by Tessa Dawn
Like this one.
Nachari looked at little Katie and tried to control his reaction: What in the name of the gods had Braden done to her? “Tell me absolutely everything,” he instructed.
Braden looked at Katie then, and his face sank with remorse. “Well, she’s human.” Nachari raised his eyebrows and Braden laughed, insincerely. “Oh yeah, I guess you already know that.”
Nachari nodded.
“And she goes to Tall Pines Junior High.”
Well, it was at least a start, Nachari thought. Tall Pines was not that far from Dark Moon Vale.
“Me and some of the guys kind of…went to town for a while…you know, just to hang out?”
“Who drove?” Nachari asked.
Braden smiled. “Blade Rynich.”
Nachari knew the kid’s father; he was a warrior in the house of Jadon and an honorable man. “And?”
“And Katie was sort of walking home with her friends when we drove by.”
“How old is she?” Nachari asked.
Braden shrugged.
Nachari placed his hand gently under her chin and lifted her head to catch her gaze. “Katie, how old are you, sweetie?”
She smiled but didn’t answer.
He tried a different approach. Making the softest push he could against her mind, he whispered, “Tell me your age.”
“Twelve,” she said.
Nachari glared at Braden and frowned. “You boys stopped to talk to a group of twelve-year-old girls?” His disappointment was evident in his voice.
“No!” Braden insisted. “She was the youngest one in the group, I swear. I think it was her sister’s friends or something because they were fifteen like me…like all of us…well, except for Blade, because he’s sixteen and has a human’s driver’s license. But, honestly, the only reason I chose her was because she was the youngest—and I thought she’d be the easiest person to…practice on.” He looked down, ashamed. “I swear, Nachari. I never meant to hurt her. You know me! I wouldn’t hurt anyone—except a Dark One!”
Nachari nodded. “Tell me exactly what you did…and how she came to be here with you.”
All at once, there was a subtle disturbance in the energy field around them, and Nathaniel Silivasi opened a telepathic link to Nachari: Greetings, little brother: Is everything all right?
Nachari held up his hand to make Braden pause and smiled. Wow: Is my energy that bad?
Not that bad, Nathaniel answered. I was just closing the office at the lodge and putting some finishing touches on your paperwork—submitting the liability forms for the outward bound, nature-challenge program—so I was already linked into your energy when I felt your…uneasiness. What’s up?
Braden. Nachari answered. There was nothing more that needed to be said.
Ah. Nathaniel chuckled. Anything serious? Do you need assistance?
Nachari shook his head and sighed in frustration. Not completely sure yet. Still assessing the damage. I’ll get back to you.
Nathaniel sent a stream of reassurance into Nachari’s mind. Very well—call me if you need me.
Will do.
Be well, brother.
Be well, Nathaniel.
Nachari turned back to Braden. “Now where were we?”
“Who was that?”
“Nathaniel.”
Braden frowned. “Did you tell him?”
Nachari was quickly losing his patience. Slow-it-down, he told himself. It will all work out. “Tell him what, Braden? You haven’t finished telling me yet.”
Braden looked at the little girl as if checking to see if she was okay before continuing. She wasn’t okay—or not okay—she was simply there, like a bump on a log, an inanimate object, and Nachari could not act quickly enough to restore the girl to her normal state of mind: if she could be restored. At this point, there was no telling. Mind control was a common skill among the Vampyr, but in the hands of a novice, it could be extremely dangerous. “So what exactly did you do?” he asked Braden again.
Braden narrowed his eyes in concentration. “Well, we all just hung out and fooled around for a while, and then the other girls decided to go to the corner store to get a Coke. Blade and Tyce walked with them, but me and Katie weren’t thirsty, so we just waited.”
Nachari sent a deeper probe into the little girl, wanting to make sure she wasn’t frightened or uncomfortable as they sorted things out. There was a clear presence of fear, but it was at a deep, unconscious level—she would be okay for now. “So, what happened when you and Katie were alone?”
