Dark Child of Forever

by S. K. Ryder

  “My lord Adilla has generously accepted your beloved sister into our ranks and granted her immortal life.”

  The shape of the trap. There it was. Blackmail. Coercion. Adilla would not submit. But killing him would now also kill Genevie.

  Though he remained motionless, a tremor ran through Dominic’s bones. There was more. He sensed it in Esteban’s smug demeanor and heard it in the half-drawn swords behind him. Something was closing in as surely as Jackson was skulking in the woods.

  Wait, he told himself. Wait, he told all the minds he could touch. Wait.

  “Have you nothing to say to this poor child?” Esteban asked with a casual gesture at Genevie. She shook so hard her shackles rattled, seized by a need for something she did not yet comprehend.

  “Adilla’s . . . esteem for me does not extend to feeding her?” The words felt flat on his tongue. Wait.

  “Nonsense. Who better than her brother to introduce her to the sweet pleasures of the hunt?”

  Hunt? Genevie wouldn’t be doing any hunting for many nights yet. She would fall on and drain every mortal heart to cross her path. Left on her own, she would lay waste to the village within the hour and the campground soon thereafter.

  Wait.

  “You might as well,” Esteban said on a low, impatient growl when Dominic continued to stand in silence. “We have a little time before our guests arrive.”

  Wait.

  Guests? Dominic turned to the Spaniard, saw his mouth widen with a fanged grin, and both knew and feared what he would say.

  “Your mother is on her way here to join us.” He chuckled. “And, of course, darling Cassidy.”

  Dominic waited no more.

  Chapter 33

  Monsters Cannot Love

  Cassidy tried to ignore Francesca practicing with the light gun. Every time the awkward device whined to life, painting a neat circle of brilliance on the rug, the wall, the bed, the table, she shuddered a little. She could almost smell Dominic’s roasting skin again.

  “You probably shouldn’t run down the battery on that thing.”

  Francesca turned off the gun and placed it in her lap, covering it with her elegant hands, which looked like they had never held a weapon more dangerous than a paring knife. “So you do believe we might need this . . . this gun?”

  “I don’t see how. But since we have it, we might as well keep it operational.” The monstrosity—a clunky early version of the full-spectrum torches the Strikers used now—had shown up in Francesca’s luggage along with several small canisters of silver dust spray. A gift from Garrett, Cassidy suspected, one she had been all for abandoning with their luggage back at the Le Germain Hotel. As per the plan she and Dominic had hatched, no one, not even she, would know where she and Francesca would end up. No weapons required.

  Francesca disagreed. She had stuffed the lot into a satchel and slung this over her shoulder like a coat of armor. Cassidy didn’t have the heart to tell her that if a vampire came close enough for them to have to use these weapons, it would be too late.

  Cassidy returned the remains of the turkey sandwich to its bag. She had picked it up this afternoon during their random public transit travels which had landed them here at a Best Western on the outskirts of the city. The hotel was far from the downtown Le Germain in both distance and luxury. With a little luck, this translated into being well off the radar of any vampires in the area.

  When she turned to the side to take a peek past the drawn curtains, her belly twinged. Dominic’s blood had done all it could to put her guts back together in record time, but her middle still felt like a ragged hollow, especially during the day. Last night with Dominic at her side, his sober acceptance of what they lost permeated her. But at daybreak, everything changed. The child, that tiny part of him that had been with her twenty-four seven was no more and would never be again. If she weren’t running for her life, she would have curled up in a ball and howled.

  Outside, the day had long melted into night. Dominic wasn’t close enough for her to hear his thoughts, but she sensed his continued presence in the world. For now that would have to do. One more night on her own. Then she could afford to fall apart.

  She dropped the curtain and handed Francesca one of the silver spray containers. “Here. Hold on to this.” Another one went into the back pocket of her jeans beneath the hem of a bulky sweatshirt.

  Francesca studied the innocuous weapon before slipping it into the pocket of her designer slacks. “It is hard to believe that they should be so fragile, given what they are.”

  “Sensitive,” Cassidy corrected. “What they are is sensitive. A little light and silver will cause them grief but it won’t kill a vampire.” At least not one that wasn’t confined to a cage. What she knew of Garrett’s interrogation practices still screamed in the back of her mind. The urge to pull the silver from her pocket and hurl it across the room was almost overwhelming.

  “Do you know how many he has killed?”

  Cassidy gave a derisive snort. “I’m not sure even Garrett knows how many he’s turned to ash. Hundreds for sure. Maybe thousands.” Reading Francesca’s expression as shock at the revelation about her suitor, she added, “The hunt is his life’s purpose. He’s good at it.”

  Francesca’s hands closed on the light gun. “I meant . . . Dominic. How many . . . people has he killed?”

  Ice slid down Cassidy’s spine.

  “He says he no longer kills when he . . . drinks.” Delicate fingers described a circle near her throat before returning to the weapon. “But that means he did kill at some point, non?”

  “At some point,” Cassidy conceded faintly.

  “Do you know? How many?”

