Last Vamp Standing

by Kristin Miller

  As the thought struck him, that no one would miss him if he disappeared off the face of the planet, he felt his face fall.

  Things would continue without him. . . .

  When Savage came knocking, Ariana would have to fight for herself, with no one to protect her but the elders in the haven. They wouldn’t win the war by themselves. They couldn’t. Black Moon was going to need every able-bodied vamp they could get, fighting his or her heart out to defeat Savage.

  Dante would be damned if Savage wound up the last vamp standing at the end of all this.

  “Damn it,” Dante mumbled, digging his fingers into his temples. “Can’t live with her, can’t live without knowing she’ll be all right. Fuck me sideways, I can’t even die peacefully.”

  Shaking his head, Dante turned back toward Black Moon and weaved around a knotty trunk. A glint of silver caught his eye. Crouching low, he peered through the forest . . . and made out the outline of four towers in the distance. Someone in the closest tower had a rifle. The scope reflected stray rays of morning light, blinding him for a fraction of a second before disappearing completely.

  Jackpot.

  Dante took off at a dead sprint—and skidded to a stop when Pike stepped from behind the nearest tree.

  Slice his wrists! Suck his life out! Steal his soul!

  Pike was slick. Lethally quiet. If Dante couldn’t find Echo, taking his aggression out on Pike would more than do the trick.

  “I was hoping you’d come back.” Pike’s voice was eerily calm, like the sounds of the forest around them. The clanging symphony in Dante’s head was anything but. “Didn’t expect to see you under these circumstances, but it’ll do . . . you’re starving.”

  Dante’s stomach throbbed at the mention, pinching until he winced. “I was hoping you could help me with that.”

  Pike put his hands up, stopping Dante before the imminent attack. “There is a way to rise above the evil, my friend. A way to control your hunger so that you never hurt another soul again.”

  “What do you know of my hunger?”

  “I know you feed on adrenaline and sexual energy like the rest of us. That you’re starving for it.”

  Maybe he wasn’t an incubus after all.

  “You can feed from Ariana without hurting her,” Pike blurted as Dante charged another step.

  Ariana.

  Dante breathed hard, his nostrils flaring as he picked up hints of other Watchers circling them. He wanted to run, bolt, bash Pike’s head in. The voices would certainly thank him for it.

  “Talk,” Dante grit through clenched teeth as the voices scraped against his skull. “But do it fast.”

  “I’m willing to bet this is the first time you’ve seen the mark on your side. Am I right?”

  “What would you know about it?”

  Pike pulled down his turtle neck, revealing a swirling charcoal black design. The same design that had appeared on Dante’s side. Dante held his breath, swallowing down the voices so he could hear clearly.

  “It is the mark of someone who has resisted the temptation of the Jinn and sworn to live by a higher standard,” Pike said, keeping his distance. “If you’ve never seen the mark before, it’s because you’ve resisted them for the first time. This had to have happened recently.”

  Pike had no idea how recently.

  “The voices are terrified of losing their hold over you and are growing desperate. That’s why they’re alternating between bouts of silence and blasting vengefulness. It’s the strength of your will that silences them, your weakened will that brings them roaring back.”

  Since Dante had entered Black Moon, he’d experienced things he couldn’t explain. Things that had never happened before. He’d been knocked unconscious. Slept for two damned days. Pleasured Ariana without feeling a single stream of sexual energy flow from her body to his. His hunger had grown to new, screaming heights, yet there had been minutes, hours, of nothing but silence.

  Was Pike right? Were the voices losing their grip? Dante couldn’t allow himself to hope. Not yet.

  Wait. There was more.

  “How do you know about the voices?”

  “When the world was created, three creatures came to form: mundanes, Jinn, and others.” Pike circled the ring, his hands clasped behind him. “You, my friend, are an other . . . like me, like every other vampire, therian, nymph, Seeker, Watcher, or otherwise hiding out in Crimson Bay. If you’ve never heard of the others, it’s because they don’t want you to.”

