Lord of the Night

by Robin T. Popp

  Chapter 14

  The save was more luck than anything he’d consciously done, but Erik wasn’t about to question it. He dangled off the side of the cliff, holding on to Michael’s wrist with one hand and a tree root with the other, praying the root—and his strength—held out long enough for him to figure out how to get them both safely to the top.

  “You’re a damn fool,” Michael hollered up at him. “You should have let me fall.”

  “No,” Erik bit out, barely able to spare the energy to talk.

  “I’m too heavy,” Michael continued. “I’m just going to pull you down with me. Let me go. I won’t have your death on my conscience.”

  “Shut up, Michael. You’re not helping.” He groaned under the strain and then felt the root move. With their imminent deaths came a moment of clarity he hoped he would live to reflect on later. For the moment, he wanted only to get them both to the top. “Brace your foot against the cliff and scale it. Do it now.”

  “You’re crazy. The extra drag will pull you down for sure. Let go, Erik. It’s okay. Hell, I might even survive the fall.”

  “Scale . . . the damn . . . cliff.”

  Michael stared up at him for a second longer and then, thankfully, did as he was asked. There were several false starts as Michael’s foot repeatedly slipped against the smooth surface of the rock. Finally, though, he was able to get enough purchase to start climbing.

  The going was slow and Erik thought the strain would rip his chest apart, but he knew the pain would be far worse for him if he let go and Michael died.

  When Michael had climbed high enough, he used his free hand to grab hold of the tree root. At that point, Erik was able to let go of Michael’s wrist and use both hands to keep himself from falling.

  Soon, Michael was able to use the other tree roots as a ladder and climb to the top. Once there, he lay on his stomach and extended a hand down to Erik.

  It was Erik’s turn to trust Michael with his life, and he did so without hesitation, letting go of the tree root with one hand so he could use it to grab Michael’s.

  Minutes later, back on top, they collapsed on the ground side by side.

  “That was too damn close,” Erik said, trying to catch his breath.

  “Why didn’t you let me fall?” Michael asked. “That could have been the end of your problems.”

  “You think I have so many friends that I can afford to lose another? No. Anyway, as I watched both of our lives pass before my eyes, I had an epiphany. I don’t want to kill you. If you still hate me and want my life, then grab your sword and take it now while I’m too tired to move. I only ask that you give me your word that my life will be price enough and you’ll leave Kacie alone.”

  Silence weighed heavily between them, then Michael got to his feet and picked up Erik’s sword from the ground. Erik’s muscles tensed, but he could do nothing except lie there and wait for the killing blow.

  “You had your chance,” Michael told him. “You should have let me fall.”

  “Stop gloating and just do it if you’re going to,” Erik told him calmly. “The sooner you do, the sooner I’ll be out of pain. My arm hurts like hell. I think I dislocated my shoulder when I caught you.”

  Michael stood glaring down at him, the point of his sword scratching the skin of Erik’s throat. The men’s gazes locked and held.

  “Bloody hell,” Michael swore, dropping the sword as he once more lowered himself to a sitting position beside Erik. “I don’t have that many friends either.”

  “So now what?” Erik asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess we take it one day at a time.”

  “And Kacie?”

  Michael sighed. “That’s going to be a little harder for me. I understand how you feel about her and I’m happy for you, really—especially if she’s returning your affection, but she killed Sedrick. That’s always going to be there between us.”

  Erik knew this was true and he hated it. “Okay,” he agreed. “One day at a time.”

  They sat in silence a few minutes more before Michael asked, “How’s your shoulder?”

  Erik struggled to sit up, wincing. “It hurts.”

  “Sorry about that. I didn’t remember the edge of the cliff being quite that close.” He smiled. “That was a good move, by the way.”

  Erik smiled. “‘Let me go, Erik,’” he mocked Michael. “Bloody hell. You didn’t really expect me to let go, did you?”

  Michael’s face sobered. “No. I knew you wouldn’t but I meant what I said about not wanting to be the cause of your death.”

  Erik turned to face Michael and the two men clasped hands and leaned forward, giving each other an affectionate slap on the back.

  “So, tell me about you and Kacie,” Michael said. “What brought about this sudden change in her feelings for you?”

  “She found a painting I did of her.”

  Michael furrowed his eyes. “So?”

  Erik gave him a pointed look. “It was a nude.”

  Michael gave a hearty laugh. “I would have liked to have seen that.”

  “Forget it.”

  They spent the next hour talking. When they parted, they were on better terms and promised to talk again soon.

  Erik left his friend and returned to the castle, where he hoped to find Kacie still waiting for him. With luck, she wouldn’t be too angry when he told her the truth about what he’d been doing.

  “Where have you been?” Kacie was beside herself with worry and had been pacing the living room floor for a good hour. “Don’t even try to tell me your business with that woman took this long because I called Myrtle’s and talked to her. She said she hadn’t seen you all night.”

  Erik didn’t know whether to be pleased that she was so worried or mad that she was checking up on him. “No, you’re right. I didn’t go see Penny.”

