Blood Ascendant (Sons of Navarus #7)

by K. M. Scott

  His cell phone rang, breaking up one of the best moments they’d had together in a long time. Fishing it out of his pocket, he saw it was Dante calling.

  “Hey, Dante. I’m going to put you on speaker. Solenne’s with me, and I want her to hear what you have to say.”

  Holding it up, he listened as his fellow Son simply sighed. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “What happened? Did things go bad tonight?” he asked, his heart sinking with every second Dante didn’t answer.

  Finally, the clyten said, “It went as well as can be expected. We killed thousands of daemons. Two of the dragons died on the battlefield. The Draco brothers are taking it pretty hard. My clyten regiment took on heavy losses, but they did great. I’m proud of them.”

  But nothing in his voice said any of this was good. Saint and Solenne exchanged worried glances, and she asked, “Dante, what’s wrong? You just said our side did well, even if we had losses.”

  “We did. We won the battle, and we’ve heard Hades isn’t going to be sending any more to fight us. For the most part, the war is over.”

  “Then why do you sound like something else is wrong?” Saint asked as his stomach tightened into knots.

  What was Dante hesitating to tell them? Did they lose Vasilije or Terek?

  Quietly, he finally said, “Sasa and Ilona are gone. They died with the youngest dragon at the Dracos’ castle where they were staying. Terek is devastated. Leta survived, and he’s taking care of her, but I’ve never seen him like this. He’s taking Ilona’s death hard. And Vasilije’s gone. He’s in the wind. Terek said he just left after Sasa died.”

  Tears began streaming down Solenne’s cheeks as Saint struggled to process Dante’s news. “Sasa and Ilona dead? How? They weren’t fighting with you, so what happened?”

  “Nico. He slit the throats of all three of them. I can barely believe it myself, but that’s what happened. We knew he turned traitor, but I can’t say I ever expected him to do anything like this. Terek says that Vasilije went into a rage after Sasa died and staked him. I say good fucking riddance. I just can’t believe she and Ilona are gone.”

  Dante sounded like he was crying too, and then the phone fell silent as the three friends tried to grapple with the tragedy of losing those they’d loved in such a horrible way. Saint pulled Solenne to him, and as she sobbed against his chest, he felt his rage grow inside him.

  All their friends had suffered, and for what? The Archons were to blame for their deaths and all the misery that had befallen the Sons and those they loved.

  “I have to go,” Dante said sadly. “I just wanted to let you know. Terek has already told Theron he’s done. He won’t fight anymore. Theron claims all that’s going to happen now is you two taking care of that asshole Archon and Sion and Kali going after her sire who’s been backing the Archons. Theron’s got his thing with Hades, but for the rest of us, we’re done. It’s over.”

  “Thanks, Dante.”

  “Hey, Saint. You two stay safe, okay? We can’t afford to lose any more of us. Oh, and make that motherfucker pay for all those son of a bitch Archons have done.”

  “I will. We’ll talk to you when we return. Bye, Dante.”

  Saint ended the call and tossed his phone onto the nearby table. The news of their friends’ deaths had hit Solenne hard, and as she cried against him, he vowed to kill every Archon he saw from this point on.

  This wasn’t just about getting even with Verrater and making him pay. Now it was about avenging the loss of those they loved, innocents who hadn’t been part of the battle.

  None of them would be left standing if he had anything to say about it.

  Looking up at him, Solenne wiped the tears from her cheeks and tried not to cry any more. “Sasa and Ilona, Declan. Vasilije must be beside himself. They just got back together, and now she’s gone. And Terek? He and Ilona had all those plans to bring up that little girl, and now she’s dead too? I don’t think I can handle this.”

  Tears began running down her cheeks again, so Saint hugged her tightly to him. This was almost too much bear, but they had a job to do. They’d just have to channel all their sadness into it and take out those who were to blame.

