Black

by Donya Lynne

  “Neither.” Sam dipped the tip of her finger into the milk. It was warm, but not quite hot enough for cocoa. “I’m what vampires call a davala.”

  “What’s that?” Panya grabbed another cookie from the platter.

  Sam turned and leaned against the counter, trying to recall how Micah had described what a davala was. “The way I understand it, a davala is a female who was once human, but a male vampire mated her and used his venom to make her immortal.”

  Panya’s eyes brightened. “You were once a human?” Her awed expression amused Sam.

  “Up until January of this year. That’s when Micah and I met, and he mated me.”

  After the nightmare Panya had just had, Sam didn’t think now was the right time to explain that she’d almost been killed by Apostle, which was what forced Micah to change her in the first place. And Panya certainly didn’t need to know how painful the ordeal had been.

  “Wow! That was, like, only a few months ago.”

  “I guess you could say I’m still kind of like a newborn when it comes to all this vampire stuff.”

  “That is so cool.” Panya seemed genuinely impressed that she was in the presence of someone who had once been human.

  Sam checked the milk again. It was perfect. “You know, before Micah, I didn’t even know vampires existed.” She slowly poured the steaming milk into their mugs, stirring so the cocoa mix wouldn’t clump. “When did you find out you were a vampire?”

  Panya stuffed her hand into the marshmallow bag as she frowned and wrinkled her nose. “Cordray told me about five years ago.”

  “Hey, what’s with the sour face?” She set one of the mugs in front of Panya and tossed in a bunch of marshmallows, which floated on top and began melting into a gooey layer. “Aren’t you happy about being a vampire?” She added marshmallows to her own mug.

  “It’s gross,” Panya said, her face screwing into a Mr. Yuk expression. “You have to suck people’s blood. Just . . . ew! That’s so nasty.”

  “Oh, I doubt you’ll think that way once you’re older.” She knew from what Micah had told her that vampires underwent a major transformation into adulthood during their late teens and early twenties. In a few years, Panya’s body would begin changing. She would gradually become intolerant of the sun, start craving blood, develop her abilities to dematerialize, read minds, and strip memories from humans she fed from. She wouldn’t be able to stop the change from happening any more than a teenaged human girl could stop her period.

  “I don’t want to be a vampire.” Panya pouted into her mug of cocoa.

  Sam rounded the counter and rested her arm around Panya’s shoulders. “Well, how about we have another cookie”—she snatched a pair of cookies from the plate—“drink cocoa, watch a movie, and not think about vampires or anything else for the rest of night, hmm? What do you say to that?”

  Panya’s mouth twisted into a meager smile. Then she looked over Sam’s shoulder toward the living room. “Can we watch Godzilla?” Her eyebrows lifted hopefully.

  Sam pulled back and narrowed her eyes on the teenager. “Old school or new?”

  “The one with Aaron Taylor-Johnson.” She smiled dreamily. “He’s so hot.”

  And there was the typical teenager Sam had been hoping to find. One who talked about boys, painted her fingernails funky colors, and experimented with too much makeup and hair products.

  “Don’t you think he’s hot?” Panya said, grabbing one of the cookies from Sam’s hand and following her into the living room.

  “Absolutely. Did you see him in Savages? He was even better looking in that movie. His hair was longer, and he was just so yummy.” Good thing Micah wasn’t around. His ego would never entertain the notion that she could be completely in love with him but still find another man attractive.

  “I haven’t seen that one.” Panya dropped onto the couch and tucked her legs underneath her.

  Sam knelt in front of their collection of Blu-rays, which were organized alphabetically by movie title, and snagged the one for Godzilla. “Well then, that gives us something to watch another night then, doesn’t it?”

  Panya smiled. “We’ll save it for my next nightmare. At least that way I’ll have something to look forward to.”

  Sam laughed. “No more nightmares.” She popped the Blu-ray in and started it up. “We can do a movie night without all that drama.” She joined Panya and settled in beside her at the other end of the couch as the movie started playing. “You know, you’re going to make some lucky male very happy watching movies like this.”

