by Rebecca Main
Ruby hums. “Is that so? It has nothing to do with her being beautiful?”
“It doesn’t hurt,” he replies. “Regardless, I’ve always found the best practice to be staying in favor with those who are favored by the Gods.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to stay in her favor, then.”
“Behave,” Sebastian scolds affectionately, and sends a pointed look Ruby’s way.
“What did I miss?” Stormrow asks, swiftly changing the subject before Ruby can go any further. Without preamble, he steals my wine glass and takes a drink.
“I spit in that,” I tell him cordially as he swallows. My lie has the desired reaction, and the sorcerer sputters and chokes comically on the last of my wine.
“Children,” Vrana snaps, when Stormrow opens his mouth to retaliate. “Now is not the time for your games. Nova was just about to explain the thought process behind her desire to return to fighting in the Pits.”
Stormrow's eyebrows raise to his hairline, and he shoots Nova a look of genuine shock. He runs a hand through his thick brown hair before rubbing at his scruffy beard thoughtfully.
“It’s not a terrible idea,” Stormrow says.
“Thank you,” Nova answers.
“Your reasoning?” Vrana asks dispassionately while he leans back in his chair.
She shrugs. “Everyone wants a piece of me. Why not use that to our advantage? Anyone can fight for sport. I'll go and fight and keep my ears open for any useful information. Who knows, maybe I'll win a ring or two.”
Vrana mulls over her reasoning silently and picks up his glass once more, twirling it in his fingers. “The plan isn’t terrible, but you won’t be earning any rings while you fight.”
Nova deflates, but a certain kind of fire lights behind her eyes. “Why not?” she asks, heat simmering behind her words.
“Rings are only fought over when one family challenges another. These challenges occur only when a grave offense is taken. The winning family, of course, keeps all rings in play.”
“What constitutes as a ‘grave offense’?" Nova makes little air quotes with her fingers. "Spilling blood on someone’s fancy dress?”
“There is some honor and chivalry among our kind, and when those unspoken rules are broken, a challenge may be issued. Likewise, unprovoked physical altercations or attacks upon a household's name may result in the issuing of a challenge.” Nova rolls her eyes. Her mouth distinctly forming the word “lame” without saying anything aloud. “You may fight in the Pits for sport. See what information you can gather. But be warned, once you get them talking, it is quite difficult to shut them up.”
“I’m sure my fist could solve that problem,” she replies dryly.
“Nova.” The strain that paints Vrana’s voice his comical. So is the disapproving, almost fatherly, frown he sports.
“Oh!” Nova’s eyes flare bright and land on me. “Can I pick a fight with Omar Mubark?”
“Now, why would I allow you to do that?” Vrana asks softly, his eyes trailing Nova’s blatant regard. I bite my tongue and keep my eyes forward.
“He made a pass at Irina. Shouldn’t that be categorized as a ‘grievous offense’? She is your soulmark. Or did you forget?”
“We’re not that kind of soulmark,” I inform her. “Ours is more an involuntary, purely circumstantial relationship.”
“Right,” Nova replies, dragging out the vowel.
I open my mouth to deliver a scathing reply when Vrana’s cuts in. “Enough. Leave us. All of you.”
Sebastian and Ruby depart in a flash. Their wine glasses adhered to their hands. Nova departs with a human cadence, and Stormrow, with his usual charm, leaves with a salute in our direction—as well as with the remainder of my dinner. I stifle a growl of frustration. This is what I get for keeping my guard low. Nobody back in Branson Falls would have dared such imprudence.
The thought strikes a chord in me, one that makes my stomach ache and my heart fill with longing.
Nobody knows where I am or if I’m alive. And the threads of the pack bond are stretched too thin for me to feel any connection to them. These past three weeks, I’ve been able to temper my distress, but suddenly it is at the forefront of my thoughts and threatening to leave me curled in a ball.
I take a deep breath and smooth my skirt, ignoring my trembling hands. Be strong, Irina. “What is it? A private scolding regarding my conduct?” My voice is toneless.
