Last Vamp Standing

by Kristin Miller

  Though Dante had never really thought about it, he remarked how beautiful and peaceful cemeteries were. Or maybe it was just this one. There was something about it. A comforting flush crept through his insides, soothing the jaggedness that the voices had caused.

  “Over here,” Ariana said, standing in front of a rounded alabaster headstone. “You have to see this.”

  Voices dialing back, he trudged to her side and read, “ ‘Andre Cornelison. Black Moon’s Primus, An angel’s mate, Dante’s father, my trinity of love and life.’ ” His gaze shot to hers. “What the hell’s this?”

  “Do you know the name of your birth father?”

  Voices gushed through his head, heavy and full, threatening to block out every other rational thought. Every other thought save for this one.

  “No, but . . .” He dropped to his knees, right there in the moss and mud. “Holy shit, an angel’s mate . . .”

  It validated everything he’d discovered. Even though the information Pike gave him had added up before, there was something about seeing the truth with his own eyes that really hit home.

  He was truly a hybrid. A Watcher. Descended from a mother who fell from grace and a vampire father—a Primus.

  “Andre Cornelison was the Primus of Black Moon?” Dante stroked his hand across the cool face of the stone.

  “I didn’t get a chance to check, but he’d have to be if he was buried here. This cemetery is for the fallen of Black Moon, the elders who lived and died here. It can’t be coincidence.”

  As Dante’s heartbeat droned in and out, buzzing in his ears like a busted radio, time slowed. It wasn’t a coincidence. He felt the truth deep down in his soul. His father had lived here, had found a home in Black Moon. He’d found love with an angel—was she someone from the Watchers’ compound, or another? Dante would probably never know. Together his mother and father had created a cursed hybrid, then had given him away like the bastard he was.

  Dante wasn’t sure how long he knelt on the ground, how long the lightning and thunder continued their light and sound routine around him, but he felt Ariana’s hand on his shoulder the instant she put it there.

  His gaze snapped to hers. “I’m the one the Watchers have been waiting for,” he said, remembering Pike’s words. “They were waiting for me to come back.”

  She brushed her hand over his back. “For you to come home.”

  The words brushed against his ears like a caress. He’d never had a home. Never stayed anywhere long enough or given anything half a chance to root his feet in the dirt.

  From the way Ariana melted into his arms when she gazed up at him, the way his heart beat fast when her body curled against his, Dante knew he’d stay in Black Moon as long as they’d allow him. As long as she wanted him there.

  Although Black Moon would provide the roof and walls, his home was with Ariana, surrounded by the love and grace of her heart. He knew that now.

  “We’ve been dying to get you away from the others,” a voice boomed from behind him. “Looks like now we’ve got our chance. You’re all alone, without anyone to save you. Prepare to get schooled in elder warfare.”

  Dante spun around and spotted Ruan standing in front of a dozen elders, their arms folded in front of them.

  “It’s like that, is it?” Dante said, eyeing each one of them. “Attack a vamp one to ten?”

  “It’s like that,” Ruan said as he shoved his fist into his chin, popping his neck. “You ready?”

  Dante didn’t know what the hell was happening, why Ruan was pissed or what Dante did to the others to deserve an ass kicking by a maware-wielding mob. It didn’t matter. They were here to fight. And damned if he’d deny them the privilege of meeting his fist.

  Whatever questions Dante had about loyalty, his parents, the Watchers or Black Moon, there was no time to think about them now.

  As Dante let the voices surface, he was blinded by their urgency. Overtaken by their raw strength.

  “The real question is,” Dante said as he stood to meet them, his nails elongating to his knees, “Are you ready?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “He comes with the wind . . .”

  WATCHER ARCHIVE, REPORT ON SAVAGE

  ARIANA GOT AS far out of the way as she could. Behind the tomb in the center of the cemetery, protected by a four-foot-thick slab of concrete, she still didn’t feel prepared for the rumble that was going down.

