by K.N. Lee
As the others began to follow Colleen, Koa’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand ahead of her. Her brows furrowed. “What did you say?”
Colleen paused and looked over her shoulder. “What? About the dagger? It’s the only way to get into the Netherworld without a portal.”
“It’s been missing for centuries,” Halston added. “Its magic allows the user to teleport to the Netherworld.”
Could it be?
In awe, Koa covered her mouth with her hands. She looked to Halston. Finally, something good. “I think I know where it is.”
10
All was lost.
Jax and Evina had slipped out of Lady Colleen’s castle before the angels took over.
He’d never been to war, but this is what he imagined it to be like. Years of training had made him into a warrior. But, a prince taught in the art of battle was different from a true soldier. Having to see so many of his kind slaughtered made him ill.
It was well known that New World vampires were easier to kill than Netherworld vampires. Still, it was appalling to watch Tristan and the angels destroy his people as if they were nothing more than defenseless children.
That was only the least of what troubled him.
Seeing Koa being tortured right before his eyes would forever haunt his dreams. It wasn’t what he’d risked everything to help her escape for. After she’d escaped the Netherworld, and he was imprisoned, her memory kept him from losing hope.
Now, she was gone and he had no idea if she would ever come back.
They walked the night streets, desperate for a meal. They needed blood more than ever. Having survived a night of terror, they were weakened, and neither wanted to admit that they were afraid.
“Halston,” he said under his breath. The name left a bitter taste in his mouth, even though the angel had saved them.
“What was that?” Evina asked, stopping in the street to look back at him.
“She chose Halston.”
She sighed, rolling her eyes. “I could have told you that she would.”
“What do you know?”
“I know that she’s been under Halston’s influence since they left us behind with our father. Did you think you had a chance against an angel such as Halston? She’d choose him over anyone. She chose him again over both of us. Now, let’s be rid of her and start new lives.”
Jax lifted a brow. “How? We know nothing about this world.”
“I know that the Wryn Clan will be more than happy to take in a pair of Netherworld royalty. Our blood is what gave them their power.”
Evina grinned, looking to the night sky. They were still entranced by the beauty of a real moon and stars. To Jax it was foreign territory. With the woman he loved gone, he wanted nothing more than to go home and start a new life as a free vampire.
Their father was dead.
That made Jax king of Lyrinia.
“Here, we are gods, Jax.” She looked back to him, her blue eyes glowing in the dark. “Gods.”
“No. We are just as vulnerable as the other vampires in this world.”
“Speak for yourself,” she said, tossing her red hair over her shoulder. “We are stronger. I will show you.”
Jax’s shoulders slumped. How could he overlook what had happened to his sister?
Shame filled his heart as he realized he was more focused on what had happened to Koa than the torture Bund had put Evina through. They’d both suffered at the hands of the demon.
Evina just pretended to be callous, and she was good at it.
He quickened his pace and caught up with her. She frowned as he appeared before her and took her by the arms.
“What are you doing?” Evina asked, narrowing her eyes.
Instead of replying, Jax wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.
Evina tensed, but her body softened after a moment and she buried her head in his shoulder.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you again,” he whispered to her. Though she’d lived more years than Jax, it was he that felt a sense of duty to keep her safe. They’d lost their father, not that he was anyone to mourn. The world was better off without him and his tyranny.
Still, the fact remained clear.
Jax and Evina only had each other.
Together, they waited out the daylight inside a hotel room. Evina was a master of persuasion, and could use her vampiric powers to make anyone do her bidding. This time, she had an older gentleman purchase them a week stay at the local inn. How they would find their way to Wryn Castle was beyond them both. They couldn’t just ask a random human how to get to the castle where humans and vampires were brought together to strike mutually beneficial arrangements.
Jax had only been once, and Koa had driven. He had no memory of where it was, but that was where they both knew they could find solace until they planned their next move.
Now, night had fallen, and they were on the hunt for a meal. In Lyrinia, they’d found an alternative to human blood. But, in the human world…the scent of fresh human blood was too much to resist.
Evina licked her lips and put her hands in the pockets of the new jeans the gentleman had bought for her. “I have an idea,” she whispered, her eyes looking from side to side as she leaned in close to Jax.
“What is it?” He didn’t like the look in her eyes, the one that told him he probably wouldn’t like what she was about to say.
A wicked grin came to her lips. “I know where we can find us a meal,” she said, and took his hand, leading them back to the hotel.
Jax followed his sister, but knew that with her leading them, they were certain to go down a dark path.
11
Jax watched his sister slip her hands into the man’s pocket.
Folding his arms, he shook his head. What is she doing? If this was what she meant when she said she had an idea, he didn’t like it.
Evina pulled out the leather wallet and opened it, not caring that anyone might chance upon them in the lobby and see her robbing someone. The things they were reduced to doing, Jax never thought he’d have to steal from others to survive. Then again, he never thought he’d be locked away in the most notorious prison for supernatural criminals for half of his life only to be broken out and taken to the human world.
