by Tessa Dawn
Marquis averted his eyes out of respect, but he continued to simmer just below the surface.
Vanya threw her hands up in frustration and snorted. “So, you find it acceptable to converse with my family telepathically about the matter, but not me?” She could hardly believe what she was seeing and hearing. By all that was holy, what were they all so afraid of, and why didn’t they trust her to handle it?
Ciopori stepped in front of Vanya. She nervously smoothed the hem of Vanya’s blouse with her fingertips, and then she met her gaze with a look of such trepidation that it shook Vanya to the core. “Napolean hasn’t told you?”
“Told me what!” Vanya insisted.
Ciopori reached out to take her hand, and Vanya slapped it away, overwhelmed by all the frenetic attention.
Brooke frowned. “Let’s all go back to the house,” she said. “Let’s sit down and discuss this indoors.” She glanced nervously at the heavy metal door behind them.
“Discuss what?” Vanya repeated, staring down the beautiful woman whom the gods had so honored with Napolean’s heart.
Brooke’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Vanya. This has got to appear so incredibly rude: You’re absolutely right—someone needs to tell you what is happening. Right away. We are all just a little bit on edge right now. Would you mind coming inside, to the house, where we can all sit down and talk?” She paused to remember her etiquette. “Please, Princess.”
Vanya knew she should just go with them inside and talk it out, but the apprehension was getting the best of her. “With all due respect, Brooke, I can very well see what is happening.” Despite her attempt at courtesy, she gestured wildly at the sky. “I do have eyes, you know.” She held out her wrist. “And I can feel my own skin tingling…and I can even match the shapes with the stars.” She glared at Marquis and Ciopori in turn. “What I cannot discern is why the lot of you are acting so defensive and crazy. Surely this is not the first Blood Moon the house of Jadon has ever seen.”
Marquis Silivasi took a bold step forward. “The male,” he grumbled, “the one the gods have bound you to; it is Saber Alexiares. The Dark One.”
The words drifted past Vanya’s ears, but they didn’t quite settle in her consciousness.
“Marquis,” Ciopori groaned.
“We don’t know exactly what he is—Dark or Light—or what he’s capable of becoming,” Brooke added thoughtfully.
“Forgive me, My Queen,” Ciopori intoned, “but by any standard that matters, we most certainly do. The male is wholly dark—unapologetically evil—and frankly, abhorrent!” By the look on her face, Ciopori was not about to be challenged on her assessment.
The night seemed to settle into a distant, quiet void, the beauty of the sky a sudden paradox: If the earth had opened up and swallowed her whole, Vanya could not have been more stunned.
Or silent.
Napolean Mondragon growled deep in his throat, and the ground shifted briefly beneath them. He waved an imperious hand in front of them all and spoke three short words: “Stop. Everyone. Now.” His voice traveled like vapor on the wind, wrapping itself around all those who were present and commanding their obedience.
Marquis eyed the king warily, awaiting his next command.
Brooke took a gentle step back, allowing him space.
And Ciopori averted her eyes in a show of submission and respect.
Vanya, however, took a tentative step toward him, her eyes acutely focused on his serious face. “Napolean? Is this true?”
He regarded her gently. “Yes, Vanya. It is.”
Her mind felt as if it could handle the revelation, but her body staggered sideways.
Napolean caught her by the elbow. “It is true that you are Saber’s destiny, but you are not bound to anyone, Princess. We do not have to indulge the gods in everything.”
“Really?” Brooke whispered. She lowered her head, pulled her robe tighter around her now shivering form, and began to pad back toward the main house, leaving the others standing there in shocked silence.
Napolean watched her walk away with a look of abject helplessness in his eyes, and then he quickly regained his composure, refocusing on the matter at hand. “Come to the manse, Vanya. Join us inside where it’s warm. Let us all talk this out.”
Vanya swayed once more on her feet, and Ciopori reached out to catch her. She turned to regard the heavy iron door just beyond her reach, and she imagined the male inside. How easy it is for Napolean to speak such weighty words, condemn another soul to death, she thought. A male who had been stolen from his crib as a mere babe, a descendant of Jadon who was now more animal than man. “Very well,” she whispered. “There is nothing to be achieved by standing out in the cold.” She raised her head and nodded slowly. “Besides, I need to sit down.”
