Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles)

by Krystle Jones

  At first, I didn’t feel anything other than completely ridiculous. Then it started as an itch, an inkling of movement I thought at first was my imagination. But when it didn’t go away, I knew it was something more. It settled deep in my gut like a built-in GPS.

  He was here. He just wasn’t on this level.

  “Stay here,” I whispered to Leo, starting to break away.

  He caught me by the hand. “Where are you going?”

  I paused. What could I tell him? That I had a “feeling” Orion was upstairs?

  “I, er, have to go to the bathroom.”

  Leo’s brows lifted. “Oh. You, er, want me to come with you?”

  “To the bathroom?”

  He flushed. “I mean, do you want me to be your wingman?”

  I shoved him playfully. “Easy there, Mr. Debonshire. This lady can handle herself. I’ll be right back.”

  In hindsight, it probably would have been best if he had come with me, but that would have drawn too much attention if both of us had left. I started to turn when Ivan said, “… by studying the DNA of the first vampire.”

  I froze, spinning on my heel. Everyone began talking amongst themselves, sounding excited, scared, and unsure of this new development.

  I stood there, thinking. What had he just said? I swore, silently chastising myself for not paying closer attention.

  “Did you catch any of that?” I asked, grabbing Leo’s arm.

  He shook his head. “No. All I caught was that last part. Someone was too busy flirting with me.”

  I blushed, about to deny I was flirting, or at least not intentionally. “You started it,” I mumbled instead, not wanting to hurt his feelings and feel like a jerk.

  He chuckled.

  Ivan held up his hands, politely waiting for everyone to quiet down. My mother would have promptly silenced them with one of her sub-zero stares.

  “Thanks to our extensive research, and the projects funded so generously by Sovereign McAllister’s team –” Ivan continued.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “– we have done enough testing to…”

  His voice died away as I glanced upstairs. It sounded like his speech was nearing an end, and I needed to move while everyone was distracted. “Keep an eye on him,” I said to Leo. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Be careful,” he said.

  I smirked. “Don’t worry. I don’t think the toilet’s going to suddenly grow fangs and try to eat me.”

  He gave one of his “you know what I mean” looks, and I turned and maneuvered through the crowd.

  After discreetly exiting the ballroom, I found myself alone in the foyer. Where were all the guards? My mother never threw one of these functions without ample security.

  I passed the refreshment table, staring at it longingly, but it had been pretty picked over. Even the punch bowl – which contained strawberry or fruit punch at one time, judging from the red tint – had been practically licked clean.

  Seeing crumbs brought on a stomach growl, and I refocused my attention on the grand staircase looming before me.

  Glancing around, I lifted up the hem of the dress and climbed, being extra careful how I stepped so I wouldn’t roll my ankle in the four-inch heels.

  There wasn’t a single soul on the second level. Everything was dark, with only a handful of red candles lighting the way here and there. Every now and then, my mother liked to employ mood lighting. What she found elegant was spooky as hell to me, but I didn’t let the creepy lighting – or lack thereof – scare me off as I quietly tiptoed down each hall, searching rooms.

  Every room was empty. For some reason, that made my heart beat faster.

  The air shifted behind me, like someone had just been standing there, and I whirled around. No one was there.

  Creeped out, I sucked it up and kept going. I froze in the hall, my ears straining on something high-pitched and repetitive, like someone was rocking back and forth. That was definitely the sound of a leather chair squeaking.

  Ready for a fight, I braced myself and gently pushed open the door to my mother’s study.

  The desk light was on, like someone had been in there recently. It didn’t surprise me much; my mother practically lived in her study. What she went over I had no idea, and I really didn’t care. Her work life was as much a mystery to me as her personal life, if she even had one.

  Stepping farther into the room, I looked around. It appeared the same as it always did; shelves of books lined the walls, and a large cherry desk sat before the bay window. A leather chair sat behind it, still turning as if someone had just moved.

