by Sage, May
He understood enough of their foreign tongue to nod.
"We're to return to Rome. You look well enough. Come with me if you wish."
Until then, no one had asked about his wishes. Eirikr followed, and was named Primerius, the first natural son of Markus Aurelius, a famed general.
The man did not value weakness, so Eirikr trained every morning, every evening, often through the night, until he was known as one of the best soldiers in his regiment. He learned to desire many things, though none as much as the beautiful Tatiana, priestess of Pompeii. They said she was a daughter of Zeus, and no one who looked upon her doubted it. But she gave her favor to him, a bastard, against all odds.
When she was called to banish the monster who'd taken residence in Pompeii and dismembered so many souls, drinking the blood of her victims, Eirikr volunteered to protect her.
Tatiana was so beautiful, and nature seemed to bend to her will. Eirikr never doubted she'd win. She could win against any enemy, any monster, any demon sent from the belly of the Earth.
But the moment they entered the creature’s lair, he knew how mistaken he was.
The enemy was fast as a shadow, brutal as the waves crashing against the cliffs, and so striking she outshone even Tatiana, when she stopped long enough for them to see more than a blur.
She killed two dozen guards in mere instants and then moved against Tatiana herself. Eirikr didn't know what made him move, his broken body so weak, writhing on the floor, but he caught her shapely shin and bit, deep, desperate to hurt her, to distract her long enough to give his love time to run.
The monster's skin was like stone, hard marble, but Eirikr’s teeth were sharp, and though it hurt, he bit hard enough to draw blood. Golden blood, luminous in the darkness.
Tatiana had an instant to run. Eirikr was kicked in the face so hard his neck broke.
That evening, he rose.
The creature was still here, in the darkness, weeping over the corpses, demanding to know why she couldn't stop herself from killing, why she was still alive, why she was so very alone.
When he stirred, she rose, gasped, and rushed to him.
"Impossible," she mouthed, her voice so melodious Eirikr almost forgot he hated everything she was.
Almost.
Her fingers were gentle as she explored all his wounds, now closed.
"You were dead. You should be dead."
He felt dead. Everything inside him hurt. He could barely move. His brain pulsed with one need, one desire.
The gold blood in her veins.
"How!" she demanded to know.
He wasn't sure he heard, but he said the only word that would cross his lips.
"Sangui—"
Speaking hurt his throat, so very dry he felt like he'd never drunk a drop of water. Water would not quench this thirst. Nothing would.
The creature lifted her arm to her sharp teeth and bit down before presenting it to him. His mouth closed on the gash and he drank, sealing his fate.
His vision cleared. His aching limbs had never felt better. He was alive. He was reborn in the image of the monster who'd destroyed him.
The creature was ecstatic, overjoyed. She felt better. Her need to kill had passed. She spoke of the future, a future where she didn't destroy city after city, because she'd have him, and many like him, at her side.
Eirikr laughed. He laughed so hard.
"I will destroy you. I will destroy everything you cherish. You're a demon, and this earth will not have peace while you walk among us."
For a time, he did just that.
For a time. And then, when he was no longer able to, his descendants did so on his behalf. They'd changed with the time. They no longer had to hunt all of Ariadne's creatures, as some had ceased to represent a threat to the world. Eirikr had little patience for their weakness. He was irritated, frustrated to be stuck in his prison.
For fifteen hundred years, he was displeased. Then came the betrayal he should have foreseen. His kind banded together and destroyed all of his children, and his children's children.
And then he knew despair. He'd never understood that this was his fate, his end. That he'd never again smell the air. That he'd never fulfill his vow. Until now. He had no one on Earth, no one to help him, no one to care if he turned into dust. His nights were long and dark. Many a time, he wished for an end, for a death that wouldn't come, even when he was parched and decaying. He was the first of the ancients, and therefore, the most powerful. Ariadne hadn't understood the process yet. She gave him so much of the divine blood running through her veins that she turned him into her equal. A mistake she never repeated.
Eirikr had stopped counting the days centuries ago. He didn't feel the wind or rain. He ignored the small rodents who walked by him as if he was nothing but stone. He was stone.
Until…
"What's down there?"
The voice cut through his mind’s fog like thunder in a cloudy sky. Then came a burst of wind carrying a scent he recognized. His.
"Nothing you should concern yourself with," someone told his daughter.
In the darkness of his prison, Eirikr lifted his head half an inch.
A squirrel walked by, unsuspecting. Too long had passed since creatures had been murdered in this cave for the squirrel to think better of it. Swift as shadow, Eirikr wrapped his hands around it and broke its neck. He brought it to his lips and drank it dry.
“Love the hair, by the way,” said one of the girls. “Good luck getting an ombre like that in town, though.”
Chloe laughed. “That won't be a problem,” she said, pointing to her head. “Natural color.”
“Cool,” Natalie told her.
The creature watching at the edge of the Wolvswoods narrowed his eyes and then broke into a run, heading up Night Hill.
"What is she?" Mikar demanded.
It wasn't in his character to demand anything of his liege. He'd served Levi for three hundred years, since the elder had turned him, and in all this time, he'd never questioned one of his orders.
