Crown of Doom and Light

by Jayde Brooks

  “I keep telling her that being in an interracial, or rather, interspecies relationship is hard enough without adding some television Boris Karloff drama to the whole thing and she needs to get over that “bite me to make me the same as you so we can be together forever” fantasy, because it might not turn out how she thinks it will. She’s such a romantic.”

  Seeing Mkombozi did stir confused feelings in him. She had always been the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on, and that hadn’t changed. Being close to her again, touching her again, brought back so many memories of the two of them together on Theia that it was almost as if four thousand years, another world, and a Reborn didn’t stand between them.

  The two of them could not come together. He knew that with every fiber of his being. It would mean the end of all things if they did. But then again, the end of all things was inevitable.

  “You have a role to play. A much bigger one than you could’ve ever imagined. And you must play it as if your life depended on it. You must play it to the detriment of yourself.”

  Andromeda’s words came back to haunt him. Is this what she meant? Prophet was standing between two trains riding the rails full speed straight toward each other and he was tied to the tracks. The Omen were overpowering Eden. She’d fought them off the last time, but without her calling on him when they overpowered her to help, he wasn’t confident that she could do it again. Eden’s stubbornness would be her undoing, but she couldn’t see that.

  He had no idea what kind of force Mkombozi was now that she was back. The Ancient had always been an excellent fighter, but was she a match for a human woman possessed by the power of a demon? And how could she possibly take the Omen from Eden without killing her when they were inside her, a part of her soul? She couldn’t.

  “Prophet?” Eden stared at him, concerned. “You’re bleeding.”

  He’d cut his hand. Eden grabbed a kitchen towel and pressed it against his wound, which would be healed in a few minutes. He stared down at her, understanding that one way or another she was going to die. Now, it was a matter of how.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “We should not be here.”

  Van Dureel drove slowly through the streets of the Manhattan burbs, grimacing at the gnawing in his gut warning him to leave. It was late and the city looked more desolate than it was, but that was because of the curfew imposed by the Ancients who lived here calling themselves “city officials.” Even after everything that had happened with the Demon and his Brood Army, the Elitests still struggled with keeping their true natures secret from the human masses, believing that the simpleminded humans were better off not knowing that creatures like shifters, Fey, and tall guys with wings were anything more than the subject of legends and stories.

  The vamps believed in keeping themselves secret too—but from humans, not the Elitests. It had always been Van Dureel’s experience that humans either idolized his kind or feared them. Either way worked in his favor. If any of them found him here, there was no telling what they’d do to an alpha vamp like him. The alphas were sort of like queen bees in their colonies, hidden away in the hive and protected by their drones. As far as he knew, the Elitests had seen none of the other alpha vamps since their arrival into this world. Van Dureel felt like he’d shown up to take the test naked, and it scared the shit out of him.

  He stopped the SUV on a dark corner and turned off his lights.

  “What is wrong?” Mkombozi asked.

  “Everything,” he murmured fixing a steady gaze on the area in front of him.

  The vamp’s heightened senses—hearing, sight, even smell—zeroed in on everything. A subtle shift in the air caused the hair on his arms to stand up. A slight increase in temperature caressed his skin.

  He started up the engine again. “We have to go.”

  The vamp hit the gas pedal and the vehicle went nowhere but up. It sailed twenty feet above ground until its momentum was stopped by a streetlight and the SUV crashed to the ground.

  Van Dureel was out of the thing in less than a second. He looked across it to see Mkombozi standing poised and ready to fight too. A huge Berserker charged at them like a bull.

  “How the hell do you hide one of those in the middle of the city?” Van Dureel asked, half joking.

  “What did you say?” she asked in Theian.

  That Berserker made a beeline for Van Dureel, lowering his massive shoulder to drive it into the vamp’s midsection, but speed played in the vamp’s favor. He waited until the last second before jumping out of the way, causing the creature to crash into a brick wall behind him. Not that it mattered or even hurt. The Berserker spun around in slow motion again, nostrils flaring, eyes bulging, and huffing and puffing like a train.

  “Oh, you’re one of those,” he said, snarling at Van Dureel. He glanced quickly at Mkombozi as she stalked over to him like she was the queen of the city.

  “How dare you attack me,” she said in Theian, drawing back her elbow and letting her fist fly, landing a fierce and impressive punch against the side of his head, not once or twice, but three times in quick succession, powerful enough to shake up the big guy. “Do you not remember your general, beast?”

  It was hard to tell if he was merely shocked by the language she spoke to him in or if he truly did recognize her as Mkombozi. Blood oozed from his nostril and the corner of his mouth as she stepped back and glared at him. The beast traded his glance between her and Van Dureel. It was obvious that he was beyond confused by this whole scene.

  “Where is the impostor?” she demanded to know.

  “What?” he asked, staring dumbfounded at her.

  “The Reborn,” she snapped. “The one who pretends to be me. Has she truly fooled you all?”

  “I think she has,” Van Dureel offered in their native language.