  Quite a few. Dominic’s early, out-of-control hunts had produced a great deal of carnage, details of which she often wished she didn’t know as well as she did. She pressed her hands together between her knees and tried to sound casual. “Why would you want to know such a thing?”

  “Because he . . . he is my son.” She tucked the silver wave of hair behind one ear and moistened her lips. “I want to know what his life has been like. And I do not believe he has told me everything about what happened to him. Has he?”

  No point denying that. Cassidy didn’t even try. Neither was she about to volunteer anything. She managed a tiny smile. “He has told you everything he can live with, Francesca. The rest—” She shook her head. “The rest are private demons that will haunt him for the rest of . . . well, time, I guess.”

  “He feels remorse?”

  Francesca’s doubtful tone grated on Cassidy’s nerves. “Yes. He does. To a degree incomprehensible by human minds. The same as he feels everything else. Your son bears the scars of what happened to him, but he is the same man. Only his body has changed.”

  The older woman’s eyes crinkled with tension. “He was always such a loving and happy young man. Now . . . so much darkness.”

  “He is reshaping the world of night to suit him. It’s why he’s out there right now teaching a thousand-year-old monster to love.”

  She looked away, thoughtful as she stroked the gun in her lap. Very quietly she said, “Monsters cannot love.”

  Cassidy stared at her, speechless. During the flight, when Francesca had skirted a full-blown panic attack, Dominic had pounded the last nail into the coffin containing his human life by compelling his mother. Around vampires she was to never know fear, he told her. And no other compulsion would ever touch her. But how she felt about the supernatural—about him—he had left untouched.

  And here it was.

  Monsters cannot love.

  “Dominic is not a monster,” Cassidy whispered. Before she could say any more, a knock sounded at the door. “Yes?”

  “Room service,” a young male voice replied.

  Both women glanced at t
he remnants of their earlier meals, then at each other. Cassidy took the light gun from Francesca’s lap, stood, and forced an airy tone. “Wrong door. We didn’t order any.”

  Seconds ticked by. Her heart pounded in her ears. Any vampire outside that door would hear it, along with Francesca’s. When he spoke again, the bored tone was gone, replaced by the unmistakable timber of compulsion. “You did place an order. You want what I bring.”

  Cassidy took a shaky breath and exchanged another look with Francesca who blinked in surprise, then glanced at the window. She shook her head. They were on the fourth floor. The window was not an option.

  “Open the door,” demanded a second, deeper voice. More ineffective compulsion.

  Cassidy powered up the light gun and pointed it at the door with both hands. “We’re busy.”

  The low, furious growl sounded like it came from a large animal. A monster.

  Francesca got up, her movements still stiff from her battle the day before. She edged closer to Cassidy.

  With a thunderous boom, the heavy hotel room door tore out of the wall, frame and all, and crashed into the room.

  Cassidy pulled the trigger before she could see the invader. She was rewarded with an ear-splitting shriek. Silence followed.

  The gun whined in her hands, grew warm. The battery indicator registered more than half full, but for how long would that last? All night? She didn’t dare turn it off.

  Francesca went for her phone. “911?”

  Cassidy knew better, but nodded anyway. Too little, too late. Too crazy to report.

  Voices in the hallway. Asking questions. Protesting. Compulsion. The voices went away. Through the open door, the square of hallway lit up midday bright remained empty. The gun whined louder. The handle grew slippery in her sweaty palms. She held it tighter.

  Francesca cursed at her phone. Her call wasn’t going through.

  A small thud from the window made Cassidy swallow her heart. Before she could utter a meaningless warning, Francesca grabbed the curtain and pulled it aside.

  And screamed.

  Cassidy turned just in time to see the full-fledged beast clinging to the wall outside slam his skeletal fist through the glass. After that, everything happened very fast and precisely as she knew it would.

  They had, after all, only one light gun.

  She swung the beam around and lit him up just as he climbed through the shards of glass. There was only a glimpse of the skull face turning bright red. Then the gun tore out of her hand and hurtled at the window with such force the pane that had survived the first attack shattered and blew out.

  Picked up and tossed, Cassidy hurtled toward the bed like a stringless puppet. She flailed wildly to keep from bouncing clear off the mattress. As she flipped around, she saw Francesca face-to-face with the beast that had come through the window, her arm raised high, wielding a . . . plastic fork?

  In a flash, a claw hand captured her wrist, eliciting a sharp cry. The beast roared into her face in all its horrifying glory, angled its head, and . . .

  The other vampire flew at his partner and nailed him to the nearest wall by his boney neck. “Stop,” he snarled. It was the deep-voiced one. The one in charge. “Lose it now, and you know what Esteban will do to you.”

  The beast subsided, but it remained close to the surface, just behind the hyper-dilated eyes in a coarse, tattooed face. His cohort let him go. Also dressed in a hoodie and jeans, he had a calmer but far more dangerous look about him.

  Cassidy scrambled into a sitting position and marshaled every ounce of outrage she could muster. “How dare you? Do you have any idea who we are?”

  “Shut up,” boss vamp snapped, using compulsion again.