  Her brown eyes brightened. “A male like Trace?”

  “Ummm . . .” Apparently there was more to that previous twinkle in Panya’s eye than Sam had originally thought.

  “Oh, I know he’s with Cordray,” Panya continued, “but he’s hot. If I could find a guy like that, I could die a happy girl.”

  “If you find a guy like that, you’ll be happy you can’t die.”

  Panya’s eyebrows scrunched over her nose. “I, uh . . .”

  “You never thought of being a vampire that way, did you? Being immortal?”

  Panya’s face shaded pink as she looked down. “No, I guess not.”

  “So maybe being a vampire isn’t such a bad thing, huh? I mean, I’ve only been living inside this world a few months, and I’ve already seen that males of the vampire persuasion are some of the sexiest things on the planet. Wouldn’t it be nice to spend eternity with a guy like that? Especially knowing his body chose yours over all others? That’s pretty powerful, don’t you think?”

  Panya offered her a weak smile and took a bite of cookie. “Knowing my luck, I’ll never find a guy like that. Who would want me?”

  Sam gazed compassionately at the plain girl sitting across from her. Panya wasn’t outlandishly pretty. Her hair was brown, her eyes were brown, she had pale skin, and her chest was more or less flat. She was what Sam would have called a late bloomer by human standards. The scraggly grey duckling who would one day grow into a beautiful swan.

  Just like Sam had been. At sixteen, Sam had looked more like a boy than a girl, but two years later, her contours had molded into those of a young woman who became the top earner at Suzy Q’s, where she danced nights and weekends before joining the Army when she was nineteen.

  She folded her legs underneath her and reached across the couch to brush her fingers over Panya’s hair, tucking it behind her ear. “A lot can happen between now and the end of your transition, Panya. Your body will change. It will fill out, and boys will start looking at you differently.” She dipped her head to the side and squeezed Panya’s hand. “And you’ll start looking at boys differently, too. They’ll still be hot, but your idea of what’s hot and what’s not will change. You’ll also start considering what kind of father a male will be. What kind of mate he will make.” She’d almost said husband, but changed it at the last second to the vampire term, mate. “And then there’s that.”

  “What?”

  “The whole mating thing. Vampires take mates. They don’t get married like humans do. The way I understand it, mating is stronger, and it’s dictated by the male. It won’t matter what you look like. Once your mate finds you, he’ll mate you, and the match will be perfection. The way it’s been described to me, there’s nothing more magical or more powerful than when a male vampire finds his mate and forms a bond with her. I have a feeling that when your mate finds you, you’ll wonder what you ever saw in Trace.”

  Panya regarded her for a moment. “But what if nobody mates me? I mean, what if I’m this freak of nature who never finds my mate?”

  Sam squeezed her hand. “You can’t think that way. You just have to know he’s out there, somewhere, and he’s waiting to find you, too, when the time is right. Eventually, your paths will cross, and your life will be forever changed for the better.”

  Panya smiled tightly but didn’t appear convinced.

  “Come on”—Sam pointed to the TV—“let’s watch the movie. You’ve got pl
enty of time before you have to worry about all that grown-up stuff.”

  Sam felt for Panya. She really did. It was hard being a kid these days, let alone a vampire kid. Panya didn’t just have to deal with all the normal teenage angst all kids went through, but all the baggage that came with being a vampire, too. Sam could only imagine the identity crisis young vampires went through, but from what she could tell, they all adjusted eventually.

  All the vampires she’d met thus far appeared comfortable with who and what they were. Even Trace. The fact that he was a vampire never seemed to be the source of Trace’s problems. And now that he had mated Cordray, it was like he was a brand-new person. That much was already clear, and they’d only been officially mated a few days.

  She and Panya watched the movie and sipped their cocoa in silence. After thirty minutes, Panya’s eyes grew heavy. Another ten minutes later, she’d fallen asleep.

