Last Vamp Standing

by Kristin Miller

  As a long row of fir trees opened up to Darkly Meadow, Dante slowed his grueling pace and stopped before taking a single step onto the grass. Death shades swirled around the massive stone structure in the center, creating a tornado of evil he could barely see through.

  But their shadowy curtain wasn’t thick enough to block the three vamps standing tall in the center near the stone ruins.

  “Son of a bitch!” Slade said, radiating hatred from every pore. “Is that the Primus?”

  “And . . .” Dante squinted, peering through the death shades, aching to tear out the Primus’s jugular. “Ariana.”

  With a knife to her throat.

  “Oh, hell no.” Dante stormed into the meadow and sent the death shades into a frenzy.

  As if they were waiting for someone to breach their fir tree barrier, the death shades spun off their cyclone, one by one. Eve clutched the amulet against her chest and chanted something too low for Dante’s ears to make out. Instead of blowing right through them, the death shades swirled around Dante and the others, consuming them, drawing the group closer and closer into the center of the meadow.

  They were being herded. Right to Savage.

  The curtain sucked up with a hiss, closing around them completely, blocking any chance of escape. Hundreds of death shades swirled around them, so thick and evil, they blocked out every ounce of light the lightning gave, every roar of thunder.

  They were trapped, and Dante didn’t dare move. They wouldn’t survive passing through the shades.

  Eve held out the amulet and began chanting again. The death shades must’ve distracted her before she could finish the last incantation. This time Savage raised his arms as if he could call the heavens crashing down upon them. With a nasty smirk on his face, Savage paused, as if he was weighing Eve’s intention.

  In the weeks since Dante had run into him in the alley behind Mirage, Savage had changed. His face had darkened from stress and strain, and the scar slashing across his cheek had become heavily grooved, right down to the bone.

  “Wait,” Ruan said, holding Eve protectively behind him. “Not yet. Not until they attack.”

  “Smart move.” Savage lowered his arms, matching Eve move for move. “Smart man.”

  Eve spun in a slow circle, focusing on the swirling death shades. Slade growled and crouched at Dante’s side, but he held his ground. Dante couldn’t take his eyes off Ariana.

  She looked calm. Cool and confident. As if this position—not a hairsbreadth away from both the Primus and Savage—was right where she wanted to be. Did she think she could take them down? Surely she wouldn’t be foolish enough to try something on her own.

  “Let her go.” Dante took a step closer. Ruan and Slade followed, trailing a step behind him.

  “I don’t think so.” Her Primus stepped behind her, using her body as a shield, and shifted the knife against her throat. “I think I like my position above yours.”

  “What the hell do you want? What could you possibly gain from fighting with Savage?”

  “He’s got everything to gain,” Savage answered for him. “He’s a businessman, and we have conducted a business transaction. While Black Moon will fall and every elder will perish, giving me control over their death shades, he will live, free to roam the world wherever he chooses. By following his trail of breadcrumbs, starting with the energy thrown off of this little beauty’s blue ribbon, I was able to build my army and know exactly what steps you were taking inside Black Moon’s walls.”

  Guilt scorched through Dante’s stomach. Ariana’s ribbon had slipped from his wrist. He’d lost it. And that baby blue anchor had led Savage right to the haven’s back door.

  “Traitor!” Dante hissed, stalking forward. “You could’ve had everything. Black Moon will hold strong!”

  “Did you see the massacre out there?” Her Primus spat. “Savage is wiping us out, as I knew he would. In another few hours there’ll be no elders left . . . save for one.”

  “You know what they say, Primus.” Dante held his hands behind his back and let his nails drop to blades. “Rats leave the ship.”

  “At least the rats survive.”

  “If you would’ve stayed and fought alongside your family, you would’ve seen the Watchers come out of hiding. They’re fighting for your precious haven. More than rats will survive in Black Moon, but you won’t be around to see it.”

  “Family?” the Primus scoffed, bringing a knife to Ariana’s throat. “You know nothing of family. You’re nothing but a bastard son, born of a hybrid mating.”

