by Kali Argent
DEAD OF NIGHT
The Revenant, Book 3
Copyright © Kali Argent
DEAD OF NIGHT
Copyright © April 2017 by Kali Argent
Cover Art by Black Butterfly Designs
Published by Peccavi Press INC
eBook ISBN: 978-1-940637-34-1
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal, except for the case of brief quotations in reviews and articles. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
DEAD OF NIGHT
Heir to a throne he never wanted, vampire prince Nikolai Diavolos has seen firsthand how power corrupts. Abandoned by his siblings and betrayed by his father, he doesn’t have much use for family—until the Revenant offers him a second chance. Now, he’ll do whatever it takes to prove his worth, even walk through the fires of hell to face the most powerful coven in the country.
Held for months by the Abraxas coven, Kamara Yamashito is beginning to lose her grip on reality. Nothing seems real anymore. Nothing feels right. She’s hearing things, a stranger’s voice in the back of her mind, a voice that promises salvation, but Kamara knows the truth.
No one can help her.
Nikolai never expected to survive the mission, let alone find his mate within the walls of the compound. Fierce, brave, and resilient, Kamara is everything he’s ever wanted, but freeing her from the coven is only the beginning.
The real fight will be finding a way to save her from herself.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”
— WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, “Henry IV”
PROLOGUE
Prince Nikolai Diavolos hurried down the long corridor, his boots echoing off the stone floor and crunching over the smattering of loose sand. He’d watched them bring the human female onto his father’s estate, watched the Wardens drag her to the underground cellar, and he knew he could no longer be inactive. If he wanted the Revenant’s help to right the wrongs of the king, he had to earn their trust.
What better way than rescuing the captain’s mate?
“Who’s there?” the female called as he approached her cell.
Her voice remained even, despite the fear he smelled wafting from her cage. He admired her courage, but bravery alone wouldn’t save either of them.
Dressed in the uniform of the Coalition Wardens, Nikolai stepped into the circle of light created by a single, naked bulb. The human who met him on the other side of the bars was much smaller up close, the top of her head reaching only to his clavicles, but she held her shoulders back, her spine rigid.
“Roux Jennings?” Taking the black key from the keyring he’d lifted off one of the Wardens from his pocket, he stepped forward to insert it into the metal keyhole of the cell door.
Roux nodded, but took a step back, the chains around her ankles clicking when she moved. “Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am.” She’d never follow him out of the underground prison if he told her he was the son of the man who had done this to her. “We have to hurry.” Kneeling, he unshackled her ankles, dropping both the steel cuffs and the ring of keys to the cold, damp floor. “Let’s go. We have to warn Captain Collins.”
“If you plan to inform him that a group of Wardens are going invade the Square, it’s a little late. Been there, done that.”
He’d seen that carnage, and while it saddened him, they had much bigger concerns. “Worse,” he answered, “much worse. Now, come on, we have to go.”
Exiting the cell, he hurried back down the corridor, praying she’d be smart and follow him. By the time he reached the heavy steel door at the end of the hallway, he began to worry that her distrust and stubbornness would keep her planted inside her dank prison. Before he could decide whether or not to urge her forward again, or just grab her and carry her out, he heard her shuffle, pause, then call out to him.
“Shit. Wait up.”
Nikolai didn’t stop, but he slowed his pace as she jogged to catch up to him. Without a word, he led her through the metal door, up a flight of stairs, through yet another reinforced door, and out into the estate’s rear garden. Moonlight bathed the many fountains, its silvery beams sparkling in the flowing waters. Amber fairy lights illuminated other parts of the garden, providing a clear path to the back fence, but little in the way of cover.
“What the…” Roux mumbled behind him.
He didn’t know what had drawn her attention, and they didn’t have the time for him to investigate, either. “Hurry, they probably already know you’re gone.”
“Where the hell are we going anyway?” she demanded, but she didn’t slow, keeping pace with him as they navigated the sprawling maze.
“Through the garden and over the back fence. There’s a trail that will lead us to the Bastille.”
The dormitory-style building housed human refugees that had been caught wandering through Diavolos territory. When it had first been established, Nikolai had been astounded at his father’s generosity. The humans were given food, clothing, a warm place to sleep, and medical attention. Then, they’d be placed into jobs that befitted their skill sets, given one of the houses in town that had been abandoned after the Purge. For a while, things had been good.
Nikolai should have known it was too good to be true. He should have realized that Elias Diavolos never did anything purely out of the goodness of his heart. Hell, he didn’t even know if his father was even capable of goodness.
The king didn’t care about these humans. He only wanted to fill his stable with warm bodies that he could sacrifice to the Ravagers. That was what they had to tell the captain. That was why they needed to reach him.
“Are you sure about this?”
No, he wasn’t sure about anything, but he nodded anyway as he helped up her up the iron fence, following swiftly after her. “The guards don’t use the pathway after sundown.”
Likely because of the very same Ravagers, but he and Roux had no choice. They’d just have to chance it.
