by Debra Dunbar
“Acushl— Brea—”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
He winced, swayed as if he would fall back another step. Then he recovered and straightened his spine. The solid line of his jaw set, the smooth pale skin a perfect ivory in the moon’s silver light. A perfect canvas for the streaks of her blood trailing down his chin. “Don’t bring the gatestone here. Bring it to the copse of trees on the northernmost end of the island. There’s a small inlet near a heavy forest. I’ll be waiting there.”
She glared at him, swallowing back everything she wanted to say. Everything she’d bottled up for seven years, since the night she’d awoken to find a witch leaning over her, telling her she would live, would survive the vampire’s attack. It wasn’t fair. This island was the sunniest place on earth, the last place he should have been. She’d left her home to get away from him, traveled as far as she could get. He shouldn’t have been here.
A tropical breeze drew her attention inland to the buildings beyond the harbor. The land still held the pulsing warmth of the sun, and the colorful buildings teemed with life, laughter. People who didn’t know they were food for vampires, kept alive and hypnotized into ignorance only because the vampires knew their food resources were limited, and to kill them would mean their own destruction.
It was a blissful place for humans even as it was hell for vampires. This was Paradise. The vampire prison, the place where the undead sent their own when their crimes were too heinous to allow them to live in “polite” vampire society.
Perhaps she was the fool. Thinking she could escape Cain by fleeing to this sun-soaked piece of rock. This pit of vampire refuse.
In retrospect, this was exactly where he belonged.
Chapter 2
Go. Go, leave now. Go. Walk, damn it.
The voice in Cain’s head bellowed orders, the warning in the words crystal clear. He should do what it commanded. He needed to leave now, go to the northern coast of the island so he was ready for Brea when she returned. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t walk away. Not while he could still see her, still watch her boarding her ship. No doubt making her way to the magic chest where she kept her own seal skin.
“Brea.” He whispered her name into the night, the letters teasing his tongue with a familiarity that made his heart ache. In all his wildest dreams, he’d never imagined this was how he would escape. With her help.
Before his imprisonment, he’d searched for her, tried to find her so he could explain. To try and persuade her to give him another chance. The pirate captain who’d stolen his heart had turned out to be as slippery as her seal form. Never had he dared to believe he would see her again—standing in the harbor of his own personal hell, no less.
And you bit her. Again.
Self-loathing threatened to swallow him, but a movement in the trees caught his attention. Pale skin, red-flecked eyes. A vampire.
Without thinking, Cain launched himself in the direction of the spy. Adrenaline sharpened his senses, urging him forward with preternatural speed. The world narrowed to the shadow weaving through the trees, the faint hush of movement that no human would have heard. All other thoughts bled from his mind, leaving only the hunt. Only his prey and the shrinking distance between them.
The vampire seemed to realize the futility of trying to escape. At the next clearing, he stopped and whirled to stand in a defensive pose. His hand fell to his side, and Cain came to a sharp halt, alert for any sign of a weapon. They stood not more than ten feet apart, each silently assessing the other.
The vampire was dressed like a pirate. Felt black tri-cornered hat, white linen shirt, and a dark coat that looked like a deep shade of plum. Gold rings glittered on his fingers, projecting a sense of wealth. His polished boots were smudged with mud after his dash through the trees. He assessed Cain as if he’d been the pursuer instead of the pursued, looked at him as though he were a mere annoyance—and a temporary one at that. Despite his stance, Cain saw no sword at his side, no sign of a weapon.
“Do you want me to kill you?” Cain asked. His voice was low, almost a hum. Already the well of darkness inside him was stirring, the part of him that yearned for violence waking even though he still wore the drying blood of his earlier victim.
The vampire quirked a brown eyebrow. “Do you always begin conversations with that offer?”
“I find that most vampires who seek me out do so for one of two reasons. Either they want me to end the suffering they experience on this island, or they want to kill me.” He caressed the trigger of the contraption that would release the blade on his arm from its hidden sheath. “Either way, this conversation will end the same way.”
