Night Reigns

by Dianne Duvall

“Seth still isn’t sure. He couldn’t tell whether the men who held me captive were military or mercenary. Darnell is the one who decrypted their files, and he suspects they were a secret branch of the government, so secret that even the president may not know about them.”

  “Like in Independence Day?”

  She nodded. “They chose three scientists—two men, one woman—to meet me, told them nothing of their vile intentions, so I read nothing but excitement, welcome, and curiosity in the emissaries’ minds.” She released a self-deprecating laugh. “The so-called primitive humans fooled me as easily as the advanced Gathendiens had the Lasarans. I thought the emissaries were taking me to parley with world leaders. So did they. Instead, as soon as we reached our destination, the emissaries were killed, I was captured, and, when my crew tried to withdraw at my command, my ship had to be destroyed, my friends with it.”

  Murmuring her name, Marcus drew her into his arms.

  “I spent the next six months in their lab, being dissected and tortured and experimented upon until Seth and David heard my silent cries and found me.”

  Marcus didn’t think he had ever regretted anything as much as he did punching Seth in the face. If Seth and David hadn’t found Ami ...

  His arms tightened. He pressed his lips to her hair as her tears dampened his shoulder and vowed to sit down with the two eldest immortals as soon as they returned, find out if any of Ami’s torturers still lived, then hunt the bastards down and treat them to a little bit of their own handiwork. Each and every one of them would suffer a slow, agonizing death.

  “Marcus,” she said, disrupting the violent scenarios unfolding in his head, “there’s something else.” She drew back and swiped the moisture from her cheeks. “The drug the vampire king used to sedate you and the others ...”

  He frowned at the change in subject. “Yes?”

  “It’s the same drug the human scientists developed to incapacitate me.”

  His blood turned to ice. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “I recognized its scent on the darts, the feel of it when I was hit with one myself.”

  Trepidation crawled through him. How had the vampire king gotten his hands on a drug a secret branch of the government had concocted to sedate an alien no one knew they had held in their possession?

  Just who the hell were they up against?

  Dennis prowled through the night toward Montrose Keegan’s secluded home.

  The stupid egghead had chosen a good location in which to play Frankenstein. His single-story frame house hovered on the outskirts of the small town of Carrboro. Dense forest separated Keegan from his only neighbors—distant farms and pastureland—at least during the warmer months. Whoever had built the house decades ago had planted evergreens out front, which, allowed to grow unchecked and untrimmed, now formed a dense wall between the street and the house, blocking it from view.

  The scent of humans filled those trees right now, alerting Dennis to the fact that he was being watched as he stalked up the long drive that was more dirt than gravel. Quite a few humans.

  His stride never breaking, Dennis used his preternatural vision to pick out each and every man present. Their camouflage clothing and gear was military grade, not hunting grade. Though it blended well enough for them to elude the notice of humans, Dennis easily determined how many there were, where each was positioned, and what weapons they carried.

  Foolish mortals, believing such gave them strength over him.

  His fangs dropped as Dennis’s already foul mood descended deeper into a dark mire. He had had to discipline several of his men this evening. Fucking cowards. All had been trembling in their damned designer sneakers because so many of their fellow soldiers had failed to return from last night’s mission. Dennis had opted to use the three who had whispered of deserting as an example for the others, leaving quite a mess.

  Anyone could be swayed and controlled by fear. His father had taught Dennis that with many a beating, then had learned the lesson himself after Dennis had been transformed and paid him a bloody visit.

  An hour was all it had taken Dennis to whip his army, or what was left of it, back into shape. Those who hadn’t been stuck with cleaning up the gore now roved North Carolina and surrounding states, recruiting and replenishing their numbers.

  But it still rankled. Subjects should never question their king.

  A new wave of rage engulfed him.

  First he’d been hit with the disrespect and incompetence of his soldiers, now this, whatever the hell this was. A bunch of human turds who thought they could lie in wait and spring some lame trap to catch whatever they thought he was. Had Montrose sold him out?

