by J. L. Myers
“Trust me,” Ty said.
“I’m pack beta.” Troy’s expression was challenging, as if it held a promise…or a threat. “Second in command and sworn to protect my alpha.”
Yeah, but not me.
~
Minutes later I’d redressed in black and was heading out front to Ty and Troy. I tugged on my zip-up hoodie, ready to feel the wind in my hair. “Let’s go.”
Ty followed me to the garage while Troy fired up his motorbike. It was a mean, beefy piece of machinery that matched his jacked body. But my concerns about him were forfeited, replaced by so much more.
Since moving to Rye my life had been turned upside down. The distinct changes had been irrevocable in so many ways. But, would I change any of it if I had the power? To be a normal girl who wasn’t in love with a werewolf? No. I knew the answer without a shadow of a doubt. I would never exist without Ty. The danger and fear for my life was nothing compared to the thought of living without him.
With a deep sigh, I pushed the button on my keys and the garage doors curled up from the ground. A controlled smile spread over my lips. Standing in the shadows waited my Ducati. What little light there was caught on the chrome and purple panels, making them glisten. I swung my leg over the seat and fired up the engine.
Ty stood back, gaze shifting over the soul mates insignia. “How about I drive?”
Since being back from the cruise, I’d taken and aced my driving test. But that wasn’t the point. Knowing his reluctance had nothing to do with my ability, I decided to lighten the mood. “Don’t you trust my driving?” I quipped over the noise of the engine. “Or, does being a passenger with a female driver affect your tough, manly facade?”
Ty stepped forward to swing his leg over the back of the bike. “I’m tough whether you take the reins or not. I’m just not used to handing them over. But for you? I’ll make an exception.”
I smiled and pulled my biker glasses from the front pocket of my jacket, perching them on my nose. “Ready?”
Ty placed his hands on my hips in answer. I let the clutch out and pulled back on the throttle. The bike’s wheels spun, screeching over concrete and out into the night. Troy pulled in behind us as we sped through the front gates, keeping one pace behind. The thin icy wind whipped across my face as we sped past the beach and adjacent mansions. It was exhilarating to move at this speed, as fast I could run. Still, it was distinctly different. Yes, I loved the feel of my tight muscles lengthening and retracting when I sprinted to any destination. But the feel of controlling this powerful machine beneath me—the grunt of the exhaust and maneuvering ability—was entirely foreign and thrilling.
As we cornered a sharp bend around the scenic park, I eased up on the throttle, veering off the unlit road and into a small parking lot. We ditched the bikes, concealing them behind a cluster of thick bushes, and continued on foot. The idea was to spy and find out what we could, not draw attention with the loud rumbling of our bikes.
We trekked through the thick trees before emerging on the other side of a large green field. Keeping to the bordering shadows, we crept closer. The council building appeared over the rolling hill.
When we reached the spiked fence surrounding the council grounds, Ty caught my arm. “Wait.” He pointed to the square, brick columns that joined each spiked panel. “They’re warded.”
On each column was a symbol carved into the brick. It was an almost full moon that had been split in half on an angle. “What does it mean?” I whispered.
“It’s alchemy,” Troy said, glaring. “Any entering wolves will set off an alarm.”
You’re not going in alone. Kendrick’s voice lifted in my mind at the same time Ty said the words out loud.
“Besides, me being part vampire means I won’t trip their alarm. It’s doesn’t react to hybrids.” Ty nodded at Troy. “As for him, he’ll need your blood. It’ll temporarily mask the properties of his own blood.”
“Like that’s going to happen,” Troy spat. Fire scorched his neck and face and his irises rippled gold. “Assisting your leech is bad enough. But taking her poison blood? No way.”
“My blood?” I shivered, feeling cold. Kendrick’s voice in my mind strung out curses and argument, and I agreed with them all. Neither of us trusted Troy. On top of that, the last time an enemy had drunk my blood they’d tried to kill me. I cringed, remembering all the times Caius had drawn back my hair and bitten into me. Then I shook it off, getting back to the issue. Troy hated all vampires. If his canines even poked out a little, his bite could kill me. “Ty, I don’t think…”
Ty skewered Troy with a hard look. The tip of his canines peeked through his parted lips. “You will do as I order. Unless you want me to make Marika my second.”
