by Scott, K. M.
“I don’t plan on doing anything other than killing the fucking Archon. I’m done playing cat and mouse games with this motherfucker. He wants me dead? Too fucking bad. I want him dead more.”
“What do you want me to tell Solenne?”
“Tell her…” Saint hesitated and then said, “Tell her I’ll be back.”
The streets of the walled city of Avignon were eerily quiet as Saint marched through them, a vampire on a quest for revenge. Each step he took echoed off the stones underneath his feet. Houses that had seen the march of armies, of death from plagues, stood silently as if abandoned in anticipation of his coming.
Down alleys and side streets he strode, each one taking him closer to his final destination and the end of Marc Verrater. The memory of the bruises on Solenne’s pale skin played on his mind, and Saint’s rage spiked in him, spurring him on. He knew she’d done what she had to in order to protect him, but that only made it worse. It made him responsible in some way, an idea that sickened him.
But for one of the rare times in his existence, he’d turn his hate outward toward the one who truly deserved it.
A light wind blew in off the Rhône River, chilling the air as Saint at last turned onto the road where he’d find the Archon. The air did nothing to cool him, though, as he took the last steps to the building he sought. Every hurt, every loss he’d take out on the one who symbolized everything he hated about being a vampire.
He’d been to this place before. A lifetime ago, it seemed. A different Archon had stood in judgment of him then, sending him out of the vampire world for ten years. Tonight, he’d be the one meting out the punishment.
The Archon’s offices were dark, all except a room at the end of the hallway, where a dim light peaked out from under the door. Saint knew the one he sought was in there. His heart pounding, he turned the knob and opened the door. In front of him sat Marc Verrater. Dressed similarly to Saint, he was much younger than any Archon he’d seen before. For a moment, he stood stunned by the man, who appeared calm, as if he’d expected Saint to come that night.
The Archon stood, showing while he may have looked calm he knew why Saint had come.
“That stupid fuck you sent to kill me is a pile of dust.”
A smile crept slowly onto Verrater’s face. “Not surprising, but it doesn’t change the ultimate outcome. Your kind must be eliminated. The Sons of Navarus. The prophecy can’t be fulfilled if you live.”
Saint moved toward him. “I hate to disappoint you, but that’s not going to happen. You’ll be the first Archon to find out what happens when you fuck with us.”
The Archon looked past Saint and shrugged. “I see no us. All I see is one.”
“This is personal. I’m here for my brother, who that fuck you sent for me staked by mistake, and Solenne.”
“Dear Solenne. She disobeyed me by not handling the job herself, so I had to send Arnie.”
Saint curled his hands into fists. He was going to enjoy beating the hell out of the Archon before draining him so slowly he begged for mercy. “Don’t speak her name. Don’t think of her.”
The Archon slid his tongue across the seam of his mouth and smacked his lips. “I’ve done far more than say her name and think about her. She’s a rare treat wasted on a vampire who only fucks humans.”
His words made something rage inside Saint, and he lunged at the Archon, grabbing him by the throat. The force sent the two of them hurdling toward the far wall, and it stopped Verrater’s movement with a loud thud. Saint took advantage of his shock and hit him hard on the jaw, slamming his head into the wall.
Almost as big as Saint, the Archon quickly put up a much stronger fight. Twice he caught Saint in the mouth, drawing blood, and he overpowered him to take him to the ground. Landing on top of him, the Archon’s weight crushed against Saint’s body as it smashed against the floor.
It had been years since Saint had fought anyone so close his equal, and after the initial shock wore off, he began to relish the chance to humiliate Verrater before taking his life.
The Archon may have been as skilled a fighter, but Saint quickly found his weakness. Unless he was on the offensive, he was unable to fight at all. But he was big and getting him on the defensive wasn’t easy.
Finally, Saint maneuvered him under him and began pummeling his face. Each time his fist hit him, a tiny part of the hurt and rage left Saint. It would take far more than what he could do with his fists to rid him of everything that made him hate Verrater, though. No, that release would only come with his death.
Beneath him, the Archon lay bloody and beaten, but Saint needed him to feel more pain. For every time he’d forced himself on Solenne. For every bruise his hands had left on her tender skin. For every drop of blood that he’d taken from her. For every hurt he’d inflicted on the woman he loved and the life he’d taken from his brother.
Saint pulled a rope he’d brought out of his coat and tied Verrater by his hands and feet to his chair. Unable to move, he sat motionless, his head lolling back and forth on his neck.
“I could just stake you, but that wouldn’t be enough. I need you to feel pain—pain like the kind you’ve caused.”
Verrater looked up at him, his one eye swollen shut. “You’ll never get us all. There are too many of us,” he groaned.
“I don’t need to hurt all of you tonight. Just you. And we will defeat you bastards.”
Saint didn’t want to talk anymore. He wanted to make the one who’d hurt those closest to him suffer. Leaning in, he scraped his fangs over the Archon’s neck and roughly jammed them into his skin. The agonizing pain was evident in the cries that escaped from the Archon’s mouth, but Saint bit down as hard as his teeth allowed and pulled painfully on his vein.
