by Amanda Vyne
“You killed her,” Kel said slowly as the truth dawned. Once she’d finally escaped from the Triumvirate home, she’d hated her mother too much to care what happened to her and then she’d turned her back on her past completely. Never to look back until Gabe.
“Ah, yes…well, in this instance the elders were quite right. I couldn’t control my thirst, and I drained her. I had to make it look like a suicide. You see, my brother felt responsible for your disappearance and would not let it be. My father somehow knew of it and sent me away to that research hospital. They took everything from me. Liam got everything that should have been mine.”
Little bits of saliva collected in the corners of his mouth and sprayed out as he spoke. Kel recoiled in disgust. Physically she could easily overpower him but then what of Madison? Did Jimmy still have her? What if he was instructed to kill her?
“But now I have you, my dear. When I blood you I will be able to make them all pay, even that interfering mate of yours.”
He reached out and gripped her wrist, ran his thumb over the pulse on her inner arm as he lifted it to his mouth. There was a sharp pain as his fangs sank into her flesh and an intense burning as he began to drink from her. She swallowed down the bile and turned her head away as he fed greedily from her arm, making little mewling sounds while his wet, disgusting mouth moved over her skin.
In her mind she saw Gabe’s beautiful green eyes and remembered the feel of his hard body pressing against hers as he drank from her. With him it felt right. Sacred. His arms cradled her, giving her the feeling of being cherished. She wanted to reach out to him, but she couldn’t risk his life, not again.
A flush of cold infused her skin and the air hissed from her lungs as her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground. He followed her down, finally tearing his mouth from her and jerking back on the floor.
Her blood stained his lips crimson as he gasped for air and gave a lusty laugh. “It’s so much better than I thought. I can feel everything.” His eyes blinked as he glanced around the room. “I see every detail, even in the dark.” His laugh rumbled through the room as he came up to his feet and looked down at her. “My dear, you look a little peaked. Let’s get you to bed.”
He bent down and lifted her easily into his arms, and her head lolled back against his arm. He carried her down the hall of the little cottage into the basement and laid her on the floor.
“I brought you company, my sweet.”
Kel rolled her head to the side when she heard the whimper. Gagged and bound, little Madison curled up against the wall.
“I’ll be back, my dear. I need to have a little talk with my brother, the doyen.”
LIAM WAS SITTING in his inner office, his head tilted back against the top of his leather chair. The elders had just retreated to their private meeting chambers to confer. It hadn’t looked good for his son. The elders believed allowing their future doyen to breed with a woman not of pure blood would weaken their race.
“Brother.”
Liam sat up with a sigh. “Maxim, I fear they will expel him.”
“They just don’t understand the strength, the power his crossbreed mate’s blood can offer.”
With a frown Liam came to his feet and glanced around, realizing he had not heard the door. “Maxim, how did you get in here?”
“It’s incredible, brother. I feel strong, so incredibly strong. I never realized how alive it makes you feel to shimmer.” He disappeared and reappeared next to his younger brother. “I’m finally whole.”
“Whole?” Liam’s eyes traveled over his brother, understanding slowly dawning on him. “It was you. You killed those girls. Why?” Liam asked.
“Because they made me feel strong. For just a little while I was the man I should have been if I hadn’t gotten the defective gene. I was you.” Maxim shimmered to the other side of his brother. “You had everything that should have been mine. Everything!” Saliva foamed at his lips. “Now, I can take it all back.”
“I never took from you, Maxim. I tried to give you all I could. To include you.” Liam tried to placate his brother. He’d been raised to care for his sick brother, to protect him. He’d even brought him back from the Disease Control Center their father had sent him to after the Mackinaw woman had committed suicide. Liam’s green eyes widened on the sudden realization. “It was you. You killed that little girl all those years ago. Father suspected it.”
Maxim smiled. “Oh, what an imagination you have, brother. I didn’t kill that girl. I just took one small taste, and her mother panicked and hid her from me.”
