It was all so confusing. I climbed to my feet, shaking my head. “You once ruled your corner of the world, Sorin. Stop whining about two women and get your head in the game.”
My words fell flat in the large open chamber, doing little to inspire my confidence. Regardless, I had other, more serious, matters to address tonight. The sudden surprise of finding them in bed with me had served to wake me up faster than normal, but my mind was still sluggish, so I made my way over to the kitchen down the hall to get my usual drink.
After a few minutes of preparation, I had a drink in hand and was walking back towards the main area. I checked my phone again, realizing that only ten excruciating minutes had passed since waking. The others should be up soon. They already had their marching orders for tonight.
I swept my gaze across the empty catacombs, sipping my steaming mug of blood. Hugo had invented the beverage for us vampires to drink upon waking up at dusk, calling it bloodee—like coffee for humans.
“Bloodee puts the bang in your fangs,” he’d told me a few weeks ago, extending a steaming white mug of strangely spicy blood. The cup had said I Sucked Your Mother on the front, with and she liked it on the back. He’d bought it online somewhere, obviously trying to find a way to suck up to his new boss.
Unfortunately, he had neglected to inform me of the key ingredients that he added to the blood to give it such a unique smell and taste. A dash of cinnamon, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and…
A full dose of cocaine.
I hadn’t been able to rest for days. It was during this high that I had first come up with my bold plans for tonight, because I’d briefly believed that I could actually see into the future. I’d ultimately crashed down from my high and slept for two straight days and nights.
Upon waking, I had immediately informed him to stop putting cocaine in my bloodee, and I’d settled for the virgin version with just the blood and spices for my usual waking drink.
My bloodee had instantly triggered my mental alertness, and I found myself smiling as I scanned the shelves of books surrounding us. Nero had made his lair—now my lair—in a forgotten sublevel of the museum that only showed up in the oldest blueprints. He’d had to enthrall the elevator technicians so that they never remembered doing the work that extended the elevator to descend to a level that no one knew existed.
Far above our heads was a collection of almost thirty interconnected buildings that encompassed over two million square feet beside Central Park, all devoted to the history of mankind. Hugo had sat me down, telling me more than was absolutely necessary about the building’s history—since I had been unable to sleep thanks to his cocaine—and I’d come to learn that there were more secrets to the museum than most of the legitimate workers above truly knew. Hugo had once lost a vampire after sending him out to explore several of the uninhabited storage levels. The vampire had gotten lost and ultimately starved to death.
The area we had taken over was filled with books on the occult and science apparatuses that were mainly used by Hugo and Nero—before I had imprisoned him. Aristos and Valentine had offices down the hall where they worked on the various business ventures that the vampires had run before I forced Dracula to kill them all. Stevie spent many days here now, working with the pair to accomplish peaceful transfers and the successful management of our various businesses throughout the city.
Aristos was the money man, and Valentine was involved with acquisitions and general management—and it was their lifelong mission to infuriate each other while working. Although after work, they could often be found snuggling up together on a couch with one of their willing blood slaves between them, sharing like the best of friends. I wasn’t sure if they were romantically involved, but I didn’t really care to pry. As long as they did their jobs and didn’t attempt to betray me, they could sink their fangs into whatever body parts they wanted.
I’d outlawed murder unless it was a criminal—and even then, I had made sure that we had a system in place to check their family and make sure our final justice didn’t leave behind an orphan. Or if an orphanage was actually a better option than the child’s current life with a criminal parent, that they were set up with an anonymous, lucrative trust that would make sure they were raised in a healthy, loving home and that a significant portion of their future living expenses were taken care of.
My fervor on that topic had truly surprised Hugo, Aristos, and Valentine. Especially when I’d named the charity Kassandra’s Tears, after both Renfield’s daughter and the first true Oracle of Delphi.
Orphans were loved by the vampires. Full stop.
I’d managed to slip in quite a few of my new vampires as official employees of the museum so that we no longer had to worry about hiding our presence. We set up an employment agency—run by Stevie’s werewolves—that catered specifically to my vampire offspring—the old war vets Gabriel and I had turned from the underbelly of New York City.
Come sunset, they, and a large number of werewolves, would have a vital job to do across the street in Central Park—working together to make sure the entire park and surrounding streets were devoid of all humans. Since most of my vampires had recently been homeless, they knew all the favored hiding places. A few hours from now, Central Park would be empty of everyone but my vampires and Stevie’s werewolves.
I stiffened as I felt a violent…ripple to the air. That was the only way I could describe it.
Everything went silent—the air vents stopped pushing air and a ticking clock stopped ticking.
I remained motionless, slowly scanning the sub-basement floor for signs of danger, wondering if Dracula had sent more vampires or if the witches had somehow broken in past the security werewolves we had upstairs during the day. But nothing moved, and nothing else happened. I glanced down at the coffee mug in my hand, at the bloodee I had just finished.
“Son of a bitch. He put cocaine in it again,” I hissed, dropping the mug.
It shattered at my feet and I winced at the loud sound in the oppressive silence.
