Black

by Donya Lynne

  “We?”

  “Memnon and me. Tales of your achievements in battle have made it to our territory for centuries. You are quite an accomplished warrior.”

  Yeah, well, flattery would get Rameses absolutely fucking nowhere. Micah didn’t like the guy, didn’t trust him, and wanted to get this meet-and-greet over so Rameses and his kin would return to their corner of the continent sooner rather than later.

  “Funny, I’ve never heard anything about you.” That wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t like Rameses could read his mind to learn the truth. Lycans couldn’t read vampires’ minds.

  “Micah . . .” Bain’s tone held a warning for him to behave.

  One of Rameses’s black eyebrows rose a fraction as he eyed Micah. Then he turned back to Bain as if dismissing him. “We should talk.”

  “About?”

  “This.” Rameses chucked his head toward Ronan. “The werewolves that attacked him. The ankh.” That sharp eyebrow arched toward Micah again. “The ankh is ours. It was taken from us a long time ago.”

  Micah frowned. He knew nothing about how his father came in possession of the ankh. “You can talk to my father about that shit. I was just told to protect it.”

  “A task you failed at. And now look what’s happened.” He gestured toward Ronan.

  “Fuck you, dog.” This politically correct conversation had just escalated into something aggressive, because Rameses had just grated on Micah’s last remaining unfrayed nerve.

  “Micah!” King Bain grabbed his arm and pushed him back before he could take a swing at Rameses.

  Before anything further could be said, a shriek rang out from Ronan’s room.

  Micah shot around to find Priest’s fangs sinking deep into Ronan’s wrist. The lycan wasn’t fully wolfed out, but he definitely didn’t look fully human anymore, either.

  Rage erupted inside Micah. Pure, unadulterated rage. That was his brother in there.

  “What are you doing to him?” He shot forward, ready to rip Priest’s head off and shred him limb from limb.

  “Micah, no!” Bain’s hold on his arm strengthened, cutting off the circulation.

  “He’s killing him!” Micah twisted his arm from Bain’s hold and made a dash for Ronan’s room as doctors and nurses scattered to get out of his way.

  He was a fraction of a second away from leaping through the door and clocking Priest across his chiseled jaw when, out of nowhere, a thick arm fired out and snatched him from his I’m-going-to-kill-him trajectory.

  Micah spun to find Rameses’s black eyes staring him down like calderas from twin volcanos.

  “Priest is helping him.” Rameses’s deep, calm voice didn’t mesh with the extraordinary strength restraining him. Strength Micah couldn’t break free from.

  Talk about a blow to his ego.

  Another bloodcurdling shriek rent the air as Rameses dragged him from the doorway.

  “You call that helping?” Micah gestured toward his brother and tugged against Rameses’s hold.

  Rameses tossed him against the far wall like he weighed no more than a notebook. “Let Priest do his work. He’s using his venom to kill that of the werewolf who bit him.”

  Micah’s gaze shot back through the glass panes separating him from his brother, remembering how he’d used his own venom to kill Apostle’s after he bit Sam. The experience had been excruciating for Sam, but even more so for Micah to have to stand by helplessly and watch her suffer.

  He felt the same way now.

  But this was a werewolf bite. Sure, a werewolf bite did more damage to a vampire than a dreck bite, but vampires didn’t die from that shit. Ronan’s superior vampire genes shouldn’t need the venom of a lycan to help him fend off werewolf venom.

  “What about my venom?” he asked. He would much rather give his brother his own venom than watch a lycan do it.

  “It won’t help.” Rameses kept a watchful eye on Micah, ready to stop him if he made another move to interfere. “Not for this.”

  There was something ominous in Rameses’s tone.

  “What do you mean? Not for this?”

  Rameses glanced from him to Bain. “We should talk privately.”

  Not waiting for an invitation, Micah followed Bain and Rameses into the empty hallway. No one argued with him, probably because they knew it would be pointless. He was going to hear what Rameses had to say, whether the lycan liked it or not.

