Last Vamp Standing

by Kristin Miller

  The miracle he was waiting for didn’t come. But when Ariana caught his gaze, her brown eyes glistening with sadness, Dante found his own kind of serenity. He found it in her.

  “The death shade will deliver the message,” Dante said, splintering the silence. “And if Savage is smart, he’ll come back with an army of vamps possessed just like him.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Savage has retreated, but the war is far from over. There is treasure in Black Moon, and it’s too rich to ignore.”

  WATCHER ARCHIVE, UPDATE

  “THERE ARE WAY too many vamps roaming around Crimson Bay without a haven,” Slade said as they turned into the great room. It was packed to the max, wall to wall with vamps spilling over every couch, every chair. Candles flickered on the walls, and flame-filled chandeliers hung from invisible mounts over their heads. “Do you know how easy it would be for Savage to hang out at Mirage and possess every vamp in the whole damn place?”

  “I hate being right all the time.” Dante stopped in the entry, scanning through the vamp exodus Slade and Ruan brought with them. There had to be over two hundred, clogging every inch of breathable space. “But it’s the only play Savage has left. He’ll possess as many vamps as he can, as quickly as he can. When he comes back for round two, we’ll be killing our own kind.”

  “It’s right up his alley,” Slade said. “Twisted as hell and leaves a blood trail as long as my—”

  “There’s something I don’t understand, “Ariana said, hot on their heels. “Eve said she can extinguish death shades. Why can’t she use that power to pull the dark out of any vampire Savage possesses?”

  “It’s not like that. The death shade has to be in its original form.” Slade stopped when they reached the kitchen. Dylan was behind the granite counter, tweaking Black Moon’s bottling system to allow more bottles to fill at once. Narci, Black Moon’s resident bartender, was monitoring Dylan’s every move, her crimson red hair draping over her shoulders like waves of fire. “It’s not like the mawares in the amulet can blast through a vamp’s skin. It’s solidifying light and dark, not sinking like a bullet. The body provides a shell for the death shade, a means of protection.”

  “It’s going to get messy.” Dante spun around, facing Ariana. A strange stirring fired in his gut. Despite the heaviness of the conversation, Dante had the urge to rile Ariana up so he could see her lips pout and her hands plant on her hips. The energy firing between them when they bantered was hot and addicting, and Dante wanted more. “You better make sure your elders are ready to fight both with and without their mawares. When Savage attacks, I’m betting we’ll be outnumbered, even with these vamps from the bay.”

  From the harshness of his tone alone, Ariana’s eyebrow perked.

  “I better?” She swiped her tongue across her lips. Dante couldn’t help but remark how cotton candy pink they were and how their tone matched the flushed shade of her cheeks. “My elders will fare just fine. But if you’re worried about that pretty neck of yours, I’d suggest you stay indoors.”

  “I think you two are on your own.” Laughing, Slade popped Dante on the back. “I’m going to see if Dylan needs any help.”

  Dante breathed a sigh of relief to be free of him. Whether it was the brashness of Slade’s tone or the vamp-therian blood mixing in his veins, Dante didn’t much care for the guy.

  “That there,” Ariana said once Slade disappeared into the refrigeration system in back, “is what’s going to win this war.”

  “What is? Slade?” Something in Dante’s chest recoiled at the words and grated against his rib cage. It stung of jealousy.

  “No, everyone’s going to have to work together. Every vamp on the grounds is going to have to pull their own weight and then some. Dylan won’t be able to regulate the drinking on her own. She’ll need Narci’s guidance with our systems. The two of them should be able to get things working smoothly. But the Seekers aren’t going to be able to guard the borders without help. They’ve never met with an enemy like this before.”

  “Ruan’s already on it.” Dante pushed open the double doors leading to the elder training ground and let Ariana pass through ahead of him. Ariana brushed his arm, sending jolts of electricity firing through his veins.

  “Yeah, but the others,” she said, her voice softer than the late night breeze on his skin, “will have to do more than suck off the energy and protection of this place.”

  “That’s one thing you won’t have to worry about. The vamps Ruan and Slade brought here are so thankful you’ve granted them shelter, they’ll fight for Black Moon. They’ll do anything you ask them to as long as they’re under your protection.”

  “Not my protection.” She stepped onto the cobblestone path, the tail of her dress sweeping behind her.

  The night was blacked out with nothing but bright pecks of light flickering in the sky. It reminded Dante too much of the stars in Ariana’s eyes, so he kept his gaze off the heavens and on the lush pad of grass under his feet.

  “It’s Black Moon that’ll keep them safe, not me,” Ariana said as they crossed the grass of the elder training ground. The posts had been removed, and not an elder was in sight. Without the mass of bodies roaming around, the lawn was huge, flattening out before dropping into the ocean over a waterfall of black rock. “As long as the elders are comfortable enough to keep up their training, the walls will hold out against whatever Savage brings back.”

  Dante couldn’t help but notice how quickly she’d corrected him. He hadn’t meant to say it the way he had—that she’d protect the vamps on Black Moon’s grounds—but her curtness left a bitter taste in his mouth. Now that he thought about it, the strength of the barrier depended on elders fleshing out their mawares, and Ariana was the one responsible for astral-projecting elders to Black Moon.

