The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  “Zorah!” Rans shouted.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE INVISIBLE WAVE hit Legolas, who staggered back a single step before straightening. His green eyes dilated until the black of his pupils threatened to swallow his irises, a look of unrestrained hunger twisting his too-handsome face. A fresh wash of fear slid over me, but a moment later, I felt the true results of my panic-fueled handiwork.

  Sexual energy began to flow out of the Fae’s body, and into mine. I bared my teeth, feeling my own hunger rise.

  “Zorah, stop,” Rans said in a low tone.

  But I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to drain this creature in front of me until he was nothing but an empty husk. I wanted to see this Fae on his knees, begging me to stop... or begging me not to stop. I wanted—

  The connection between us snapped with a sharp burst of agony on my end, cutting off the flow of raw power. Fury hardened the Fae’s features into cold marble, and he closed the distance between us, lifting a hand toward my throat.

  It was glowing.

  Movement caught my peripheral vision. An instant later, white vapor swirled in front of me, solidifying into a human form in the space between one ragged breath and the next. Rans knocked the Fae’s hand away, sparks flying between them like an electrical line shorting out.

  “Fucking... enough, already. Both of you,” Rans growled. “Jesus Christ, Alby. I don’t exactly have the patience of a saint today.”

  My mouth worked, no words coming out at first.

  “What. The hell. Is going on?” I managed, my voice an unpleasant, raucous squeak.

  “What is she?” Legolas hissed.

  “Trouble, mostly,” Rans said in a flat tone. “Specifically, trouble that you don’t lay a fucking hand on, unless you want to lose that hand.”

  He and the Fae were squared off, while I was still more-or-less cowering behind Rans’ back. I shoved my way out from behind him, noticing distantly that he was now once again his normal self, rather than a plain-faced, slightly pudgy blonde guy.

  “I’m assuming,” Rans began, “that because you weakened the warding spell you used to bind me, it means I don’t actually need to start ripping your wings off, Tinkerbell. But it would be good if you started talking. This cell reeks of security and silencing charms, so I assume it’s safe to have a proper chat now.

  “Answer the question, bloodsucker,” Legolas snarled. “What is she?”

  “She is standing right here!” I pointed out, and received a narrow green glare in response.

  “Zorah is the offspring of a human and a cambion,” Rans said.

  “Impossible,” the Fae spat.

  “That’s what I said,” Rans agreed. “But you felt it, just now.”

  I cleared my throat, about done with being talked about in the third person. “Which brings us back to the very relevant question—what the hell just happened?”

  The Fae frowned at me. “You don’t know?”

  “Would I be asking you if I did?” I exploded.

  “You panicked and started sucking energy from our host,” Rans said patiently. “Which, of course, you should in no way be able to do. Especially against someone with magic as powerful as his.”

  I mulled that over, seeing how the idea fit with what I’d just experienced. It fit... pretty well, actually. Legolas was still scowling at me, the look not sitting well on his pretty-boy features.

  Great. So, magic was real, the guy I’d slept with twice now could disappear and reappear at will, and apparently I could suck sex energy out of horny faeries if I was freaked out enough. This week really couldn’t get any better.

  “I’d apologize,” I began slowly, “if I weren’t currently handcuffed in an interrogation cell in your basement.”

  “Hand over the key, mate—for fuck’s sake,” Rans ordered, holding a hand out palm up. “Then maybe we can start over from the beginning.”

  After a long look, the Fae pulled a key out of his pocket and passed it over. I blinked, trying to rearrange things in my still panic-fuzzed mind to accommodate this new twist. Rans eased me around and a moment later, the handcuffs clicked open. I rubbed my wrists, my eyes caught anew by my pale skin and short fingers.

  I looked up at the Fae mistrustfully.

  Rans sighed. “Zorah Elaine Bright, this is Albigard of the Unseelie Court. Alby, Zorah. And may I just add that both of you are currently serious pains in my lily-white arse.”

  Albigard and I remained silent, still watching each other warily.