  “What’s going on?” he asked once the doors to the medical unit closed behind them. “Why isn’t Ronan getting better? He shouldn’t be suffering this much from a werewolf bite.” Okay, fine, he would still be suffering, but not to the point of needing lycan venom. Not so much that their doctors couldn’t ease his pain and stabilize him.

  “They weren’t regular werewolves,” Rameses said.

  “So I’ve been told. So, what in the hell are they? And why did they go after Ronan?”

  Rameses held up his hand, palm out, as if telling him he would answer all his questions but didn’t want them rapid-fired at him. “They found Ronan because he used the ankh to open the portal housed in the mausoleum at the cemetery. The moment he did that, he sent out a signal that served as a homing beacon, alerting every lycan and werewolf on the continent to its presence. He’s lucky we showed up when we did or both of your kin would be dead now.”

  Enough was enough. “Cut the kin crap.”

  Rameses tilted his head. “Isn’t Ronan your brother?”

  “Yes, but . . . wait, how do you know that?”

  “We know a lot of things.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Micah,” Bain interrupted, “cut it out.” To Rameses, he said, “You still haven’t told us what they are, Rameses. These creatures that attacked Rysk and Ronan.”

  Rameses glanced from Bain to Micah and back again as if he knew he was about to drop a bomb. “They are your new worst enemy.”

  Chapter 16

  Sam stood over the pile of freshly folded clothes in the laundry room, her hand on her belly and a smile on her face. She was going to be a mom. In nine months, give or take, because she had no idea how long she’d been pregnant, she would be washing pastel-colored Onesies and tiny socks no bigger than her ear. She would be up in the middle of the night breastfeeding, changing diapers, and suffering from the exhaustion that comes with being a new parent.

  And she couldn’t wait.

  At least her increased appetite made sense now, as well as all the weird foods she’d been craving, such as salmon and scrambled eggs, cold lobster and hash browns, bread and butter pickle and peanut butter sandwiches. With vampire young inside her, she just hoped she wouldn’t start craving blood like that girl in the movies about the sparkling vampires.

  Sighing contentedly, she started the next load of laundry then shut off the light and made her way upstairs to check on Cordray’s kids. It was just after two in the morning, so she still had a few hours of quiet to wrap her mind around the news that she was pregnant before her house became a symphony of children looking for breakfast and preparing for school.

  The orphans Cordray looked after had been through so much in the past few days—the fire that destroyed their home, losing everything they owned, being uprooted in the middle of the night and shuttled to a strange place to live with people they didn’t know.

  All things considered, they had adjusted remarkably well. Sometimes children were more resilient than adults. They bounced back so quickly from tragedy. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t carry the psychological effects of the fire for years to come.

  She peered into the room Aiden and Null shared. The toddler twins were inseparable, even in sleep. They were snuggled against each other in the center of the full-sized bed.

  Somewhere inside Sam’s brain, a maternal valve had clicked on the moment Trace and Cordray had shown up with the children in tow, especially when she saw Aiden and Null, the youngest of the bunch. All the kids had been bleary-eyed and confused, and she had felt the need right aw
ay to care for them like they were her own. Now, she couldn’t shut off her motherly instincts.

  She placed her hand over her belly. Soon enough, those instincts would come in handy with her own children.

  Children. Plural.

  Because she was going to have twins. She still couldn’t believe it.

  She smiled and looked down at her stomach. “Be nice to each other in there,” she whispered. “And be nice to me, too. I’ve never had a baby.”

  She opened the bedroom door wider and quietly approached the bed. Aiden had a choke hold on her Pooh Bear, which Sam had tossed in the washing machine to clean off all the soot from the fire. Now Pooh was back to his spritely canary yellow, and his vest was once again bright red.

  Sam smiled at Aiden’s and Null’s cherubic faces. They looked like tiny Cupids, with plump, rosy cheeks and golden ringlets swirling over their foreheads.

