The Ravana Clan Vampires: a Young Adult Paranormal Romance (Complete Series)

by E. M. Moore

  Stephan’s muscles tightened. He drew me closer to him, his leg curling around mine. He stayed silent. He didn’t utter a word because he knew I was right. I guessed that’s what the difference was. When your loved ones were involved, you weren’t rational. That’s why you’d risk your life and die for them—even if you were a vampire and had the self-preservation instinct of a chameleon, it was a whole different ball game when one started talking about love and loss.

  I clutched Stephan’s shirt and brought him closer. “I’m sorry.” He started to shake his head, but I pulled him that much closer. It wasn’t his fault—or Isabelle’s—for my terrible mood. They didn’t deserve any of my sarcasm or my harsh judgments. We were all just doing what we thought was right. For me? I guessed that was wallowing in my bedroom and calling Nicolai’s cell every quarter of an hour. For Stephan, he was still looking up his medical books in the library trying to learn anything he could about saving Matthews who still lay in the infirmary back at The Fort. Christian hadn’t left the Council room, the hub of activity where decisions were being made. Connor? Well, he was more like me. He still worked down in the Council room from time-to-time, but after not getting a lock on Nic’s cell phone when we needed it, he shortened his duty hours. And honestly, we’d pretty much secured all the techy information we needed from him, and there was nothing left to do but wait. “I guess I get irrationally angry when something happens to one of you. You’re my Achilles heel. All of you. All I want is for you all to be around me all the time, or at the very least, for me to know that you’re okay all the time. That your lives aren’t in danger, and that you’re still breathing.”

  “That would help, wouldn’t it?” Stephan asked.

  Just the fact that he took my tirade at face value pleased me. “Yes, it would.” I’d meant all that, and I was glad he didn’t just push it under the rug. What I’d learned from these past two days was that I just needed a few bare necessities to live life and carry on. One of those things was knowing that my princes were still alive. It seemed like so basic of a wish, and on some level, I knew that not everyone in this world had to worry about something that should be a given, but this was the life I’d chosen. The life I wanted more than anything. But that life involved having four princes surrounding me.

  Doubt. Fear. A never-ending spiral of grief I wasn’t sure was even warranted. I’d left all rational thought behind and ended up in the crazy house imprisonment of my brain.

  Stephan chuckled, bringing me out of my reverie. “Well, I can see I’ve done nothing to help. This is why we left this up to Connor.”

  I smiled, my lips moving against the softness of his shirt. “You’re helping,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure I was being honest or not. “You’re here.” That was true and was a definite comfort.

  “Do you think you’re up to heading to The Council chambers to talk to Lex about Dumont’s old friend who called?”

  I snuggled into him closer. “Do I have to?”

  “Of course not.”

  Even as he answered, I knew I hadn’t been fair. Out of all of them, Stephan would let me get away with murder. Well, maybe not murder. His medical instincts might just kick in then, but he would let me lie here and call Nicolai every two minutes if I wanted to. He was too sweet to tell me to do something else. Too sweet to give me a kick in the ass and tell me I was being childish. Gregor and Lex had to make decisions based on the good of everyone who followed the Ravana Clan. They didn’t make decisions based on what was good for them, for their families, and least of all, me. I was just being selfish…and bratty. I could own up to it, but that didn’t mean I had to do anything to change it.

  “Soren’s been asking for you too.”

  I shrugged. “Nothing I can do about that. We’re here, and he’s at The Fort.”

  “We’re actually thinking about transferring him. If something is going to happen, we might want him close.”

  “So transfer him.”

  Stephan tipped my chin up. “Just like that? You don’t want to think about it? What if he escaped?”

  I shook my head, barely noticing Stephan’s confusion. “He’s not going to escape. He doesn’t follow Dumont anymore.”

  “I agree with you on that, but who would rather be a captive than be free?”