  “Give me strength,” Rans muttered, barely audible.

  “Am I to understand,” Albigard began, “That this demonkin has no control over her powers?”

  “I’m still standing right here, Tinkerbell!” I snapped.

  His face darkened, but he smoothed the expression an instant later. “My apologies, demonkin. You don’t have control of your powers?”

  I swallowed, just now realizing that by pressing the point, it meant I’d have to deal with this Fae directly. I thought I caught a twitch of Rans’ lips, and silently vowed bitter retribution on him if he was in any way amused by this situation.

  “I didn’t realize I had any ‘powers’ until just now,” I said cautiously.

  Green eyes held mine for a long beat before Albigard gave a small nod, as if to himself. “Then I extend forgiveness for your violation of my person. Endeavor not to repeat it, or I may grow to be less forgiving.”

  A smart-ass remark was on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it back upon realizing that I’d apparently just sexually assaulted a faerie so I could feed from him. “I honestly didn’t intend to do it,” I said instead. “Now, if we could just address the part where we’re still locked in a cell in your creepy dungeon-basement, everything’ll be peachy.”

  I felt jittery... almost itchy, like I’d taken a hit of bad drugs. If this was my brain on faerie animus, I was never straying from vampire juice again. My eyes flicked sideways to Rans, and I looked away quickly.

  “Seriously, Alby,” Rans was saying, “there’d better be a good excuse for this farce. When I suggested meeting at the airport, I didn’t expect us to be joined by a full squad of Chicago’s boys in blue.”

  Albigard exhaled sharply and took a step away, running a hand through his fine, straight hair. The movement drained some of the tension from the atmosphere, as well.

  “Something big is going on in this city,” the Fae said. “Big, and secretive.”

  He waved a careless hand at me, and tingles rushed along my skin. When I looked down, my appearance had returned to normal.

  “And whatever this big, secretive thing is, it’s tied up with the human man I told you about?” Rans pressed.

  “Apparently,” Albigard said, sounding suddenly tired. “Of course, once the higher-ups realize you’re tied up in it somehow, they’ll be after you in force—assuming they aren’t after you already. You’ll be safe here for a bit, but I had to glamour you to make you seem like random prisoners. The human law enforcement officers I used at the airport don’t know enough to be a problem, but only one of the two guards here is trustworthy.”

  Rans nodded. “I figured it was something like that. Though a bit of warning wouldn’t have gone amiss, you know.”

  Albigard waved the words away as though they were a mere annoyance. “There may well have been listening charms attached to the automobile. You’re here; no one is aware of your presence for the moment. I fail to see the issue.”

  “And my father?” I asked, ready to move past the bullshit even if Albigard’s proximity did still make me want to crawl out of my skin.

  The Fae’s lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. “I will take you both to the residence that Darryl Bright is listed as owning, though we should not linger there.”

  “Wait,” I said. “How are we going to sneak past your guards and get out of the house? I thought you didn’t want anyone knowing we were here.”

  Albigard gave me a look that implied I was mentally deficient. “I will
transport you there magically, of course. Though I suppose I should still refresh your glamours, first.”

  I stared at him. “I have no idea what that means. But if it gets me to Dad’s condo, then let’s stop standing around and fucking do it.”

  “You heard the lady,” Rans said, in the tone of someone who was about ready to be done with the day’s bullshit. I could sympathize.

  Albigard summoned his glowy magic again, and moments later Rans and I were once again disguised. Presumably, this was the glamour he’d mentioned. I twisted my newly pale hand back and forth, fascinated.

  My attention was wrenched away when the Fae described a large oval shape with a smooth movement of his hand. A blazing gateway formed in thin air, tall and wide enough for a person to slip through.

  I gaped at the hole in reality. “Oh, my god. You can make portals? I had a friend in high school who freaking loved that game.”

  “Come,” Albigard said, ignoring my words even though irritation practically rolled off of him in waves.

