Ravaged: A Dark Vampire Reverse Harem Romance (Dark Vampires Book 2)

by Zara Novak

  Victor groaned and looked down at the table. “Good point.”

  “Breakfast for the lady of the house!” Freya said with encouragement as she brought a plate of badly burned bacon and eggs over. “Now I never did this cooking stuff much when I was alive. I always had servants for that. Is this okay?”

  I looked down at my plate of black eggs and bacon. She had tried. “It’s perfect Freya. Thank you.”

  I managed to eat about half of the plate before feigning fullness. Freya had made coffee too, which was the meal’s saving grace. She had done a fantastic job there. Truth told it felt a little weird to have someone doting on me. I was used to hunting for my own food, so I felt uncomfortable sitting around with a servant running about. I would talk to her about it at some point, but I got the impression she was bored and wanted to help.

  I couldn’t take that away from her right now.

  “What time did Shadow get back?” Ronan asked the table. He had his own glass of blood and was picking at my burnt bacon so Freya’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt.

  “He, uh, didn’t,” Xander said and looked up from his book. “I didn’t hear him at least.”

  Ronan looked at Victor. “Victor, did you see him?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I slept like the dead. Last night really put me on my ass. He’s probably in his room, hanging goats from the chandeliers.”

  Ronan shot Victor a disapproving look. “Go and check for me.”

  “But I’m watching the game—’

  “Victor.”

  The word sliced through the air like a whip. There was no mistaking that Ronan’s vampiric control was the strongest in the castle. Victor’s eyes shrank to pinpoints as he was reminded of his position in the pack.

  “All right,” he said as he pushed back from the table. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, boss.” Victor sulked his way out of the room. Xander broke out in laughter when he had gone.

  “I don’t know why you’re laughing,” Ronan said. “You were on watch too.”

  “Watch?” I asked.

  “We made a plan before Xander and Victor left your room last night. I was going to stay with you, Xander and Victor would keep watch for Shadow.”

  “I didn’t hear anyone talk about that.”

  “It was a very brief conversation; it took place in our minds.”

  “You guys can talk to each other telepathically?”

  “Of course. We can talk to you too. Haven’t you heard our voices when we are in dragon form?”

  “Victor and I were keeping watch,” Xander said. “Well, I was at least. We both slept, but I had my mind open waiting for Shadow’s presence. I didn’t feel him.”

  “Go and check the main courtyard anyway. Fly around and make sure you can’t feel a trace for him.”

  Xander set his glass down and got up from the table. “Right away.”

  When he was gone, I turned to regard Ronan. “Are you okay? You seem a little tense this morning.”

  “It’s very unusual for Shadow to be out this long. He should have been back by now. I’m worried that something has gone wrong. We have things to see to today, and I’d prefer if the coven was together as a unit. His absence makes us weaker.”

  I couldn’t explain it, but something was bothering me too. The echo of a distant dream fluttered through my mind. There were trees and it was cold, but I couldn’t remember anything else other than an urgent feeling of dread.

  “Is there anything I can do to help? Do you want me to check the castle?”

  “Can you feel him yet? As your bond grows with the coven you should vaguely be able to sense us at all times, if we are near. I anticipate this won’t be the case as you haven’t lay with Shadow yet.”

  “I can sense you all?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Think of Xander or Victor for example. If you concentrate on them right now you should get a glimpse of them.”

  I did so, and to my surprise I found he was right. I thought of Victor first and felt a faint bristling on the back of my right shoulder, indicating he was somewhere in that direction. Then I saw a flash of a corridor, muddled with Victor’s voice.

  Cowboys have been playing like ass this month. Where the fuck is Shadow? He better not be doing some creepy shit when I find him. Can’t wait to fuck Lily again later. Need to spar too. Maybe she’ll join me in the gym. I wonder…

  I came back to present. “Fuck, that was a trip.”

  “It worked?”

