Dark Legacy (House of Winterborne Book 1)

by Luanne Bennett

  “Over there, Morgan.” It was Ramsey’s booming voice.

  Not wanting to argue on my first day as clan leader, I took a seat in the awful chair.

  “We are all saddened by the loss of your mother,” he continued, unwilling to say death because most of them couldn’t wrap their head around the idea that their queen had killed herself. Dark magic hadn’t been confirmed, but there was no other way she could have done it. I think they were all hoping she would just show up one day. Like she was returning from a long vacation. “The law of the clan dictates that we appoint a new—”

  “Don’t say queen,” I said. I couldn’t stand the title. It was the twenty-first century, and my first executive order would be that no one called me that. “Just refer to me as the head of the clan.” That I could live with.

  Ramsey stared at me for a moment, disapproval written all over his face. I wasn’t worthy of the title, and the Elders made no effort to hide their disdain for handing over the fate of the clan to a woman who hadn’t even reached her immortality yet.

  “Very well.” Ramsey took his seat and opened a large book where the transition of power would be documented. That book would then be placed back on the shelf to draw dust until the next generation of children was forced to take it down and read it.

  He put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and commenced with the formalities. “In light of the tragic passing of Katherine Abagail Winterborne, we are here to witness the transition of power to her secondborn daughter, Morgan Winterborne, as was her directive.” He glanced at Avery, who was sitting at the other end of the table and avoiding eye contact with me. Another female wasn’t much better in the eyes of the council, but at least Avery was immortal. Barely, but still immortal. Too bad for them she would have rather died than assume the role.

  Michael slumped in his chair and glanced at his Rolex.

  Ethan looked at our younger brother and raised his brow. “Are we boring you?”

  “A little,” Michael replied.

  I forced myself not to smile.

  Michael straightened up and looked at Ramsey. “Sorry. Please continue.”

  Murmurs filled the room as everyone pretended to be annoyed by the distraction, but they all wanted to get this over with as much as I did.

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” I said, trying to move things along, “but I have a meeting at the auction house this afternoon.”

  Ramsey groaned and let out a long sigh. “Since we all have lives to get back to, I’ll speed this up.” He wrote something in the book and then stood up. “Morgan Winterborne, do you accept your position as head of the clan and swear your allegiance to the House of Winterborne?”

  It reminded me of a wedding, which in a way it was, with me as the new bride of the House of Winterborne. “I do.”

  “And do you swear on your very life to hold the clan above all else? To fiercely defend the integrity and honor of your people? To fall upon the tip of a sword should you fail?”

  “Yes.” I suddenly felt a little claustrophobic and needed to get out of the room.

  Ramsey picked up the book and plopped it down in front of me, placing his finger on a line. “Sign here.”

  I quickly signed my life away and stood up. “If we’re done, I need to get to work.” I turned to leave before the council could drag the meeting out and turn it into a town hall of clan business.

  “Wait,” Ramsey said. “There’s another matter we need to discuss.”

  Here it comes. They know about the crow.

  The room went eerily quiet as everyone waited for me to turn around.

  When I did, Ramsey was holding a folder in his hand. “There’s been an increase in activity from the Night Walkers.”

  A collective gasp filled the room as Ramsey opened the folder and pulled out a photograph. The Night Walkers were the clan’s sworn enemies. Vampires who’d walked the earth before the House of Winterborne even existed. That was our other little secret. The clan had hunted them for centuries. It was our mission. But I’d never actually seen one, having never been on a hunt.

  “How do you know that?”

  He laid the photo on the table and turned it around so I could get a good look at it. A jolt shot through me as I gazed at a picture of a man with black hair and brooding eyes. It was the man from the memorial service.

  Ramsey watched me closely. “This one has been spotted sniffing around the auction house. He’s one of their most deadly assassins. A vampire called the Reaper.”

  “Damn carrion,” one of the other Elders muttered.

  I continued to stare at the picture. “Does he have a name?”

  “I’m sure he does, but we don’t know it.”

  The room buzzed with chatter, and then it went silent as everyone looked to their new leader for a statement. My uncle seemed amused by my attempt to appear confident and authoritative.

  I steadied myself and took on the challenge. Blindly, I had to admit, but I had to say something or leave an indelible first impression of a weak young woman who had no business trying to lead. “Do we know what they’re up to?”

  Cabot hijacked the conversation. “What they’re always up to. They want control of this city. They already own Chicago and Los Angeles, but the Winterbornes have stood in their way of talking over New York. But now that Katherine is gone—”

  “They think we’re an easy target.” I lifted my eyes from the photo to look at him. “Then they’re underestimating us. I’m the daughter of the woman who’s kept them at bay all these years.”

  “Until now,” Ramsey said.

  “Then I guess we’ll have to send them a message to let them know the clan is still in charge of this town. Nothing has changed.”

  A cocky grin appeared on Cabot’s face but quickly disappeared. “How do we do that?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet, but I will. Right now I need to get to the auction house for a meeting. We’ll talk about this later.”

  “Very well.” Ramsey lifted the book off the table and snapped it shut. “You can keep the picture.”