Braden sat forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees. “At first, I wanted to see if I could erase her memory—you know like go back ten minutes, and see if it worked—so I did like you’ve described: pictured her thoughts as energy, connected to the individual strands, and followed them into her mind.” He sat up, excited. “And once I finally got in there, I couldn’t believe it. It was so cool. So I wanted to see if she would respond to suggestion, and she did! So, I made her do a couple of stupid things—”
“What kind of stupid things?” Nachari’s voice was edged with anger, and his canines began to tingle in his mouth.
Braden’s eyes opened wide. “Nothing bad. Honest! Meow like a cat. Tell me I was cute. That sort of thing.”
Nachari had heard enough. “I’m really surprised by you, Braden. I can’t believe you would do something like this. Do you think this is some kind of a game?”
The child visibly wilted, but Nachari didn’t care. This was serious…and beneath Braden’s character. Braden’s eyes misted over, and even though he was a teenager, his bottom lip started to quiver, almost imperceptibly.
“I know,” he murmured, his voice betraying his deep remorse. His eyes swept over the little girl, and his shoulders began to tremble. “And even while I was doing it, I knew it was wrong and I should stop.” He struggled to hold his shoulders up and blink back his tears. “But I just kept thinking about what would happen to me if you and your brothers don’t want me around anymore—if I don’t keep proving that I’m useful—and so I couldn’t stop. Because I needed to get good at it. Fast.” He looked at the little girl then, and the sobs came out. “I’m sorry, Katie. I really am!”
She smiled like a paper doll, stiff and one-dimensional. And then her face returned to a blank slate.
“So, how did she get here?” Nachari asked.
Braden sniffled. “When everyone came back from the store, I tried to fix what I did…and I couldn’t…so I started to really freak out, and Tyce said I should bring her back to you. We spoke telepathically so her friends never heard us.”
Nachari was taken aback. “You held the telepathic connection for the whole group?”
“Yeah,” Braden said, “and then I just imagined a kind of kinetic chalkboard and erased everything with the other girls. I told them that Katie had stayed after school and would come home later, and they just walked away….like she wasn’t even standing there. They believed me over their own eyes, but I was really freaked out by then.”
Nachari shook his head in disbelief. “When you made the mental suggestion to the girls, did you do it with your mind or with your spoken word?”
Braden considered the question before answering. “I said it out loud: You will go home and wait for Katie…type of thing. And they did.”
Despite his anger and disappointment, Nachari was floored. Braden’s skill was nothing short of remarkable. Braden Bratianu was fifteen years old, and he had only been a vampire for ten of those. Where did these gifts keep coming from?
He walked over to the chair and placed a firm hand on Braden’s shoulder. “Listen to me, son.”
Braden looked up at him with the most trusting eyes Nachari had ever seen. The kid was such a paradox. “First of all, you don’t ever have to prove yourself to me or anyone else in my family. We love you.”
Braden’s breath hitched, and he looked away, clearly embarrassed. Trying to play it off, he cleared his throat and muttered, “Cool.”
Nachari knelt down in front of him. “Did you hear what I said?”
Braden nodded.
“And when your parents get back from vacationing around the world, we are still going to want you around…in our lives.”
Braden raised his eyebrows, a hopeful look in his eyes. “Really?”
“Yes, really. We have already talked about working something out with your parents so that you can stay in Dark Moon Vale—continue your human studies at the academy here—instead of attending a human school in Hawaii, which Napolean has frowned upon all along.”
Braden’s Vampyr sire, Dario Bratianu, had been working at one of the house of Jadon’s resorts in Hawaii when he had met his destiny, Lily, who happened to be Braden’s mother. Following their current vacation, Dario and Lily hoped to remain in Hawaii for at least another five years; thus, creating the need to send Braden and his little brother Conrad—the child born of their Blood Moon—to a human school for their primary studies before transferring back to the Dark Moon Vale Academy for Braden’s final year. The plan would require extensive home-schooling to make up for all the training the human education lacked—not to mention the additional instruction required between ages eighteen and twenty—and the Silivasi brothers were working earnestly to find a way to keep Braden with them until Dario and Lily were ready to move back to the valley.