  “Yeah, I felt an itch on my right shoulder and then I saw and heard his thoughts.”

  “Thoughts? That’s rare for Victor,” he joked. “The itch is the direction. And the rest is self-explanatory. You can sense us all at any time by doing this, just as we can with you, and with each other.”

  I paused and thought of Xander. There was an itch on my left cheek and then I saw him walking across the wooden bridge that stretched over the snowy courtyard.

  Skylarks fly at the sunrise, dry brooks flow with sorrow. Find a nest of empty birds, when the light does borrow. Shadow. Where are you?

  The kitchen returned to my eyes and I saw Ronan staring at me. “More coherent than Victor, right?"

  I looked at the open book of poetry across from me, the same one that Xander had been reading. On its page was the same poem I had heard in his mind. “I’m not sure coherent is the word. I don’t understand this at all.”

  “Is it Ving?” he said, turning the book around to him. He closed the cover to see the book. “It is Zebadah Ving. Xander is obsessed with the guy.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Kind of a famous vampire. Died a long time ago. He started off as a great poet but lost his mind. He never stopped writing and his work chronicles his descent into insanity. Xander likes the parallels, I guess. We’re all teetering that knife edge.”

  “Not now I’m here.”

  He smiled. “I guess not. Come on. I’ll have Victor and Xander meet us on the roof, it looks like Shadow really didn’t come back last night.”

  “You’re still worried.”

  “I am, but he is a tough vampire. He’s among the toughest I know. The fact that Xander picked up a strange energy signature recently suggests that these aren’t normal times. It makes sense that Shadow might stay out longer, but I’m still concerned. His darkness his so much stronger than the rest of us.”

  We said goodbye to Freya and made our way back through the castle to its roof. Xander was already there waiting for us. He confirmed there was no sign of Shadow on his surveillance flight.

  “No sign of that unusual energy signal either,” Xander said. “Whoever was here is gone now.”

  “Hm… well that’s something at least,” Ronan said. “Maybe Shadow scared them off.”

  Victor was the last one on the roof, he too had seen nothing of Shadow. “His room’s empty. He definitely didn’t come home.”

  Ronan was clearly bothered by the missing member. “Well we’ll have to press on anyway, we’ve got work to do. Lily, do you want to ride with me? Xander tells me you know how to mount a dragon properly now.”

  “Sure, where are we going?”

  “We’re addressing the feral issue. A lot of the feral vampires come from the black wood. Two covens are supposed to watch the border for us, but they have been fighting with one another and not focusing on their job. We’re going to set things straight and hopefully kill a whole flock of birds with one stone.”

  One by one the brothers shifted into their dragon forms, turning from large men into impossibly large dragons. Although I’d seen the transformation take place several times now it still took my breath away. Was I ever going to get used to this?

  Xander and Victor both took off up into the sky and I heard Ronan’s voice in my mind.

  Climb on then. Let’s go.

  He lowered his body to the ground, and I climbed up his scaled body, my feet feeling much more confident on his frame this time around. I nestled into the correct riding position, just as Xander had sh
own me, and held on as Ronan dropped over the roof’s edge and spread his wings to take off into the snowy valley.

  The blizzard twisted through the night and the snowy mountains as a beautiful ocean of swirling white. I pulled myself close to Ronan’s warm scales and stared at the distant world below, taking in the beauty as we flew away. We flew through the storm until the snow started to thin, the blizzard dying the further we got from the mountains.

  In the distance I saw Xander and Victor flying ahead of us, their giant dragons circling through the night sky like great leviathans. We caught up to them shortly and the trio headed up through the clouds, taking us back into the world of stars and moonlight.

  We were flying for about half an hour before we dipped back down below the clouds. During that time, I practiced feeling out their presence and trying to focus on their thoughts. With enough attempts I found I could hold all of them in my consciousness at once, and I realized they were talking amongst themselves.

  Hey, she’s finally figuring it out! Victor said.

  Welcome to the party, Xander said. We were wondering when you’d join us.