Ciopori grasped her hand, linked their fingers, and held on firmly. “We will figure this out, sister. I swear.” She clenched her eyes shut as if trying to force a disturbing image from her mind. “By all the gods, I promise; we will not let that monster near you.”
Vanya didn’t respond.
It was too much. It was all just…too much.
She looked down at the tattered journal, still clutched in her left hand, and slowly held it up. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she whispered, holding it out to Napolean. “I brought this for you. It’s why I was here.”
Napolean reached out and accepted the book, a look of curiosity in his dark, keen eyes. “What is it?”
“A dream that has been haunting my sleep. I thought I should share it with you…right away.”
Napolean frowned. “What kind of dream?”
Vanya chuckled softly then, a sound completely devoid of humor. “A dream about a fire-breathing dragon that is lost to darkness, and a treasure that must somehow be returned to the house of Jadon.”
eight
Salvatore Nistor cupped the glowing cube on his nightstand between the palms of his hands lovingly, stroking it like a dark defiler in the night. While the cube had fallen short before—failing to reveal that Marquis and Nachari had murdered his brother Valentine certainly came to mind—it was not failing him now: The afterglow of the Serpens Blood Moon was reflected starkly, and without ambiguity, in the etched glass; and the fact that this Omen belonged to the newest member of the house of Jadon, Sabino Dzuna, better known as Saber Alexiares, was not lost on the ancient sorcerer either.
Sabino Dzuna.
A stolen child of light.
Lifted from his crib by Damien Alexiares after the loss of his own dark, twin sons.
The very idea of it boggled the mind.
Surrounded by the wispy smoke of a dozen candles, each one perched on a stone pedestal, Salvatore released the cube, rubbed his hands together to return warmth to his palms, and rotated on his bed to get a better view of the bloodied prisoner, chained to his lair wall—Damien Alexiares. “Well, would you look at this,” he drawled, smiling faintly at the weakened Dark One. “Oh,” he sighed and shrugged his shoulders, “I suppose those shackles prevent you from coming this way.” He absently licked his thin lips. “No matter. I would be happy to tell you what my cube reveals this night.”
Damien struggled to raise his head and focus his blood-caked eyes on the councilman. “Your liege?” he whispered.
“What’s that?” Salvatore said.
“Your liege,” Damien repeated.
Salvatore laughed loud and hearty. “Your liege,” he mocked, “how funny—is that how you address the most powerful sorcerer in the house of Jaegar? Do I look like a dark lord to you?”
Damien tried to shake his head, but the effort was too much. “No, sir…no.” He cleared his throat to remove the phlegm. “That’s how I address one of my revered council members.”
“Ah,” Salvatore said. “I see.” He rose from the bed and strolled lazily across the floor until he was standing directly in front of Damien; then he raised his pointer finger and slowly lifted the battered male’s head. “Look at me, Damien.”
The male blinked several times.
“Tell me again: Did your sons know about your deception?”
This time, Damien managed to shake his head. “No, Salvatore.” He spat out blood. “I swear by the dark lords, they didn’t know.”
“Never…after all these years?” Salvatore asked.
“Never,” Damien answered.
“Hmm.” Salvatore released Damien’s chin and touched his own lips, considering. “Well then, maybe they don’t deserve execution…as their father does.”
Damien practically wilted on the vine. For a 900-year-old soldier, a powerful and dark male in the house of Jaegar who had sired at least four children—two of whom died at birth and two of whom were summarily screwed because of their father’s lack of forethought—Damien was a sad sight indeed. The guards had whipped him until his skin peeled back from his flesh; they had broken bone after bone in order to make him confess his crime; and they had threatened him all the while with sentencing his innocent sons to death as part of his punishment.
Salvatore knew the boys were innocent. Dane and Diablo’s surprise had been as great as his own, and their sense of betrayal, having learned that their revered eldest brother was indeed an imposter, was almost as deep as his own. But these things called for swift and absolute punishment. If ever there was a cause worth making a lesson out of, an example for all others to see, this was the time, and this was the family.
