by Donya Lynne
“I’m saying it’s time we discussed a more formal, militarized alliance.”
“What does Memnon think of that?”
“Since Memnon is currently in hibernation, he can’t render an opinion, but I think I can safely say he won’t like it. It’s not a secret that his opinion of your race is more soured than mine.”
Bain made a derisive sound. “Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that.”
“Don’t take it personally. He doesn’t hold a high opinion of any bipedal species that isn’t lycan. But he will eventually see the benefits of an alliance between our races. Vampires and lycans are both committed to saving humanity. Yours from the drecks, ours from the werewolves. Now that our common enemies are working together—because we know, as do you, that Bishop is in league with not just Searcy but Premier Royce, even if they deny the alliance and try to hide it—it’s time we form a counterstrategy. If they manage to destroy the vampire race, we know where they’ll strike next.”
“They’ll go after the lycans.” Micah was beginning to sense his days as an enforcer might not be over after all. Not with the enemy growing stronger.
“Precisely.” Rameses returned his focus to Bain. “The time for putting aside our territorial borders and joining forces is upon us. Memnon might resist at first, but I know my brother. He will see the wisdom of this plan. Fighting alongside one another will make us stronger. We will teach you what we know about these motleys, and all we ask in return is that you share your knowledge with us, as well.”
“I think we can manage that.” Bain cast Micah a pointed glance. “Can’t we, Micah?”
Micah studied Rameses. He was an emotionless bastard, and his black eyes looked like something out of Jeepers Creepers, but he could put aside his personal feelings for the greater good of the vampire race, especially if it meant keeping Sam and his unborn young safe.
He shrugged, glancing from Rameses back to Bain. “I can play nice with the lupines.”
Besides, Rameses and his lycan Furbies were the least of his problems. The greater problem was that shit was happening in his world he’d never been aware of. “Super werewolves” were threatening all that he loved. Motleys, as Rameses called them. And they’d been created by that bastard, Searcy. And here he’d hoped they’d seen the last of that prick when they chopped off his son’s hand and maimed his female fuck buddy, Lorena. Wishful thinking.
If Searcy was still hanging around, and he’d built an army of motley wolves with the power to kill vampires, there could be only one reason. He intended to declare war on King Bain and overtake the throne.
And wouldn’t that work right into the drecks’ hands. If Searcy and Premier Royce had formed their own alliance and had this super army at their disposal, that gave them the upper hand. And upper hands were hard to overcome when you were caught with your pants down and your hand around your pecker, which was exactly where the vampire race was right now. Joining with the lycans, who seemed to be more aware of what was happening, leveled the playing field.
The vampires been weakened by cobalt addiction. Royce had strung Bain along, pretending to be working with him, when he’d been working with the enemy all along. Now, thanks to both Searcy’s and Bishop’s experiments, the drecks had an army of venomous werewolves ready to finish the job cobalt had started.
Micah couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let his race be wiped out. He had children to protect now. And a mate. And friends he would fight to the death for.
This wasn’t how he thought the rest of his evening would go. He wanted to get out of enforcing and enjoy the life of a family man, but he couldn’t deny he’d been born to fight. He’d always been a warrior. He would always be a warrior. He couldn’t take some safe, pencil-pushing job now that he knew what was at stake.
“I fear our respective worlds are about to be severely challenged.” Bain took a step toward Rameses. “I’ve sensed unrest and disruption closing in from all sides for months.” Bain gave Rameses a crooked grin and uncrossed his arms, holding out his hand. “So, yes, I would be honored to fight alongside you and your brothers, Rameses. I think we’ll be much more powerful as a united front than as individual armies battling the same enemy.”
Rameses clasped Bain’s hand. “The honor is ours. Consider this my word that we will fight alongside you and yours. I will take responsibility for getting Memnon on board when he awakens.”
“Better you than me.”
With a soft chuff, Rameses released Bain’s hand. “God Osiris help me, Memnon will not be pleased, but there is more at stake now. An alliance must be struck if we are to do the job we were placed here to do and survive. All of humanity depends upon our success.”
And so it began. The new war. Micah had known peace would last only so long. It always did. The war between the vampires and the drecks was neverending. It just changed faces every time it surged back to life.
And, once again in only a few hours, Micah’s whole world shifted.
How many more times would it shift before dawn? Because he knew there was more to come.
Hadn’t Bain told him they needed to talk after Ronan stabilized? Well, Ronan was stable. Time to see what else the night had in store for him.
He just hoped his mind wouldn’t be completely blown when the dust settled.
Chapter 18
Ulrich materialized behind Gregos’s home. He needed to return to AKM to check in on Persephone, but not until he and Gregos had come to an accord.
Bain had gone too far. The time to move was now.
He scanned the empty landscape then turned his gaze back toward the sprawling structure in front of him.
Much like his own house, the Savakis manor wasn’t so much a house as it was a palace. Two stories, a full attic with dormers, and a finished basement. At least ten thousand square feet in total, made even more impressive by the multilevel patio and deck that extended the length of the home and descended toward a pond whose surface was like glass and black as oil as it reflected the predawn sky.