  Null had fallen asleep sucking his thumb, which Cordray said he did when he was stressed. Sam gently pulled his thumb out of his mouth and brushed her palm over his blond curls. Poor little guy. He put on a resilient front during the day, but he couldn’t hide how vulnerable he felt when he slept.

  She straightened and affectionately gazed down at them. They were so small, still shaky on their feet when they tried to run, with tiny hands that felt so fragile folded inside hers.

  With their fair coloring and blond hair, they easily could have been her own kids, but she doubted she and Micah would ever produce children that looked like her. Micah dominated in every facet of life. Why would producing a child be any different? No doubt their kids would come out with hair the color of coal and eyes shaded midnight blue.

  And you know what? That was fine with her. As long as they had ten fingers, ten toes, and were healthy, she would take them however they came, little bitty vampire fangs and all. Although, she understood the fangs came later, as they went through their transition from juvenile to adult.

  Talk about going through puberty.

  She pressed her palm to her belly again, imagining how it would feel as they grew inside her. Like their father, would they rob her of rest as they grew from pea-sized clumps of cells to fully formed fetuses? Not that she was complaining about her life with Micah. She loved how he took care of her without being too overbearing—most of the time. And she loved how he mentally challenged her, and how they fit together so perfectly in every way.

  She loved him, period. In fact, she wasn’t sure love was a strong enough word for how she felt about Micah, but what was stronger than love? Adoration? Reverence? Worship? She giggled to herself. She could definitely say that her feelings didn’t fall in line with worship. Micah might have enjoyed that, but saying she worshipped him took her feelings a bit too far. No woman should ever worship a man—male, whatever. In fact, to hear Micah talk, it was the male who worshipped the female in this supernatural world of vampires and shapeshifters.

  This life was certainly beyond anything she had ever seen for herself as a child, but now that she was living it, she couldn’t imagine any other future.

  She pressed light kisses to Aiden’s and Null’s chubby cheeks then quietly left the room.

  As she approached the room Panya and Faith shared, she heard a muffled sniffle.

  She eased the door open and peered inside. Faith was sound asleep, but Panya was sitting up in bed, hugging her knees to her chest as she gently rocked forward and back. She raised her face, and Sam saw tears glistening on her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam whispered, hurrying to her side. “Are you okay?”

  Panya brushed her fingers over her face, wiping away her tears as she shook her head. “I had a bad dream. Fire was everywhere.” She held her arms straight out in front of her, looking down at them as if they were covered in flames. “It was all over me, on my arms, melting my clothes to my skin . . .” She started crying again, and Faith stirred and rolled over.

  Now that she was closer, Sam could see that Panya was drenched with sweat. Her pajamas clung to her body, and perspiration slicked her neck and forehead. Her long lashes were clumped with tears.

  “Come on, let’s go downstairs.” Sam gestured toward the door. “I’ll get you a change of clothes, and we can watch a movie. I’ll make you a cup of cocoa. Do you like marshmallows?” If she talked about something else, maybe Panya would stop thinking about her nightmare.

  Panya hesitated then nodded.

  “Okay then. It’s a date.” She held out her hand, and Panya slipped hers inside it.

  A moment later, Sam quietly shut the door and led Panya down the stairs to the kitchen.

  The TV was on in the living room, with the sound turned low. A Harrison Ford movie was just coming on. You couldn’t go wrong with Harrison Ford.

  Sam pointed to the plateful of remaining chocolate chip cookies she and Panya had baked that afternoon. “Have a cookie. I’ll be right back with dry clothes.”

  In the laundry room, Sam rummaged through the piles of folded clothes Brenna, Mya, she, and Cordray had pulled together to replace those lost in the fire. Sam had spent the better part of the afternoon and evening washing them. Mya put off sleep for over twenty-four hours, lending a hand with the washing and folding before finally collapsing in an exhausted heap around nine o’clock, leaving Sam to continue the fight on her own until Micah called. And there was still a lot of washing to do before it was finished.

  She found a pair of sweats and an oversized T-shirt and hustled back to the kitchen.

  Panya was sitting at the counter picking bites of cookie off with her fingers.

