by Kresley Cole
"Live for vengeance?" Kallen said. "Tell me, will that be enough?"
How to answer that question when Malkom's own dreams appeared so ridiculous now?
He'd wanted a home that no one could ever force him to leave. He'd wanted as much food and water as he could ever enjoy. But more than anything, he'd secretly longed to be respected like Kallen—a noble like him—gifted with a blood far better than his own.
Malkom's only fortune was that no one else had ever discovered how much he yearned to be highborn. "Then live for your fated female," he urged Kallen. "She will accept you. She must."
"Is that what you seek, Malkom? Your fated one?"
"I've no such expectations." What use had he for a woman of his own? He'd needed no offspring for a noble line or sons to work the water mines with him.
"No? Then why have you never taken a demoness from the camps?"
Malkom's gaze flicked away. Never had he known a female. Those who followed the army could be had for a price, but Malkom had never used one. No matter how urgent his need, no matter how badly his curiosity burned, he physically couldn't.
They smelled of other males, reminding him of his childhood. Nothing extinguished his lusts like the scent of seed.
So he'd put females from his mind. As a boy, he disciplined himself not to dream about food. He'd applied that same discipline to keep from fantasizing about intercourse.
At length, Malkom answered, "Because war has become everything for me—"
The Viceroy traced into their cell, his eyes lit with pleasure. "Remade in my image," he said. The vampire wasn't shocked the ritual had worked—he was brimming with pride. So how many had they created here? "And this is just the beginning. Do you feel the Thirst? It's sacred to us, as death is." His gaze fell first on Kallen, then on Malkom. "Only the one who kills—or answers the Thirst—will ever leave this cell alive."
Just as Malkom tensed to attack, the Viceroy disappeared.
Once their situation sank in and he'd found his voice, Malkom said, "We will not fight each other." They both knew that when he said fight, he meant drink or kill. "I will not fight my brother." But if anyone was freed, it should be Kallen. He's all that is good.
"Nor I," Kallen vowed.
"We will not," Malkom repeated, wondering if he sought to convince Kallen—or himself.
Three weeks later ...
Malkom weakly stood before the bars, expending precious energy just to remain on his feet, yet unable to lie down as though defeated.
Day after day had passed with no food, water, or— dark gods help them—blood. His thirst intensified hourly, his fangs throbbing until he'd silently wept. He'd caught himself staring at Kallen's neck, the skin there taunting him.
At times, Malkom had flushed to find Kallen's gaze on his own neck.
Never had he hungered like this. Last night, Malkom had waited until Kallen fitfully dozed. Then he'd sunk his aching fangs into his own arm, sucking, disgusted by how rich he'd found the taste. How delicious, how blistering the pleasure...
Endless days passed as their bodies withered but would not die. With no industry to be had, no battles to be fought, Malkom was beset by memories cloying in his mind. For someone who held survival paramount, he'd begun to have doubts. How important was living?
Living means more betrayal.
His first betrayal had been dealt by his own mother. At six years of age, he'd complained of hunger so acute he'd nearly blacked out. She'd railed that he was never satisfied, then sold him to a vampire who would feed him all he wanted if he was an "obedient and affectionate" boy.
His second betrayal? That same vampire had cast him out at fourteen, deeming Malkom too old to stir his lusts.
Back to the gutter, back to hunger. But against all odds, Malkom had grown increasingly strong, until he'd finally been ready to exact revenge on the master. Malkom had always been observant, and he'd noted every protection guarding that vampire's home. He'd found it easy to steal back inside, take out the guards, and murder the master who'd tormented his youth and twisted him as a man.
And it'd felt so good, so glorious, to kill one of their kind, he'd hunted another, and another.
Soon, word of his deeds had reached Kallen's ears. The prince had invited him to his stronghold, then spent months convincing Malkom to join their rebellion, even to lead it.
Eventually Malkom had been acknowledged in the street, asked to dinner by Kallen, paid in riches and fine clothing—merely for risking a life Malkom had cared naught about. For so long, shame had been his companion, but at last he'd dragged himself from the gutter.
