by Opal Carew
“Saman—” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “Samantha Sutton.”
He appraised her. His eyes made her uncomfortable. The confidence she’d demonstrated just a moment ago wavered under his intense gaze. The embarrassment his attention was causing her, however, stoked her fury.
“Where is my daughter? She has done nothing to you.” Then, with some effort: “Please.”
“Do not be concerned, Samantha. She will be down shortly.”
“Antoine, let them go. They have nothing to do with this. I’m the one you want. Take me and let them go.”
He walked right up in front of me. I instinctively pushed Samantha back with my arm. His emotions were all over the place and battered me: now pitying, then enraged; now bitter, then grieving; now regretful, then resentful.
I worked hard to block his and everyone’s emotions. It was too distracting, and thereby made me too vulnerable. But months of keeping my power open to Samantha and Ollie had weakened the walls I used to throw up around my empathy.
“It has been a long road you and I have walked, Lucien. I took you in. I brought you close. I treated you as a son. I cared for you as a son. I gave you what you most wanted, your freedom.” He shook his head. When his eyes met mine again, they glinted darkly. “You brought this on. I warned you not to interfere in my business. I warned you what would happen. You have left me no choice. The gravity of your transgression against me demands redress. Jacques’s death demands vengeance!” His voice bellowed and echoed through the hall by the end.
“So find your vengeance with me. Let the girls go. Olivia is but a child, for God’s sake.”
He spat his words at me. “You have been a miserable shell of a man the entire time I have known you. Killing a man who would like nothing more than to die is no vengeance at all. It’s mercy. Jacques’s memory, my empire, demands vengeance. I need to make an example. They will help me make it.”
My temper flared. “How many times have I saved your life? You—”
He flew at me, cutting me off with a blow across my face. I staggered back. Samantha choked on a scream.
“How dare you? I have repaid that debt several times over.” He smoothed his suit. “And even if I had not, your destruction of my family has offended me so grievously as to render forgiveness or even leniency impossible.”
Footsteps at the doorway through which we’d entered caught my attention. I whipped around. I could only focus on one of the four figures approaching our group: Ollie was slumped against Magena’s chest, no doubt having been charmed into sleep. Perhaps that was a blessing.
Magena avoided my eyes. I couldn’t get a good read on her. Walking behind her was a male vampire I didn’t know and—my eyes narrowed— Langston, whose gaze flickered toward me before returning to the ground in front of him. I sneered at the false remorse flowing off him.
Samantha gasped and whimpered when her eyes could finally cut through the dimness enough to see her daughter. I had to restrain her from throwing herself at them. Her maternal instinct was strong and gave off a powerful energy.
They skirted around us and stood a little distance behind Laumet. Ollie was maybe twenty feet away—it felt like miles.
Tears spilled down Samantha’s face. Her arms out, she took a halting step forward, which of course Laumet noticed. “Please…please, give me back my baby.”
I could instantly tell when her eyes met Laumet’s. She took another step forward, though this one was clumsier.
“Samantha!” The volume and urgency of my voice snapped her out of it as she whipped her head to me. Her eyes widened with some sort of realization. Laumet chuckled once at our exchange.
The sound pushed some button inside Samantha, who raised her head again and blurted out, “She’s a child! An innocent child! We have nothing to do with this! What kind of monster are you?”
Laumet flew at her. I stepped between them in a defensive posture. My aggression caused several of the guard to move forward menacingly.
Laumet held up his hands. “Step back,” he commanded them. “They are mine. I will brook no interference under any circumstances.” He took the time to meet each of their eyes individually. They retreated. His direct order left them no other option.
He smiled broadly at Samantha over my shoulder. It struck even me as grotesque. He glanced back to me. “What kind of monster? What kind of monster?” He covered his laughing mouth with one hand as he crossed the other over his stomach. All of a sudden his face changed. He arched his eyebrows as he looked at me. “Oh, Lucien. It never occurred to me. You were always such a one for scruples.”
I frowned, then blanched as I understood the meaning of his words.