Troy’s face turned to stone, chin jutting out. A second later his head dipped in the slightest move of agreement.
Ty took my hand, exposing my wrist. “I know you don’t trust Troy. You have every reason not to. But he won’t,” he glared back a Troy, “try anything. If I even see a glint of canines—”
“I’m not fucking stupid,” Troy grated. “If I’m going to challenge you as alpha, it won’t be outside a house of vampires.”
With that apparently everything was settled. Still, it didn’t ease my trepidation for what was about to happen. I gulped as I ran a quick nail across my wrist. Then I held it out with closed eyes. There was a grunt, and then warm hands took hold of my arm. A hot, open mouth pressed against my flesh and I flinched, feeling long pulls as Troy drank my blood. In less than a minute it was over. I stepped away feeling dirty all over. Ty tried to catch my hand, but I sidestepped to the fence. “Let’s go.”
We all cleared the barrier and shot to the building’s outer edge. Surrounding its base was a six-foot wide gravel path. Peering up I trekked over the stones, managing not to make a sound with my Vans. The pitched cathedral windows on the second floor were so high above the ground from where we stood.
I turned to Ty and Troy. “You two stay watch here. I’m going up.”
Ty nodded, while Troy looked indignant at a vampire ordering him around. Still he complied, turning opposite to Ty and facing outward from where I stood. Without wasting a second I crouched to the ground, fingers pried on the stones below. Every muscle in my body snapped tight before I sprung, my legs extending with a powerful push. My arms simultaneously swung overhead, with my fingers outstretched to grip the window ledge’s thin border. I swung up, pulling my body onto the poor excuse for a ledge, and positioned my back against the window frame.
The room below was bright. Enormous wrought iron chandeliers with thick white candles hung from the cathedral ceiling, lighting the huge hall. Banisters ran around the second level. All of which were vacant at the moment. On the floor, people clustered around a huge marble table. Some of their faces were strained, others anxious, and others determined. The discussion going on was definitely a heated one.
Without wanting to I caught sight of Caius. He sat on a throne of carved wood and red velvet, regal and important. My heart belted against my ribs and nerves churned my stomach. Forcing my lungs to breathe normally, I popped the latch and edged the heavy glass pane open an inch. A small creak rung out and I shrunk back against the frame. When there was no break in the bickering below, I dared to peek. Silent relief escaped my lips. No one had heard. My ears pricked, listening to the unbroken, heated words.
“You cannot believe they have not returned,” came an accusing voice from one end of the table.
The woman, who also sat in a throne, jabbed her index finger into the marble while staring across at Caius. The sight surprised me. I had never seen anyone talk to him like that in my life. Her porcelain-white complexion was red with frustration. It was almost the shade of her braided, fiery hair. I’d seen this woman before. Once in the dining hall at the Armaya with Caius and Marcus’s father Vladimir. But I’d seen her before that, too. She was the vampire from the auction who’d bid against Caius for the jewelry box.
; “And you, Uriel, my inexperienced young colleague, can?” Caius countered.
That was Uriel Aswind. The owner of the diary I’d discovered back at the Armaya which mentioned the damned. She was one of the reigning royals. That fact aside, it was obvious in Caius’s tone and words that he held no respect for her in the slightest. He would never consider her to be his equal.
Uriel pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest. “Then how do you explain the murders?”
“Well,” Caius began, “they have hardly been in proximity to one another. The attacks have occurred throughout the globe. And I doubt the damned, if they still existed, would possess the restraint to execute such atrocities.”
“So you discount Lord Marcus Vladimir’s report from Anchorage?” Uriel slammed her palms down on the table. “The ash remains left after one of our own was taken out?”