  Pike had kidnapped Ariana. Thrown them into a pit. Branded Black Moon’s emblem onto her arm! For someone who chirped about resisting violent tendencies, he sure inflicted a lot of pain. At least Dante had no qualms admitting he had hurt others in his past.

  Hell, he’d killed others.

  Guilt soured his stomach at the memory of Sway in the nursing home . . . the way her ruby red eyes had glazed over when he’d killed her.

  “I’m nothing like you.” Dante sucked a deep breath through his nose as his eyes rolled back. The voices were so loud he could barely make out Pike’s words. “Nothing. Like. You.”

  “You are a Watcher, the descendant of a fallen angel, just like me.” Pike raised his voice. As if he knew exactly how distracting the voices were in Dante’s head. “You are a Watcher like every other cursed soul in my compound. We didn’t ask to have the blood of fallen angels coursing through our veins. We didn’t ask for their curse to alter our future, our forever.”

  “What curse?”

  “In order to pass to the Ever After when we die, we must not partake in the pleasures of man or assist in their battles while we’re on this earth. We must watch from the outside looking in and play the hand we’ve been dealt. All the while, Jinn are in our hand, tempting us to embrace evil, twisting and turning our cards into something they’re not. It’s a sick, twisted game.”

  Dante’s knees wobbled as a hunger pain knifed into his stomach.

  Pike shook his head, forcing out a raspy laugh. “We must earn our way to the Ever After by watching, witnessing the downfall of man, yet we are tempted to go against that nature by a creature designed to make us fail.”

  As Dante’s equilibrium spun, he palmed the tree to his left. Pike stayed put, his expression blank, his hands clasped in front of him.

  “Dante, you are like us in so many ways, but we can’t deny that a part of you is uniquely different.” Pike seemed to be whispering now, though his mouth was making large, gaping fish movements with each word. Dante’s head buzzed with noise, louder, challenging Pike’s words. “Your arrival in this forest was prophesized by our ancestors. You descend from the mating of a fallen angel and a vampire, were raised by a mundane family, and have a Jinn strolling around in your head. You are all three creations mashed into one troubled hodgepodge, with powers the likes of which we’d never seen.”

  Dante crouched low, baring his fangs. Even over the few feet separating them, Dante could hear the blood chugging through Pike’s veins. It sounded a lot like mealtime. “What the fuck are Jinn? How do I get rid of them?”

  Pike’s ashy lips turned up at the corners. “Jinn are the curse passed from generation to generation, from one original fallen angel to their child, from their child down their cursed bloodline. The curse originated with one weak-willed SOB who fell from grace. Jinn are spirits that become part of our consciousness. They amplify the evil within us. Jinn are the devils on your shoulder telling you to tear my throat out right now.”

  He’s lying! Tear his—

  The voices gurgled to a hushing murmur. Dante’s ears rang. His balls ached. “You said I can feed without hurting anyone.” He dropped to his knees as the fir trees around him spun like a psychotic merry-go-round. Watchers closed in. “How?”

  Pike knelt at Dante’s side, though he kept his hands off. “When you resist the voices, the mark of the fallen angels s
hows on your skin and—”

  “How?” Dante screamed over the clanging of noise in his ears. He looked up slowly, anchoring on Pike’s cloudy eyes. “I can’t pull the good from Ariana’s soul. I won’t. Tell me how. How do I feed without hurting her?”

  Had he really said her name? He hadn’t meant to. It had bounded off his tongue before he could catch it.

  “You must first eliminate the threat, the voices dragging you to the edge that tempt you to do what you know you must not. Drinking this will help.” Pike pulled a water bottle from the pocket of his robe, only the thing wasn’t filled with water. Whatever the juice was, it was black and thick, like crude oil. “It’s natural energy derived from plants in the area. Not all plants supply the energy we need to survive, but we’ve managed to find a solid crop nearby.”

  What did he have to lose? If Pike wanted Dante roasting over his fire pit, he could’ve had him. The Watchers closing in would’ve tried something by now. Deep inside, Dante knew Pike spoke the truth. Even if the truth about Dante being a Watcher and having some sort of devil in his head warping his thoughts threw him for a loop, at least he knew more than he did yesterday.