Blood filled Saint’s mouth, and he yanked his fangs from Verrater’s neck to spit it out on the white tile floor. Over and over, Saint plunged his teeth into the Archon’s skin, slowly draining him until the floor around them was covered in blood. Verrater’s life hung by a thread, and Saint would be the one to cut that thread.
Saint watched the man in front of him as he desperately clung to life. Never before had he so viciously used his ability as a vampire to hurt another, but even now as he prepared to take the final drops of the Archon’s blood from his nearly empty body, Saint’s desire to hurt him wasn’t sated. He would be the first of many Archons that must die to ensure the vampire world didn’t end up like them.
A noise behind him made him turn his head, and before he could react, Saint was charged by two of Verrater’s men. Even with adrenaline behind him, he couldn’t overpower two of them. Fists seemed to come from everywhere, pounding his face, his chest, his gut until he fell to the floor in a crumpled heap nearly as battered as the Archon.
Though eyes blurry with blood, he saw the one whose fist had first smashed into his mouth lift a stake in the air. Saint braced for the moment it would pierce his heart and send him to dust. Thoughts of Solenne were the last he had—her beautiful eyes so full of love, her kiss that never failed to thrill him, her sacrifice for him that had all been for nothing—and then everything went black.
Epilogue
Solenne dug her toes into the white sand, loving the feel of its cool, grainy texture against her skin. The water that had seeped into the sand earlier in the day still remained to dampen her feet, sending a tiny chill over her skin.
The moon sat low in the sky, a deep yellow orb above bathing the beach in pale light. Again and again, she looked up and down the span of sand but saw no one. Each night she waited, against the suggestion of Terek’s vampires, sure Declan would come to her, and each night was ended by dawn hastening her inside to wait for another night. For months she’d hoped and waited alone, wondering when fate would ever see fit to grant her the one wish she made on the stars above.
She knew he’d come, no matter what the pitying eyes of Terek’s vampires showed they believed. He’d come. She’d waited nearly a century the last time. She’d wait as long this
time, if she had to.
Spain had become her home since that night Declan had moved against the Archon. Terek had taken her as he’d promised to somewhere warm, but no sign of Declan had been seen since then. The Sons pretended to believe he still lived, but she knew when she wasn’t near they whispered what she refused to believe.
That Declan was gone, lost to the war with the Archons.
A lump formed in her throat at the thought. No. She’d know. Even though he wasn’t her sire. Even though he wasn’t her vampire, sired from her own blood. She’d know because he was hers.
Her love.
Her soul.
Hers.
Solenne scooped a handful of damp sand and let it fall in clumps between her fingers. The dark waves rolled in front of her, marking the passing of time as another night ebbed away from her. Tonight, as she did every night, she’d believed he’d come.
“Declan, where are you?” she whispered toward the night sky and North Star.
“The only place I ever want to be—with the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
Solenne spun around to see him standing behind her, smiling like no time had passed between then. “Where have you been?”
“Still not very good with understanding how a man likes to be welcomed home,” he said with a wink.
Even the wet sand that held her feet couldn’t keep her from leaping toward him, and Solenne threw her arms around his neck, her joy purer than she’d ever known. “Where? How? I’ve missed you so much.”
Declan’s arms enveloped her, pressing her body to his, and she heard his heart race next to her ear. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you before. But I’m here now.”
Solenne tried to hold back the tears that burned behind her eyelids, but it was no use. Months of loneliness, of being the only one to believe he would ever return to her, finally took their toll and whatever strength she’d had dissolved into nothingness, replaced by the tears running down her cheeks.
In his arms, she sobbed as he softly stroked her hair and back. “I never stopped believing you’d come back to me. Never. Fate couldn’t do that to us. Every night I waited, Declan. Every night.”
Squeezing her tightly, he kissed the top of her head. “I would never give up, Solenne. No matter what, I had to come back. I walked around for almost a century with an emptiness from not having you near me. I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”
Lifting her head from his chest, she looked up into those dark eyes she loved and saw something different. “Declan, what is it?”
“Solenne, for so long I hated who I was—hated being vampire. I took it out on everyone around me, alienating those who I should have cared for. I couldn’t see the gift Kir had given me that night. I couldn’t see that you could never do what I’d believed you’d done. I couldn’t see that being a sire meant more than turning one into a vampire. I deserved to be alone.”
“No, that’s not true. It wasn’t all you.”
He kissed her softly and continued. “But then I was given a second chance with you that I thought was going to be yanked away that night at Verrater’s. And something incredible happened. Just as one of his guards was about to stake me, one of my vampires showed up. That’s where I’ve been all this time. I visited as many as would see me. Not all can forgive me, but some can.”
“So that’s where you’ve been?”
Declan cradled her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Forgive me, but I couldn’t come back to you the way I was. I knew you’d be safe with Terek and his vampires.”
Solenne grasped his wrists and shook her head. “I don’t care about being safe. I care about you the way you were, the way you are now, any way.”
“Well, now you have me always. But until this war with the Archons is won, our lives won’t be our own.”
