by Kali Argent
“He’s not going to tell us anything anyway. At least killing him would make me feel better.”
“Let me try. Five minutes, Luca.”
Righting the vampire, Nikolai circled him twice, studying him, watching the guard as the guy watched him. Up close, he realized the male was younger than he’d initially estimated, probably no more than twenty-four or –five. And he was, as Deke had said, crazy as hell. It showed in his eyes, the twitch of his jaw, and the way he rocked back and forth in the chair, pulling at his restraints.
“What’s your name?”
“Fuck you.”
It had been nighttime, and Nikolai distinctly remembered the thick scent of fresh blood. They’d met six years ago, maybe seven, he couldn’t be sure, but he knew this male.
“Tell me your name,” he commanded.
“Wesley,” the vampire answered, his tone devoid of emotion.
Like a switch being flipped, the memories came flooding back, so quickly and so violently, Nikolai flinched from the onslaught.
“Trevor Wesley.”
Luca’s head snapped up, and his eyes narrowed. “You know him?”
Trevor Wesley had been just seventeen at the time when he’d been caught taking apples from the Diavolos’ orchard to take home to his starving family. Of course, the circumstances of the theft hadn’t swayed the king. He’d tortured the young man for three days before draining him, then dumping him in the woods to die.
Nikolai spoke with the same monotone as Trevor as he relayed the story to his peers. “I tried to turn him to save his life, but I hadn’t thought I’d been successful. I moved him to the side of the highway so he’d be found, and that was the last time I saw him.” He looked over his shoulder at Trevor. “Until now.”
What he didn’t tell them is that he’d spent those same three days locked in a steel cage the size of a dog kennel, all because he’d suggested his father be lenient with the boy.
“Your dad is fucked up,” Luca said with his usual tact.
Nikolai nodded his agreement as he returned his attention to the vampire. “Do you know who I am?”
Trevor smirked. “Prince Nikolai Diavolos, heir to the Diavolos bloodline. My sire.” He sneered the last word. “I was wondering if you’d recognize me.”
“What happened to you, Trevor?”
From his left, Luca grunted. “We don’t have time for touchy-feely reunions, Nik. You two can drink lattes and braid each other’s hair later. Right now, we need answers.”
Deke scoffed. “Dude, you’re kind of a dick.”
“No. He’s right.”
As much as Nikolai wanted to know what had happened after he’d left Trevor on the side of that highway, the answer wouldn’t help him get into the compound or find Abby and the others.
Crouching in front of Trevor, he rested his elbows on his knees and stared directly into the vampire’s eyes. “Two months ago, four humans were brought here from the St. Louis werewolf pack. Two men and two women. Do you remember them?”
“I remember,” Trevor bit out through gritted teeth.
“Are they still there?”
“The blonde female was sold last month.” His eyes narrowed, and he growled, curling his lip to reveal his pointed fangs. “I’m going to kill you, Your Highness.”
“How are you doing that?” Deke demanded. “Why is he just answering you like that?”
Nikolai didn’t take his eyes off Trevor. “Because he doesn’t have a choice. I sired him. He’s compelled to do whatever I tell him.”
“That’s a thing?” The frustration in Deke’s voice was almost comical. “How did I not know that was a thing?”
“Can we focus?” Luca interrupted. “Where did Abby go? Who bought her?”
Nikolai grinned crookedly when Trevor glared. “Answer the captain.”
“I don’t know. Somewhere in Colorado.”
Colorado was mostly shifter territory—surrounded by miles of Deadlands—and as far as Nikolai knew, there were no vampire covens that far west. If Abby had indeed been traded to a shifter pack, it couldn’t mean anything good, but alas, that was a problem for another day.
“The other three? Where are they being held? Which building?”
Trevor continued to sneer and growl, but that didn’t stop him from answering. “The old movie theater. That’s where they keep all the humans.”
“Why? What are they doing with them?”