  Though she felt comfortable enough that she could take care of herself, and heal any wound that was inflicted during battle, these elders hadn’t fully developed their mawares yet. She was liable to get a fireball to the chest. Or someone telling her how much sex she’d had recently.

  That so wasn’t happening.

  The elders moved as a pack, circling Dante, funneling him toward an oval opening between a handful of tombstones and an outcropping of fir trees. Hissing through clenched teeth, Dante crouched in the center and eyed each one carefully.

  Twelve, Ariana counted. Twelve elders against one pissed-off and hungry hybrid.

  From what she’d seen Dante do to the therians in the black market and the Watchers in the compound, the elders weren’t going to stand a chance unless they went all out.

  “Remember,” she yelled, stepping from behind the tomb, “you’re trying to kill him.”

  Dante shot her a what-the-fuck glare that burned right through her. If he needed adrenaline, she’d give him adrenaline. The elders had been instructed to wage all-out war, to try to kill him but to stop short. Basically, they were to make it fake, yet believable. Toy with him, hurt him, but not kill him.

  But Dante didn’t have to know that.

  As lightning split the sky, Edmund lurched forward first, spinning a ball of fire between his fingers. He flung it at Dante, who ducked a second too late and caught a tail of fire across the shoulder.

  He spun away from the blow, touching his shoulder, checking the charred wound.

  “Nice,” he said, scanning the group. “If all’s fair with the mawares, I’ve got some magic up my sleeves, too.”

  “I think you mean sleeve, as in one.” Edmund gave a twisted smile as flames sparked between his fingertips. “I took care of the other one for you.”

  Dante split his shirt right down the middle, then tossed the shreds aside. His chest blazed bronze, streaking wet from the rain. His hands flew up, egging on the pack. “Better? This way you’ll know whether you’re hitting flesh or cotton.”

  They accepted the challenge in flashes of rage and fury. Lightning lit up the forest, one powerful strike after another, creating a strobe effect that had Ariana shielding her eyes. Elders rushed Dante all at once, toppling over him, fists and feet flying. Seconds dragged by, elders fell back, then swarmed back onto the pile.

  Ariana inched around the tomb for a better look.

  In an explosion of anger, Dante burst from the center. Elders scattered around him. They landed on their feet, hissing, spitting, hungry for more.

  “That all you guys got?” Dante asked, swiping dirt off his leather. “I thought elders were strong, nearly invincible. Some of you need to be relocated to the geriatric wing.”

  An elder to Dante’s right threw his arms into the air, calling on the wind as an elder to his left raised his hands from his sides, drawing the dirt from the ground. Using the wind summoned by his khissmate, the elder twisted the earth into a vortex that spun around Dante faster than any tornado Ariana had ever seen.

  Dante crouched, hand to earth, disappearing into the murk of the tornado. He growled so loud it rumbled the air, drowning out the drum of thunder from the heavens. Just like Ariana had witnessed in the Watchers’ compound, Dante’s own gust of wind blasted from the center of the wind and dirt and mud, colliding with the elders’ weather system until it crashed to the ground, silent.

  Tension weighed heavy on the air. Aggre
ssion warped to vengeance, and the challenge the elders had been presented shifted into some sort of personal vendetta. It was written over the hard lines of their faces, the downturned scowls and their white-knuckled fists.

  Playtime was over.

  Ariana’s idea to spark Dante’s adrenaline had seemed so clear back at the haven. Whatever harm they caused him, she could heal. But now, it was all she could do not to throw herself between Dante and the elders. Only the knowledge of how tortured he was with his hunger held her back.

  In a blurred haze, the elders swarmed Dante once more, only this time they weren’t messing around. Fire and dirt, wind and lashes of rain flew from their hands all at once. Right when Ariana thought Dante was holding his own, everything flipped ass over end.

  The forest blacked out, darker than midnight. An elder—she wasn’t sure which one—sucked every ounce of light from the night until not even her heightened eyesight could discern any hint of color.

  Bones cracked. Groans piled up. A body fell hard and heavy to the earth. The air around them grew unusually humid, mixing with wind and rain, clamming her skin.

