TWISTED DESTINY: The Complete Saga

by Leia King

  “Busy dealing with a dispute among a wolf pack at the edge of the city. He’s miles away.”

  “Fuck. Fine,” Luca said with an exasperated sigh. “Where is this apparent lead of his?”

  Michael looked at him intensely as he revealed, “Infernus.”

  Luca’s eyes widened. “You’re serious?”

  “Have I ever been anything else?”

  “Kristoff’s club?”

  “The very one,” Michael chuckled.

  Luca growled. “You find this amusing? After what happened the last time Kristoff and I were in the same room together?”

  “It will be quite the reunion, I’d imagine. I wonder if he’s still with Amelia.”

  “Don’t speak of her.”

  “A beauty, though.”

  “Yes. But in the end, nothing but a common whore.”

  “I think you were more insulted that Kristoff was able to seduce her despite your infamous skills in that area. I don’t know why you expected her to be true to you. What vampire is?”

  Agitated, Luca waved his hand at the bed. “She will be.”

  Michael scoffed. “You’re kidding yourself. Perhaps later on. But, initially, she’ll be like any other newbie. Craving blood and sex.”

  “And I will be here to satisfy both hungers.”

  “I’m sure that will go over well with Ryan.”

  Luca shook off his words of caution and snapped, “I have somewhere to be. Get out. I’m not leaving you in here with her.”

  Michael held up his hands with innocence. “Not my type.”

  Luca rolled his eyes. “Sure. Just keep in mind that, as her Sire, I will know if anyone comes within a couple of feet of her. I will feel any change in her immediately.”

  “I know how it works, you fool.”

  Luca ushered him out of the room. He looked back at Cora quickly and then left, locking the door behind him.

  3

  Ryan glared at Infernus, the infamous supernatural club owned by a bloodsucker just as infamous.

  He patted the stake holstered at his hip. It was Cora’s. Had been Cora’s. She was dead. Dead. Unlike that dumbass, Luca, he knew the truth. She was gone. The turning had failed. It’d been weeks and nothing had come of it. Her condition hadn’t changed. It was permanent. Her death was permanent.

  Nathanial had told them that it’d never been done before. He’d been against it from the moment Luca had suggested it, concerned about the consequences. But when Ryan had given the go-ahead, in a moment of major fucking weakness, Nathanial had let it be. Ryan had no doubt that if it’d been anyone else asking him to overlook it, he would’ve refused. He was the Vampire King, experienced and highly knowledgeable. He had his rules for a reason. Ryan wished he’d listened to him in that moment. He’d made a mistake and all it’d brought him was false hope. And he couldn’t bear it. It was why he hadn’t been to see her up at Luca’s place.

  His only relief was his mission. Finding his son and that fucking bitch, Oriana.

  He would rip her apart the moment he set eyes on her. No mercy. He would kill her. Kill her!

  He took a deep breath to try to calm himself. He wanted desperately to pull out his flask and down half the scotch in there. But he knew he couldn’t. He was walking into a notorious vampire club. He had to stay on high alert.

  He was just a few steps away from the door when fingers brushed his holster. The next thing he knew, he was being slammed hard into the wall of an alleyway around the corner.

  Looking up, he saw Luca standing before him, pinning him against the wall with one hand to his chest, the other grasping his stake.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” he seethed, pushing him back. He went to take the stake back, but Luca dodged his attempt.

  “You think you’re going to walk into Kristoff’s club with this thing? You saw how quickly I disarmed you. You didn’t even have the chance to react. I might be quicker on the draw than him, but not by much, Ryan. You have the strength, but not the speed that we do.”

  “I also don’t have a problem ripping the heads off every fucking vamp in there. In fact, I’m in the mood for a goddamn massacre.”

  “The massacre you’re planning will be too messy and risk exposing all of us.”

  Ryan breathed out a frustrated sigh and folded his arms across his chest. He knew whose words Luca was speaking. They certainly weren’t his own. “Nathanial sent you.”

