The silver disc arced over my head. Barabbas watched it with a horrified expression. I’d always wondered what my ancestors looked like facing the guillotine. Now I knew. There was a moment of horrified panic as the disc descended and then, a cold spray of blood splashed my front. The body beneath mine went slack, the skin the cold, waxy texture of clay, before it dissolved completely beneath me, leaving me swimming in a pool of blood.
I pushed off the ground immediately, disgusted. When I scanned the crowd I was met with the remainder of the task force and a veritable ocean of blood sinking into the ground. There were a few vampire stragglers, but they seemed to have lost what little heart they had left. I dismounted from the balcony, striding over to Landon. I yanked his great, serpentine head down so that I could peer straight into the camera they’d mounted on his neck. Thanks to a very talented technomage Catalina employed, every vampire stronghold in the world had just witnessed our victory.
“Listen up, you undead bastards,” I growled into the speaker. “You’re going to stop this shit right the fuck now. No more killings. No more war. No more fucking conspiracies. Because if you do, you’re going to meet the same fate as House Lamonia and House Grieves. You want to go toe to toe with us? This is what you’ll get. Every one of you popped like a putrid balloon, leaking into the ground where you should have been centuries ago.”
Landon obligingly panned around the area to give a very good view of the destruction we’d wrought on this place. The portcullis was nothing more than a twisted hunk of melted metal. The rottweilers stood loyal sentry by Findlay’s side. Each of Landon’s men clutched their automatic weapons and glared right back at the camera, seeming hopeful that another undead would give them an excuse for more slaughter.
When Landon panned back to me, I was still scowling with rage. Beyond grief, beyond sense. Screw the sanctions. I wanted to kill every vampire I could get my hands on. I now knew just how Nat had felt after annihilating them outside of the law. Everything inside me hurt, and it made me feel marginally better to take out a few killers, to make the world a better place. If I’d had the power, I’d have taken out every vampire in existence. They’d cost me everything that had ever mattered.
“So that’s the choice,” I said, voice teeming with quiet anger. “Peace or death. How you respond now is up to you.”
I strode away from Landon, toward the pile of goo that was Barabbas Grieves. I snatched up his sword, holding it aloft. The balance was incredible. I wasn’t usually the trophy sort but I wanted to keep it, a momento I could give to Nat when she finally returned.
I refused to think if.
chapter
27
Dom - One Year Later
I WAS GETTING USED TO the heat in the Yucatan. When I stepped outside the hut that had been constructed within view of the ruins, I didn’t gasp in the thick air like the place was intending on suffocating me.
Sadly, the same could not be said of my three pupils.
Alice Vogel was the oldest and probably should have been the most mature out of the group. But thus far she’d been the worst complainer of all.
They were gathered in the clearing in the tight spandex pants and tank top combination which allowed them to shirt the worst of the heat. And yet, Vogel had managed to empty a water bottle over her head and was washing the grit out of her mouth with a bottle of my finest whiskey instead. She didn’t even look guilty, just kept dabbing at the back of her neck with her ponytail. She’d begun growing out the cornsilk hair and now sported a scruffy little tuft at the back.
Sophia had aged another ten years in a short span and now appeared to be a short but curvy teen, not dissimilar from her mother. Her physical aging would halt in just another year or so, and then she’d spend the remaining twenty-nine the way she appeared, perishing when her homunculus body finally gave out.
“I told her not to go into your hut, Uncle Dominic,” Sophia said, two knobbly fists pushed into her hips as she stared at the German witch in accusation. “But she just opened a portal and grabbed it!”
Alice just grinned at her. “You’re just jealous you could not, mine schmusebarchen.”
I pointedly ignored the flirtation. Alice had taken to Sophia rather well. Given her sister’s penchant for rules, I’d have thought she’d be vehemently opposed to Sophia’s status as an unnatural creation of black magic, but had been pleasantly surprised when the worst that came out of the pairing was some good-natured teasing and a few awkward dinner dates.
