Vengeance: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 3

by Denise Tompkins

  “Darius?”

  He shook his head and settled himself into the same chair Hellion had held earlier. “Just a moment. I haven’t felt this in over seven hundred years. You’ll have to understand that your questions come second.”

  “You felt it a few weeks ago at Hellion’s house,” I whispered.

  His head snapped up and his eyes narrowed. “I did. I thought you’d forgotten that.”

  “I may not have understood exactly why, but the event spooked you and you refused to talk about it. Seemed worth remembering.” I pushed and pulled my way into the highboy bed and leaned against the headboard. Displaced pillows toppled and slid off the jacquard cover, landing with a muted thump on the wood floor.

  Darius sighed and rubbed his chest distractedly. “Among vampire lore is the story of the woman who was a gift from the heavens and could, through her will alone, make a male vampire’s heart beat again. With the heartbeat returned, we are…hm…” Darius shifted, crossed his legs and closed his eyes.

  “What, Darius? You’re what?” I scooted so I faced him straight on and crossed my legs.

  “Able to sire children.” His eyes opened slowly, incrementally, to reveal eyes gone the deepest purple with lust and longing. “You are my only chance in this existence to father a child, Maddy.”

  “To what?” I began to push myself backward as if the vampire approached me.

  He didn’t. Instead he sat watching me, nostrils flared, without speaking.

  My ass went over the edge of the bed and, since Newton had been right about the whole gravity thing, the rest of me followed. I smacked my elbow hard enough it brought tears to my eyes. A pale hand extended to help me rise, but I rejected the offer and scrambled to my feet.

  “I’ve not even threatened to assault you, Maddy, so don’t take the fragile sensibilities approach with me,” Darius hissed. “If I’d wanted to, I could have had you several times over before anyone could come to your aid. Don’t discount—” His eyes widened as he stared down the barrel of my Colt 1911.

  “No, Darius.” Cold and cool, my voice drifted between us. “Don’t you discount the fact that I could shoot you before you could move fast enough to call for help. I’d regret it. Man, I’d regret it hard. But if you ever threaten me, don’t expect me to do anything but poke holes in you as fast as my trigger finger will squeeze.”

  The vampire’s mouth hung open slightly. “I didn’t even see you go for the gun.”

  “Keep your eye on the prize, D, and that prize isn’t in my pants. It’s in your chest.” I tapped the area over his heart with the gun barrel.

  Darius ripped the gun from my hand and threw it across the room. The gun clattered to the floor, grip safety engaged, while I struggled with the vampire. He handled me like a misbehaving doll, one whose arms and legs wouldn’t quite bend as requested. But it was only moments before he had me on the ground, pinned beneath him.

  “If the prize were truly in your pants, chick, you’d be well and truly fucked in every sense of the word.” He threw his hands back and stood, moving away from me to sit on the edge of the bed.

  My clothes were twisted and my bra displaced. I worked to get everything back in working order and turned to face him, my own gaze frigid. “Well, if this isn’t a first. I’ve never actually wished I’d shot first and asked questions later. Nice job, Darius. Thanks for changing that statistic for me.”

  He kicked the gun to me, and I picked it up.

  “Go ahead, then, Maddy. Wouldn’t want you to have to live with any regrets.” His voice rang out clear and sharp.

  My shoulders sagged. This was Darius, and the fact that he couldn’t have kids was clearly something that weighed on him. He might look like a metrosexual Rico Suave and have the reputation to back it all up, but at the heart of it, he was a friend and a man far removed from his time.

  Darius snorted and rose to his feet. “Don’t mourn for what I cannot have, Niteclif.” He leapt onto me, pinning my arms to my side in his iron grip. “If I wanted it badly enough, I’d take it. Do not ever forget what I am, mon cherie.” The feel of his tongue tracing my jugular made me shiver. “And I could guarantee you’d enjoy yourself, though that wouldn’t necessarily be my first concern.” Fangs pressed against my skin until it split and he hissed, licking the small bloody pinpricks lazily.