  Luca nodded. “I’ll get you the information you want. But we do this my way.”

  “Your way?”

  “I’ll compel him.”

  “You can compel another vampire? I thought—”

  “That I could only compel humans? I can compel anyone who’s weaker than me.”

  “I don’t need help, especially not from you.” He started to walk away.

  “You were on board, Ryan!”

  Ryan stopped in his tracks, his back to him.

  “You wanted me to turn her! You agreed!”

  Spinning around in a fit of rage, he bellowed, “I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to be making a decision like that!”

  “But now it’s done. I turned her.”

  “You tried and you failed. She’s dead, Luca! I told you to bury her! You still haven’t, have you?”

  “Bury her? I would’ve thought you would’ve wanted to do that yourself, if that situation had arisen, which it hasn’t.”

  “I… can’t,” Ryan said, hating the falter in his voice.

  “She’s not dead.”

  “It’s been three weeks! Come on, Luca! Get a fucking grip! I know it was your first time fucking a princess—my wife—but get the fuck over it already!”

  Ryan saw him bristle at his words. But, for some reason, he held in his temper and said, “If she were dead, her body would have already started to desiccate. It hasn’t. And….”

  Hearing Luca trail off caught Ryan’s attention. He walked back to him. “And what?” he pressed urgently. “What, Luca?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you, in case you got your hopes up, because I don’t know what it means yet. I won’t be able to tell until she wakes up.”

  “Just say it.”

  “Both Michael and I can feel white magical energy emanating from her.”

  “What?” Ryan choked out. “What does that mean? She might not be fully vamped or something?”

  “Vamped? You know I hate it when you refer to the act in such a degrading way. Siring someone is mythic, not some frivolous act like you make it out to be.”

  Mythic? Like hell, it was. “I asked you what it meant. The energy you can feel from her? Does it mean she might not be a full vampire? Like part of the real her might still be… alive?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Ryan’s hands shot out and gripped the collar of his leather coat. “You should’ve told me right away!”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to give you any false hope.”

  Ryan released him roughly and stepped back. “After this thing with Kristoff, I need to see her.”

  “You understand that she’ll need me when she wakes up?”

  “Right. All that Sire shit.”

  “You’ve never been around a baby vampire before. You don’t know what it will be like. Ask Nathanial about it. I can assure you that he’ll say the same thing.”

  “I don’t need to. I know all about it. I’ve been around a long time, Luca, just like you.”

  “All right then,” he answered, clearly confused by Ryan’s easy acceptance. “I’ll be there too.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.” Luca sighed heavily. “Look, Kristoff hates royals. He’s still bitter about losing his title as one in The War. It’s likely he’ll try to get under your skin. Don’t let him. Keep that Alpha wolf temper of yours in check.”

  “Hates royals? Don’t you mean, he hates you? Didn’t you fuck his girl a few decades ago?”

  “The other way around.”

  “Oh, so you d
o know how it feels then?”

  Luca snarled. “Let’s do this. My way. Stay on me and follow my lead.”

  “Is that what you said to my wife when you fucked her?”

  Luca finally reacted like the vampire he knew, running at him and rushing him into the brick wall. “I thought we were past that, brother? You tore me apart with your fists and your wolf claws. I let you. Then I lifted the spell over Jada’s room, so you could go to her. And I brought Cora back from the brink of death, risking my father’s wrath in the process.” He released him and stepped back. Ryan glared at him heatedly. When he made no move to respond, Luca pressed, “Well?”

  Ryan shook out his leather jacket and muttered, “Let’s just focus on finding my son.”

  “As close to a truce, as I’m ever going to get from you, I suppose.”

  “Damn straight.”

  The two of them strode towards the club entrance.

  “Well, shit. I didn’t know this was a BDSM club,” Ryan commented, as they walked into Infernus.