  Sam carefully eased herself off the couch so as not to wake her, grabbed a throw blanket from one of the drawers under the large, square coffee table, and pulled it up over Panya’s body. Then she quietly grabbed their empty mugs and returned to the kitchen.

  She still had at least a couple of hours before she could expect Micah to come home, and there was still a ton of laundry to wash. She might as well get to it.

  Chapter 17

  “He’s stable.”

  Everyone turned as Priest pushed open the double doors and stepped into the hall.

  Micah was still recovering from what Rameses had just said about werewolves being their new worst enemy, but at least now he didn’t have to worry about his brother.

  Given the drawn, gaunt nature of Priest’s face, it looked like the lycan had paid a heavy price to ensure Ronan’s recovery. The front of his shirt was soaked with sweat, and he staggered once before catching himself and leaning his back against the wall.

  Micah had to admit that seeing how weak Priest was made that blond-tressed lycan’s stock value rise. Priest hadn’t been obligated to help Ronan, but he had chosen to, anyway. And that went a long way toward making Micah see him and the other lycans with a little more respect.

  Priest rubbed his mammoth hands up and down his face and looked up at the ceiling before closing his eyes. “Praise be to Osiris, but that nearly killed me.” His tired, deep voice cracked as if he’d just awakened from a week-long nap.

  “The werewolf venom in the boy’s veins?” Rameses asked, still showing next to no emotion in those black holes he called eyes.

  Micah considered telling Rameses that Ronan wasn’t a boy but figured it wouldn’t make any difference, so he snapped a lid on his snarky retort. Yes, that crackling sound was hell freezing over.

  Priest took a heavy breath. “Gone.”

  “You killed all of it?”

  “Yes.” Priest’s eyes peeled open. “But it’s worse than we thought.”

  Micah and Bain both perked up.

  “Worse?” Bain said. “What do you mean?”

  Rameses turned away from Priest to address Bain. “We’ve been monitoring the dreck known as Bishop for a long time. Until recently, he resided in our territory.” He gave Bain a pointed look. “As you know.”

  Bain tilted his head in deference, his face flushing. “Yes. We tracked him there and conducted a raid of his facility.”

  Rameses studied them both for a long moment. “You should have contacted us before entering our territory.”

  “My apologies, but the situation was rather dire. Speed was of the essence, and the situation was . . . personal.” Bain’s face pinched tightly. Thinking about Miriam’s abduction no doubt troubled him.

  “Yes, I know your daughter was involved, as were the lives of many vampires.”

  Maybe Bain felt obligated to dance this political waltz with Rameses, but Micah didn’t. He turned angrily toward Rameses.

  “Don’t you think you should have contacted us? If you knew about Bishop and what he was doing—killing vampires as some form of fucked-up science fair project or recreational activity—don’t you think that was something we should have been made aware of?”

  “Micah . . .” Bain slowly reached toward him as if he were prepared to hold Micah back if he lunged for Rameses’s throat.

  Rameses appeared unfazed. “We had been monitoring Bishop,” he clarified. “We had only recently become aware of what his residence was being used for. We were going to take care of it on our own. We were planning our attack even as your people invaded and rescued his test subjects. Some of them, anyway.”

  Micah frowned. “Some of them?”

  “Yes.” A flicker of annoyance passed over Rameses’s face. “He took his most prized subjects and brought them here when he moved back into your territory.”

  “And you didn’t think to warn us?”

  “We’re warning you now.”

  Micah pointedly glanced in the direction of his unconscious brother. “A little late, don’t you think?”

  Rameses’s expression remained smooth and even as he glanced between Micah and Bain. Then he drew in a deep breath and slowly blew it out.

  Micah wasn’t sure if Rameses was about to go all lycan apeshit on his ass or if he was actually going to admit he’d made a mistake.

  “You’re right, we should have warned you sooner.” Rameses seemed to stand a little taller, as if by boosting his physical appearance, he could save face.

  “I bet that was hard to say,” Micah said.

  Rameses’s black eyes slid to him. “You have no idea.”

