by Maya DeLeina
“Gentlemen, Vaughn is here with our guest. I believe we should take our places below,” stated Eilian as the three men made their way back into Steffan’s house. They quickly headed to the underground passages of Ambrose Heights.
“So Ryan, you haven’t seen Anya around the house?” Rhys probed further.
“Well, you guys tell me to only use the tunnel systems for now, so I never had the pleasure of meeting her. Why? Did you all meet her? Did Steffan leave me out, not want me to meet her or something?” Ryan asked with a slightly flustered look.
“No, no the family has yet to meet her. Steffan just started his mate quest with her.”
Eilian paused prematurely, deliberating whether or not to reveal Anya’s connection to Ryan without Steffan present. But with Ryan’s reintroduction tomorrow and Steffan’s focus absorbed in Anya, this seemed like as good a time as any to broach the subject.
Ryan shot a suspect glance at Eilian but remained silent.
As they reached the entry of the dining room, Eilian stopped in his tracks and looked at Rhys for reassurance that this was the right time to tell Ryan. Understanding his look, Rhys responded by nodding.
“Okay, what is up?” asked Ryan now in a pronounced agitated voice as he watched the exchange between Rhys and Eilian.
“Steffan wanted to talk to you about your past. But he’ll be with Anya for the rest of the evening, and this seems like a good opportunity to talk since your reintroduction is tomorrow. Let’s have a seat. Vaughn and our guests can wait for us a little while,” Eilian said as he motioned for Rhys and Ryan to take a seat with him at the dining room table.
“Know about what? He and I talked for many hours, days even, about my past. I told him I can recall everything, clear as a bell. I’ll be fine for tomorrow,” Ryan said.
“I’m not talking about your recollection of your professional life. I’m talking about things we’ve learned about you, of your personal life,” Eilian responded and started quickly in his explanation to Ryan. “The night that Steffan found you, you were in an accident.”
“Yeah, I remember. I fucked up a brand new Mercedes. I assure you that will not happen to the replacement Steffan got for me.”
“Right. But you don’t recall anything else about the accident? You don’t remember seeing Steffan that night?”
“No. Steffan kept pushing the subject, but I told him all I remember.” Ryan’s gaze drifted as if recalling the events of that fateful night. “I remember it was snowing, and I lost control of the car. I remember seeing the vehicle hit the side of the mountain. I remember the sparks from the metal scraping alongside the road. I remember the sounds—the screeching of the metal, the glass shattering.” Ryan’s eyes adjusted back on Rhys and Eilian. “How did Steffan find me anyway?”
“It was the first snowstorm of the season, so all us guys were out, taking flight. Well, all except this one. He was too busy with his woman.” Rhys paused, pointing to Eilian. “Steffan was making his way down the mountain when he came upon traces of the accident. When he found you, you were near death, bleeding internally. Steffan gave you a choice that night—to be left as he found you and suffer a slow death, to end your suffering abruptly or to become…one of us. You have to know Steffan has never turned a human into what we are. You were the first. And it was all because of something you said to him.”
“What did I say?”
“You mentioned a woman. You said that you needed her, that you had nothing without her,” stated Eilian.
“Her? Her who? Why can’t I remember her?”
“Because your eyes turned fricken black,” Rhys said coldly.
Eilian shot a look of objection back at Rhys for the apathy of his response.
“Black?” Ryan asked, his attention sharp as ever.
Eilian sighed. “Ryan, when a human is turned, the sclera, the white part of your eyes, changes color during the transformation. It’s like the saying, the eyes are the window to the soul? You know, because they can give away what someone is thinking? Well, the eye color reveals the human character that imprints on vampire transformation. Red is passion. White is harmony. Yellow is valor. The continuum of traits within each shade can be far-reaching.”
“And black?” Ryan asked.
Eilian looked at Ryan dead-on. “I think you know what black is.”
“Black is bad,” Rhys said bluntly.
Ryan turned in Rhys’s direction with a look of anger plastered on his face.