  “You should look beside you and say that again,” Slade said, creeping closer.

  The Primus met Savage’s cold, hard gaze. He, too, was a hybrid born from a vampire mother, fathered by a therian leader.

  “Family is easily replaced by passion and purpose,” her Primus said. “Look at Ariana here. She wouldn’t have accomplished half the things she has if I hadn’t killed her parents.”

  Ariana blanched, straining against the blade. A trickle of blood dripped across the silver and trickled down the front of her dress.

  “Oh, don’t act so surprised, doll. Deep down you had to know you were the key to keeping this place off the grid. And you had to know I couldn’t let you walk out on me.”

  “I wasn’t walking out on you,” she said, leaning against him. “They were my parents. I belonged with them.”

  “I couldn’t let you go.”

  “You could’ve given me the freedom I craved. I loved this place enough. I would’ve come back.”

  “Bullshit,” her Primus seethed, nearly biting into her ear. “You forget my maware is truth-setting. I can smell the truth on you. Taste it as it seeps through your pores. You would’ve been gone and I would’ve been dead. Now, thanks to Savage, I’ll be safe no matter what, after I hand you over, that is. Turns out after all the elders he’s drained, he hasn’t absorbed a healing maware yet. Doesn’t that make you my hot little commodity.” His lips snarled into a smile as he brushed her braid over her shoulder. And leaned her bare neck toward Savage’s saber-like fangs.

  Dante snapped.

  Fury marred his vision, streaking it red. Death shades swarmed, but he didn’t give them a second thought. Nothing would stop him.

  He charged the Primus, unsheathed his Glocks, and fired as many rounds at his head as he could before the coward ducked behind Ariana, leaving not an inch of skin showing for a target.

  Slade and Ruan followed Dante’s lead, storming after Savage. The evil sucker rounded the stones, disappearing into a swirling shadow of death shades.

  Dante wasn’t worried about Savage. Not now. Not when the Primus had Ariana in his grasp.

  Tossing his guns aside, Dante slipped two throwing stars from his belt, spun them in his palms, and let the silver fly. One star scraped the Primus’s arm, tearing his coat at the elbow, and the other sliced his neck, lodging into the side. As if Dante’s precision stunned him, the Primus fell back, Ariana toppling against the stones with him.

  Dante was only a few feet away now. Only a few feet from tearing out the coward’s jugular. Except as the Primus landed on the ground, Ariana spun in his arms and landed on top of him, face to face.

  Adrenaline firing hot, Dante raced to Ariana’s side and snatched her by the elbow. He had to get her somewhere safe. As long as she was safe, and away from the Primus, nothing else mattered.

  But she didn’t budge. She crouched over the Primus, ripped the star out of the side of his neck, and, damn it, hesitated.

  “You were like a father to me!” She poised the spiky tip of the star against his neck. “You were working with Juan Carlos and I should’ve seen that coming, but how could you do this to me? To the rest of the elders?”

  “If there was only going to be one to survive this, it needed to be me. It was always going to be me.”

  Ariana waited to
o long in his arms, too close to his most lethal weapon.

  He reared up, baring his fangs, and grabbed Ariana by the back of the head. He didn’t have time to flinch another burly muscle. In a surge of speed and strength, Dante grabbed the Primus by the back of the head and smashed it against the stone. And when the blunt impact rocked the Primus’s world, his hold on Ariana slipped. With another quick strike, Dante let his nails stretch to their fullest and buried them deep into the Primus’s heart.

  Ariana jumped off the Primus like he was on fire. Or perhaps she didn’t want her touch to inadvertently heal him. Either way, Dante was glad to have Ariana back, safe and sound, in his arms.

  “It’s not over yet,” he said as bullets fired on the opposite side of the stone. “Stay here and stay safe. This time I mean it.”

  “No.” She curled her fingers around his bicep. “This time I’m coming with you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ON THE OTHER side of the stones, Ruan and Slade fought an enemy they could barely see. Savage swathed himself in death shades that spun around him like a cyclone of dirt and shadow.

