She’d almost rendered him speechless again. Kira was barely thirty years old. How could she think her instincts were more accurate than over four thousand years of his visions?
“I’ve never been wrong before,” he said. “Never.”
“Then this will be your first time,” she replied, touching his face. “Or you’ll realize you misinterpreted what you saw. I’m right, Mencheres. I know it with my whole soul. Just like I know you love me, even if you’re having trouble saying it.”
For several moments, he could only stare at her, caught in her light green gaze as if he were a human ensnared by the mesmerizing glow of a vampire. Something freed inside him, a pressure released that he didn’t know had been building, and the relief he felt was only matched by the certainty flowing through him that she was right—about part of what she said.
“I do love you,” he said hoarsely, the words not an adequate representation of what he felt for Kira. She was everything that had been missing from his life, everything that made him want to stay in this harsh, unforgiving world that was somehow beautiful once more because of her.
She smiled, amazing him with the joy such a small gesture could generate inside him. “You see? I told you I was right.”
“That does not mean—”
“Shush,” she replied, putting her finger to his lips. He couldn’t help but feel amusement slither through him. No one had shushed him in thousands of years, yet Kira did it without the slightest hesitation.
“I don’t want you looking into the future again,” she went on. “Not yet. You’re a superpowerful vampire, but you’re not a god. Until you work through the things that led you to feel like you’d rather be dead, all of them, you can’t trust what you think you’re seeing.”
He still didn’t think Kira was right about self-fulfilling prophecies, survivor’s guilt, or misinterpretation when it came to his vision of impending death, but he was willing to heed her counsel. After all, his visions did come to an abrupt halt only after Patra’s death. He might be far stronger than Kira on a power level, but emotionally, she stood on firmer ground. The events in the past few years had proven too much for him. He’d sought his own death—something he swore he’d never do after the pain of discovering Tenoch’s suicide, yet he’d almost followed in his sire’s footsteps. Only the beautiful, incredible woman in front of him prevented that when her path crossed with his that morning.
Fate. Was it possible his might not be only darkness after all?
“Tell me again what your mentor’s credo was?” he asked, though he remembered her answer from before.
“Save one life,” Kira said softly.
Mencheres drew her into his arms. “You did,” he whispered before his mouth claimed hers. “You saved mine.”
K ira slid a lazy hand along his back, her touch rousing him despite the past several passionate hours.
“This is such an interesting tattoo. What is it?”
“A shenu, ” he replied, rolling over on his side to face her. “The modern word is a cartouche.”
She still traced the tattoo even though she wouldn’t be able to see it anymore. “What does it say?”
“It is my birth name, Menkaure, in ancient Egyptian writing.”
Her face clouded. “That’s what Radje calls you.”
He stroked her from her bare leg up to her lower back, and her expression eased once more.
“Were you named after that Pharaoh?” she asked.
His hand stilled. “What do you know of that Pharaoh?”
“When I was looking for you after you mesmerized my boss, I Googled ‘Mencheres,’ thinking it might lead me to you on the off chance that you had a Facebook page or something.” Kira paused to chuckle. “You didn’t, of course. All that came up under your name were links and articles about a Pharaoh way back when who was also called Mencheres, but he went by Menkaure most of the time.” She gave him a curious glance. “Were you a descendant of his? Is that why you took one of his names?”
He uncurled himself from the bed, standing before her. It was time she learned all about him, even the oldest parts of his past.
“Menkaure had many names depending on the translation. Mycerinus, Mykerinus, and Mencheres, among others. I received this tattoo on the first day of my appointed reign when I was twenty-two years old, just six months before I became a vampire. I am not one of that Pharaoh’s descendents you read about. I am that Pharaoh. I merely used the name Mencheres after I left Egypt.”
Kira’s mouth opened and closed, as if she had suddenly forgotten how to speak. He waited. After everything else she’d been through, he did not fear this revelation would prove too much for her.
