by Tessa Dawn
She had waited in the dark cavern long after midnight, wanting to be sure the creature was gone before she attempted to make an escape. Taking only her identification from her backpack, she had placed her gun safely in its holster over her right shoulder and flung the half-full canteen of water over her left. Then, she had hastily thrown the heavy pack over one of the steep drops before sprinting wildly through the dark maze of tunnels in a frenzied effort to get out of the cave.
Jocelyn fell several times in her hasty escape, bruising and scraping her knees, but she barely felt any pain as her adrenaline carried her miles through the forest.
When she finally stopped to rest, her lungs labored for breath, even as her mind cried out for sanity. It couldn't be!
What she had seen could not be real. What kind of creature was that?
And the poor helpless woman...
How could anyone suffer such a heartless death?
Jocelyn bent over, panting heavily. Her hands were on her knees, and she fought to take in oxygen in the high, unforgiving altitude. She struggled to clear her usually organized mind.
Dalia.
The murdered woman.
Had she been one of the victims sold into slavery by the ring? Had that creature purchased her...to breed? To murder?
Had he kept her for nine whole months? And if so, what in God's name had that poor woman endured?
Most of the females involved in the ring she had been investigating were foreigners. Poor unsuspecting immigrants forced to trust the wrong person in a desperate attempt to come to the United States. But Dalia had been American. At least she had looked American. And she had sounded American, too, when she had spoken the creature's name.
Valentine.
Jocelyn shuddered and blinked back a reservoir of pressing tears. The woman in the chamber had been beautiful. And she had suffered unbearably.
Jocelyn could not get far enough away...fast enough. She took a few more labored breaths, then forced herself to get moving again. She tried to keep up a steady jog even though her lungs felt like they were on fire. Her mind continued to piece the puzzle together as she ran....
What kind of a creature started fires with the wave of his hand? Who held down a struggling, adult woman—pregnant or not—with only the tips of his fingers? Whose children emerged from the body like alien beings as opposed to being born in the natural way?
And the blood.
He drank blood.
Jocelyn tried to convince herself that he was just some sort of incredibly strong, psychopathic killer. Maybe a crazed addict pumped up on drugs—someone who had given himself so completely over to darkness that he no longer had a conscience. But she knew better. As impossible as it was, Jocelyn knew the truth: That thing was undead. Wholly evil.
Dangerous beyond measure and definitely not human.
That thing was a vampire.
Even as the prospect settled in her mind, it was hard to accept it as true.
The narrow, uneven path beneath her feet was littered with branches, scattered with pine-cones, and strewn with raised tree roots. The loose soil formed uneven divots beneath her feet, causing her to trip and fall far too often, having only a flashlight for a guide. The enormous gathering of shadowed, towering pines, interspersed with quaking aspens, gave the forest a haunted appearance.
As if it were bursting with mystical beings. All of them lurking. Towering over and around her. Hiding just out of sight. Crouched and ready to pounce as she ran by.
Every shadow was a ghost. Every sound was the creature finding her. Every whisper was a vampire waiting to claim her.
Jocelyn put her hands over her ears. She could feel the desperate pounding in her head even as she tried to control her thoughts and keep her eyes focused on the path ahead of her.
One step at a time, she coaxed. Just keep going one step at a time.
A large, jutting tree root caught her ankle as she rounded a sharp curve in the path, just as a wolf howled from somewhere deep in the forest. The tree felt like two evil hands snatching her legs, and she was certain the howl was an insidious snarl—that the vampire had found her and was about to take her to his lair. She screamed a hair-raising shriek of terror as her knees struck the ground and her hands flew out in front of her to catch her fall. She clenched her eyes shut and trembled uncontrollably.
She was too afraid to open them.
Too afraid to move.
So gripped with terror she was paralyzed.
She huddled close to the ground, trying desperately to regain her composure.
As long as she lived, she would never get over what had happened in that chamber. No matter how tightly she held her hands over her ears, she couldn't shut out the echo of those anguished cries. Now, miles away from the bloody cavern, Jocelyn finally began to feel—not just to analyze or survive—but to deeply, intrinsically feel the full horror of what she had seen.
Like the rising tide of an ocean wave, the anguish swelled in her heart, and she began to sob. She gathered her knees to her chest, buried her face in her hands, and rocked back and forth while she wept.
Jocelyn Levi cried uncontrollably, maintaining a far too fragile hold on her sanity.
Nathaniel had stood at Shelby's grave site deep into the night, so consumed by his grief that he'd lost track of time. It was only the harsh, desperate sound of a woman's cry, coming from deep within the forest, that brought him back to the present moment.
He lifted his head to scent the air, his mind becoming alert.
The sound had come from the valley just beyond the red canyons. The canyons once used by the Dark Ones to conduct their hideous rituals. Was it possible that his shadow brothers had returned to the familiar chamber?
It had been many moons since a son of Jaegar had dared to sacrifice a human in the sinister ritual so close to the lands of his Lighter Brothers. The last Dark Vampire who had flaunted such arrogance had been Vladimir Lazaro, and he had paid a heavy price for his audacity when the sons of Jadon had punished him for his crime.
