by Tessa Dawn
Valentine had been headed toward the Dark Moon Lodge on the night of his disappearance; that much, Salvatore had discerned. But shortly after that, the energy field had become static, as if someone had intentionally caused a rift in the quantum waves. In fact, the entire thing reeked of the presence of another sorcerer; well, in the case of the Lighter Vampires, the male would be viewed as a wizard...
No matter. Their time would come.
Salvatore glanced back at his brother and sat up on the bed. He folded his hands in front of him. If Zarek only knew...
“Draco—the dragon?” he drawled.
“Yes, brother. Not only do they have the two, original females now, but the warrior Marquis will soon be permanently immortal.”
Salvatore waved his hand in dismissal. “No more immortal than Valentine was—”
“Is!” Zarek corrected.
Salvatore shook his head. Zarek was having a really hard time accepting that his twin was not coming back, and it was beginning to border on delusional.
“Was...or...is,” Salvatore said, “you and I both know that immortality is the natural order for a vampire...unless that order is severely interfered with. Trust me, brother; I intend to run interference with Marquis Silivasi. As far as I’m concerned, he is the one responsible for Valentine’s dea—disappearance—and I have no intention of letting it go.”
Zarek glared at Salvatore, his own rage building. His dark eyes narrowed into two tiny red slits of hatred. He undoubtedly knew what Salvatore was about to say, and for a minute, it looked like he was going to challenge the older vampire. Luckily, he thought better of it.
Just the same, seeing Zarek so worked up was extremely unsettling.
Salvatore sighed. While the vast majority of vampire twins were fraternal, every now and then, two identical sons were born—and such was the case with Zarek and Valentine. They both had identical black eyes and the same wavy hair; their straight noses were sculpted in the exact same shape; and even the way their thick lips turned up in a snarl when they smiled was the same. But that was just it, unlike Zarek, Valentine had rarely smiled. Unless, of course, he had been hurting someone, plotting to hurt someone, or celebrating the fact that he had just succeeded in hurting someone. Seeing Zarek with such a cold, empty look in his eyes only made the loss of Valentine more real to the ancient vampire. It was like looking into the face of his lost brother.
Salvatore looked away. “Regardless...believe me when I tell you, Zarek; I am intimately aware of what is happening with Marquis Silivasi.” He absently stroked the hard leather cover of an ancient tome lying on the top of his bed, and a wicked laugh rumbled in his throat. “Is that all you came to tell me?”
Zarek frowned. “No, brother—I also sensed your hunger: Do you need to feed?”
The question was asked without emotion or intent—just a simple yes or no inquiry.
Salvatore threw back his head and shook out his long black-and-red banded hair, the signature crown of a Dark One. While cut in different styles and lengths—some wavy, some straight—all of the sons of Jaegar had it. His fangs began to throb, and his gut ached. Ah, Zarek had been diligent after all, just as a youngest sibling should. Indeed, he was extremely hungry; he had just been too wrapped up in Valentine...and Derrian...to notice.
“Your sense of duty pleases me, little brother. Come.” He motioned his hand forward.
Zarek’s gait was proud and unafraid as he sauntered over to his eldest brother, his shoulders back, his head held high—whatever differences they had, unimportant.
Although all vampires needed to feed every five to eight weeks, unlike the sons of Jadon, the Dark Ones preferred to kill their human prey, innocent or not. And the tendency to always give into blood-lust had created serious problems with the humans over the centuries: Wherever they chose to hunt, dead bodies were left in their wake like carnage behind a plague of locusts, often riling up humans into hunting parties. Eventually, the house of Jaegar had found a suitable remedy:
The youngest male of every family would join with his brethren to hunt together in packs—sometimes traveling hundreds of miles away to find new prey—and then they would return to the colony and feed their elder brothers and fathers. Not only did it keep the body count down, but it taught the youth how to fight...and how to submit to the natural hierarchy of the Vampyr world.
