Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets)

by Michael Anderle

Brasov, Romania

  Ecaterina was in the hotel room waiting for Bethany Anne and Nathan to get back. Ivan had gone to pick them up at the train station. She was emotionally tired from arguing with her mother.

  Why is it that mothers push their expectations of themselves onto their children? Ecaterina had never wanted a small house, a husband and two children. She had never played house at all while growing up. She had always been outside, or away on the mountain with her father. That her mother had continued to try and force Ecaterina into the mold of a family woman was a testament to her mother’s ability to ignore reality.

  When it had come time to speak with her parents, Ecaterina’s mother tried a massive guilt trip complete with crying. When that failed to work, her mother told her father he needed to talk some sense into Ecaterina. Her mother went on to explain how bad his life was going to be if he didn’t help her change Ecaterina’s mind. It almost broke Ecaterina’s heart to see her dad torn between two women he loved. But her dad had chosen to live with one, so as much as Ecaterina loved him she couldn’t take that burden off of his shoulders.

  In the end, her mother just went to her room and shut the door. Her father had helped Ecaterina take her luggage and put it into Ivan’s Mercedes. Her father looked at her, with a small smile on his face.

  “This is what you are, Katia. Your mother will realize her life in one of your other siblings. Maybe Ivan if he is able to stop helping every pretty woman and choose one, yes?” He smiled over at Ivan who had a long-suffering look on his face.

  “She wants to have grandchildren and she expected them from you. I told her before this wouldn’t happen and she told me I would see she was right. Well, now you are leaving and worse, she knows I was right. I’m sure she will calm down eventually. Don’t worry about me, I’ll just go to the mountain for a few nights if I need some peace and quiet. But don’t forget about us, OK? Send us an update, let us know what is going on.”

  She had promised her father she would email them from time to time. She didn’t know where she was headed but she did expect to end up in America.

  Her father started asking Ivan questions about Bethany Anne and Nathan, especially Nathan. His questions got so embarrassing that Ecaterina was blushing furiously and started to get angry at her father. He just winked at her, said goodbye and then they took off.

  She was embarrassed. Her father had just baited her and she responded. Now he knew she liked Nathan after she had spent all night working hard to keep the focus on Bethany Anne. Gott Verdammt!

  Constanta, Romania

  Bethany Anne decided to have Nathan take Ecaterina to America. She didn’t want any potential hostages around when she schooled Stephen’s family.

  She passed a message on to Frank that they would talk when she got back to the States. She used some of Nathan’s connections. He was useful to have around, to get some bona fide genuine passports. With the contacts in Switzerland, she now had a legal passport for Bethany Anne from the Swiss. Frank got word to her he would have a US passport waiting for her in England that she could pick up on her way over to D.C..

  It was amazing how much power a few billion dollars and over a trillion in assets provides someone. This was a little more than she was prepared to handle. She was going to need a damn team of accountants to figure it all out. She had no idea how Michael did it.

  Once Ecaterina and Nathan were safely on their way, she went to track down Stephen and give him the talk. Without Nathan around to caution her, she was getting a little angrier each time she remembered the way he let Petre act and hadn’t taken responsibility for his loose cannon.

  It took her three days to finally find his home, and what a home it was. Three stories tall, made of beautiful stone that looked like marble in the countryside outside of Constanța, Romania. The city itself was gorgeous, with streets that were paved with bricks from hundreds of years ago and bike racks set up for people to just grab a bike and go. Bethany Anne had wanted to walk around and see more. Unfortunately, she felt the pressure of getting back to America as soon as possible to handle the situations Frank was dealing with.

  While trying to find Stephen’s house she had thought that she should, once again, follow the money. She found the oldest three banks in town and visited the first two to open accounts. By dropping a million in US dollars, she was introduced to the banks’ presidents. When admitting she might have more that she could deposit if she felt inclined they would bend over backwards to answer her questions. She hit the jackpot at the second bank. The president admitted that his bank had a very wealthy patron by the name of Stephen that had no last name and he would be happy to give her the address and a letter of introduction to pass to him. She thanked him for the help and left.