“But that Pharaoh was from way, way, way back in ancient times. He has a pyramid in the Giza Plateau. That can’t be you! You said you were older than dirt, but—”
“I was born in 2553 B.C., ” he replied, watching her expression flit from denial to confusion to amazement. “I told you Radje and I came from a line of rulers who appointed a set frame for their heirs to reign over their human subjects. That was the line of Pharaohs from the first dynasty through the thirteenth. Radje and I were in the Fourth Dynasty. Radje is short for Radjedef, as you know, but Radjedef was more commonly known as Djedefre in Egyptian history. He was the half brother of Khafre, my father. My father and Radjedef were the sons of Khufu, the Pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid in Egypt.”
Kira still did not look like she’d adequately absorbed this information. “Radje is your uncle? And you and your family made the pyramids? The pyramids? ”
He shrugged. “They were designed for the retired Pharaohs to live in comfort among their people, presumed dead while a new Pharaoh reigned. But they were too costly. Our later heirs made the Valley of the Kings as a more efficient solution. All the underground passages and connecting tunnels—”
“You realize this is a little much to take in,” she interrupted, shaking her head.
Mencheres raised a brow. “A month ago, you did not believe in vampires. Now you are one yourself, plus lover to another, and you’re in the hidden mountain home of fiction’s most famous vampire. I have every confidence that you will handle this latest revelation with minimal difficulty.”
She still shook her head, but the disbelief left her expression. “Older than dirt,” she muttered. “Who knew you were under exaggerating?”
He went to the foot of the bed, slowly crawling back on while sliding his body over Kira’s from her feet up to her chest. When their faces were level, he stopped, letting his aura as well as his skin caress hers.
“Do I feel too ancient to you now?” he murmured. “Too different from the person you loved before you knew this?”
Her eyes were already glowing green, and her full lips parted. “No, you don’t feel too ancient.” Her voice was husky. “Or too different. You feel like mine. Whoever you were, whoever you are . . . you’re mine.”
Mencheres smiled, his fangs stretching to their full length. “So you have spoken, so it shall be decreed. For all eternity.”
Chapter 28
The Grand Canyon was ablaze with color in the setting rays of the sun. Rust, orange, vermilion, gold, indigo, and silver seemed to intersperse in an endless mural that was awe-inspiring. If Kira hadn’t been so concerned about what the next hour might bring, she would have kept turning in slow circles to try to memorize the astounding beauty all around her.
But, of course, this wasn’t a sightseeing trip, even though they were in one of America’s most visited tourist attractions. The Grand Canyon was also a good place if they needed to run for their lives. The various caves, fissures, and hiding places were only exceeded by the canyon’s enormity. Any pursuing Law Guardians or Enforcers wouldn’t know whether to search for them in the skies or below, or so Mencheres had explained.
Kira stood between Vlad and Mencheres, the breeze coloring the air’s natural bouquet with the different scents emanating from the two vampires. Mencheres’s mix of sandal
wood and dark spices was interspersed with Vlad’s more unusual aroma of cinnamon and . . . smoke.
“Look,” Mencheres said, pointing to the south.
She fixed her gaze in that direction, but all she saw was a blond teenager hiking up a trail about two hundred yards below where they were. She must be ahead of her tourist group, though Kira was surprised that tours ran at night. Maybe she should go down there and mesmerize the group into turning around so there weren’t any innocent human bystanders who could get hurt if things got messy with the Law Guardian—
“Mencheres,” the teenager called out. “I have come alone as promised.”
“That’s Veritas?” Kira blurted. The powerful Law Guardian that Mencheres and Vlad had spoken of in such cautious tones? She didn’t even look old enough to drive a car!
The pretty young blonde looked right at her then, and even in the distance, Kira could see a flash of bright green in her eyes. Not human, without a doubt.
Vlad leveled his gaze on Kira. “You will quickly learn appearances are the most unreliable way to judge anyone in our world. Take, for example, me.”