Moving swiftly, Ulrich approached the wall of sliding windows along the back of the home as Gregos hurried forward and opened the way in, holding his finger over his lips.
“To my office,” Gregos said softly, sliding the door closed as silently as a whisper.
The two males were quick of foot and quiet as mice as they journeyed to the den in the back of the house, but as soon as the heavy wooden doors latched behind them, Ulrich could hold back no longer.
“This is preposterous!” he said, fisting his hands and pacing. “You saw what he did to me tonight.” He pulled his collar aside to reveal the bruises King Bain had left on his neck. “He’s out of control.”
Gregos poured them a pair of drinks. Expensive bourbon from the look of it.
“To be true, you did provoke him.” Gregos handed him a glass.
“Only because he wouldn’t listen and refuses to do anything to solve this mockery Royce is making of us.”
“Still, you shouldn’t have raised your voice.”
Ulrich threw back his drink and helped himself to another. “Whose side are you on, Gregos? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”
“My feet are fine. My point is you could have ruined our plans. Your outburst—”
“Was fully warranted!”
“Ulrich!” Gregos whisper-yelled, rushing to the door. “Keep your voice down.” He peeked out then quietly latched the door again.
Ulrich tossed back his second shot of bourbon and slammed the base of the glass on the desk. “This has gone on long enough. If Bain will do nothing about Premier Royce and the cobalt infesting the streets and infecting our children, then I say it’s time we move with our plan.”
Gregos joined him by the desk again. “What I was about to say a moment ago is that I think your outburst tipped off the king. He knows we’re up to something.”
“Then we must move quickly.”
“Or . . . we pull back and hold our aces until we have a bet
ter opportunity.”
Ulrich wouldn’t let this chance pass them by. He was out for blood and would entertain none other than a move to usurp Bain’s throne now. “There will be no better opportunity. If Bain knows we’re planning against him, then the faster we move, the better.”
Gregos sighed and swirled his glass, making the tawny liquid spin. He kept his eyes downcast.
Ulrich refilled his glass, carefully setting the bottle down as he weighed his words. “Gregos, you know we can’t wait any longer. King Bain must be stopped. Look what he did to our children. Your son . . . my daughter. Arion and Persephone would be mated and setting up their home now if not for his progressive, meddling laws. He is destroying our values . . . our traditions.”
Gregos met his eyes, his jaw tight and chin lifted, his gaze twitchy but unwavering. With a trembling hand, he lifted his glass and gulped down the contents then set the empty crystal tumbler on the polished walnut surface of his desk as he wiped his palm over his mouth.
Gregos had reason to be nervous. What they were doing was treason. If they were caught, they would be put to death. But they’d both known when they began talking about overthrowing the king in hushed whispers almost three months ago that their plotting didn’t come without risks. They’d known all along this would be dangerous.
But they had the support of at least half the aristocrats. Many of them felt Bain’s laws against arranged pairings violated their rights and put their wealth at risk. Nobody in the wealthy class wanted to see a commoner—or, God forbid, a lower class vampire—infiltrate their ranks . . . a pauper’s son mated to one of their daughters, or a whorish female mated to one of their sons. Or, God forbid, another unnatural homosexual union like Arion had with Severin.
What a travesty. An abomination really.
The shame Gregos must have felt at his son mating another male was surely a heavy burden to bear.
Which explained why Gregos had disowned Arion and removed him from his bloodline’s records, thus alleviating any chance Arion would inherit Gregos’s estate someday.
“Gregos . . .?” Ulrich prompted, stepping closer. “What say you, my friend? Can I count on you to help me bring proper values and traditions back to our race?”
Gregos poured himself another shaky glass of bourbon, the bottle rattling against the rim of the glass as his hand trembled tightly. Then he raised his drink and gave an abrupt nod. His hand still shook, making the tawny liquid shiver, but his gaze was steady. “Aye, you can count on me, old friend. I am with you.”
Ulrich raised his own glass and clinked it to Gregos’s. “Then let us toast to our success . . . and to the end of Bain’s reign.”
Chapter 19
Alexis pulled the homemade lasagna from the oven and checked the time.
Again.
There were still a couple of hours before dawn, but Ronan should have been back by now.
Whenever they made plans to spend the day together, he never stayed away for long, especially when he had her Kawasaki. Not only did he respect her boundaries where her motorcycle was concerned, but they both treasured the escape of physical pleasure too much to resist the temptation. The promise of sex was like opening the gates to an amusement park. Neither was getting it elsewhere, and it had been weeks since they’d been together, their tryst earlier this evening notwithstanding.
In Alexis’s opinion, they didn’t have sex enough.
No, he wasn’t her mate, and no, she didn’t want him to be her mate. She wasn’t even in love with him.
But praise be to God, Ronan knew how to fuck her just the way she liked.
In that way, their partnership was perfect.
But it wasn’t all play and no work. They made a great team in the field. He didn’t get in her way when they hunted bounties, and he made the perfect backdoor man during a hit. And when they needed medical supplies, they could be in and out of a pharmacy undetected in less than three minutes, coming away with twice what she could snatch by herself.
But when the work was done, the play began.
And, oh, how they played.