  There wasn’t much that lycans disdained more than admitting they were wrong and that vampires were right. As equal as they claimed their two races to be, lycans possessed one helluva superiority complex that put them at the top of the food chain.

  To Bain, Rameses said, “Truthfully, we had hoped to track him down and contain the situation quietly, eliminating the threat before anyone knew of its existence.”

  “In other words,” Bain said, “you were planning to secretly enter our territory without alerting us to your presence, as well.”

  “Yes.”

  “Touché.”

  The two males stared at each other, neither moving. Then Bain grinned, and a glimpse of respect and humor crossed Rameses’s features, even though not a single muscle moved.

  Micah wouldn’t exactly call it a lovefest, but at least an icebreaker.

  “So,” Micah said, impatient with their royal do-si-do, “what are these favorite test subjects of Bishop’s? The ones you had hoped to eliminate without our knowledge?”

  Rameses took two measured steps to the side. “They are genetically enhanced werewolves. We call them motleys.”

  “Motleys?” Micah scoffed. When Micah thought of the word motley, he saw dancing jesters in a king’s court. That or Mötley Crüe. “Sounds like a stupid name to me,” he said to Bain under his breath.

  “Micah . . .” Bain sighed and shook his head as he briefly dropped his gaze to the floor. He looked like he’d given up trying to muzzle Micah but wished he could.

  Rameses tilted his head at Micah. It was the first sign of impatience he had let slip past his stony veneer. “We have called them a lot of things. Super werewolves, bastard werewolves . . . then one of our brothers called them ‘mottled werewolves’ a few months ago. That led to motley weres, and now we just call them motleys.” He stared Micah down. “Does that answer your inane question?”

  If only Micah could slap that guy. Instead, he plastered on a gooey smile. “Yes, thanks for the history lesson.”

  “Micah, please show some respect to our guests,” Bain said.

  “I’m just—”

  “You’re just being you. I know.” Bain held up his hand before Micah could reply. “Rameses is not our enemy, so how about you be a little more welcoming.”

  Micah held up his hands in surrender. “Fine.” He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow to Rameses. “Please . . . do continue. I promise to keep my editorial commentary to myself.”

 
; At least Bain wouldn’t have to put up with his mouth much longer. As soon as he got the chance, he would let Bain know of his decision to quit AKM. Sayonara! It was family man for him from now on.

  “How generous of you.” Rameses regarded him a moment longer then continued. “These motleys were once regular werewolves. Bishop captured them, conducted his demented experiments, changed them.” His tone fell ominously as shadows crossed his eyes. “But what Bishop didn’t know was that someone else had beaten him to the punch.”

  A bottomless pit opened inside Micah’s stomach, and a cold chill ran up his back. He had a bad feeling about where this was going. “What do you mean?”

  “Your friend Searcy . . .”

  An aggressive jolt shot through Micah as he exchanged troubled glances with Bain. “What about him?”

  “He had already created an army of motleys.”

  “How do you know this?” Bain asked.

  Rameses hesitated. “Because we’ve been killing them for over a year.”

  Had Micah really heard that right? “A year?”

  “Yes, and Searcy’s motleys are stronger than Bishop’s.” Rameses let that sink in for a second. “We think the ones we killed early on were simply test subjects used to see how much work needed to be done to make them battle ready and willing to take orders from a vampire. But now . . . the tests appear to be concluded. The motleys we encountered tonight were stronger than any we’ve ever come up against. Not strong enough to defeat us, but certainly strong enough to defeat you. It seems Searcy and Bishop have joined forces and shared their knowledge with each other, because Bishop’s motleys are now as strong as Searcy’s.”

  “How can you tell which belong to whom?” Micah asked.

  Rameses tapped his nose. “By scent. Bishop’s creations carry the scent of expensive tobacco. Searcy’s don’t.” Rameses made a point to glance toward Ronan’s room. “But both are deadly to vampires, and you will not be able to destroy them without our help.”

  Bain crossed his arms, opening his stance. He looked both imposing and pissed off. “What are you saying, Rameses?”