“Did he hurt you?” Vrana doesn’t bother to look at me when he asks his question, though his voice does carry some menace in it.
“No. He only informed me that I was filth,” I reply, studying the sharp slope of Vrana's nose and cutting jawline. “And how tasty he found lycans to be.”
“Did you hurt him?”
Our eyes lock, but instead of looking exasperated or angry, there is something more behind his stare. Something I can’t place. Sensing my sudden unease, the wolf lies in wait for any sudden movements from the vampyré.
“I didn't. I was perfectly civil. I kept quiet nearly the entire time Mubark degraded me.”
Vrana sips his blood wine and averts his gaze. “So you can hold your tongue?”
I go rigid. The nerve… Flashes of my younger self come to mind, a time when I was still in the Wselfwulf pack. The girl I see is one who tried her hardest not to be seen or heard. A girl who knew when to hold her tongue… or else. But the Dark Court isn’t the Wselfwulf Pack. It isn’t my sex that damns me here, but the wolf that runs in my blood.
I let my icy stare bore into the side of Vrana’s face. I push my ire through our weak bond and past the magic that keeps it mostly smothered. I do so until I am confident he can feel it.
“I can do many things with my tongue.”
Vrana's eyes dilate at my bold statement. The web of silver in his blue eyes contracts.
“Now why do I not find that hard to believe?” he murmurs. “Perhaps from all the practice you have licking your wounds?”
I hum low in my throat before answering. “More so from the verbal lashings I deal out. Iris Roux and Omar Mubark should be thankful I didn’t engage.”
Vrana’s brows drop and pinch together, and the small, almost infinitesimal sound of glass splintering reaches my ears. I eye the wine glass in his hand.
“Leave the Roux and Mubark Households to me and Sebastian. You’ll quickly find yourself out of depths when it comes to their form of fighting.”
“Is that so?”
“It is,” he tells me gruffly, setting down his glass with surprising restraint. “There are some households, dear heart, that do not take kindly to other supernatural creatures being a part of the Dark Court. And then there are those like Iris and Omar who believe every other species is dirt underneath their polished shoes. Do not provoke them, is that understood?”
I stand, pushing up from the table with both hands planted firmly on the table's edge. “Perhaps it is them who would do well not to provoke me,” I tell him tightly.
A gasp flies from my mouth as my chair is flung against the wall, and Vrana spins me around. He pins me against the table with his hips. The arctic pressure of his hand against my neck brings a feral snarl from my throat. I let the wolf bleed through my eyes.
“Your very presence is a provocation. To them, you are nothing more than a pet. A dog leashed by its betters. And when they sniff out your aversion to their touch, they’ll press themselves upon you tighter.” Vrana leans his weight upon me more, the firm muscles of his chest pressing against my breasts with authority. His hand skims my neck until it reaches my nape and slips into the silky strands pinned up at the back of my head. “Until the life is snuffed from your warm body. You think you know how to play this game, my dear, but you’re in over your head. You are not their kind, and you never will be.”
“Thank God. The last thing on this earth I would wish for is to be more like you.” Vrana’s eyes flash dangerously, but before any move can be made against
me, my heel stabs down onto his instep. Vrana jerks back, releasing his tenuous hold on me with a hiss. I use the opportunity to make my escape, my heart hammering on, even as I secure my bedroom door shut behind me.
Brussels | Autumn 1830
He ran.
He ran through the thick forests of Bavaria and Württemberg, where the dense canopy earned the name Schwarzwald. The Black Forest. Jakob hunted there, falling prey to the predator within him. It was a welcome relief for Jakob.
The constant strain of his human disguise had been tossed aside as his tether to humanity cut short. Jakob feasted on stag and wild turkey, pheasant and boar. Their gamey flavor was different from the chilled pigs' blood he dined on in Praha. Five years passed. In the wild reprieve, he learned to live. And when the hunt of fauna became too easy—the animals of the land no match for his speed, or strength, or thirst—he ran again.