It wasn’t the fact that Damien had stolen the child, after all. It was the deception. He had brought an interloper into the house of Jaegar, a son of the Light Ones, who could potentially communicate with his own kind. A being that had a soul of all things!
No one could possibly know what dangers that posed to the ancient house of darkness Salvatore so affectionately called home. The bottom line was plain: Damien should have presented his plan to the council in a formal petition, and he should have asked for his brethren’s permission. At the least, the house of Jaegar could have approached the abduction as an experiment. At the most, they would have watched Saber Alexiares closely.
Very, very closely.
The supernatural cube on the nightstand glowed momentarily, reminding Salvatore of the recent revelation: the Serpens Moon. “Ah yes,” he spoke aloud, taking a step away from Damien to regard him more keenly. “I almost forgot my original point.”
Damien held Salvatore’s gaze, but he didn’t dare speak.
“My cube. Do you see it?”
“Yes,” Damien muttered, the sound muffled between broken teeth.
“Do you know what it heralds, soldier? What has been revealed even as we labored in my lair?”
Damien shook his head, and his matted hair swayed ever so slightly. “No.”
Salvatore swept his arm out in front of him. “Then allow me to tell you, simple man.”
Man.
As in hu-man.
Was there any greater slur in the house of Jaegar—except maybe being called a son of Jadon?
Damien swallowed hard and waited.
“It tells me, beloved father of three, that there was a Blood Moon this night. A Serpens Blood Moon to be exact.” He spun around and paced toward a computer screen which was now reflecting the image of a satellite feed—the Dark Ones were tapped into NASA’s computers; and Salvatore could watch the sky in real time, almost as clearly as if he stood on the earth instead of living deep below it. “It would appear that the celestial god of rebirth has bestowed your son with a human destiny. Is that not the most ironic, not to mention ludicrous, thing you’ve ever heard of? Saber…Alexiares? The male would just as soon rape her and kill her as mate her.” He snickered. “I wonder if his new family knows this.”
Damien bristled in reaction to the words new family, and Salvatore knew it was taking everything the male had not to lash out in verbal retaliation. It seemed Damien Alexiares truly loved his firstborn…or whatever the hell the male truly was. No matter. “But here’s the thing,” Salvatore continued. “This new development provides us with a wonderful opportunity to clean up this mess, so to speak.”
Damien frowned, his sweat-drenched forehead creasing with concern. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t!” Salvatore snapped, raising his chin and pitching his own long, black-and-red locks behind his shoulder in contempt. “Of course you don’t.” He lowered his voice. “But you will.”
He sat down in the chair in front of the computer, grabbed the mouse, and double-clicked on some stellular icon in order to bring the picture of the sky into sharper focus. “You see, Saber now has one full moon, or thirty days to be exact, to find, claim, and impregnate his chosen mate. As you well know, one of his two twin sons, the Dark One, unfortunately, must be sacrificed to the Blood in a timely fashion, or the male will meet”—he rocked back on the heels of his chair and grimaced—“well, a very painful and prolonged end.”
Damien ground his teeth together and clenched his eyes shut, if only for a moment. “Is there nothing you would do for Saber?” he finally asked, daring to speak as boldly as he clearly felt he must. “After all he’s done for you…for this house?”
Salvatore tapped his fingers on the desk three times trying to think of the correct reply—and to restrain himself from killing the insolent, deceitful bastard right then and there.
Treason was treason.
And law was law, even among heathens.
And Damien was treading on very thin ice.
He spun around in his chair to face the prisoner. “Ask not what your council can do for you,” he barked with derision.
Damien winced. “Forgive me.” It sounded as insincere as it was. “What can I do for my council?” His voice thickened then. “If it will save Dane and Diablo, I would do anything.”
