Blood Possession (5 page)

“Marquis! You will do well to remember your place, warrior; and you
will
take your son home to—”

“Milord
…” A soft voice interrupted the exchange before it could become heated, not that Marquis—or any other male in Dark Moon Vale for that matter—would dare to openly defy the ancient ruler.

Napolean looked up just in time to see Ciopori Demir-Silivasi saunter into the chamber and make her way down the narrow, center aisle toward her mate, a look of solemn purpose and apology on her face. “Greetings,” she sighed as she stopped before the two of them. “How it pleases me to see you this night, my king.” She kissed Napolean softly on the cheek.

In front of his men.

In front of Marquis.

Marquis’s eyes flashed red, and Napolean groaned inwardly. True, it was an instinctive male reaction that Marquis—or any other male vampire, for that matter—could hardly be expected to restrain. They were territorial creatures to put it mildly; nonetheless, the room full of warriors perked up, watching with apt fascination and more than a little amusement as Napolean hissed beneath his breath, warning Marquis to control himself.

Truly, the world was out of alignment.

“Please forgive me,” Ciopori continued, seemingly unconcerned by the not-so-subtle displays of dominance and aggression. “I asked Marquis to keep Nikolai for the afternoon while I went out to do some shopping. I’m afraid I lost track of the time—”

“And refused to answer your cell phone!” Marquis snapped, feigning irritation.

“Now, Marquis,” Ciopori said in a sweet, cajoling voice.

“Don’t Marquis me!” he replied. “You also failed to answer my telepathic calls, woman. This is not acceptable.”

Ciopori laughed, a carefree, lyrical sound, and smiled. “Oh, stop your grumbling, warrior. You seem none the worse for the experience. Besides, sometimes a woman needs a moment to herself.” With that, she reached down and scooped up the baby, who immediately began to wriggle his arms and legs in excited anticipation of his mother’s embrace.

Napolean felt the energy around them stir and knew that the two of them were finishing their conversation telepathically. He had no intention of interfering—Ciopori was perhaps the only individual in the valley who was a true match for Marquis Silivasi and his…
socially challenged
…personality. She could give as good as she got.

Once the energy settled down, Napolean nodded at Ciopori, conveying his understanding. After twenty-eight hundred years, he was not a male of infinite patience—and the order he kept in the house of Jadon was not a small matter—however, he had a hopeless soft spot for the surviving female children of King Sakarias, and there was no point in pretending he did not. Truly, after so many years of believing all females of their race to be extinct, all the males in the house of Jadon treated the princesses with infinite respect and awe. It was still hard to believe the two females had survived that terrible time.

Napolean blinked, bringing his thoughts back to the present. “I understand, of course, Princess. Thank you for coming for Nikolai.”

“Of course.” Ciopori reached out and gently touched Napolean’s arm, and a collective hush settled through the room.

Few beings touched Napolean so casually.

Few of his subjects took such informal liberties with the most ancient and feared of their kind, and it was still a bit unsettling for the males to witness such a simple—yet powerful—connection with their leader. Indeed, the princess rarely shied away from him.

Marquis stirred in reaction.

A low, almost inaudible growl resounded in Marquis’s chest, and Napolean instinctively displayed a lightning-quick flash of deadly fangs. It was a clear, unambiguous threat…a prominent, unequivocal show of dominance. Normally, Napolean found humor—if not delight—in the possessive ministrations of his males, but he would not be challenged, warned, or corrected in front of an assembly of his warriors, not even by Marquis.

Not even if the male couldn’t help it.

“Blessed Andromeda,” Ciopori sighed, rolling her eyes. “Vanya and I must get working on an anti-testosterone spell immediately. There must be some magic-spell in the coffers somewhere…” Her voice trailed off.

Napolean smiled.

Marquis growled. “Go home, woman. We have important things to discuss here.”

At that, Ciopori punched him in the arm, and to her credit, she didn’t draw back her fist to rub bruised knuckles. “Do not push your luck, warrior,” she chastised softly, still smiling. Then, she swung around, bent down, and planted a sound kiss on Marquis’s lips before sauntering out with Nikolai in her arms.

