Dark Awakening

by Ryder, S. K.

  In some way Dominic couldn’t fathom, he understood that ‘here’ was more than this beach. ‘Here’ was St. Barthélemy itself. Apokryphos would hoist anchor tonight and roam the high seas by dawn. And it would take him with it, away from his home, away from the life being ripped out of his grasp.

  The instant Kambyses took his eyes off him, Dominic bolted. But even as he ran, tears streaming from his eyes, he knew it was futile. Kambyses would find him again with ease. More than likely, the demon was already at his heels, letting him streak ahead just to see what he would do—what lessons he would learn next.

  “No more,” he ground out. “No more lessons.” He was done. This island was his home, and here he would stay. And if his former life was no longer possible, then he would stay here as a corpse. This thought alone made the beast stir with apprehension. The moment he put himself in the way of anything that could harm him, it would pounce and he would fail again.

  It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. He would need help. But who? How? Where?

  The answers still eluded him when he found himself in an empty parking lot next to a dark building he almost didn’t recognize. Maison de la Mer. How strange to see it shuttered and silent at night. A note in the window of the front door explained the family and staff were in mourning for Jean-Paul Marchant—and his son.

  Whispered denials fell from Dominic’s lips at this evidence about his reality. His father was dead. Dominic had made him so. And what did his family think had happened to him? Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be anything even close to the truth.

  Dominic let himself through the delivery entrance, breaking the lock with shocking ease. He didn’t switch on the lights. There was no need. In a thousand shades of gray, everything was clear as day. He strode to the carving station, grabbed the largest and sharpest knife there, and, without a thought or a second’s doubt, turned it on himself. He aimed for his heart, but the tip hadn’t even touched his skin when an almost-hysterical fear surged in him. He couldn’t do it. The knife clattered to the floor.

  No, he really wouldn’t be able to do this on his own. Every fiber of his being forbade it. Someone would have to help him die. Someone would have to know the truth. Someone just as raw and desperate as he was.

  He picked up the house phone and dialed. The call was on the verge of dropping into voice mail when Ana answered with a sharp “Who is this?” Of course she would be suspicious to receive a call from a place she believed to be deserted.

  Dominic spoke quickly. “I need your help, little sister, and only yours. No one else can know. Don’t even say my name.”

  Shocked silence.

  “Much has happened, and I can’t come home.” His voice threatened to crack. He would never go home again. “Will you meet me? At Maison?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Dominic closed his eyes. “Bring my swords.”

  For the fifteen minutes it took Ana to arrive, Dominic stood statue still in the silent kitchen, letting his mind sweep back in time to all the hours he had spent amidst its happy, clattering life. He saw Jérôme working over his station, in flour and dough up to his elbows. Dominic smiled. The memory of the waitresses’ seductive glances warmed him. The memory of his father’s lovingly scolding voice made him weep.

  “Nicky?”

  Dominic glanced up just as Ana reached for the light switch. The sudden brightness drove more tears to his eyes. When they cleared, he saw her standing in the door, staring at him. The requested swords dangled from her hand, the scabbards propped on the tile.

  “It’s you. It really is you!” With a sound of pure relief, she rushed forward, the scabbards clattering to the ground.

  Dominic caught her in his arms. She had not fared well since he last saw her. Though her bruises had faded and cuts mended, her face was wan and hollow-eyed with grief, her body fragile against his own as it shook with sobs. The desolate perfume of unwashed hair rose from her along with her warmth…

  Her sweet, sweet human warmth.

  Before the sound of her heartbeat could obliterate his reason, Dominic pushed her away and retreated to the far side of the kitchen. “No. It’s not safe for you.”

  “Why? What is it? What happened to you?”

  Dominic opened his mouth, but no words came out. He couldn’t do this here. Not where so many joyful memories lived. Not where there was so much light. “Come outside with me. I will tell you.” And to hell with any inane rules of secrecy about his kind. He would never be one of them. The rules did not apply.