Things rarely went according to plan when Koa was involved.
The blond man with too much cologne on didn’t flinch. His eyes were glossed over as he stared at Evina with wide-eyed adoration. He reached a hand to touch Evina’s blood-red hair, and Evina smacked it aside.
“No touching, Mr.” She paused to read the name on his license. “Oh,” she purred. Her porcelain features softened as she looked from his license to her prey’s face. “Dr. Barnes. Lovely to meet you. I’m Princess Evina of Lyrinia.” She raised a brow. “Have you heard of it?”
Leaving his spot from the lobby seating area, Jax shook his head at hearing his sister reveal their identities. He crossed the polished floor of the spacious room to slip his arm around his sister’s waist, and pulled her away.
“Wait a minute,” Evina protested, and removed his arm from around her waist.
Jax ran a hand through his equally blood-red hair and sighed. “Hurry it up. You’re getting too bold. I don’t feel like having the Netherworld agents onto us.”
Evina grinned. “They think we’re dead. Isn’t it lovely? We can do what we want up here. No one can tell us to stop. They can’t do anything to us.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I don’t like it here. I can’t shake the feeling that we are being watched.”
“You’re so dramatic, Jax. No one is watching us.”
“Either way, can you just hurry so we can leave this place?”
“Humph. And, here I thought I was the impatient one,” Evina said.
“You’re just making me nervous,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the hotel front desk at the other end.
“Please, Jax. You mak
e it sound like I’m an amateur. This fella won’t remember a thing.” She stepped closer to Jax and nodded her head toward Dr. Barnes, who still sat at the lobby bar with a blank look on his face. “I can haunt his dreams for the next year if I wanted to. I can make him remember what I want him to. Don’t make it seem like I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re the one who is supposed to know the future. Just tell me if the Netherworld Division is coming, and we can leave before they even arrive.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
She frowned. “How does it work, then? What good are you as a prophet if you can’t use your gift to keep us safe?”
A well-dressed elderly couple walked from the bar and Jax pursed his lips until they passed them by and went to the hotel’s elevator.
“I don’t like it here,” Jax admitted. His eyes scanned the lobby. People were filling in from the outside as well as from the elevators on the other side. There must have been a party going on in the hotel ballroom. The thought of another party made him feel ill. The last one they attended almost got Jax and his sister killed. The roasting of their flesh still lingered in his mind, but it was Koa’s disappearance that caused the most agony.
If only he could fly like her, then he would have been able to go after her. Days had gone by, and Koa still did not return.
Now, two Netherworld royals were on their own, in the human world.
Jax watched Evina take the money out of Dr. Barne’s wallet and put the cash into her tight-fitting jeans pocket. She put the wallet into the flower pot beside the elevator and shrugged. “I like it just fine.”
Jax grabbed her hand and pulled her along.
“My goodness. So pushy!”
“I still think we should go to Wryn Castle and ask for help.”
“Do I look like I need help?” Evina folded her arms.
“You look like a common criminal right now.”
Evina sucked her teeth. She lowered her voice and leaned in closer to Jax. “Am I supposed to beg for blood from humans?”
“No,” Jax said. “I’ve been there once before and it is not like that at all. The arrangement they have there is better than stealing like thieves on the streets of Lyrinia.”
Evina gave him a sidelong glance. They shared the same midnight-blue eyes, yet hers were bigger, and rounder. Like their mother’s. He was starting to worry about Queen Abigail being left behind to look after the kingdom without them. She was strong, and capable, but the great houses of Lyrinia were always sniffing out any signs of weakness.
“I do what I have to,” Evina said. “We are going to survive here until I can find Halston and get him to take us home.”
“Fine,” Jax said. “I’m just warning you. We cannot draw attention to ourselves.”
Evina nodded, her eyes unblinking as she stepped away from Jax and took Dr. Barnes by the hand. The doctor didn’t utter a word under her spell, as she pulled him along and winked at Jax.
“Come brother,” she said, walking past him to the elevator. “Our dear friend, Dr. Barnes tells me he has a lovely secretary in the adjacent room. You’d like to meet her, wouldn’t you?”
It was less of a question and more of a taunt. Jax licked his lips at the thought of a meal.
He nodded, and told himself, just one taste.
12
Her kisses were as sweet as honey, and Jax wanted to taste them for an eternity.
Koa, the only girl he’d ever loved was at his side. Being sixteen and madly in love wasn’t what Jax had ever hoped for himself. He was the prince of Lyrinia. Though he was heir to the throne, it didn’t mean that he’d ever get a taste for ruling. They were vampires. They didn’t die. And, so, he’d be a prince forever. He just wished Koa hadn’t been forced to marry his father.
“Promise me you’ll never stop looking at me the way you are now,” she whispered in the sweetest voice he’d ever heard. He still remembered the day he’d first laid eyes on her. She was just a child, as was he. Nervous, and practically shaking, he could tell she didn’t want to be there. She held her father’s hand and walked into the throne room in a red wedding dress.