  “Don’t do this, Darius.” The memory of his slight madness in Hellion’s parlor drifted through my mind, as did the one thing that had stopped him in the guest bedroom last night. “Hellion.”

  Darius reacted as if I’d punched him. He let me go and stumbled back, again clutching his heart. “Holy Mother,” he exclaimed. He lifted his face to the ceiling and I watched him still individual muscle groups until not a tremor was left. Finally, minutes later, he lowered his chin and opened his eyes to face me. “I’ll beg your forgiveness, Maddy. I was entirely out of line.”

  I nodded, my traitorous pulse drumming a beat that echoed in my ears. “It’s not like I tried to diffuse the conflict.”

  He looked down, focused on straightening his French cuffs. “Apologies both ways. Accepted?”

  “You’re my friend, Darius. I’ll forgive you this once, but don’t ever threaten me again. If you do? I will pull that trigger.” I held out a hand and he moved toward me with exaggerated care.

  “I can’t promise to never threaten you again. Not with absolute certainty, anyway. It seems this cycle of heat, for lack of a better term, is driving me to do things I long would have thought beyond my nature.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I believe I’ve actually got a headache.” He sounded so incredulous that I couldn’t help but laugh. “Only you, fair Niteclif, could bring this on the undead.” The last was said with a fang-exposing grin.

  I nodded. “What are friends for?” We started toward the door together but I stopped, pulling Darius around to face me. “Question. Why does this scare Efien so bad?”

  Darius’s lips quirked up on one side but the attempt at a smile never made it to his eyes. “Don’t you see, Maddy? You’re the mythological creature now.”

  Every hair on my body stood at attention and a great shiver wracked my body, inhibiting my ability to answer for several moments. Finally, I found my voice. “I suppose I am.”

  Chapter Ten

  Darius and I walked downstairs together, his arm flung over my shoulders in companionable silence and support. I couldn’t deny I was shaken. That who and what I was had transcended standard freakishness into the realm of mythological among the mythological was just too strange to contemplate for long.

  Hellion still hadn’t come back inside, and his coven was on edge. I touched Mark’s shoulder as we passed and he whipped around to face me, his eyes wide as a blue mackerel’s.

  “What’s going on?” Darius’s voice seemed to draw the young man’s attention away from me and snap him back into the moment.

  “Sir. Darius. I mean… Oh, hell.”

  I couldn’t stop my bark of laughter. Mark never cursed, so while whatever was happening must have fired him up, hearing the words come out of his mouth was still the immediate shocker.

  The butler blushed. “Begging your pardon.” He took a deep, fortifying breath, closed his eyes and let it out slowly. “Hellion has identified the thinnest point of this plane in the southern garden. He’s out there getting ready to—”

  I didn’t give Mark a chance to finish. I shot out from under Darius’s arm and sprinted for the door. The vampire got there first, opened it for me and scooped me up, racing through the night to find my freaking idiotic life partner. If this little stunt didn’t kill him, I would.

  The cool, damp evening air had a loamy quality disturbed only by the smell of autumn’s die-hard flowers, faces bowing as we raced by. Hellion stood in the garden, drenched in sweat, shovel in hand. He had tied his hair back at some point, but a few wisps had escaped, the curls plastered to his head.

  At least a dozen coven members milled about the area, speaking in hushed voices. A sense
of charged impatience was strung between them, running like an invisible cord to connect them all back to Hellion. I felt the draw of it as we stepped inside a ring that had been scratched into the surface of the earth.

  Darius set me down and stalked to Hellion. He snatched the shovel from his hand and spoke in a voice so low I had a hard time hearing him. “You had no business starting this process without your second. Your Coven Master’s oath forbids you enter into this type of activity without your counterbalance.”

  “What’s a counterbalance?” I called out. Silence crashed over the group, abrupt and absolute. It felt like no one and nothing breathed. People ceased to move. Nature paused, still and waiting. The breeze died down. Anticipation and anxiety wound around my legs and crept up my spine. It was all I could do to not turn and get the hell out of the circle.