The other vampire turned, revealing a weapon in his hand. It looked like a crossbow, only much smaller, loaded with a bolt no more than two inches long.
Cain shook his head slowly. “That won’t kill me.”
“No, it won’t,” the other vampire agreed. “It will do much worse. This dart is tipped with a rather unique poison I brew myself from one of the plants native to this cursed island. Once in your bloodstream, the effect will be rather like poison ivy on the skin of humans—only it will be inside you. You will itch from the inside out, a burning, maddening sensation that will last no less than forty-eight hours.” He smiled, but didn’t flash any fang. “You may wish to use your blade on yourself just to end it.”
Ignoring the threat and the accompanying images, Cain jutted his chin at the other undead. “Why were you spying on me?”
His opponent eased his stance, but kept his crossbow pointed at Cain. He brushed his other hand down his shirt, smoothing the linen and letting the moonlight catch the gold rings on his fingers. “I did not intend to spy. I was merely looking for dinner. I was considering the young lady—Brea, I believe you called her?—until you arrived.”
Cain shifted his weight under a rush of sudden fury, readying himself to charge, poisoned dart be damned. “The ship will be arriving on the east end of the island any moment now,” he pointed out, trying to distract his opponent for the crucial second he needed. “A boatload of wealthy men and women ready for their tropical holiday. The hotel will be full, and, of course, there will be the masquerade ball. Plenty of fresh food. No need to search the harbor for a meal.”
The vampire curled his lip in disdain. “Fish in a barrel. It’s demeaning.” Real anger flared in his eyes. “They imprison us on this cursed piece of land and then they add insult by forcing us to feed on whatever simpering idiots with more money than good sense they can convince to come on this ‘tropical holiday.’ And we are supposed to put on our best behavior, prance about for the warden like good children, and for what? The chance to request our choice of food? To be introduced to our food as if we were equals, so we might do business with them, charm them out of a bit of gold?” He snorted. “Gold. What good is it here but to leave us haggling with moral-less pirates?”
Cain shifted to the right, but the crossbow followed him. He wondered how strong the poison was, how long he could fight it off. He couldn’t afford to be debilitated, not tonight. “Feeding off the pirates is nearly as dangerous as feeding off the natives. It is difficult to tell how recently they were fed on. And you know what the punishment is for killing one of them—even accidentally.”
The vampire dropped his gaze to the blood spatter on Cain’s chest. “Yes. Much less than the punishment for killing one of our own.” Before Cain could respond, he continued, “I admire you, Cain. You are the closest thing to a real vampire there is on this island. You hunt your food, and you kill without conscience, without thought.” He paused. “Which is why it came as such a surprise to hear you speak to that pirate with such tenderness.”
Poison be damned. Cain leapt.
The vampire spun out of the way, but didn’t fire his crossbow. “I can tell you how to bed her without hurting her.”
Cain froze mid-spin, the blade sagging as his arm dipped. He stared at the vampire, hope warring with the urge to kill him, to end his
afterlife before he could interfere in his plan. “What did you say?”
“It was not difficult to deduce what happened.” The vampire shrugged. “Arousal from both of you, fear from her, guilt from you. You are not the first vampire to lose control of his bloodlust in the bedroom. I assume you were recently turned when the…unfortunate event occurred?”
The casual way he said it made the blade heavier in Cain’s hand, made the urge to thrust it into the vampire’s falsely sympathetic face nearly unbearable. He resisted the compulsion—barely—and managed a small nod.
“I thought so.” The other vampire straightened, gaining confidence. “You are going to escape this island. When you do, I want you to seek out my brother. Tell him the location of this island. You do not have to help me escape. You do not have to do any more than deliver the message. Your oath you will do this, and you will have nothing to fear from me. And I will tell you what you need to know to avoid repeating the mistake you made with your young lady.”