As was the only true way to destroy a vampire, a creature whose very life and power existed in the blood, Vladimir's had been drained from his body by the warriors. He had been dealt a lethal wound to enable his capture, and his blood had been siphoned from several major arteries to ensure a rapid loss of life-force.
Normally, his head would have been severed and destroyed along with his heart, but Vladimir's punishment had been much harsher. An example to the rest of his kind. He had been drained of all but a few drops of blood, leaving just enough essence to keep him weak but alive. The sons of Jadon had then staked him through the heart; anchored him to the ground; and surrounded him with their most powerful ancients, holding him there until the sun had risen the next morning.
Completely exposed, Vladimir's flesh had been incinerated beyond recognition, his unclean heart burned from his body in the most painful death a Dark One could endure. The Evil Ones continued to have children, to make human sacrifices, but like the cowards they were, they hid in the shadows and struck only when there was little chance of being caught. The red canyons, with all their hidden labyrinths and chambers, were far too close to the shared valley of Jadon's people. To use them was to commit certain suicide.
Nathaniel cloaked his presence and took to the skies, flying toward the canyons to investigate. He considered the world around him as he flew.
The night air was cool, but the skies were clear. The moon cast radiant shadows over the land. As Nathaniel basked in the glow, it occurred to him that the Rocky Mountains were not at all like the mountains of his ancestral homeland—a homeland he could only embrace through visits and genetically passed-on memories.
While the Transylvanian Mountains of Europe stretched from the mouth of the Viseu and Golden Bistrita rivers all the way to the great Hungarian Plain, the Rocky Mountains were located in western North America and stretched all the way from Canada to New Mexico. The eastern edge of the Rockies had been inhabited by the banished
males of his ancestry, those who had been forced from the Transylvanian Alps many centuries earlier as part of the Blood Curse. Eventually, they had settled along the central Front Range, building a lasting society—and a legacy of wealth.
Nathaniel had grown to love this "new" land, with its enormous, jutting mountain peaks, reaching impossibly high into the bluest of skies. He adored the endless valleys and forests, with their mild spring and summer weather, and he practically worshiped the purple and orange sunsets.
And he never grew tired of discovering the endless channels of water—rivers bursting with white-water rapids, waterfalls pouring out of steep cliffs, and sparkling, crystal lakes hiding deep within secret meadows.
As he approached the Valley of Shadows, he surveyed the land below. The descendants of King Sakarias had originally settled in the region some 2,800 years ago, separating the vast mountain ranges into two distinct regions: all the land to the west of the Red Canyons had been claimed by the Dark Ones, the descendants of Jaegar; while all the land to the east of the canyons had been inhabited by the descendants of Jadon.
The approaching valley below was a neutral zone that connected the two.
As Nathaniel slowed to make his descent, he could see the slender silhouette of a woman; she was rocking back and forth like a frightened child, kneeling on the ground.
Absently, he wondered how she had gotten so close to the Red Canyons. She should have been able to feel the dark hand of warning that safeguarded the region; it was set in place by the sons of Jadon to keep out humans who might wander too close.
Curious, Nathaniel landed out of view behind a small grouping of pine trees and watched the human female. She was clearly distressed, her narrow shoulders hunched over from the weight of her tears, but she did not appear to be in any immediate danger.
To be perfectly honest, Nathaniel was grateful for the momentary distraction from his grief, however slight.
Cautiously, he stepped out from behind the trees. His eyes immediately searched hers out to project a sense of calm.
"Hello," he called softly.
Chapter Four
Jocelyn jolted and screamed in fright, the sudden appearance of the dangerous-looking male shocking her back into the moment. Although he immediately put up both hands—palms forward, in a timeless gesture of peace—she wasn't about to take any chances. She sprang to her feet, drew her gun, and cocked the trigger, all in one smooth motion. Holding it forward in a two-armed stance, she slowly backed away, her eyes glued to the stranger.
"Don't move!"
The tall dark male raised his hands even higher, flashing a slow, easy smile that was loaded with heat. His perfect teeth gleamed in the night. "I'm sorry if I frightened you. I heard you scream and thought you might need help." His timbre was deep and alluring.
Jocelyn felt instantly drawn to the male, like a paper clip to a magnet. His voice was pure poetry, a gentle caress to the soul, and it was edged with a faint, almost medieval accent.
Jocelyn had heard that accent before.
"I said don't move!" This time, she shouted the command, pointing the barrel of the gun directly between his eyes. "And don't come any closer."
"I'm not moving," he assured her. "I just came to see...are you okay?"
Jocelyn fought the subtle coercion in his voice. "Quit talking!"
His eyebrows shot up. "Interesting." He muttered the word beneath his breath, and then he became deathly quiet as his eyes swept over her body, clearly searching for signs of injury.
Jocelyn took a small step back.
She could have sworn she caught him sniffing the air—using his sense of smell to scan for information. But what could he possibly hope to detect? Her sharp, detective mind began to analyze possibilities at a rapid pace, ferreting out the things one might pick up with an enhanced sense of smell.