  I couldn’t help casting a glance at Rans, trying to telegraph ‘Is this safe?’ without actually having to say it aloud. I had a sneaking suspicion that doing anything else to piss off the portalmaster right now would be ill advised.

  “It’s fine, luv,” Rans said, taking my oddly unfamiliar hand in his.

  He led me into the gap in the air. I squeezed my eyes shut as I stepped through, a wave of disorientation passing over me. When I opened my eyes, I was... someplace else. Someplace that should have been familiar, except that a tornado had torn through the familiarity.

  Albigard stepped through after us, and the portal shrank to a point before disappearing completely. I looked around the room, a sinking feeling taking root in my stomach.

  “Is this the place?” Rans asked.

  “Yes,” I whispered, not wanting it to be true.

  My father’s home had been torn apart—furnishings upended and broken, personal belongings shattered and torn to pieces. It wasn’t immediately obvious to my untrained eye whether the wholesale destruction was the result of a struggle, or whether it was the result of a thorough—and callous—search for something hidden.

  Either way, it was clear from the unnatural stillness of the place that my father wasn’t here.

  In eight years, I’d only been here five times... maybe six. Each visit had been tense and uncomfortable, punctuated by low-pitched arguments and hurtful comments. I walked forward in a daze, my eyes trying to reassemble the broken objects around me into a picture of normalcy. My gaze caught on a corner of colorful cloth, faded from its original vibrancy by the passage of time. I leaned down to grab it, tugging it out from behind the overturned table where it had been largely hidden.

  Shaking, I clutched the torn quilt—a crazy patchwork of pink, blue, and lavender that had always decorated my parents’ bed when I was a child. My knees went wobbly, and I sank to the ground.

  My dad was the only family I had left. And now he was gone. Was this destruction my fault? It seemed likely. Why on earth had I ever thought it would be a good idea to call him for help?

  Family members make excellent leverage, Rans had said. And, hey, what do you know? It turned out he was right.

  “I’m going after him,” I said, looking up at the vampire from my pathetic hunched position on the floor. “With or without you, I’m going to find him and get him back.”

  Rans drew breath to speak, but Albigard beat him to it.

  “Until I can figure out a way to better disguise your presence in the city, you’re not going anywhere except back to the basement cell,” the Fae stated, clearly unimpressed by my incipient emotional breakdown.

  “The fuck I am,” I snarled at him, my anger swirling dangerously.

  Rans stepped between us, cutting off my view of Albigard. He crouched in front of me, sitting on his heels, covering my hands with his where they twisted in the fabric of the old quilt.

  He was wearing a calm, rational expression that only pissed me off more. I figured I wasn’t going to like what he said next, and—surprise, surprise—I was right.

  “We have no way of knowing the circumstances of your father’s disappearance, Zorah, and the moment you start poking around and asking the wrong kinds of questions to the wrong kinds of people, the Fae will know you’re here.” His low voice was not without empathy, but I didn’t care.

  I jerked my hands away, not letting go of the quilt. “The Fae already know I’m here!” I snapped, glaring at Albigard.

  “One Fae knows you’re here,” Rans corrected, his tone hardening. “And he’s the one who put himself at risk to bring us to this flat so we could investigate. Now, are you going to do something suicidal in pursuit of your internal script that says you can only rely on yourself? Or are you going to accept help when it’s fucking offered to you?”

  I stared at the vampire who’d done nothing but try to keep me safe, and beyond him, to the Fae who made my skin crawl. I let my gaze wander around the destroyed condo, the fear that my father had been taken against his will warring with the fear that he hadn’t been taken against his will.

  Rans’ observation that only my dad and I had known I was getting a bus ticket in St. Louis pricked at me like a thorn embedded in skin. But either way, I needed answers and I was damned well going to get them.

  “My only goal is to find my father,” I said, meeting Rans’ gaze again. “From this moment, that’s the one thing I care about. As long as it’s your goal, too, we’re good. If I get a hint that it’s not, then we have a serious problem.”