  My shoulders slumped. I peered up at Stephan’s big, green eyes and sighed. He was tricky that one. He knew what he was doing, and I kind of hated him right now for it. I’d just made that decision based on not caring, which was so unlike me. My mind was too preoccupied with Nic right now. I groaned. “You’re right…” Things needed to be thought through, rationally. I needed to pull myself together.

  His soft lips landed on my forehead. I breathed in, internalizing the moment his lips met mine. These instances were precious, and not something to be taken lightly. Who knew when I’d have a chance like this again with Nicolai? What if I never had a chance like this again with Nic? All I had were memories, and those memories had to be enough to last me a lifetime.

  “I love you, Stephan.” I pulled away and kissed his lips, enjoying the way he fell into sync with me like we were one person on one mission with one thought. When I pulled my lips from his, I bit down on my cheek. “Don’t think I don’t know what you did there. You’re supposed to be the nice one, too.”

  He smirked. “I am the nice one.”

  “I don’t know. You might have to give that crown up.”

  “Yeah? Who would you give it to?” His eyebrows arched and he looked at me, challenging.

  It only took me a beat to realize that though the other ones were nice at times, Stephan really was the epitome of kind. He didn’t have a successor, and he knew it. “That doesn’t mean you still can’t be evil, apparently.”

  “By making you see that you’re wrong?”

  “Yes, that’s an evil thing to do, Stephan. I was just laying here minding my own business, and then you come in with rational…thought. It’s not fair. It was mean, and uncalled for.”

  He chuckled into our shared pillow, hiding his stunning eyes from me for a brief moment. He stared at me for a long while after that, and then shook his head. “We need your help, Ariana. All of us. I think a preoccupied mind would do you a world of good right now.”

  My mouth dropped open a little as realization struck me. Stephan had literally just ‘treated’ me. That’s why it had come out of nowhere because I didn’t expect it. Nothing was physically wrong with me. That I would expect him to take care of right away, but something was mentally wrong with me, and he’d just waltzed in here and diagnosed and treated me like he would have with a regular injury. Sneaky, sneaky. I’d have to keep an eye on him from now on if he was going to start pulling that stuff.

  He shifted on the bed and brought me to a sitting position with him. “Come on, let’s go do something productive.”

  He placed his hand on my hips and pushed until I was on my feet. My phone fell to the floor. At the exact same time it hit, it started to ring. At first, I thought it was just a tech malfunction, but then it played the digital jingle again. In that moment, I froze. The phone was faced down against the carpet. Turning the phone over to see the screen felt like it would reveal my destiny and that was just too big of a step for me at the moment. The princes knew not to call me right now, so I could rule them out, and there really wasn’t anyone else who called me except for maybe T.J. and Lex.

  I looked at Stephan, and Stephan stared back at me. I didn’t move. Neither did he. I knew he could’ve bent over at the waist and had the phone in front of me within a fraction of a second with his superior quickness, but we were both frozen in time, stuck like gum on the other side of a shoe.

  Then, we both moved at once. I dropped to snatch it up, but Stephan beat me of course. I had just enough time to briefly glance at the screen before he pushed the pickup button.

  Dark, Sexy, & Badass.

  My breath lodged in my throat. This could be every hope come true, or every fear. This was a def
ining moment. One I would remember for the rest of my life.

  23

  “Hello?” Stephan said into the receiver.

  His eyes closed. It felt like forever until the first bit of news hit me, until the realization set in that it was actually Nic on the other side of the line instead of Dumont claiming his victory over us. Stephan breathed out and relaxed all at once before bringing my phone down and putting the call on speaker.

  “—in the backseat, knocked out cold.”

  “Nic?”