It had never occurred to him that his information could be faulty. So, when four Wardens swarmed them the moment their feet landed in the dirt, Nikolai hesitated, and that brief moment of shock cost both him and his companion dearly. Two guards—one female shifter and a male vampire—converged on Roux, crowding her on both sides while they held her by the elbows. Two other guards, both male, rushed Nikolai, shoving him to his knees while the one on the left pressed the cold barrel of a handgun to the nape of his neck.
“You aren’t having a very good day, are you?” the only female guard jeered, squeezing Roux’s upper arm and shaking her like a ragdoll.
“I’d say your captain is the one having a bad day.” Roux spoke and smiled pleasantly, as if conversing with an old friend, but her jade-green eyes held a world of hatred and malice. “That had to have been the shortest command post in history.”
“Trust me.” Leaning in until her lips brushed against the shell of Roux’s ear, the Warden chuckled. “Where you’re going, you’ll wish you were dead.”
The Warden wasn’t wrong, and Nikolai hated that he’d led Roux into this trap. He couldn’t save her, not now. Any move he made would only get them both killed. The best he could hope for was that Captain Collins would find his mate before time ran out, and she’d tell him what had happened here.
“Nikolai,” a deep, booming voice called from the shadows of the trees that lined the sandy path. “You were always such a disappointment to me.”
“Nikolai?” Roux whipped her head around to state at him, her eyes wide, her mouth agape. “Nikolai Diavolos? As in, the crown prince of the Diavolos family?”
Nikolai didn’t look at her, didn’t acknowledge her, just stared straight ahead, watching as his father emerged from the darkness. Throughout his life, many people had told him he looked remarkably like his father. Nikolai grudgingly had to admit they were right. Though decades separated them, and his father’s honey-colored locks had grayed over the years, they had the same bone structure, the same dark eyes, and even the same smile.
Nikolai thought he might be sick.
Dressed in a well-tailored suit with a pair of shiny, black loafers, Elias Diavolos tucked his hand into the right pocket of his trousers and smirked. With his other hand, he motioned toward Roux with a dismissive wave.
He was enjoying this.
“Put her with the others. I’ll deal with my son.”
Slow and deliberate, making sure that Nikolai caught his every action, he moved his hand from his pants to the breast pocket of his jacket, where he produced a single pair of pliers. At the same time, the two guards flanking Nikolai holstered their weapons. One fisted a hand in his hair, jerking his head back, while the other gripped his jaw to force his mouth open.
“You’ve tested me for the last time,” the king commented, strolling forward as he rolled the pliers in his hand, watching the moonlight gleam off the shiny metal. “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.”
“No! Stop it!” Roux jerked and twisted, trying to free herself from her captors.
“It’s okay.” Nikolai, on the other hand, didn’t struggle. He was sorry for what waited for her, but he no longer cared what horrors his father inflicted on him. If Roux could find a way to warn her mate, it would all be worth it. “It doesn’t matter what he does to me.”
“Get her out of here!” the king barked.
Pausing to collect himself, he took a deep breath, releasing it slowly as his lips curled at the corners once more. He bent, bringing the pliers to Nikolai’s mouth and clamping them around his right fang.
“At the risk of repeating himself,” his father mused, “this really is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.”
CHAPTER ONE
Stories had been passed down from each generation to the next, legends about mystical and dangerous beasts known only as the Others. Of course, no one had ever seen one of these creatures, but many theories existed about them. In one version, they were said to dwell high in the mountains. In another, they favored the sea. Yet, many believed these magical being walked among them, hidden, masquerading as werewolves, vampires, or even humans.
With each retelling, the details changed. To the werewolves, they were demons, raised from hell to punish the wicked. Vampire lore claimed them to be the origination of the species, who came into existence fully grown with an unquenchable thirst for blood. Shifters thought them to be god-like creatures—fiery and avenging with unlimited power.
No one could agree on what made them so dangerous. They were simply monsters to be feared, to be spoken of around campfires, or whispered about during the darkest of nights. Everything from thunderstorms to death had been blamed on the Others, a collective boogeyman for all things that went bump in the night.
Prince Nikolai Diavolos didn’t put much faith in fairy tales. A very real threat stalked the earth, a flesh and blood, breath and bone, cruel, merciless tyrant.
Nikolai called him father.
Staring through the big bay windows of the gaudy mansion in Valley Falls, Kansas, Nikolai sighed. It was a beautiful day, marred only by the coldness that swept through the state. Sunlight gleamed off the gazing ball in the center of the rear garden, and despite the encroaching winter, a single, colorful bird tweeted merrily from its perch atop the iron fence that surrounded the estate.
It pained him to know the world had changed, and not so much for the better. Of course, it had never been perfect, but he still believed it would have been better if the humans had never learned of the existence of paranormal beings. Gemini, they called them. The werewolves and shifters, the vampires, the monsters with two faces. It was an apt description, and he couldn’t fault them for their negative views.