Because until now, they'd made sense.
"You call me back from a sensitive mission in Russia to babysit a regular? Fine. Your prerogative. You’re the boss. But now she outruns a killing machine and has magic fucking hair?"
Levi had entirely ignored him until then, writing at his desk, but this made him lift his head and smile.
"Magic hair?"
"Black, then silver. I don't know, man. She's definitely not normal."
"Do you think I would have recalled my right hand, along with my closest acquaintance, for the sake of someone normal?" Levi asked pointedly.
He wasn't going to say anything, was he?
"I don't get it. Just tell me this is important. It's not fun, Lev. I like killing and fucking and dancing. I can't do any of that here."
"It's important," Levi echoed before returning to his writing without another word.
Jeez. As ancient, all-powerful, noble vampires went, Levi wasn't that bad, normally, but the man obviously could be a dick.
"Tell me I don't need to enroll in the Institute."
"You need to do three things, and only three. I've already informed you of your duties; I will not repeat them."
He had. The day Levi had visited him in Moscow, he'd said he needed Mikar to watch a girl.
"Make sure she doesn't get decapitated, drowned, or burned. That's all I ask of you."
At the time, Mikar had translated that to "ensure no one kills her." Now he understood his mistake.
Mikar stilled, comprehension finally hitting him.
Levi didn't care at all about Chloe getting killed. What mattered was how.
"Oh."
Well, that certainly changed things.
"Yes, oh. Now, you better get back to work."
Mikar did as he was told, no further complaint crossing his lips.
"You've got to talk to the girl."
Levi lifted his eyes to his foreman, surprised and rather vexed. It
wasn't like Mikar to question his orders at all, and he'd done it twice in as many weeks.
"You and I both know the walls, woods, and waters in Coscnoc have ears. I can't afford to."
Mikar's jaw was set. "I don't get it. What's the big deal if the conclave hears…"
"Don't. Don't speak. Don't bring attention to what you're doing."
His house was safe enough to discuss most of his business, but he wouldn't talk of Chloe out loud anywhere.
Levi was as frustrated as his second. Not being able to give him the information he needed was inconvenient, but he couldn't take the risk.
Those who were moving against Chloe were weak. They were also careful, disguising each step and hiring pawns, but they were failing because their effort was pathetic. But that would change once the world knew what Levi had gathered the moment he'd seen her.
"Listen to me, Levi. I won't be able to keep things to myself if she keeps pushing. She's a whisper."
Levi got up from his desk and faced the window, looking down the hill toward Adairford.
A whisper.
He hadn't spent enough time with her to know much about her, but it made sense from what he'd seen—from what he knew. She'd been nothing but a waitress to Charles and Michelle White, but the two power-hungry leaders had stopped their machinations for long enough to protect her. And there was also the way she'd gotten under his skin so easily, with a few well-placed words. She'd known exactly what to say to him.
Whispers were the sirens of vampires, magnetic and charming to a degree that was dangerous. They could get anything handed to them on a silver platter if they just batted their eyelids and asked. In mortal fledglings, that translated to highly popular individuals who rarely made enemies. They were often protected, cared for.
Chloe had always been precious; all born vampires were. He hadn't realized she was also a valuable asset.
Levi's fingers hammered impatiently against the closest wall.
He'd told her the truth about wanting to snap her neck. She was old enough to turn. He stopped himself only because she had no idea what she was yet. Fledglings were prepared their entire lives for the change. They knew what came before, during, and after. She didn't. In a perfect world, he could just tell her, show her the skills she had to gain before her transition. But the moment those words crossed his lips, the six most powerful families in this world would set aside all conflict and team up to destroy her before she became their greatest fear.
Five centuries had passed since a member of the seventh founding family had turned. Anyone else would have thought it was impossible. They would have thought that she was just an obscure descendant from one of the other six, somehow lost in their careful records. They'd wiped out her entire line, for good reason.
But Levi remembered the day they'd come for the last survivors, here on this very hill. He'd been in his home when he'd heard the commotion; however, he knew one thing no one else did. There had been a little boy, three years old, who was fond of swimming in the lake. His nurse had taken him outside that morning, and as every member of his family was torn apart, he swam in blissful oblivion.
Levi could have ended everything. Instead, he took the child and dropped him in front of a church.
Drowning the boy would have been smarter for many reasons, but Levi couldn't bring himself to do it.
Five hundred years without any sign, any news. He'd believed the line had died out, until he saw her, the spitting image of her forefathers down to that hair. Dark at the roots, blonde after an inch. When she turned, it would be silver.
Levi did his homework after she emerged, researching her family. The trail of bodies following her line was subtle but staggering. No wonder. The longer a born vampire took to turn, the more bloodthirsty and brutal they became. Levi had waited until he was thirty-two, and it had been a push. Her family tree wasn't complete, but wherever he could trace it, he found inexplicable, ritualistic murders. Chloe's father, at forty-nine, was a murderer and a cannibal because he had needs he hadn't understood—the need for blood and the hunt. The needs of a vampire in the body of a mortal. No doubt most of her ancestors who'd reached that age had also lost their minds. The only difference was that they hadn't been caught.