  After getting lunch, Bethany Anne went back to the train station and searched around for a very lonely spot. She found one out behind the ticket booth. After that task was finished, it was just a few minutes to capture the attention of a taxi and head towards Cupana. She had the driver leave her at a gas station about half a mile from the road that went to Stephen’s house.

  Admiring the view, she walked up to the house and rang the doorbell. It was a real fucking bell, too. She pulled on a rope that passed through a hole above the door and listened to the answering toll. After pulling the rope three times and waiting twenty minutes she considered banging on, or down, the front door. Finally, she could hear slow steps approaching. The locks were turned and an old, wizened man stood in front of her.

  If her nose hadn’t confirmed it, and TOM as well, she wouldn’t have believed that she was staring at Michael’s son, Stephen.

  He was old. Not like ‘Grandpa, stop looking at the girls, it’s gross’ old. He was in the grave, just close the coffin lid old. He had sunspots on his bald head and even his eyes looked like they had a light grey film on them.

  What the fuck?

  “Yes?” His voice was a little wheezy, but not too bad.

  “Stephen?” She couldn’t help herself. She was expecting someone… younger.

  “Yes?”

  Well, what the fuck was she supposed to do now? If she bitch-slapped grandpa here, she might break his fool neck and although not really a consideration, she didn’t feel like hitting this bag of bones.

  “You have something to say, or shall I close this door, young woman?”

  Yeah, that’s right. He couldn’t smell anything Vampy about her. Hell, he might not be able to smell anything at all.

  “May I come in? I have some news that you might want to hear. It’s about Petre.”

  “Yes, of course. What has that little miscreant done now?” Stephen turned around and walked back into the house. He had let his live-in caretakers go five years ago. He still had his groundskeepers come weekly and a house cleaning service came once a month to take care of dusting the house and vacuuming. Stuff that wouldn’t wake him up in the basement.

  Bethany Anne looked around. It was clean, but obviously no one lived here. They sat in the front room. It had ten-foot high ceilings and floor to ceiling drapes along one wall. A Roman bust sat on a pedestal in the corner. The furniture looked hundreds of years old. Shit, it might be his original furniture from hundreds of years ago.

  She got to the point. “That miscreant got involved in using the Brasov Were pack as his personal gang of hoodlums who then tried to assassinate an American Pack Council representative and a couple of locals. A human and a Werebear who lived on the mountain were caught in the attack and were also going to be killed.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Stephen was still trying to wake up. This woman was beautiful, but he was way past the stage where beautiful women did much for him anymore.

  “Nothing. I killed him.”

  Stephen got a little jolt from that and his eyes widened. “You?” The film seemed to be receding from his eyes as he woke up. “How? Why?”

  “The how was by pulling him into the sun a little at a time when he wouldn’t, or couldn’t answ
er my questions, and the why was because he was being a little shit. Oh yeah, and he shot me.”

  Stephen was awake now. “When was this?”

  “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “You don’t look like you’ve been shot.”

  “I heal really fast. You should know. Hell, Petre was healing fast. That was why I kept hitting him with the cricket bat. Well, that and I was pissed about getting shot. Did I mention the little shit shot me in the back?”

  Stephen’s eyes creased a little. “You don’t smell like you should have been able to do that. You smell… normal. Why should I believe you?”

  “You want me to come over there and let you get a better smell?” She raised an eyebrow daring him to accept her offer.

  “Yes, I’ll take you up on that offer, young lady.”

  Bethany Anne walked over to Stephen and offered her wrist. In her last step, she switched over to Vamp speed and the world went into super slow motion. She let her arm hang about a foot from Stephen’s face.

  She saw the moment Stephen decided he was going to get a bite of that juicy wrist and his incisors started growing. He tried to launch off of the couch and grab her arm with both his hands to bring her wrist up to his mouth.