Over time, it had become a significant rite of passage: Upon a male’s twenty-first birthday, the Dark One would hunt alone for the first time ever, consuming as much blood as he possibly could, and then he would return to feed all of his brothers, including his father. Although none was allowed to drain the male dry in blood lust, each feeder was required to take his full measure—the normal amount he would consume if feeding alone. If the male had not hunted enough, killed enough, or fed enough, he would come close to death in the process and be shunned by his brothers, who would be forced to save him. However, if the male fed them all—without weakening or flinching—he was officially inducted into the house of Jaegar.
As the second born of the last set of twins, Zarek Nistor had been feeding both Valentine and Salvatore for the past eight-hundred, seventy-nine years, so the process was as routine as sleeping or walking.
Zarek stopped just short of touching his brother, chest-to-chest, their eyes locked in an inevitable gaze of predator and prey, neither one blinking or turning away. Satisfied, Salvatore nodded, and Zarek spun around, presenting his back to his respected elder while kneeling down on one knee.
Salvatore crouched down slowly, his hands going to each of Zarek’s shoulders. His dagger-like fangs elongated to their full length, and a slow, sultry hiss escaped his lips. With a gentle hand, he brushed Zarek’s hair out of the way and tilted his head to the side until it sat at an angle he liked. The moment he released him, Zarek held the position, his muscles completely relaxed—his heart-rate never increasing.
And then Salvatore struck. The bite was clean and hard, inflicting the kind of pain that would honor a warrior. Zarek’s muscular body began to convulse for about fifteen seconds as Salvatore took his first deep pulls of the rich, heady substance, and then he went limp, falling back against Salvatore’s chest.
Salvatore’s hands remained on Zarek’s shoulders, yet for some reason, the act was unusually pleasurable this time: perhaps because Salvatore needed so desperately to feel the presence of his one remaining brother so close—and safe—in such a dangerous time. Whatever the reason, a deep moan of ecstasy escaped his lips, and his hands tightened on Zarek’s shoulders.
Salvatore felt Zarek’s body instantly stiffen, and he knew it wasn’t just his chest, arms, and legs that were turning hard in response to his deep groans of pleasure: No matter how one turned it, feeding was a highly erotic act for a vampire—as was the pleasure of being struck by a piercing set of fangs—and arousal was a natural, physiological response.
Sexual orientation had absolutely nothing to do with it.
However aroused a vampire became during the process of feeding, the males in the house of Jaegar never acted on their sexual impulses with each other. While it wasn’t unheard of for one or the other to climax during the ritual—sometimes both, and sometimes more than once—the release was understood. And accepted. And never, ever mentioned.
Because of the Blood Curse, the innate need for a male to reproduce with a female in order to provide the required blood sacrifice—to live and remain immortal—heterosexuality was deeply ingrained in the Vampyr DNA. The drive to reproduce was overwhelming and irresistible. Yet over time, feeding had become an altogether different erotic need. It was the pinnacle of uninhibited ecstasy, sexual or otherwise, the one time when males were allowed to simply let their bodies fully enjoy the exchange of blood.
Salvatore held back his release, although it was difficult: The blood Zarek had recently consumed was especially sweet, and it lit him up like a fire burning from the inside out. Reluctantly, he released the seal he had made over his baby brother’s vein and slowly re
moved his fangs.
The moment Zarek stirred, Salvatore knew precisely where he was going next: to the Chamber of Cobras. To the one place where he could take pleasure in as many venomous bites as he desired, invite as many strikes to his body as he craved.
Release his pent-up sex in private.
Or maybe not.
As Zarek rose from the floor, sporting the same proud gait in his retreat, the male turned directly toward Derrian’s crib—and his new nanny.
Susan.
Oh, shit! Salvatore swore to himself. Now that was an inexcusable oversight.
Salvatore rubbed his eyes. His grief over Valentine was worse than he thought: He was missing things he would have never missed before. Females didn’t stay alive very long around the sons of Jaegar, not unless they were sired vamps who had willingly relinquished their souls for the promise of immortality. And even then, the moment they became pregnant, the relationship was over. Well, technically, forty-eight hours after they became pregnant, but why split hairs?
