My parents had been killed in the first purge, slaughtered in the fire the Incanti breathed upon those who supported the Blackmoor family. My brother and I had narrowly escaped the second. We found refuge on the Earth side of the dimensional gate, and when news came from people who fled after us, I learned that the Incanti had taken complete control of the Veil and that any surviving non-Drakonae were either dead or serving as slaves.
The painful memories of that day wrenched my heart exactly as they always did.
The attacks had come swiftly and without warning. Thousands had died just trying to escape. My brother and I were the only two in our family to survive. We’d been out in the field behind our home, testing new swords.
Playing.
Goofing off.
Acting like boys a fraction of our age.
Because of that, we weren’t in the house when an Incanti dragon incinerated our home and our family. Within minutes, the house was reduced to red-hot ash. Dragon fire didn’t leave anything behind.
Hatred pooled in my soul, growing larger and more calculated with each mile of prairie that passed. I wanted revenge. The Blackmoor princes and their bride were a means to my desired ends.
With the appearance of Diana Blackmoor in Sanctuary, the Veil was up for another dynasty change. With some well-made plans and the dagger I carried, I would make sure the House of Blackmoor rose from the ashes and, with it, revenge for my people and all the others who fled death and the fires of Incanti greed.
Chapter 2
XERXES
I touched my neck, missing the weight of the dagger on its chain. The gashes on my chest from her claws were already healing, but I knew she must’ve torn it from my body during the fight.
“Flash back,” I snarled at the Djinn on my right. “Now!”
The guard touched my upper arm, and the world spun around us. We came out of the vortex in the field where the encounter had occurred. I could smell my blood on the grass as well as her son’s. Raising my hands, I called for the dagger.
Nothing happened. Fuck.
I took several strides toward Sanctuary and stopped. The small town lay quiet just below these hills, but if they had the dagger, it would be long hidden by now. It could take years to recover –centuries even. Rose was a formidable opponent.
My heart raced, pounding futilely and angrily at my carelessness. I should’ve noticed the chain being broken. I should’ve felt the loss of connection with the key.
Turning to the Djinn standing at my side, I snarled, “Take me to the palace.”
The man bowed, touched my arm, and we were instantly returned to the place I called home for now. The dry heat of the desert air calmed my shattered nerves somewhat. What I really needed was someone to punish, and I knew exactly who I wanted it to be.
“Bring me Mandana Farrok,” I ordered, walking out of the main hall toward my suite of rooms. A crisp “Yes, sir,” echoed through the marble halls as I left him behind.
Two Djinn guards on either side of my suite entryway opened the doors wide as I approached and closed them softly behind me. My girls jumped from their seats on the couches off to the side of the room and hurried to bow at my feet.
I needed a quick fuck before the guard returned with Manda or I’d never keep myself under control. Though perhaps staying in control wasn’t what this situation warranted.
“Lily,” I snapped, “bring out the sawhorse bench and the red cat-o-nine.”
“Yes, Master,” she answered, the slightest hitch in her breath.
Her pulse raced at the mere notion of a beating. The air filled with the scent of her arousal. My little sadist.
Barely a minute passed before Lily returned, pushing the large sawhorse toward the play area of the bedroom. She went to work locking it in place over the large drain in the floor. Once it was properly secured, she returned to the closet briefly and emerged carrying a red leather cat-o-nine, custom made for shredding skin. Bits of metal and glass had been expertly sewn along the thin leather thongs. It cut through the air with speed and inflicted painful damage on its victim. Perfect for the demonstration I planned.
Lily bowed at my feet and lifted the flogger in both hands.
I took it and snapped it in the air. “Good girl. Now go fetch me the bitch I put on a leash yesterday.”
Lily rose to her feet and practically ran from the room. I smiled, her eagerness lifting my mood slightly.
Knocking at the door pulled me from my thoughts. I gestured to Roshanna, another of my bedroom slaves, to open the doors. She rose from where she’d been kneeling on the floor, her bare feet pattering softly as she scurried across the marble tile. She unlatched the large lock across the middle of the doorway, pulling the two doors open wide.
Manda walked through the opening, her shoulders drooping more with each step she took. The two males I’d assigned to shadow her walked only a few feet behind. Her gaze fell on the whip in my hand, and a smile teased my lips at the slight gasp she let escape.
“You may go.” I waved my hand to them. “I’ll send for you when it’s time for her to leave.”
They bowed and exited the room quickly.
Manda stood silently. Her eyes were wide, and her bottom lip trembled.
Pleasure surged through me at the slight tremor. Fear was something I still wasn’t used to seeing on Mandana Farrok’s face. I loved it.
I raised my hand, grabbing her with my magick. She whimpered just a moment, but didn’t struggle against my hold. She’d learned the futility of it the last few times I’d brought her over.
This time would be different, though. This time she would watch another woman suffer before I touched her at all. She thought she was tough, taking whatever I gave her. But I knew she cared about her people more than anything. If I truly wanted to motivate Manda, I had to hurt others … not just her.
I rubbed my dick and growled deep in my throat. “I can’t wait to shove my dick between your silky pussy lips today. It was such a pleasure the last time you were here.”