  Was there a connection between her projections, the elders, and the barrier?

  Is that why the elders treated her with such admiration? Did she have some sort of control over the haven’s barrier? Over the safety of the elders on site?

  “When it comes to the elders, I’m sure you’ll charm them into compliance.” That one earned him a scowl that was more seductive than menacing. “And I’m sure most of them will be willing to help out once they know the threat to the race.”

  “Or they’ll realize they’re the ones being targeted and leave the grounds to strike out on their own.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded, thinking about how tied she was to this place. After hearing what had happened to her parents, Dante doubted she’d ever leave. His words had never felt heavier, dripping full and fat off his tongue. “Or that.”

  “We’ll see tomorrow morning,” she said simply.

  As they moved away from the salty sea breeze and around the side of the building, Ariana’s scent drifted around Dante, relaxing him, slowing his pace. He could walk like this forever, he realized, with Ariana at his side. They could travel across the large span of lawn in front of them, over the forest-covered hills on the horizon, and talk about everything and nothing at all.

  “What’s tomorrow?” He looked at her hand, sticking out from beneath her fanned sleeves, and thought about holding it. Just for a while. Would it soothe the ache in his gut? Would it be enough to touch her, hand to hand, and satiate his desire for more?

  “First thing in the morning I’m teaching a class in the cemetery on how to discover hidden mawares.”

  Quite the morbid study hall. “For elders who have more than one?”

  “Maybe, although we’ve never met with one before. The class is mostly for elders who don’t know what their maware is yet. There are some here who still don’t know what they can do with the power that’s been bestowed upon them.”

  A strange whipping sound echoed off the stone walls, piquing Dante’s interest. He slowed his pace.

  “What’s that?” he asked, listening for any abnormal noi
se against the hush and boom of the waves against the bluff.

  “What?” She pulled ahead of him, but he could still detect the faint beat of her heart.

  If he wasn’t dead certain that he’d heard the odd whipping sound, he might’ve stayed put and watched her walk away. He was starting to think there was nothing quite like the sight of her. Especially against such a magnificent backdrop of sea and mountain. Hell, who was he kidding? She’d light his skin on fire against any backdrop, any day.

  “There it was again.” A sharp, cracking sound that snapped with each gust of wind. “You can’t hear that?”

  Half expecting to see a crazed elder or some creepy Watcher trying to break into the back side of the haven, Dante sped past Ariana and around the corner.

  Ariana ran to catch up. “Dante, what are you doing? There’s nothing over here.”

  “Shh . . .”

  She was right. There was nothing on the back side of Black Moon but long stretches of manicured lawn and miles upon miles of forest beyond that. But high on the side of the haven, hanging from a balcony six floors up, was a massive gold flag with some sort of emblem on it. The emblem in the center was black. Circular. Smudged.

  He’d seen something like that one time before . . .

  “That’s what has you charging around like there’s a fire in your pants?” she said, watching the flag ripple. “It’s just our haven flag.”

  “What’s on it?”

  She paused. “Black Moon’s emblem.”

  He could have been mistaken, but it resembled the mark Ariana had on her forearm. Dante had to know. Had to see if it was the same. He’d only gotten a brief look at it before things had gone to hell in the compound.

  Slowly, so as not to spook her, Dante took Ariana’s hand and raised it up. Her skin was silky soft, molding into his hand perfectly. Her pupils widened as if she thought he would bring her hand to his lips. Instead, he pulled back her sleeve. And stared at the matching emblem branded on her arm.

  “Why do you have Black Moon’s emblem branded onto you?”

  He held her arm still, twisting and turning it so the mark shone in the moonlight. It was a perfect half circle, with a sword stabbing through the middle. Like nothing he’d ever seen. More precise than a tattoo. Cleaner than a brand. Even the red marks he’d glimpsed in the compound had disappeared.

  She yanked her arm away and jerked down her sleeve. “You saw what the Watchers did to me . . . you saw the fire in that pit.”

  Something wasn’t ringing true. “They said you already had a marking on your arm. They said Echo told them. You already had it.”

  “You’re insane,” she said and turned back toward the bluff. “You don’t know what you heard or what you saw.”

  “What are you hiding?” he asked, unable to keep the questions at bay.

  He couldn’t pretend any longer that he didn’t want to know more about her. What made Ariana tick? Why’d she present herself as strong and self-assured, when he got the vibe she was anything but? Why did the elders treat her with reverence, like she was a queen among peasants? And what did the marking on the inside of her forearm mean?

  “You expected me to answer all your questions when we were digging through books in the haven library earlier, but when the shoe’s on the other foot, you clam up? Hardly sounds fair.”

  Gaining distance, Ariana stormed down the cobblestone and back toward the haven. “I don’t have to tell you anything. You saw what the Watchers did with your own eyes. I healed, just like you. If you search hard enough you’ll probably find weird markings somewhere on your body, too.”

  “You should know,” Dante snapped as the sound of the flag cracked again. “You checked out my body thoroughly enough when I was knocked stupid.”