He looked at Samantha with amusement as he spoke to me. “She doesn’t know.” He barked a single laugh as he paced back and forth before us. He finally walked over to Magena, drawing Samantha forward to stand next to me.
I growled fiercely when he brushed a wisp of blonde hair back from Ollie’s face. Samantha stared at me in amazement. This wasn’t the playful sound she elicited during our lovemaking. She’d never heard such a feral noise from me before.
Laumet turned on his heel to consider me in a sidelong manner. “You have been passing. Oh, that is too good, Lucien. Truly. You are a piece of work.”
Samantha’s confusion cut off abruptly as Laumet closed the distance between them at an inhuman speed and stood before her. A terrified curiosity washed off her. “What kind of monster, indeed, Samantha. Lucien, perhaps you—”
“Lucien?” The small voice came from behind Laumet, capturing everyone’s attention. Ollie had regained consciousness and twisted in Magena’s arms to try to see us. Magena held her firm, although she did let Ollie angle herself toward us. “Lucien? Mommy!” Tears streamed down her flushed cheeks. She was scared but remarkably composed.
“I’m here, baby. It’s okay…” Samantha pressed her fist against her mouth.
“I knew you’d come, Lucien,” she whispered. Her faith in me lifted me up and smashed me down. It felt miraculous, but was completely undeserved.
Ollie finally registered the others standing around her and surveyed the group. She cowered against Magena’s body and flinched when she looked at Laumet. Then she pulled back to evaluate Magena, and her body relaxed. She ran her gaze over Magena’s face and met the Indian woman’s eyes in the disconcertingly easy way she did with me and my family. Something tugged at the back of my mind.
Laumet grumbled and pulled everyone’s attention back to him. “I am bored with this. It is time…”
“Antoine,” I warned, “you should know if anything happens to any of us, I’ve made arrangements to expose you. Several attorneys are waiting to hear from me. If they don’t, they’re prepared to distribute packets of information—”
“You think you can threaten me?” He belted out a strained maniacal laugh. “Lucien Demarco, you have violated my trust, tarnished my honor, challenged my authority, and murdered my son. This is my city. I make the rules. I mete out the punishment for the infraction of those rules. Your sins are too grievous for anything short of execution. I therefore sentence you and your humans to destruction.” He looked at Langston and another vampire and barked, “Restrain them.”
I hissed as Langston grasped Samantha’s biceps. She shrieked in surprise. The bulky blond male from our escort grabbed me from behind. I seethed and bucked.
In a flash, Laumet flew to Magena and roughly pulled Ollie from her arms. Magena gasped and Ollie screamed, a sound Samantha immediately echoed. Something in Magena’s face momentarily distracted me.
I scowled at Laumet and roared, “Antoine! Don’t!”
Chapter Eighteen
Antoine cradled Ollie in his arms. She struggled against him. He held her face still and looked into her eyes. A moment later her body went limp.
The next moments passed as if in slow motion. Laumet tilted Ollie’s head back. Her long blonde hair cascaded over his arm toward the floor. Laumet’s fangs
protruded from his drawn lips. He lined his mouth up on Ollie’s neck, sank his teeth into her, and swallowed once, twice, three times.
I slammed my elbows back into the blond male’s gut, unsheathed the silver blade from my coat sleeve, and slashed his throat. Then I launched myself at Laumet. I silently thanked Catherine for her blood, which made possible these razor-sharp reflexes and my heightened speed and strength.
Samantha screamed Ollie’s name over and over as Laumet continued to feed.
Then, he wrenched his head back in pained surprise. His eyes were bloodied, wide with shock and realization. His now-poisoned blood dripped from his nose. Just as I slammed into him, he coughed a stream of blood so forcefully it arced out over Ollie’s body.
With one hand, I shoved him back hard. With the other, I flung Ollie’s body to the side, flinching at the thud her head made as it hit the floor several feet away.