She was an Eirikrson.
They were monsters. Vampires who only drank vampire blood. The head of their family had created the huntsmen to hunt down and murder any vampire—not just the rogues, at the beginning. When she turned, she'd be just like them, the nightmare they whispered about in the dark.
The reasonable thing would be to destroy her before she could obliterate hundreds of years of peace. She wasn't a little boy Levi couldn't bring himself to murder. He should have beheaded her in London. He should have ordered Mikar to burn her alive, if he was too squeamish to do it himself. But he couldn't, because fate was a bitch. Like it or not, he was on the girl's side.
If you enjoyed After Darkness Falls…
Excerpt from DEAD OF NIGHT by Emily Goodwin—Copyright 2019
Lucas’s gaze meets my eyes, and I swear if his heart could beat, it would hammer right along with mine. The night stands still around us, and the busy city fades. All I can see is Lucas standing in front of me, looking at me with so much lust in his eyes it’s making me feel like I caught him in the act. Or rather…that he caught me in the act.
“Your heart is beating faster.” His fingers are barely touching the flesh on my neck, in the slope where it meets my shoulder.
“Yeah, it does that sometimes.”
He steps in, bringing his other hand to the hem of my dress. Slowly, he bunches it up and slides his hand along my thigh. My eyes fall shut and I rest my hands on his hips so he can’t see them shaking.
Inhaling deep, he presses his fingers into the flesh on the back of my thigh. Moving his other hand back up my neck, he pushes it into my hair and brings my head back a bit, exposing my neck to him.
The wind picks up, blowing my hair around us. I open my eyes to see Lucas’s lips pull back a bit as he draws his fangs.
“You,” he starts and puts his lips to my neck, gently kissing my skin. A shiver runs through me and my knees threaten to buckle. “Are.” He kisses me again. “Beautiful.” He pulls his lips back, letting his fangs graze along my skin. His hand is already in my hair. He could force me back and drink my blood, draining enough to weaken me in just seconds.
And enough to kill me in less than a minute.
He trails kisses down my neck and over my shoulder, pushing the thin strap of my dress out of the way. I tighten my hold on him, afraid of falling if I let go. My eyes flutter shut again, and he presses his fangs down, harder than before but not enough to break the skin. I gasp, thinking he’s going to bite me.
Because I’m going to let him.
I want him to.
To have me.
Taste me.
But he doesn’t bite me, and instead kisses and sucks the spot on my neck that sends an instant wave of heat through me. I whimper as he rakes his hand through my hair, bringing his other hand up my thigh and under my dress until it rests on the base of my ass.
“You didn’t agree with me,” he says and his deep voice rattles right through me.
“I didn’t…what?”
“You are exquisite. You’re powerful. You’re beautiful. You…you’ve surprised me more in the few days I’ve known you than others have in their entire lifetimes.”
I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, trying to keep it from quivering. I’m feeling everything right now. Turned on. Vulnerable. I want to break down and confess everything I’ve repressed. I want to cry about my past, curse everyone who’s hurt me, and tell him about every single heartbreak. And at the same time, I don’t want to say a word. I want him to lay me down on the lounge chair behind us and fuck me hard, making it impossible to feel anything other than the pleasure his big cock brings me.
“Lucas,” I start, but never get to finish. He puts his lips to mine and the heat rushing through me explodes, s
ending tingles of desire to every nerve in my body. Opening my mouth, I deepen the kiss, wrapping my arms around him.
Bringing his hand down, he grips my ass and pulls me to him. He presses his fangs against my lip just hard enough to send a jolt through me. When he said he was able to control himself, he wasn’t kidding. Though I suppose this is what sixteen hundred years of sex will do.
Holy shit.
Lucas has nearly two thousand years of experience. Of perfecting. Of knowing exactly what he likes. Of how to please others. He slides his hand around my leg, going between my thighs. “When I slip my fingers inside your panties, will I find your pussy wet for me?”
I open my mouth, but it takes me a second to gather a coherent thought. Because his words are making me wetter than I already am.
“Why don’t you find out?” I pant.
A guttural growl comes from deep inside his throat and he turns me around so that my ass is pressed right up against his cock, feeling it harden. He gathers my hair in one hand and pulls it to the side. I tip my head, arching my neck and offering it to him. He brings his mouth down, kissing and sucking at my skin. His fangs scrape me as he kisses me, and the bit of pain mixed in with the pleasure makes me even hotter. He’s hardly touched me and I’m getting so wound up, so turned on I don’t know how much longer I can stand it.
* * *
Want to read more? Dead of Night is available here.
King of Ruin
Unedited excerpt
There was a young boy among the prisoners. Younger than Dreron, by far. A teenager. He was trembling like a leaf. Whatever Alrik had planned, the boy would not last a minute.
"You may claim whatever weapon you may steal or exhort from any of us. Spill the blood of your peer, fertilize our forest with their remain. The last three standing will have earned their freedom."
The bloodbath started.
None of the darkling hesitated, begging for swords that the Ironers were more than happy to provide, eager to see them murder each other.