easy. He wasn’t in control of
his actions.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “I know. But we have more important things to figure out. Like why your uncle’s muscles are changing. It’s not steroids, or it’s steroids plus something else. His structure is changing, maybe from the inside out.”

  “Why? You dare to ask me why?”

  I lay limp, knives of pain lancing through my body, my flesh buzzing from the electricity the goons had sent surging through me.

  “Why?” I whispered once more.

  Why do you take my blood? Why do you force me to drink yours? Why do you have me tortured? Why do you make me fight? Why do you reward me with human blood that I can’t resist? Why, after rewarding me, do you torture me again?

  All those questions, but all that came out was another weak, “Why?”

  “I don’t answer to you, Dante. You answer to me.”

  Desperate for answers, I did the one thing that made me hate myself, the one thing that her giant ego would respond to.

  “Why, my queen?”

  “You are meant for far more than a meager vampire existence in the dark, Dante. When I’ve completed my work with you, you will change the world.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Erin

  “Medically, this shouldn’t be possible,” I continued, “but granted, I know nothing about vampire physiology.”

  “Vampire physiology is no different than human physiology,” Dante said. “Just our need for the specific nutrients found in blood. At least as far as I know. Since we can interbreed, I assume it’s true.”

  “I wonder why no vampire has ever learned to synthesize blood,” I said. “Seems that would have been a priority.”

  “Why haven’t humans learned to synthesize blood?” Dante asked. “Then people wouldn’t have to donate.”

  “Touché. Actually, blood substitutes do exist, but they’re only expanders. So far, no suitable oxygen-carrying substitute has been found. Maybe that’s part of what vampires require—the oxygen component of blood.”

  “Could be,” Dante said. “I never thought about it.”

  “Most people don’t stop to think about things that are such a basic part of life. How many times does the average person stop to think about the air they’re breathing? Or the food they require to sustain their lives? Not many.”

  Dante didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t indicate he’d heard me at all.

  “Babe?”

  “Sorry. I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Something Bonneville said to me once. After torture. I was feeling a lot like Uncle Brae must be feeling right now, and I only wanted to know one thing. Why?”

  “And?”

  “She wouldn’t answer me at first, not until I buttered her up by calling her my queen.” He frowned, a sound of disgust in his throat.

  “Then she answered?”

  “Yeah. She said, ‘You are meant for far more than a meager vampire existence in the dark, Dante. When I’ve completed my work with you, you will change the world.’”

  I lifted my brow and widened my eyes. “Wow.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you remember when she said this?”

  He shook his head. “It’s no use asking me about timing, baby. When I was here, minutes and hours morphed into months and years. I have no idea of any timeline.”

  “It’s a prophecy.”

  Logan’s voice. I turned to him. He sat on the floor, his knees drawn to his chest.

  “Braedon said something about a prophecy. Logan, do you know what he’s talking about?”

  Logan shook his head. “I don’t know any specifics. I’ve just heard the word a lot.”

  “You’re no fucking help at all,” Dante growled.

  Dante was understandably upset and angry. Logan had been torturing Dante’s uncle in much the same way Dante had been tortured. My heart wept for him, but I also saw the bigger picture—the bigger picture that could help all of us. Logan had information. Or rather, his alternate personality probably had information. If I could figure out how to make Logan Two come out, we could see what he knew. Of course, if Logan Two came out, I had to make sure he didn’t go back to torturing people.

  I squeezed Dante’s arm and then knelt down to face Logan.

  “Are you sorry for the evil atrocities you’ve participated in down here?”

  “Of course! I’m a doctor, Erin. I never wanted to harm anyone.”

  “But you did,” Dante growled.

  “He didn’t,” I said. “His body did, but not his mind.”

  “Doesn’t matter. He did it.”

  I stood and whispered to Dante, “Did you ever do something you wished you hadn’t?”

  His eyes softened. “Many times. Though I thought I had a reason for it at the time. I did what I had to for survival.”

  “Maybe Logan only did the same. Look. He has information inside him somewhere. If he knows more about this prophecy that Braedon mentioned, it could help us.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I can’t get past what he’s done, even if he does have some kind of screwy mental disorder.”