  Those fucking Archons. Their time had come. Any of them left in Corsica were about to meet their end, along with Marc Verrater. It was time they paid for what they’d done.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sion saw in Kali’s eyes the terror she felt for what they had to do tonight. She’d pretended to be okay for the past three hours as they prepared to leave for Archon headquarters in Corsica. He noticed she seemed less talkative than usual, but that wasn’t surprising. She’d been tasked with staking her sire. That wasn’t something any vampire did lightly.

  Hers had tremendous power over her. Or he had in the past. Slowly over the months as the Archons continued to poison more of the vampire population with that garbage Bliss, Kali had come to see only pure evil would do what her sire and the Archons had done with the drug. For some reason, she could understand her sire’s tricking her into getting hooked on it, but doing that to other vampires showed her he wasn’t the maker she’d thought he was all these centuries.

  She’d said little about her sire’s actual identity until recently when she explained to Sion just who he truly was. A magistrate, he held a position in the vampire world honored by everyone. While Archons had long turned into officious creatures clearly out to line their own pockets and improve their own lives at the cost of everyone else, magistrates still represented law and order in the vampire world.

  That her sire had turned his back on the very values he’d sworn to uphold to act like the Archons made Kali sadder than anything else. Sion didn’t understand her sentimental attachment to a sire who had treated her so horribly throughout the centuries, and not only because he tended to think logically whenever he could.

  His sire had been just and good, so his only experience with that relationship made him think all sires were like that. True, he’d seen how some tended to treat their vampires as family while others treated them like a harem, but overall, what Sion had mainly seen in his time since being turned were sires who cared for those they made vampire.

  Consera was not that type, and exhibits A and B were Kali and Nico.

  As he watched her pack her bag full of stakes, Sion leaned against the wall, still shocked about what Dante told him about the eldest Son of Navarus. He’d struggled to believe he’d turned traitor, but killing Sasa and Ilona, along with the youngest Draco brother? The thought of Nico truly being that heinous staggered his mind, and that wasn’t an easy task.

  Then again, he struggled to understand the emotions and motivations of others more often than not. He didn’t see why Kali would feel any allegiance to her sire after all the terrible things he’d done to her, nevermind to the rest of the vampire world. He couldn’t comprehend why Nico would have killed his friends’ mates, females he’d known for years.

  Suddenly, a thought made Sion’s breath catch in his throat. Had Consera ordered him to kill them, and had Kali been next on his list of victims? He didn’t put it past him. Sion had made sure to keep Kali close by at all times in the past few months. After finding out her sire had given her the dose of Bliss that got her hooked, he knew he couldn’t be trusted.

  But had he wanted her dead? He didn’t know for sure, but he suspected it might be what he planned. She had, after all, disobeyed him by falling in love with a Son.

  All he knew was he didn’t let her out of his sight ever, not even when he had to conduct the drone strikes in the eastern battle near the dragons’ home. Dante had insisted he join them close to the battle, but he refused. Modern technology meant he didn’t even need to be on the same continent to attack with his carefully built machines that could be directed from miles away. They could attack just as fine from the Order’s headquarters, and he told him that. And that’s how his part in the battle had been conducted.

  With Kali by his side, her nose stuck in he
r books, as he directed his drone team from his laptop.

  What they had to do tonight couldn’t be done that way, unfortunately. Consera hadn’t left Archon headquarters since the defeat of the witches in Italy, so Sion’s drones couldn’t get to him as he sat protected in that building in Corsica.

  “Are you okay? Why are you leaning against the wall like that?” Kali asked as she dropped her bag and hurried over to Sion’s side.

  “I’m fine. Just taking a break for a little bit. Nothing’s wrong,” he said, forcing himself to smile even though that’s the last thing he wanted to do.