He'd known his people didn't love him, but he'd thought he was earning their respect each time he saved their miserable lives.
Weeks ago when he'd noticed a tension among them, he'd chastised himself for reading too much into others' reactions, telling himself he needed to listen to Kallen and stop expecting betrayal at every turn. No matter how many times I have been dealt it.
"And now what is going on in that head of yours, Malkom?" Kallen asked from across the cell, his voice faint. "You've that dangerous look on your face."
"My thoughts are dark."
"As are mine. I fear we near the end."
"There is no end." Malkom faced him. "Not until I decide it."
A sad smile creased Kallen's gaunt face. "Fierce as ever." He rose unsteadily, then limped to stand before Malkom. "For me, I've decided this cannot go on." His eyes flickered black with emotion. "So embrace me, my friend." He wrapped his arms around Malkom.
His own arms hanging by his sides, Malkom peered up at the ceiling in confusion. I've never been embraced like this before. Touching meant using.
Was this giving instead? Am I too scarred to recognize it? Hesitantly, Malkom wrapped his arms around Kallen as well. Not so bad.
When he felt Kallen's lips against his neck, Malkom frowned. Kallen loved females, enjoyed a new demoness nightly. So what was this? You are merely ignorant in the ways of affection—
Kallen's lips parted.
He was going to drink. With the realization, Malkom started to sweat, his eyes darting, the will to survive rising up. But if he was truly steadfast, he'd sacrifice himself for the prince, for the good of the crown. How much had Kallen done for him? He'd taught him how to control his rage, to channel it.
He'd given Malkom purpose. If not noble in blood, then in deed ...
But memories arose within him, sordid scenes with a vampire who'd used him for years. The feedings in the dark ... the way the master's skin would grow warm against his own. ...
No, no! "Do not do this thing, Kallen." Malkom's voice was hoarse. "Do not betray our friendship." Don't betray me.
"I am sorry," he said, his tone defeated. "I do not have a choice."
Kallen is all that is good. Though Malkom had vowed he would never be bitten again, he somehow held himself still as the prince's splayed fingers dug into his back, clutching him even closer.
A final sacrifice for my friend? Can I control my will to live?
Or would the prince's brutal guard dog finally turn on him?
When Malkom's jaw clenched, his every muscle tensing, Kallen rasped, "Steady, Malkom." Then he plunged his fangs into Malkom's neck, giving a wretched groan of pleasure as he sucked. And the sound was so familiar, the shuddering of his body just like the master's.
Kallen's chilled skin began to warm against Malkom's.
Betrayal. Rage erupted, and he roared with it. Cannot control this.
Seizing Kallen by the shoulders, Malkom shoved him back. He looked down at the prince and knew that, for him, this was the end. "Forgive me, brother. ..."
But those who betray me do it only once.
Chapter 2
Immortal Internment Compound
Present day
When Carrow Graie had awakened from her abduction a week ago, she'd had a raging headache, cotton mouth, and a metal collar affixed around her neck.
Things had only gone downhill fro
m there.
Tonight I might be hitting rock bottom, she thought as warden Fegley—a billy club-carrying, no-balled loser—forced her down the corridor of cells to her doom.
"Dead Wicca walking," the centaurs' leader sneered from their cell as Carrow passed. He, like every other Lore creature imprisoned here in the immortal menagerie, suspected she was about to be offed.
"Shut the fuck up, Mr. Ed," she said, earning a harsh yank on her collar from Fegley. Glaring at the mortal, she struggled against her cuffs. "Once I get my powers back, Fugley, I'll curse you to fall in love. With your own bodily functions. If it comes out of your body, your heart will long for it."
"Then I guess I'm lucky you've got this on." He again jerked on the band at her neck—the mortals called it a torque. It mystically nullified her abilities and weakened her physically. Every species here had been hobbled in some way, making them controllable, even by mortals like Fegley. "Besides, witch, what makes you so sure you're going to make it past the next hour?"
If these people execute me, I'm going to be sooo pissed. Unfortunately, that appeared to be in the cards. At the very least, she was about to be tortured or experimented on.