She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Exotic, and with more color to her cheeks than any Netherworld-born girl. She looked up at him with surprise, and then, delight.
It seemed that the world had given them both a much-needed gift.
Now, she ran her fingers through his hair and sighed deeply before closing her eyes.
Such green eyes had never been seen in Lyrinia. Koa’s were magical. Ethereal. He could look into them for hours.
“I promise,” he said, and kissed her forehead.
The fact that she had been brought there from the human world to be his bride made him bitter. Why did his father have to always ruin everything?
She was supposed to be his.
A smile came to his lips. Now, she was.
But, then the thought of her father taking Koa into his bed sickened him. She was now of age. A woman. He could do with her what he pleased, when he pleased.
Her soft snores broke him from his thoughts. He looked down at her as she slept on his naked chest. She was unclothed as well, warm under his thick blankets, and in his bed.
King Greggan would hurt her the first chance he got.
Jax clenched his jaw. There was no way he would let that happen.
Not then.
Not ever.
A knock woke Jax. He groaned and opened his eyes to the darkness of the hotel room. He wished he could return to his dream and be with Koa again. He wished he hadn’t lost her. Still, he wouldn’t take back his sacrifice, but if he’d have escaped with her, things might have ended differently.
The guilt tore at his soul.
Blood only numbed the pain, and drunk on the blood of the woman in his bed, he lolled his head to gaze toward the door.
“Open up,” a familiar voice said, softly.
Jax shot up from the bed and stood on the carpeted floor. Frantic, he ran his hands through his hair as he looked around the room.
This was awkward for him.
There was a dead woman at his side, and he was afraid of the repercussions. Carmia, a blood alternative, came easy in the Netherworld. Draining a human was different. He didn’t know how to control himself or when he had enough. Before he knew it, the woman’s life had been stolen, and her veins had been sucked dry of her essence.
Fear rippled through his soul as he left the bed and looked down at her pale, beautiful face. Plump in the bosom and hips, and innocence in her dead brown eyes. He could still feel the energy and euphoria she’d given to him with her last breath. He wiped his mouth and stumbled backward. It was hard to care for her when he felt so powerful because of his last feeding. How long could he last on her blood?
He needed to get home. Fast.
“Jax,” the voice called again. “Open the door, now. Let me help you. Come now. Don’t keep me waiting.”
Still, panicked, Jax took in a breath and looked away from the dead woman. He crossed the hotel room, stepping over her clothes and shoes and stood before the door. She was the first woman he’d had since Koa. Somehow, that sickened him more than anything.
Jax turned the knob and opened the door to see Lexi standing there. She took one look at him—half-dressed and covered in blood—and placed a cold hand on his naked chest, pushing him inside.
She walked, hands on hips, wearing a black leather jacket over a purple shirt and tight jeans tucked into knee-high boots. “Look at the mess you’ve made,” she said, clicking her tongue. Mahogany curls bounced as she glanced over her shoulder, fixing her brown eyes on him. She looked him up and down and shook her head. “You two are like children. It’s time you learn the rules of this world.”
Jax exhaled, raking his hands through his dark, red hair. “I’m sorry, Lady Lexi. I swear it was an accident. I’m not used to this way of feeding.”
“Of course, you aren’t,” Lexi said, tilting her head as she looked at him. “
Your privileged existence is now working against you. Here, accidents can get you obliterated by the Netherworld Division. You understand? If we do not uphold their rules, they will kill us all.”
“Trust me,” Jax said. “I know. I’ve seen what they can do.”
“Did anyone see you with the girl?”
He shook his head, and looked at the girl once more. “What are we going to do with her?”
Lexi sighed again and rolled her eyes. “I’m going to have this cleaned up for you, and you and your sister are coming with me.”
Relieved, Jax nodded. “That would be great. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Well, it’s the least I can do. Your father made my clan. Even though he was an evil bastard, I owe it to the bloodline to make sure you and your sister are taken care of. Come, let’s go to my car.”
Jax paused. “But,” he began. “The girl.”
“Yes. Yes. I have a crew waiting. They’ll take care of it. Let’s go before anything else happens.”
Jax grabbed his shirt from the back of a chair, and haphazardly buttoned it as he followed her out the door. “How did you know we were here?”
“This is my territory. I know everything that goes on,” Lexi said.
Evina waited outside, leaned against the wall with her arms folded across her chest. “Looks like the cavalry has arrived.”
“This way, children,” Lexi said, leading them from the hotel room and down the back stairs that led out the side parking lot where a black car with dark, tinted windows awaited.
They got in the back and Lexi told the driver to take them back to the castle.
She sighed and looked back at them from the second-row passenger seat. “So, we have a long ride ahead of us. Can someone explain to me what happened to Lady Colleen’s clan?”
Evina and Jax exchanged glances.
He sighed and looked out the tinted window. They drove from the quiet city and to the country roads where tall trees and forests lined both sides.
“They’re dead. All of them,” Evina said.