  She hung her head and sighed. “I was just worried. I’ve had a few nights where the cravings are really strong, and sometimes that means I just have to sit back and fight with myself until they go away. You know, like those couple times I got all weird a few weeks ago. I thought maybe that’s what you were doing.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He had experienced exactly what she described a few times since kicking his Bliss habit, but he never mentioned those instances to her. Sion didn’t want to rehash what that damn drug did to him, so better to remain silent about the aftereffects of it too. Whenever the need for it hit him, and it hit like a ton of bricks, he just found a quiet spot where he could be alone and hung on until the feeling went away, telling himself all the while how the drug had no hold on him.

  It’s how he got through things. Logic. If there was a better way for him, he hadn’t found it yet.

  For Kali, though, logic tended to leave her lost. She worked on a different level, one that involved far more emotion, so she needed to talk things out to get through them. The few times she’d opened up about the residual effects of Bliss and how her blood seemed to call to it sometimes, he tried to be helpful and supportive. What he usually ended up doing was sitting silently as she talked herself through it. Not very helpful, in his mind, but he tried.

  She lifted her head and stared up at him with pure fear filling her brown eyes. “I hope I can do this tonight.”

  Pulling her close, he held her to him and gently pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You will. I’ll be right there, and we’re going to do this together. You won’t be alone, Kali. I promised you that when we got together. You’re never alone.”

  She relaxed in his arms and sighed. “I know. I just worry that I’m not strong enough. He has always had such a hold over me.”

  Sion ran his hand over the back of her hair, smoothing it down over her shoulders. “I know, but that’s over now. His time has come. We need to do this to end this war once and for all.”

  Kali tilted her head back to look up at him. “I wish I was like Solenne. I bet she’s chomping at the bit to go and kill that Archon. Saint is probably having to hold her back from racing down there to stake him.”

  The way she described Solenne’s desire for vengeance made Sion smile. He had no doubt Saint and Solenne couldn’t wait to finally give Marc Verrater exactly what he deserved. But that situation was different. It didn’t involve the killing of a sire.

  “Solenne’s got a damn good reason to want that bastard dead and dusted, but you have your own reasons too, so don’t forget that.”

  “I know. I just worry that when the moment comes that I won’t be able to do it. He’s always known exactly what to say and do to make me weak. I don’t want to be that anymore, though. You know that, right?”

  Sion took her face in his hands and stared down into those eyes that had read thousands of pages of encrypted text from those ancient tomes full of dust that no one else had been able to figure out. That she worried about being weak showed him she had no idea how much she’d done for the Sons all this time.

  “You are not weak. We’d be lost without you. If it wasn’t for you, the Sons would still be back at square one and not knowing what the hell was going on with that prophecy, Theron, and this war. Don’t ever let your sire or anyone else diminish you and make you think you’re anything but a superwoman.”

  Kali’s smile spread across her face and lit up those dark eyes he loved. “I try. I’m just glad I could help.”

  “Never forget that your sire sent you to infiltrate the Sons just like he had Nico do. The difference is you didn’t turn traitor while he did. He was weak. You’re anything but.”

  His mention of her fellow vampire from their sire made her smile fade to nothing, and she shook her head. “How could he have done that, Sion? I can only imagine what Consera did to him to make him kill like he did. He killed women. Do you know that Terek thinks he tried to kill Leta too, but since she’s had the ability to heal herself since birth he failed? A baby, Sion. He put his blade to a child’s throat. What kind of monster does that? How could the vampire we’ve known for all these years turn on us like that?”

  She stopped talking for a moment as her eyes grew big. “What if he does something like he did to Nico with me? Promise me if he does and he orders me to kill you or anyone else you won’t let that happen. I’d rather be staked than kill someone.”

  “Don’t say that! He doesn’t control you anymore. You have all the power, Kali. I need you to remember that.”

  He hugged her tightly and hoped she knew deep down all the power to fight off that sire of hers resided inside her. As the male who loved her, he would do anything to protect her, including staking that bastard who made her, but for Kali to ever be truly free of her sire, she needed to be the one to kill him.

