by HELEN HARDT
Didn’t matter. They needed this time to be brothers.
Erin took my hand. “You’re amazing. You know that?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what I did.”
“Doesn’t matter, cuz,” River said. “You did it.”
“We need to find your uncle some clothes and get him out of here,” Erin said. “Though he might not be in any condition to move right now.”
“That bastard did quite a number on him,” River said.
Erin stiffened, but I nudged her gently. Now was not the time for her to tell River that it wasn’t actually Logan. I wasn’t sure I was buying that anyway.
She seemed to understand. “Let’s figure—” She jumped when something fell on the floor behind her.
The book.
“How did that—” She stooped to pick it up and checked her pack. “I guess I left the zipper open, but still, how could it just jump out— Oh!” The book fell open, and I read over her shoulder.
When two males grow together in one womb, sired by a descendant in the angel’s line, the firstborn will be gifted with all the wisdom of the ancient vampires, while the second will possess immense strength and power never before seen.
More illegible words. Then—
So it is prophesied. So shall it be.
“Was your father the first or second born?” Erin asked.
“First. Brae was born ten minutes later.”
“This is the prophecy. It has to be.” Erin read it aloud to River, Julian, and Braedon. “She’s trying to turn Braedon into something powerful and then control him.”
“Why did she keep me, then? And what are these powers I have?”
“I don’t know,” Erin said. “Nothing else is legible.”
“Of course not.” I scoffed.
“Maybe there’s something in the illegible part before ‘so it is prophesied.’”
“That doesn’t do us any good.” I shook my head, my fangs snapping down.
“Easy, son. Control.”
“I’m fucking sick of control!” Rage consumed me.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Erin said, her voice soothing me. “It says ‘sired by a descendant in the angel’s line.’ What does ‘the angel’s line’ mean?”
“Who knows?” River said. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“I need to go.” My father disappeared. “It’s your sister. She needs me.”
“Dad!” I squeezed my hands into fists, ready to punch something. Logan Crown would be a good start. “Now what? What’s wrong with Em? She’s out of here. She should be safe.”
“Your dad will see to her safety,” Erin said. “So will Jay.”
“Jay can be glamoured,” I said.
Erin said no more. What could she say? I was right.
Just one more thing to worry about.
I looked toward the door.
Make that two more things.
Decker and two others stood in the doorway.
“Man, you guys have great timing,” River said. “Bring it on.”
“Where’s your boss lady?” I said. “Still indisposed from the last time I went at her?”
“Get the fuck out of our way,” Decker said, ignoring my question. “We’re here to take the beast down to the pit.”
“Over my dead body,” River said.
“Make that two of us,” I agreed. “How’s the nose feeling?”
Decker scowled, baring his fangs.
I showed him my longer and sharper ones. “You’re going to have to do better than that.” I pushed him outside the door where Logan still sat huddled.
He was the least of my concerns at the moment.
I pushed Decker against the wall. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t thrash the hell out of you.”
“I can give you three good reasons. Here they come.”
I turned. Three more vampires stalked down the hallway. I laughed out loud. “You think they scare me?” With a thought, I pushed energy back at them. They yelled as their bodies flew backward and hit the wall with three thuds.
“Fuck. You,” Decker gritted out.
I clocked him up the side of the head, and he fell to the ground.
Back in the room, River was fighting one of the others while the second had Erin smashed against a wall.
He was grinding into her.
My teeth sharpened, and with another thought, I hurled the rogue vamp across the room and outside the door, where he fell against Decker’s unconscious body.
“Baby? Are you okay?”
She nodded, biting her lower lip. “He didn’t hurt me. But he was definitely glad to see me.”
I seethed, while River landed an uppercut to the remaining vampire’s jaw. I grabbed him, tossing him out the door to land on the heap outside.
“Damn, cuz.” River wiped the sweat from his brow. “I’m definitely feeling like the weakling here.”
“If I knew how I did it, I’d tell you.”
Then it dawned on me. I did know. This time, I’d known exactly what I needed to do, and I’d channeled the energy into the task.
I was beginning to learn to control the new powers.
As long as I didn’t fight the dark energy and kept my own head, I could harness it and produce results.
Again, I stared down at my hand.
Whatever this power was, I didn’t have it before. Somehow she had brought it out in me. My time here had brought it out in me.
She might have meant it for evil, for her plans to bring vampires back and end humanity, but she didn’t control me.
Only I controlled me.
The powers she’d given me belonged to me and only me. I would decide how to use them.
I smiled.
I was ready.
“Now, Dante”—she licked the wound on her wrist after forcing me to feed from her—“you are ready.”
Chapter Thirteen
Erin
Dante’s eyes shined with new fire. Oh, I’d seen his eyes angry, full of rage, full of passion and desire. I’d seen them filled with sadness, regret, remorse.
What I saw in them now was new—an emotion I couldn’t read.
Something in him had changed.