  Hellion’s expression was grim. “A counterbalance is typically your second most powerful witch or wizard in a coven. One of their jobs is to literally offer you counterbalance. If you perform an act that takes you too far to the black arts, your counterbalance is the white magic to bring you back.”

  My stomach clenched. “Tell me you’ve not done anything to need a counterbalance, Hellion.”

  “What did you think you were playing with when you suggested we summon Agares? Did you truly think it would be an invitation to tea? Or maybe we’d see if he’s amenable to negotiations?” His laughter was harsh, even bitter.

  “I’m not stupid, Hellion, and I didn’t think you were either. You’re on the fast track to proving me wrong, though, if you were about to engage Agares without help—available help.”

  The coven waited, their focus volleying back and forth with the conversation. Darius’s vampires moved forward in the darkness, their pale faces and unnaturally fluid limbs marking them “other”. Truthfully, some of Darius’s people scared me, but I trusted that he and Hellion were well respected—and universally feared—enough to keep me relatively safe. Though lately, “safe” only equaled “badly beaten but still breathing.”

  Efien approached us and bowed his head. “I owe you an apology, Maddy.”

  I touched his hand and he jerked but didn’t move away. “It’s fine, Efien. Just…don’t treat me differently. I’m still just me.” I felt like a ridiculous fool for saying as much.

  Efien took my hand gently and kissed the back. “I’m not afraid, exactly. You simply caught me off guard. It won’t happen again.” He smiled widely, bright white fangs lengthening.

  Millennia of the fight or flight evolution took over.

  I stepped back into Darius at the same time I drew my gun. It wasn’t smooth, but the gun was out and in my hand without a thought. Efien’s eyes widened. Mine narrowed. I held the gun pointed toward his forehead.

  A tight, vicious band formed around my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I tried to move and the only way my body would go was backward. Effectively forced back to the edge of the circle, I drew my first full breath the moment my foot landed on the unconsecrated ground.

  “The circle held.” Cheers erupted at Hellion’s announcement. He moved through the throng of revelers as a second cheer sounded in the house. He stopped in front of me and traced a finger along my jaw. “I created a small version of a stone circle.” Gripping my shoulders, Hellion backed me further from the circle’s edge. “It rejects violence done inside the boundaries I set. Are you all right? Can you breathe?” He wiped the cold sweat from my brow as I nodded. “Good. You might take a break. We’ll be summoning soon.” Distracted, he kissed my forehead and moved back to a small pile of stuff I hadn’t noticed earlier—candles, lighters, salt, a short stick of some sort, polished stones. Rooting through it, he retrieved a couple of items and headed to the house.

  I sank to the ground, gun still gripped in my hand.

  “Summoning materials.” Darius answered my unspoken question as he sat beside me. “He’ll use them to pull the demon from his plane into ours. It’s a dangerous affair, one that requires a strong second and, for a male demon, a bit of a seductress usually. Sometimes their favorite food will work as an alternate.”

  I couldn’t help it—I burst out laughing. Any anger or frustration that lingered was long gone. Wiping my eyes with the handkerchief Darius offered, I hiccupped. “So it’s sex or pizza, huh?”

  “I suppose if you think about it, that’s precisely the bargain. You all right?”

  “Yeah. Maybe a little shaken, if I’m honest. It seems like I’ve been off kilter since Hellion left the house in London. His moods have been strained, which I understand, but he’s pinging all over the place. I’m afraid he’ll…”

  “What, Maddy?” Darius’s normally crisp voice softened.

  “I don’t want a repeat of what happened with Bahlin. I can’t live through that twice, and Hellion is so much more to me, Darius. He’s everything I wanted, more than I thought I needed and absolutely what it takes to balance me. How do I fight his personal demon, literally, and keep him whole? How do I not lose him to the demands of life?” I asked, searching Darius’s face for answers.

  “Ah, Maddy. You cannot protect him from that which he must conquer on his own. The most you can do is love him in spite of his vexing personality quirks and fight by his side. Let him know you’re confident he can do this.”