He ran north to Prussia, then west to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
He learned once more to be among society, to walk alongside his prey as a man as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The world had never looked so promising. Nor revolution so… appetizing.
At last, he found himself in Brussels. Whispers and stirrings of discontent rode on the wind. They called to him, and Jakob answered.
King William I’s festival was to take place from the twenty-third of August to the twenty-fifth. When Jakob saw the festival’s advertisement pasted around Brussels in large posters he laughed heartily.
Monday, the 23rd, fireworks
Tuesday, the 24th, illuminations
Wednesday, the 25th, revolution
The opera La Muette de Portici was to be the catalyst for the revolutionists. And Jakob thought it the perfect time to feast anew.
++
Autumn 1831
The Ten Days’ Campaign was a bombardment of the Belgium spirit. Battle after battle, Dutch forces gained ground. The revolutionists were ill-equipped and unprepared for the king’s suppression. Jakob was not.
For the first time, he felt nourished. For the first time, he felt free.
Fleeing men met their end beneath his fangs. Bullet wounds could not stop him, nor their piercing bayonets. He was invincible. He was immortal. Near Leuven, he cornered a Dutch soldier against the side of an abandoned home. Jakob would never forget the victory that flooded his veins at the soldier’s marvelous taste.
Yet all good things come to an end.
The French came. The Dutch retreated. The Belgium people rallied. And though violent incidents orchestrated by the Orangism movement peppered the next few years, all was calm.
For some.
++
Spring 1832
Jakob’s thirst, once given into, was uncontrollable. Carefully constructed nights of premeasured blood had kept his control in check for more than four decades, but no more. The dark streets became his new hunting ground. Those who wandered out too late in the brisk night met their end without a friend in sight. Jakob savored the fear in their blood. The intoxicating rush of adrenaline transferred into his cold body like an elixir.
He left a trail of bodies in his wake, and someone had taken notice.
On a particularly chilly evening on the cusp of May in 1832, Jakob sat in the center of a park on the west side of the city. His foot tapped to a prestissimo beat. Nervous energy jolted his spirits, and the few people who strolled the park gave him a wide berth. Jakob closed his eyes and smoothed a hand over his pant leg for the umpteenth time. Whomever he had last drained had consumed some type of drug. It made Jakob’s palm itch, and the stolen blood in his veins raced at a dizzying pace.
“Caution, friend. You give yourself away with such a cadence.”
Jakob’s eyes snapped open as he turned to look at the gentleman now sitting next to him. He had salt and pepper hair and a fashionable mustache. His frame was somewhat stocky, but perhaps it was the way in which he sat that gave such an impression. His ankle was tossed carelessly over his knee, and his arms stretched across the back of the bench as if he owned it. Jakob’s foot stopped its tenacious pace, and he looked about to see if he had indeed drawn notice. No passerby looked his way. He turned back to the mysterious gentleman. Something was not right.
Jakob tuned into his other senses and immediately noted what was so different about the man. “You are like me,” Jakob said, astonishment coating his words.
The man smiled, but it was not what one would call amicable. “In a way.”
“I believe, sir,” Jakob said, his voice carrying a note of warning, “your heart no longer beats, just as mine does not.”
The stranger turned smoky eyes his way—smoky eyes that were stricken with distinct silver dashes. “You are correct, but you are young and I old, and that makes all the difference.”
Jakob’s hands curled into fists at his sides. The drugs that whirled through his blood boosted his indignation. “I’m seventy-eight.”
“I’m two hundred and three.” The man produced a smile similar to the cat who ate the canary. “I win.” His laughter, however brief, sounded throughout the entire park.
“Impossible,” Jakob uttered. He stood in the blink of an eye, unable to comprehend the creature before him.
How was it possible?
“Sit,” the man continued, unperturbed. “I only wish to chat. We are civilized creatures, are we not?”