  And when a light switch seemed to flip and Ariana’s eyes adjusted to the dark once more, she gasped.

  Dante was strung up in midair, hanging by an invisible noose. He clutched at his neck, grasping at the last threads of life. He was caught between a circle of trees, bound and bloodied, his legs stretched out, reaching toward the two nearest stones. Relentless in their assault, elders beat his chest with fiery whips, struck his head with boulders pulled from the earth, slashed at his arms and legs with gusts of wind, and blinded him with flashes of the purest white light. Standing behind them all, holding Dante up for the beating, was Ruan, his eyes pinched closed, his hands extended in front of him.

  Heart in her throat, Ariana bolted from the tomb and descended the stairs two at a time. She’d never seen a maware like the one Ruan had wielded. In the matter of seconds, Ruan had Dante at his mercy. Like a puppet strung up by invisible strings.

  Her stomach seized into a ball of nerves as Dante let out a guttural cry.

  “Enough,” she said, pressing a hand against her middle.

  No one heard.

  Fueled by their own adrenaline and the pack-mentality brought on by the others, the elders continued to batter Dante senseless. Assaulted him over and over again until his head went limp, sagging against his chest.

  “Enough,” she said, louder, moving to Ruan’s side.

  It was like she wasn’t speaking at all. Ruan’s eyes pinched tighter. He was completely linked to what he was doing and had blocked out the world around him.

  As a full body seizure rocked Dante against his bonds, Ariana shoved Ruan as hard as she could, knocking him off balance. His foot caught on a rock and he fell, sliding through the mud. A heavy thud sounded from behind her, but Ariana was too busy standing over Ruan, sticking her heel to his throat, to see what had made the sound.

  “I said stop,” she said through gritted teeth. She gazed down upon him as her fangs dropped into place. “That’s enough. You’re not supposed to kill him, just make him think you will. You flip the kill switch on him and I do the same to you, got it?”

  Ruan’s emerald eyes widened in horror. It was the first time he’d fleshed out his maware completely. She knew the aftermath of such an event, the shock that pummeled your body firsthand. But he had to snap out of it, like now.

  “Ariana,” Thom said from behind her. “Get over here.”

  She was at Dante’s side in a heartflicker, holding his head out of the mud. His face was a bloodied mess, his nose crooked, and his chest sliced in crisscrossed patterns, like he’d been whipped.

  She touched the marks, channeling every ounce of her healing energy into him. He’d be fine. In a few minutes, a few hours, he’d heal right up.

  “He’s going to say something,” Thom said, scratching at the scar arching above his ear. He’d seen something that was about to happen. “Whatever it is, it’s for your ears to hear.”

  Dante took a deep, jagged breath and coughed out globs of blood. “Ariana,” he said, coughing blood onto his chest. “The voices . . .”

  Hope lifted her heart higher than any tumbling storm cloud. “Are they gone?”

  He jerked his head in a violent nod. “That was one nasty trick.”

  She rested her head on his chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat compete with the smattering rain. “We can make it work, Dante. You can stay in Black Moon. You can stay with me.”

  “I sure wouldn’t mind training this way every day,” Edmund said, laughing. “With how he handled all of us at once, I get the feeling Dante could teach us more about warfare than we could teach him.”

  Dante tried to speak, but he coughed up another helping of blood.

  “Something’s wrong,” Ariana said, trying to feel for the hurt in him. His stomach was tight, his chest tender, sore, but intact. As insane as it sounded, the wounds went far deeper than anything the elders inflicted on him this go-round. “Ruan, what did you do to him? Could you feel anything reaching between you? Could you feel the amount of pain you were radiating into him?”

  That’s the way it’d worked in the past with other elders who could inflict pain on others, though the maware was few and far between. Elders who could dish pain without touch could ramp up or dial down the outtake, force and voltage, like numbers on a dial. If Ruan had gone full force, the Ever After wouldn’t be able to help Dante much now.