  “Agreed,” Rans said after the barest hesitation, “on the condition that you listen when someone tells you you’re about to do something foolish.”

  I turned my burning gaze to Albigard, who gave me a look that said he didn’t consider any ‘problem’ I might pose to be a serious one. When I continued to glare at him, he looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. I didn’t back down from that look, crawling skin or no, and eventually he gave me a careless nod of agreement.

  “Good,” I said, my eyes falling on a broken picture frame on the floor near me. My mother and father gazed out at me from behind shards of shattered glass, smiling and happy. “So... where do we start?”

  End of Book One

  The Last Vampire: Book Two

  By R. A. Steffan & Jaelynn Woolf

  ONE

  “WHOA. I FEEL REALLY, really drunk all of the sudden.”

  I stared at the blank concrete walls of the cell I was sharing with my unsmiling Fae captor. My unfocused eyes moved to the half-empty cup I was holding, and then to Albigard himself, regarding me from across the room. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my blurry double vision. “Why do I feel drunk all of the sudden?”

  Rans had sent me back to the creepy basement dungeon with Albigard when it became clear there weren’t any useful clues to my father’s disappearance to be found in his ransacked condo. After less than an hour in Albigard’s company, I was already wishing that I’d kicked up more of a fuss about returning here with him alone.

  “You are drunk because you can’t hold your drink, presumably,” the Fae suggested, raising an eyebrow at me.

  Albigard waved a graceful hand, and the cup disappeared from my grip, leaving my fingers grasping nothing. I stared at them stupidly for a moment.

  “What was in that stuff, anyway?” I asked, readjusting my feet until the ground stopped tilting to the left. For some reason, it was becoming hard to get the words to come out right unless I spoke very slowly and clearly. My eyes narrowed. “Rans is gonna be pished... I mean, pissed... if you slipped me a faerie roofie when he wasn’t looking.” I cocked my head, thinking about that for a moment before adding, “And I’m gonna be pished, too.”

  “It was mead,” my not-really-a-captor said, “and you’re already pissed, it appears. I gave it to you because you said you were thirsty. Perhaps you could return your focus to what we were discussing before?”

  I pondered that for a few sec
onds, frowning. Perhaps I could... if I could remember what we’d been discussing before. I tried to shake some brain cells loose after what had legitimately been a day from hell. We’d been at my dad’s place, looking through the destruction for any hint as to what had happened to him or where he’d been taken. There weren’t any obvious clues to speak of, which didn’t seem to surprise either Rans or Albigard.

  One thing I was quickly coming to understand about supernatural creatures was that they were a bunch of arrogant, high-handed assholes. The Fae had insisted we leave before our presence drew unwanted attention from anyone else who might be watching the apartment. Rans said something about talking to some people he knew who might be able to help.

  “Take her back to the house,” he’d told Albigard. “I’ll join you there shortly.”

  At which point his body had swirled away into a cloud of vapor, leaving me on my own with a hotter—and much more disturbing—version of Legolas from Lord of the Rings. The Fae had opened the same kind of magical portal he’d used to transport us to my father’s home in the first place, and when I’d stepped through, I was back in the basement cell we’d left earlier.

  Alone.

  With a member of a species that apparently wanted me dead.

  “I’m not having sex with that vampire bastard again until he apologizes for this,” I stated, scowling.

  Albigard stared at me with flat green eyes. “This is the sort of information that I’d really prefer not to have,” he said, “if it’s all the same to you.”

  I stared back, confused, since I hadn’t been talking to him. “Huh?” I asked, only to cut him off as another thought surfaced from the murky depths. “Oh! Right, I remember now. You were saying about the demons...?”

  That was kind of important, wasn’t it? I should try not to forget about it again. Albigard had remained here in the basement under the guise that he was still interrogating Rans and me. I’d been asking him about the treaty between his people and the demons. That was right before I mentioned I was thirsty, and he’d conjured the magical cup of roofie-mead out of thin air for me to drink.