An image of Brea roared into Cain’s mind. He saw her lying on his bed, her pale skin glowing gold in the candlelight, her lips stained scarlet from the strawberries she’d eaten. Her brown hair fanned out against the stark white of his sheets, dragging back and forth as she thrashed her head from side to side, eyes closed and berry-flavored lips parted as he ran his mouth over the soft skin of her belly and lower…
“How?” He pressed his lips together, but it was too late to take it back.
The vampire smiled. “Your oath?”
“I will deliver the message.”
“Excellent. My name is Nikolaos, and my brother is Theodoros. You will find him in the kingdom of Meropis, near the palace. He will not be difficult to find.”
“I understand. Now tell me how to protect her,” Cain snarled.
Nikolaos bowed his head. “You control your bloodlust in bed with a woman the same way you control it under any other circumstances—you don’t allow your hunger to grow bigger than you are.”
“That’s it?” Cain gritted his teeth in frustration, the brief spark of hope sputtering out. “Eat first, that’s your advice?”
“I am not finished,” Nikolaos said patiently. “If you care for her and you take her to your bed, then you will feel a drive to possess her, to claim her in every way you can. For a vampire, that means a bite. Trying to resist biting her will be an exercise in futility. All you can do is sate your hunger for blood before you take her to bed. You’ll still bite her, but it will be a claiming, not a feeding.”
Cain hung on every word despite the doubt eating him alive from the inside, the blade in his hand nearly forgotten. He desperately wanted to believe the other man’s advice, wanted to believe it could be that simple. But something about Nikolaos’ expression was bothering him. “You don’t look convinced.”
The vampire paused as if turning something over in his mind. “You are a violent man,” he said finally. “I don’t know where your penchant for violence comes from. I don’t know why you do it. If you enjoy violence, then it’s possible that…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but Cain heard the accusation anyway. Fury filled him, fast and sure, and he scarcely managed to get the words past his clenched teeth. “I would never hurt her willingly. I would die first.”
But he had hurt her, hadn’t he? Immediately his mind went to earlier that night, and he replayed their reunion in his mind. Coming from his latest kill, heading for the sea to wash away the blood spatter itching on his chest. Brea crossing the dock, striding for her ship, Misfortune. There’d been no rational thought, no plan. Just a burning need to go to her, catch her before she sailed out of his afterlife again.
How had he expected her to react, seeing him coming at her like a bloody cannonball?
The healing flesh near his heart ached, and he rubbed at it absent-mindedly. No hesitation in her there. She’d plunged that dagger straight in, and he wondered if she’d missed his heart on purpose. Instinct had taken him over, he’d bitten her even as the voice in his head screamed at him to stop, to die like a decent man for once. But he hadn’t, he’d—
“If I might make an observation?”
Cain looked at Nikolaos, but it was a moment before he saw him, before he could tear his mind’s eye away from the memory of Brea’s face when she’d seen him. The fear that had preceded her dagger’s brutal thrust.
“If the torment I see on your face is any indication, then I don’t believe you have a desire to hurt this woman.” He met Cain’s eyes. “If you love her and you desire to be absolutely safe, there are always physical restraints. Drink first, drink deeply. Fill your belly. Then make yourself as vulnerable to her as she is inherently to you.”
Cain nodded, licking his lips as he thought ahead. Too late, he remembered Brea’s blood still coated his mouth. The taste of her electrified him, sent a jolt through his system that dragged his gaze back toward her ship. He’d already taken a step toward it when he recovered himself, pulled back from the hunger, the desire, the need to have her again.
When he turned back, Nikolaos was gone. Cursing himself for his distraction, Cain ran. How long had he stood there talking to Nikolaos? Was Brea already at the shore waiting for him?
Stop and feed.
The voice was strong, insistent. He hadn’t eaten yet tonight, had satisfied his need for a kill before letting his mind turn to food. And vampires could not feed off other vampires. He swallowed back the hunger. First he would check the shore, make certain Brea was not already there. Then he would feed.