“Nik,” Luca interrupted as he tapped his index finger against the top of his wrist. “Tick tock. It won’t be long before they realize he’s missing.”
“Right.” Nikolai inhaled deeply, held it for a moment, then released it slowly. “What about the hotel?”
“Living quarters for guards and visitors.”
“How many Coalition guards patrol the theater? Where are they located?”
“Two in front. Two in back,” Trevor replied, his answers becoming more clipped, his tone growing agitated. “Four inside.”
Nikolai glanced up at Luca. “Anything else?”
“No. We’ve been here too long already. We need to move. Can you make him keep his mouth shut?”
“I can do better than that.”
After commanding Trevor to forget their conversation and providing him with a plausible story to cover his missing time, they left him back at the drop location before beginning the six-mile walk back to their vehicle.
None of them spoke as they trekked through the trees and ducked through back alleys. They didn’t discuss what they’d learned. No one asked questions. Hell, they didn’t even look at each other, but something lingered between the three of them, something Nikolai hadn’t felt in weeks.
Hope.
CHAPTER TWO
Cold. So cold.
Blindingly bright lights illuminated the barren walls of the operating theater and gleamed off the stainless-steel utensils.
Monitors beeped and whirred.
A door opened to the left, then closed with a muffled click.
Whispered conversations coalesced into a rush of intelligible white noise like the ebb and flow of the ocean tide.
Naked and barely conscious, Kamara Yamashito shivered atop a metal stretcher. Tubes and wires connected her to beeping monitors, and a needle pierced the vein in her right forearm. A heavy clamp pinched her left index finger, and an oxygen tube tickled her nostrils.
She drifted, floating somewhere outside of her body, but her mind reeled with memories and dreams, all tangled together into a confusing whirl of activity.
She stood on a beach, looking out over the ocean while her sister sifted through the sand for seashells.
She sat at the small breakfast nook of her childhood home, laughing at her dad’s silly jokes while her mother prepared breakfast at the stove.
She was alone in her dorm room, crying into a bowl of ice cream because Mark Howell had broken her heart.
She crouched behind a trash bin in a dank, filthy alley, and radioed for backup as gunfire echoed around her.
One memory bled into another, then another, around and around until she could barely tell fantasy from reality. Somewhere in a shadowy corner of her mind, she remembered what had happened, where she was, and how she’d come to be there. Those moments of clarity were few and fleeting, but each time those thoughts came, she grasped them tightly, holding on for as long she could before they faded again.
She remembered the moment she had realized nothing would ever be the same. There had been a young woman—a girl, really—and she’d looked so frail and small lying in the hospital bed hooked up to all manner of tubes and wires. At the time, it had been thought that a new drug had hit the streets of New York City, something vile and dangerous like they’d never seen. The next few weeks had proved otherwise, though. It was the beginning of the Purge, and as the PN2 virus spread, so did the fear and desperation of those who had managed to survive.
Kamara had done a lot of things she wasn’t proud of, but she’d done what was necessary to prot
ect those she cared about and keep herself alive. She wasn’t disillusioned about her current predicament, and she’d accepted that she’d likely die in this icy, sterile room that reeked of chemicals. In fact, it surprised her that she’d made it this long.
Blood, wet and sticky, coated the skin on the side of her neck and trickled down over her collarbone. Every minute movement pulled a deep, aching throb from the gaping wound there, and was made unbearably worse each time she swallowed.
A hand came to rest atop her shorn head, fingers gently caressing the stubble that covered her scalp. It felt nice, and her eyelids fluttered.
“She’s waking up,” a woman called, her voice distorted through Kamara’s haze. The female vampire’s face swam into view, and eyes the color of storm clouds stared back at her. “Just relax. Everything is going to be okay.”
She was wrong. In the broad sense, nothing would ever be okay again. In this precise moment, Kamara hoped it would stay that way. Since childhood, she’d been stubborn and willful, determined to see things through to their end, no matter what obstacles stood in her way. This time, however, she’d met her match, and she didn’t know how much more she could endure. Lately, in her rare moments of lucidity, she thought maybe it would be better to just fall asleep and never awaken.