  “Well, well, well. Aren’t we looking gorgeous this evening?”

  Sucking in a tight breath, I hiked up the dress and reached for the knife strapped to my thigh.

  CHAPTER 24

  Pain erupted along my hand as I slammed into a bookcase, gritting my teeth against the feeling of the shelves grinding into my spine. He had me pinned, with my wrist firmly in his grasp, twisting. Against my will, my fingers loosened up and the knife fell to the floor.

  The soft yellow glow of the desk lamp illuminated Orion’s handsome features. “Hey, Sis. Long time, no see.”

  “Take your sarcasm and shove it up –”

  His grip tightened around my wrist, twisting it to the point of hyperextending my arm. I hissed in pain, glaring at him with a locked jaw.

  “You always were stubborn,” Orion murmured. “Then again, so was I. We get that from both our parents, I think. No wonder their relationship ended in divorce.”

  “It ended in divorce because Mom became a selfish, cruel woman,” I spat. “Don’t you dare drag Dad’s name through the mud with hers.”

  Anger flared over his face. “Our mother was only trying to do what was best for us. For all of us.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes. Of course he would take her side. He had always been closer to her than I had. I was “daddy’s little girl.”

  “Mom only thought about herself,” I said. “There was no ‘us.’”

  “And who does that sound like?” he asked wistfully.

  I pressed my lips together. There was no way I was anything like my mom.

  Orion glanced down, thinking something through. After a few seconds, he kicked my knife out of the way. It skidded across the floor and went under a bookcase.

  “Promise to play nice?” he said.

  “Define ‘nice’?” I said coldly.

  He chuckled. “As in, don’t take my head off if I let you go?”

  “Now why would I want to do that?” I asked sweetly.

  He gave me a rueful stare before dropping his hand. I immediately flexed my wrist; it was starting to bruise from where he’d gripped me so hard.

  My gaze wandered over to the bookcase. There was no way I could cross the room and fish for it without Orion stopping me. When he’d pinned me to the shelf, I never saw him coming. The vampire blood he’d drank back at the lab must have strengthened his vampiric abilities.

  He had also let me go.

  That struck me as odd. Then I thought about all the other times we’d butted heads. He had let me go every single time.

  “Why did you let me go?” I asked suddenly.

  Orion’s face never betrayed what he was thinking or feeling. He always had a good poker face. “Because it suited me at the moment.”

  I studied his eyes. They always were the only true clue I had into his inner workings. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hide the haunted longing buried deep within.

  “No,” I murmured, stepping closer. “There’s something else. You’ve had plenty of chances to kill me, and yet you didn’t. Why?”

  For a precious split second, I saw a look of such breathtaking loneliness of his face that I was almost leveled. Then he shrugged and masked his expression with cool indifference.

  “You didn’t seem like much of a threat,” he said. “If I recall, I bested you every time.”

  I decided to cut the pleasantries
and get to the nitty-gritty. “Why are you here?”

  He casually walked around the side of the desk and plopped down into Mom’s leather chair, propping his feet up on her desk. Mud flaked off from the bottom of his boots, settling in a pile on the desk’s polished cherry surface. Mom would have a fit.

  “I came to see Ivan,” he said simply.

  I blinked. “You mean the scientist?”

  “You know another Ivan?”

  I blushed. “Why?”

  His eyes sparkled, like he was in on a secret no one else knew. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “I would, actually,” I said, stalking forward and stopping in front of the desk. “Tell me, or I’ll –”

  “Or you’ll what?” he said, cutting me off and over-enunciating each word. “Nag me to death?”

  Oh, believe me, I’ll do a lot more than nag.

  “Answer the question, Orion,” I said tiredly.

  His gaze never wavered. He pointed to my chest, where the Mark was partially covered by a ton of powder. “Wouldn’t you like to know our history? Where we come from, how we got this way?”