Braden seemed to come alive at the news. Like a brand-new light bulb screwed into a lamp, his face lit up with joy. “Could I stay with you the whole time?”
Nachari shrugged. “I’m not sure about the whole time because I don’t know what the future might bring, but between all of us, you will always have a home. And trust me when I tell you, Marquis is very excited about teaching you archery—I know he is because he mentioned it again just the other day.” He paused and smiled. “Just keep in mind: Marquis’s excited is another person’s mad, so…it’s all relative.”
Braden laughed, and his chest puffed out a bit. And then just as quickly, he became serious. “So what are we going to do about Katie?”
Nachari surveyed the child on the ottoman, taking a quick read of her vital signs—pulse, body temperature, and blood pressure. He closed his eyes and thought about it for a second, and then he sat down next to her. His broad, muscular frame enveloped the entire space, and since that wasn’t going to work, he gently pried her from the ottoman and repositioned her until she was standing directly in front of him.
“First things first,” he told Braden, “I am going to enter your mind to retrieve all of your earlier memories, firsthand, which is something that is not done among males in the house of Jadon unless it is a true emergency: The mind is considered sacred territory, off-limits, but I will need to view your memories as if they are my own in order to know what to do for Katie.” He placed his hand on her forehead, and she didn’t blink. “I believe that you did such a thorough job of erasing her memory that you went too far: You went beyond the prefrontal lobe, which affects short-term information into the realm of the middle brain—the limbic system—which plays a role in dreaming. In essence, you disrupted the electrochemical pulses from her brain stem.”
Braden’s forehead creased in confusion and his top lip turned up. “Huh?”
Nachari sighed. “In other words, Katie is more or less dreaming, even though she appears awake. Perhaps that’s why she does not respond to outside stimuli unless pushed. Even though her eyes are open, it’s as if she’s asleep.”
Braden grimaced. “Damn—I did all that?”
Nachari cut his eyes at him.
“Sorry.”
Nachari nodded and reached for Katie’s hand. He ran his fingers over her temples, massaging in slow, rhythmic motions.
“What are you doing?” Braden asked.
“Checking for any physical damage to the brain…making sure there is nothing irreversible.”
Braden paled. “Gods…”
“Yeah—not a game,” Nachari reiterated.
Satisfied that her mind was whole, Nachari released his touch and turned to regard Braden. “Once we have…put things back together…the way they belong, I’ll retrieve her address from her mind, and we’ll take her home.”
“Really? How? Are you going to fly her home? Dematerialize with her in your arms?”
“Not so much,” Nachari said in a calm tone of voice. “I think we’ll take the Mustang.”
“Oh,” Braden replied, sounding dejected.
Nachari restrained his laughter.
“What will her family do when we walk up to the door?”
“Her family will not do anything when I walk up to the door,” Nachari said sternly, his tone brooking no arguments. “I’ll use a cloak of invisibility: They will never see me.”
Braden’s eyes grew wide, and his mouth turned up in an eager smile.
“No,” Nachari said. “Don’t even think about it!”
Braden crossed his arms and sat back in his chair.
“Braden, give me your word you will not attempt to use your…untested…powers again—at least not the more advanced ones—without consulting someone first?”
Braden frowned. “Yeah…okay.”
“Braden?”
“Yeah…yes, I promise.”
“Good.” He gave Katie’s hand a little squeeze—it wouldn’t be long now—and then he turned to face his young cohort, adopted a slightly more formal posture, and linked their eyes in an unyielding gaze: The traditions in the house of Jadon were steeped in a rich history of unity, justice, and mutual respect—protocol was protocol—even when dealing with a silly young boy who might not understand it. “Braden Bratianu, son of Dario and Lily Bratianu, protected by Moniceros, the unicorn, and a fledgling in the house of Jadon?”