For weeks, she’d alternated between the operating theater and a vast, dark room with rows and rows of red-cushioned chairs. She could never recall many details, but there had been vampires. Sometimes, they looked strange, like all the color had been leached from their skin, and she always heard music, eerie, ominous chords that whispered softly in her ears.
She would gladly take the crushing depression of that dark room over the horror that had been visited on her during the past few days.
“Give her another twenty units,” a male voice instructed, pulling Kamara back into the present. “We’ll begin shortly.”
Turning her head away from the female vampire, Kamara winced as pain shot up her neck and into her temples. She moved her left hand experimentally, pleased to find it free of restraints. The drugs they forced on her kept her only semi-conscious, and her body was too weak to attempt any sort of escape, but she didn’t mean to fight.
A morbid curiosity had plagued her since she’d first wakened. On some level, she knew she’d lost a lot of blood, and she should be afraid, but the fear never came. Maybe it was better that way, but she couldn’t shake the need to touch her injury, to examine it with her fingers and know for herself just how close to death she hovered.
“I wouldn’t do that, my dear.”
Warm fingers encircled her wrist to hold her arm immobile, but it wasn’t the restriction that finally triggered her fear. She recognized that voice. She didn’t know how, or where she’d heard it. She couldn’t put a face to the deep, cool timbre, but the sound of it terrified her.
“I am sorry.” He released her wrist and skimmed his fingertips up and down her forearm. “I got carried away, and you’re just so…fragile.”
Kamara wanted to scream. She wanted to jerk her hand away and rage at him, but the anesthesia had taken hold, and she began to drift again, the thin line between dreams and reality blurring.
“You’ll heal soon.” The male’s voice now sounded muffled and far away, but his words were no less intelligible. “When you wake up, you’ll be much more durable.” He laughed at this, clearly amused by his own cleverness. “Everything will be better, my dear, you’ll see.”
As suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone, his touch and his voice replaced by peaceful silence and uninterrupted darkness. And there, she dreamed.
It was the same dream, always the same, with only the smallest details changing from night to night. It had started the day she’d left New York, and though she’d revisited the dream hundreds of times, she still couldn’t make sense of it.
Standing in the center of a room flooded with light, the illumination so bright she had to shield her eyes, she heard the click of a doorknob, the soft squeak of hinges, then slow, muffled footsteps coming toward her. A man called her name, his voice resonating from every corner of the white room, his tone melodious and otherworldly. His presence enveloped her with warmth and tranquility, banishing her anxiety, and she clenched her hands at her sides, watching…waiting.
When he finally stepped into view, her breath caught in her throat. Tall, with broad shoulders and tightly sculpted muscles, his fair skin seemed to glow with an inner radiance as he stood before her like a towering god. Golden hair cascaded down his back, the tresses gleaming in the light that surrounded them. His rich brown eyes enraptured her, mesmerized her.
His gaze held hers with intense focus, as if peering right down into her soul. Without a word, he came nearer, gliding toward her until he stood so close should feel the warmth radiating from him. With slow, careful movements, he cradled her jaw, tilting her head up as he bent at the waist.
Kamara closed her eyes and crooked her head to the side, sighing as she leaned into his touch. His skin was so soft, his touch almost reverent, and she wanted to stay there with him forever.
“You’re going to be okay,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms and holding her to his muscled chest. “Stay with me, Kamara. Just stay with me.”
She wanted to answer him, but before she could form the words, everything went dark again, flinging her into another endless abyss.
* * * *
“Everyone know what they’re supposed to do?”
Crouching low at the front of the black inflatable boat they’d lifted from a nearby marina, Nikolai looked up at Luca and sighed. It wasn’t the first time the captain had asked the question, and he doubted it would be the last. Luca was efficient, and he expected the same from his team, but he was making everyone twitchy as hell.