  She didn’t want him to get his teeth in her. She knew she could eventually pry him off, but it would be a pain, and she was sure her etheric energy would get drained. And while turnabout is fair play, the thought of drinking his geriatric blood just grossed her out.

  So she grabbed his forehead with her left hand and pushed it back. Pulling her right hand closer to her chest, she was able to do a quick twist and break his hold. Using her right hand, she popped him in his right ear and he shot away to land fifteen feet into the foyer. She started walking over to him. Stephen was lying on the ground moaning with his hands covering his ears.

  “Why did you hit an old man like that?”

  “I’m going to break your old man legs if you don’t stop acting like a fucking moron. Get a fucking backbone, Stephen. I expected more from Michael’s child.”

  He looked up at her, suddenly realizing that he was playing with someone who was not only aware of the UnknownWorld, but also knew who Michael was and how he was related to him. Which meant that she had to have had an idea how powerful he might have been, if he had rejuvenated in the last few hundred years.

  She had come alone, and had just boxed his ears.

  “What is it you want?”

  “I want you to get off your bony ass and have a real conversation with me. You’re a pathetic excuse for a family head. What the hell has gotten into you?”

  “You want to know?” Stephen got up gingerly and walked with decorum to the living room. At least in here the floors were carpeted if he got a beatdown again. The way she had been able to easily break his hold, he didn’t have a chance of overpowering her right now. Maybe after rejuvenation… Maybe!

  “Yes, I not only want to know, but dammit, I need to know.” Bethany Anne sat near Stephen. Showing him that she wasn’t overly concerned with his attacking her again and giving him something she felt he desperately needed, attention.

  They ended up talking through the night. By dawn it was obvious that Stephen was drowning in loneliness. He needed etheric energy in a bad way. He was so weak that a teenager might be able to kill him.

  She considered what she could do about that. When she arrived at the house, she thought she was going to have to kick his ass, and probably kill him. Now, she wanted—no she needed—to save him. Save him both physically and emotionally, as he was hurting horribly. He cared and it was his Achilles heel. He was hiding from his troubles by sleeping and he didn’t want to create another child so that he could grow young again.

  TOM, is there any way to safely move any of my etheric energy to Stephen without endangering me?

  Yes, you could give him some of your blood.

  I am not letting those geezer fangs bite me, hell no.

  Cut your wrist and let some drain into a bowl or a mug, he can drink it from there.

  What about the Nanocytes that are in me? What will they do to him?

  They usually follow the three stages, remember? His body doesn’t need to be made ready like for stages two and three, so it should just make him younger. Although I doubt there are enough nanocytes in a mug of blood to do much for him. Depending on how much etheric energy you can provide, that would probably do the most good.

  So the Nanocytes aren’t going to super-program him?

  Uhhhhh, one second.

  Bethany Anne’s head started to hurt. TOM was accessing the organic computer in her brain. One of these fucking weeks she was going to hole up and fix her connections. She wouldn’t allow TOM to access the computer because it hurt so much, but then she couldn’t get information without the computer. It sucked.

  Finally, about ten seconds later the pain started to recede.

  OK, I can use some of the etheric energy and reprogram the Nanocytes so they don’t make any additional changes.

  Wait! We can ask them to do additional changes?

  Well, possibly. What do you have in mind?

  Can you program them to have a backdoor or something?

  What is a backdoor?

  In this case, something that we can contact through the etheric and have them change routines if we want?

  Another bit of silence from TOM.

  Yes. We can at least get them to communicate their location if you want. I’m not sure how much more, I hadn’t considered that.

  That will have to be good enough. If I can figure out where he is, I should be able to figure out if he’s doing what I want.