  “Where did you go? And what is that all over your shirt? Is that . . . ?” She stepped up to him and took a closer look. “My God, is that blood?” She took his hand and pulled him into the living room. He winced as pain shot along his sore muscles. “Erik, what happened? Here, sit down.”

  She helped him to sit on the couch and then hurried to the bathroom to get a wet cloth to wipe away the dirt and blood covering his face and arms. “You’re a mess. Did you get into a fight?”

  “Yes, with Michael.”

  She heaved a sigh. “I knew it. Did he trap you? How’d you get away?”

  Erik tried to brace for her reaction. “I asked him to meet me.”

  She stared at him like he had just grown a second head. “Excuse me?”

  “I asked Michael to meet me at the Point, so we could talk.”

  “About?”

  He sighed. “About you. I wanted him to agree to a truce. If that didn’t work, then I was going to fight him.”

  “Judging from the cuts and bruises all over you, I’m guessing he didn’t go for the truce idea.”

  “No, he didn’t. At least not at first.”

  “What happened?”

  For the next several minutes, she cleaned his wound and listened quietly while he told her about fighting with Michael. When he got to the part about both of them going over the side of the cliff, she almost lost it. Tears welled in her eyes hearing how close she’d come to losing him.

  “Don’t be upset, Kacie, love. I’m fine. In fact, I’m better than fine because after Michael and I got back to the top of the cliff, we no longer felt like killing each other. We talked and everything’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not, Erik,” she said, remembering the reason she’d been so desperate to find him.

  “Yes, it is. Michael’s going to reinstate the pact and we’re not going to have to worry about him trying to kill you anymore.”

  She reached over to the end table and picked up the photo album she’d been looking through earlier. She opened the book to the page she’d marked.

  “Who is this?” she asked, pointing to one of the pictures.

  “That�
��s me and Michael, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower.” He smiled. “It had just been built. He pointed to the printed caption below it. “See? It says so here.”

  “I know, but I wanted to make sure. So that means this”—she’d turned the page and pointed to another photo—“is a photo of Michael and his brother Sedrick?”

  Erik looked like he was trying to be patient. “Yes. It says so right there on the page.”

  “Michael and Sedrick were twins?”

  “Yes.” He furrowed his brow. “I’m sure I mentioned it before. Michael and Sedrick were twins and Ty is their half-brother.”

  Kacie smiled, barely able to contain her excitement. “Erik, this man in the photo is not the vampire I killed.”

  “What?”

  She nodded. “No. The vampire I killed was shorter, leaner, and had dark hair.”

  “You’re positive? After all, it was dark and you were probably more focused on severing his head from his body than the color of his hair.”

  Kacie felt her jaw drop open and had to consciously close it. “He was decapitated?”

  Erik’s brow furrowed. “Yes.”

  “Erik, I’ve never cut off anyone’s head. I don’t have the upper arm strength—or at least I didn’t while I was human—to be able to cut through the spinal cord. You know that—it’s why you had always insisted I use a shorter sword for fighting—it wasn’t as heavy.”

  Erik pushed himself off the couch and started pacing, trying to process this latest revelation. “This is incredible,” he muttered, kicking himself for not asking for more details earlier. He’d assumed when she took credit for the killing that they were talking about the same vampire. He wondered what happened to the body of the vampire she’d killed and then remembered finding her knife beside Sedrick’s body where someone had placed it.

  Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he keyed in Michael’s number. Michael picked up after the fourth ring.

  “Michael—are you alone?”

  There was a pause before Michael answered cautiously, “I am right now, but I’m expecting Ty to show up. Why? Is something wrong?”

  “Yes and no. Kacie was going through an old photo album and came across a couple of pictures of you, me, Sedrick, and Ty at the Eiffel Tower.”

  “How sweet,” Michael said with a slight edge to his voice. “No offense, but I’m not quite ready to hear all the details of your new domestic lifestyle.”

  Erik ignored him and went on. “Kacie didn’t know that you and Sedrick were twins or this would have come out sooner. The vampire she killed was short, thin, and had dark hair.”

  “What?”

  Erik knew he had Michael’s full attention now. “Yes, and there’s something else. She impaled the vampire she fought; she didn’t decapitate him.”

  “You believe her?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long pause. “I’m glad it wasn’t her,” Michael finally said, sounding relieved.

  Erik wanted to reach through the phone and throttle Michael. “Don’t you see? Someone else killed Sedrick and then went to a lot of trouble to make it look like Kacie did it.”

  “But why?” Michael asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if someone was trying to start a fight between us.”

  “But who would do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Erik said. “Someone who knew that Kacie was family and I’d protect her, even if she was responsible for breaking the pact.”

  “Then that means it had to be someone familiar with the pact—which means it’s someone from my lair.”

  Erik had come to the same conclusion moments earlier. “I think it’s best if we let whoever it is think their plan is still working. Don’t tell anyone that we’ve reconciled or that we know the truth about Kacie. There’s no telling what the killer might do next—or who they’ll go after.”

  “Okay,” Michael agreed. “Not a word to anyone.”

  “And make sure you block your thoughts,” Erik cautioned, thinking of the psychic link. “We can’t take any chances. Use your cell phone to get in touch with me.”