They’d been over the plan a thousand times, and everyone knew it forwards and backwards. If everything went well, they’d be in and out in under four minutes, and no one would die.
Probably.
Maybe.
From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Roux and choked down another sigh. He liked the stubborn female and admired her bravery, but he feared she was walking into a fight she couldn’t win.
On the one hand, the female was smart, fierce, and capable. More than that, she was brave, always eager to do what was right rather than what was easy. Every day, the Revenant risked their lives fighting for what they believed in, and Nikolai didn’t see why Roux should be denied the chance to go to battle for the people she loved.
On the other hand, had she been his mate, he guessed his opinion on the matter would be quite different. Which was why it hadn’t surprised him when Deke had completely lost his shit. In the end, however, he’d lost the battle, and there Roux sat, her gaze fixed straight ahead, her expression determined.
Nikolai had never subscribed to the idea that love made people weak. It did, however, make them vulnerable. For years, he’d longed to find his own mate, to share a uniquely remarkable connection with the one person in all the world meant just for him. Since the Purge, he’d not only surrendered that dream, but he actively hoped against it.
Unlike the rest of the Revenant, he was no soldier. Other than his father’s penchant for doling out cruel punishments for every perceived wrong, Nikolai’s life had been one of privilege. Materially, he had never wanted for anything, and when the world had fallen into chaos, little in his own life had changed. For thirty-four years, he’d gotten everything he wanted with a little charm, a little wit, and a whole lot of money.
As a vampire, he wasn’t without defenses. In fact, he’d say he held a considerable advantage over most humans. Pitted against Coalition soldiers and Revenant guards, however, he was outmatched, and he knew it.
Since escaping St. Louis, he’d spent every free minute training with Deidra or one of the other werewolves. They didn’t hold back, and they never coddled him. In fact, he’d concluded that Deidra rather liked knocking him on his ass—which happened more often than he’d lik
e to admit. Every day, he got a little faster, a little stronger, a little better.
Still, the Revenant risked their lives merely by existing. The Coalition would like nothing more than to see them all exterminated, and many of them had already given their lives for the cause. Death stalked them, and he didn’t know how anyone was supposed to protect a mate from a world hell-bent on killing them all.
Wakes rocked the raft, seesawing them from side to side, and water splashed between the rubber sides and the concrete support column of the bridge above them. Occasionally, the breeze would pick up, creating ripples along the top of the lake and chilling Nikolai where it rushed over his exposed skin. He didn’t envy Deidra or Miles, or their half-mile swim to the banks behind the hotel. Anything that involved water in the middle of January just seemed like a bad idea in general.
It had been two years to the day since human scientists had released the PN2 virus in an attempt to eradicate all the paranormal races. Their fear had made them foolish, reckless, and in the end, they’d ultimately been the ones to raise the very creatures they’d meant to destroy to power.
Nikolai wondered if some semblance of the previous government still existed. Top scientists and eager politicians, holed up in an underground laboratory, desperately working to fix the mess they’d made. Or possibly, finish what they’d started.
“It’s been twenty minutes.” Thea cupped her hand right hand around the illuminated watch face on her left wrist. “They should be there by now. Maybe something went wrong.”
“They’ll make it,” Luca said, his voice quiet but confident. “Patience, Corporal.”
No one spoke as the seconds ticked by, all seven of them sitting tense and silent. Clouds had rolled in from the southwest, blotting out the stars and dimming the moon. The wind died away, and the lake calmed as an eerie hush settled over the lake. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. It felt as if the night itself held its breath.
Luca checked and double checked his gear. Thea clasped her hands together and closed her eyes. Rhys stared straight ahead, his gaze unfocused, perhaps lost in thought or plagued by unwanted memories. Roux huddled close to Deke’s side, her jaw set, her head high. As for Deke, he just watched his mate, likely wishing she was anywhere else right then.