The third member of the group rolled his eyes. “Humans.”
The copper-skinned youth rolled his amber eyes heavenward and then glared at the blushing pair. “Cease. You are distracting from the lesson.”
I eyed the boy. He seemed to have quite a vocabulary for something that appeared to be the size and shape of a human toddler. He’d refused to put on more than a pair of shorts, insisting it was too hot here for anything else and I couldn’t disagree with him on that front. His species was native to Wales.
“We’re getting to that, Halcyon.”
The little dragon had scared me half to death when he’d transformed from a lizard the size of a tomcat to a baby on my shoulder not three months after Nat’s disappearance Now the dragon hardly ever spent time in its winged form, preferring to pester me with questions and requests for the shiniest stones I could find. Nowadays he rested away from the girls in a dark corner of the ruins, laying in a horde of tin cans and golden aztec idols he’d found exploring the ruins.
In the year since she’d gone, the political atmosphere of the Trust had changed drastically. Cat was now a major influencer, not an up-and-coming busybody with a delusional proposition for peace. Any Trust member who’d been rolled by vampires or a part of the collusion had been permanently blacklisted. Roland Preston had been brought out of retirement and now oversaw the defense committee, and Landon Johnson was a legitimate contractor for the Trust.
Elle Dawson had taken refuge with the barbegazi once more after settling in with Declan, of all people. Together, they were coming up with some miracle drugs and shipping them to where they were most desperately needed. An African mission they’d undertaken with Cayman Bello had saved millions in the area from a waterborne disease.
And as for me? I’d settled in Mexico, far away from the cities, just waiting for Nat to return. Horst and Halcyon had insisted on tagging along and after I’d removed a brick from her home in Queens, Horst had been able to fly with me all the way down to wait for her.
The bracelet Nat had slipped on my wrist remained intact, though its power had faded. It was the only thing that had kept me sane through the first few months, apart our hand-fasting ceremony and my new responsibilities with the Trust.
I’d take promising young mages and demi-humans, whip them into shape, and create the Five once more. We’d only scraped together three who’d be even close to powerful enough for the role. Alice, with a similar though less potent ability to walk the astral plane. Sophia, who had been able to enchant her own body, made as it was of component parts, was the jack of all trades. And Halcyon… well he was mostly just an ill-tempered dragon child. But they’d kept me on my toes these past several months.
“Today’s lesson is—”
“I want to learn to summon humans,” Halcyon butt in, before the girls had even taken their seats in the rudimentary, open-aired classroom we’d constructed in the jungle.
“Pardon?” I asked.
“There is a dead human in the temple. I wish to learn how to summon them from beyond.”
“Dead human?” I echoed. Then my brain caught up to what he’d said and my heart leaped into my throat. Could it be…?
I launched myself toward the stairs of the nearest temple. It seemed like I’d walked these stairs many times, vainly hoping to see just what Halcyon had described. I’d tried opening the door a hundred times with blood, but it was never enough, and I knew Nat would hate me if I started making human sacrifices. Afte
r a year, I was beginning to lose hope. I hadn’t been inside in months.
By the time I reached the top a stitch in my side nearly doubled me over and the inside of my mouth was dry. I whipped my wand from its protective holster on my belt and summoned light as I climbed down into the dark chamber beneath the pyramid. When I reached the bottom, I waved the thing desperately around the confined space.
Sure enough, a figure crouched in a pool of blood just before the altar. I sprinted over to it, dropping hard to one knee to clutch at the figure. It was small and distractingly feminine. Its clothing was in tatters. And when I rolled it over, a cry nearly escaped my mouth.
Scarred and pale, but definitely my Nat. I traced the deep cut that cleaved her forehead almost in two. My eyes watered as I counted the dark tattoos that glittered down her arms and legs, covering nearly ever inch of her skin.
