Kearn stepped forwards, until his toes of his boots touched the raised edge of the pool. He stared hard at the Sovereign in the middle, the one he thought watched over the vampires.
His insides twisted and tightened, rage gripping him as he thought about everything that had happened. Kyran had wanted nothing more than to become the Venator for Savernake. Kearn had taken his future from him, and now he wanted to take his. He wanted to take Amber and his family from him. And it was all the Sovereignty’s fault.
“If you hadn’t tricked me into becoming a Venator, he would have been happy. You took that away. You’re as much responsible for this as I am!”
“Kyran chose his path by committing unforgivable sin.”
Those words silenced his anger. He hadn’t been brave enough to question them about that the night they had made him a Venator, but he wasn’t going to let the chance slip by now. He had always thought they had banished Kyran for his acts of debauchery with the countess and for having drunk Source Blood. Now he suspected there was more to it than that.
“What sin?”
“Kyran’s heart is impure. We felt it was so as we watched him become an adult and he prepared for his role as a Venator. He desired to grasp the power of the Sovereignty in order to rule his kind.”
Kearn’s heart leapt into his throat.
“No.” He leaned forwards with his deep desire to cross the pool, take hold of the Sovereign and shake some sense into her. “I will not believe that. Kyran wanted nothing more than to become a Venator.”
“Your brother sought to become a Venator so he would gain power, not so he could protect.” The Sovereign’s soft voice echoed around the dark cold hall, wrapping itself around him. The sound irritated him now. He curled his fingers into fists to restrain himself. He wouldn’t believe her. “He and the female conspired to raise his power further via Source Blood. He was tainted. We could not allow him to become a Venator and challenge us and the balance which we create.”
The female?
They were talking about the countess. The Sovereignty had played him from the start. They had only given him a chance to have his vengeance in order to eliminate one of the threats to them, and then forced the role of Venator upon him to eliminate the other.
They had manipulated him the whole time.
Their game was as sick as Kyran’s.
His gaze fell to the frozen image of Kyran and Amber. She looked terrified. His blood reached out to hers but there was no connection. Was Kyran blocking him or was she unconscious? He had vowed never to let another man touch her and that he would kill any man who dared.
But killing his brother?
The thought of having to face Kyran was an icy shard in his chest. He had already taken so much from Kyran, and from his family. He couldn’t bear the duty of taking his life too. He loved his brother and didn’t want to kill him. They shared a bond and Kyran had reached out to him when he was alone.
Kearn’s thoughts turned towards Amber and he stared at her image in the pool, his heart aching with the need to reassure her and protect her. She had reached out to him too. She shared something deep with him and he loved her with every part of him—his breath, his heart, and his soul.
He couldn’t sacrifice her because of his feelings for Kyran, but killing Kyran was asking too much of him.
“Kyran has taken Source Blood. Send a Venator to judge him. Leave me out of this. I only want Amber back.”
Could he really save Amber and leave the duty of killing his brother to another Venator? It wasn’t possible. He knew deep inside him that Kyran would kill every Venator Kearn sent his way until he was the only one left.
For Kyran, these past three years had been a game with him, not the Sovereignty. Kyran wanted him and he had no choice but to fight and defeat his brother so his family and Amber would be safe.
It didn’t matter that it was Kyran. His brother had chosen his path and Kearn would kill him for what he had done to Amber. He would do all in his power to protect her. She was his whole world and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Resolve flowed through him and he stepped backwards, away from the pool and the Sovereigns.
“You cannot leave.” Their combined voices echoed around the dark grey hall.
The light in the hall dimmed and the chill increased, an icy breeze sweeping up from below and encompassing him. He tried to move but couldn’t.
The Sovereign in the middle stared at him.
He could feel her intent and her anger. Because he refused to play their games?
“We are powerless if his new plan comes to fruition. He would be cleared of his sin,” she said and held her hand out to him, shifting her white veil with it.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
The scene in the pool rewound to the point where Kyran had looked like him and had been at Amber’s throat. Her words stabbed him in the heart, each of them a cold needle that buried itself deep within his flesh.
She had consented to be his.
He shook his head.
No. She had consented to be his brother’s without realising it.
“If he claims her, it will be consensual. She has given herself to him in word but not yet in body. You cannot allow that to happen. If it does, the sin we have proof of is erased. All blood he had taken from her will be marked as consensual too and we will be unable to touch him. There are others who share his ability and could have perpetrated the other sins. He could deny all knowledge of them and we cannot prove his involvement. You must defeat your brother before this happens.”
Kearn’s eyes bled to red and he glared at Kyran, watching him reveal himself to Amber.
It didn’t matter what the Sovereignty wanted. He wasn’t following their orders anymore. He was going to do this out of loyalty to Amber and his need to keep the promise he made to her. Kyran wouldn’t get a chance to take her from him.
She belonged to him.
He loved her. Needed her more than anything. She was the most precious thing in his dark world and he couldn’t live without her.
