Bound in Darkness

by Nicole Edwards

  “What day do you think it is?” she questioned, standing tall and peering down at him with concern glittering in her eyes.

  “Friday.” He lifted a weak hand, waved it.

  “Well, it is Friday, but I don’t think it’s the same Friday you’re thinking.”

  Frowning, he stared up at her, trying to figure out the riddle.

  Before he could argue, she shifted her long, flowing skirt and positioned herself so she was perched on the edge of the mattress, body angled toward him while her legs were hanging over the side. There was a shocking grace to her every movement. She tugged the flaring sleeve of her dress back, revealing her delicate wrist. Her skin was so pale he could see the veins beneath.

  He considered it for a moment. Kaj rarely took from a female’s wrist or her neck. As a rule, he fed from cosrobols, the blood whores who offered themselves up to him. They were provided by the Alpha, given to the Zenith to do with as they pleased. Because he had no desire to get involved with one of them, Kaj would take from the insides of their thighs, leaving marks that would not be visible to others. Not because he was ashamed that others would find out. He simply didn’t want to see his mark upon them.

  However, with this female … he had the strange urge to mark her in more ways than mere puncture wounds upon her skin.

  A fierce pain pierced his chest the moment he heard her blood pumping in her veins. Bloodlust? So soon? As his fangs shot out from the roof of his mouth, he realized he was starving.

  “Take it,” she offered, shifting her wrist closer.

  With his eyes never leaving her face, Kaj reached for her hand. Soft as powder, smooth as silk. He circled her forearm with his other hand, keeping her arm still as he penetrated her with his fangs. She didn’t flinch as he drew from her, nor did she look away.

  The second her blood slid down his throat, he felt the power within it. It infused him instantly, bringing to life the rest of his cells, as though they’d been dormant for weeks. His thirst didn’t abate even as he drew more and more from her. Never did he close his eyes, fearful if he did she might disappear.

  By the time he’d had enough to tide him over, there was a strange roaring in his head. He released her from his lips, sealed the wounds on her flesh. And if he lingered a little longer than was appropriate … well, he couldn’t help himself.

  “We were starting to worry you wouldn’t wake up,” she said as she lowered her sleeve over her wrist.

  “I was due for a nap.” He peered around, trying once more to find a clock.

  Finding none, he glanced back at her, noticed she was frowning.

  “What?” he asked.

  “My lord, you’ve been unconscious for nearly five weeks.”

  Wait. Huh? Five weeks?

  “Oh, fuck,” he groaned, attempting to push to a sitting position. “Where’re my clothes?”

  “Please, my lord,” she said softly, her gentle hand once more on his chest. “Your body needs to rest.”

  “I’ve been resting,” he countered with a huff. “For five weeks, apparently. How much longer do I need?”

  “With my blood in your veins”—she appeared to be calculating something—“I would say at least another month.”

  Kaj watched her, noticing for the first time that there was an oddity to her. Not physically, but on a cellular level.

  “You’re not vampire,” he stated.

  “No, I am not.”

  “Nor are you an angel.”

  Her amethyst eyes lowered. “I am Fae, my lord.”

  Fae. As in the mystical fairies who were cast out of Heaven by the Almighty above? That Fae? Kaj hadn’t even known they still existed.

  “We don’t,” she said, answering a question he’d thought had only sounded in his head. “Not outside of these walls. My kind has been relegated to serve the warriors and the fiestreigh. There are nineteen of us in total.” Her warm fingers urged him back. “Now, please rest.”

  “Serve?” Kaj relaxed into the pillow, realizing he would stay there all night just to hear her voice. “What does that mean?”

  “Their blood and sexual needs.”

  Kaj refused to acknowledge the dark, possessive rumble that sounded in his chest.

  “Would you like me to leave, my lord?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Acadia.”

  Ah, he remembered now. The most beautiful name he’d ever heard. “And I assume you know mine?” he prompted.

  “Of course, my lord.”

  He canted his head and smiled. “Then please, Acadia, do refrain from calling me my lord.”