“Of course he doesn’t,” Serafina spoke up from her own throne. “That ash could have come from many other sources.” Her pale hand covered Caius’s.
The move spiked anger within me, not just mine but Kendrick’s too. He was keeping close tabs on me and my spy mission, and paying little attention to Marika and Vanessa, or any possible lurking intruders. Seeing his mother’s obvious trust in Caius had hate radiating through him. He had been used through Caius’s strong compulsion, but we didn’t know if that’s what was happening here. Serafina may be a genuine ally to this traitor without knowing what he was up to.
“But the damned are extinct,” Serafina added. “We made certain of that during The Blood Years.”
“Without the assistance of the traitorous guardians, I might add,” a middle-aged man in a charcoal suit voiced. “So far we have very few leads as to who has orchestrated these crimes. Although we do know a few things. Extended royals seem to be the main victims.”
“Yes,” my mom agreed. “And a majority of those victims were taken through full consumption.”
Uriel eyed Caius. “So we’re going to keep pretending that they can’t come back. By heaven, we have become arrogant over the years, haven’t we? We have come to believe that we alone are superior, invincible, and infallible. That we are without serious mortal threat.”
“Uriel,” Caius warned, glaring as he steepled his hands. “This is not the place.”
Uriel rose to her full willowy height. “So apart from the few reigning royals, the rest of our kind should be left blind? No. That may be the old ways, but not anymore.” Uriel glanced to all the faces around the table. With an inkling from Kendrick, I knew most were extended family to royals in power. My mom was one of the few exceptions. “Most of our race believes our only threat are the wolves. Yet there are much worse foes to have. Now this threat comes hunting for us all, and we’re vulnerable.” She grated over the word as though it enraged her. “Vampires vulnerable? I never thought I’d see the day.”
Another council member spoke up, an old graying woman. “I presume this ‘rant’ has a point?” She leaned back into her seat.
Uriel pinned the old woman with a firm stare. “My fellow members of the Royal Council would have this stay between us seven, but I think the time for silence has passed—too many are dying. Extinct or not. It doesn’t matter. Through full consumption a vampire is changed, cursed. The damned can be created.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
On that startling revelation a marrow-freezing shiver flooded my bones. I blinked, the light from the chandelier candles burning my retinas. My face felt like it was in flames as my blood rushed with my spiking heart rate.
Still blinking, now frantically, my sight blurred. Blackness sprouted in from my peripheral vision, eating away the light until there was nothing.
I lost my grip on the window ledge and fell.
A sudden shift blinked into reality, cutting off my scream before it could escape.
I was crouched atop a sprawling staircase that descended into the foyer of a grand manor. To the left was a ballroom filled with exquisitely dressed people, dancing and drinking champagne delivered by tuxedo-clad waiters.
My hands and arms were child sized, wrapped tight around the thick banister, as if trying to hold me back. I got the sense that I wanted to be down there, but knew I wasn’t allowed. Which was strange. Because I’d never seen this manor with its carved ornate wood, wide domed windows, or any of the people inside the ballroom.
Chimes rang out over the gentle waltzing music, and a waiter went to answer the carved wooden front door. Just as he got there an elderly man intercepted him, dismissing the waiter with a waved hand. The waiter bowed, stepping back until he coalesced with the shadows on the opposite side of the foyer.
I took little notice, focusing on the old man. His hunched stance, thinning white hair, and height were familiar. I’d seen him before. Marcus’s father, Lord Vladimir.
As the old man swung open the thick door, he clapped his hands together. The man on the other side was tall and lean, wearing raggedy jeans over shit kickers and a clingy T-shirt. From the top of the stairs his upper chest and face were cut off from view.
“Welcome, my—”
The old Lord’s greeting stalled as everything turned black. The atrium lighting, foyer lamps, and ballroom chandelier had suddenly extinguished. An eerie moment of heart-stopping silence followed.
Then a woman’s shriek permeated the air and all hell broke loose.