He didn’t care about the threat to Pendragon or his family, or even the Sovereignty. The sight of Amber with Kyran sickened him. The thought that his brother had lied to him, had hurt Amber, had held her close in his arms and drunk from her, ignited a black rage within him, until the only thing he cared about was saving Amber and killing Kyran.
But how?
Amber’s blood was very pure. If Kyran had taken enough, he could easily overthrow any who opposed him. It didn’t matter. Amber’s blood was still in him, increasing his strength enough for him to attempt to fight Kyran. His mission right now wasn’t to kill his brother. It was to rescue Amber. Once she was safe, he would finish this.
“We will warn your father and the other Venators, and send them to protect the Pendragon, Montagu and Savernake families.”
Kearn nodded his thanks to the Sovereign. He didn’t think the Venators would stand much chance against Kyran if he had drunk enough of Amber’s blood, but they could hold him off at least or perhaps combine their strength to defeat him. They had to stop him somehow.
There had to be a way.
Kearn’s heart said that there was. Amber’s blood whispered to him, her fear trickling through now and her need for him running in his veins. If he had more of her blood, he could defeat his brother.
If he had her.
His fangs extended and a dark desire burned within him. He couldn’t wait any longer. This threat to Amber was his breaking point. When she was back in his arms, he would make her forever his.
Kearn cried out when tremendous pain gripped his arm and he clutched it to his chest, blinded by the brightness of the blue light that shone from it as it activated. He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, trying to shut out the pain. The cold disappeared and spots of water hit him, heavy drops that bounced off his face and soaked into his scalp. The smell of wet earth filled his senses and he opened his eyes.
He was back at the lodge,
standing outside in the rain.
Kearn pulled his keys from his pocket, unlocked his car, and jumped in. He gunned the engine into life and sped towards the main gates of the estate. They barely had time to open before he was driving through them at breakneck speed.
He knew where his brother would be.
There was only one place nearby that he would take Amber.
Earl Huntingdon’s house.
It didn’t take long to reach the gates of the Huntingdon estate. They were open, an invitation that he wasn’t about to refuse. The rain lashed down, hammering hard on the windscreen of his Audi. Kearn drove up to the grand Georgian mansion. Its elegant columns and delicate façade belied the beasts that dwelled within its walls.
The only car outside the house was his brother’s black Bentley. Kearn parked beside it, his gaze on the unlit mansion. There wasn’t a sign of life.
His heart whispered dark words to him about Amber and Kyran, until he was on the verge of leaping from his car and running into the house, gun blazing. It was a fool’s move and one he wouldn’t make. Even if he were furious, desperate to spill blood for the things that had happened and to have Amber back in his arms, he wouldn’t succumb to his desires. He had to keep his head or he would lose it. Kyran could easily defeat him if he ran headlong into the fight, not thinking clearly and not aware of the situation in the building or the layout. As much as he hated it, desired to surrender to his need for violence, he would assess everything and then make his move.
His senses reached out, dulled by the heavy rain, and searched his surroundings. There were vampires in the house but they were very still. It was night so it wasn’t likely that they were sleeping. There wasn’t a trace of blood in the air either, so his brother couldn’t have killed them.
Was Earl Huntingdon involved in Kyran’s plan, or had he not been included? The gathering of signatures and lack of patrols pointed towards the latter. Kyran must have taken the Huntingdon family hostage. If that was the case then he was likely to be at the other end of the house, as far from potential danger as possible.
Kearn scanned the length of the mansion, the windscreen wipers working furiously to clear the rain from his vision, and stared hard at the other end of the building to his right. He could sense people there. The signal was weak, indicating a small number of people, but he couldn’t tell whether they were vampire or human.
He would start there.
He turned off the engine, reached behind his seat and took his spare gun from the box there. He checked the clip, chambered the first round, and then opened the car door and stepped out into the rain. The second he had closed the car door and locked it, he was running across the gravel drive to the portico of the house. He leaned his back against the damp sandstone wall near the dark wooden double doors and listened. Only the sound of rain filled his ears and he couldn’t sense anyone on the other side.
The handle was cold under his fingers. He pushed it down and the door opened. It confirmed his suspicions. Kyran was holding the Huntingdon vampires hostage. Vampire families never left the door unlocked if it was unattended. Uninvited guests were a nuisance, especially since they were usually vampire hunters.
Kearn stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind him. His eyes changed to red, his vision sharpening as they did so, and he scanned the darkness for a sign of trouble. Nothing.
The door opened again. Kearn spun on the spot and aimed his gun at the intruder.
His finger froze against the trigger.
“What are you doing here?” He kept the gun fixed on her, unwilling to trust anyone right now.
“The Sovereignty sent me to help you.” Venator Greystone pushed her long wet silver hair from her face. The tangled threads clung to the black jacket of her uniform.