  “Split up!” Slade hollered, backing against the stone. “We’ll be harder to hit that way.”

  As two death shades slid off his sides and slithered over the ground, Dante pushed Ariana behind him. “Eve! Where is she?”

  “I’m here!” She appeared from behind them, bathed head to toe in radiant white light.

  As she squeezed the amulet around her neck and closed her eyes, Savage gave an agonized cry. Dante pulled Ariana into his arms, shielding her from what was to come. Every death shade surrounding Savage evaporated into the night sky. Savage stood in the middle, his arms oddly relaxed at his side, his eyes burning an impenetrable shade of black.

  “It’s really going to end like this, brother?” Slade asked, circling Savage from the west. “I thought it’d be you and me fighting at the end. But I thought you’d be brave enough to stand on your own two feet.”

  Savage shot a glare at his combat boots. “Looks like I’m standing on my own feet to me. And I don’t have nearly the amount of weapons you do. Bravery, it seems, depends on your viewpoint.”

  “Not all weapons are silver and wood-chipped,” Dante said, drawing Savage’s attention around. “Who knows how many elders you’ve killed or how many mawares you’ve stolen?”

  Savage tsk’d his tongue against his fang. “Let’s say I’ve drained . . . enough. But I’ve saved room for one more.”

  That was all it took. One wink at Ariana, one yearning glance, one sniff of her blood and Dante’s blood boiled. They charged Savage at once, fangs bared, ready to rip flesh from bone.

  Without the death shades surrounding him, he was just a hybrid with a bag of magic tricks. But he was damn fast. He bolted out of the way, around the backside of the stones. Leaped over the top when they followed like smoke to his fire. He tumbled over the side like some sort of demonic gymnast. Then stood smiling, raising his arms from his sides.

  “This all you’ve got?” he taunted. “None of you can get a single beat on me. If you five are supposed to represent what’s left of the vampire race, I’m sure killing you would be doing your khissmates a huge favor. They might’ve dropped dead from disgrace.”

  Slade sprinted around the backside of the stones and came back as a panther, black and sleek. He flickered, showing his true therian form, then leaped through the air and clawed at Savage’s face.

  Savage ducked. As Slade landed in a crouch, Savage blew a kiss, sending a wave of fire licking across Slade’s panther fur. Slade shifted back and sprinted around the stones the direction he came, brushing ash off his skin as he went.

  “Bring it.” Savage rubbed his hands together like he was just getting started. “I don’t think you could handle a quarter of my strength. I’ve become too powerful. Too all-knowing.”

  “And too cocky.” Ruan fired every bullet he had, dropped the Glocks, pulled two more from his back holster, and held the triggers until they were empty. Then he chucked those to the ground and let every silver throwing knife fly.

  Savage moved out of the way effortlessly. Like he knew what was happening before it happened or slowed down time enough to predict the best way around the bullets.

  “You think you’ve got the drop on us,” Dante said, stalking forward, his nails ready to dig into Savage’s flesh. “But you’ve added so many mawares to your twisted soul that you’ve muddled it all up.”

  Savage laughed, low and raspy. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Ruan answered by lifting his palms to the sky. Savage’s coal black eyes widened in horror as an invisible string tightened around his throat. He dangled high above the ground, clawing at the string with desperate fingers. When Ruan closed his eyes, cinching it tighter, Savage flung a fireball at Ruan to get him to drop his hold.

  Without thinking, Dante dove in front of Ruan and got a fireball smashed into his side. He writhed on the ground as flashes of fire seared his insides. He grimaced, holding his side, and looked up. Every ounce of strain lifted from his body.

  Savage threw everything he had at the group, but it came up soft. Sparks flicked off his fingers. Smoke and dirt rose from the ground, then quickly dissipated. Thunderstorms rolled in, only to roll out again.

  He was weakening. Scattered and unfocused. Most of all, he was scared.