You’ll be sorry.
He gritted his teeth. I will never hurt her again. Full stomach or no.
The island was not very large, and no one knew it better than Cain. He slept in a different place every day, always conscious of the fact that many on the island would like to make certain he never rose come sundown. Soon he was standing at the northern shore, eyes locked on the water, searching for some sign of Brea in the dark waves tipped with frothing white.
“You move very quickly for a man who is not paying attention. Such a hurry to get to the water. Not very smart. The tide itches and the sun comes so quickly…”
The voice had a meandering tone, as if the speaker found it difficult to concentrate on his own words. Cain knew the voice well, and he cursed. Why, of all nights, did it seem like every vampire on the island would seek him out now? Now, when she was here? When he might finally escape. With her.
Slowly, he turned to face the warden. He didn’t bother to hide his bloodied clothes. The warden would smell the blood. A blank stare wouldn’t do him any good either, since he was not known on this island for his…restraint. No, if he wanted to avoid suspicion, all he could do was act naturally. For him.
“Standing so close to a vampire banished for killing other vampires doesn’t seem so smart either.”
The warden stepped closer, leaving the tree line just enough for the moonlight to reveal his sun-scarred face. Cain couldn’t help but trace the deep grooves carved into the warden’s flesh. It took a lot of sun exposure to scar a vampire beyond the point of healing. It was no wonder his mind suffered. Black hair stuck out at wild angles, and dark brown eyes shone with reflected moonlight as the man took another step, then another. He looked into Cain’s eyes, and there was a wildness to his gaze that almost made Cain take a step back.
“Kill me, then.”
Cain held his ground. “Have you figured out a way for me to kill you that won’t bring about the destruction of every living and undead thing on this island? Convinced the overseers to discontinue their monthly check-in with the selkies? Come up with a plan to avoid the yearly visit from your vampire superior?” He shook his head slowly, firmly. “I won’t be the reason this entire island is burned to the sea.”
The warden’s head dropped. “You know I would not try to kill you,” he said, half to himself. “Your sentence is banishment, not death. I can’t kill you. I can’t make you kill me in self-defense.” His eyes grew bright, with pain or m
adness or both. “Can’t kill myself. Binding holds fast. Should have killed the witch…”
Not for the first time, Cain wondered what the warden had done to earn his position in hell. None of the island’s residents knew. It was the greatest mystery, but it would go unsolved. The warden was the only one who knew, and he wasn’t talking. Not about that, anyway.
The crazed vampire glanced at Cain’s chest. “Killed another one. Have to add that to the list.” He frowned. “Subtract one from the list. I won’t kill you for that. No punishment. Population control. Not a lot of food on the island, good to keep numbers down. Makes for a scary story to tell bad little vampires. The vampire assassin on the hellish island.” He squinted. “Don’t suppose you got his name?”
“No. His body is in a tree a mile or so from the harbor.”
“A tree,” the warden mumbled. “I don’t like climbing trees.”
Suddenly the warden was right in front of him, those too-bright eyes boring into his from mere inches away. Cain jerked back, baring his fangs on instinct. The warden was insane, but old. Very old. He moved fast when he wanted to. Cain tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade, but didn’t dare strike out. The consequences would be severe—not for him, but for everyone else on this island. People who did not deserve to die would be burned alive. He couldn’t live with that.
“I will be punished if you escape. I will not let you escape. No escape.” The warden’s head lolled to the side, eyes flicking back and forth. A line appeared between his eyebrows and he stepped back, looking around as if confused by where he found himself. “The water’s edge makes me ill. Why doesn’t it make you ill? You’re always by the water…”
Cain stared as the warden wandered away, melting back into the forest without waiting for an answer. A chill crept up his spine, spiraling down his nerves. The man was unhinged. Cain had to get off this island now.