  My spine straightened. He must have seen the hungry look in my eyes, because he smiled and said, “Ivan could tell us all that.” He leaned forward, his dark eyes sparkling. “He knows, Sloane. He knows where to find our ancestor, the great vampire king.”

  I held his gaze. “How could he possibly still be alive? He’d have to be over two thousand years old.”

  Orion shrugged. “He was the first. Maybe longevity is in his blood.”

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t relax around my brother. He wasn’t really my twin anymore; he was something else, some dark, twisted creature I could no longer relate to.

  And he was the reason Leo was a vampire.

  Anger licked my insides. “What do you plan on doing once you find him?” I said sharply.

  “Unlock the key to immortality,” he said grandly, spreading his hands apart.

  The room spun. So that’s what Orion was after. He didn’t care for learning about our heritage. All that mattered to him was figuring out how to sustain his own life.

  “Imagine all I could do with a few extra centuries,” he said, his eyes growing far-off.

  I tensed. “No one should live forever.” Especially not you.

  “Why not?” Orion said, a challenge in his tone. “It’s our birthright.”

  “It’s our curse!” I screamed. “It’s not natural!”

  Orion’s eyes flashed red, his lip rolling up in a snarl as he lunged for me. I managed to bring my hand up in time to block his grip, but the force of his attack still knocked me to the floor. I tried bucking him off, but he was too heavy.

  “You’re too pure to realize the gift that’s right in front of you,” Orion spat, burying his elbow deep in my throat. I choked for air, making to clock him in the jaw with my free hand, but he saw and blocked it, holding my wrist to the floor beside my head. “You’re smarter than this, Sloane.”

  I tried to rasp out a response, but I couldn’t breathe. I blinked; stars were beginning to shoot across my vision.

  “Orion, leave her alone.”

  Orion’s arm let up and I gasped and coughed. My gaze snapped to the door.

  My mother spared me an apathetic glance before crossing the room. “Barbarism doesn’t suit you, Son. You must have manners if you are to stand by my side.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Orion hastily scrambled to his feet. He clasped his hands in front of him, bowing his head in shame.

  I blinked. What the hell just happened?

  When she saw the dirt on her desk, my mother’s nose wrinkled. “Apparently, we’ll also have to discuss proper behavior when indoors. Those savages have made you improper.”

  My gaze swiveled to hers. “You knew he was here?” I thought over her last phrase, paling. “You know what he is,” I whispered.

  “Of course,” she replied simply, sitting in the chair and gracefully crossing her legs. “We share the same blood, after all.”

  Maybe it was from lack of oxygen. Or maybe it was from my mounting shock at fully realizing what my mother’s statement meant. But for whatever reason, the room spun on its axis. “It was never Dad who carried the strain.” I looked up, catching her gaze, my mouth open in disbelief. “It was you.”

  Suddenly, the room’s décor made sense: all the medals, her accomplishments on the battlefield. My mother’s military history with the Marines had been impressive. She was always the fastest, the strongest. I should have suspected something sooner, but I’d always chalked it up to her ruthlessness and refusal to be second best.

  A cold smile graced her ruby lips. Next to her pale blonde hair and white skin, the red in her gown looked even more vivid. “It took a while before I realized why I was special. Doctors couldn’t figure out my genetic anomaly until the Rogues came. When I heard word of a man roaming the outer edges who looked like my late son, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was like me.” She gazed at Orion adoringly. “But he had become so much more than I could have hoped for.”

  I ignored the sting of her favor. “So you’re not a full vampire.”

  “Can’t you tell?” she said, arching a brow. “I’m told your kind can sense one another.”

  “As a matter of fact, we can,” I said, hardening my gaze. “I made a rather interesting discovery about your coveted Scarlet Guard.”

  Her smile turned cunning. “They are the perfect soldiers. Obedient. Loyal. Ruthless.”

  “They’re mercenaries,” I hissed. “How long have you known there were humanoid vampires?”