  Her answering smile was the first of many that would slowly bring him peace.

  Chapter One

  Present day, Thursday, February 27, 2020

  The sound of heavy footfalls had Kaj looking up from his morning meal, a grin tugging at his mouth when he saw who it was and the dramatic way the male was making an entrance.

  “Thank the good Heavenly Almighty we don’t have to deal with that damn mating heat anymore,” Blāz declared as his enormous body buckled and he flopped into the leather chair that had been tucked up beneath the table.

  Kaj peered down at the large vampire at the opposite end. Though he’d had some time to get used to the fact his males were back with him, he still found himself sending up a silent thank-you to the deity upstairs. To have gotten them back after he’d been certain they had met their demise was likely far more than Kaj deserved, but he wasn’t about to question the Almighty’s reasons. They were here. That was all that mattered.

  “You do realize there are five more warriors who’ve yet to mate,” Kidel noted as he strolled into the room, pulled out a chair, fell into it.

  “Yeah, but for now, they’re not emitting that fucking energy.” Blāz chuckled. “See what I did there?”

  Considering the immense stress Kaj was under, he welcomed the levity. As it was, he’d been going over and over and over the conversation he’d had with Michael a week ago. Only seven days he’d been pondering the archangel’s request for him to resurrect the original vampire. Who, the male had so kindly told him, was currently riding shotgun in Oliver Calazans’s body.

  Oliver freaking Calazans. Obsidian’s mate’s brother.

  For fuck’s sake.

  A ten-thousand-year-old all-powerful vampire soul smashed into a five-foot-seven-inch human. Kaj couldn’t fathom how that was even possible, yet he didn’t doubt for one second Michael had pulled a stunt like that.

  And while they’d both known Kaj couldn’t really say no to the request, the archangel had still granted him time to consider it. Being familiar with Michael’s thin patience, Kaj figured that clock was quickly running out.

  Kaj pushed to his feet. “I need to talk to Mirakel.”

  “He’s still back at Angel Central,” Blāz stated. “Said he had something to take care of.”

  Blood needs, more than likely. For whatever reason, Mirakel had stopped allowing the Fae to come to his private quarters, though from what Kaj knew, the male was continuing to feed from the same female … whatever her name was.

  “Thanks,” Blāz said to the heurosp who delivered his morning meal.

  “You’re most welcome, sire.”

  Blāz rolled his eyes and pointed his fork at the male walking away, mouthing sire, and shaking his head. As a member of the Zenith, Blāz was used to being considered the upper echelon, but the vestrahn who regularly waited on them had never referred to them using any sort of honorific.

  “He’s spending quite a bit of time there,” Kidel noted, as though he just realized Mirakel had been gone a lot.

  “I think he’s got a thing for Briony.” Blāz grinned before shoveling eggs into his pie hole.

  Yes, Briony. That was her name.

  “She’s a pretty one,” Kidel said. “But the rumor is, she’s never been with a male.”

  Kaj cocked an eyebrow.

  Blāz gasped as though that was a preposterous thought.

&
nbsp; “What?” Kidel offered a sheepish shrug. “Males talk, too, you know.”

  Oh, Kaj knew. They were a gossipy bunch, this one.

  “I was about to head over,” Huracān’s deep voice boomed from the next room, where he reclined casually in a dinky leather armchair, ankle resting on the opposite knee, his iPad propped on his thigh. “Want me to track him down?”

  “Whoa, dude. Didn’t see you there,” Blāz said. “Snazzy outfit. You got a hot date?”

  Huracān rolled his eyes, focused on Kaj. “Want me to send him this way?”

  Kaj took a moment to decide if making the trip over was worth it. From here, at least the echo of pain he felt in his chest whenever Acadia fed another male was bearable. When he was at Angel Central, it was brutal. Sometimes he thought she did it on purpose, choosing the exact moment of his arrival to open a vein to one of those greedy angels.