  I couldn’t blame Dante for his shortsightedness regarding Logan. I actually felt the same way. I was angry. Logan had tortured someone Dante loved. Dante was my world, and what upset him also upset me. Somehow, though, I had to help Dante see the big picture here.

  “Dante, I—”

  River ran out the door. “Erin! Something’s wrong with my dad!”

  I raced back into the room, my heart pounding.

  “He’s not breathing!” River cried. “I’m going to do CPR. Erin, I need you to do the respiratory breaths.”

  Quickly I checked his airway. All clear. “Start the compressions.”

  River locked his fingers together and pressed hard on his father’s chest.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  Thirty chest compressions, and then I tilted his head and forced two breaths inside him.

  Nothing.

  “Damn it!”

  One. Two. Three. Four. “We need a doctor. Logan!”

  He came running, but of course fell backward and yelled when he couldn’t get through the door. He couldn’t do anything I wasn’t already doing anyway. I needed a defibrillator, but this wasn’t a hospital room.

  Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.

  Two more breaths.

  “Come on, damn it!”

  “Dante,” River said while still doing compressions. “You saved Lucy. Please save my dad.”

  “Riv, I don’t know how I did it.”

  “I don’t care! Try!”

  Dante pushed me away and laid his hand on his uncle’s chest.

  Nothing.

  “Dante!” River cried.

  “I’m trying, Riv. I just don’t—”

  With a loud whoosh, Braedon drew in a massive breath.

  Thank God!

  I touched his neck to check his pulse. “It’s faint, but it’s there. It’ll get stronger.”

  Dante raked his fingers through his hair and then stared at his other hand, the one that had brought his uncle back to life. “It was probably the CPR.”

  “It could have been,” I said. “Or it could have been you.”

  “Thank you, son.” The voice came not from River, but from Julian. “Thank you all for saving my brother. It is not his time to die.”

  Braedon’s eyes opened. “Julian?” His voice was weak and hoarse.

  “Yes, Brae. I’m here.”

  “I can’t see you.”

  “You will. In time.”

  “I was coming to be with you. To help.”

  “I know. I felt it. But it’s not your time, brother.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know. Trust me.”

  “But—”

  “River and Dante need you here. I’m not exactly sure why, but I feel it very strongly.”

  “I felt it just as strongly that I needed to die, to be with you. To help you. Why is
your feeling right and mine wrong?”

  “Your feeling isn’t wrong, Brae,” Julian said. “It’s simply misguided. You are still bound by a physical body, a body that’s been abused. Right now, you feel like you can’t help your son as a living being because of what you’ve been through. I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. I’ve seen things on the noncorporeal plane that none of you could comprehend.”

  “If I died, I could comprehend them.”

  “Yes, but trust me that it’s not your time.”

  “Why me and not you? Why do I get to live?”

  “I don’t know yet, Braedon. I don’t have all the answers, but they will reveal themselves in time. I’m sure of it.”

  “I’d gladly take your place, brother.”

  “Don’t mourn me, Brae. I’ve accepted my fate, and I’m still here for all of you. It is my destiny.”

  “Sorry to interrupt this brotherly bonding,” I said, “but you need to rest.”

  “You’re a nurse, right? My son told me all about you and Dante and your bond.”

  “Yes, I’m a nurse.”

  “Then I have you to thank for saving me.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t me. I did what I could, but River did the chest compressions. And then Dante…”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dante

  My hand still burned from whatever energy I’d expended to bring my uncle back to life. I continued staring at it, mesmerized.

  Nothing had happened when I first touched my uncle’s chest. Voices were all around me.

  Save him! Save him! Save him!

  But I don’t know how.

  Don’t know how.

  Don’t know how.

  Only when I’d seen the true horror in River’s eyes had the energy risen within me. It traveled like a skittering electric current from deep inside me, my very core, and then through my body and out of my hand.

  I had revived him, but had he been without oxygen for much longer, I wouldn’t have been able to. I simply performed the role of a defibrillator. This, I knew, was where my power ended.

  I could not bring back the dead.

  My father’s ghost stood at my uncle’s side. They were still talking, and I couldn’t discern whether Brae could see him yet.