  The fact that he was a hybrid—part Watcher, part vamp—made sense, given he had fangs but didn’t feed off blood. Could walk in the day but was cursed to live a dark life, forbidden to have any kind of relationship without tainting it with the filth of his soul.

  With an uprising of the voices, Dante snatched the bottle from Pike’s hand, unscrewed the top, and shot it back.

  His first instinct had been wrong. The liquid in the bottle wasn’t crude oil. Oil would’ve tasted better.

  “What the hell is this?” Dante asked, wiping the taste of dirt and decay off his lips.

  “We call it Nightshade, after the plant it’s derived from. It’s an acquired taste.”

  “I’d rather acquire a hemorrhage.” He forced back another drink and capped it.

  “This one’s for you to finish later.” Pike took it from Dante’s shaking hand and slipped it into his pocket. “We’ve got hundreds of bottles of Nightshade in different varieties. The Watchers in our compound must refuse to feed by any other means in order to be granted access. We’ve found it beneficial in satiating our hunger, thus making the voices manageable, driving the Jinn away.”

  “Sounds peachy.” Dante cleared his throat, coughing up some of the Nightshit.

  “Just remember there’s one pretty major side effect to drinking the stuff.”

  “You’re going to spring the side effect on me now, after I’ve already downed half the bottle?” Dante gripped Pike by his starched-straight collar. He clenched tight, cutting off Pike’s circulation.

  “It’ll satiate your hunger and make the voices dim, but it’ll weaken you,” Pike said. “You’ll be no stronger, no faster than an average mundane. Your teleporting may or may not work properly, your nails may not elongate as quickly as they should or not at all, and the rest of your abilities should be equally drained.”

  “Great, so I’ll be pretty much useless.”

  “Not useless . . .” Pike removed Dante’s hands from his throat. “As long as Nightshade is in your system, you won’t harm Ariana. You won’t feed from her or pull the good from her soul. That is what you were worried about, is it not?”

  Dante nodded, feeling the Nightshade working fast. Within a few seconds, his throat warmed and his muscles relaxed, loosening up. And although his voices were still there, barking in the back of his mind, they were tucked safely away.

  But there was one problem. One thorn in Dante’s side.

  “How long will I be affected? How long until my strength comes back?”

  “One bottle saps about a day’s worth of strength. You drank half, should put you out the rest of today for sure.”

  “Shit.” Dante stood, shaking out the jelly in his legs. “Savage and his death shades are coming back, and Ariana needs—Black Moon needs . . . damn it, I can’t drink this. I can’t win.”

  “You can,” Pike yelled as Dante sprinted away. “You can . . . and you will.”

  As Dante charged out of the mud pit onto the path that was overgrown with shrubs, he thought about Ariana. The kissable pout of her lips. The soft curve of her cheeks and the petite line of her chin. He thought of her desire and how she’d bloomed for him, wanting him to take more. Oh, how he’d wanted to feel the hard pounding of her heart as she rested over the top of him.

  How was he going to get out of the mess he’d shoved himself into? If he finished off the bottle and made love to Ariana the way his body yearned to, he’d be useless when Savage attacked.

  Never had he been more torn.

  He could be with Ariana the way they both wanted. Or he could protect her the way she needed.

  Not both.

  Not. Both.

  Considering the Nightshade was already spreading through his system, Dante had half a day to kill before his strength—and the voices—returned. And he knew exactly how he was going to spend it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Watcher Intel suggests Savage will make his attack on Black Moon tonight. Mandatory curfew is in place. Hold strong and deny your urges.”

  WATCHER ARCHIVE, UPDATE

  “I REALLY DON’T have time right now, Echo, make it fast.” Ariana brushed past him, making a beeline across the grass. She had to get to the library and look up the cemetery records. Dig up as much information about Andre Cornelison as possible.

  “I had to come back to warn you ’bout your friend.”

  “You think I’m worried about Dante when you’re standing at my side? You shouldn’t even be here. How’d you convince the Primus to grant you entrance back into Black Moon?”

