Blood Father (Blood Curse Series) (24 page)

All four males consummated the prayer by drawing a solitary blade, slicing their wrists, and leaving a joint offering of blood on the ground between them, and then they healed their wounds with venom and stood.

Ready for battle.

The trumpets blared.

The crowd rose to their feet.

And King Tyrus Thane entered the dais, announcing the opening of the games.

He read the final decree for each execution, and then he introduced the realm’s newest, soon-to-be queen: Arielle Nightsong.

Kagen’s heart nearly leapt out of his chest.

He leaned forward to peer through a narrow hole in the wall, and practically came unglued.
Dearest goddess of
mercy
, Arielle was dressed like a high-class courtesan, standing next to the lycan king, and her face was mottled with bruises. He felt his demon stir and struggled to hold it at bay.
Not now…

Not yet.

Soon.

Very soon
.

He held his breath and waited as the heavy set of wooden doors on the southern end of the arena swung open and Cain Armentieres entered the auditorium with a crescent-shaped throwing axe in his right hand and a crude, iron stabbing knife in his left, the weight nestled snugly against his palm. A gold medallion shone at his chest; the circular handle of the blade encased his wrist like a cuff; and Kagen couldn’t help but take notice—the last time he had seen that face, the male had stood over him in the northern Dark Moon Vale Forest, wearing that same golden medallion around his neck. Kagen blinked twice to clear his vision. An eerie stillness settled inside him as his senses grew sharper and his muscles grew taut. Every cell in his body was itching to fight.

And then a hushed silence swept over the crowd as several lycan guards exited the doorway, leading a tall, sinewy male—
a vampire
—by the arms.

Kagen drew in a harsh intake of breath.

He practically swayed where he stood.

It was him
.

Keitaro.

Their father.

And the male looked like nothing he had remembered: His once shiny black hair was dull and matted; his eyes were narrow with purpose but devoid of life. His frame had to be at least fifty pounds lighter, and his once luminescent skin was scarred with dozens of pocks and blemishes. He walked more slowly than Kagen remembered, and his gait seemed to drag rather than amble, as if he carried the weight of the world on his enslaved shoulders.

He was indeed
n
osferatu
—the walking undead.

But not because he was a vampire, because he was a shell of a warrior, forced to endure the unendurable for longer than most beings lived.

Kagen sucked in air through his front teeth and purposefully regulated his breath. He watched with barely restrained fury as a second set of guards approached the raised platform where Cassandra struggled futilely against her rawhide bonds, and casually lit the fire. The gag was removed from her mouth, and she screamed like a woman possessed.

Kagen dialed down the sound. He turned his attention back to the raised dais and studied King Thane and Arielle, and then he simply held his breath waiting for Marquis’s command.

Now
!
The warrior spoke gruffly, even in their minds, and in an instant, all four Silivasis leapt the formidable walls of the arena and landed on the stadium floor, quietly taking their respective places on the circular battle field, primed, invisible, and teeming with adrenaline.

Without delay, Cain charged at Keitaro, and everything seemed to happen at once: Keitaro and the general, who was still in human form, met in a clash of sound and fury in the middle of the stadium, their brutal blows and lethal maneuvers a dreadful sight to behold. For a frozen moment, Kagen watched in stunned fascination as
his father
and Cain Armentieres lunged, trapped, and parried like swordsmen of old, only Cain wielded an axe and a blade, while Keitaro marshaled his fists and his fangs.

And then, Cassandra’s fire went out: Nathaniel had blown icy wind over the conflagration, and the two platform sentinels were struggling to rebuild the blaze as the king glared at them angrily from the royal box. Nathaniel turned his attention on the two omega lycans at the main entrance of the arena floor, and although his assault could not be seen, it was swift and lethal just the same. Both males doubled over, and their bodies slumped lifelessly to the ground.

At the same time, Marquis literally twisted off the head of the nearest beta lycan, wrenching the trophy right off the male’s shoulders, even as the soldier continued to add accelerant to a dying log.

Nachari struck next.