Marquis’s face remained hard, but Napolean could have sworn he saw the corner of his mouth turn up in a smile. This was good—very good. All was well with the Silivasi family for the first time in years.

Returning his attention to the room, Napolean crossed his arms and regarded the warriors as a whole. The males quickly stood at attention. “If there are no more interruptions,” Napolean said, “then I would like to get on with the meeting. Ramsey, do you have the report I requested?”

Ramsey Olaru pushed off a large column he was leaning against and slowly removed a thin reed of grass from between his teeth. As he made his way to the front of the room, he rolled his head from side to side, popping his neck to release tension, his cold, calculating eyes staring straight ahead.

The six-foot-five sentinel was a stormy combination of tightly wound energy and barely leashed aggression in his most relaxed state of mind, a countenance at complete odds with his looks: While, for all intents and purposes, one could argue that something had gone terribly wrong in Ramsey’s childhood—perhaps he had taken a dark turn during his studies at the University—he had the face of a GQ model. A very large, dangerous, somewhat unstable GQ model. His massive shoulders were contrasted by a fall of chin-length, dark blond hair that he kept flawlessly tapered to frame his face; and his solid frame of titanium muscle was encased in baby-smooth skin that remained perpetually tan, though he made no effort to keep it that way. And while women might faint at the sight of his rather…sensual…mouth, every warrior in Dark Moon Vale knew the guy would just as soon rip your head off with his bare teeth than look at you. There was nothing mellow or soft—or GQ—about Ramsey Olaru.

“Evening, milord,” Ramsey drawled, turning to face the other warriors.

Napolean nodded and stepped to the side, careful to keep Ramsey in his sights. Not that any of the valley’s three sentinels were anything but loyal to the death, but it simply went against instinct to turn one’s back on a wild tiger.

Ramsey placed one foot on the seat of the nearest chair, rested an elbow on his knee, and glanced at the notes he held in his hand. “Got a few stats,” he said, and then his eyebrows creased and his face went deathly serious. “As best we can project, based on the schematics Marquis, Santos, and Nathaniel drew up, we believe there are at least fifteen hundred of our Dark Brothers living beneath the Valley.”

Someone whistled low beneath their breath, and a few of the warriors shifted in their seats. Resulting from the abduction of Princess Ciopori by Salvatore Nistor, the discovery of the Dark Ones’ underground colony had been a shock to everyone. For centuries the sons of Jadon had believed their Dark Brothers to be scattered, nomadic, and living out of caves, yet nothing could have been further from the truth. And now that they had been discovered, the Dark Ones were wreaking havoc in the local towns and villages.

“There have been at least seven murders that we know of since we rescued the princess—and that’s just within the last thirty days.”

Marquis Silivasi clenched and released his fists, and Napolean gave him a reassuring nod.
You will have your revenge, warrior.
The king spoke on a private bandwidth.
We all will.
He held Marquis’s stare for a moment before turning back to regard Ramsey. “And you believe the purpose of these murders is to stir up fear among the humans, to place suspicion on those of us who live on the surface, who walk in the sun?”

“We do.” Ramsey nodded.

“Or just for the hell of it,” Nathaniel Silivasi added from the back of the room.

Napolean made a tent with his hands and pressed his fingers to his lips. “And how well is this being contained?”

Saxson Olaru, Ramsey’s fraternal twin and another one of the three sentinels, stood up and bowed his head in deference.

“Speak freely,” Napolean urged.