He fondled her breasts, sucked and nibbled her nipples, and spanked her without getting too rough. Best of all, he tied her up and indulged her rescue fantasies, pretending to rescue her from her make-believe incarceration, getting her so hot she sometimes came just from being untied.
Of course, sometimes her fantasies took her down a darker path. One where she wanted him to pretend to be her captor, and she was his hostage. The thrill she got when they performed this way was just as exciting and just as explosive as when they played rescue games, only in a more sinister way.
Sometimes, she felt as though she were trying to rewrite the horrors of her childhood through her fantasies so she didn’t see herself as a victim. By taking control in her fantasies and playing them out with Ronan, she found a certain amount of reconciliation with the past. No longer was she the scared little girl paralyzed by fear. Instead, she became the aggressor, taking what she wanted and turning her captor into her savior when he realized he adored her so much he could no longer keep her restrained. All her fantasies ended by having her bindings removed.
The only problem with letting her fantasies follow this course was that Ronan was not her prince. She couldn’t even call him her savior. He was a means to an end. A reasonable facsimile. A stand-in for the real thing.
And that was just fine by her. She didn’t need the real thing. She’d survived on her own for over one hundred years. She could survive on her own a hundred more and then some.
But who knew the abuse she had suffered as a child would manifest in adulthood as a sexual fantasy so powerful she could get off without being touched.
She went to the front door and glanced through the peephole. Nothing. No Ronan. No Kawasaki. Only his Jeep, still sitting at the curb like a dog waiting for its owner to return.
She paced into the sitting room, pushed the opaque curtains aside, and scanned up and down the street. Still nothing. No sign of him anywhere.
Returning to the door, she disengaged the series of locks and deadbolts securing her home then stepped onto the porch. There was a slight chill in the air, but otherwise, it was a comfortable night. Inhaling, she sought for any sign of Ronan on the breeze.
All she picked up was the stench of urine from a nearby alley and a hint of fresh-brewed coffee from her neighbor’s brownstone. Her neighbor was an older human female who was up by four every morning, rain, snow, or shine. She was actually awake early today. Bad dream, perhaps?
Passing one last glance up and down the street, she went back inside and returned to the kitchen, where she took a sip from the glass of wine she’d poured for herself while waiting on the lasagna to bake. It was a lovely cabernet. Rich and full. It would pair well with the hardy Italian dish.
She sat on a barstool.
She tapped her fingernail on her wineglass.
She glanced at the clock.
“Fuck it.”
Hopping up, she covered the casserole dish of lasagna with foil and shoved it into the fridge. Then she twisted her long hair into a ponytail, tucked it under a black knit skullcap, and grabbed her gun, a spare clip, her jacket, and keys.
In a flash, she was out the door and locking up. The next moment, she ducked into the shadows on the side of her porch and dematerialized, following the trail Ronan had left hours ago.
It was easy to track him, not only because of the scent of blood his bullet wound left behind, but because they fed from each other. It was easier to track someone you’d fed from than it was to track someone you hadn’t, and vice versa.
She homed in on the South Side. Ronan had been itching for a fight, and the South Side was where you went when you were looking one. And like any other adolescent male vampire, Ronan had a lot of angst to work out.
If only a vampire aged more like a human. Human adolescence ended between nineteen and twenty-five. In comparison, a vampire’s adolescence could, on rare occasions, continu
e past the age of fifty. In his late forties, Ronan was a perfect example of that.
But here was the catch: By eighteen, a vampire looked more or less like they would as a “mature adult.” Their body would continue to age through their transition, which usually ended by the age of twenty-six—usually, because there were always exceptions—but at eighteen, a juvenile vampire could do almost everything a mature vampire could do. They could have sex. Feed. Take a mate. Have young. Their dematerializing and memory-altering skills might still lack, but that was about it.
And nothing said “babes raising babes” like a twenty-year-old vampire with a child. It happened. Not often, but it did.
That would never be Ronan, though. The guy was more averse to taking a mate than she was. Mostly because of what had happened with his parents. His father was a fucked-up mess of a male still suffering over the loss of his true mate, and his mother had been ripped away from him when her true mate had found her. So, yeah, there weren’t a lot of happy family memories for Ronan to emulate. And not much of a foundation to build on. A father who was emotionally bankrupt and mentally fractured half the time, and a mother he hadn’t seen since he was a little boy.
Was it any wonder Ronan acted like a rebellious teenager?
Within seconds, Alexis ghosted into an alley and found her Kawasaki. Just in time, too. A pair of hoodlums had spied her ride and were prowling in for a closer look, all “Whoooooeeey! Would you look at that.”
She materialized between them and the motorcycle, her gun already drawn.
Anywhere else, pulling a gun would have been overkill, but not on Chicago’s South Side. Here, pulling a gun was how you said hello to strangers, especially when they were eyeing your property like they wanted to have sex with it. People killed for a whole lot less than a motorcycle on the South Side, where you could get shot just for your shoes.
The two lowlifes stopped and blinked, their mouths falling open. They were probably trying to decide whether she was real or a hallucinogenic product of whatever narcotic they’d swallowed, smoked, or injected.