League of Vampires Box Set: Books 4-6 (League of Vampires Box Sets Book 2)

by Rye Brewer

  He held up one hand, turning his face away. “You don’t need to.”

  A shard of guilt sliced into my heart. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw that up at you the way I did.”

  “It’s all right. You make a good point. You’re not an uninformed outsider.” He took me by the arm and led me to the edge of the courtyard, just before the rock dropped off and met the water. “I’m here to find someone. Or, at least, to find information on them.”

  “Who?”

  He glanced around to be sure we were alone before leaning a little closer. “Nivia used a necromancer and a witch to turn Valerius from one of the fae into a vampire. She used them to change herself from shade to vampire, too.”

  “So, you’re looking for them,” I deduced. “Are they the ones who put Vance into Valerius’s body, too?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’ve already looked for them—sadly, I was too late. They were already dead. I’d bet anything it was Nivia who had them killed. At any rate, I know they weren’t involved with changing Valerius and Nivia. I know it because the necromancer in question is in prison, and has been for the last few centuries.”

  “I see.” It took a moment for me to absorb all the new information. “Do you think the two Nivia killed were the ones to move her into Elena’s body, maybe?”

  Pain touched his eyes. It took a moment for him to reply. “Elena… I thought she died long ago. If she didn’t, I don’t know when the switch took place.”

  For the second time in less than an hour, I felt like I should give someone their privacy. He was so obviously pained by the thought of his wife being alive, out there somewhere, while he… The image of Sirene’s face flashed across my mind.

  He cleared his throat. “At any rate, I’m certain Nivia will try to find the necromancer and witch from so long ago. Wherever they are, that’s where she’ll eventually be.”

  “Do you know where to find them? Where’s the necromancer imprisoned?”

  “On Shadowsbane Island.” He looked away, across the water.

  I assumed that meant the island was somewhere out there.

  “I’m not familiar with the name. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.”

  What else was new? It seemed as though there was always something I needed to catch up on. How had I ever thought I knew everything about my world? I was so naïve before meeting Jonah—even though I was wise beyond my years in so many other respects.

  Fane didn’t seem surprised. “Its primary purpose is to keep witches incarcerated—usually for crimes against other witches. The prison takes up a large part of the island, though there are homes for the family or loved ones of the incarcerated to live in while the witch serves their sentence. Samara, the witch Nivia will be looking for, lives on the island where Elazar, the necromancer, is imprisoned.”

  “You said it was witches who were incarcerated there.”

  “Yes, well, in some cases, the prison’s elite security measures are necessary to keep a particularly dangerous criminal safely locked up. The cells are enchanted, you see, with no chance of outsiders getting in or out. The enchantment wears off as a sentence dwindles, but Elazar has another century to go before he’s freed.”

  I narrowed my eyes as the larger picture came into focus. “Something tells me you have no intention of letting another century pass.”

  “Would you?” he asked with a derisive snort.

  “What are you planning, then?”

  “To help Elazar escape in exchange for a promise that he’ll get Nivia out of Elena’s body.”

  I sighed to myself. “What about Sirene?”

  “What about her?” He raised an eyebrow in silent warning.

  I had to tread carefully when it came to her, I could tell.

  “You have her now. And a baby coming. This is extremely risky. Why are you taking such a chance?”

  He stared out across the water again, so I couldn’t see his expression. The sun was sinking—it had to be late afternoon, or the equivalent thereof. I didn’t know how time worked in Hallowthorn Landing. The late day sun turned Fane’s dark hair to a deep auburn. “I’m doing it for my children. I can do this one last thing for them, if nothing else. They deserve to have their mother back, if it’s possible.”

  His words touched my heart. I knew what it meant to have my mother back—a glance over my shoulder showed her still walking with Gregor, this time along the water, where we’d first portalled in. I had never seen either of them look so happy and peaceful. I could just imagine what it would mean to Jonah and the others to have Elena in their lives again.

  “Do they know what you’re planning?”

  He shook his head. “They have no idea, and I can’t have any of them involved in this.”

  “Why not? I’m sure they would want to help bring their mother home, if possible.”

  “Philippa is busy guarding Valerius’s body. She won’t want to leave him. Gage always seems to be gone for one reason or another—I never know where to find him. Scott is too young, too unskilled in this sort of mission. And Jonah?” He snorted. “Jonah hates me because of Sirene and the baby. For all I know, Gage hates me, too. Besides, it’s far too dangerous. I wouldn’t want to involve any of them even if I could.”

  I couldn’t let his comment about Jonah slide. “Jonah doesn’t hate you. I’m sure of it.”

  He processed this without comment before continuing. “At any rate, if they’re caught, the price for something like this could be steep. And the witches of Hallowthorn Landing would be bound to notice that many vampires arriving all at once. They would see the vampire auras and be on the alert.”

  That confused me. “My mother and I haven’t had any problems, and we’re vampires.”

  “Whoever brought your mother and sister had permission to do so,” he explained. “Your mother’s aura is not a problem.”

  “It was Sirene who brought them.”