I wondered how I was going to enact my plans while high on—
“It’s not cocaine, Ambrogio,” a silky voice said from a few paces away. I spun towards the sound to find a stunning, young woman with long white hair studying me from the open doorway leading into my chambers. But I knew that I hadn’t left the door open.
She wore a pristine white toga that was clasped with a silver crescent moon brooch over one shoulder, leaving the other bare. The toga hung lower on the side with the bare shoulder, ending just above the knee, but ended just below her hip on the other side, flashing a long expanse of pale, almost silvery skin. She wore a belt made of connected silver rings, and silver lace sandals that extended up her calves. It was all very monochromatic. I stared at her in disbelief, knowing her face like the back of my hand. Better than my own face, even.
“Selene,” I breathed in disbelief.
She slipped into my chambers without speaking a word, her long, silver fingernails glinting like razors. I remained motionless out of pure shock, wondering if I really was high on cocaine.
The first woman I had ever loved—a woman who had shared an entire life with me, even though we had never been allowed to touch.
And she’d just slipped into my rooms—where two naked women slept in my bed.
26
I hissed, chasing through the open door after her. Not finding her in the main room, I continued running towards the open door of the bedroom, beginning to panic as I imagined those fingernails slicing into Natalie or Victoria. I skidded to a halt upon seeing her standing at the foot of the massive bed, staring numbly at the sleeping women with an eerily calm, terrifying aura of jealousy radiating from her entire body. Her gaze subtly shifted from Natalie on the left side of the bed, to Victoria on the right, and back to the center where a third person had obviously been sleeping.
With a swift, violent motion, she gripped a fistful of the red silk sheets and tugged them down towards the foot of the bed, uncovering t
he two mostly naked women. They continued to sleep, not even twitching at the sensations of the sheets being torn away.
Victoria now slept on her right side, facing Natalie, and she wore only a pair of black, skin-tight underwear that resembled a pair of extremely short shorts. Her left leg was still bent and folded over the space where I had been sleeping, and her elbow covered her breasts as she hugged her pillow with both hands, sleeping soundly. The firelight danced over the deliciously narrow curve of her waist, revealing her utter lack of body fat and emphasizing the well-defined muscles of her back and shoulders.
Natalie slept on her back with her hands clasped behind her head, her short blonde hair covering one of her eyes. Natalie was noticeably leaner than Victoria, not having nearly as much muscle mass, although both were thinner than most other female werewolves or warriors. Natalie’s ribs were visible, and I could clearly see the muscle definition of her stomach, broken into four sections as if drawn on with a pencil. She wore only a red, lacy thong—a thin triangle of fabric held in place by two lacy strings leading up from each corner to hug her prominent hip bones.
“Selene,” I pleaded in a loud enough tone that I hoped it might wake my lovers, or at least draw Selene’s attention away from them.
Selene tensed at the sound of my voice, but she didn’t turn around. Instead, she slowly began to approach the left side of the bed where Natalie continued to sleep. There was no more time for talking. I took a sudden step forward, preparing to tackle her, but something unseen latched onto my wrists, halting me before I could take my second step. I snarled viciously, straining and pulling as hard as I could, but it was no use.
I glanced down to see that fragile, paper-thin glass manacles banded around my wrists, connected to glass chains as thin as a fine necklace that stretched behind me. I glanced back, but they continued on into the far room and out of sight. I tugged harder and watched in disbelief as the impossibly thin restraints flushed a deep wine color—the shade of the darkest blood in the body—as their strength was tested. I relaxed again, watching as they swiftly shifted back to become transparent.
Selene finally glanced over at me from beside the bed, mere inches away from Natalie. “It uses your own blood against you, my beloved Ambrogio,” she said, clearly enunciating the term of endearment in a way that made me clench my teeth. “It is quite unbreakable. The harder you pull, the more of your blood reserves it absorbs, leaving you with less energy to pull. Hephaestus is rather clever and devious. But what else is a man to do when his wife, Aphrodite, is so openly…” she glanced down at Natalie and then Victoria, her lips curling back in a bloodless sneer, “unfaithful.”
I snarled, chomping my teeth as I threw everything I had against my Olympian-made chains. Hephaestus was the Blacksmith God, known for all manner of breathtaking creations throughout history. Selene calmly lifted a lone finger and her wickedly long fingernail glistened like molten silver in the glow of the fire. She lowered it to finally touch Natalie’s right nipple, which looked remarkably close to where her heart should be located.
The werewolf screamed as the silver touched her skin—but she didn’t wake.
Victoria slept peacefully beside the werewolf with a dreamy smile on her face despite the agonized scream.
Like she was merely drawing on flesh with a marker, Selene trailed her fingernail upwards in a sinuous, curving line, arcing across the top of Natalie’s chest and then gliding downwards between the center of her breasts, leaving behind a bright red line that oozed with steaming blood. Selene paused with her finger between Natalie’s breasts to brush a loose strand of hair from my werewolf’s cheek with her free hand, smiling down at her victim’s nightmare.
“SELENE! STOP!” I roared as Natalie panted and hissed, struggling to regain her breath from the first heart-wrenching scream. Her face was contorted in agony, but she continued to sleep, her body twitching at the slow, sensual torture across her chest.