Bodies filed in through the front door and swarmed the ballroom, red eyes filling the shadowed space. Shouts and cries erupted with the sound of glass and ceramic shattering, and wooden furniture splintering.
A window shattered as a woman tried to escape, only to be dragged back into the frenzy. Her scream died with a gurgle as a red-eyed figure tore into her with gleaming fangs. The other screaming men and women began to fall too, silenced in death.
Frozen in terror at the top of the stairs, the child’s eyes I saw from shifted. They were blurry with tears, her body shaking at the screams of sleeping children being woken and slaughtered down the hall behind her.
The man from outside now had Lord Vladimir pinned to the door, his forearm a crowbar against the old man’s neck. His back faced the stairs. “End of your shelf life, old man.”
The man’s forearm released and he ripped out the Lord’s neck with his teeth. The body dropped like a bag of stones, cold and dead. Glossy liquid pooled out of him over the polished wooden floor.
A shriek escaped the girl, the first noise she’d made.
In a flash of movement the man had her by the throat.
Through tearing eyes, she couldn’t see his face clearly. But she didn’t need to. She knew exactly who held her in a death grip. I felt her recognition as if it were my own, only I couldn’t place the blurry outline of his face or his cruel voice.
“Why?” she mouthed too late, her vision fracturing as her vertebrae were crushed.
~
A red-tinted black haze stole my sight. I was blind. A scream tried to tear from my mouth. But it never escaped my lips.
My throat was choked closed. The man still had me in his grasp. Hands crushing my throat in iron-clenched fingers before fangs bit into my flesh.
Somehow I managed to fight back, nails tearing flesh.
Someone shouted my name. The voice was rattled as hell. And so far away. Too far to see. Too far to touch.
My lids flung open, pain striking as I blinked. Still I couldn’t see a thing. There was only terrifying darkness.
Fear struck through my body. “Let me go!” I screamed, squeezing my eyelids shut. Panic exploded in my chest. My arms thrashed out in front of me, but something caught my wrists.
“It’s okay,” a familiar voice soothed. It seemed closer now. “Just breathe.”
But I wasn’t listening. I could hear the erratic beating of two hearts coursing with blood. Blood I needed bad enough to kill for.
Amelia, no! The desperate cry was smothered as the walls in my mind slammed into place.
I threw off the hot hands holding m
e and sprung. My body found its target, a built mass that I knocked to the ground. Gravel scraped my knees, cutting flesh, but I didn’t care. With fangs unsheathed and dripping saliva, my jaw snapped. The smell was so good I couldn’t stop.
Broad hands tried to hold me back. Still my hunger wouldn’t give in. Just one more inch—
A force hit me like a train, barreling me off my prey. I landed on my back, skin grazing gravel and tearing my top. Pressure sat on my chest like a bolder. Calloused hands claimed my wrists, pinning them above my head. Another set caught my flailing legs.
I screamed and fought, fangs aching while my jaw snapped for flesh.
“Take her out,” a hard-breathing voice demanded. There was a slice of unsheathed metal. “Or I will.”
“Try it and I will kill you myself.” The responding voice was low, but the promise edging his words were clear. One hand released my wrists, leaving the other to keep me pinned. Gentle fingers touched my hissing face, stroking back my hair. “It’s me. It’s Ty.”
Over the pull of hot blood, I registered only that someone was trying to keep me from what I needed. What I would kill to get. I fought harder, my whole body convulsing and unable to think past the bloodlust. Nothing in this moment mattered more than what I could take.
A sudden release had me off my back, my arms and legs trapping a warm body. My fangs clumsily found their mark. I sucked greedily, reveling in the rich, potent taste of blood.
“You idiot,” a male snarled. “Now you give me no choice. I won’t let her kill you out of stupidity.”
As boots crunched closer over gravel, another voice spoke. “Stand down and wait.” Heat flared at the back of my head as a hand cupped my skull. “I love you, Amelia. I trust you. With my blood. With my life.” The stroking continued, smoothing my hair down my back over and over. “I know you’ll stop. I believe in you.”