  That little weasel wouldn’t dare. This was something else. Dennis just didn’t know what.

  Two men in camouflage stood with automatic weapons in hand, one on either side of Montrose’s front door.

  Putting on a burst of speed that he knew the humans would be unable to follow, Dennis raced up the drive and broke through the front door. As soon as he entered the dwelling, the scent of stale blood struck him.

  “Montrose!” he roared, sensing Sarah’s absence, “you sorry sack of shit!”

  By the time shouts erupted outside, he was down in the basement, taking in the blood streaked floor and walls of the laundry area. He continued into the lab. A man Dennis had never seen before sat at Keegan’s desk. An open laptop rested on it, connected to the video camera Dennis had set up and concealed in the trees that bordered the clearing last night.

  “Who the hell are you?” Dennis barked.

  “Sir?” a voice, high with anxiety, called as footsteps sounded above.

  “Hold your position,” the man called back, regarding Dennis with an irritating lack of concern.

  The footsteps ceased.

  Infuriated by the man’s total disregard, Dennis took a step toward him and bared his fangs.

  “I wouldn’t,” he said and raised the tranquilizer gun Dennis himself had used against the immortals.

  Dennis laughed. “I could drain every drop of blood from your body and tear your ass apart before that drug kicked in,” he bluffed. The damned drug would drop him like a stone as soon as it was injected.

  “Should you do so,” the man issued blandly, “my men have standing orders to wait for the drug to take effect, then castrate you. If what Montrose has told me is correct, you have a remarkable ability to heal wounds inflicted upon your person, but that ability does not extend as far as growing things back that have been removed.”

  Dennis’s fury increased, leaving him shaking with the need to rend and tear and feed. “Who are you?”

  “Your new employer. You will no longer be working for Montrose.”

  Dennis would have laughed if he hadn’t been so pissed. “I never worked for Montrose. He worked for me.”

  “Well, then, your situation has changed.”

  Dennis grabbed the table nearest him and hurled it across the room. Paper, metal, and glass flew in all directions, shards twinkling like glitter in the lab’s overhead light. “Where is he?”

  “Our friend is not doing too well, I’m afraid. A rather nasty stab wound landed him in the hospital.”

  Dennis’s whole body shook with rage. “What about the woman?” His voice, low and guttural, did not sound like his own.

  “The woman is why I’m here. And why you’re still alive ... if you can call it that.”

  The room went red. Dennis closed his eyes, a roar exploding from him.

  When he opened them again, his chest heaved with deep gasping breaths, and the room around him looked as though a typhoon had hit it. Paper and shredded binders formed a jagged carpet that sparkled with pieces of broken glass. The gurney on which he had placed the human woman last night protruded from one wall, crumpled Sheetrock buckled around it. Metal lab tables formed twisted, garbled sculptures. The only bit of furniture in the room still intact was Montrose’s desk and the chair behind it.

  Beside them, the arrogant pri
ck stood, face pale, eyes wide, fingers curled tightly around the grip of the tranquilizer gun he wielded.

  A strange weakness weighted Dennis’s arms and legs, making him sway.

  Frowning, he looked down. A red dart protruded from his chest.

  “Sir?” an anxious voice called again from upstairs.

  “H-hold your position,” the prick called back, voice unsteady. “Shit. I thought Montrose was exaggerating when he said you were crazy.”

  Dennis plucked the dart out of his chest with hands that were torn up and bloody.

  Apparently rage had taken control of him once more and caused the destruction around them. It happened more and more often now, but concerned him little. Most of the time he couldn’t even remember what he had done. Why cry over milk you didn’t recall spilling? And if he hurt someone while in one of his rages—as the blood that so often coated him when he came out of them indicated—well, whoever he hurt shouldn’t have pissed him off.

  “Why am I still standing?” he asked, feeling sluggish, his speech slurred.