  “Ri.” I could hear his smile through the miles that separated us, and my heart lifted in my chest. The anger, the hurt, the angst rushed out of me all at once and nothing mattered but the fact that he was talking to me right now. That he must have been alive and unhurt because his voice was as natural as it could be. It was as if he was calling from his room down the hall rather than Georgia. For several seconds, he didn’t say anything, but the realization of the situation returned.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Barely,” he said. “I’m not hurt, but I’ve got a tail. Quick, loyal bastards. That’s not all.” He heaved a sigh, then a pounding sounded as if he’d hit his hand on the steering wheel several times. “It’s worse than we thought. Dumont doesn’t just have a few followers. He has several hundred. He has a freaking community of human blood suckers. He’s made them all throughout the centuries, and then he’s won a clan or two over who used to support us who now support them, and they’ve grown. It’s not just a small contingent that wants to take over The Council, it’s not just Dumont himself, it’s a whole other world. They rival us in numbers, and when I say us, I don’t mean just the Council family clans and the other predominant clans, I mean us, as in people who use blood banks for food.”

  “That’s not possible,” Stephan said, his brows furrowing. “They wouldn’t be able to keep secret. There’s no way.”

  “I’m telling you,” Nic said, his voice hard. “I know what I saw. I know what I heard. I don’t know how else to say this, but there’s no way we’re defeating this guy. His people won’t stop. They honor him like he’s a God damned deity, Stephan. I’m not even sure how I got out of there. In fact, I’m almost sure they let me go. Maybe this was Dumont’s plan all along. Who the hell knows? But I’m heading back to the estate. I’ve got Dumont, and we need to make about a thousand decisions before I get there. I know Father wants to put him on trial and make him pay for his sins to us, but I’m telling you, that’s not going to work. We’ll have several hundred, if not thousands, of people banging on our doorstep. It’s like he’s been nurturing a cult. His reaches go further into society than you even want to know. It’s not just a ‘kill him and everything will smooth out afterward’ moment. It’s far more fucked up than that.”

  I closed my eyes, listening to Nic as he spoke about the impossible. Part of me just wanted to rejoice in the fact that he was okay. He was alive—well, as much as he was ever alive—and breathing. He had Dumont. That’s what he had set out to do. But at the same time, I was reeling. When was anything going to play out like we thought it would? It seemed like the world was constantly changing around me and nothing was set in stone. It was always turning, twisting, like a kaleidoscope with new colors and patterns always emerging, some more screwed up than the others.

  “You have to tell Father all this,” Stephan said.

  “I know. I just wanted to make sure Ri didn’t hate me.”

  Stephan grinned at me over the phone. “The complete opposite, actually. She hasn’t stopped moping since you hung up on her.”

  “I don’t know if I would call it moping,” I said, sending Stephan a dirty look.

  “It was moping.”

  “You’re a traitor.” I scowled at him, which only made him smile more. “In any case,” I continued. “Gregor’s not going to like this. He’s out for blood, and I can’t say that I blame him. Dumont’s been behind everything from the beginning. Capturing me, the attack on The Estate and The Fort, the bomb… Who knows what else he’s done, and what else he’s planned?”

  “I think the correct question is what else he’s capable of,” Nic stated. “Can you guys get Dad on the phone? Alone? I don’t care if the family’s there, but I’d like to tell him this in private so he has a chance to think things over before he updates everyone else.”

  Stephan and I made our way downstairs, Nicolai still on speaker phone, to the Council room. Stephan immediately pulled Gregor, Christian, and Connor aside. I didn’t bother following them. I already knew what Nic was going to say, and I was pretty sure I could gauge Gregor’s reaction. Relief at hearing Nicolai’s voice, then outright fury at what he had to say. But like all good leaders, he would come around. He would realize what was best for everyone and at least entertain what Nic was telling him before decisions could be made.

  I watched them retreat through the back door and then turned around to find Lex staring at me. I walked up to her, a little ashamed at keeping my distance from the actual following through of the plans that I suggested. It wasn’t smart, or brave of me. I’d showed my cowardice when it came to thinking I was going to lose Nic and here I was coming back with the proverbial tail between my legs.

  “Nice to see you here,” she said, nodding once at me.

  “Sorry,” I told her, already shaking my head. “I know I haven’t been the best guardian, and—”

  Lex held her hand up. “We all have to be human sometime.”

  “I guess everything just caught up with me, but it’s still no excuse. I should’ve been down here.” Lex wasn’t even listening anymore. She shuffled papers around on the desk in front of her and then pulled out a phone transcript. “What’s this?” I asked after she handed it to me.