  She spun around to face him, her mouth dropped open in shock. “At least you got the stupid part right.”

  He closed the distance between them, his heart thumping loud and hot in his ears. “You didn’t seem to mind my stupidity when you were shoving your tongue down my throat.”

  “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. You have no idea what the mark on my arm means or what goes on inside our haven. And you have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen when Savage attacks. This is all so far out of your control.” She shook her head. But her feet stayed planted in the grass like a training post. “You’re an ass, Dante. A blind, arrogant ass.”

  “I’m a lot of things, Ariana,” Dante said as his brain raced to absorb all the information she dropped. “But I’m not blind.”

  He could see Ariana clear as day and thanked his lucky stars for that small sliver of grace. If he never got to see the way moonlight highlighted the soft curve of Ariana’s cheek, or the way her lips parted when she was worked up and out of breath, he might’ve cursed every minute of every day he lived alone on this earth. Her lips were perfectly pink and petal soft. What he wouldn’t give to kiss them again.

  His insides coiled in anticipation, waiting to spring.

  Her gaze shifted from one of his eyes to the other, dipped to his lips, and settled there a while. Flashes of something raw and primal radiated between them, threatening to singe the clothes right off Dante’s body. He struggled to dial back the heat surging through him.

  He hadn’t fed in days, he reminded himself. Days.

  Waiting for a hunger pain to pile-drive him down to cold, hard reality, Dante took another step, the last before he’d be pressed against her. To his surprise, no hunger pains fired in his belly, and not a single stirring of energy spun from her body to his.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, the fight in her eyes simmering down.

  “Hell if I know.”

  Snaking an arm around her waist, he pulled her close and hesitated, his mouth slowly lowering over hers. Her heartbeat fluttered on her neck and her breath quickened. Dante waited for her to push him away and tell him no. To reject him the way he’d rejected her in the chamber.

  Instead, as he tilted his head and bent her against him, her breath hitched. He caught it with his mouth and slipped his tongue past her lips.

  Chapter Sixteen

  RATIONAL THOUGHTS SLASHED through Ariana’s mind like wet snowfall threatening to stick. But when Dante’s lips covered hers, those flakes of logic flew out her ears like they weren’t there at all. Before she knew it, she’d relaxed into his arms, her hands finding their way to the broad span of his shoulders.

  What was she doing?

  She shouldn’t be allowing Dante to kiss her this way. His eyes swirled gold with a dangerous intensity. It was alarming in the most enticing way. And his lips—good Lord, they were tender and soft, melting her insides, numbing her mind.

  As Ariana’s stomach somersaulted, she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth. The fervor of his kiss increased, sending her world into a tailspin. Within seconds, she was drenched in him. In the woodsy scent of his cologne. In the strength of his arms and the passionate grip of his kiss.

  She let herself get lost, only for a moment, then realized they were standing on the training ground, where the vamps in the haven lobby could see what was going on.

  When their mouths closed, Ariana stole the moment and pulled back.

  Dante tensed, made a sound that resembled “nuh-uh,” and dragged her into his arms again.

  It would’ve been easy to lose herself in Dante completely. Let him kiss her until her feet drifted off the ground and into the clouds. Let him embrace her so tightly, she’d never want to leave his arms. But not under the watchful eyes of her khissmates. She knew they were watching her every move. They always did.

  Ariana wasn’t sure what would happen with Dante, how high she’d let their sparks fly, but if she wanted to find out, she needed to get them somewhere private. There was only one place in Black Moon that fit the bill.

  “Come on,” she
mumbled and took his hand, pulling him across the grass.

  “If you’re kicking me out, that’s a nasty trick you just pulled.”

  Had she really been flipping between hot and cold so much that Dante thought she’d kiss him and ditch him? He obviously didn’t know how much of an impression he’d left upon her. How much her thoughts circled around him when he wasn’t near. How her body almost leaned against him without her realizing it when he stood at her side.

  There was no way she was letting him get away. Not this time. Not until she’d explored more of the fire he’d ignited. And this time there was no denying that he wanted her.

  “I want to show you something,” she whispered as they approached the haven doors.

  “It better not be your room.” His lips quirked. “I’m not that easy.”

  “Oh, just shut up.”

  Ariana jerked open the door. The group of vamps standing inside quickly averted their gaze. They had been watching. Although they weren’t making eye contact, it was forced. Refusing to acknowledge their presence was acknowledgment in and of itself. They weren’t talking either—another dead giveaway.

  Ariana bee-lined through the crowd, trying not to wonder if these city vamps would attach to her the same bizarre way the elders had. As it was, the elders were nowhere to be found. They’d been called into a very informational, and very calm, meeting in the gym.

  How much bullshit was her Primus going to dish? Ariana wondered. And how much truth would be tinseled through it? Would he tell them Savage was coming for their death shades? Or simply that they’d soon have a fight on their hands?

  She’d have to pick the brains of the elders in her training session tomorrow.

  As she pushed from one group of whispering vamps to another, Ariana didn’t have to wonder if Dante was following her past the long stretch of windows and around the blazing hearth. She could feel the heat from his gaze radiating into her back as if there was a target drawn smack in the center.