  “Clearly you don’t, or you wouldn’t be trying that foolish trick on us.” She got to her feet and locked her knees to keep them from buckling. Her head swam on top of her shoulders. Emotions she didn’t recognize boiled inside her. “I am your queen, you fool. Explain yourself. What is the meaning of this?”

  This declaration gave the two blood-drinkers a moment’s pause. But only a moment.

  Boss vamp mocked a bow in her direction. “No, I’d say it’s you who doesn’t know who we are, or you wouldn’t have tried to so foolishly hide from us. The only thing you surprised us with is that you are here at all. You have no idea how many eyes and ears we control in this city. Or how many of us there really are. Do you?”

  This was true. Bad as the situation was, knowing it had been set in motion the moment she stepped off the plane somehow made it worse—made her deflate and feel more helpless.

  The venomous little smile on the vampire’s face vanished. “We’re going on a road trip, your highness. And you need to shut up.”

  Chapter 34

  Making Bodies

  The son of a bitch would not get away with just tuning Jackson out and leaving him behind to play happy campers with his crippled uncle. Not with Esteban so close. That bastard would pay tonight, and Jackson wasn’t about to miss it. No one was going to tell him otherwise.

  Not even the Lord of Night.

  It wasn’t vampire speed with which he raced to the campground’s entrance and then bounded down the gravel incline to the village, but thanks to his regular workouts and the recent dose of Dominic’s blood, he made swift progress. He was already sprinting along the moonlit path to the cavern when he felt Dominic plow into his head as a sensation of unmitigated dread that wanted him to run the other way. Hard on the heels of this came blazing fury when Dominic figured out where Jackson was and why.

  Too fucking bad. I’m not going back.

  With a sharp mental slap upside the head that made Jackson flinch, Dominic’s presence vanished.

  Taking a precious few seconds to catch his breath, he used his heightened senses to scan the woods, aware of every shadow among the trunks, every creak in the branches, every nuance of damp forest spice in the air . . . and half-drowned voices in the muffled rumble of the waterfall.

  He had expected to get here long after Dominic and his minions had entered the mine so he could follow unobserved. Nobody should be out in the open having discussions.

  Not unless something had gone insanely wrong.

  Shit. What else is new?

  Staying low to the ground and keeping his head down and feet soft, he moved forward, only too aware how visible he would be to any vampire who glanced in his direction. He slipped behind a fallen log and peered over the top to take in the unfolding scene.

  A dozen vampires faced off in the rocky clearing before the cavern’s maw. Their hands and faces glowed in the gray moonlight, and the wind toyed with their shadowy clothes and glistening hair. Esteban’s soldiers shifted like a restless pack of wolves eager for a kill. Dominic’s group looked wary and agitated. Dominic himself stood between the two factions as cautious as Esteban was casual.

  Fuck. This has got ambush written all over it.

  Something was moving in the cavern, but Jackson lost track of it when he felt Dominic shoving at him again, willing him to leave. A bloodcurdling sense of danger pervaded him.

  I’m staying! With jaws clenched so hard his teeth ached, Jackson pushed back against the silent command.

  Another one of those mental slaps made his brain ring. He could almost hear the colorful French that no doubt accompanied it. But then Dominic left his head so fast he felt himself spin.

  Literally spin.

  And fall.

  Crack!

  The branch breaking under his ass sounded like a gunshot in his ears. Every vampire for a mile around must have heard it, would know he was there and come for him. Breath caught, heart riding his tongue, he looked around as his hand moved to the mini torch in his pocket. He tensed, readying himself, listening.

  Nothing happened.

 
In the clearing, Esteban was holding forth, but no one came for the clumsy mortal in the woods. Jackson poked his head up over the log again. Another figure stood before Dominic now, female and in chains, and . . .

  “Oh, God.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Still nobody looked in his direction. It was as if he had ceased to exist.

  And then it hit him.

  For these vampires Jackson had ceased to exist. Unable to budge him, Dominic must be using his psychic voodoo to erase him from the awareness of everyone here.

  Rising to his full height, Jackson felt his gut drop. The woman in chains was Genevie. And she was no longer human.

  The total lack of heat in Dominic’s reaction to finding his sister turned into a vampire made Jackson’s blood run cold. He knew his friend, the Lord of Night. That wasn’t mere anger he heard beneath that glacial tone. Not even grief. It was wrath.

  Esteban taunted him with cordial amusement until Dominic turned his glowing coal eyes on him.

  The bastard chuckled. A ripple of amusement went through the wolf pack. They were all strong and sleek and powerful—and anticipated something. But they weren’t prepared for Esteban uttering the one name—the one threat—that unleashed the Lord of Night’s rage.

  “ . . . and, of course, darling Cassidy.”

  Dominic had his jaws around Esteban’s throat so fast the wolves startled, uncomprehending, at their master’s hoarse yelp. By the time they moved in to help, Isao and the others were there, swords and knives drawn. Together they created a bristling defensive ring around Dominic and Esteban who twisted in Dominic’s arms like a pinned worm. The wolves snarled their fury.

  Jackson slipped over the log and rushed forward. Justice was being served, and invisible or not, he needed to be front and center.