He held up a hand to Veritas, and it burst into blue flames. Kira’s eyes widened. Neither Vlad’s fingers nor his palm appeared the slightest bit burnt. The flames coated around his shirt cuff, but somehow that material didn’t catch fire. Then when Vlad lowered his hand, the flames immediately extinguished without even a spark or singed hair to show for it.
“Now I know why you smell like smoke all the time,” Kira muttered, adding pyrokinesis to her mental list of abilities that some vampires were capable of manifesting.
“Veritas,” Mencheres called out. “I thank you for coming.”
His voice was calm and confident, but Kira felt Mencheres’s tenseness grating across her subconscious. He was braced for this to be an attack, ready to spring her away at the slightest hint of an ambush.
The blond Guardian increased her pace as she came toward them, moving now with a grace and speed up the steep incline in a way that made it obvious she wasn’t human. By the time she was within fifty yards, Kira could feel the energy crackling off her. Power she’d only ever felt in such magnitude before from Mencheres.
“You have one hour to plead your case, Mencheres,” Veritas said in a sharp tone. “That is all the grace the memory of our sire and our long association will buy you.”
This doesn’t sound promising, Kira thought. Veritas’s Barbie-doll features were a mask of anger, and the energy swirling around her felt distinctly unpleasant.
Mencheres was not intimidated by the Law Guardian’s attitude. He bowed his head in a respectful way and proceeded to detail in eloquent and compelling terms how he was in Wyoming with Kira and Gorgon while the club fire and murders occurred. He told Veritas she could pull his cell phone records to determine that calls were made from Wyoming, not Chicago, and that he would never leave behind evidence of their race’s existence for humans to find, as evidenced by his destroying the cameras at Disneyland. He closed with his apologies for thrashing the Enforcers, but said he’d felt it was the only way to protect Kira from Radje’s corrupt purposes later. Kira almost wanted to applaud when he was done. If this was a campaign speech, he would’ve won over every voter.
Except one.
“And do you apologize for murdering an Enforcer, too? Or was that, too, beneath your notice in your zeal to defend your new lover?” Veritas almost spat at Mencheres.
His expression darkened. “What Enforcer? I killed none of them.”
“Josephus chased after you in the skies along with six others, but he was later found shriveled on the ground,” Veritas replied. Her gaze raked him. “You are indicted for murder of a Guardian Enforcer. Even your many allies will not be able to sway the council to mercy, no matter how powerful they may be.”
She gave a pointed glance at Vlad when she made that comment, but Kira was too outraged to stay silent.
“Mencheres didn’t do that! We went right from the skies down into the ocean, not anywhere on the ground. I ought to remember, because it scared the shit out of me.”
“Kira . . .” Mencheres began.
“It’s true,” she replied, more to Veritas than him. The blonde’s expression didn’t change, but Kira didn’t let that stop her. She was so sick of people assuming Mencheres did horrible things without once bothering to consider that someone else might be involved.
“Let me guess, you believe Radje’s claim that Mencheres did all these things because he’s lost his mind over me, right? And I’m just some wicked bitch who likes to incite him to murder? Could someone at least meet me before thinking that? I thought the human court system was messed up at times, but your vampire system is worse. At least we’ve got innocent until proven guilty. Not guilty and sentenced before even bothering to look at all the facts.”
“Kira!” Mencheres’s voice was harsher.
“You dare to insult the laws?” Veritas demanded, holding out her hand to Mencheres after it felt like he’d just snapped an invisible gag across Kira’s mouth. “Do not interfere. Let her speak, or I leave now,” Veritas growled.
Kira’s lips were released from their sudden immobility. She gave Mencheres a single withering glare that promised severe consequences if he ever did that again, then addressed the steaming Law Guardian.