  After Erik disconnected the call, he turned to Kacie. “You heard all that, right? So I don’t need to repeat it.”

  “I heard.” Rising from the couch, she came over to him, a frown creasing her forehead. “Why would anyone set me up? I’ve been out of town for three years. Who hates me that much?”

  “Oh, no, love,” he said, gathering her into his arms, though his shoulder screamed in protest. “I don’t think it has anything to do with you.” He placed a kiss on her forehead. “It has to be someone who hates me, Michael, and Sedrick.”

  “But who would that be?”

  “Where the hell is he now?” Carrington demanded, pausing long enough in his pacing to glare at Ty, who was draped over the arm of a chair. They were the only two in the main living room of the lair. The others were out trying to find a decent meal, and that was now the problem. As Carrington saw it, there was no such thing as a decent meal when humans weren’t on the menu.

  Despite the fact that the pact had been broken, Michael had refused to lift the restriction on hunting humans, and most of the others in the lair had abided by his rule. Carrington hadn’t. After getting his first taste of human blood, he’d sworn never to go back to “sucking on steak,” as he called the practice of feeding off cow’s blood.

  The difference between human blood and animal blood was like night and day. After drinking human blood, he felt stronger and more energetic. He’d be crazy to ever go back.

  “Someone needs to do something,” Carrington muttered, more to himself than Ty, but Ty responded.

  “About . . . ?”

  “About Michael, of course. None of us asked for this life, but here we are. Might as well make the best of it.”

  “How?” Ty raised his eyebrow, which always made Carrington think that Ty considered himself to be better than him, somehow. He wasn’t. He’d been born out of wedlock just as Carrington had. Neither one of them, from what Carrington had learned over the years, had exactly had an easy life. What was more, to him Ty was just a kid.

  “By letting us be what we are,” Carrington replied. “Vampires. Michael is so busy trying to be human that he’s not taking advantage of the situation.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to exploit it,” Ty offered.

  “If you ask me, it’s more like he’s afraid—and well he should be.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because his brother’s not here to protect him anymore. When Sedrick was alive, anyone who went against one brother went against both. Together, it was impossible to fight them.” He cast Ty a speculative glance. “If you ask me, Sedrick was the tougher of the two. With him out of the way . . .”

  “What are you saying, exactly?” Ty asked, swinging his legs off the chair and finally giving Carrington his full attention.

  “I’m saying that it might be time for new leadership.”

  “And who do you think is going to be man enough to go up against Michael?”

  Carrington pulled himself up taller. “I think you’re looking at him.”

  “Why are you telling me? You’ve got to know I’ll go to Michael with this.”

  “Of course, that’s to be expected. Tell him the time is coming—it’s closer than he thinks. As for you, Ty, my young friend, you might want to start thinking about whose side you’re going to be on.”

  The next evening Kacie sat on the couch, leafing through the pages of a magazine without even reading them. Her father had called hours earlier to tell them he had gotten a much later start than expected, but was finally on his way. Now, with each passing minute she waited, her nerves frayed a little more.

  Part of her was trying to figure out exactly what she wanted to say while another part of her was worried about Erik, who’d gone into town.

  She didn’t like the idea of him being out alone while the killer was out there. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take ca
re of himself—he’d proven time and again that he could—but this killer was smart. Worse yet, they had no idea who it was, although if she had to cast her vote, it would be for Carrington. Hadn’t Ty warned Erik earlier about him?

  A part of her wanted to strap on her sword and go after Erik. She felt fully recovered from the chupacabra attack and now that the sun had set, her body fairly hummed with energy, which made it nearly impossible for her to sit still.

  She stood up and tossed the magazine aside. She had to do something, and she began pacing about the room. She tried to calm herself with thoughts of Erik; that worked for a while.

  It amazed her to think how much their relationship had changed over the last week. If anyone had asked her before, she wouldn’t have thought it was possible. If ever there was a doubt in her mind, she had only to look at how happy she was now with him. Even her nightmares had stopped—of course, that could be because they tended to stay awake until long after sunrise, making love.

  She wondered what her father would say about that and felt herself get nervous all over again. Glancing at her watch, she saw that her father should arrive any minute.

  Heading back to the couch, she picked up the magazine and started flipping through the pages again. After the fifth or sixth page, she sighed and turned it right side up. After another page, she closed it completely and thought about what she wanted to say to her father.

  Erik settled Penny into a cab and said good-bye after promising to call her about when he would send her his next piece of artwork.

  “Are you sure you won’t reconsider?” she asked him, referring to her invitation to give up this new girl—-whoever she was—and spend the evening with her.

  “Thank you for the offer, but I think we need to keep our relationship strictly business. Besides, I’m in love; what can I say?”

  Penny smiled. “Well, all right. You look happy and I’m thrilled for you. I suppose it would never have worked out anyway. You keep odd hours and it’s really your art I’m in love with, so I guess it’s good that I’m just your agent.”

  He smiled, knowing that everything would work out. “I’ll call you.”

  A second later, he watched the cab drive off. That was one less person he had to worry about. Pulling out his cell phone, he called Michael.