“Rhys! Easy!” Eilian yelled. Turning to Ryan, Eilian continued, “Ryan, black is dark and sometimes evil. The translation can be wide ranging. In your case, you recalled everything of yourself and your possessions.” Eilian paused and looked at Rhys. “So yes, while black is bad, we think your blackness is the transference of egotism—self-indulgence.”
“And why tell me this? You want to leave me an eternity to think about how wrong I lived my life, how I didn’t love or care for anyone in my life other than myself? Is that it?” Ryan blurted, full of annoyance and anger.
“Look, it can be something you can correct! Human lives now, they’re very complicated. There’s so much expectation in the short time they’re given on earth. It’s all ingrained—an encoding of achievements, possessions, relationships, benchmarks life is measured by. All of this can make a human place material possession at the top of their list. And with that, they can lose touch with what’s really important in life. Ryan, we’re telling this to you now, because you have the ability to change it. You’ll see. A vampire’s existence is undemanding. We have very basic needs. The concept of time is different for us. With this, we have the potential to feel with unfathomable measure, to love, to empathize, to cherish more deeply,” Eilian explained, trying to console Ryan.
“Steffan should’ve just left me alone to die rather than suffer with this,” Ryan said coldly.
“Steffan and I, we were turned a long time ago. Our maker gave us a choice, like Steffan gave you. After we awoke from the transformation, Steffan had an overwhelming need to find his wife. It was all that consumed him. Back then, we could only move at night. Long story short, when we got to his wife, it was too late. She had died in childbirth. Since that time, he’s been searching for a mate to fill the void in his heart. He cherishes love, Ryan. When he heard you mention a woman, above the pain and suffering you were in, he chose to change you so death wouldn’t take you away from your love like it did for him.”
“Who was she then? Do you know who I was talking about?”
“Anise DeVera. She was your fiancée.”
“I had a fiancée? Shit, what does she think happened to me all these months? Did you guys talk to her, explain? Can I see her?”
“Ryan, Anise died in a car accident on the interstate shortly after Steffan changed you.”
Ryan gasped. “She’s dead? I can’t even try to right what I’ve done wrong in the past! How does knowing this help me? ”
“Ryan, I am sorry about Anise. Of course this is something we would’ve never have revealed to you since she passed, but Steffan needed for you to know. His fate may have an effect on you,” Eilian revealed.
“What do you mean?” Ryan probed cautiously.
“Anise had a twin sister. Anya.”
“What?”
“This is now Steffan’s Anya. He discovered a mate match to her. This is who he went off to meet just now,” Eilian explained.
“How did he discover this?”
Rhys jumped in. “The stone that you clung to on the night he found you. It dropped in his hands, and he felt the connection through that stone. This is the same stone he had tried all of these months for you to touch to see if you could recall anything. Anya worked in a metaphysical shop in town and the thought was that she gave the stone to you the morning of the accident. Steffan only went out in search of Anya after he exhausted all attempts to see if you could recall her and after we retrieved the report on Anise’s car accident from the family. ”
“So that’s why he was so insistent
.” Ryan nodded and paused in deep thought. “Tell me, what will happen when she sees me? What am I to say to her? Does she know I can’t remember her sister?”
“We don’t know anything at this point. The plan is that you will not see her until after Steffan has claimed her and she is one of us. There is too much risk involved if she sees you before the turning. We cannot enthrall her if she freaks out knowing that you were turned, or else it will interrupt the mate ritual. After she turns, we can all sit down and talk.” Eilian responded.
Ryan remained standing, absorbing everything that had just been revealed by Eilian and Rhys. He looked tired and worn, as if evaluating everything that had been revealed.
* * * *
Blackness. This was how he was to be defined.
For everything Eilian and Rhys claimed it stood for, it still didn’t register in him. He felt no different, not remorseful, no extenuating need to make amends or atonement to anyone or anything in his life. The only true emotions that resonated deep in his belly were jealousy and envy.
And it all centered on Steffan.
Rhys and Eilian watched Ryan closely as he processed all that he had been told.