  Bounding back into the action, Slade jumped over a hole as it opened up at his feet, then unsheathed a dagger from his belt and held it high for all to see. It was Dylan’s dagger—Mathilda.

  Savage snarled, his mawares flickering in size and strength. He kicked his feet, flailed his arms, tried to reach the rope above his head. But it wasn’t there.

  And as Ruan tightened the invisible noose, cutting off Savage’s air supply completely, Slade buried Dylan’s dagger into his heart, right up to the diamond-encrusted hilt. Blood and water spurted from the wound, draining down his chest.

  When it was all over, Dante collapsed. Ariana slid to his side in a beat, holding his head out of the mud.

  “I’ve got it, love.” She pressed her hand against Dante’s middle and kneaded her fingers in his charred flesh. “It’ll be okay.”

  “I know.” The wound burned something fierce, but Ariana’s touch was cool, soothing the pain away.

  “Mathilda, huh?” Ruan said as he dropped Savage’s body to the ground with a thump. “You couldn’t have used your own blade?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dante watched Slade remove Mathilda from Savage’s chest and wipe the blood on his pants.

  “Dylan couldn’t risk being out here with us, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t want to play a part.”

  He stood over Savage awhile, tilting his head to one side, then the other. As if he was remarking their brotherly similarities.

  “Next time we bring down a hybrid mastermind hell bent on vamp domination, wanna use my gun?” Ruan said with a wink. “I call her Betsy.”

  “Oh shove it, Ruan.”

  Eve’s shoes moved into Dante’s line of sight. “You two gonna be all right while we head back to finish the fight?”

  “Don’t think there’s going to be much of a fight left,” Ruan said. “Look.”

  Dante raised his head. Hundreds of vamps covered the forest and headed east, away from Black Moon and away from the fight. They stepped over pits and swerved around trees. They were disoriented, stumbling about as if they didn’t have a head on their shoulders.

  “What’s that about?” Dante said, as newfound strength surged through him. “They don’t seem to care we’re over here. Twenty minutes ago those vamps would’ve been all over us.”

  Ruan squatted over Savage, his gaze focusing on their slow retreat. “I don’t think they remember,” Ruan whispered. “They were possessed by death shades, but those shades were controlled by Savage. We’ve just kille
d their power source. I’m guessing they’re back to the vamps they were before.”

  “And my elders?” Ariana asked.

  “They’ll need our help.” Eve squeezed Ariana’s shoulder. “Are you ready? They’ll be hurt, dying, and begging for reprieve.”

  “They’re my brothers and sisters.” She finished healing Dante’s side, massaging the last of his burned skin. “Of course I’m ready.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Victory is not awarded to the brave and strong. It is earned by the weak and fearful just as the valiant and bold . . . it is earned by those who stand against evil. Victory is ours.”

  WATCHER ARCHIVE, UPDATE

  THE NEXT WEEK dragged by so slowly, Ariana thought she’d never find time to be alone with Dante again.

  There was simply too much to do. Too much to take care of. And she couldn’t put it off.

  With her Primus gone, Ariana occupied herself with studying the inner-workings of Black Moon. She conducted funerals for elders and designated a team to make sure each grave was properly marked to honor the fallen. Each headstone had Black Moon’s emblem, the crescent moon with a blade stuck through the middle, matching the mark on her arm. After their bodies were laid to rest, Ariana made sure Eve got their spirits accustomed to the Ever After.

  She spent two days in the forest, clearing the blood trail and identifying the fallen. She was tired, weary, and ready for things to go back to normal.

  It was almost time to head back inside. Almost time for the ceremony.

  She stepped over a fallen log and spotted Thom lying face down in a bed of moss. He was so beat up, his body such a charred mess, she wouldn’t have recognized him if it wasn’t for the scar above his ear—the one he’d gotten by missing a beat in one of their training sessions. From the look of things, he’d missed another one, too.

  She kneeled beside him as sunlight pierced through the trees and settled over his broken body. “Thom, thank you for your service and your sacrifice. I pray that your spirit finds peace in the Ever After.”