  The man swallowed. “Lower dose. Does this sort of thing happen often?”

  Dennis shrugged. “I haven’t fed.”

  “Does feeding help you maintain control?”

  Dennis sent him an evil smile. “Are you offering yourself as an entree?”

  The man’s lips tightened. “Answer the question.” “Yes,” he lied.

  “Herston!” he shouted, eyes glued to Dennis.

  “Yes, sir,” the same voice upstairs called back.

  “Join us for a moment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The man lowered his voice. “If you can disarm him, you can have him.”

  Dennis eyed the man shrewdly. Maybe he shouldn’t be so quick to tear this little snot wad into tiny, ruby pieces. There could be some perks to letting him live.

  Dennis slunk closer to the lab’s entrance as boots clomped down the stairs. He wasn’t at full strength, thanks to the damned drug, and didn’t want to risk missing out on a snack because he couldn’t get up a good burst of speed.

  The soldier entered with a long automatic weapon clutched in his hands. “Yes, s—”

  Dennis yanked the weapon from the man’s hands and threw it across the room, then struck him in the face with enough force to pulverize his nose and knock out all of his front teeth.

  “Arkgh!”

  While the soldier choked on blood and teeth, Dennis stepped behind him, yanked his head to one side, and sank his teeth deep into the carotid artery.

  Warm blood flooded his veins, diluting the drug and healing the wounds in his hands. His eyes on the soldier’s superior, Dennis took every last drop, then let the empty corpse fall to the floor. “No objections?” he taunted, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Do you care so little for your soldiers?”

  Regaining some of his former coolness, the man seated himself in the desk chair. “Every cause requires sacrifice.”

  Dennis wondered how the other soldiers under this man’s command would feel if they knew how quickly he would sacrifice them for his own gains. “Why are you here?”

  “As I said—”

  “I don’t work for anyone.”

  “I wouldn’t speak so swiftly if I were you. A partnership of sorts could prove very beneficial to us both.”

  “Really?” Dennis questioned skeptically. “What can you do for me?”

  “You want to be king, don’t you? Rule over your own vampire subjects?”

  “I already am and do. All without your puny help.”

  The man relaxed a bit, leaned back in the chair. “And how’s that going for you?” A touch of the laptop space bar set the movie on the screen into motion. Artificially brightened video of last night’s battle burst into life in slow motion, reducing the eradication of his vampire soldiers to human speeds. “Not so well, I think.”

  Dennis took an irate step forward.

  The gun in the man’s hand jerked.

  Dennis felt a sharp sting, like that of a wasp, in his chest and yanked out another dart.

  The mild weakness that plagued him worsened. His head swam. His balance faltered.

  “Perhaps now you will listen,” the man said.

  Dennis didn’t have much of a choice. If he gave in to the urge to rip the man’s throat out, he’d likely be hit with another dart or two in the process. And he would rather not find out if the bastard had been joking about removing his family jewels while he was out.

  The man began to speak. Dennis’s curiosity increased. What the man planned, what he said he would do if Dennis joined him, was straight out of the freaking movies. Movies that centered around power-hungry military leaders who went totally off their nut and strayed far from their designated course.

  Except Dennis wasn’t so sure this guy was military.

  “Are you serious?” Dennis asked, leaning limply against the wall. What the man suggested tempted him. The benefits might just outweigh the irritation of having to deal with the arrogant prick. And once the arrogant prick delivered everything he promised, Dennis could always kill him and move on without him.

  “Yes.”

  “So, what’s in it for you? You’ve told me all you can do for me. What do want me to do for you?”

  “This.” The man motioned him over.

  The video of the battle sped up to normal speed. The motion of the immortals and the vampires appeared blurry and indistinct. “There.” The man hit the button bar, and the video paused. “Do you know this woman?”

  Dennis considered the small, feminine figure onscreen. She had been paused in the act of swinging two katanas. One blade carved a long wound across a vampire’s side. The other blade sank into a second vampire’s arm. Her fair features, speckled with blood, bore an expression of intense determination.