  “I don’t need it. I’ve seen him with my own eyes. The man in the picture was at the memorial service.”

  Michael must have realized I was talking about the man who kept staring at me yesterday afternoon, because his expression went from bored to shocked.

  “I thought vampires fried in sunlight?” I said as I gazed at the picture on the table and remembered the late-afternoon service.

  “That’s a little racist,” James said. “Lumping all vampires into the same category as your garden-variety bloodsucker.” My cousin was ridiculously handsome and charming, quickly putting me at ease with a flash of his brilliant smile.

  Cabot clarified the differences. “There are many races. Some have become tolerant of sunlight while others do… fry when exposed. This Reaper has obviously evolved.” He leaned back in his chair and studied me for a moment. “You’ll learn about that soon enough.”

  With the other Elders in tow, Ramsey headed toward the back of the room.

  “Did you hear what I just said? He was at the memorial service.”

  He replied without turning around. “Yes, we know. Where do you think we took that picture?” Then he slid the book onto the shelf before disappearing through the back wall.

  I jumped when Michael placed his hand on my shoulder. “I need to get out of here,” I whispered, feeling as if my legs were about to give out.

  He must have smelled the fear threatening to unhinge me because he took my hand. “Come on. Let’s go before you melt down in front of everyone. Wouldn’t want to give Cabot any ammo.” He took the picture from my hand and looked at the Reaper’s face. “No denying it. Your stalker is definitely a vampire.”

  As he led me toward the elevator, it all sank in. The responsibility of the entire clan was on me. On my shoulders.

  Suddenly the scrambled eggs Michael made me for breakfast threatened to come right back up.

  Chapter 5

/>   I went back up to the penthouse and estimated I had another hour before I had to leave for my meeting at the auction house, which was a good thing because I was still suffering from a mild case of shock over what I’d just signed up for.

  It was the same feeling I’d gotten the night before starting my current position at Winterborne Auctions. I’d grown up on the auction floor and had held many jobs there over the years, but when I worked my way up to the position of director of the Rare Objects Division, I couldn’t shake the impostor syndrome and barely made it through the front door on my first day. That same syndrome was paralyzing me as I stepped off the elevator and leaned my back against the wall.

  “Is something wrong, mistress?”

  I laughed at the sound of Otto’s voice. “I’m fine, Otto. Thank you.”

  After taking a deep breath and shaking off my irrational fear, I headed for the terrace to spend a few minutes in the one place where I could clear my head.

  The thick humidity and warmth of the conservatory wrapped around me as I stepped into the jungle of orchids and ferns. Cattleyas, Paphiopedilums, and a vast collection of mounted orchids lined every inch of the space. Many of them had been my mother’s, and her green thumb had been passed on to me. I used to be more of a collector, but once I started working full time for the auction house a few years back, my time in the conservatory had been limited.

  Something had bloomed and filled the air with an intoxicating fragrance that reminded me of jasmine and roses. But it was the smell of earth and water that settled my nerves and brought on a desperately needed feeling of calm. I was an earth sign. My mother used to call me her little seed. Said I needed the garden to grow.

  The sound of running water drew me deeper into the tangle of foliage. I parted the giant fronds of the bird’s nest ferns and continued toward a spot I hadn’t bothered to visit in ages. It was a place beyond the city that really had no name, another realm, the real reason the conservatory was so special.

  The deeper I went, the thicker the mist became, and the trickle of water turned into a cascade. Something fluttered against my arm, and a luna moth settled on a wide leaf and opened its large wings. Just beyond it was the waterfall guarded by a stone statue of a frog the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.

  My brows furrowed and then arched when I recognized him. “Monoclaude?” The statue’s eyes fluttered. “Monoclaude? Is that you?”

  The surface of the statue began to craze and crack until it resembled an old antique vase. Its eyes moved as if trying to break the stone seal keeping them shut. And then they popped open and looked at me.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  The frog shook himself like a wet dog, sending bits of stone flying in every direction, the debris vanishing into mist. “I feel dead sometimes, but I’m always here, Morgan. You’re the one who disappeared.”

  His skin began to bloom with a bright green color, and I tried to remember the last time I’d seen him.

  “Oh my God, it’s been years,” I muttered to myself.

  Monoclaude had been my guide since I was old enough to remember. My advisor and teacher. My mother used to leave me with him for hours, and it took me years to understood why—he was my familiar. But by the time I entered high school, my visits with him had all but stopped. Eventually he just disappeared. At least that’s how I remembered it.

  “You haven’t needed me for a long time,” he said, staring at my bare neck. “I see you no longer wear the pendant.”

  He’d given me the pendant the first time we met. It was an alchemy sign that symbolized transformation. A symbol of our alliance. I’d taken it off years ago when I left for college. And since I thought he was gone, I never put it back on. It was buried in my jewelry box under a mountain of other things I hadn’t worn in years.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like a fair-weather friend. “I went off to school and…”

  “You owe me no explanation. But look at you now. The queen of Winterborne House.”