  “Something of interest, I think. Since all this was your idea, I thought you might want to take a look at it. It gives a little behind-the-scenes idea on why Dumont is doing all this from someone who claims he knows.”

  I took the paper from her and read through the transcript complete with the volunteer’s responses who’d answered the phone from this room. In it, the vampire tells the operator that Dumont tried to get him to change his allegiance from the Ravana Clan to the Dumont Clan ages ago. He tells the story about why Dumont feels the Ravanas shouldn’t be in charge, making it seem like it was Dumont who was the martyr. It was Dumont who’d been cast out of society unlawfully and without honor.

  Within the story itself, the caller weaved the idea of honor and pride in and out. Honor was an attribute I wouldn’t have said Dumont possessed. He’d tried to have me killed along with the Ravanas. He used others to carry out his plans. He wasn’t honorable. Far from it. But I guessed when you fought for something, you believed strongly about it. Even those who did the worst things in history thought they were doing what was best for their people, their world. If the vampires under Dumont didn’t find at least something about him worthy, no one would follow him. According to Nicolai, he’d even been able to get others to change sides. He must’ve said something worthy of hearing if he was able to do that.

  “Honorable Dumont, huh?” I asked, my brows rising.

  Lex shrugged. “I thought it was interesting. Almost like a motive in a murder case. You don’t always agree with it, but it’s the reason that makes people do things.”

  “I guess I just have a hard time believing that someone so evil thought that the takeover by the Ravana Clan was a dishonorable thing. How about trying not to be a jerk? It’s not like it’s that hard.”

  Lex smirked. “You sound like Nic.”

  My muscles tensed. With Gregor talking to him right now, they didn’t need me spilling the beans about Nic actually having Dumont, and that he was being trailed closely. Then again, Gregor might make the decision for us to go out there and bring Nic and Dumont back in. Confront the enemy before they even made it back to the estate. There were so many things up in the air right now. Like Nic said, we had to make about a thousand different decisions before Nic got here with Dumont. He
was enemy number one, and it wasn’t just Gregor who would have a hard time calming down. I didn’t even know how I would react the first time I saw him.

  I shrugged, going for nonchalance. “I hear Soren’s been asking for me. Stephan said something about maybe transferring him here. Is that happening?”

  “I think we should,” Lex said. “He’s not doing us any good at The Fort right now since we moved our headquarters here.”

  “Makes sense.” Plus, what Lex didn’t know was that it was a very real possibility Dumont was going to be imprisoned here soon too. Having both of them in the cells might make it interesting.

  The back door burst open and a stricken, honey-colored head searched the room. When Connor locked gazes with me, a tremor rattled my body. “Come.” He looked at Lex. “You, too. Now.”

  Lex started out at a normal gait toward the back door, but I pushed past her, my feet eating up the floor between being in the dark and what made Connor look like that. Connor held the door open for us, and we both rushed forward, Lex picking up the pace now since she saw my reaction. He waved us further into the dark hallway and then took a right through a doorway I hadn’t noticed the only other time I’d been in this hall. All of us spilled out into the family room through a hidden door.

  Gregor paced in the middle, my phone clutched in his hand.

  “What is it?” Lex asked. “What happened?”

  Gregor stopped, turned toward us, and inclined his head. “Nicolai has Dumont.”

  Lex gasped, a smile curving her lips. “That’s great.”

  Gregor held up a hand. “Dumont also has Nicolai.”

  My gaze narrowed as I stared down Nic’s father. What did he mean by that? Last I heard Nicolai was just bringing him up-to-date so we would have things in place when he got here. Now what was going on?

  Stephan moved toward me, which immediately made my hackles go up. Something else had happened.

  Finding his father mute, Christian stepped forward. “Although Nic got Dumont, he also has a trail of dedicated, annoyed, angry Dumont followers on his heels. There are too many to fight, and we don’t want to risk relinquishing Dumont now that we finally have him.”