  Sam set the folded clothes on the counter. “You can change in the bathroom while I start the cocoa.”

  Panya set the uneaten half of her cookie on a napkin and slid off the barstool as she scooped the clothes into her arms. Then she quietly slinked away in the direction of the bathroom as if she wanted to remain as invisible as possible.

  What was Panya’s story? Where had she come from? And how had she found her way to Cordray’s shelter?

  She reminded Sam of a fawn who’d been abandoned by her mother, or maybe a small dog who’d been left behind by its owner when the family moved. She just seemed so lost and unsure, as if she expected to be kicked out of the nest again and again and would never find her place in the world.

  Sam knew how it felt to be lost. After leaving her ex, she’d been scared and uncertain, too. Not just about where to go and how to survive while she was on the run, but about everything. For months, she’d been suspicious of everyone she met, mistrustful even of a good Samaritan politely holding the door open for her. There was always this abnormal fear that the person offering her a smile or a helping hand would chloroform her the moment she turned her back, load her in the trunk of a car, and then whisk her back to Steve.

  To be honest, she still wasn’t over her fear. Micah had removed all memory of her from Steve’s mind when he’d tracked her down in January, but she still couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder when she was out in public. Her heart still hitched in fear when she saw a black Mercedes, even if it wasn’t the exact model Steve used to drive. The Mercedes logo alone was enough to dump adrenaline into her system.

  In time, she was sure to move past her fear, just as Panya would get past hers. But the fact they both seemed to be victims in one way or another created a bond between them. Sam would do whatever she could to help Panya find herself, and maybe in the process, she could get one step closer to eradicating her own demons.

  A couple of minutes later, Panya came out of the bathroom holding her sweat-soaked pajamas as Sam was putting the milk back in the fridge. “Where do you want me to put these?”

  Sam was tempted to take them herself, but she wanted Panya to feel like this was her home, too, rather than a temporary stop, so she pointed down the back hall extending off the kitchen. “The laundry room is down that way. You can toss them in the hamper in there, and I’ll add them to the next load I put in.”

  Panya pattered off while
Sam spooned cocoa mix into two mugs.

  When Panya returned to the kitchen, she sat back down and began nibbling on her cookie again.

  “So, how old are you?” Sam said. She and Panya had baked cookies and brownies all afternoon, but she hadn’t thought to ask her age.

  Panya stared at her cookie. “Sixteen.”

  “Ah, sweet sixteen.” Sam stirred the milk so it didn’t scald. “That’s a great age.”

  Panya shrugged one shoulder as she popped a bite of cookie in her mouth. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Aren’t you excited about being sixteen?” Sam pulled a bag of mini marshmallows from the cupboard. “I know I was ecstatic when I turned sixteen.”

  Another one-shouldered shrug. “It’s all right.”

  Sam tore open the bag, plunged her hand in to nab a handful of puffy sweetness, and extended the bag toward Panya. Her eyes twinkled briefly as she perked up. After considering the bag of marshmallows for a moment, she gingerly reached her hand into the bag and pulled out a few.

  “You can take more if you want,” Sam said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Sam shook the bag encouragingly. “Absolutely.”

  Panya smiled weakly and grabbed a small handful then popped a couple in her mouth as Sam set the bag on the counter and checked the milk.

  “Cordray doesn’t like us to eat from the bag like this,” Panya said.

  “Well, I don’t mind, and since you’re in my house, we’ll go by my rules. Cordray doesn’t have to know. How’s that sound?”

  “Okay.” Panya grinned and grabbed a few more marshmallows from the bag. “So, are you a full-blooded vampire, or are you a mixed-blood like Cordray and Trace?” Her eyes twinkled when she said Trace’s name.

  Cordray had previously told Sam that the older kids knew who and what they were, but that the younger ones—Faith, Null, and Aiden—hadn’t gone through the talk, yet. Humans had the birds-and-the-bees talk, vampires had the you’re-going-to-change-into-a-creature-of-the-night talk. Humans definitely came out on the easier end of that comparison.