  Echo exhaled so heavily, his breath felt like a monsoon blowing against Ariana’s neck. “I gave him the information he need, that all, but there’s more to it than that.”

  As they reached the corner of the library, Ariana spun around. She wasn’t about to let him follow her all the way inside.

  “Whatever information you gave to the Primus, you can now relay to me,” she said, staring into the shallow depths of his eyes.

  He scanned the grass around them as if he was nervous about other elders picking up on what he was about to say.

  Ariana followed his line of sight. They were far from alone, though in this place that was par for the course.

  Slade stood near the bluff, his back to the sea, facing a long lineup of elders. Tables had been arranged in front of them with guns lying on their metal bellies in the center. Slade slid a gun off the nearest table and dropped the hammer. Then he dug a black rock out of the earth and chucked it into the sea. Taking aim, Slade let the rock fly, arch, and fall before firing a round that shattered it to dust. The elders nodded, listening to his expert instruction, then followed suit with their own rocks, their own guns.

  Between Ruan’s eagerness to discover his maware, fleshing it out and strengthening Black Moon’s barrier, Dylan’s assistance with blood distribution, and Slade’s dedication to his . . . craft of warfare, Ariana’s spirit swelled with hope. Maybe they’d be ready for Savage after all. They might actually come out of this.

  Echo must’ve been thinking the same thing. “Wish I could get the Watchers to help you too, Ari.”

  “Is that what you promised the Primus?” She doubted it.

  “No. They want no part of no fight, Savage or not.”

  “Why is that?” she probed, wanting him to validate what she’d discovered in the books earlier. Hearing the words might make it easier to grasp. “If we’ve lived in peace and allowed you to live right outside our haven for so many years, why won’t you help us when we need it most?”

  “Watchers fight, can’t go to the Ever After. Watchers love with their bodies, can’t go either. Have to be pure to go, and those things lead to evil you can’t ima
gine till you see.”

  “So you can’t fight because you think you can’t pass to the Ever After if you’re a sinner? We’re all sinners, Echo.”

  “There’s more to it than that. I’m talking ’bout screwin’ around, Ari. About what happens when we give our bodies, you get me?” He shook his head. “We can’t go to Ever After. We spend our days and nights in the Nether Realm instead, fighting for rest of our eternal lives.”

  Was that the war raging in Dante’s head? If he thought he was a Watcher, did he think making love to her would forbid him from entering the Ever After? What did that make her, that she urged him on? A selfish strumpet, that’s what.

  Her stomach wrenched at the possibility that every desire blooming in her body, every desire that had bloomed for him, had been damning him.

  “Echo, you make love to those wood nymphs all the time. I caught you lifting one’s skirt the other night by the back gate.” As memories of that night flooded in, the truthfulness of his words bobbed buoyantly. “Don’t you care about going to the Ever After?”

  “Course I do, but even I fall off the wagon time and again.” He lowered his gaze and skidded his heels in the mud. Floppy red dreadlocks smacked him in the face. “You gotta know, Watchers don’t drink blood or eat like mundanes. What we do is much worse. Nymphs drink the nectar off the plants, I get what I need from them and that fills me up just the same. Vamps feed from bottles, but it’s not same as mouth to vein, you get me? Sometimes I like to pull the real thing from the real thing.”

  Squinting, Ariana tried to grasp his words as the elders on the bluff fired their guns in scattered succession.

  “So you feed from plants? And off the blood of women who feed from those . . . plants?” Just when Ariana thought she’d never laugh with Echo again, she proved herself wrong. She might’ve been laughing at him rather than with him, but she was laughing all the same. “That’s some garden you Watchers have got growing, Echo.”

  He didn’t share her amusement. “We don’t drink blood, Ari, it’s worse than that.” He stared through her, pinning her in place. “ ’Them plants only keep our hunger back, keep us thinkin’ and movin’ without starvin’. Some of us want to feed, some of us need to feed from somethin’ different . . . somethin’ darker.” He nodded to Dante, who pushed through the haven doors. “Ask him.”