  She hesitated before following him onto the starlit expanse of sand, but took his word for it when he said she was safe. Her big brother would protect her. He would always protect her. He had sworn it.

  The tale spilled out of him in all its blood-soaked horror. He told her about Kambyses and Silence before closing his hands around the hilts of his swords. Let either of them appear and try to stop him now. Neither did.

  At first, Ana didn’t react. Her heart sped up, but that was it. “Why are you saying this? How can you believe that?” she said when he paused after telling her all but the worst of it. “It’s crazy. You know you sound absolutely crazy, right?”

  “Yes. Completely. And yet, it’s true. Absolutely true.”

  She must have recognized the pain and sorrow in his voice, the absolute conviction of his words, for her breathing quickened. And to his eyes, a soft green shimmer ignited around her. Ribbons of light appeared beneath her skin.

  Dominic stilled. It was happening again, this expansion of his senses that heralded the waking of his beast. He pulled the katana from its scabbard. Extended the hilt to her. She didn’t take it. Only stared at him. What did she see in the low light? Was it freakishly black eyes? Inhumanly pale skin? Any trace at all of her brother?

  “Take the sword, Ana,” he implored. “Take it and use it on me. You must. Or I will do to you what I did to Papa.”

  With a shocked cry, she stumbled backward.

  “Please, Ana. I know you’ve imagined using this sword. Use it now. Help…me.” Dominic wanted to say more. He wanted to kneel at her feet. Wanted to make it easy for her to cut him down. He wanted to beg her to take his life, to set him free.

  He did none of these things. The air was thick with a scent more intoxicating than any drug. Tangy and pure, it clenched his belly and sent the beast into a frenzy.

  Fear.

  A growl vibrated in his throat. Know me! Know me for what I am!

  Ana whirled around and ran.

  Dominic had her in his arms a second later and took her down to the sand with him. Her hair was in his fist, her head yanked aside. The column of her neck pulsed with life. Life that spurted into him full of precious, sun-warmed memories of love and laughter and the making of plans—before crashing into a wall as hard and cold and black as her brother’s alien eyes. She knew him. She saw the truth. She understood everything.

  And she was senseless with fear.

  He could taste the spicy sweet terror in her blood. It was the most exquisite wine to ever touch his lips. More powerful even than Jeovana’s passion-laced blood.

  When reason returned, and the beast lay plump and satisfied, Dominic comprehended what he had done even without looking at his sister’s lifeless body. The sister he had promised to keep safe—the sister he had killed to protect—was dead. At his own hand.

  Strange how souls broke in silence. There was only a sense of something cracking and falling away, something ending, something deeper and stronger even than his heart, which contracted into a smooth, cold stone.

  The rest of him was numb. Not even tears gathered in his unblinking eyes. He was dead in all but body.

  Kambyses was pleased.

  Dominic knew it even before he smelled the smoke on the salty wind and heard the quiet flap of a cloak. He had learned yet another lesson as he was supposed to. And there would be no going back. Not after this.

  “Well done, my precious young one,” his master’s voice said on
a reverent whisper. “Well done.”

  6

  The Easy Way

  A week passed. Dominic emulated the ways of his sinister companions by staying shrouded in darkness and keeping his own counsel. He spent most of every night alone at the front of the yacht, staring into the kaleidoscope canopy of sky. Only when the thumping hearts of the human crew grew too loud in his ears did he silently stir, merged his shadow with that of Kambyses, and went ashore.

  Kambyses was diligent now about preventing Dominic from taking more lives. But Dominic suspected this had less to do with any moral leanings and more with not wanting to be bothered with disposing of any more corpses—the way he had so grotesquely proven with Ana’s bloodless remains.

  They were anchored off another island—Dominic hardly cared which one, as long as there was a blood supply available—and dawn was still several hours away, when he caught the distinctive smoky scent swirl in the restless air. On a whisper he said, “Leave me alone.”