“I thought you loved Mary Mackinaw. You tried so hard to find her daughter.”
“I hated that crazy bitch. It was her beautiful little daughter I craved.”
Liam’s face twisted in disgust. “You must be held accountable for your crimes, Maxim. The elders –”
“The elders will never know, brother. Did you think I would let you keep this from me?” His arms swept out to encompass the private office of the doyen. “This is my right. And now that I am whole I will take it all back.”
Liam stepped back away from the unholy light in his brother’s eyes. “How?”
Maxim smiled. “Your son. He stumbled upon a little secret. The blood of his mate can heal.” He clenched a fist and stared down at it. “And the power and strength is incredible.”
“What have you done?” Liam stepped back in horror. If his brother killed the crossbreed it would mean the death of Gabrial.
“I haven’t killed her. Yet.” Maxim’s smile revealed the sharp point of his fangs. “I wanted to share my good news with you, brother. Like you have shared everything with me.”
Liam didn’t see the knife until it was too late.
Chapter Eighteen
“We’ve made him comfortable but he lost too much blood. I’m terribly sorry, my lady.”
Gabe felt his chest tighten at the words of the doctor. Laying his hand on his mother’s shaking shoulder he stared down at the pale face of his father. He was lying quietly, a tube coming from the base of his throat, breathing for him. Someone had slit his throat and stabbed him more than twenty times.
They didn’t think he’d last the night.
He needed Kel. He wanted to hold her in his arms and absorb her warmth into his body. But he couldn’t leave his father’s side and he wouldn’t endanger Kel by bringing her here.
His Uncle Maxim sat in a chair next to his father’s hospital bed, his face lined with grief. “You must ascend, Gabrial.”
“No.” Gabe shook his head. “Not until Father is gone. As long as he breathes he is the doyen. I will not believe he is dying.” Gabe stared down at his father and thought of Dr. Mahoney. Could she save his father?
He embraced his mother and kissed her temple. She silently sobbed into a tissue. “I know some brilliant doctors, Mother. If he can be saved they will know how. I’m going to call them. Uncle Maxim will stay with you until I return. Uncle?”
Maxim turned bleak eyes on him. “Yes, of course. We must try. Go, I will sit with them.”
Gabe shimmered into his father’s inner office. Blood splattered the walls and stained the thick, wine-colored carpeting. His stomach clenched at the sight of so much blood. His father was not going to die. He turned away and used the phone on the side bar and dialed the main line at Incog and requested Dr. Mahoney’s lab.
“Marshal Ferrar.” Dr. Mahoney’s lilting voice answered the phone. “Do none of you carry your phones? I’ve been trying to reach Kel all evening with new information. Dr. Tanner has made a very astute observation about the evidence in your case. She –”
“Kel is resting at her apartment,” Gabe interrupted, ice congealing in the bottom of his stomach.
“Well, of course I called there after I could not reach her on her cellular phone. We may have pertinent information on your killer.”
It felt like his chest had collapsed. He couldn’t breathe. There was a ringing in his ears. Kel carried her phone with her. She lived
her job. She even slept with it at her bedside. Why wasn’t she answering it?
“Marshal, are you listening to me?” The Irish doctor’s voice snapped, bringing him back. “The young girl was completely drained of blood. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this. It was so obvious.”
“Tell me.” Gabe growled.
“Your killer has the disease. No healthy Sanguen would be capable of draining an entire body. Only a Sanguen with the disease would need to drain the host. This is why they cannot drink directly from a female…”
Gabe didn’t hear what else the doctor was saying. He tried to shimmer directly to Kel but he couldn’t sense her. His heart pounding in his chest, he dropped the receiver on the floor and shimmered to her apartment.
“Kel?” he roared as he ran from the main living room to her bedroom. The balcony doors were open and he shimmered out onto the balcony.
His entire body clenched in fear. On the smooth tile next to her chair was her cell phone. He could have checked for her at the office or at Haven House but he knew he wouldn’t find her.