“I’m all for your laws to seek justice against whoever killed that Enforcer and leaked that tape, but I have to say I’m not impressed with how little investigative work has been done. Radje says Mencheres torched that club, so people just believe it, no matter that I was crazy from bloodlust those first few days and Mencheres was busy taking care of me. Then an Enforcer ends up dead after chasing Mencheres, so obviously, Mencheres killed him. No other explanation is considered even though if the sentence is so severe for one death, why wouldn’t Mencheres have just killed them all? It doesn’t make sense, especially if you believe he’d suddenly become whipped by a woman who likes him to murder people for her, as Radje keeps claiming.”
Veritas had Kira by the collar of her shirt, her sea-blue eyes boring into hers.
“Perhaps Mencheres acted without your knowledge. Perhaps he forced you to participate. In this moment only I am offering you the chance to admit to the truth without fear of persecution. You have the word of a Guardian that you will not be charged. Did Mencheres do these things? Or did he ever leave your side during the evening of the fire, or after the Enforcers chased you, to be able to commit these crimes?”
“No to all the above,” Kira answered steadily. “It wasn’t him.”
Veritas’s gaze still pinned hers. “Are you willing to swear by your blood that he is innocent? To forfeit your own life if he is found guilty of committing even one of these acts?”
“Yes,” Kira said, even as Mencheres burst, “She has been accused of nothing, you cannot expect her to forfeit her life based on the council’s decision on me!”
“I can,” Veritas said, releasing Kira. “And I will repeat her vow to the council once I return, so if you have guilt to confess, Mencheres, and you want to spare her, do it now.”
Mencheres gave Kira such a tormented look that fear slid up her spine. He wouldn’t confess to something he hadn’t done, would he? Of course not. He’d be condemning himself to death just on the mere chance that the other Guardians would rule against him . . .
“Don’t,” she gasped, clutching his arms. “I know you think you’re going to die anyway, but your visions are wrong, Mencheres! They’re stalled and twisted from the guilt you felt over things that weren’t even your fault. This is not the only way you can save me. Come on, if Veritas didn’t in some way suspect more was going on, she wouldn’t have shown up here. You didn’t do any of this! Don’t you dare say you did!”
Tears spilled out of her eyes, and her grip tightened until Kira heard bones snap in his arms, but fear made her unable to let up. Mencheres was about to slip away from her forever, she could feel it.
“Don’t trust what those
damned visions say,” she whispered. “Trust me. We can beat Radje another way, I know it. Let me prove it to you.”
His eyes, so dark and fathomless, stared into hers. Very gently, he captured her hands and pulled them off his arms with a flex of his power. Then he brought them to his lips.
“I love you,” he breathed against her skin.
“Don’t, please,” she begged, panic rising in her while tears continued to course down her cheeks.
Mencheres looked past Kira to Veritas. “I had nothing to do with the arson, the deaths of those people, or the Enforcer’s death,” he said in a clear tone. “The same person who accuses me is the one responsible. Radjedef.”
Relief flooded Kira so strongly she thought her knees would give out. All her instincts screamed that Mencheres had been moments away from taking all the blame. Part of her wanted to throw her arms around him while the other part wanted to slap him for almost doing something so nobly, lethally stupid.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she ordered in a shaking voice.
His mouth curved in a grim smile. “Instead, I’ve terrified myself.”
Kira knew what he meant, but she believed everything she said about finding a way to beat Radjedef. Veritas’s expression when she looked at her only confirmed it. The Law Guardian appeared wary but thoughtful, that initial angry accusing light gone from her gaze.
“Mencheres, if you keep trying to throw your life away, I’ll kill you myself,” Vlad muttered. “You might not be needed by your people as much with Bones sharing your rule, but you are needed by your friends. Remember that the next time you hear the siren song of the grave.”
“Most of the Guardians believe you killed those vampires and set fire to the club,” Veritas said, speaking for the first time in several moments. “There was, however, a troubling find with Josephus’s body. His head was taken off, but closer inspection revealed he might have also been stabbed in the back.”
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