“My eyes look normal to me when I look in the mirror,” Ryan said plainly.
“Well now they do. The color inversion is meant to just hint at the potential character of a vampire directly with the maker. So the eyes only remain inverted with the inherited color for a couple of hours. And only during extreme circumstances does the color inversions make its appearance once again,” Eilian explained.
“What color were your eyes?” Ryan asked.
“Mine? They turned red,” stated Eilian.
“Yellow,” Rhys confirmed.
“And Steffan?” asked Ryan.
“His remained white,” Eilian responded.
“And no one else had black like me?”
“Well…there was Dominic,” said Eilian.
“Dominic? Who is that?” Ryan asked curiously.
“Let’s just say Dominic is no longer part of the family. The blackness seemed to consume him,” Rhys said.
“Steffan turned Dominic as well?”
“No. I did,” Rhys whispered, his voice full of compunction. “You’re the first to have ever been turned by Steffan.”
“I was? Then how did this family get started? Who turned everyone? Where did it all begin?”
“Well, some of us were turned and some of us joined, for a lack of a better word. After Steffan and I were turned by our maker, Idris, the three of us formed a brotherhood. We heard it couldn’t be done—that male vampires were too aggressive, too territorial. But we did it. We formed a bond, kept each other company, learned from each other, and looked out for one another. After a few years, we started hearing accounts of other brotherhoods popping up in all different regions just like us and slowly, we started to run into them in our travels. At first, we thought we could possibly form a large brotherhood with those that were already together, but we realized there was already an order, a hierarchy instilled in the vampire males that bond together. Blending two formed brotherhoods couldn’t work. So, we moved on, settling in Russia for awhile. That’s where we found Haydn. He was near our cave, deep in the wilderness, dying from exposure. We conferred about the situation since this would be our first human turning as a group, and we decided to change him. I made Haydn. Russia is also the first time we ran into a brotherhood that grew into a family lair, a new breed of vampire society with laws, doctrines, and creeds. Idris and Steffan, they lit up at the prospect. And from then on, this was our purpose…to start a family lair of our own,” explained Eilian.
“Idris. What happened? Why isn’t he here in Ambrose Heights? Since he was Steffan’s maker, why isn’t he leader?”
“Idris had lost his original mate and was on his last decade to find another match. And yes, by all accounts, he was the leader of the brotherhood. He was much older, much wiser and had extraordinary abilities that we hadn’t come across in other vampires. We traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, hoping to find a mate match for Idris before it was too late. When we settled in Nepal, we were walking through a bazaar in Kathmandu one night. Idris picked up a bracelet and fell to the ground suddenly. When we got to him, we found him laughing and crying. We realized what had happened. He’d found a match, a human mate match. We hunted feverishly to track her down. We were against time, down to months now. And then we found her. Her name was Sharesca. She was from an aristocratic family, in line for the Nepalese monarchy. She was already promised to prince, although they were not yet married. Once Sharesca met Idris, they fell in love and immediately started the claim ritual, both against time with her arranged marriage to a prince and the extinguishing date for Idris. When the prince found out about Idris, he summoned his army of guards and servants to bring Sharesca to him. He knew we were vampires, and we couldn’t protect her during the day, so that was when they took her.”
Eilian shook his head and cleared his throat before he continued with the story. “When she refused the prince, proclaiming her love for Idris and her plan to complete the last ritual phase, he stabbed her. Gutted her, actually. Idris felt it all. He could feel what was happening to her as we lay underground, protected from the sunlight. When night fell, we went to her, knowing full well what we were going to find. But the scene, what he did to her, it was horrendous. We weren’t quite prepared for that.”
“Shit! Too bad you guys didn’t have Defender at that time. What the hell did Idris do to the prince?”
“The only thing he could think—he massacred everyone who’d taken part in it. We took care of the prince’s family, guards, and servants. We cleared out the entire royal palace, giving Idris time alone with the prince…a long time alone, days, in fact. It was a drawn out torture, he was being punished not only for the loss of Sharesca’s life, but for Idris’s life as well. Haydn, Steffan and I, we roamed Nepal for a bit, leaving Idris to satisfy his vengeance. That’s when we found Rhys.”