The remnants of Valerius’ magic sprang to my fingers. I’d been saving it, after that day with Findlay. I wanted to keep what little power I had left, just in case Nat ever needed it. I didn’t care if it burned me. I didn’t care if I lost the hand altogether. Nat was here, and she needed my help.
The burning began in my fingertips as I dipped my hand into that well inside Nat. It was impossibly deep, and something lurked in the depths of it, snapping at my fingers when I attempted to breach them. I drew my hand back in shock.
And then the wound began to seal, the two halves coming together, sinew and bone closing up over the sealing fractures. A trail of green feather sigils sparkled from her neck.
Then Nat’s eyes snapped open and fixed intently on my face. Before I knew what was happening, she had a leg around my back and was holding an obsidian dagger to my throat. I felt the blade bite into my skin, and for a second, I was afraid that she wouldn’t recognize me. It had to have been so long on her end.
Then she dragged me down, hands winding into my hair, pressing her lips to mine in a kiss that could have scorched the world.
chapter
28
Nat
HALCYON BOUNCED HAPPILY ON MY knee, clinging to me with eager fingers and happy squeaks. The warm, solid weight of him sent a pang through me. He’d managed to assume human form and had begun speaking. I’d missed so much.
“How long was it on your end?” Dom finally asked the question that had been burning his tongue. I could tell the answer would weigh heavy on him. After all, to his perspective, it must have looked like I’d abandoned him.
“I’m not sure I should tell you,” I said slowly. “And I’m not sure I want to relieve it.” There were just some things you didn’t want to tell your husband about.
“Please?”
It was the quiet, croaking request that undid me. There was something new in Dom’s face now. Something that wasn’t there the last time we’d been together. Some of the shine had been rubbed off his knight in shining armor getup. He was tarnished, broken. Maybe it was all the time apart that did this to him.
“Decades,” I whispered. “Most of that spent in Mictlantecutli’s realm. He wasn’t happy after I helped you escape. I was a slave, a servant. He made me fight for sport. But I built a ladder of bones, miles and miles of it, bridges and ladders. Out of the pit. Fought my way across the desert. Hid out in the deserts for awhile, surviving on lizard meat and moths.”
I refused to tell him about the torture. About the tasks that I had to endure in order to earn my way out. About the final attempt that almost ended my life. Maybe someday I’d have the strength to confess everything. But right now, all I wanted was this quiet moment in a hut with the only man I’d ever loved.
“And how is Valerius? Still committed to the no-genocide thing?”
“Mostly. He’s drunk his fill. He rarely surfaces anymore.”
Dom quirked a brow at me. “Really? I thought it took human blood.”
I smiled, but there wasn’t much warmth behind it. It had taken me precious years to figure out how to subdue Valerius without shedding human blood, and I still felt like a dumbass for not realizing it sooner.
“Blood taken in a violent act will suffice. It doesn’t have to be human. Now please tell me what’s happened since I’ve been gone. I feel like a small eternity has passed.”
Dom nodded toward the small camp of tents set up on the stones outside. “You’ve seen Sophia. She’s physically almost an adult right now. She’s started a fumbling relationship with Alice Vogel. Cat’s not sure how to proceed since she’s technically only three years old. Born yesterday but already attracting suitors.”
I didn’t envy Cat the moral quandary there.
I probably didn’t want to know what they were getting up to at the moment.
“What about everyone else?” she asked.
“Well, the Trust is no longer headed up by a bunch of crusty bureaucrats. Findlay and Cat cleaned house after House Grieves was decimated.”
I stared. “House Grieve was decimated? How? When? By whom?”
A blotchy flush actually crept up Dom’s neck. I couldn’t help another smile.
“Out with it, Dom. You’re obviously dying to tell me.”
“It was me,” he said in a rush. “Well, Landon, his crew and I. House Grieves had gathered for a rally and the majority of their forces were there. Before you say anything about it, I do feel like a massive hypocrite. You saw the threat before any of us.”
“Not hypocritical,” I disagreed. “Hot.”