  “I’m actually surprised you’ve never been here, given your predilections,” Luca said.

  “My control issues don’t go to these extremes.”

  “If you say so.”

  Ryan ignored his comment and scanned the club floor.

  In the center of the dark room, lit only by muted pot lights above, bodies swayed to the slow, hypnotic music pulsing through the club. They weren’t just dancing. They were feeding. Vampires, humans, faeries, witches. On the brick wall to the left, men and women were chained up and being flogged and whipped by beings as naked as them. Further along, a crowd gathered as a female vampire, her dress pushed up over her ass, lay flat across a stone table as her partner spanked her. Over to their right was a bar that would have been the most normal thing in the place if it hadn’t been for several men and women on their knees beside the stools with collars around their necks.

  “There he is,” Luca said, pointing to a guy with spiky, white hair sitting at the end of the bar with two vampire vixens sitting on each leather-clad knee.

  As Ryan followed Luca, he studied the infamous Kristoff. He’d never met him before, but he’d heard enough tales to know that this wasn’t going to be an easy task. He saw Kristoff look up, having sensed their approach. The lines etched into his face made him look middle-aged in human terms, but Ryan knew he actually had centuries under his belt. His eyes were a fiery red, a lot like Luca’s when he was pissed. He wiped away the blood oozing from the corner of his mouth and then licked the neck of the vampire vixen perched on his left knee, soothing the puncture wounds from his bite. He whispered something to them and they both climbed off him and sauntered away.

  Ryan looked away briefly as he saw Kristoff adjust the obvious hard-on in his leather pants. Lovely. As they reached him, he straightened the lipstick-stained collar of his silver shirt and turned on his stool to face the two of them head on.

  “I wondered when you’d finally pay me a visit, Wolf King.”

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed with distrust. “You were expecting me?”

  “I led you here. I fed you the information that brought you here.”

  “You want to make a deal,” Luca accused.

  Kristoff flashed him a smug smile.

  “Not happening,” Luca said. “The fact that you believe you have leverage to make a deal with him means you know where his son is. You’re going to tell us. Freely, or via compulsion.”

  Kristoff laughed. “Always so heavy-handed, Luca.”

  “With you, it is a necessity.”

  “If I was the man I used to be, it wouldn’t be a possibility. I would crush you.”

  Ryan saw Luca’s eyes flash as he shot back, “Interesting. The way I’ve heard it, power and might weren’t really your forte when you were ruling over the Dark Realm all those centuries ago before my father destroyed you and stripped your royal powers from you.”

  “My magic can eclipse yours, Luca.”

  “I’m always willing to test that theory. Just say the words.”

  Kristoff chuckled. “You’re still upset about Amelia, I see.”

  “Yes,” Luca hissed.

  “And now you share your brother’s woman?” Kristoff said, smiling with amusement as he looked between the two of them. “Ryan, you have to understand how coveted a prize your wife is. Even as vampire she will be more. The only reason others haven’t tried to take her is because they fear Luca’s wrath. All vampires know of his obsession with her. I suppose you can be grateful for that much, because the rest wouldn’t be so gentle with her. She has a pull like no other. All vampires feel it. And when she awakens as part vampire, she will be a wild thing indeed, willing to be taken.”

  Ryan growled and lunged forward. Luca threw out his arm, holding him back.

  “She no longer possesses her white power,” Luca told Kristoff.

  “You’re lying.”

  An odd look passed between them that Ryan didn’t understand.

  “What do you think you know?” Luca demanded.

  “I have spies everywhere, Luca. I have been paying special attention to her condition.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she has an important role to play.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Ryan snapped, done with all the bullshit between them.

  Kristoff shifted his weight and said, “Nathanial has been unable to locate your son, because he is in a place beyond his reach. Spiritomb. The home of the dead.”

  Luca scoffed. “Impossible. Only the dead can pass through there. Those who have faced absolute death. No being can just pass in and out of there freely.”