Kearn lowered his gun but didn’t put it away. He kept his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot her if she tried anything. His brother’s illusions were strong. For all Kearn knew, he could be staring at Kyran, not the female Venator. He moved to his right, towards two doors that led deeper into the building, motioning for Venator Greystone to follow him. He would see how this played out. She had come in from outside and he hadn’t sensed anyone there with him earlier, so she might have just arrived. The signal at the end of the building was as weak as it had been before, indicating that the same number of people were there. There was a chance that he was wrong and she wasn’t his brother, but he wasn’t prepared to risk it.
Venator Greystone followed him, her footsteps as silent as his were on the parquet.
His blood reached out to Amber’s. Only a glimmer of her feelings came through the connection. It wasn’t enough to comfort him. He needed the connection between them to be open again. He needed to feel her and know that she was safe and to tell her that he was coming for her. He would save her from Kyran and he would make her his.
The scent of Amber’s blood drifted from one of the two corridors in front of him. He stopped and breathed deep, trying to discern which one would lead to her. The scent was strongest from the left door. Kyran was holding her at the rear of the building and he wasn’t being discreet about it. His brother wanted him to find her.
It was fine with him. He was ready to make Kyran pay for taking her and for playing such a vicious game with them. He advanced slowly down the dark corridor with Venator Greystone trailing behind him.
“You know about the situation?” he whispered and waited for her response. If she slipped up at all in the next few minutes, he would attack.
“Yes.” She moved closer to him. “They explained about your brother and the human female.”
Kearn still couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that Kyran had orchestrated such a plan and was doing this. He didn’t want to believe it, even when he knew it was true. He kept hoping that he would discover it was all a mistake and the image of Kyran was in fact another illusion, a mask worn by the real culprit.
He followed Amber’s scent through the maze of corridors at the back of the house. It was easy for him to use his senses to guide him in the darkness so he wouldn’t bump into anything. Venator Greystone would find it more difficult. Lesser Nobles had weaker senses than Nobles. She would need to follow him rather than her own senses. Presuming she was just a Lesser Noble and not a Noble in disguise. He moved faster, seeing if she could find her own way in the darkness or was really relying on his position to help her.
She bumped into something and growled.
“Wait,” she whispered and he didn’t. He kept striding along the corridor.
The smell of Amber’s blood grew stronger near a set of stairs that led upwards. He peered up them and reached out to her with his senses and his blood. She was there. Somewhere on the first floor. He waited at the stairs for Venator Greystone to catch up with him and then followed them to the next floor. The wooden treads creaked under their feet. He scanned the darkness ahead to see if anyone would hear it but it was empty.
The first floor was more spacious but just as dark. He couldn’t risk lighting the way with any of his powers. It would give away their location to anyone in the vicinity. They had to keep moving forwards in the darkness until they were closer to Amber and his brother.
His senses sharpened enough for him to be able to see a ghost of his surroundings in his mind. A gallery. They were at the front of the house now. He moved to his right, towards where the windows were, and found a set of heavy velvet curtains. Pulling one aside a fraction, he peered out into the night. It was raining harder now, saturating the world. His car was bright in the grey night, parked a short distance from the Bentley.
He frowned when he didn’t see another car and then realised that he hadn’t heard one arrive when Venator Greystone had appeared. His senses fixed on her. How had she arrived at the estate only a short time after him? Even if the Sovereignty had seen him arrive at the house and transported her to them in order to give her the mission to assist him, she wouldn’t have arrived so close to him. Time moved fast in the Sover
eignty’s dimension. Venator Greystone had arrived only minutes after him.
Or she had been here the whole time.
His grip on his gun increased. He tensed on the inside but didn’t let it show on the outside or in his feelings. A Noble vampire would be able to sense a change in his emotions.
She came forwards so the dim light from outside touched her face and looked at him in the way she had done when testing his blood—a blatant attempt to get into his good graces and his underwear. He wasn’t interested in her. The only reason he was even looking at her was because he was trying to figure out whether or not she was his brother.
He turned away and carried on down the gallery, following the scent of Amber’s blood, only part of his senses were now fixed on Venator Greystone, monitoring her closely in case his suspicions were correct and she was in fact his enemy.
She hadn’t done anything suspicious other than arriving at almost the same time as him, but his brother had never done anything suspicious around him either.
Kearn had never had the inkling that Kyran was his enemy. Kyran had played him well.
He sensed two people in a room ahead. He stopped and turned to Venator Greystone, only able to sense her form in the darkness and her feelings. She was nervous.
“We should prepare.” He continued walking, his fingers flexing around his gun and his heart picking up pace. If she was going to make a move, it would be now.
“I am already one step ahead of you, Lord Savernake.”
Before he could turn to face her, something heavy and blunt struck the back of his head. Dark waves threatened to pull him under but he fought them.
“Damn you.” Venator Greystone struck him again, hitting his right shoulder this time. “You should be out cold.”
He would have been if he hadn’t taken so much blood from Amber so recently and hadn’t been anticipating the attack.
“I knew it was you.” Kearn growled and tried to focus through the pain.
“You knew it was who? You don’t have a clue, Lord Savernake. You never have.”
Forbidden Blood (Vampire Venators Romance Series) Page 30