  Kambyses settled onto a section of the cushioned seats circling the yacht’s helipad and spread his arms across the seat backs to either side. He faced Dominic, who lay stretched out opposite him. “I would be a poor mentor if I did that.”

  It was the first time Dominic had heard his voice since the unspeakable night of Ana’s death, and the memory of what it had instructed him to do made Dominic close his eyes and shudder.

  Kambyses sighed, a sound so human it was startling coming from him. “Ah, Nico. You are meant for greater things than squandering eternity lamenting the”—the slightest of hesitations—“things that cannot be undone.”

  “I will undo this. I will find a way or die trying.” It was a promise to himself as well as to his tormentor. Anything to stop the madness that threatened to consume him.

  “Will you?”

  The soft humor made Dominic open his eyes and sit up. “Do I amuse you?”

  “Endlessly.”

  “Is that why you’ve done this then? For your entertainment?”

  “Just what do you believe I have done?”

  “You turned me into a monster,” Dominic said, his dazed calm fraying around the edges.

  “I enjoyed your blood for a while. That is all.”

  Dominic locked his gaze with Kambyses, whose eyes were deep, dark pools with no bottom. “Really? Is that how this is done then? You feed?”

  “No. It is her blood that perfected you.”

  “Perfected,” Dominic murmured, a new emotion welling in his chest. Outrage. Seizing on it, he let it catapult him to his feet. Leaning over Kambyses, he hissed, “Is that how you justify these horrors? Have you no compassion for any living thing? Is everything mortal just blood to you? For how long have you been like this? How many have you killed? Do you even remember what the sun feels like?”

  The corner of Kambyses’s mouth tilted up, but he did not otherwise move. “I often see what the sun feels like. That is all I need to know.”

  “Stop talking in fucking riddles!”

  “There is so much you must learn for yourself. But I will tell you this.” He held up a single finger. “The answers you seek lie with the one who gave you her blood. It’s her you are bound to, her thoughts you hear.” He paused to study the surprise Dominic couldn’t keep off his face. Kambyses tilted his head, his satin hair rippling with wind. “You do not hear her thoughts?”

  Dominic straightened and shook his head, which was beginning to spin uncomfortably.

  “As I suspected. She has refused to guide you. I have done what I can.”

  “Her? The one who won’t even look at me?”

  “She gave you her blood. And it appears she abandoned you.”

  “She gave me nothing,” Dominic hissed. “She stole my life!” His brain buzzed with fury. The heat of it crawled over his skin.

  “Nevertheless,” Kambyses murmured. “Your future lies with her.”

  “Never!” The word vibrated with a growl worthy of a great cat. He didn’t wait for a reply. He would get the truth from her. Tonight, she would speak to him, explain herself, recognize him.

  Tonight, he would not take silence for an answer.

  To make sure of this, Dominic stopped in his crew quarter lair to retrieve his swords. For the first time since Ana’s death, he could look at them without remembering her murder and its aftermath. Kambyses had instructed him to decapitate her with them, destroying the gaping wound on her neck in the process. Their time as valued and sentimental ornaments had come to an end. They were weapons once again. Tools. Instruments of his freedom.

  As he suspected, the dinghy was not tied to the aft platform. There were two of the small motorboats on board, but only one was ever placed in service. Silence had taken it to shore alone after Dominic and Kambyses returned from their feeding. Dominic didn’t hesitate. With the scabbards slung over his shoulders, he stepped into the waves and dropped to the reef below. The water dragged at his limbs and rattled the scabbards as he stomped to where Apokryphos’s dinghy was tethered to a dock. He surfaced without a sound, then tucked himself away in the dark corners of a deserted boatyard.

  As best he could, he tuned out his heightened awareness of the oblivious mortals in nearby homes, but the frenetic heartbeats and breathless moans of a pair of lovers held him spellbound. He had tasted the man’s blood earlier, and now, when he focused on him, he received flashes of insights as though he were feeding again. Sensations, too. Suddenly, Dominic was the one in bed with the man’s wife, smelling her skin, watching her plump breasts, feeling his…

  He screwed his eyes shut, aware again just how much he had lost. How much he would never know again. And how mercilessly he would be tormented by these bizarre links to the minds of his prey. By the time Silence appeared on the dock, Dominic was blind with rage.