The Master Wizard sent two blazing streams of blue lightning from his invisible fingertips out toward the crowd, up into the stadium, each bolt searing directly into the heart of a beta guard. Two sentinels clutched their chests and staggered backward, yet Nachari did not let up. The streams grew hotter, more intense, searing through flesh, blood, and bone until, at last, the guards fell to the stadium floor, nothing more than a combined pile of sweltering ash. And that’s when Nachari leapt into the stands, his curved sickle clutched tightly in his right hand—it was a bizarre sight to watch, as if the sickle moved of its own accord—as Nachari went from one remaining male to the other, clutched both by their hair, and slit their throats from one ear to the next, leaping back into the stadium before their blood hit the ground.

The wizard finally shimmered into full view.

And it seemed like the crowd would have noticed—
should have noticed
—but they were so caught up by the action in the arena, the epic battle between Keitaro and Cain, that they didn’t see the bloody vampire or the fallen sentinels.

At least not right away.

Nachari took the opportunity to stalk toward the omega guard, posted at the northeastern gate. The lycan caught sight of him, threw open the hatch, and then started to shift into his wolverine form. Nachari lunged at the lycan. Still brandishing his blood-drenched sickle, he gutted the male from stem to stern and dropped him to the arena floor, booting him out of the way.

The crowd began to scream.

Kagen watched in macabre horror as two enormous beasts, which could only be described as a cross between a rhinoceros and a velociraptor, stormed through the open northeastern gates, charged into the arena, and pointed their horns at Nachari.

Before he could see what happened next, a loud, thunderous crack drew Kagen’s attention to the center of the arena.

Cain had just landed a violent blow against Keitaro’s skull, and the vampire had fallen forward onto his knees—it was obvious that Keitaro’s ribs had all been broken, long before he entered the battle, and Cain took full advantage of the unfair odds: He shifted into lycan form and lunged for Keitaro’s throat.

Marquis was there in an instant: enraged, determined, and no longer invisible.

He hurled his massive warrior’s body onto the wolf’s back; pounded him three times in the back of the head with his wicked, spiked cestus; and then thrust the same hand, like a dagger, through the wolf’s thick haunches, burrowing deep beneath his wiry fur in an effort to tear out his heart. Marquis looked positively rabid as the lycan somehow managed to dislodge his murderous hand.

A shrill horn-blast resounded from the royal dais, a formal sounding of alarm: as if the people didn’t know they were in peril…by now.

And once again, Kagen was forced to turn away.

The alpha lycan beneath the dais, along with the remaining beta guard who had been tending Cassandra’s platform, rushed to the center of the arena to aid Cain in the sudden, unexpected battle, to assist in the execution of Keitaro. At the same moment, the omega guard at the southeast end of the arena opened the gates before Nathaniel could get to him, released two more of the hideous beasts, and joined in the maniacal fray in the center of the arena. Nathaniel shimmered into view and dove into the mix; Nachari shifted into panther form and sprinted toward the beasts—apparently, he had escaped the first attack—and Kagen was left to take on the remaining Alpha beneath the dais, all four Betas on the top of the royal platform, and King Tyrus Thane himself. Not to mention, he still had to rescue Arielle.

In short, he could not stop to watch his brothers.

There was no time to play spectator in this life-or-death sport.

Luckily, he was still invisible
.

He turned his attention toward the alpha guard who was making his way toward the center of the arena, wholly unaware that a vampire stood less than ten feet in front of him. Kagen immediately recognized the loathsome mongrel: It was Teague Verasachi, the male who had killed Arielle’s mother and given her to King Thane as a slave, the male who had broken his arm as well as his clavicle, kicked him in the side, and ripped out his heart so many years ago in Dark Moon Vale.

The male who had murdered him beneath a waning moon.

Something wicked, buried, and too-long controlled swelled up in Kagen’s soul, something that had waited 480 years to be released: the fury, the rage…

The rivers of
b
lood
.

“Here, puppy,” Kagen whispered in a sadistic, disembodied voice. He snapped his fingers two times. “Here, Fido.
C
ome
!”

Teague spun on his heels and sniffed the air. He was immediately aware of Kagen’s presence, although he still couldn’t see him. “Who are you? What are you?” He dropped low to the ground in a defensive posture.

Kagen moved like a bolt of lightning, striking out of a clear blue sky. He lunged for the general’s arm and tore it out of the socket, tossing the offensive limb into the middle of the arena as he swiftly retreated to his original position. “Bad doggy. Very bad doggy.”

Teague snarled in pain and fury. He grasped at the space where his arm had just been and howled in outrage. His eyes flew open with shock, and he started to shift into his superior, lykos form.