Hell, maybe then she could find out why anyone would have gone to the trouble of abducting her.
Carrow was a rare three-caste witch, but she was by no means the most powerful, not like her best friend Mariketa the Awaited. Though overjoyed that Mari hadn't been taken, Carrow didn't understand why she'd been targeted....
What would Ripley do? When in a jam, Carrow often thought of how Ellen Ripley, the legendary badasstress of the Alien quadrilogy, would figure her way out.
Ripley would analyze the enemy, take stock of her surroundings and resources, use her wits to defeat her foes and escape, then nuke everything in her wake.
Analyze the enemy. From what Carrow had heard from other inmates, this place was run by the Order, a mysterious league of mortal soldiers and scientists led by a magister named Declan Chase, a.k.a. the Blademan, along with his trusty bitch, Dr. Dixon.
Carrow's sorceress cellmate had told her the Order was bent on eradicating all the immortal miscreations, or miscreats.
My surroundings? A diabolically designed prison, with cells made of foot-thick steel on three sides and unbreakable, two-foot-thick glass on the front. Each cell had four bunks, with a toilet and a sink behind a screen—and no real privacy. The Order recorded their every action from ceiling cams.
This incarceration was like nothing she'd ever known—and she'd known more than her share of two hots and a cot. Carrow hadn't enjoyed a single shower or change of clothes. She still wore her club duds: halter top, black leather miniskirt, and thigh-high boots.
Each day inside brought more shitty food and bad lighting.
Along with experiments on immortals, some of whom were her friends.
Resources? Carrow had precisely zero-point-zero resources. Despite the fact that she could usually charm prison guards, these mortal soldiers seemed immune to her. Except for Fegley, who for some reason appeared to resent her deeply, as if they had a history.
Though each of her steps carried her potentially closer to her demise, she observed as much as she could, determined to escape. Yet one reinforced corridor bulkhead after another doused her hopes of breaking out.
The layout was labyrinthine, the halls riddled with cameras and the cells all booked up. Lykae, Valkyrie, and the noble fey—all allies of a sort—were mixed amid the evil Invidia, fallen vampires, and fire demons.
In one cell, contagious ghouls snapped at each other, tearing at their own yellow skin. In another, succubae wasted away from sexual hunger.
The Order had snared more beings than could be named, many of which were notorious and deadly.
Like the brutal werewolf Uilleam MacRieve. The Lykae were among the physically strongest creatures in the Lore, but with that torque on his neck, Uilleam couldn't access the beast within him.
For fun, the warden rapped the glass with his club. Maddened by the captivity, Uilleam charged, hitting the glass headfirst, splitting his scalp to the skull right before her eyes. The surface was unharmed while blood poured down his tense face.
In the next cell stood a huge berserker, a savage warrior male that Carrow had seen around New Orleans. He looked on the verge of going berserk.
Carrow swallowed to see his neighboring inmate—a Fury, with uncanny violet eyes and bared fangs. The Furies were female avengers, embodiments of wrath. And this one was a rare Archfury, raven-winged and lethal.
The Order certainly didn't pull their punches. Some of the beings here were even infamous. Like the vampire Lothaire, the Enemy of Old, with his white-blond hair and eerily sinister hotness. Whenever the guards sedated him and dragged him down the ward, his pale red eyes promised pain to those who'd dared to touch him.
"Step on it, witch," Fegley said. "Or I'll introduce you to Billy."
"I might like him, heard he's wittier than you are." She gritted her teeth when he shoved her again.
Once they'd reached the prison ward's main entrance, another long corridor branched off, this one filled with offices and labs. Without a word, Fegley hauled her into the last room, what looked like a modernist den. No lab? No electrodes or bone saws?
A plain-Jane brunette sat behind an executive desk. She sported an I'm a bitch, so deal look behind unstylish glasses. Must be Dr. Dixon.
Behind her, a towering dark-haired male stood at the window. He gazed out into the turbulent night, revealing only a shadowy profile.