I felt the crystal chains emitting a strained ringing sound in the air, and my body draining of power only a hair faster than I could pull, tormenting me with its maddening design. Because I knew that was its intent—to give the imprisoned a false sense of hope.
If loving Natalie would save her life, I would love every square inch of her body. Every vice and virtue hidden deep within her soul. Every sorrowful tear and every belly laugh. I would love every drop of her blood if it would save her life from Selene. The emotion hit me like a bolt of lightning, momentarily surprising me.
Selene gritted her teeth, glancing back at me sharply—as if she had sensed my sudden surge of emotion. “Two, Ambrogio? Was one not enough to shame me!?” she hissed, turning back to focus on her sinuous artwork as she continued arcing her fingernail downward to loop into another rounded curve below the swell of Natalie’s right breast. Selene was panting as she continued up over Natalie’s breast, stopping right at her nipple before taking a step back to nod satisfactorily down at her work.
She glanced over her shoulder at me with a grim, ghost of a smile, pointing down at the sadistically artful wound over the whimpering werewolf’s chest. “S.”
I bared my teeth at the woman I had once loved. “Why?” I snarled, straining against my restraints even though I knew it was fruitless.
“For Selene. So that every time you touch this trollop, you will remember the woman you could not touch. The woman you said you loved. Although I’m counting on them thinking it stands for Sorin—that you marked your harem as the livestock they truly are. While they slept!”
“What happened to you?” I hissed, straining against the chains. I tried to reach out to the naked women on the bed through our new bond, to somehow wake them up from this slumber. I could feel them—Natalie’s nightmare and Victoria’s peaceful dream—but I couldn’t get through to them.
“Do not waste your time. Your voice in their heads would only serve to make it worse for them. This will be over shortly, at any rate.”
And she began walking towards me, pausing near the foot of the bed. I snarled, trying to lunge close enough to take a bite, but she remained infuriatingly out of reach—a mere hair’s breadth from harm as my teeth snapped shut before her nose, strong enough to shift her hair. She didn’t even budge.
She gripped my chin suddenly, preventing me from biting her or breaking free as her silver fingernails touched my skin and—
Did not burn me.
They were as cold as ice, but they did not harm me. I stilled suddenly, wondering what was really going on. Silver had almost killed me a few weeks ago. It was one of Artemis’ curses. Selene stared at me, and I watched as her face crumpled in pain, dropping the mask of jealous rage as if it had never happened. Her eyes were full of anguished horror and she bit her lip in profound guilt as she spoke to me.
No. Not spoke.
It was hardly even a breath, but I heard words—so soft and faint that I had to hold my own breath to even notice them.
“I don’t want to do this, my love, but even I am watched by my fellow Olympians. They wish to destroy you, Ambrogio. You were supposed to die as an orphan. Then as a vampire. Then in the Americas. They have to kill you because of what you are. Who you are. Your curses were a conspiracy born in their jealousy!”
I stared at her, dumbfounded, speaking back just as softly. “What do you mean?”
“This was the only way I could pass along a warning without drawing their suspicion. They had to see me hurt you. Use your bonds to save them, my love. Remember your name and who hurt you, because they know your plans this night and will do anything to stop you, even turning him against you. Connect the dots before it’s too late! Don’t let me harm the other girl, Ambrogio,” she pleaded, fighting back tears. “I can’t bear hurting the only lights left in your life when the Olympians have purposely taken every other from you! Use your bond. Stop me. NOW!”
27
Selene abruptly sneered and she shoved my head, laughing viciously as she donned the supposedly false mask of spite again. What th
e hell had that been? Use my bond? I’d tried!
“You thought I would actually kiss you!” she crowed. “So broken. So weak.” She continued circling the bed, coming to Victoria’s side now. “If the werewolf didn’t motivate you to be faithful, perhaps the hunter will. I wonder if Artemis would object to me spoiling her human protégé…” she trailed off thoughtfully. “Now would be the time to object, Huntress,” she said dryly. “I know you are watching my sport. You always do.”
I desperately reached out to my bond as Selene stopped beside Victoria, facing her unprotected back since the hunter was sleeping on her side.
I railed and screamed. Not Victoria! She was my soul! My fresh start. I needed her to keep me grounded. To knock me off my high horse when I wasn’t thinking clearly. Our souls were one, and I would be gods damned if I let Selene—even as a charade—come so close as scratching her.
I called up my blood reserves, trying again to throw them at my women and wake them up—
The realization hit me like a blow to my face.
Not my women.
Not my friends.
Not my allies.
Natalie and Victoria were…my lovers.
Whether we had consummated anything or not. We were lovers far beyond the simple aspects of love or lust. We shared the same spirit. We were the backbone of the same cause—to rid the world of the true monsters.
Because only monsters could stand against that kind of foe.
We three were all devils. They were my devils. I was their devil.
Taking Selene’s cryptic advice, I sent out one last clarion call through my bond, using all the power I could muster, and not just to reach out to my devilish lovers before me.
I reached out to my entire bloodline, infusing my desperate need into every drop of blood I held in my reserves. Rather than trying to force that imbued blood with destructive power…
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