Fear lanced through me. I had to stop him. I didn’t know why, or from what, but I felt it as strongly as I’d felt anything in my life.
As strongly as I felt my love for him.
He smiled.
Not at me. Not at River. Not at his uncle.
He smiled at something amorphous, his gorgeous full lips taking on a serpentine quality.
No.
Just no.
I grabbed his hand. “Fight it, Dante.”
He turned to me, stared at me. “I’m going to end this. Now. For all time.”
River forced Dante around and met his gaze. “Cuz?”
“I can end their lives. All of them.”
“Who?” I said. “The vampires? They’re out cold, Dante. You don’t need—”
“They don’t deserve life. They don’t deserve anything.”
“Julian!” I yelled.
“He won’t come,” River said. “Not if Em’s in trouble. God. What the fuck? Dante, cuz, you’ve got to snap out of this.”
Braedon sat up on the table. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Dante, Dad. He’s not…himself.”
“I’m perfectly fine.” His fair skin glowed with rosiness. Rage. “But it’s time to end all of this.”
I stared into his eyes again. “Dante, please. We all need you. I need you.”
He blinked.
And his eyes changed.
He was back.
“Thank God,” I said on a sigh.
“What?” he said.
“You weren’t…you for a few minutes there.”
“Don’t be silly. I was—” He blinked again.
“Dante, you were going to kill the thugs. All of them. We can’t let you. We can’t let you become a killer.”
He widened his eyes. “Shit. I was so convinced I had everything under control. What happened?”
“Easy.” I shuddered. “You’re back now, but you weren’t you. I’ve seen you that way before. At least you snapped out of it quickly this time.”
“Cuz, you’ve got to fight this shit.”
“I have been fighting it. I’m in control. I was sure I was.”
“You are,” I said, trying to soothe him. “Everyone has a setback now and then.”
“A setback?”
Dr. Bonneville’s voice.
I turned and met her cold blue gaze. “Zabrina,” I said icily.
“What you experienced wasn’t a setback, Dante.”
“Get out of my sight,” Dante said through clenched teeth.
“I’ve come to feed,” she said, turning toward Braedon. “Your uncle’s blood is delicious, but nothing compared to yours. I’ll take yours today.”
“The hell you will.”
I gasped. The words had come not from Dante, but from Braedon. He was standing, his muscular body seeming to take up the full room.
“You think you can stop me? You’re forgetting who’s in control here, Braedon.”
“My nephew released me, bitch. You want to try to take me on?”
“I made you.”
“That’s right. You did. But if I’m not tied down, just how do you think you’re going to control me?”
I gasped as Zabrina yanked me toward her.
“Not a problem,” she said. “I’ll just feed on Erin. I already know how sweet her blood is. Don’t you agree, Dante?”
“I’ve incapacitated you several times now,” Dante said. “Do you really think I’m going to let you take Erin’s blood?”
“I think you might.”
I gasped as something cool touched my neck and scraped my skin.
A blade.
She held a knife to my neck. I forced my legs to keep from buckling and choked back a cough.
“Even you can’t heal a dead person, Dante. I’ll have this knife through her more quickly than you can act, and you won’t be able to stop her from bleeding out.”
Dante’s eyes turned fiery. “I’ll destroy you,” he said through clenched teeth.
In a swift movement, the knife flung away from me of its own accord, hitting the wall and then dropping to the ground. River dashed over and picked it up. Again, I forced my legs to keep standing. An edge of relief simmered in me, but I knew this was far from over.
“What did you do to me?” Dante demanded, walking forward and yanking me away from Bonneville. “Somehow my Rh factor changed. You planted something in me, and now I have these unusual abilities. Tell me. You didn’t plan on all of that, did you?”
“The outcome of experimentation doesn’t always yield the expected results,” she said.
“That’s right,” River said. “It doesn’t. We’ve figured out your secret.”
He was bluffing. We had no idea what Bonneville’s weakness was. The Texts hadn’t shown us yet.
“Then you know I’m perfectly safe here,” she said.
I choked back another cough.
Here? She was perfectly safe here? I wanted to explore the thought further, but with the ghostly echo of cool steel pressing into my flesh, I couldn’t exactly think straight.
“Logan mentioned a prophecy,” Dante said. “The only prophecy in the Vampyre Texts involves twin males. My father and uncle. Nothing to do with me. So why did you keep me? Why do you want River now?”
Zabrina’s lips curled into a snakelike grin. “Ask your father.”
“My father’s dead, as you well know.”
I kept quiet. We could ask him, though Bonneville refused to believe in ghosts.
“Then ask your uncle. He and his twin have no secrets.”
Dante turned to Braedon, whose look was unreadable. “Uncle Brae?”
“Nothing. There is nothing. I swear it. She’s manipulating you, Dante.”
“Am I?” Bonneville seethed. “Or do you truly not know the precious family secret?”