  Bethany Anne stood up and moved into the kitchen. Stephen watched her with curiosity. Although he was tired physically, his brain was awake. It had been many, many decades since he had talked with anyone that he could feel safe sharing secrets with. The strictures limited him to talking with his siblings, who were spread all over the world. He felt bad about what Petre had been up to, but it seemed this woman had taken care of that. He hadn’t wished ill on Petre, but he had gone against the strictures himself when he shot this woman. Petre’s poor judgment in not finding out more about her. Petre should never have shot anyone connected with Michael in the first place and had Stephen been informed, he would have been required to kill Petre for his actions. She saved him the anguish of killing one of his own children.

  She didn’t seem to have that many hang-ups. She knocked him on his ass without blinking. He wondered if her generation didn’t appreciate what it took to live this long, or if she would have hit him before she was transformed.

  She looked around the kitchen until she found a fileting knife, and grabbed a mug from above the sink and took it into the living room. She looked around. She didn’t want to make a mess but she would lose the value of the effort if she didn’t do this right in front of him.

  She sat the knife and the mug down between them on the coffee table. He sat up on the couch, looked at the mug and knife and back up at her.

  “Stephen, I appreciate all that you have shared with me. Know first, I am not Michael. If I make a pact with you, then you can be sure that I will do whatever is in my power to honor that pact. I need a powerful Nacht here in Europe. I need you to come back to the living again, Stephen. Wake up and stay awake. I need you to be my eyes and ears here in Europe. I need you to be strong again, Stephen. For me, for Nacht, and frankly for the world. Will you accept this gift of my blood? Blood that will strengthen you, connect you to me, and will you work with me to make this world better for Nacht, for the UnknownWorld and for the humans as well?

  Stephen looked into her eyes. Those beautiful eyes that he imagined glowed as he told her his story through the night. She had become his priestess, his sister, his friend. Would he? Would he be willing to do this? For the humans? No. He didn’t have enough love for any humans or Weres right now. Maybe in the future. But for Bethany Anne? For Bethany Anne he would do this, and he would follow her unt
il the grave finally claimed his body.

  He placed his frail arm over his chest. “Yes, my lady. I will do this as you ask. But know that I am from centuries past. I know that you don’t ascribe to the old ways. Ways that were old generations before you were born. But if you would let me drink from your wrist, I will be your servant until the end of my days. Whether that be today or a thousand years in the future.”

  Bethany Anne looked down at the mug and knife and realized that it was a poor substitute for the ritual, for the request of Stephen’s allegiance. If she was going to be a Queen, the Queen of the UnknownWorld, it would not be done with a porcelain mug and a fileting knife.

  She stood up, and walked over to Stephen, who looked up into her eyes as she stood next to him. “Drink, Stephen. Swear your allegiance to me and I will provide you sustenance. But if you don’t stop when I tell you, I will put my fist through your skull, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, my Queen. I understand.”

  She offered her wrist and Stephen lovingly took it and slowly, ever so slowly, pierced her veins with his fangs, making sure that he was beyond careful with this woman who had saved him from the mortality of loneliness and given him a new hope, a new reason to live.

  She gently tapped him on the head about five minutes later. His mind, his body were abuzz. The blood was changing him. Changing him again it felt like. Every point of light in the room was bright.

  “Lay down, Stephen, and sleep. I will protect you while you rest. You have my word on that.”

  Stephen closed his eyes and was instantly all but comatose. Bethany Anne pulled his legs up on the couch and searched around the house until she found a blanket. She wasn’t sure he needed it, but it might be a comfort and she wanted to tuck him in. Then she went back to the chair across from him and sat down.

  Michael’s family is dysfunctional, she thought.

  She had learned that TOM had the ability to pay attention to what was going on around her, even when she wasn't paying attention. For example, when he was able to pinpoint where she had seen Paul Rutherford on the train. She had talked with him later to find out he was constantly ‘paying attention’ to all of her senses and learning more as he went along. He was very smart, but a little ignorant about Earth customs and was constantly pulling in more and more information trying to understand. Considering that it was becoming more and more dangerous for her should she be caught unawares, she needed TOM to catch what she missed.