The bastard had gotten her.
Gabe reappeared back in his father’s hospital room. His mother sat in the chair, holding his father’s hand between hers. He looked around the room. “Where is Uncle Maxim?”
“He left, dear. Your Uncle Maxim does not cope well with loss. After his dear Mary…left us, I thought he was going to go mad. He just could not bear to see your father this way.”
Gabe felt his stomach drop. “Mary?”
“Oh, that was years ago, dear, while you were away at school.” She dabbed at her eyes with her tissue. “It was such a tragedy. Her daughter was kidnapped and she just could not live with the loss. She killed herself. Your uncle was beside himself. He tried for months to find the girl but she was gone. He boarded up their cottage. No one has lived there in more than ten years. Your father wanted to have it torn down but your uncle just could not bear it.” She sniffled and looked up at her son. “Is everything okay, dear? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Uncle Maxim.
“Mother. I need you to stay here with Father. I will have the elders come in with you. Do not leave this room.”
Gabe shimmered into the waiting room where the elders gathered in wait. When they saw him they came to their feet as one. His grandfather took one look at him and started to tremble.
“You knew,” he accused. “You protected him.”
“Now see here, boy,” one of the elders began.
“He was my son.” His grandfather defended him, laying a hand on the other man’s shoulder to quiet him. “He was ill. I couldn’t let him be executed. I sent him away to that Disease Research Center. They promised to help him. Then when your father ascended he insisted Maxim be brought home. He seemed so much healthier. I thought he was better. I wanted to believe.” He shook his gray head, tears glittering in his faded green eyes.
“He killed five little girls. Drained them. That was how he was improving, by drinking the blood of crossbreed children. He must have realized when he bled Kel all those years ago,” Gabe muttered. When the blood dealer brought him the sample of Kel’s blood he must have discovered that her blood was so much more potent. Permanent.
Fury burned through his veins. When he turned them back on his grandfather, the blood aurora shone brightly in their depths. The elders stepped back. “You abused your power as an elder to protect a killer in our House. For that you will be judged.” Gabe’s voice was cold. “For now go to your son. Protect him and my mother from the monster you created. And pray that he has not killed my bloodmate.”
Gabe shimmered into the shadows behind the boarded cottage. Fury and fear pumped through his body with every beat of his heart. He tried to reach out for her but he was only met with emptiness, a yawning chasm of dark emptiness. It was a glimpse into what his life would have been without her. Endless and cold, with nothing but duty to keep him. She had changed all that and if she left he would follow her without question, without hesitation. He wouldn’t consider it. She was alive. She had to be.
Crouching down, he carefully held himself in a state of suspended materialization. Gabe would be all but invisible unless his uncle had already bled Kel. Then Maxim would have enhanced vision. And strength.
The cottage was dilapidated from years of neglect, the windows carefully boarded up. There wasn’t another house in this corner of the complex. It would be the perfect place to bring his victims. And Kel.
He shimmered in closer, silently circling the small structure. His uncle couldn’t shimmer, so how was he getting inside? All of the entrances were sealed. His eyes searched the property. There was a small shed. With a frown he noticed that it seemed to be in better condition than the cottage itself.
Gabe shimmered into the shadow of the shed cast by the moon. And listened. Nothing. He slipped around to the doors and pushed one in just enough to fit his body. His enhanced eyes immediately adjusted to the darkness. It was empty. Except for the cellar doors in the center of the floor.
Moving stealthily, he lifted the doors to reveal stairs. The cellar doors were silent, well oiled, not doors that had been left unused for fifteen years. The pungent smell of earth met him on the cool air that rose from the opening. He descended the stairs and saw that they led to a small room with packed dirt floors. Drawing a deep breath he closed his eyes and concentrated. He could smell the acerbic smell. Maxim had passed through here not long ago.