  Darius made a small gesture with his hands and the vampires nearby faded into the darkness, leaving us alone except for the witches and wizards twenty yards away. Caught up in their own conversations about Hellion’s success, they’d not overheard the vampire.

  “He’s scared. I know his history quite well. I was a guest at his master’s house when the child was found near dawn, bloodied and beaten. He wouldn’t speak of the night before, and it was clear he’d been…abused.” Darius looked away, uncomfortable. “I befriended him not long after and we traveled Europe together, seeking out a variety of magics both light and dark, learning how to execute spells and concoct potions—we were inseparable as the friendship grew.”

  “You watched over him.” Emotion forced me to clear my throat before going on. “Why? What was he to you?”

  “Nothing and no one, Maddy. Just a child in need—one who couldn’t defend himself. He was too proud to accept my offer of protection, so I situated myself near enough, often enough, to allow him time to trust me. It formed the foundation of a lifelong friendship.” In an entirely human gesture, Darius tugged at his collar as I scrutinized him. He scowled, a low rumble emanated from his chest.

  He wasn’t fooling me, though. With or without a pulse, the vampire had a heart.

  Leaning over, I laid a hand on his cheek and kissed him gently and quickly, the offer not romantic but instead a gesture of sincere gratitude. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for helping him become who he is.”

  Darius’s eyes bored into my own, and he took a single breath. “You’re welcome.” A devilish grin stole over his face and he smiled wide enough to reveal a single dimple I’d never before noticed. “Had I known it would earn me your affection, I’d have likely done more.”

  I snorted and shook my head. A flurry of movement near the servants’ side door of the house caught my attention. Standing slowly, I couldn’t help but gasp. Hellion and a band of half a dozen coven members were coming toward us. Those that had remained outside were standing at attention, watching their Coven Master approach.

  Power roiled around him, pushing at the air with such force it felt as if it coiled in cognizant, ropey strands, slithering around and over bodies at the will of the man who commanded it. I’d never seen him like this—black leather pants, black boots, bare torso, hair pulled back tight, sword and gun at his side, power whipping about like it was alive—and it startled me. His eyes had gone completely black, the irises consuming the whites until that deep darkness gazed back. When he stopped in front of me and held his hand out, I stepped back without thinking.

  Hellion’s eyes partially closed and the winds stilled. “Do you fear me?” His voice resonated with an
unusual timbre.

  “Do I need to?”

  “You needn’t ask that, Madeleine Niteclif.” He spoke my name formally, almost as if it was unfamiliar to him. Hellion turned toward the circle.

  I leapt forward, grabbing his hand and situating myself to walk with him. The jolt of power raced up my arm like an electrical shock. Instinct told me to let go. Instead, I tightened my grip.

  He looked down with a small smile. “You’ll want to be careful touching me unless I’m aware of it and you’ve been invited, mo duine dorcha.”

  I was comforted by the familiarity in his words, though not by the subterranean tone.

  He grasped my hand tightly, moving toward the circle.

  It startled me when the first tremor shook him. I began to wonder. The second tremor confirmed what I’d already guessed—that his composure was a façade. I wouldn’t call him on it in front of the coven, and there wasn’t time to discuss it privately.

  Ready or not, we were about to have a visitor.

  Torches around the perimeter cast the runnels in the ground in sharp relief. There were two circles, one surrounding the other. The space between the outer and inner rings was about nine feet across, outer edge to inner rim. This was the space I’d been pushed out of earlier, so I knew it comprised the safety circle for the participants. The inner circle had a diameter of about fifteen feet. The ground was uneven, shredded by the shovel Hellion had wielded. Inside this smaller circle, a hexagram had been scraped into the dirt. Hellion took the pile of loose stones and, murmuring unintelligibly, placed one stone within each of the hexagram’s triangles. Next he took the blood red candles and passed them to five of the coven members. They stood around the inner circle, each body aligned with one of the hexagram points. Darius had situated himself at the point to the right of the southern tip and accepted a white candle without comment. On the ground beside him, one candle lay on its side, unclaimed. Those with candles removed penknives and began to carve the demon’s sigil into the candle wall at Hellion’s directive.