Manda’s face turned green, but the coldness I’d come to expect appeared quickly in her eyes. She already distanced herself from me, from the experiences we’d explored already — flogging, caning, and fucking her. I especially liked the last one.
I moved her across the room with a flick of my wrist. Once she was standing under the chain that hung from a large beam in the ceiling, I dropped my hold on her.
“Strip.”
She followed the command without a word. No fight. No hesitation. No emotion.
Bitch.
She thought she could pretend what I was doing didn’t matter anymore. I had a surprise in store for her today.
“Put the cuffs on your ankles.”
A slight hesitation resonated through her muscles; still, she complied without a word.
“Now the cuffs above your head.”
She refused to look up, but I could see the tendons in her neck tighten at the command. Perhaps she could convince her mind that she wasn’t present for these little sessions, but her body knew what was coming and hated it.
Once locked into position, her range of motion was severely limited. Perfect for the torture I had planned.
Lily came through the side door of the suite leading a naked woman by chains that looped around her wrists, ankles, and through the enchanted rings I’d pierced through her nipples, clit, and labia.
“Esther!” Manda choked out, lunging against her restraints. She glared at me, hatred sparking her glazed lavender irises to life. “What are you doing? You bastard!”
“Making sure my punishments and threats are taken seriously.” The corners of my mouth turned up in a smile. Esther had been the perfect choice. The Djinn was — correction — had been Manda’s personal assistant.
“Manda?” The other woman’s face pleaded for help that her mistress couldn’t deliver. The servant’s whole body trembled. Fear filled the room with its sweet scent.
Lily pushed the other Djinn femal
e toward the sawhorse bench. A few sharp tugs on the woman’s chains ensured her cooperation. Once Esther was secured, I held out the heavy flogger.
Lily approached. Surprise and pleasure colored her face. “Thank you, Master.”
“Make her bleed,” I said. “But just a little at a time. I plan to enjoy these two all day long.”
I stroked my hard dick again through the fabric of my pants and stepped toward Manda. My toys were arranged on a table just behind her. The first to catch my eye was the electric wand.
Picking it up, I flipped the safety switch off and let the tip run across her soft skin. Over her hip, up along her ribcage, across the rise of her breast … When the tip touched the ring in her nipple, I bathed in her terrified gaze. That was what I had been waiting to see again.
“This is what happens to you when things don’t go my way.”
I pressed the button on the wand and sent a painful shock through her system.
Manda’s scream cut through the room and was joined by the other female’s cry as Lily brought the cat-o-nine down for its first stroke.
The shards in the whip tore through the soft tissue on the back of the woman’s thighs. Tiny red droplets began to bead and roll down her white skin.
I grabbed Manda’s chin and jerked it toward me. Her lavender eyes were wide, her pain evident. No glassy wall of separation. She was feeling every lick of the wand and cringing each time her friend screamed in pain. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she still managed to meet my gaze and beg a favor.
“Please let her go.”
The words were so soft, so pitiful, I considered it for half a second. Then shook my head.
“Her death will be a warning. Your people better find my dagger soon or she won’t be the only one you lose.”
Chapter 3
EIRA
“Come on!” The scent of diesel fuel hung in the breeze. The caravan of Humvees wasn’t far behind, and this asshole was wasting precious time. Time we could not afford.
“There’s no way you can jump that,” the male Lycan snarled, pointing at the fifty-foot-high electric-wire fence that encircled the entire Republic of Texas.
“I jumped the bloody thing to come and rescue you, and I’ve jumped it on more than one occasion to bring others back.” My voice rose in pitch, as did my urge to pick up the male and punt him over the fence like a football. I didn’t have time for this. The SECR soldiers were only a few minutes behind us. If we didn’t cross the fence in the next minute or two, they’d be shooting at us again. Unlike myself, my companion was not immune to bullets.
In all my years of working with the Mason Pack to rescue stranded Lycans, he wasn’t the first reluctant refugee, and he wouldn’t be the last, but he was one of the more annoying ones.
“You’re a vampire. Why would I ever trust you?”
“Mother of the gods, man. Perhaps because I broke your sorry ass out of a SECR lockup and saved you from being executed.” My fangs descended, and I growled. I was nearly ready to jump the fence and leave his ungrateful, although cute, butt to fend for himself. I’d never hear the end of it if I did, though.
“Why did they shame me by sending a vampire? Why didn’t my own kind come for me?”
“Perhaps because I can jump the bloody wall and they can’t!” My body twitched, and I rolled my shoulders trying to release some pent-up frustration. His sweaty masculine scent filled my nostrils, and I breathed deeply. Hunger swelled within me, a sea monster rising from the depth of the ocean, and I knew my eyes were ringed with red by the way his eyebrows raised in response.
I never drank from Lycans. I’d made a promise to the Mason Pack years ago, and I had honored it since. Even though I wanted to scream and drain this wolf to teach him a lesson, I would not. The lesson part was definitely going to happen, however.