  Not that he blamed her. Kaj had taken to feeding from other females because he had no choice. Problem was, he was going to have to increase his volume. As it was, he was skipping a couple of days, and in order to be in top fighting form, he needed to feed daily. If he’d had a female vampire nearby, he would’ve opted to feed from her so Acadia didn’t think he was trying to rub it in her face. That was absolutely not his intention. In fact, feeding in general had become an exercise in futility, something he wished wasn’t a requirement to his mere existence.

  But he couldn’t avoid the place forever. They had too much shit to do for him to be hiding out from a female.

  “I’ll find him,” Kaj told the male. “I need to check in with Bijou, anyway.” He peered down the table. “What’s the word on the security?”

  “I’m finishing up the controls for the cameras,” Blāz noted. “We’ve got ’em installed, just need to sync, then I’ll work with Reidar to get everything tied together. They’ve given us access to their exterior feeds already.”

  “Great.”

  “I’m telling you … those boys know what they’re doing.” Blāz spoke around a mouthful. “Can’t say I’m not a little jealous.” He smiled as he took a gulp of orange juice. “I wanna be them when I grow up.”

  The comment reminded him of Michael’s request that they vow their loyalty to the angels, which Kaj took to mean Michael wanted them to align their objectives, essentially work for them. As easy as he wanted to say that would be, Kaj couldn’t simply offer up an oh, sure, of course. He was, after all, the most powerful vampire, the one on the throne, so to speak. He had to take into consideration his entire race, not just a handful who would benefit most from a consolidation of strength.

  Would those who trusted their Alpha to make smart decisions want him to pledge his allegiance to a faction of warrior angels? Probably not. The vampires were a very proud species. Rightfully so. They’d been placed on Earth to protect the human race, and they took their responsibilities seriously. Even the civilian vampires implanted in human communities had duties, whether it was contacting the tip line with sightings of demons or merely observing human behaviors that were conducive to luring demons to them. They were all playing a part.

  Were the humans grateful? Of course not.

  Hell, it took tremendous effort these days just to keep themselves hidden from Homo sapiens, one of the many rules laid out by the Almighty. And what did they get for their efforts? The fucking humans found it amusing to dress up like some creepy caped crusader with fangs and call it a vampire. As if.

  “Hey, Kaj? You good?”

  Realizing he was standing at the table, he shook himself out of his wayward thoughts and nodded to Blāz. “I’ll be back. Holler if you need me.”

  Rather than step outside and poof his ass over to the mansion, Kaj opted to walk via the underground tunnels that wound through the mountain connecting Angel Central to the Lair. The tunnels had been dug out back when the angels had started building their new fortress many moons ago. Though they’d all but abandoned the house Kaj and his crew now occupied, the tunnels had been maintained. The smooth concrete walls and floor did their job of holding back the earth, as well as concealing the titanium used to keep vampires and other supernatural creatures from popping in uninvited. While that was a nice security measure, it made getting out impossible, so once they started on the one-mile trek, they were pretty much relegated to the stroll. But they had the motion-activated gas torches along the walls to keep them company and provide light for those who didn’t have the benefit of seeing in the dark.

  Every few feet, a gas torch would come to life, brightening the path before another flared with a slight hiss. Kaj continued with one foot in front of the other, breathing in and out in an attempt to clear his head before he saw his daughter.

  He ground his back molars together as he recalled the conversation he’d had with the archangel.

  “Kaj Courtenay, you are not only the Alpha of your species, you are the father of the female who shall mate the original vampire.”

  “Wait. Huh?” Kaj stared at the archangel. “My daughter is to mate the original vampire. Not to sound all Adam-and-Eve oddity or anything, but exactly how does one mate one to whom she is related?”

  “There are no direct descendants of the original vampire,” Michael stated, as though that made all the sense in the world.

  “No?” Kaj motioned to himself. “Exactly how did I come to be without the original vampire breeding?”

  Those strangely colored eyes remained on his face. “The original vampire did not mate, nor did he breed.”

  Okay, so clearly they were getting nowhere fast. “You lost me.” He waved a hand. “But it’s all moot anyway. The original vampire is dead.”