One by one, Saxson made eye contact with the other males. “The new crews are working pretty well.” He gestured toward a tall male with a dark, military buzz cut sitting next to Kagen Silivasi. “Our teams of trackers and medics are getting to the murder scenes and analyzing the evidence—time of death, type of injuries, etc.—fairly quickly, usually before the humans find the bodies. But in those rare cases where we don’t get there first, our cleanup crews are containing the scenes, erasing the memories of the local authorities, and taking control over the situation in less than twelve hours…max. Once we have the bodies incinerated and the DNA cleaned up, our wizards go in to deal with the families and friends—they create new scenarios to explain the deaths, add memories of funerals…relevant histories…whatever is necessary so we don’t end up with a missing persons epidemic on our hands. But I have to say, this is the really difficult and time-consuming part: The tendrils of a life are like the branches of a tree, touching dozens of others, sharing an intricate system of roots. It takes a lot of time and energy to flush out all the central relationships of one human being: best friends, family, lovers, teachers…those who are going to care enough to make some waves.” Saxson glanced at Nachari Silivasi, who was sitting next to his brother Nathaniel, listening with rapt attention. “Right now, it’s a full-time job for the wizards, and that can’t be sustained.”

Napolean followed Saxson’s gaze. “Nachari?”

The youngest Silivasi brother and the only Master Wizard present at the meeting stood up.

“Do you have anything to add?” Napolean asked.

Nachari lowered his head in a slight decline, a gesture of acknowledgment and deference to the king, and then he let out a deep breath. “Saxson is right, but it’s more than just a bit exhausting—I don’t think any of the practitioners of Magick would complain about that piece of it. The real problem is the risk being taken by our community as a whole…the resulting vulnerability.”

Napolean knew exactly what Nachari was referring to. The energetic cost of supplanting human memories was higher than that of simply erasing them. Such a feat required the vampire to take blood from each person whose memories he or she wanted to manipulate, and the more blood a
wizard
took, the more random energy that wizard absorbed from the host. A Master Wizard needed to keep his vibration in perfect alignment with the universe at all times in order to perform Magick at will. Should the Master’s energy be too…compromised…at any given time, he might not be able to perform a much more important duty when called upon. In other words, Magick required alignment; alignment required pure Celestial energy; and pure Celestial energy required a balanced Wizard. Consuming the blood of dozens of scared, confused, and potentially grieving humans altered that balance. And
that
altered the Wizard.

Napolean began to pace back and forth in front of the room as he considered the dilemma. “Nachari, explain what happens to the other warriors.”

Nachari nodded. As was so characteristic of all the Silivasi brothers, his thick, dark hair fell forward as he began to speak. “As you wish, milord.” He turned to face the other males. “Whenever a wizard attempts to alter complex memories…”

As the bright young wizard continued to speak, his words and image began to fade out.

It was as if the room had become a scene in a 3-D movie, and the director had suddenly retracted the lens and zoomed out of the picture…

And then a much narrower image began to come into focus, a strange, unsettling frame containing the shadowed figure of a man, an ancient being who had died over twenty-eight hundred years ago: Napolean’s father, Sebastian Mondragon.

Napolean swallowed a gasp, hoping to conceal his alarm at the sudden, unexplained appearance of the apparition in the room. Similar manifestations had been occurring far too often recently, and he was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t suffering from some sort of exhaustion…or paranoia…if his years on earth were not beginning to warp his mind.

He could still see Nachari speaking out of the corner of his eye, and all the males seemed to be focused on the young vampire, carefully weighing his words. No one seemed to notice the dark, imposing man at the back of the room

Father?
Napolean tried speaking to the male using telepathy.

The shadow turned his head quickly in an angry, undulating motion, his eyes locking indelibly with his son’s.
Yes,
he answered.

Napolean took a step back.

Son…
The being spoke again.

Napolean blinked rapidly, trying to erase the image from his vision, but the man still stood there…looking young and alive…much like he had the last time Napolean had seen him. Right before he had been beheaded.

Napolean swallowed a lump in his throat.
Is it really you?

The being laughed.
Why did you let the Dark Prince murder me, Napolean? Was I not a good father to you? Could you not have attempted to save me?

Napolean was utterly stunned by the words, and it took him a moment to reply.
I…I was only ten years old, Father.

You were a Mondragon, son! The future leader of our people! There was so much I still needed to teach you—so much life left to be lived—yet you stood there like a frightened child…and watched as I died!

Napolean was flabbergasted.
I didn’t watch. I didn’t…know. I didn’t understand.

The tall male slowly shook his head and gazed down toward the ground, his face revealing such grave disappointment.