Thinking he could feed from Zarek in the presence of a female and still keep her alive afterward was...well, unworthy of an ancient. Salvatore shook his head in frustration, but he made no attempt to stop his younger brother. It wasn’t worth the battle. Rather, he simply sat down on the bed and prepared to watch. No doubt, Zarek’s performance would be better than the movie of the week.
The sexed-up vampire stalked toward the human female like an African lion approaching a zebra. He snatched her up from the bench by the waiste and threw her face-first into the stone wall, securing her there with a callous forearm across her back.
The nanny wailed a blood-curdling scream and turned her head toward the bed, her eyes desperately pleading with Salvatore—for what, he had no idea. If anything, her terror only aroused Zarek more—which meant, at this point, trying to remove the female from Zarek’s grasp would be like trying to wrench a piece of meat out of the mouth of a pit bull. Not something an intelligent being did.
As she begged and pleaded—reminded Zarek of his nephew’s need for a nanny—the vampire ripped her tattered clothes from her body in one harsh movement and shredded them to pieces with his talons, watching as they curiously drifted to the ground like snow.
The female was practically hyperventilating.
Damn, could that girl scream or what?
And struggle.
Oh, bad move!
In desperation, the nanny tried to head-butt Zarek, cracking the tip of his nose with the base of her skull. Salvatore winced before laughing.
Zarek growled in anger...and ecstasy...at the female’s unexpected assault, and then he fisted her hair, jerked her neck back, and sank his fangs so deep into her jugular that Salvatore heard his fangs scrape against her bones.
Salvatore grimaced as an unnatural howl of pain echoed through the lair, and the female’s body began to convulse, making her a rather difficult target to nail. With a guttural snarl, Zarek wrenched her hips away from the wall, kicked her jerking legs apart, and speared her so hard with his shaft that the air left her body.
And then he groaned...as his eyes rolled back in his head.
Salvatore was positively enthralled, watching Zarek ride the nanny with such brutal force and primal desperation, drowning out her pain-filled cries with his own raspy groans of pleasure, turning her heart-wrenching pleas into metrical grunts, and clamping down even harder on her neck as he pounded her body against the wall with violent thrusts.
Salvatore had to give credit where credit was due.
Zarek had quite the rhythm.
His powerful, muscular physique was truly something to behold as it drove in and out of the female, going deeper and deeper with each plunge. And considering all of the grief they had been dealing with lately, Zarek certainly deserved the distraction.
Salvatore lay back on the bed, turning away from the side-show long enough to consider the blood war Valentine had started with the Silivasis. He had barely begun to replay the events when he heard a hoarse shout, and the floor shook beneath him. When he looked up, Zarek was moaning against the female’s neck and—damn it all to Hades—releasing every bit of the powerful orgasm into the worthless nanny’s body.
For the love of the Dark Lords.
“You really want kids right now, my brother?” he barked across the room.
Zarek rested his head on Susan’s back, panting, while holding her up with one arm. He slowly withdrew from her body. “What?” he groaned. He was clearly still feeling the effects of the orgasm.
Salvatore cleared his throat. “A son? Now? Is that what you want?”
Zarek met his brother’s gaze, and his body shook one last time. “Not really.” He moaned and closed his eyes. “Although I have to admit, it would be nice to be safe from the Blood Curse once and for all.” He slowly exhaled, and when he opened his eyes again, they were glossed over.
Salvatore shrugged his shoulders. The Blood Curse was hardly something to worry about, not for the sons of Jaegar, anyway. For the sons of Jadon? Yes. They had to find—and keep—one woman over an entire lifetime, and the mating had to be accomplished in a single moon, or they were doomed. But the sons of Jaegar could use any female to reproduce, and it didn’t matter one lick whether or not she wanted what was about to happen to her. Time was of no consequence. As long as an immediate sacrifice was made from the male’s first set of twins, it was acceptable. For the Dark Ones, fulfilling the demands of the Blood Curse was as easy as counting to three.