Chapter Fourteen
Dante
Precious family secret? My uncle shook his head, his eyes wide. Whatever secret she was talking about, Uncle Brae didn’t know.
Uncle Brae and my father were twins. They did not have secrets from each other.
“There is no secret,” I growled. “Now get the fuck out of my sight!” I hurled energy toward her, and she whooshed out the door into the hallway, falling on top of one of the unconscious thugs, her head knocking against the wall. She was out, but she wouldn’t remain out. If the Texts were accurate, she would recover from any physical blow.
Her power lay in her immortality, her imperviousness to aging and injury. One thing I was sure of now, though. Whatever she was up to went far beyond just forcing a vampire baby from mating a human and a vampire. She’d figured that part out, but that alone wouldn’t increase our population exponentially.
No. That was only the beginning.
Something else was the key.
Something that involved my father, my uncle, River…and me.
Especially me.
Erin grabbed the book out of her pack. “Come on. We need information.” She opened it. “Oh my God.”
“What is it, baby?”
She read aloud.
“When two males grow together in one womb, sired by a descendant in the angel’s line, the firstborn will be gifted with all the wisdom of the ancient vampires, while the second will possess immense strength and power never before seen.”
“Yeah, we’ve heard that,” I said.
“I know. But there’s more now.”
“These males will both beget sons of their own bodies, grown in pure vampire women. When the moon wanes and the night turns black, darkness will ascend in one.
“Darkness rising.
“We shall rise again.
“Only the fates can stop the ascension.
“So it is prophesied. So shall it be.”
My stomach dropped.
Darkness rising.
We shall rise again.
So many times I’d heard those phrases, only guessing at their meanings.
Now I knew.
She’d fed me her blood to move the darkness along faster. She’d fed on me—and who knew how many other vampire males—to extend her life and make her invincible. Why? So she could continue her work for as long as necessary.
Was this what Bill was trying to keep from us? The fact that he might have inadvertently begotten the end of humanity?
One thing still didn’t compute, though. “What does ‘the angel’s line’ mean?” I said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t—” Erin lifted her brows. “Actually, maybe it does.”
“What do you mean?” River asked.
“The angel’s line. Gabriel. Gabriel is an angel in many religions.”
“Then this prophecy could be pure dogma,” River said.
“Most prophecies are,” Erin said. “Which doesn’t explain why a scientist like Bonneville would put any stock in them. But clearly she’s got some measure of belief in this one.”
“I’m not sure this is what has Bill spooked,” River said. “He never put much stock in dogma either. Clearly we’re not descended from angels.”
“But if he read this, he had to have noticed the parallels,” Erin said. “Vampire twins, and then each of them has a son from a vampire mother. Given how difficult pregnancy is for your women and how rare you say identical twins are… It’s pretty eerie.”
“Plus, if this is truly what he read, then he read it after I was taken, and after you and Dad went after me, Uncle Brae. That would have reinforced his belief in the prophecy.”
Braedon nodded. “And she’s doing her best to turn me into the second twin with immense strength and power. That explains why she fed me her blood but didn’t feed it to Jules.”
“We need to get you out of here,”
I said. “If what Erin says is true, and something is happening to your musculature that isn’t normal, you’re not safe here.”
“I’m concerned more with River’s and your safety,” my uncle said.
“Bull,” River chimed in. “You’re just as important as we are. We’re not going to leave you here and let her turn you into some kind of freakish vampire enforcer.”
“That’s it!” I said, an image forming in my mind.
“That’s what?” Erin said.
“Brae is the enforcer. My father was supposed to be the counsel. And I…” I stopped talking to ease down the bile that rose in my throat. “I’m the one who ascends. Darkness rising. Somehow she thinks I’m the key to bringing vampires back.”
“Damn,” River said. “Is it weird that I’m feeling a little left out?”
“You’re not left out, Riv. If it doesn’t work with me, she’s coming for you. She’s made that clear.”
“But why did she choose you in the first place? We both went to Bourbon Street that night.”
“Really, Riv?” I shook my head. “Really? You want to trade places for the last ten years? She probably took the one she considered to be easier prey. Maybe it’s a compliment to you.”
“I’m sorry, man.” River rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know what got into me.”
“So how do we stop this?” Braedon asked. “Dante, you can obviously control her when you need to, but she’s already set the prophecy in motion.”
“Only the fates can stop the ascension,” Erin said softly.
“How do we get fate to intervene?” I asked.
Erin smiled. “I think it already has.”
Chapter Fifteen
Erin
The blood bond.
“How?” River asked.
Dante’s eyes brightened, and his smile lit up his whole face. “You’re right, baby.”
“Would someone please explain what’s going on?” River said.
“The blood bond,” I said.
“Erin is my control,” Dante said. “The few times the dark energy pulled me in, my love for her, my bond with her, is what brought me back.” He chuckled. “Maybe the prophecy is true. It was my father who said Bonneville hadn’t been counting on the blood bond with Erin. He is very wise.”