  “You guys have been talking this entire time?” I said, sending the words with my mind.

  We can’t communicate with our normal voices in this form, Ronan answered. We knew you would figure it out eventually though.

  I expected Xander and Victor to be bickering as they always were, but to my surprise I found they were all focused on the mission at hand. Reunite the bickering covens, fix the broken border. Everyone was concerned about Shadow now too. I could feel that much.

  An idea came to me and I tried to find him. As I focused on the memory of his dark demeanor, I did feel something, but it was vastly different from my experience with sensing the others. I felt a black hollow open up inside me, a deep, dark emptiness that seemed terrifying and endless. There was no itch or glimpse of his thoughts, but I did hear a single word echoing through my mind.

  Hollow… hollow… hollow…

  I clung tight to Ronan and tried to forget the unusual sensation. The three brothers dipped back below the clouds and I saw the endless forest of black wood on our left. On our right were the trees from the normal forest, which looked starkly small compared to the trees of the haunted forest. We descended through the sky, heading for a cluster of stone buildings nestled on a hill amongst the trees. I had never been to this part of the outlands before, it was notorious for its feral population, and not safe for most humans to linger in very long.

  As we touched down each of the brothers turned back into their vampire form, clothes somehow still intact despite the transformation. I climbed down from Ronan and he shifted too. We all regrouped. I had to ask.

  “Clothes,” I said. “How does that work? Shouldn’t they be torn to shreds?”

  “We thought that,” Ronan said. “It’s hard to explain. We’re not actually turning into dragons. The creatures are always with us. We are linked via the astral plane. When we change form, we are merely swapping one out for the other. Like an envelope, sort of.”

  “A very complicated fifth-dimensional envelope,” Xander joked. “If that makes sense.”

  “Oh, perfect sense,” I said with a smile.

  “Don’t worry,” Victor said, “I don’t get it either. All I know is that Xander can’t fly for shit.”

  “Says the guy that nearly broke his wing on the castle roof the other week.”

  “Eyes up,” Ronan said. “We have company.”

  We all looked across the clearing and saw a group running from the stone buildings ahead of us. There were three figures, all wearing long winter cloaks. Their skin gleamed under the moonlight just like Ronan and his brothers. Vampires.

  The hair on my neck stood on end. It was funny. Though I had spent plenty of time with vampires now I still felt funny in the company of strange ones. In the distance I noticed the sound of disturbance.

  The three vampires running in our direction all had crossbows raised, but as they got closer, they brought their weapons down and stopped. “Ronan! You came! You finally got our message!”

  “What is happening here?” he asked.

  “Things are out of control. The feud between the families has come to boiling point! The entire village is fighting!” As he said the words arrows streamed through the air from the buildings ahead of us and whistled past us. We all ducked down to the ground and saw more vampires firing in our direction.

  “We’ve got action!” Victor shouted.

  Ronan suddenly pulled me behind him, shielding me from potential arrow fire. “I hadn’t realized things were so bad. Where at the coven elders?”

  “Holed up in the village hall. They’re fighting one another as we speak!”

  “Damn it.” He looked at Victor and Ronan. “Don’t kill anyone. We have to get through the village and stop the elders. They’re the only ones who can control their flocks.” He looked back at me. “Sorry for bringing you into this. Stay on my back and I’ll keep you safe. Clear?”

  I nodded and hopped on.

  In an instant the four of us were flying across the silver grass and up the hill, right in the direction of the stone village and the calamity boiling within. Xander and Victor both took point, blurring through the air so rapidly that the vampires shooting at us were caught off guard.

  Ronan had instructed them not to kill, I suppose for diplomacy’s sake, but we were being attacked and something had to be done about it. There were four vampires currently aiming at us, two of them taken down by Victor and Xander with well-aimed punches. In another second the other two were down as well.