I was surprised to realize the others weren’t attacking, and I concentrated just long enough to feel the frustration roiling off most of them. Antoine’s order forced their inaction, which I prayed would keep Samantha safe for a few more moments.
I refocused on my target, who spewed more blood from his mouth and began bleeding from the ears.
Over Laumet’s gagging and Samantha’s shrieks, an authoritative voice commanded: “He told you not to interfere. As his second, I am telling you not to interfere.” Magena.
I finally realized what had been tugging at me earlier: That must be a good sign about this guy. Ollie has always been a good judge of people. Samantha’s diary. Ollie had assessed Magena and relaxed. I hadn’t connected it at the time, but Ollie had judged Magena to be good.
Magena is on our side. I tucked that away as I landed on top of Laumet. “Samantha, eyes!” I roared.
I couldn’t delay to see if she obeyed. I needed to finish this before his body found a way to deal with and recuperate from the holy water now coursing through his bloodstream. If he got the command out of his mouth, the rest of them would be on me and this would be over.
I couldn’t let that happen.
The blood pouring down Laumet’s face burned his skin and, as I came into contact with him, it burned me as well. He struggled to control his body, but I knew from seeing him go through this once before—the day I twice saved his life two decades ago—his age slowed his healing abilities.
I had one option only and, as I sank my fangs into Laumet’s neck and ripped with all my might, I hoped my interpretation of Magena was correct. Because I killed her mate of nearly a quarter millennium. Laumet’s head rolled to the side.
Just to be sure this was over, I slammed my fist holding the silver dagger into his chest and opened up a gaping hole that allowed blood to stream out in a gush. It set my hand on fire.
I jumped off him and landed several feet away, just far enough to escape his pooling blood. I wiped the bloody hand on my jeans as I crouched defensively and assessed the situation, looking for the next threat.
Remembering Samantha, I drained my eyes and retracted my teeth. Rage and confusion consumed me at the image of Langston’s arm around her shoulders.
She pulled and twisted against Langston’s hold and radiated a white-hot terror matched in intensity only by the murderous maternal instinct she felt for Ollie, who lay crumpled and bleeding a dozen feet away.
Laumet’s broken body was in pieces at my feet. Where Ollie’s blessed blood had spilled from him, his skin was blistered and raw. My hands, neck, and left cheek had similar marks on them, now in the process of healing. But none of that mattered.
I looked to Magena, who emitted an odd mixture of relief and anxiety. With Jacques and Laumet gone, she was the natural successor to the empire. She’d been Laumet’s mate and was the next oldest vampire in his coven. She had to take decisive action to secure her ascendancy. She did.
“Do it,” she growled at me.
In a flash, I was over Ollie.
Samantha screamed and fought until Langston finally released her. She sprinted toward us and fell to her knees just an arm’s length away. I met her eyes and used my power on her in a forceful way for the first time. She stopped where she was.
“Sam, you have to listen to me. Ollie’s life depends on it. Do you hear me? When I let you go, you may come over here, but you cannot interfere with what I am about to do.”
I released her. She blinked lazily. When her eyes regained their focus, the look she trained on me was part incredulous and part livid.
“I know you have absolutely no reason to do so, but you have to trust me.”
She made a choked noise filled with contempt. Wanting to spare her my fangs, I reached back and pulled the blade from my boot. Sensing Samantha’s defensive instinct, I trained my eyes on her and held her in place to ensure she didn’t attempt to stop me again.
“Here’s what’s about to happen. If you will please listen and stop trying to interfere, I will not do this to you again. We’re running out of time, Sam; her head injury is stressing her system, and her heart is working too hard.”
Her strength was simply amazing. Despite my hold on her she managed an obvious nod and a weak but clear, “Please.”
I released her. “Think about it. I have saved your life once and her life twice. I would never— never, do you hear me?—do anything to harm you or her.”
Her confusion flickered across her eyes, and a torrent of competing emotions coursed through her. Some deep part of my brain gasped in hope as the acrid betrayal and anger she felt toward me lost a little ground to the warmth of the love she had, or at least used to have, for me.