Her blood for starters. It had to be laced with adrenaline, and that would betray a deep presence of fear, a heightened sense of survival. Her sweat glands were far too active for someone who had been sitting on the ground, so he would have to know that she had been running: obviously, running away from something.
Or someone.
And there might even be a faint odor of smoke in her hair, exposing the fact that she had recently been in the proximity of fire. Perhaps at a campfire.
But she was relatively unharmed.
Outside of a few scrapes and bruises on her knees, there were no other injuries to her body. Even as she thought it, his shrewd eyes drifted lower to her legs. He couldn't possibly smell such minor wounds, could he? There just wasn't enough—Blood.
Jocelyn's heart skipped a beat. And then his piercing gaze scanned her neck as if he were searching for something specific....
Bite marks.
Jocelyn had to resist the impulse to take one hand off of her gun and place it protectively over her throat, but then his scrutinizing gaze softened; he seemed satisfied with what he saw.
"I will ask you once again," he said, entirely undaunted by her order to quit talking. "Are you okay? Why were you screaming?"
Jocelyn couldn't believe the power of his voice: She felt compelled to answer the question. In fact, she wanted to answer it. She needed to tell this man exactly what she had seen, but something inside of her struggled to resist the impulse as she continued to make the connection between the man who stood in front of her and the creature she had seen in the chamber. She couldn't help but remember the horrific fate of the woman the creature had captured.
And there could be no doubt that they were the same species.
This man's voice was just too seductive and enchanting, exactly like the creature's had been. His height and body shape were almost identical, and he carried himself with far too much confidence, wearing a silent badge of authority on his sleeve. Power practically seeped through his pores as he stood there before her like some kind of mystical black panther, crouched in waiting.
And despite the fact that she was the one holding the gun, he was the one commanding the situation. And then there was that hair: a perfect head of blue-black locks that fell just below his shoulders in glistening waves of perfection, accenting his chiseled features.
Everything about him gave him away.
The man wasn't just handsome: He was flawless.
No, there could be no doubt.
Jocelyn fought the overwhelming urge to answer his question. She knew precisely what he was. Not human.
Vampire. She squared her stance, tightened her grip, and tried to come up with a plan.
The vampire frowned, his forehead creased with consternation. He seemed deeply surprised—and mildly annoyed—by her resistance. This time, he locked his eyes with hers in a steadfast gaze, staring straight through her, and then he pitched his voice an octave lower.
"You will answer me now: What are you afraid of?"
Jocelyn's legs went limp as the words flowed out like water through a sieve. "I don't want you to kill me."
She answered honestly.
She had no other choice.
He had demanded nothing less.
The man recoiled. "And why would I do that?"
This time, Jocelyn literally bit her tongue. She had to be strong. She knew enough to realize that he was controlling her with his voice. Just as she knew, without question, that she could not endure what she had witnessed in that chamber. She had no idea whether or not a vampire could be destroyed with bullets, but she did know that she had only one chance to get it right. She could not be captured.
She would not be captured.
If she fired and missed—or worse, her bullets had no effect on the supernatural being—it would be too late. Her fate would be sealed.
Jocelyn swallowed a lump in her throat; she knew what she had to do. She had to take absolute control over the situation—create the one and only outcome she had complete authority over.
Jocelyn continued to resist the powerful coercion, her mind locked in fierce determination. She steadied her t
rembling arms and shifted the gun into her right hand. With iron resolve, she turned the nine-millimeter away from the vampire and brought it to her own temple.
In one smooth, determined motion, she pulled the trigger.
Chapter Five
Nathaniel moved with all the supernatural speed and precision of his kind, wrenching the gun from the woman's hand even as she squeezed the trigger. As he turned it away from her head, the lethal bullet sailed into a nearby tree, striking with a loud thud as small fragments of bark exploded into the air. He was absolutely shocked by her reckless behavior.
"Are you insane?" he demanded, no longer bothering to be polite. "What were you thinking?"
The woman appeared stunned—like she was struggling to comprehend what had just taken place. She was supposed to be dead, yet Nathaniel had averted the gun before the bullet could leave the chamber. As the realization set in, her expression went from bewildered to defeated. Utterly dazed, the human tried to murmur an answer, but it just came out as a series of incomprehensible sounds. And then her hazel-green eyes began to fill with tears.
Nathaniel took a deep, calming breath and steadied his voice. Once again, he used a deliberate tone of coercion. "You will tell me right now—what is it that has you so deeply frightened that you would rather kill yourself than face me?"
"You," she whispered in a barely audible voice.
"Me?" Nathaniel frowned, surprised by her answer.
True, he had deeply startled the poor woman, but that was hardly a reason to commit suicide. "Why in the world would you be that frightened of me?"
The woman blinked back her tears, clearly irritated by her lack of control. "You are a...a vampire."
Nathaniel stepped back, quietly. Now he was the one who was stunned.
"I see."
He said it matter-of-factly, not denying anything, and then he took a much closer look at the frightened woman standing before him.