Braden swallowed and wrung his hands together, looking hesitant. “Yes?”
“I would ask permission to enter your mind for the purpose of healing this girl.” Braden croaked out an unintelligible response, and Nachari’s heart warmed. “What say you?”
Braden licked his lips, and then his eyes deepened with a shadowed hint of wisdom, a sliver of knowledge from somewhere deep within his genetic—vampiric—memory. He rose from his seat, approached Nachari, kneeled at his side, and reverently lowered his head. “It is with great humility that I grant your request, Master Wizard, even as I thank you for providing this service.”
Nachari held the child in his gaze, noting the deferential posture, replaying the appropriate, acquiescent tone of his voice, and he knew that something monumental had just happened. A channel had opened, creating a bridge between Braden and the house of Jadon’s ancient traditions—an extrasensory pathway that would offer the child full access to the Vampyrs’ collective memories.
Nachari felt a sudden surge of enormous power and knew that Napolean Mondragon had somehow registered the occurrence at the same moment—taken note of the sacred gift that had been passed onto the boy.
The king would not invade their space or speak telepathically.
He would not seek information that wasn’t offered to him, but there could be no mistake: The surge of energy that had just passed through young Braden Bratianu was too powerful to go unnoticed by the heart and soul of the people—Napolean would remain linked to Braden on a highly acute spiritual pathway where he could carefully monitor the young acolyte’s progress from now on.
Whew…
Would the surprises never end?
Nachari let out a deep breath. “Very well, then. Shall we begin?”
fourteen
Gabe Lorenz was strapped to a cold metal table, his arms and legs bound with tight, unyielding rope. His throat was sore and his mouth was dry as he continued to tug against his restraints and struggled to open his eyes.
“Where am I?” he croaked as his eyes began to focus.
The last thing Gabe remembered was walking out of the twenty-four-hour, fit-for-life gym after an extremely vigorous workout. He had been on his way to the shooting range to reassess his marksmanship skills be
fore hiring himself out as a private bodyguard to a foreign dignitary. Being one of the best hand-to-hand combat experts in his early twenties—capable of killing a man in under five seconds with his bare hands—he had decided it was time to make some serious money. He was rapidly approaching thirty, and he needed to take advantage of his declining youth while he still had some stamina.
He blinked his eyes in quick succession, forcing them to open—and stay that way—and then his heart began to flutter wildly in his chest, momentarily seizing as if it were gripped in the clutches of an iron fist. He was in a dark, underground chamber illuminated solely by tiny flames—hundreds of black candles set inside deep, hand-carved crevices in an ancient stone wall—and a dense gray fog rose from the floor, swirling all around him.
His eyes narrowed their focus, straining to see through the fog, and his breath caught in his throat.
Standing directly to his left—and bending over the table with a curious and darkly evil expression on his face—was a giant of a man with coal-black eyes and muscles so defined that they rippled when he moved. He was wearing a tight black muscle-shirt over a pair of faded blue jeans, and he had the look of a warrior about him. Power practically oozed from his pores. And confidence? As far as this bad-ass was concerned, he owned the entire freakin’ world.
Gabe grimaced. What the hell was up with the guy’s hair? It was blacker than the night, and it shimmered with evenly dispersed bloodred locks, almost like it was a…living thing…and the color came from the roots—not some kind of hair-dye.
The dude leaned forward and smiled…or grimaced. Basically, he turned his lips up and then he bowed his head in an infinitesimal gesture of acknowledgment before purring his words: “Welcome, human. I am Salvatore Nistor, and you are a temporary…necessity…in the house of Jaegar. I do hope you enjoy your stay.”
Human?
Gabe’s terror was palpable in the room—and Gabe Lorenz never rattled—as his adrenaline and desperation kicked into overdrive. “Shit…shit…oh…what the hell…oh, shit!” The dude had fangs extending from his mouth, and his eyes glowed reddish-orange. And it wasn’t from any contacts. “What the—”