“Yeah, but none of these guys turned me though. I was already a vampire,” Rhys stated emphatically.
“A rogue one at that. He joined our brotherhood and we bestowed the Welsh name onto him. A few days later, the four of us went back to the palace. Idris had completed his mission and was close to extinguishing. He gathered us together and explained his ability. He had the power to sense the destiny of other vampires. Before he extinguished, he told us what he sensed for all of us, for our brotherhood. He left Steffan for last. Turns out, he gave Steffan his name, crowned king, because that is what he sensed for Steffan. He was destined to be a leader and become a figure of prominence of sorts for our kind. Just before expiring, he gave Steffan the eternal love bracelet that he’d found in the bazaar that night when he picked up Sharesca’s trace on. From that moment on, Steffan has been our leader and he has been searching for his mate ever since.”
“And what about the others?”
“Well, once Idris expired, we went to Vienna, and that’s where Griffin joined our family. He too had lost his mate, somewhere in Australia, and was on his countdown to find another mate match. Steffan then suggested we travel to America. None of us had ever stepped foot on the soil. We wanted to explore, get a feel for the land, you know, gauge our future options. We started with a brief trip to Louisiana, giving in to the rumors of a concentration of vampires in that region. That’s where I met my vampire mate, Catrin. With that, the brotherhood officially turned into a family. We then traveled to Oregon and Haydn made Gwynn, but not as a mate. When we finally took up residence in Alaska, Gwynn met her vampire mate, Aeron. And then Rhys here found his human mate, Brynne, right here in Colorado. All of us—me and Catrin, Rhys and Brynne, Gwynn and Aeron, found each other. Yet Steffan, our leader, after almost a century in existence, was still unmated, unable to find a fated match. But one thing about Steffan, if he couldn’t find his mate, he was happy to be among a family that had found theirs.”
“Then I guess you
’re going to tell me that he had high hopes for me, and I blew it because of the blackness,” Ryan stated.
“Ryan, I know this was hard to take, but tomorrow is your reintroduction day. Now that you know everything, it can also be your day for reinvention. You and Steffan have given each other true gifts. You led him to his mate, and he gave you the chance to rebuild.”
Eilian paused and put his arm around Ryan’s shoulders. “Now let’s head down and officially start your reintroduction.”
Eilian and Rhys stood in front of the china cabinet. Ryan quietly stood behind them as Eilian reached for the keypad tucked into the wall and entered the code. All was silent as they waited for the interior transformation to be complete and allow them access to the freight elevator.
Ryan broke the silence, “Well, if Steffan is going after Anya, she must be very elegant and very beautiful. Were Anise and Anya identical twins?”
“Yes. But Ryan, you know Anya is now off-limits. She’s already being pursued by Steffan. And, as a matter of fact, Steffan’s never really seen her yet. They had a mate connection through touch,” Rhys said as they stepped into the elevator and descended to the tunnel passages.
“Remember how rare I told you that a human and vampire mate match was to detect? Steffan has finally found a true mate match. No one can interfere with what’s already fated,” Eilian added.
Ryan spoke in his defense, “But I really didn’t mean—”
Rhys stopped him abruptly. “I don’t care what you meant. Have you not soaked in anything from the story we told you about Steffan? You do not mess with another man’s mate and especially not someone within your family. And certainly not Steffan’s. Besides, it is against our laws. Don’t mess with the bull, young man. You’ll get the horns!”
“All right, what the hell? I know I’ve heard that before! Why do I have déjà vu with some of the things you say?” Ryan blurted.
Eilian sighed. “Unlike Steffan and I who utilize news broadcasts, books and the internet to keep up with modern dialogue, speech patterns, and slang, Rhys loves his movies and television as his learning devices. Doesn’t help that he has a photogenic memory for things he hears. It’s tiring, but you’ll eventually get used to it.”