  “You can’t be here,” the beast said to her, still not catching on that she didn’t speak English. “You’re dead. I saw you—”

  “She’s back, beast,” Van Dureel said with more bravado than a Vampyre should have when addressing a superior Ancient, but if Berserkers were superior, it wasn’t by much. “Where is the Reborn?”

  He made it a point to ask the question in Theian for her benefit and his, although he hoped that Berserker didn’t know the answer.

  The beast glowered at the vamp, then turned to Mkombozi. “She’s on her way here,” he said in English.

  Van Dureel quickly interpreted, feeling pretty confident that the Berserker didn’t remember how to speak Theian anymore. “He does not know,” he said, looking at Mkombozi.

  “But he has seen her?” Mkombozi asked, looking to Van Dureel to make the translation.

  “When will she be here?”

  The Berserker stared suspiciously at him. “Tomorrow.”

  Again, Van Dureel translated. “Yes. He’s seen her.”

  “What are you telling her?” the big guy asked, lumbering toward the vamp. “You lie to her.”

  Van Dureel swallowed. “I thought you didn’t understand Theian.”

  “I understand enough, ptkah,” he growled, bowing his shoulders and lowering his chin.

  The beast’s slow ass was never going to catch van Dureel. They could spend all night with him trying and never getting anywhere. But this time, the dense bastard surprised the vamp and instead of trying to catch him, he yanked the front tire off the vehicle and threw it at the vamp in a motion almost too quick for Van Dureel to see. It whizzed past him, barely missing his head. In retaliation, the vamp bolted toward the creature, bending as he did to pick up a bent piece of metal from the wreckage. He jumped into the air, planted his feet on the beast’s shoulders, and drove the steel deep into his eye.

  The Berserker screamed, which would no doubt alert the other Elitests in the area. Van Dureel leaped over the wrecked SUV, swept Mkombozi up into his arms, and ran away so fast that he was nearly flying. It wasn’t until he was blocks away that he realized that he should’ve left her there. As soon as he put her down
on the ground, she drew back her hand and slapped him so hard that it nearly caved in his jaw.

  “Ptkah! What did you do? He could have helped me to find the impostor,” she said raging. “He was the best chance we had at finding her.”

  Van Dureel had to come up with something fast. “He would have killed me. Any other Elitest he knew would have killed me.”

  “I do not care,” she snapped back.

  That hurt.

  “And what is to say that he would not have tried to kill you too, Mkombozi?” he offered.

  “He knew me,” she retorted. “He would not dare.”

  “You are supposed to be dead. Ancients blame you for the destruction of Theia and the loss of their loved ones.”

  Ah. Yeah. There it was. That look in her eyes of disbelief.

  “How can they possibly think that of me? I killed Sakarabru. I killed him and saved Theia.”

  He had no idea whether telling her this was a good idea or not, but he had nothing else. “Yes, you killed him. But the Omen did something to you.”

  “They made me powerful, as powerful as he was,” she said, proudly raising her chin.

  “More powerful than he was,” he explained. “It was a power that would not end. And it grew the longer you held it. It grew to become so overwhelming that it began to destroy everything and everyone in its path. You do not remember?”

  He was treading on dangerously thin ice here. Part of him suspected that he was making a huge mistake by telling her this, but another part of him was so desperate to keep her under control and off balance that he’d do anything. If and when Mkombozi did find that Reborn, the shit was most certainly going to hit the fan. So what was he doing? Trying to keep her from finding the Reborn? And what the hell did he plan on doing with her if he managed to keep the two from meeting up? She probably wasn’t too keen on the idea of becoming his girlfriend.

  He could see that she was struggling to process what he’d told her, maybe even to remember.

  “Khale’s spell,” she murmured, her eyes darting between him and the ground. “Her spell, it—”

  He didn’t know anything about a spell.

  She looked at him, defiant all over again and more determined than ever. “I am stronger now. The power of the Omen surprised me, consumed me, but I have no doubt that I can control it instead of letting it control me.”

  He cocked a brow. “Good,” he said, trying to hide his uncertainty.

  “We need to find my other soldiers,” she said, marching back toward where they’d left that Berserker.

  He grabbed hold of her arm to stop her. She looked at his hand until he removed it and then glared at him.

  “We will find her,” he finally said.

  The urge to kiss that pretty mouth of hers was almost too strong to resist. She would certainly kill him if he tried.

  “But not from these Elitests here,” he told her. “I know of others who might be able to tell us where she is, or at least, how to find her Guardian.”

  It wasn’t a complete lie.

  She squinted her lovely eyes. “My Guardian,” she said, correcting him.

  “Of course.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “C’mon Red,” Jarrod said, walking into the kitchen. “The truck’s all gassed up and we’re ready to roll.”

  They were on their way to Manhattan for a meeting about a possible attack on a town in West Virginia. Molly was standing over the sink, washing her hand again. Jarrod came up behind her, and she tried to hide it from him before he could see it, but he took hold of her wrist and examined it.

  “Where’s a good tetanus shot when you need one?” she joked. “Or maybe a rabies vaccine.”

  She could try to make light of it all she wanted. The fact was, the wound wasn’t healing. Four small puncture marks on the back of her hand had finally stopped bleeding after two days, but the bruising had spread. She didn’t say that she was worried, and he didn’t say that he was, but they both knew that something wasn’t right here.