  Kristoff sighed and brought his hands to his face. “There is another way.”

  “What?” Luca snapped. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “What?” Ryan asked.

  Luca’s gaze was fixed on Kristoff. “You helped her to pass through, didn’t you? You used black magic to help her?”

  “Black magic?” Ryan asked.

  Luca told him, “He trained Michael and there are rumors that he was the one who trained Oriana to wield it as well.”

  “A decision I’ve recently lived to regret.” He raised his head and told Ryan, “She brought your son here.”

  “What?” Ryan exclaimed, stepping closer.

  “Three weeks ago, right after I felt a huge power surge. She forced me to open a portal to Spiritomb.”

  “Forced you?” Ryan growled.

  “She threatened the life of my child.”

  “You have a child? How?” Luca demanded.

  “A story for another time.” He moved closer to them and lowered his voice. “Opening the portal requires tremendous power and a sacrifice from the person casting the spell. The ultimate sacrifice.”

  “What does that mean?” Ryan asked.

  Kristoff took a deep breath before revealing, “The life of the one you love.”

  “Amelia,” Luca realized aloud.

  Kristoff nodded. “She was my wife.”

  Luca looked shocked. “You were wed? I thought she was just—”

  “What?” Kristoff cut in. “A mere whore to me?” He shifted on his stool. “Believe me, Luca, I wouldn’t have gone to the extent that I did to take her from you, if she was just to be a whore of mine. No, she was everything. My love.”

  With Luca shell-shocked, Ryan took over, demanding of Kristoff, “How do we open the portal again?”

  “You don’t,” Kristoff answered. “Opening a portal there more than once a century could cause irreparable damage by ripping apart the fabric of reality. It could risk pulling back the curtain between life and death.”

  “I don’t give a damn! My son is there!”

  Kristoff held up his hand. “It doesn’t mean we can’t pull your son out.”

  Luca scoffed. “What? So we just reach in somehow, poke around, and hope to hell that we grab hold of him in the process?”

  “Before they passed through the portal, I spelled the pup with
a magical tracker.”

  Ryan cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because he wants something from you in return. What is it, Kristoff?”

  “Passage into the Dark Realm for myself and my daughter. Seeing as though none of us can kill Oriana, the only safe place for us is in the Dark Realm. Cora’s barrier prevents Oriana from crossing into the realm. Another sign, by the way, that her white power is still in her somewhere. If it was not, the barrier would have dissipated.”

  “That would require my father to pardon you for your crimes,” Luca told him.

  “I realize that,” Kristoff snapped. “But Ryan has a close relationship with him. It shouldn’t be that difficult if he requested it of Nathanial on my behalf.”

  Ryan folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the bar. “Before I even consider running this by Nathanial, tell me how we pull my son out.”

  “First, get me passage into the Dark Realm. Once my daughter and I are through the gates, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  Ryan growled and lunged at him, but Luca held him back once again. Then Ryan saw Luca’s eyes start to glow with red fire at Kristoff. He was trying to compel him.

  Kristoff laughed. “You don’t think I have taken precautions against the possibility that you would try to compel me, old friend?” His gaze snapped to Ryan’s. “And, look around, Wolf King, I enjoy pain. You can’t torture it out of me.”

  He smiled at them as he stepped around them and walked away into the heart of the club.

  “Fuck,” Ryan grunted.

  “We need to leave here before you do something stupid,” Luca said, gripping his arm tightly and leading him to the exit.

  Once outside, Ryan ripped his arm from his hold and thrust his fist into the wall, roaring with frustration. “I’ll kill her for taking him! My son!” He kicked the wall and then turned back to Luca. He watched as he blinked hard and gasped suddenly. “What? What is it?” he snapped, impatiently.

  “Cora. She’s awake.”

  4

  Shrieks and abrasive thuds sounded around them as Luca led Ryan to the chamber where he was keeping Cora.