Carrow peered outside to get an idea of their location, but rain pelted the window. According to inmate whispers, this facility was on a giant island, thousands of miles from land in any direction. Natch.
"Free her hands," the tall man said without turning. Though he'd spoken only three words, Carrow recognized Declan Chase's voice—that low, hateful tone with the faintest hint of an Irish accent.
Fegley unlocked her cuffs the same way he'd locked them—with his thumbprint—then he exited through a concealed panel door in a side wall.
Everything in this place, including her torque, was locked with a person's right hand thumb. Which meant Carrow needed to cut off Fegley's. Beauty. Something to look forward to. "I remember you, Blademan," she told Chase. "Yeah, from when you and your men electrocuted me."
Those bastards had posted bail for Carrow's latest disorderly conduct charge—proudly earned!—and then lain in wait outside the Orleans Parish Correctional. As she headed home, they'd blown her down a city block with charge throwers, gagged her, and forced a black bag over her head. "Was the hood supposed to instill dread in me or something?"
'Cause it'd worked.
Without deigning to reply, Chase faced her briefly, yet he didn't look at her, more like through her. His pitch-black hair was straight, longish. Several hanks hung over one side of his face, and she thought she saw scars jagging beneath them. His eyes, at least the one she could see, were gray.
He was dressed in somber hues from head to toe, concealing any exposed skin on his body with the help of his leather gloves and high-collared jacket. By all outward appearances, he seemed cold as ice, even as his aura screamed I'm unbalanced!
This was the man who took Carrow's friend Regin the Radiant out of her cell, time and again, to be tortured. Whenever he hurt Regin, her Valkyrie lightning struck outside and the compound's lights surged from her radiant energy.
He hurt her a lot.
"So, Chase, you get off torturing women?" It made a kind of sick sense that a man so cold would fixate on the normally joyful Regin, with her glowing beauty and lust for life.
Carrow thought she saw his lips curl, as if this statement held particular significance to him. "Women? I only torture one woman at a time."
"And you've decided to go steady with Regin the Radiant for now?" Out of the corner of her eye, Carrow saw Dixon frowning at Chase, as if she suspected some untoward interest as well. Ah, so that was the way of it—Dixon carried a torch
for the Blademan.
Carrow supposed some might consider his features attractive, for a sadistic human, but his half-hidden countenance resembled a pale, deadened mask.
All the best with that, you crazy kids. Tommy-used-to-work-on-the-docks and mazel tov.
Chase merely shrugged, turning back to the window. But the tension in his shoulders was so marked, she wondered how he remained upright.
"You've got stones to nab a Valkyrie, I'll give you that," Carrow said. "But her sisters will come for her. For that matter, you really shouldn't have pissed off the House of Witches. The covens will find your little jail. They'll descend on this place." Though she sounded confident, she'd begun to suspect that the island was cloaked somehow. By now, Mariketa would know she'd been abducted, and if her powerful friend hadn't yet scried her location—or gotten a soothsayer to uncover it—then it couldn't be found.
"Will they, indeed?" His tone was smug, too smug. "Then I'll add to my collection."
"Collection?"
Dixon hastily said, "Magister Chase is only doing what must be done. We all are. Whenever immortals begin to plot, we sentinels rise up, as we have for centuries."
"Plot?"
Dixon nodded. "You're planning to annihilate mankind and take over the earth."
Carrow's lips parted in disbelief. "That's what this is all about? My gods, it's too ridiculous! You wanna know a secret? There's no plan to kill you all, because you're beneath our notice!"
Ugh—fanatical humans! Sometimes she hated them so much.
"We know that a war between us is coming," Dixon insisted. "If your kind isn't contained, you'll destroy us all."
Carrow squinted at her. "I'm warming to the idea. Especially with mortals like you. Don't you get it? Human fanatics are more monster than any of the Lore."
"More than the Libitinae?"
The Libitinae often forced men to self-castrate or die—for fun.
"Or maybe the Neoptera?" Dixon continued.
Insectlike humanoids, the stuff of nightmares. At the mention of the latter, Chase tensed even more, the muscle in his jaw bulging. Interesting.