The tunnel narrowed to an opening held up by wood timbers and he immediately ducked into it. Kel had to be here. Here there were cement floors. This had to be directly beneath the cottage. Listening he could hear whispered voices and the whimpering of a young girl. He slid his blades from their sheaths with a deadly hiss.
Then he heard the most beautiful sound in the world.
“This isn’t an all you can eat buffet, you sick bastard.”
NAUSEA SWELLED UP and over her with a cold rush as she faced him. She was as weak as a babe but she was on her feet and she intended to stay that way. Madison clutched at the back of her tank top, the warmth of her young body strengthening her. Gabe’s uncle would have a hell of a time controlling her now that she had Madison. Just knowing she was all that stood between this monster and the young girl infused her waning strength with determination. Her claws prickled beneath the skin at her fingertips.
“You think you are so funny, my dear. We will see who laughs last when I taste the last beat of your heart on my lips.”
“I bet you think that was eloquent, too.” Kel blinked her eyes to clear them. She thought she saw movement in the shadows but the room around her spun so she couldn’t be sure. The air slowly diffused with the scent of heat and spice and she’d never been more relieved to feel his scent surround her.
Gabe stepped from the shadows. He looked like an angel of death. His hair fell in disarray around his shoulders, the writhing red rings in his eyes promising death. He held one of his blades in each hand, the metal glinting in the darkness of the cellar. The muscles of his thighs and chest bunched in readiness. His eyes swept over her, his nostrils flaring. His eyes jerked back to his uncle.
Madison gasped and wrapped an arm around her waist when Kel swayed. She was trembling, and Kel dropped an arm over her shoulders.
“Maxim Ferrar. You are charged with murder; your punishment is death as sanctioned by the elders and our House doyen.”
“YOU’RE TOO LATE, Gabrial. I’ve already tasted her and now I know why you were attracted to the little crossbreed. She feels like heaven pulsing through my veins.”
Gabe felt the darkness swell in him, closing in around his vision when he thought of anyone blooding her. It seethed with violence as he imagined his uncle’s mouth on her smooth skin. She belonged to him.
Breathing deeply, pulling in her fresh scent, he was able to control the rage. Kel was alive. That was all that mattered.
“It’s over, Uncle Maxim. The elders know.”
“The elders
are foolish old men. Once I kill you, I will easily manage the elders.” Maxim pulled a knife from his shirt, touched it lovingly. “I used this on your father. He never even fought me. I’m going to love using it on you.”
Maxim shimmered, reappearing off to Gabe’s right, swinging the knife before shimmering away. Gabe heard Kel’s gasp as blood welled from his arm. A slow smile turned the corners of his lips as he lifted his blades.
His uncle was strong, his hatred strengthening the vitality of Kel’s blood in his veins. They each swung their blades and disappeared only to reappear again for another strike.
His uncle had caused so much pain. His sick appetites had put that unending desolation in the eyes of those parents, who would have to live with the knowledge that their babies had suffered at the hands of a depraved monster before their death.
Gabe spun and slashed, feeling the thin slice of his uncle’s knife across his chest.
Maxim Ferrar had been the reason Mary Mackinaw had left her daughter in that hellhole. All these years Kel had been blaming a Ferrar for all the terrible things she’d been through. It had been the wrong Ferrar. His father was not responsible for the shadows that filled Kel’s life. His uncle was.
Gabe spun and buried his blade in his uncle’s chest.
As his uncle slid to the floor, blood bubbled from his mouth. Gabe stood over him as he slowly bled out, standing vigil to the end of a nightmare.
Maxim Ferrar wouldn’t ever hurt another person.
Without giving his uncle’s body another glance, Gabe shimmered to Kel, who was sitting propped up against the damp cement wall of the cellar, with Madison kneeling next to her, crying. Kel met his eyes over the young girl’s head.
“Eat it up, Ferrar. I won’t always let you play the hero,” Kel said weakly.
Gabe gave a shaky laugh and fell to his knees, pulling her into his arms. “I was never so scared in my life than when I thought I’d lost you.” Gabe murmured the words against her neck.