  The title made me cringe. “I wish people wouldn’t call me that. It makes me feel like a fraud. An impostor.”

  “Really?” He sounded uninterested in my self-deprecation. “And why is that?”

  “Because I don’t have a clue how to fill my mother’s shoes.”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t try. Katherine would turn over in her watery grave if she felt you dipping your toes into her Louboutins. Perhaps you should focus on filling your own shoes.”

  “Watery—” It hit me like a sledgehammer. “You know what happened to her.”

  His steady gaze sent a chill through me. Then he turned away and muttered something under his breath.

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  After a few seconds of silence, I realized he wasn’t going to say anything more about it. His loyalty to my mother ran too deep because he was her familiar before he was mine. I also knew better than to think I could compel him to talk. That frog didn’t do anything against his will.

  He shifted around to face me again and started to ball up and shrink. “The darkness is coming for you, Morgan. A threat like no other. Your mother knew it too.”

  “Threat? What threat?”

  His skin began to harden as his eyes grew cloudy and gray.

  “I’m sorry I left you before,” I said. “I wish you would stay, because I could really use some wisdom right now.”

  “You didn’t leave me, Morgan. You just didn’t need me anymore.” His voice faded as he started to turn back to stone. “But don’t worry. I’ve found you something better than an old frog.”

  I left the conservatory with a monsoon of emotions threatening to wreck me for the day. I couldn’t believe he was still in there. After all these years, he was still there.

  After pulling myself together, I walked back into the house to get ready to leave. I wiped a tear from my face and smoothed my hair into a neat ponytail. Then I decided to change into a more conservative dress. It was time to let everyone know I intended to fill my own shoes.

  “Otto, have the car brought around.”

  “Yes, mistress. Shall I fetch the elevator?”

  I applied a bold color to my lips and gave myself a hard look in the mirror. “Yes, Otto. Fetch the elevator. It’s time to act the part,” I added under my breath. Then I grabbed my bag and left, my nerves kicking in again as I descended to the first floor.

  Jakob eyed me as I stepped out of the elevator and headed for the front desk. He got up to hold the door open for me and winked. “You remind me of your mother, wearing that dress. I trust the meeting went well this morning?”

  “Well they didn’t chase me out with torches and pitchforks if that’s what you’re asking. So I guess it’s time to start looking like a Katherine Winterborne protégée.”

  He took another look at my dress and shiny pumps. “I’d certainly step out of your way if I ran into you in the hallway.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He laughed. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

  As I headed for the car, he called out to me. “How’s our little friend doing this morning? Fit as a fiddle or…?”

  I started to laugh, but the thought of that giant crow was anything but funny. “Fit as a crow on steroids.”

  He lost his smile and gave me a questioning look. “Something I should know about?”

  “We probably need to talk about that,” I said. “The bird has been safely returned to the sky, but we did have a little glitch in the middle of the night. I have a meeting to get to, so I’ll tell you about it later.”

  The driver got out to open the door for me. It was Edward, my mother’s private driver. “Where’s Louie?”

  “He’s driving Ethan today,” Jakob said. “Edward will be your driver from now on.”

  I guess I’d inherited more than my mother’s title.

  Edward spoke up. “If that’s all right with you, Ms. Winterborne.”

  “It’s all right on one condition. Stop call
ing me Ms. Winterborne. It’s almost as bad as ma’am. You’re fired if you call me ma’am.”

  He tensed up for a moment.

  “I’m kidding, Edward.” I shook my head and got in.

  As we headed up Central Park West, I tried to focus on my meeting with Wilson Woodard from Estates. As the name suggested, his division handled assets commissioned from clients selling off estates, usually from wealthy, deceased relatives. All I knew was that something had been commissioned with the express condition that I handle the sale of the item personally. It was an unusual request, so my curiosity had been piqued.

  We turned onto Seventy-Ninth Street and headed through the park toward the Upper East Side. Traffic was a bear, so by the time we pulled up to the auction house, I was a few minutes late.

  Edward parked in front of the building and got out to meet me as I climbed out of the back seat. Then he started to walk me to the revolving doors.

  “You don’t have to escort me, Edward.”

  He seemed a little embarrassed and backed off.

  “It’s nothing personal,” I said, smiling to put him at ease. “You’ll find out pretty quickly that I’m not big on formalities, but I’d like for you to continue driving me.”

  He perked up when he seemed to realize he still had a job. “Thank you, Ms.— Morgan. Call me when you’re ready to leave.”

  It felt like every person I passed on the way to the elevators was staring at me. I’d been on leave for weeks, and this was the first time I’d been back since my mother’s departure. Although she hadn’t been declared legally dead, it was assumed by the board of directors and probably every employee in the building.

  I got off on the second floor and headed straight for Wilson’s office. It was empty when I walked inside. My gaze immediately went to the table near the window and the old wooden box resting on it. With a cup of coffee in his hand, Wilson walked in and nodded to it.

  “That’s it?” I dropped my bag and jacket on a chair and walked over to take a look at the box. It wasn’t unusual for Winterbornes to handle a single item from an estate, but it was usually something considerably more valuable than a wooden box.