  “Quite the opposite. He is very much alive, merely … preoccupied at the moment.”

  “Meaning…?”

  “I’ve kept him hidden for his own protection.”

  “You?”

  “Yes.”

  “For seven hundred years?” Kaj got the feeling that didn’t mean he was being locked in a cage somewhere. For one, Khari was far too powerful. He would’ve easily broken free. “Where is he?”

  Michael took a deep breath. “Khari is currently in a human vessel.”

  Unable to help himself, he laughed. “A human vessel? The original vampire is sporting a human meat suit? Tell me, what poor sap is giving the male a ride?”

  “You know him as Oliver Calazans.”

  Kaj’s smile fell instantly. He stared at the archangel, slack-jawed and dumbfounded. “What did you say?”

  “Do you really need me to repeat?”

  That damn archangel had laid a whopper on him, and Kaj had yet to figure out how to share the information without inciting a riot. So many were affected by the outcome of Michael’s fate-weaving exercise—Obsidian, Penelope, Oliver, Bijou, the Fae—and yet the archangel didn’t seem eager to spread the word.

  Hell, just the thought of his daughter being mated to the original vampire, of all males, was enough to make Kaj see red. Something instigated by the archangel, no doubt. As for Michael’s reasons, Kaj wasn’t privy to them. Not surprising. The male who led them all around by the nose was selfish when it came to his secrets, parsing out only what he had to in order to get his way.

  According to Michael, a ten-thousand-year-old vampire whose soul had been bouncing from one human vessel to the next for God only knew how many centuries was going to be his son-in-law, to use the human terminology. All the effort to shield the vampire had been because Bijou hadn’t been in existence yet. Now she was, which meant Khari could be resurrected, his soul dumped back in his original body. Wherever it was.

  But Kaj’s biggest issue was the prearranged mating. He’d mistakenly thought they’d done away with that centuries ago. Unlike angels and humans, vampires didn’t have predestined mates. There were no amsouelots, no destined souls.

  No, vampires had their own unique method to mating: mielix zan was the term in the ancient language, which loosely translated to sexually imprinting. And they only did it once, if
they were lucky to find their life mate at all. Hence the reason many vampires simply settled down with a mate who made them happy. They were similar to humans in that regard, wanting to couple because the endless days and nights were more bearable that way. As for mielix zan … if and when they were affected, the option for mating anyone else went right out the window, as the humans liked to say.

  He got the feeling Michael didn’t understand that.

  What if his daughter thought the male unworthy? It wasn’t like Kaj could simply force the mating upon her. He hadn’t raised Bijou. Her mother had done that without a lick of help from him because the female had felt it unnecessary to mention she happened to be having his offspring. Twenty-six years later, Bijou popped up on his doorstep with a hey, surprise! I’m your daughter. Kaj had known the moment he’d looked into her green eyes that she was his, but that didn’t make him a father by any stretch of the imagination. Had they developed a relationship since? Yeah. He’d like to believe they had. It had taken effort on both their parts, but they seemed to be making it work.

  Didn’t mean he could resort to the old ways and pass her over as though she was a piece of property. The vampires had shed that tradition with the modern ages, and Kaj was quite fond of the select who you want to spend your time with process. Even without the lifetime connection of mielix zan, he still believed in choices.

  As he strolled through the tunnels, Kaj tried to imagine the original vampire being trapped somewhere inside the body of Oliver Calazans.

  How the fuck did that even work?

  Oliver Calazans strolled through the game room, pausing near the iron railing that overlooked the main floor below.

  He did a quick visual sweep of the area, relieved when he saw no signs of Bijou. It meant he could sneak down for a bite since he’d purposely skipped the morning meal. Then again, he’d purposely skipped every communal meal for the past … fifty days. Wow. Nearly two months now that he hadn’t sat with his fellow … with the angels for their twice-daily chow sessions.

  Made him feel like a bit of recluse, more in line with the Oliver who had been hog-tied and dragged here than the one who’d come to enjoy the sense of belonging he’d found with a bunch of holy motherfuckers.