  Jarrod pulled a roll of gauze from the kitchen drawer and carefully wrapped her hand again.

  “Do you think it’s like what happens in the movies?” she asked, serious this time. “Some people believe that legends come from fact, or some version of it.” Molly stared helplessly at him with those big eyes of hers. “Do you think it’s true? Could I turn into one of those things?”

  “Only in the movies, Red,” he smiled.

  The truth was, he had no idea what getting bit by a vamp would do to her. Outwardly, Molly seemed fine. She was eating well, had plenty of energy, and nothing else about her seemed to be any different.

  They’d only been mated a few months, but he loved her as if they’d been together an eternity. She was his second chance, his new beginning and awakening. He’d lost the love of his life to the Demon’s army, and for four thousand years, he’d resolved himself to the fact that love had been his to claim only once. And then Molly came along and made a liar out of him. The last couple of months had been perfect. Runyon needed a lifetime with her.

  “Why’re you looking at me like that?” she asked, tilting her head to one side and smiling.

  “I think you’re gorgeous,” he told her.

  Her cheeks flushed. “I thought you were gorgeous first.”

  It was true. She’d admitted to having a crush on him long before he really stopped to pay attention to this lovely woman.

  “You saved me, Red,” he said, introspectively.

  If anything ever happened to her, to them, Runyon knew that he would not recover. Not like before.

  “You saved my life.”

  Molly smiled and wrapped her arms over his shoulders. “Somebody had to do it,” she joked. But then her expression turned serious. “I’m just glad that it was me.”

  He had another reason for needing to go back into the city. Drake, the human who’d told them about the vamps, had mentioned that he’d had a couple of soldiers who’d been bitten, and that he’d locked them up in quarantine. Runyon needed to know what had happened to those soldiers.

  He wrapped both arms around Molly and passionately kissed her full, red lips.

  Molly sighed. “I can take my boots back off,” she murmured.

  “Take ’em off,” he told her.

  Jarrod had arrived in the city a few hours early for a reason.

  “I’ve got some things I need to take care of before the meeting, Red,” he told her after they’d gotten settled in their room. He was hoping that she wouldn’t ask to come with him.

  “Like what?” she asked, sitting on the side of the bed.

  He shrugged. “Were stuff.”

  Molly chuckled and shook her head. “Peeing on a tree or something?’ Coming from anybody else, he’d have been insulted. Coming from her, a crack like that was cute. “Something like that,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose and heading toward the door. “Eden and Prophet should be here soon. You two girls can catch up on nail polish and who’s the cutest boy at school,” he said, striking back about her tree joke.

  “Ha. Ha.”

  Jarrod had never been one to believe in coincidences. The fact that was that he needed to see the human, Drake, to ask about those fighters who’d been bitten by vamps. He parked his Hummer on the street half a block away from Drake’s place. Some teenage kid let Jarrod in and led him to a kitchen where Drake was helping out.

  “Look who’s here,” Drake said, bagging up peanut butter sandwiches. “Where’s your friend?” he asked. “The cute sistah with the locs, that possession thing, and the obsessed boyfriend?”

  “The last time we were here, you said one of your squadrons had mixed it up with some vamps,” Runyon reminded him, ignoring his reference to Eden.

  “I did,” Drake said pensively.

  “Some of your people were bitten?”

  “Two of them.”

  “What happened to them?” Runyon asked, trying not to sound as anxious as he was.

  A grim e
xpression shadowed the dude’s face.

  “Josie,” he called out to a young girl across the room peeling potatoes.

  She came running to his side. “Yes, Papa D?”

  “Finish this up for me, sweetheart.”

  Drake led Runyon down the hall to his office, opened a desk drawer, and pulled out some keys. “Follow me.”

  Runyon followed Drake down the hallway to the stairwell. They walked down two flights of stairs to the basement, and then through a heavy metal door.

  “So, what are you?” Drake asked, turning to look over his shoulder at Runyon. “Not to be rude, but I know you’re not human. Look the part, but there’s something about your eyes and the way you move.”

  “What you doing looking into my eyes, man?” Runyon quipped.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, man. I’m into women. I’m just asking,” Drake continued.

  “All that fighting you do,” Runyon started to say, “and you don’t know anything about Ancients?”

  “Never wanted to know,” he said. The thick soles of his boots echoed through the corridor. “And like you said, I was too busy fighting to sit down and have a conversation with any of them. Lately, though,” he stopped and turned to Runyon, “seems like all y’all are showing up at my door. So, I figure I’d better know what’s up.”

  “I’m a Were,” Runyon explained.

  He studied, Runyon and nodded. “A werewolf.”

  He hated having to explain what his race was to humans because it always led to the same topic of conversation, the only context that they seemed capable of understanding.

  “I’m a shifter,” he said, trying this route before having to resort to that last one.

  “A shape shifter.” Drake looked like he didn’t believe him, but then he came to his senses and remembered that monsters actually do exist and he’d seen Runyon turn into one. “Okay.”