Jakob's eyes turned downcast. He wasn’t sure. After losing his brother, he had lost himself to the monster within. For the past eight years, Jakob seemed only capable of falling deeper into his darkness—his hunger.
“I am—”
“There is a tavern not too far from here. Shall we make ourselves comfortable there?” The man stood as well, his movements were far more graceful than Jakob’s.
Jakob frowned, indecision turning his stomach uncomfortably. “I don’t even know your name, sir.”
The man smiled and extended his pale hand adorned with a single amethyst ring. “Maximilian Vrana.”
++
“You’ve been through many trials, Jakob, yet you’ve shown great strength and restraint—far more so than many vampyrés who are double your age.” Maximilian crowded closer, leaning over the table with his strange eyes wide with excitement. “A vampyré is most volatile in their first fifty years of existence. Their strength wild. How did you maintain such control without guidance? Where is your sire?”
Jakob’s forehead creased in thought. “I don’t know where my sire is, sir. As for my control… my family… my brother….” A painful lilt touched Jakob’s voice. “I had to. The mere thought of hurting them was almost as great a pain as my hunger.”
“Love drives us to do the impossible,” Maximilian said. “My own turning was fraught with chaos and destruction, even with the aid of my sire. In the end, it was my love for my dear heart, Cecil, who was able to pull me from my darkness. With her help, I left behind my sire and found peace. It would seem your brother gave you such light as well to hold on to.”
“Yes,” Jakob gasped. He had not expected such words to come from the man, but was happily comforted to hear them.
“Not many could do what you have done, Jakob. I find you”—Maximilian smiled, the very tips of his fangs peeking out—“fascinating. Eternity is far too long for a vampyré to be alone. Come with me and meet my family. Let us show you what it means to be a vampyré, not this loathsome existence you partake in. You should be among your own kind.”
Jakob was tempted. How he longed for something more and to be something greater. How he longed to no longer be alone and to leash the beast inside of him. His hand curled tighter around the stein full of beer they had ordered but not drank.
“Where?” Jakob asked, his question little more than a rasp. At once Maximilian smiled far larger, and Jakob thought he might have felt the sun upon his face.
“Why, Vienna of course. You shall meet my partner, Cecil, and her childe, Cordelia. Jasper makes up the last of our lot. We met
him in Paris some decades ago.” Jakob turned his regard to the stein as if it contained the answers to all his doubts and questions. “You show great patience, Jakob, and fortitude. Come with me. Let my family help you cultivate your strengths. Talents such as yours should not go to waste.”
Jakob shifted restlessly in his seat. Perhaps… perhaps it was for the best, he thought. His heart gave a strange flutter, the distant stirrings of hope beginning to build inside of him. “When do we depart?”
Chapter 6
Present
The Lunarium is a place of wonder. It is located in the building above the underground palace, on its top floor. I'm informed the building has been spelled and enchanted to dissuade humans from coming inside. I hide my scowl when I learn of this—another opportunity for contact with my pack gone.
When we arrive, I stare in awe at the ceiling composed of a glass dome. Hung around the lofty ceilings are more than a dozen crystal chandeliers, all cascading in a way that brings to mind icicles clinging to rooftop ledges. The room is brimming with exotic plants and thralls. I eye the latter with a wrinkle to my nose, narrowing my gaze upon them when they wander too close to Sebastian and me in their pathetic excuse for clothing.
Thralls willingly give their blood to vampyrés in exchange for money, sex, and a taste of immortality. More like blood slaves, I think with disdain. A woman with a thick waistline lounges like some kind of goddess on a daybed, surrounded by three vampyré who dance feathers over her skin. Her forearms bare a litany of bite marks, but a broad smile graces her lush lips. When her thighs part with a throaty moan, I turn away.
“Ahem.”
I refrain from rolling my eyes—a task proving difficult here in the Lunarium. This place is solely for socializing among the Greater and Royal Households.
“This is unnecessary,” I mutter but paste on a smile as I dangle the blood cherry above Sebastian’s lips. “How is it exactly, that you can digest this?”