“Just promise me that when we’re alone each day as we lay in each other’s arms that the life we’ve waited so long to have will be ours and ours alone. Promise me that and I can withstand anything.”
Declan kissed her just as he did that first night in the garden at her house and all the things that had kept them apart and all the troubles that lay ahead seemed to fade away.
“I promise.”
*
Solenne’s hands caressing his tired body made Declan feel like he was finally home. Terek’s house may have been full of strangers and the towns and countryside around the grounds were entirely foreign to him, but it didn’t matter. As long as Solenne was there, he was home.
The months away from her had been torture, knowing she very well believed him dead at the hands of Verrater. Each night he told himself this was what he had to do, but it didn’t make her absence from his side any easier. Now he intended to make sure she’d be in his life forever.
“Feel better yet? I can massage the front, if you’d like,” she teased as she nuzzled his neck.
Rolling over, he pulled her on top of him, loving the feel of her body next to his. But as much as he yearned to make love to her, he had something else on his mind. “I don’t ever want to be without you again. Too much of our lives have been spent apart.”
Solenne smiled and kissed him sweetly. “Declan, I don’t plan to let anything separate us again. Heaven help anyone who tries.”
“That’s not enough.”
Solenne propped herself up on her elbow next to him and gave him a confused look. “What do you mean?”
“I want us to be formally joined. Marry me.”
“Marry you?”
“Yes. And I know it’s not popular with female vampires these days, but agree to wear my mark.”
“You know you’re asking a modern female to do something perfectly medieval.”
“I know. Call me traditional. I hope this modern female will do it anyway.”
“I had no idea the man I adore was so old-fashioned.”
Declan’s heart pounded wildly as he waited for her answer. He knew it was uncommon for female vampires to want to go through the process required to wear the mark of the one they loved. Like a tattoo, his blood would be driven beneath her skin and she would forever show the world that she was joined to him.
Solenne cradled his face in her hands and looked deep into his eyes. Declan held his breath in anticipation of her words, unable to decipher whether her expression was one of love or indecision about how to tell him no, or worse, that she didn’t want to marry someone who’d led the life he had.
“Declan, you know I’d endure anything for you. If my getting the mark will make you happy, I’ll willingly wear it to show all who see that I love only you. That my heart is yours and yours alone. Do you plan to get my mark also?”
“So now the modern woman wants me to do the medieval thing?” he said with a grin.
“It only seems fair. Are you worried that the other Sons will think less of you?”
Saint imagined the only one of them who’d have the nerve to say anything would be Dante, and having such a perfect justification to bring the cocky bastard down a peg seemed worth a little ribbing from his fellow vampires. “I don’t care what they think. If the woman I love wants me to wear her mark, I do it proudly.”
“Good. So about this marriage thing…”
Before he could argue his case, she kissed away any words he could say.
*
Declan stood behind Solenne, his fingers caressing the raised mark on the back of her neck that signified she was his vampire, if not by blood then by choice. An elaborate triskelion, the mark had been chosen by Solenne because of its meaning to symbolize the end of their time apart and the beginning of their future together. He bore an identical mark on the same spot on the back of his neck, and just as he’d guessed, Dante had been the only one of them who dared say anything. Declan had enjoyed delivering a little humility to the young vampire. Not much, but enough to let him know his place.
“It was a beautiful ceremony, Solenne,” Sasa said as she approached them in the great hall of Terek’s house where they
waited for the rest of the Sons and Terek’s vampires to join them.
“Thank you, Sasa. It was a long time coming.”
“I’m afraid Vasilije is going to want to talk about the Archons today, Declan. He was right behind me when he stopped to talk to Terek and Dante, and I think I heard him mention that they’ve made some real progress with the prophecy back at the monastery.”
Declan looked across the hall to see the three men approaching them with intent expressions on their faces. Leaning down, he kissed the side of Solenne’s cheek. “No rest for the wicked, it seems. I promise this won’t take long, and then we can get back to celebrating.”
Solenne turned to look up at him. “I knew what kind of vampire I was marrying when I said yes. This is who we are now. I hope you’re okay with me joining you. I want to be a part of your taking down the Archons.”
Pride at his wife’s strength filled him and he smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Sorry to crash the party with business, but Thane and Ramiel have something they need to tell us,” Vasilije said as he stopped in front of them. “Terek’s library will do. We can talk to them from there.”
Vasilije stretched out his arm to take Sasa’s hand and together they walked into the expansive room that Terek called a library. Declan was sure he’d never seen so many books in one place, and from the sound of Dante’s whistling behind him, it appeared he wasn’t the only one impressed with Terek’s collection of books.
As Terek and Vasilije got the rest of the Sons on the phone for a conference call, Declan stood silently beside Solenne as she expressed her amazement with the room. “I thought the library I’d inherited from Lucrecia was extraordinary. This makes the one at my house look like a closet.”
Solenne’s mention of her house in France reminded Declan of the enemies they’d have to defeat before their life together would be as they’d always dreamed. Hopefully, what Thane and Ramiel had discovered about the prophecy would hasten that day when he and Solenne could just live quietly in the French countryside as two souls in love, the way he’d always wished they could.