  Dennis could understand why she appealed so much to Roland. The chick was hot. “That’s Sarah. Sarah Bang’er.” Wait. Was her last name Bang’er or was that just the last name his men had given her? “Bang’er. Binger. Something like that.”

  “Sarah Bingham?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “You’re wrong.” The man opened an image file in the bottom left corner of the screen. “This is Dr. Sarah Bingham.”

  Dennis stared at the attractive woman in the picture. Pale skin. Brown hair. Hazel eyes. A pretty smile. “It can’t be. Sarah Bingham is human. That woman is immortal. She was at the fight last night. She was the one who carried Roland and Bastien away to safety.” The thought of it, of their slipping from his grasp would have driven him into another violent rage if the stupid drug weren’t dulling everything.

  “If she’s immortal,” the man said, “then she’s been transformed, because I assure you, this woman”—he pointed again to the photo in the corner—“is Sarah Bingham.”

  Roland had transformed Sarah? What had happened to their protect humans at all cost bullshit?

  Or maybe Bastien had turned her.

  Dennis’s eyes narrowed as they traveled back to the frozen video. Sarah—the real Sarah—could be seen way in the back, cutting down vampires left and right. She was as hot as whoever the redheaded human chick was.

  If she had only recently been turned, maybe she was a vampire. How long did it take to discover which she might be? Montrose had droned on about DNA and some other crap, but Dennis hadn’t paid attention. His only interest in immortals was in wiping them off the face of the planet and finding a way to gain their special powers.

  Sarah Bingham. Dennis had never contemplated sharing his reign with a female vampire, but if Sarah ended up not being immortal ... he wouldn’t mind having her by his side. Or in his bed.

  “Did you hear me?” the man asked.

  Dennis sighed. Arrogant pain in the ass. “Yeah. You said the human isn’t Sarah.”

  “You asked what you could do for me.” The man closed Sarah’s photo and enlarged the frozen video image until the redhead filled the screen. “Bring me this woman.”

&nbs
p; Dennis smirked. “Online dating service not working out for you?”

  The man’s expression turned glacial.

  Dennis remained unfazed. “If you want her so badly, why don’t you go get her?”

  “I assume you know how many men I have in the forest?”

  “Yeah. Not enough.”

  “You knew they were there before you arrived?”

  “Way before.”

  “Then you see my problem. We can’t get anywhere near her because of the immortals that surround her.”

  But Dennis could. He had held her in his arms last night, brought her to this very basement. Had she not been unconscious, he would have fed from her. But he preferred blood donors—and sexual partners—who struggled and put up a fight.

  “So, if I bring you this woman, this human, you’ll do everything you promised?”

  “You have my word.”

  Which meant jack shit. This man had probably given his word to the soldier he had fed to Dennis, too. But that didn’t matter. Dennis would best decide how to use this situation for his own benefit.

  “Fine. Consider her yours.”

  A triumphant smile slid across the man’s smarmy features. “Then we have a deal. Bring me an immortal, too, and I’ll sweeten it.”

  Dennis nodded at the tranquilizer gun. “I’m going to need another one of those. And darts with a stronger dose.”

  “I can arrange that.” Reaching into his blazer pocket, the man withdrew a cell phone and held it out. “I’ll call you when it’s ready. A number where you can contact me has been preprogrammed into it.”

  Dennis pocketed the phone. “Don’t you think you should give me a name since we’re going to be partners?”

  Another of those tight smiles formed. “The name’s Emrys.”

  Chapter 16

  Ami stood still while Marcus fastened the belt supporting her 9mm holsters around her hips. “Thank you.”

  He smiled, slid his hands to her waist, and placed a tender kiss on her lips. “My pleasure.” Kneeling before her, he took the thin leather straps at the bottom of her right holster, looped them around her thigh and tied them in a double-knotted bow.