  We rounded the corner and found ourselves in the village proper. Everywhere I looked calamity danced across the night. Vampires were fighting all across the village, fire and arrows streaming through the air like deadly falling stars. The brothers began their rapid trip through the village, moving at supersonic speeds and bouncing off walls as they attempted to avoid the fray.

  A large stone building stood at the top of the village. That was where the elders were supposed to be fighting things out. I never thought for a moment that we’d be able to get across this chaos without getting hurt, but somehow, we managed.

  We approached the large wooden doors leading into the hall. They had to be about fifteen feet tall and hundreds of pounds in weight. Xander and Victor looked at one another, approached the doors and found them locked. With a nod they gestured something to Ronan, and he jumped to the side.

  A second later they had both torn the giant doors off their huge hinges and cast them up into the night. I watched in fascination as the huge wooden rectangles sailed off silently towards the clouds. I felt sorry for anyone that got in the way of that.

  Inside the hall two shapes streaked around the walls and air as smears on my vision. Ronan set me down, stepped forward and bellowed across the hall.

  “Enough!” he roared.

  The word washed through the air as iron-law. Every vampire in the vicinity very quickly stood up straight and froze. The two elders fighting suddenly broke apart and looked at Ronan in surprise.

  “Ronan! We thought you were—”

  “Gone? We found the thing we needed. Our minds are whole again now. What the hell is going on here?”

  The two vampires considered one another with scorn. A babble of protestation poured from their mouths, two streams of overlapping whining which I imagined had gone on for far too long already.

  “Quiet!” he shouted. “It is time you put these differences behind you, or this post will be given to vampires more deserving of its place! How many have died in your covens because of this fighting?”

  “Ten?” one offered. “Maybe twenty?” He looked at the other and he nodded.

  “Too many,” the other countered. “But the troubles running between our covens cannot be undone by words alone.”

  “I am here to tell you that it is undone, tonight, for if you should forsake your duties to protect this border again you shall both be ex
ecuted before your covens. My coven has been absent too long, that is true, but we are back now, and we will effectively govern the land we all swore to protect. Swear to me now that your troubles are done. Swear it by your lives.”

  “I cannot make an oath of that kind! If the other side breaks it, we both die!”

  “For once I agree,” the other leader said. “I do not want my life in the hands of this idiot.”

  “That,” Ronan stressed, “is the entire point of this new oath. If your leadership brings your covens to forsake their duties again then you, the leaders, will both be executed. You act like enemies, but you seem to forget that you were once friends. Let this new oath be a reminder.”

  “Reminder?” one said.

  “Your lives are forever joined now. If you wish to live, then you must have good faith the other will do his job. From this point on the only way you will survive is by cooperating. By fighting you sign your own death warrant.”

  They both blinked and looked at one another as Ronan’s new laws slowly sank in. I thought it was clever really. They couldn’t get on with the current system and were constantly trying to sabotage the other. By enforcing this new oath, the leaders would have to get on or die.

  “Give me your answer now,” Ronan said. “You can take the new oath or leave the outlands. New leaders will be appointed in your absence. Remember the oath before you take it lightly. Breaking it will guarantee your death.”

  The two vampires only met Ronan’s gaze briefly before looking back at each other. Their thoughts flickered silently between their eyes. Though the communication was unspoken I could read the thoughts on their hardened faces. They only had one real option.

  “We take the new oath,” one said. “Coven Briar and Coven Lockwood will fight no longer. We will unite and keep these woods safe, as we promised all those years ago.”

  Ronan looked at the other. “Do you concur?”

  “I do. We take the oath. Both covens unite. Should either of us forsake our duty our lives will pay the toll for our insolence.”

  And with that a great tension seemed to dissipate through the air. All at once it felt as if the dark atmosphere lingering over the village lifted and gave way to something bright and hopeful. After that Ronan and the brothers spent time with the two leaders and their covens, looking over smaller problems and walking through the village, helping to patch up the damage that had been done by the fighting and making suggestions to fortify against the feral herds.