Kagen withdrew a silver-tipped scalpel from his belt, sliced sideways across the lycan’s chest, then downward along his sternum, before the male could shift or even sense it coming. And then he took a generous step back, sliced the palm of his own hand crosswise, and slowly dripped blood along the arena floor. “Come, Fido,” he taunted wickedly, “follow the blood. Use that canine nose.”

Teague howled in fury. Despite his serious injuries, he shifted as fast as Kagen had ever seen a lycan shift and rose to his full ten-foot advantage. Spittle dangled from his fangs as he snarled in the direction of the invisible attacker.

Kagen toyed with him.

He flashed quickly in and out, displaying his human form before the enemy like a matador parading a red cape in front of a bull, and then once again, he disappeared into the overcast day.

The lycan lunged, just as Kagen expected, and as he flew in midstride through the air, in the vampire’s direction, Kagen careened like a batter sliding into home plate, landing right beneath his outstretched form, directly beneath the beast’s hind legs. He slashed at his jewels, neutering him in midstride, before landing once again on his feet and spinning around to face him.

“What’s the problem, lycan? Can’t you face your death—
and your superior enemy
—like a man?”

Teague’s rage-filled, dark eyes lit up with recognition.

“That’s right,” Kagen whispered. “At last, we meet again.”

Teague howled like a wild thing. He gnashed his teeth together and swiped blindly at Kagen with a vicious paw, drawing a deep, painful line through Kagen’s right cheek.

And that’s when Kagen saw red.

That’s when he released his cloak of invisibility, withdrew a thinner scalpel, and began to stab and slice, to dice and chop, like a crazed banshee, alternating between using the tool and his teeth, his claws and his fangs.

That’s when he leapt off the mangled pile of meat he had left on the arena floor, flew onto the raised dais, and smashed his forehead against the skull of the nearest beta lycan. That’s when he gouged out the male’s eyes and ripped out his intestines, turned to the guard beside him, and began to skin him alive in crisp, clean, uniform layers, stacking each new filet in a pile at King Thane’s feet. Kagen’s surgeon hands moved so quickly—perhaps at the rate of twenty to thirty strokes per heartbeat—that the entire filleting took place in mere seconds.

King Thane was enraged at the insult.

He booted the pile of discarded flesh away from his feet and lunged wildly at Kagen, swinging with a huge, iron fist. Kagen ducked out of his reach and back-handed him across the platform, sending him careening into the monstrous throne, watching as it splintered into a dozen pieces…as Arielle dove out of the way.

And then he turned his attention on the two remaining beta lycans.

His shoulders hunched, his biceps twitching, his eyes undoubtedly glowing bloodred, Kagen crept down low, distributed his weight evenly between his back feet and his front right fist, and looked up at his enemy like a hungry jackal. A rabid snarl escaped his throat, and he slowly licked his lips, releasing his fangs to their full, lethal length. “Come,” he whispered softly, “join my river of blood.” He stroked the familiar scalpel in his right hand like a long-lost lover and waited.

The coercion didn’t compel them—they weren’t exactly human—but the desire to dispatch him quickly elicited the same effect: The first of the two lycans started to shift and lunge at the same time, his sinister yellow teeth gnashing together in fury, even as he drooled in anticipation, practically salivating over his prey.

Kagen met the Beta’s lunge with equal force, thrusting his entire body upward and shoving his left arm, hard, into the lycan’s throat. He gave it an extra thrust on impact, crushing the windpipe with ease, and then he followed the blunt maneuver with a razor-quick stab—a fierce, neat plunge into the lycan’s left ear—impaling his brain with the full length of the scalpel, before swiftly pulling it out.

There was a one-second delay…

The lycan’s eyes stared fixedly ahead, as if he thought he was still in a fight, and then his pupils dilated, lost their focus, and his eyeballs rolled back in his head, completely absent of…
life
.

Kagen caught the dead lycan by the arm as he fell.

Like a child toying with a wishbone on Thanksgiving, he snapped the useless appendage out of its socket; drew it up, behind his shoulder, like a baseball bat; and widened his stance, preparing to swing. Just as Kagen suspected, the remaining lycan went for his jugular: With his jaws open wide, his gnarly teeth bared, he tried to rip out Kagen’s throat; and the vampire could not have asked for a better pitch.