  He seemed to take this in stride, though I could tell he didn’t know before now. “I have to admit, I wonder why they’re here at all, but I understand it’s a private matter.”

  “Thank you.” I wasn’t about to explain what brought Sara here, and I wondered again how her training was progressing. It would’ve been so much better if I could just see her. “But what about me? And, for that matter, what about Gregor and Felicity? Nobody seems to care that we’re here.”

  I glanced around to confirm this. There were no hordes of hooded witches rushing out from the fortresses, eager to question us.

  “As for those two, they’re fae. There are treaties in place which allow the fae to intermingle peacefully with witches—for the most part. I wouldn’t say their presence is completely welcome, just as I’m sure a witch wouldn’t be celebrated on entering Avellane, but they’re tolerated. As for you…” He looked me up and down with an appraising gaze. “One of them must’ve placed a ward on you. I’m guessing the woman, since I know Gregor wouldn’t be able to do it. Something to mask your vampire aura—even though you’re part-fae, you’re still a vampire.”

  Felicity, that’s who he meant. “I see.” At least, I thought I saw. There were still so many rules I was unaware of. No matter how far I went, there was always more to learn.

  I stared across the water with him, toward where I guessed Shadowsbane sat. Even though I knew it was probably foolish, I hated the thought of him going there alone. It was heroic of him to take on a challenge like that for the sake of his children. He deserved all the help he could get.

  I took a deep breath and hoped I wouldn’t regret what I was about to say.

  “I could go with you to Shadowsbane. I would like to help you.”

  He shot me a look from the corner of his eye. “You? You must be joking.”

  “What’s so wrong with that idea?” I asked, more than a little offended at his tone.

  “You have no idea the level of danger you could be in if you took a chance like that.”

  I waved a dismissive hand. “Danger? Please
. One day, when we have the time, we’ll talk about some of the dangerous situations I was in before I ever met your family. I’m hell on a zipline, you know. I don’t know if that matters, but I thought it was worth bringing up.”

  He laughed, sounding surprised—whether it was me or himself he was surprised with, I didn’t know.

  “Fair enough. I would appreciate the help. And the company.”

  I couldn’t help but feel a little pleased with myself, hearing his acceptance. Even so, there was something nagging at the back of my mind. “Before we go, I think I should head back to the penthouse—just to see Jonah to let him know where I’ll be. Or, at least, that I’ll be with you. I don’t want him to worry.”

  He winced.

  “As I said, I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. And I’m sure he’d want to know what you’re planning to do. It would mean a lot to him, hearing what you’re willing to risk to bring Elena back if you can.”

  He mulled this over, emotions running across his weathered face. “You know him better than I do now. If you think he can accept my presence, I’ll go with you. But we should hurry. I don’t want to waste time.”

  28

  Sara

  “If I’m going to be a witch, I might as well be the best witch I can be.”

  One corner of his mouth quirked up in what looked like a reluctant smile—even so, he held up a finger. “I will. So long as you feel the same, once you know everything there is to know.”

  Somebody needed to tell Stark what a terrible storyteller he was because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was on his mind with a lead-in like the one he’d just given me before continuing down the dark tunnel.

  I hurried to catch up. “You want to tell me everything there is to know... about what? About me? You make it sound as though that’s a bad thing, like I’ll regret it.”

  “I didn’t say that, did I? I only want you to withhold your request until you know for sure what you’re asking. It’s for your own good.”

  “And you’re such an expert at what that means.”

  “When last I checked, you were here because you needed my help. Am I forgetting something?”

  “No. You’re not forgetting anything,” I sighed.

  “Exactly. It stands to reason, then, there are things I know which you don’t yet know.”

  “And maybe, if you’d not drag me halfway around the world and stop and talk to me about them, I could know them. Or is it just that you prefer being a know-it-all?”

  He chuckled as he came to a stop then turned. “I’ve always been a know-it-all—Emilie used to tell me so. But I have to tell you, nobody’s called me that since.”

  “Well. You must not know many people, then.”

  A gentle incline of his head told me I wasn’t far off the mark. “We’re here now, at any rate.”

  I looked around. The same blank darkness surrounded me. “We’re where?”

  “Allow your eyes to adjust. It might take a moment. Your vampire blood must make it a challenge to see what witches see.”

  I dismissed the impulse to snarl at him—he couldn’t resist the opportunity to mention my vampire blood, could he? Instead, I focused my energy on letting whatever was around me come into view. Images began to separate themselves from the deep, black nothing. A chair. A painting which seemed to hang in midair until the wall behind it came into view. The marble mantle beneath it. A bed with a strong, heavy, wooden frame and four posters that supported a thick set of emerald-green drapes. A fireplace, cold and dark.

  There were no windows. I had no sense of the outside world. Candles, flames flickering at the wicks. Wax dripped down the mantel and cooled in shapeless blobs which must’ve taken centuries to produce.

  “What is this place?”

  A bedroom, clearly, stuck far in the past. It reminded me of something out of photos I’d seen from the nineteenth century, though it could’ve dated further back than that.

  Stark’s voice was low, flat. “This is the place where Emilie and I were born. It’s home.”