“She needs my blood. It’s curative. It will heal her.” I sliced the knife across my right wrist.
Samantha stifled a cry and glanced from my wrist to my eyes. “No, no, no, no.”
“Sam, I’m her only chance.”
“But you…you’re a…” She looked at me wide-eyed.
“Yes, Samantha. I am a vampire.” I met her eyes for one moment—which was all I could stand—and gulped down a massive knot of regret at this final impossible revelation.
“This will not change her. You’ve had my blood.” She looked confused, then her eyes bulged. “It didn’t change you.”
She nodded almost imperceptibly. I’m not sure she even realized she did it.
I pulled Ollie’s little body up against my leg so she was slightly elevated. I eased her jaw open and rested my bleeding wrist against her waiting mouth. The blood dropped in. After a moment she weakly swallowed, an involuntary reaction to the liquid pooling against her throat. I took the knife in my free hand and nicked the forefinger of the hand resting over Ollie’s mouth, opening up a second small flow I wiped across the wound on her neck.
Within minutes, my blood started closing her throat wound. Samantha gasped. She sought my permission as she reached to take Ollie’s extended hand.
“Yes, of course. It’s okay.” I looked up to Magena, who’d moved a little closer to observe my ministrations. “Magena, may we please have some water and cloths?”
She motioned to one of the others, who returned within minutes with a pitcher of water and several washcloths and towels. Magena looked to Langston and two other male vampires she’d made decades ago. These three men would form the beginnings of the inner circle of her guard.
Too low for Samantha to hear, she ordered everyone else out and commanded Langston and two others named Daniel and Michael to put the whole place on lockdown until she was done with this situation. Langston nodded, and the three flew out of the room. Only the four of us remained.
“Not too much, Lucien,” Magena cautioned.
I nodded and pulled my arm away from Ollie’s mouth, then lifted her body up slightly so I could rub my open wrist against the injury she’d received on the back of her head when I’d shoved her clear of Laumet’s spilling blood. I cringed at the lump under her hair.
I’d caused that.
Magena stepped forward and placed her hand on my shoulder. So
only I could hear, she offered, “You did right by her. She could have been changed otherwise.”
I nodded and noticed Samantha’s confusion at our seemingly silent exchange. “Magena, please speak loud enough for Sam to hear you.”
“Oh. As you wish.” She looked at Samantha. “Lucien feels guilty for Olivia’s head injury, but I was assuring him if he hadn’t knocked her free of Laumet’s blood and it had gotten into the bite mark on her neck, it could have begun her change into one of us. That was all I was telling him.”
Samantha glanced back and forth between us and tried to keep up with the torrent of information coming at her from all sides. When I pulled my arm away from Ollie’s head, I rested it in my lap. Samantha’s breath caught and I looked up to see the cause of her alarm. Her eyes were wide and trained on my wrist. I glanced down to find my wound had healed.
“I heal,” I murmured. “There isn’t much that can permanently harm me. Those are the properties that will help make Ollie better.”
She glanced at Ollie’s face. “Now what do we do?” she whispered, still holding Ollie’s hand.
“We wait for the blood to do its job.”
I grabbed a washcloth and dipped it into the pitcher of water. I gently washed the blood off Ollie’s face and neck. I threw the reddened cloth to the floor behind me. Her hair would have to wait until she could be bathed.
Magena picked up a cloth and dipped it, then handed it to me. I frowned up at her in confusion. “For your face,” she said. “You look as bad as she did.” I roughly ran the clean cloth over my face and neck, and then cleaned my hands.
I looked up at Magena. “Why did you do this for us?”
“You know why, Lucien.” I frowned. I really didn’t. Her eyes darkened. “For more than two hundred years, I have hated what I am, what he made me into. I have hated the kind of person he was, the kind of world he doomed me to live in for all eternity. I have had to suffer hearing the thoughts of the very worst creatures. He did that to me. He subjected me to that.” She paused and paced, glancing down at Laumet’s gory remains.