  Time would tell if she could bring herself to take that final step. If she couldn’t, he’d do it for her. She’d stood by him when he was lost to Bliss and never gave up on him. He’d do the same for her now, if she needed it.

  “I just want this to be over. Promise me when this war ends and we don’t have to be who we are now that we can go off and live happily ever after,” she whispered against his chest. “I just want it finally to be over.”

  Sion hated hearing the agony in her voice. If he could give her that happily ever after at that moment, he would move heaven and earth. He couldn’t, though, so he’d do the next best thing.

  Against the top of her head, he whispered, “I promise. We’ll go anywhere you want and forget about all of this.”

  She let out a heavy sigh and looked up at him. “I love you. I’m sorry I’m such a wreck about this.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You’re going to be great. You always are.”

  Lifting herself onto her toes, she kissed him sweetly on the lips and nodded. “Okay. I’m going to finish and then I’ll be ready to go.”

  Sion gave her a smile and hoped she didn’t sense how uneasy he felt about what they were about to do. Killing wasn’t something he had a problem with. He’d killed in war before, and he would again. He just didn’t know how she’d react to having to become like him, even if for only one night.

  Or worse, how she’d react to seeing him as a killer.

  *

  Holding his arm out in front of Kali, Sion stopped her before they walked around the corner to the hallway. Consera’s office was just a few doors down from where they stood.

  “Hang on. I want to see what’s waiting for us,” he whispered to her before taking a tiny metal disk out of his pocket.

  She looked down at it and shook her head. “What’s that?”

  “Watch.”

  Sion placed it on the ground and lifted his hand from it. Instantly, it silently shot around the corner and down the hallway. Three seconds later, it returned to where they stood and he lifted it off the ground.

  Stuffing it back into his pocket, he took his phone out and swiped the screen. Two taps of his fingertip on the screen and then a picture came up clearly showing how many men guarded Consera’s office and what weapons they carried.

  “Two hunters are standing guard,” he whispered to Kali as he sized up the males. They both stood at least six and half feet tall, and they held what looked like machetes. Consera clearly didn’t feel at ease in his office tonight.

  Another tap on his phone’s screen show
ed a second picture of the magistrate himself alone in his office. Good. That made what they had to do easier.

  “I want you to wait here. I’ll take out the two guards, and then we’ll go in. Got it?” he said quietly in her ear.

  She nodded, holding her breath in anticipation of what was to come next.

  The two guards were far too large for him to take on physically. Big, hulking beasts, they required something far more advanced to take them down than traditional weapons like swords or knives.

  Sion flipped open the pocket on his jacket and grabbed the stun gun he’d brought just in case. He hadn’t thought they’d need it, but it paid to be prepared, obviously.

  Leaning around the corner of the wall, he aimed at the first guard and pulled the trigger. A jolt of electricity three million volts strong shot into the male, sending him crashing to the ground. The second guard spun around, stunned at his partner’s fall, and Sion took advantage of his surprise to shoot him too. In seconds, both guards lay in a giant heap on the floor.

  But as satisfying as that had been, he couldn’t waste time with self-congratulations. Consera may have heard the noise and could come out at any time, so Sion rushed down the hallway and quickly staked both vampires to dust. Not exactly a fair fight, but then again, nothing the Archons had done was fair, so why should the Sons’ attack on them be?

  Kali poked her head around the corner and looked down at where he stood amongst piles of dust. Surprised, her mouth dropped open.

  He waved her down to where he stood, signaling for her to stay quiet. He wanted to catch Consera unprepared, so they needed to ensure they didn’t give him any notice they were there before the two of them appeared before him in his office.

  Kali pointed toward the door, and Sion nodded. The time had come.

  The doorknob twisted easily, and he pushed the door open to find the magistrate in front of his desk on his knees calling for the only one who could possibly help him now.

  “My lord Hades, I ask for your help at this moment. Protect me from all who would seek to harm me.”