  I turned to him with a soft gasp. “I thought you lived in Hallowthorn Landing.”

  “I have rooms there, but it will never be home to me.”

  “Are we in Romania?” I remembered him mentioning it when he told me his sister’s story.

  He shook his head. “This specific place can’t be located on a human map. We made our life in the human world, yes, more out of necessity than anything else. But this was where we were born and spent our earliest years. I wonder more often than I’d like to admit how very different life would’ve turned out if we’d never left.”

  He walked to the mantel and leaned his hand against one of the few bare places where wax hadn’t taken over. “I don’t come here often,” he murmured, staring into the dark hearth. “Only when I want to be close to my sister again, if only in my mind… my spirit.”

  The depth of his pain took my breath away. It practically dripped from his words the way wax dripped from the candles. And it had hardened over the years, as the wax had, and formed a shell around him.

  “But we’re no longer in Hallowthorn Landing,” I confirmed.

  “Correct. We’re in the same dimension, however. This place, Hallowthorn, Shadowsbane. They’re all in the same dimension.”

  “Shadowsbane?” I frowned. “What’s that?”

  It was as though he hadn’t noticed he’d said it—he was too far away to pay full attention to our conversation. My question seemed to come as a surprise.

  “You’ll know more about that in due time,” he promised with a knowing chuckle.

  I hated the sound of that soft laugh. He was still holding something back.

  Maybe it was for my own good. Maybe it was something I didn’t want to know.

  He cleared up my unspoken confusion. “Before you hear all about it, I want to tell you about me. Then, you can decide if you trust me or not.”

  His words landed on me like blocks of ice. I actually shivered a little, which I tried to hide. What could there be about him that was so bad? I guessed if he was as old as he said, there could be any number of secrets in his past.

  He stood up straight, hands at his side, appearing resolute. “You said earlier you’d never heard my name before.”

  “That’s right.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What about the name… Starkers?”

  I gasped; it wasn’t possible. “Starkers are just a myth. A band of secret humans who hunt vampires. There’s never been any proof of their existence.”

  “Except for the vampires they killed,” he murmured.

  “Except for that. But even so—”

  “You don’t have to make excuses for what you already know to be true, so don’t bother.” He shook his head. “The group has always been secretive enough and stayed far enough undercover to avoid being caught.”

  I sputtered. “They’ve been around for hundreds of years, haven’t they? Supposedly?”

  “Supposedly.”

  Hundreds of years. My mind spun with possibilities. It had been hundreds of years since Emilie died. But he couldn’t have. There was no way. And yet, her death had changed him. Crushed him. When a person suffered pain like that, they were capable of anything.

  Even organizing a band of vampire killers and giving them his name. Did he name them? Or did they pick the name out themselves?

  “Are things beginning to make sense now?” There was a note of sympathy in his question.

  “No. They’re not.” I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe it. Not him.

  “Perhaps it would help if you learned from my blood.”

  “What?” My voice rang through the room. I didn’t mean to shout, but it came out that way. “One minute, you hate me for being a vampire. The next, you ask me to drink your blood.”

  “I don’t hate you for being a vampire,” he reminded me in a softer tone than I’d ever heard him use before. “Have I felt conflicted because of my history and your dual nature? Yes.
But I don’t hate you. I never did.” No matter how many times he’d told me that in the past, I hadn’t believed him. But I believed him then.

  “I-I don’t think I want to. Drink, that is.” I wrung my hands.

  There was a time when the turmoil he was putting me through would start a dangerous tingle in my fingertips. A tingle which soon turned to a crackling sound. He had taught me how to handle it.

  “You should. You’ll be able to see my memories. I’ll open them for you.” He took a step toward me. Then another.

  I would’ve run if I knew where I was running to. I was that conflicted. What if I saw something that changed my feelings for him? Something so terrible, I couldn’t look at him the same way again? He meant too much to me.

  “Stark, please. Don’t make me do this.” I wished I could move my feet, but they seemed glued to the floor as he closed the distance between us and placed his hands on either side of my face. My heart took off.

  His eyes stared straight into mine. “Sara. I would never offer this if it wasn’t important.”

  “Why is it so important?” I breathed.

  He was so close. His face seemed to swim in front of me, like I was about to swoon. I willed my heart to slow down a bit before I did just that. But it was all so perfect—or it would’ve been if I wasn’t staring down the prospect of learning things I didn’t want to know about him.

  “It just is. I want you to know everything before you make up your mind about me.” His breath was warm on my face, as warm as the hands still touching me. They slid down to my shoulders before he pulled me closer.

  When his lips brushed against mine, I had the sense of the inevitable finally coming to pass as I let myself sink into his arms.

  29

  Sara

  What was I supposed to do after a kiss like that? I’d thought I was conflicted before. The entire world was upside down by the time he pulled away. My eyes opened slowly, as though part of me wanted to hold on to this moment forever.

  He gazed down at me with new warmth, and a slight smile touched the corners of what I knew was his warm, firm, inviting mouth. I wanted him to kiss me again—forever, even—but there were more pressing issues at hand.