Drawing my sword from its sheath, I blurred to his side and struck him with the blunt hilt. He crumpled to the ground with a heavy thud. It would’ve been easier to carry him conscious; unconscious bodies were so much harder to maneuver.
Running with him over my shoulder all the way to Ada was going to cost me dearly. But sometimes the price had to be paid. The Lycan pack was my family.
And I would do anything for those I considered family.
With a focused effort, I leaped and cleared the electric wires of the Texas Republic border fence. A few minutes later, I’d traveled several hundred miles and put on the brakes just as I hit the porch of the Mason lodge in Ada.
“Someone come take this dumb ass wolf from me before I eat him!” I strained to ignore the warm body over my shoulder, but his scent filled my lungs. My fangs descended, and I licked my lips. Hunger reared its head. I desperately needed to feed. But it would have to wait.
The screen door of the lodge shot open and slammed into the wall as two large Lycan males barreled out.
“What happened?” Chad asked, coming out the door behind the two bigger males.
I handed off the unconscious male to them and turned to Chad. “The idiot wouldn’t let me pick him up to jump the fence. So I knocked him out and carried him.”
The younger male laughed, and I hissed at him, effectively making his mouth snap shut like a triggered bear trap.
“Tell him I expect an apology when he wakes or I’ll take his ass back to Arkansas territory and leave him there for the SECR troops that were hot on our trail.”
All three Lycans nodded soberly before hauling the unconscious sack-of-potatoes into the lodge.
I waved and disappeared down the road. Several quiet neighborhoods provided a convenient hunting ground a few miles away. The time it took to locate a human outside in a secluded area still trumped larger towns where more people had cameras and every street was monitored.
Technically, I wasn’t supposed to feed from the citizens of the Texas Republic, but if I didn’t feed soon, I’d end up killing someone or worse — killing multiple someones.
Keeping the peace was a priority, but with a houseful of wolves that wouldn’t feed me, keeping the thirst at bay was a rather delicate matter. I loved the Mason pack. Loved Charlie like the sister I’d never had, but my soul longed for a place where I would truly belong and be accepted.
Even though most of the pack tolerated me, only a few were friendly.
“I plan to return to Ada in a couple days,” Harrison Bateman spoke as I stood to walk to the front of his bus. “Will that work for you, hon?” The old warlock’s private greyhound bus fleet was the safest way for Others to travel in this area. He and several of his extended family ran routes all through the Texas Republic. The local TR police knew who he was and left him alone.
I smiled, grabbing hold of the bar near the stairs as the vehicle came to a stop. “Oh, I’m staying a couple weeks. I told Charlie I needed a break.”
He shook his head. “What you and the Mason pack do to help rescue Others is heroic.”
“They don’t deserve to be butchered. It’s the right thing to do,” I murmured. If it wasn’t for the inside information on troop movement from Manda, we would be easy pickings for the SECR soldiers. The last run out of the east had cost the pack dearly. Even with Diana helping to fight in her dragon form, we’d lost several people.
Rescues in and out of the other Republics were less than troublesome. Most didn’t have very large armies. A few, like the Washington Republic, had a huge army. However, as long as we didn’t go in, they never seemed to come out.
The SECR was another beast altogether. It was secretly controlled by Xerxes, one of the most powerful Others on the planet. It almost brought a smile to my lips to think how those racist human scum would react if they knew who was pulling the strings in their government.
“I think some of us refuse to believe how bad it’s gotten. They think it’s possible to continue living where and how they always have,” I added.
“It’s hard to truly stay hidden now, with all the tech in place to sniff us out. Did you hear that the Washington Republic is testing new
DNA scanners? Meredith told me she saw a news report at Riley’s last month. How the hell do we have a chance if that happens?”
I nodded, dread creeping into my mind. Things would get uglier faster if tech like that was allowed to circulate. Last year in a tight spot, the pack was almost trapped. If it hadn’t been for the father of one of the little girls we were pulling out of Atlanta sacrificing himself, none of us would’ve made it out alive –myself included.
We owed that man our lives, and the whole pack adopted his little girl and did their best to make her feel as loved as possible. But nothing would ever make up for the loss of her father. If only he would’ve taken her and left when all the new laws started being enforced... So many lives could have been spared if people had just taken the changes seriously.
When the US broke into five republics, those of us who had been alive long enough to have seen other countries rise and fall knew to roll with the punches and move with the flow. If the Texas Republic hadn’t chosen to be Pro-Other, we all would’ve left for Canada, Mexico, or just returned to Europe.
It was easier to hide in Europe. It always had been. Legends of Others were an integral part of their history. When the truth came out about supernaturals’ existence, most of them took it in stride because Others were firmly embedded in the European governments. They made sure no one panicked Also, if you were friendly and stayed out of their business, they were happy to live business-as-usual. Plus, Others had a firm hand in most European governments.
Leaving a land that had spoiled you for three hundred years was hard. The United States had been a hub of excitement and freedoms. Now it rivaled what Nazi Germany had been like, executing anyone who didn’t fit in. Hell, I’d seen Republic soldiers shoot humans just because they suspected them of harboring Others.
Sanctuary, Texas Complete Series Box Set Page 48