  “I’m sorry, Ariana, but I’m not sure of anything.” Ruan peeled long, wet locks of hair off his forehead. “I couldn’t feel a thing until you knocked me to the ground. I’m not even sure how the whole thing started.”

  Ariana leaned over Dante, blocking the rain from hitting him in the face. “Let me heal you. Where do you hurt?”

  “Everywhere,” Dante coughed out. “Inside.”

  Her heart dropped. How could she heal a wound she couldn’t see? This was a bad idea. She should’ve never arranged for it to happen. They took it too far. She took it too far, thinking she could control something that wasn’t meant to be controlled.

  “Get him up,” she ordered the elders gathering around. “Help me get him inside.”

  They moved quickly, carrying Dante through the back door of the haven that landed them smack in front of the elevators. Dante didn’t groan, wince, or put up a fight to walk on his own two feet. The last thought probably worried her most of all.

  The elevator ride to her suite passed in a blur, but once inside, Ariana was determined to slow things down. She needed to focus all her energy on Dante. And she still didn’t know what she was going to do. How she could fix an internal wound, especially if she didn’t know where Ruan focused his pain assault, or how much pain he actually caused?

  As they carried Dante into her bedroom, Ariana’s heart lurched. A river of blood ran over her white carpet. A river that dripped from the wounds on Dante’s head. She could start the process by cleaning the blood from his body and healing the slices on his chest, the gashes in his side.

  “Put him in the shower.” She pointed, leading the way to her bathroom. She thought the white-washed bathroom in her suite was huge, until she had a dozen elders crowded around. There wasn’t room to breathe, let alone stand and move about.

  But she did it anyway.

  As they put Dante in the tub and ripped off his boots, Ariana rummaged under the sink and snatched a towel and bar of soap. By the time she turned back around, the elders had Dante down to his Kleins.

  His body was a bloodied mess. Raw and broken from head to foot.

  “I think I’ve got it from here,” she said, willing her nerves to hold steady. She needed to be strong. For Dante most of all. She nodded to Ruan. “The rest of the guys can leave, but would you mind waiting in the hall?”

  “You don’t want me to wait here?”
he asked as the others filed out. “In case you need my help. I’m the one who did this to him, I feel like I should—”

  “I can focus better when I’m alone. If I need you, I’ll holler. You’ll be right outside the door, won’t you?”

  He nodded. But his feet stayed planted.

  “I’ll take care of him, Ruan,” she whispered. “Trust me.”

  He hesitated, his gaze drifting over her before leaving the room.

  As Ariana turned back to the bathtub, her knees gave out at the sight before her. She caught herself on the ledge and kneeled to the side. She’d never seen someone so jacked up. Dante looked like he’d been run over by a big rig, tossed through the window of a two-story building, and steamrolled. All in one day.

  She didn’t know where to put her hands first. So she started at his head, massaged her fingers through his hair, rubbed small circles around his temples, and stroked the stubble over his jaw. Near his chin, on the right side, a bone shifted under the pressure of her hand.

  Broken.

  Closing her eyes, Ariana focused on her breathing, on the energy swirling within her. Then when she felt it ball up, warm her insides, and begin to well up, she pushed that energy out her middle, through her fingertips and into Dante’s jaw. Her fingers buzzed in a warm, tingly fashion, as if they’d just received blood flow after being neglected for a long length of time.

  Once the bones in Dante’s chin pieced back together and the energy transferred its flow back into her middle, spinning and swirling inside her, she moved on.

  For the next hour—or was it two, she couldn’t keep track—she focused all the energy she had on healing him. While it would’ve been easy to think about the severity of his injuries or the uncertainty of healing his hurt “inside,” she didn’t let the thoughts enter her mind.

  She kept her eyes shut. Her mind focused. And her hands working the magic she’d taught them to do. Wild shards of energy bounced through Ariana’s veins, limbered her muscles, and fueled her on.

  “Almost there, Dante,” she whispered, kneading her hands around the bulk of his neck. “Hold on, okay?”