While some—like the Revenant members currently conducting a meeting behind him in the swank office of Captain Cameron Dresden—lived harmoniously with the humans, protected them even, others were not so kind. After the Purge, when the PN2 virus had swept across the planet and decimated the human population, the various races came together after centuries of fighting, declaring a new order, a new law of the land. So, the Allied Races Coalition had been formed, and what followed would forever be a black stain on their history.
The shifters wanted more hunting lands. The werewolves simply wanted retribution for the humans’ attempt to kill them, and the vampires wanted what they’d always wanted—power. They doctored it, wrapped in a lovely package, and presented it as a need for survival. The reality, however, was that while vampires preferred human blood for its sweetness, they could just as easily feed on another Gemini. Declaring sovereignty over vast territories and enslaving hordes of humans in the name of resource procurement was a gross discredit to their race, and none had been greedier than Elias Diavolos.
As the oldest line of vampires in North America, the name Diavolos afforded respect from Nikolai’s peers and incited fear in his enemies. Much of this was due to his father’s mistreatment of everyone under his rule—Gemini and human alike. It had been that way for as long as Nikolai could remember, but his father hadn’t shown the true evil that lurked in his heart until after the Purge.
Of the seven original bloodlines, only three remained apart from his own—The Verrano and Lucern families in Europe, and the Zhangs in Asia—but it had been only the Diavolos clan who had proclaimed themselves royalty. The first recordings of Nikolai’s ancestors dated back to Rome in the year AD 56, and from what he’d read, each successor had proved to be more avaricious than the last. It was that greed and lust for power that had eventually led the Diavolos bloodline to New Orleans in the early eighteenth century.
It was so cliché it almost hurt.
For over three centuries, Nikolai’s family had presided over the vampires in North America. Nothing happened without their knowledge. No one broke their rules without swift and brutal consequence. And so it had continued until the inevitable fall of their so-called dynasty.
The world had grown, and in doing so, had left them behind. Once feared, vampires had become nothing more than myths and legends, romanticized in books and movies, a creature to be pitied, and yet, coveted. If only humans knew the depths of cruelty exhibited by these monsters they so exuberantly fawned over, they’d have run screaming into the night.
Turning away from the windows, Nikolai did his best to push away unpleasant thoughts and focus on the present. It had been less than forty-eight hours since he and his comrades had stormed into werewolf territory outside of St. Louis, Missouri to rescue their friends. It hadn’t been an easy fight, and both sides had suffered significant loss. In the end, only the Revenant had been left standing, but he wouldn’t consider it a victory.
Two of their friends had needlessly given their lives for the amusement of the pack and their sadistic alpha. He would miss Zerrik. The vampire had always been uncommonly kind, and he’d extended his friendship to Nikolai despite their uneasy past. As for their other fallen brother, he hadn’t known Brody well, but he considered any loss of life a tragedy. Yet, he knew he didn’t feel their absence even a fraction of what his gathered comrades did.
Four of their number were still missing, traded by the pack to the Abraxas coven. He didn’t want to think about the horrors they had endured in the month since they’d been taken. It was for them that the meeting had been called, though Nikolai doubted anyone would like what he had to say.
The double doors opened with a faint creak, and Corporeal Thea Mendez slid into the room wit
h an apologetic grin. Her ebony hair was still wet, and the scent of her recent shower clung to her caramel skin. Her mate, Sergeant Rhys Lockwood, followed her into the office with more confidence and an air of indifference. There was nothing clean and floral about his scent, however. He smelled of wild, carnal delights, leaving little to the imagination about what had detained them.
Nikolai smirked.
Technically, the couple still had a few minutes before the meeting was supposed to begin, but that didn’t stop Luca from voicing his displeasure at their tardiness.
Sitting atop a gleaming mahogany desk, Captain Luca Moretti spoke with the confidence of a born leader. Despite being human—and the fact that there were two other captains in the room—everyone looked to Luca for answers and guidance. He bowed to no one, and he expected everyone to pull their weight. Since their first meeting in Kansas City, Nikolai had considered him hard but fair, efficient almost to a fault. He’d led the rescue mission into St. Louis with only a handful of soldiers, and he’d done so without any hint of fear or uncertainty.
In short, Luca had more than earned everyone’s respect, including Nikolai’s.
The only person who didn’t seem happy about the proceedings was Captain Cameron Dresden. Seated behind his extravagant desk, he’d made it clear more than once that he didn’t appreciate having his town and home invaded. He’d been wholly against bringing in the werewolves who had surrendered during the fight, and he’d spoken condescendingly about the Revenant’s desire to train them.
He was also a selfish prick and a pathetic coward, and therefore, no one paid much attention to him.
Nikolai didn’t exactly like the guy, and he had little patience for his fearmongering, but he figured being rendered useless in his own home had to sting, and for that, he pitied the lion shifter.
“Nik has some information about the Abraxas coven.” Turning just his head, Luca waved his right hand at Nikolai, giving him the floor.