  He stepped between her and the dinghy. “One more time, and this time you will answer. Why have you done this to me?”

  She stopped to consider him, but seemed unsurprised. Neither did she speak.

  “You can’t ignore me forever. You can’t rip my life from me and then abandon me to this walking death. You owe me an explanation.” Not that he really thought there was one that would justify what she had done, but he needed to hear something—anything—and having her volunteer one was better than coercing it out of her.

  She volunteered nothing. Her fine oriental face remained impassive.

  “Why?” Dominic bellowed even as his thoughts grew desperate. Why won’t you talk to me?

  For an instant, the same profound sadness he had seen there once before flickered in her eyes. Then she spoke to him, directly into his mind.

  Because this way is easier.

  “What—?”

  But she had already answered him with lightning swiftness. There was a punch to his gut so powerful it scraped his backbone. Bending almost double, he saw he had been impaled by a discarded oar.

  Movement flickered in the corner of his eyes, flashed toward his head. Every cell in his body understood that if she touched him now, he would be truly dead. Years of training and supernatural instincts merged in an instant. In a single fluid movement, he reached out, grabbed her forearm, twisted and spun, propelling her around his center of gravity. Silence tumbled off the dock before disappearing in a mighty splash.

  Dominic almost toppled in after her when her feet caught on the oar, ripping his belly open. With a hoarse shout of pain, he took hold of the bloodied, weathered wood protruding from his stomach and battled to remain upright. Teeth gnashing, he pulled. The oar handle came out with a spurt of blood and a dull, sucking noise. His insides shifted around, realigning themselves, knitting together in a buzzing tingle. The pain subsided.

  Incredibly, even this would not kill him. Silence would have. Why hadn’t he let her?

  Because survival was no longer his decision to make, he recalled even as that beastly thing under his breastbone roared to life and dosed him with enough adrenaline to fuel a rocket. Dominic had only intended to threaten her in
whatever way necessary to get at the truth. No more. With blood-soaked hands, he reached for his swords. The steel slipped free of the scabbards, flashing in the starlight as he pivoted around to see her hurtle up the ladder—or rather, to see the thing she had become.

  The change was nothing short of demonic. Not only were her eyes pure black, but her face had collapsed in on itself, all the soft flesh melted away, leaving only the stark white shape of her skull festooned with a pair of brutal fangs.

  She was death incarnate, and she was coming for him, reaching for him with bony claws.

  The swords whistled through the air. Dominic slashed her twice, lightning fast. Once from the right, cutting through her shoulder. Again from the left, sliding through her waist. The three pieces of her body flew apart, each following its own trajectory, gushing with stolen blood.

  She never made a sound.

  Dazed, Dominic stared at the carnage. It was more than the unthinkable gore that affected him. More than having destroyed a potential source for answers to his predicament. Something had changed—in him. He felt hollow and light. Empty.

  In the house, the lovers had reached their climax. Their quieting hearts stroked his soul.

  No human must ever know of us.

  The directive galvanized him. Operating as though on autopilot, Dominic collected Silence’s pieces and piled them into the dinghy. With a hose, he quickly sprayed the blood off the dock, then motored back to Apokryphos.

  Kambyses waited for him on the platform. He said nothing until Dominic shut off the outboard and the empty-eyed crewman tied the line. “So it is to be you then.”

  Dominic scrambled aboard. He stepped close enough to force the shorter man to look up at him. “You knew,” Dominic hissed between clenched teeth. “You knew what would happen if I challenged her. Don’t deny it.”

  The slightest of smiles appeared on Kambyses’s mouth. “Leave her at the bow. The sun will take care of the rest.” Then he…vanished.

  Gone.

  Melted into the wind without a trace.

  Dominic blinked. “What…wait! I’m not done with you!”