Now this appeased Salvatore, at least somewhat. “That’s better,” he crooned. “Now then, let’s see. What can you do for us?” Before Damien could reply, he leaned forward and lowered his voice, not even trying to hide his disdain. “You can convince your two remaining sons—because trust me, Damien, Saber is lost to you forever—to serve your house better than you did.” He opened the second drawer on the right of his desk and pulled out a small blue vial of some unfamiliar substance and held it up in his left hand. “Do you know what this is?”
“No,” Damien muttered, his arms drooping against his heavy chains.
“Of course, you don’t,” Salvatore sneered. “No one does.” He tossed it back and forth between his hands twice. “Well, allow me to tell you. It is—how shall I say?—birth control of a sort. For males.”
Damien’s head shot up in surprise, and he stared incredulously at Salvatore. “Birth control?”
“Did I stutter?” Salvatore said.
Damien held his tongue.
Rolling his eyes, Salvatore set the vial down on his desk. “Yes, Mr. Alexiares: birth control. You see, there are some secrets in the house of Jaegar that remain with the council and the sorcerer—they’re not meant for the general population.” He leveled a hate-filled glare at the traitor and frowned. “Which of course means that now that I’ve told you, I will absolutely have to kill you. But then, you’re already dead, so it really doesn’t matter.” He picked up the vial and slammed it back down on the desk for effect. “As you know, we have long searched for ways to attack our arrogant cousins, the ones who walk in the sun—the contemptible house of Jadon—and it has been an uphill battle, one we have waged valiantly for centuries with cunning, stealth, and determination. Still, it never hurts to have more potent weapons at our disposal. This, my dear friend”—he pointed at the vial—“is a unique and extraordinary weapon. It makes a male infertile for sixty days.” He chuckled at the thought. “Well, that’s not entirely true. For at least thirty days, and up to sixty. It is colorless and odorless, and once ingested, the male will perform as always—screw whatever woman he chooses with optimum virility and stamina—but he will, indeed, shoot blanks. As you also know, those born to the house of Jadon must speak a pregnancy int
o being. Unlike ourselves, they have to want a woman to get pregnant, to think it into being or wish for it, or some such nonsense, in order for it to happen.” Unlike ourselves, Salvatore thought, we only have to rape, release our seed, and death becomes an absolute certainty, with or without the birth of our children, depending upon whether we kill the female host before the forty-eight-hour pregnancy ‘expires’ and our offspring does it for us. Clawing their way out of her tortured body. The thought gave him excited chills.
He stared at the blue bottle with fascination and anticipation then. “Get this potion into the body of a chosen male from the house of Jadon immediately following his Blood Moon, and his ability to fulfill the demands of the Blood Curse is hampered, impossible, really…null and void. In plain speak for dummies—that would be you—his death is a foregone conclusion.”
Ignoring the insult, Damien seemed to think about it for a moment, and then he suddenly found his voice, weak as it was. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled. “How long have you had this potion? If we have the ability to block pregnancy, then why do we go to such lengths to try to keep our kidnapped nannies and female captives alive? Destroying their wombs, killing the very labor we need to raise our infant sons?”
Salvatore frowned. “No, you don’t understand, Damien, but since you are about to die, I will explain it to you.” He leaned back in his desk chair and intertwined his fingers in front of him. “We have not had this potion long. It is a gift from the Dark Lord Ademordna, one I have pleaded and prayed for, for decades.” He shivered with delight. “The price was two hundred dead human virgins, their hearts carved out while still beating, offered in smoke and fire on a makeshift altar.” He sighed in exasperation. “Do you have any idea how hard is to find two hundred virgin females of child-bearing age in these United States these days?” He rolled his dark eyes. “Trust me; it isn’t easy.” He waved a dismissive hand in front of him. “But that is what our lord required for the formula—I won’t share with you the sorcery and spells that had to accompany it—and that is what I gave him. Suffice to say, Ademordna made it abundantly clear that we, his servants in the house of Jaegar, were never, ever to use this potion ourselves. To do so would be to deny the dark deities the torture, death, and agony they so enjoy to watch. It would be sacrilege against our very nature, not to mention an intervention that would violate the Blood Curse and surely come back to haunt us. The vengeful females of our ancestors do demand their pound of flesh, do they not?”