  She shrugged, as if this were inconsequential. “Ever since I learned of the first king and the powers he imparted in our bloodline. That’s when I saw the possibilities: a vampire army. The ultimate super-weapon. Tracking them down, however, was another matter.” She examined a cuticle, seeming bored with the topic. “You can imagine my immense relief when my scientists uncovered how vampires are made. It was then just a matter of creating them ourselves.”

  My stomach turned, and I staggered back from the weight of my shock. “You turned innocent people against their will?”

  “I’d hardly call them innocent,” she said coldly. “They were thieves, rapists, the scum of the justice system. The world wouldn’t miss them. I simply repurposed them.”

  “Repurposed,” I said, deadpanned. “Like a used piece of machinery that won’t work anymore.”

  I couldn’t believe this. I had thought my mother was unstoppable, but this bordered insanity.

  There was something else nagging at my mind. “How long have you known I was a vampire?”

  My mother eyed me shrewdly. “I suspected something was off at your last visit,” she said carefully. “But I did not know for certain what it was until recently.” Her eyes flicked upward for a split second, darting to something behind me.

  I glanced at Orion. “You told her.”

  “She deserved to know,” he said, folding his arms as if daring me to question his decision. “She would have figured it out soon enough once she captured you.”

  “And now that we’re all here,” Sovereign McAllister said pleasantly, standing, “I think it’s time we got down to some family business.”

  I stared at her. I wanted to tell her that we hadn’t been a family in a long time, but I decided it was probably best to keep my mouth shut for once. Frowning, I watched her pace the room. I needed to get back downstairs. Leo would know something was up if I didn’t return soon.

  My gaze flicked to Orion and I silently growled. I couldn’t leave before obtaining a sample of his blood.

  “By the way, darling,” Mother said, turning her back to me and putting her full attention on Orion, “you’ll be delighted to know the experiment was a grand success.”

  “Wait,” I said. “What experiment?”

  She turned back around, clearly annoyed. No one interrupted Sovereign McAllister. “If you must know right this second…” she said
. “I was merely informing him that our retest on the genetic weapon has at last succeeded.”

  “A weapon? What do you…?” I thought back to Dr. Rinaldi, how he’d told us he’d been unknowingly working on a biological weapon that could make humans vampires without going through the traditional method of draining the victim and feeding them vampire blood. My eyes widened. “You can’t be serious. All those people…” That explained why there were only humans downstairs.

  They were guinea pigs.

  “How did you do it?” I demanded.

  Her smile turned cunning, like she was proud of herself. “It’s simple – everyone liked the punch.”

  “You spiked the punch with a disease?”

  “It was the quickest way to test our second batch of the strain,” she said. “And I’d say from the excitement downstairs, it was a whirlwind success.”

  I listened harder, like really listened. I’d been so caught up in my dysfunctional family get-together that I hadn’t paid attention to my surroundings.

  I blushed, feeling stupid. Tuning out everything else, I picked up on agonized moaning, faint at first but growing stronger as I listened.

  My eyes flared. “How dare you! What gives you the right to play God?”

  “I earned that right!” she shouted, stepping closer. I didn’t back down. I glared at her, wishing I could incinerate her with my stare. “I earned it the day I learned I was more than just a poor, weak female with no hope of a bright future because I couldn’t afford to make my dreams happen!”

  “So this is about power,” I said. “Of course it would be. It’s you.”

  “Not just about power,” she said, shaking her head. “No, it was never fully about power. Don’t you see, Sloane? We could create a world where we wouldn’t be shunned. A world where humans are the outcasts, and vampires reign supreme.”

  My jaw dropped. “And you and Orion would be their rulers.”

  She tried to hide the guilt in her eyes. Too late. “Well, something like that.” Her eyes darkened; I swore they flashed red for a split second. “I was thinking more along the lines of a queen.”

  Before either of us knew what was happening, she whipped out a gun from the top of her dress and shot Orion in the chest, straight in the heart.