I set Halcyon down with a smile and pushed him toward the door.
“Go track down your sisters, okay?”
Halcyon hesitated in the doorway, glancing back at me. “You’ll still be here when I get back?”
“Yes. I’m not leaving you ever again, Hal. But I’d like a moment alone with Dom.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
He toddled away and the moment he’s gone, I dragged Dom across the table toward me. I was still a little weak from the resurrection, but not so weak I couldn’t do this. I’d been dreaming about touching him for years, and now that I had him, I didn’t think we’d be leaving his hut or the little bedroll for a while.
I seized the shadows from every imaginable crevice, wrapping the hut in an impenetrable layer of velvet darkness. There was only one flickering flame to see by, clutched tightly in my other palm. I kept it carefully away from him. Sometime in the last year, he was badly burned and I was not going to expose him again unnecessarily.
His gaze heated as his mood shifted to meet mine. I held my lips away from him by the barest inch. And then I pulled him to me, extinguishing the fire, putting an end to the years of celibacy I’d suffered. Everyone and everything else could wait. Right now I wanted this perfect evening with Dom.
And heaven help the soul who tried to stop us.
epilogue
“HOLY SHIT,” DOM MUTTERED INTO my earpiece. “Eleven thousand meters. Do you realize you’ve just cracked a world record?”
“Right now I’m struggling not to lose my lunch, Dom. I don’t think egg salad has ever been spewed at this level and I don’t want to ruin the ecosystem. Can we keep this thing moving right along? Is your sonar picking up anything?”
I was floating in an inky black void, pressure coming in from all sides. It appeared even Valerius was struggling to keep me from being crushed as flat as a tin can at these depths. We were parked in what most people affectionately called the Bermuda triangle. One of the Trust ships bearing several valuable objects had recently been pulled into the little preternatural hotspot and had gone down. We’d been expecting to find the wreckage only a few miles offshore and at most, a few miles down. On average, the ocean was around two or three miles deep. But we’d mapped most of it in a submarine and found nothing. Thus, it was up to me to venture further down, to a point where most vessels and humans would die under the strain.
That tended to be the only reason I saw much action these days. Cat tried to keep me out of the public eye. Even with my hair in a short pixie c
ut and died a deep auburn, there was no telling what conspiracy nut online would put Natalia Valdez, international felon and vampire sympathizer together with Talia Finch, the big gun that the Trust kept in reserve for only the most dangerous missions. If my name got spread all over the net I’d have to perform another disappearing act, and I wasn’t eager to do that again, especially now that Dom and I were settled.
We’d vacated the Yucatan, returning to Paris to live in Fabian’s home which had been left to him after his uncle’s passing. Yet another thing I’d missed in my long absence. I regretted not being by Dom’s side through the funeral. I had everything I could possibly want. My grumpy house spirit dutifully kept up the one part of the house he’d been connected to. The brick pulled from my home in Queens served as a doorstop and was always kept spotless. Cat and Findlay visited often, though they were cloistered in the Trust’s offices more often than not.
And I’d gotten my white picket fence. Sort of. A baby dragon, my niece and the mostly adult Alice Vogel hadn’t been my first choice in roommates. But at least Phyllis was around to wrangle them. After many, many sessions with a healer, the damage the fire had done to her arm was mostly reversed. She’d proceeded to shower me with knitted goods for the next eight months. Everything had a knit cover. Hell, even my mug had a koozie. There was so much yarn in Dom’s house it was almost tacky.
And I fucking loved it.
Phyllis was badgering me about giving her honorary grandkids. I wasn’t even sure that was in the cards for me, given that I was technically dead, but Dom and I had been trying.
My attention was dragged back to my current predicament when Dom checked the instruments. He was situated many feet above, at the last safe water pressure that our dinky submarine can safely dive to. I’ll swim up to him when I can and we’ll haul the pertinent part of the ship up to shore like a glorified tug boat.
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