As if Zarek had read his mind, he grunted, “You’re right. It is enough that we have Derrian to take care of right now.” He glanced toward his nephew’s crib. “It’s important that we give him the same attention Valentine”—he swallowed hard—“would have given him.”
With that said, Zarek turned to Susan, kissed her thoroughly on the mouth, then placed one hand on top of her head, the other on her chin, and twisted in opposite directions. There was a quick snap before her lifeless body slumped to the ground. As he zipped up his pants, he sighed. “You know, brother, I think I love that kid like he’s my own.”
Salvatore smiled. “As do I, Zarek.” He frowned then. “However, I am sorry for your grief. I do know how hard this is, but I give you my word: Even if it takes an eternity, Valentine will be avenged.”
Zarek nodded. “Be well, my brother.”
Salvatore watched as Zarek sauntered out the door.
All in all, he was such a good kid.
“Be well, Zarek.”
seven
Nachari pulled his vintage Calypso Coral 1970 Ford Mustang—which was in mint condition—into the parking lot of Kagen’s clinic and slowly turned off the roaring engine. Ciopori had absolutely no idea what all those words meant, but Nachari had mentioned them several times on the way to the clinic. Apparently, he liked to collect the Ford Mustang automobiles and was extremely passionate about all the special features of the machines as well. Especially the mint condition.
“Stay put,” he said, exiting the driver’s side door.
Ciopori cocked her eyebrows. “Pardon me?”
Nachari smiled then—that breathtaking smile he undoubtedly used to charm females of the human race into letting him feed. “Sorry. Please, don’t go anywhere. Remember, you agreed—I have to clear it with Marquis first.”
Ciopori took a deep breath and nodded. Her chest felt like the weight of the entire world was sitting upon it. She had given the wizard her word, and she never broke it. “I will wait, but you must convey how desperately I need to see him.”
“Of course.” Nachari held up the keys and pointed to the dark panel he called a dashboard. “Would you like the radio?”
“The what?”
Nachari shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll be right back.”
Marquis stood in the back of treatment room number three, watching as Kagen meticulously attended to Kristina’s wounds. His mind was still in a fog when he heard a gentle knock on the door.
“What is it?” Kagen s
ounded irritated. “I’ve told the staff a dozen times not to interrupt me when I’m with a patient.”
The door slowly opened, and Nachari stuck his head around the corner.
“Brother,” Kagen greeted, his concentration remaining on Kristina.
“Greetings, Kagen,” Nachari responded, and then he turned to Marquis. “May I have a word with you?”
Marquis blinked several times as if coming out of a trance and snorted. “We’re busy right now, Nachari.” He had no intention of answering his baby brother’s inquiries about what had happened.
Nachari immediately switched to telepathic communication: I realize that, Marquis, but there’s someone with me who desperately needs to see you.
Marquis eyed the doorway. Who?
She’s in the car, Nachari explained.
She?
Yes…Princess Ciopori. She insisted, Marquis, and frankly, if you don’t agree to see her, I think she might just have the nerve to walk right into this room—even with Kristina sitting right over there. Nachari glanced at Kristina for the first time, and her responding blush revealed more than a little appreciation for the wizard’s beauty.
Marquis looked back and forth between the two. Unlike Ciopori, Kristina didn’t have the grace to hide her reaction: She saw a stunning male, and she looked momentarily stunned. How many times had she seen Nachari before? Hundreds?
Marquis cleared his throat, and Nachari lowered his eyes respectfully. “Greetings, sister,” he said, as was proper in addressing one’s brother’s destiny.
Kristina blanched and quickly looked away, not bothering to respond.
She’s taking this well, I see, Nachari commented.
Kagen looked up at him then. Why don’t you bring the princess around back to the patio, just outside of my office; my door is unlocked, so Marquis can meet her there. He looked up at Marquis. Take as long as you need; I’ll make sure Kristina doesn’t go anywhere.