Fated Blood: A paranormal erotic romance series (The Twisted Destiny Saga Book 5) (2 page)

CHAPTER 3

As Ryan approached Infernus, he patted the stake in the holster at his hip. They weren’t actually his—the holster or the stake—they were Cora’s.
Had been
Cora’s
, he corrected himself. She was dead. Dead. Even if that dumbass, Luca, couldn’t accept that, he
could.
It had been three fucking weeks. A turning didn’t take that long. Her body must have rejected it—the white magic in her or something. Nathanial had told them that it’d never been done before. He’d been against it from the moment Luca had suggested it. He’d been concerned about the consequences. But when Ryan had given the go-ahead—in a moment of major fucking weakness—he’d allowed it. Ryan had no doubt that if it’d been anyone else other than him, Nathanial would never have allowed it. He was the Vampire King—he had his rules for a reason.
I should’ve respected that. I should’ve listened to him.
All it had brought him had been false hope. And he couldn’t bear it. And so he kept telling himself that she was dead. It was why he hadn’t been to see her at Luca’s mansion. Seeing her would cause him to lose control and he was already halfway there as it was.

His only relief was his mission—finding his son and that fucking bitch, Oriana.
I will rip that bitch apart when I get my hands on her. No mercy. She’s fucking dead! Taking my son! I’ll kill her! KILL her!

He took a deep breath to try to calm himself. He wanted desperately to pull out his flask and down half the scotch in there. But he knew he couldn’t. He was walking into a damn vampire club—and a notorious one at that—alone. He had to stay on high alert.

Suddenly he felt a hand brush the holster at his hip. Before he could even react, he was slammed roughly into an alleyway around the corner, out of sight of the club.
What the fuck?
He looked up to see Luca standing before him, pinning him against the wall with one hand on his chest and his other clutching his stake.

“Get the fuck off me,” Ryan muttered, pushing him back. He reached for the stake in Luca’s hand but Luca snatched it away out of his reach.

“You think you’re going to walk into Kristoff’s club with this thing? You saw how quickly I disarmed you. You didn’t even have the chance to react. I might be quicker on the draw than him, but not by much, Ryan. You have the strength, but not the speed that we do.”

“I also don’t have a problem ripping the heads off every fucking vamp in there. In fact, I’m in the mood for a goddamn massacre right now.”

“The
massacre
you’re planning will be too messy and risk exposing all of us.”

Ryan breathed out a frustrated sigh and folded his arms across his chest. He knew whose words Luca was speaking. They certainly weren’t his own.
Fucking hell.
“Nathanial sent you.”

Luca nodded. “I’ll get you the information you want. But we do this my way.”

“Your way?”

“I’ll compel him.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “You can compel another vampire? I thought—”

“That I could only compel humans? I can compel
anyone
who’s weaker than me.”

Ryan pushed off the wall and muttered, “I don’t need help, especially not from you.” He started to walk away.

“You were on board, Ryan!”

Ryan stopped in his tracks, his back to him.

“You wanted me to turn her! You agreed!”

Ryan spun around, his eyes black with barely-contained rage. “I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to be making a decision like that!”

“But now it’s done. I turned her.”

“You
tried
and you failed. She’s dead, Luca! I told you to bury her! You still haven’t, have you?”

“Bury her? I’d have thought you’d have wanted to do that yourself,
if
that situation had arisen, which it hasn’t.”

“I…can’t,” Ryan said, hating the falter in his voice.

“She’s not dead.”

“It’s been three weeks! Come on, Luca! Get a fucking grip! I know it was your first time fucking a princess—
my
wife—but get the fuck over it already!”

Ryan saw him bristle at his words. But, for some reason, he held in his temper and said, “If she were dead, her body would have already started to desiccate. It hasn’t. And….”

Hearing Luca trail off caught Ryan’s attention. He walked back to him. “And what?” he pressed urgently. “What, Luca?”

“I didn’t want to tell you in case you got your hopes up, because I don’t know what it means yet. I won’t be able to tell until she wakes up.”

“Just say it.”

“Both Michael and I can feel white energy emanating from her.”

“What?” Ryan choked out. “What does that mean? She might not be fully vamped or something?”

Luca’s eyes narrowed and he spat, “
Vamped?
You know I hate it when you refer to the act in such a degrading way. Siring someone is mythic, not some frivolous act like you make it out to be.”

Ryan didn’t have time to get into
that
debate with him.
Mythic?
Like hell, it was. “I asked you what it meant. The white energy you can feel from her? Does it mean she might not be a full vampire? Like part of the real her might still be…alive?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Ryan’s hands shot out and gripped the collar of his leather coat. “You should’ve told me right away!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to give you any false hope.”

Ryan released him roughly and stepped back. “After this thing with Kristoff, I need to see her.”

“You understand that she’ll need me when she wakes up?”

“Right, all that Sire shit.”

“You’ve never been around a baby vampire before. You don’t know what it will be like. Ask Nathanial about it. I can assure you that he’ll say the same thing.”

“I don’t need to. I know all about it. I’ve been around a long time, Luca, just like you.”

“All right…so…good then,” he answered, clearly confused by Ryan’s easy acceptance.

“I’ll be there too.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Luca sighed heavily. “Look, Kristoff hates royals. He’s still bitter about losing his title as one in
The War
. It’s likely he’ll try to get under your skin. Don’t let him. Keep that Alpha wolf temper of yours in check.”

“Hates royals? Don’t you mean, he hates
you
? Didn’t you fuck his girl a few decades ago?”

“The other way around.”

“Oh, so you
do
know how it feels then?”

Luca snarled. “Let’s do this.
My
way. Stay on me and follow my lead.”

“Is that what you said to my wife when you fucked her?” Ryan snapped harshly.

Luca finally reacted like the vampire he knew and ran at him, rushing him into the brick wall. “I thought we were past that, brother? You tore me apart with your fists and your wolf claws. I
let
you. Then I lifted the spell over Jada’s room so you could go to her. And—yes—I brought Cora back from the brink of death, risking my father’s wrath in the process.” He released him and stepped back. Ryan glared at him heatedly. When he made no move to respond, Luca pressed, “Well?”

Ryan shook out his leather jacket and muttered, “Let’s just focus on finding my son.”

“As close to a truce as I’m ever going to get from you, I suppose,” Luca said. He drew in a breath and then turned and led the way to the club entrance.

#

“Damn, this is like a cross between Nathanial’s dungeons and some sort of supernatural BDSM club,” Ryan commented as they walked into Infernus
.

“I’m surprised
you’ve
never been here, given your predilections.”

“My control issues don’t go to these extremes.”

“Sure,” Luca responded with a smirk. “If you say so.”

Ryan ignored his comment and scanned the club floor.

In the center of the dark room, lit only by muted pot lights above, bodies swayed to the slow, hypnotic music pulsing through the club. They weren’t just dancing—they were feeding. Vampires, humans, faeries, witches. On the brick wall to the left, men and women were chained up and being flogged and whipped by beings as naked as them. Further along, a crowd gathered as a female vampire, her dress pushed up over her ass, laid across a stone table as her partner spanked her. Over to their right was a bar that would have been the most normal thing in the place if it hadn’t been for several men and women on their knees beside the stools with collars around their necks.

“There he is,” Luca said, pointing to a guy with spiky, white hair sitting at the end of the bar with two vampire vixens sitting on each leather-clad knee. As Ryan followed Luca, he studied the infamous Kristoff. He’d never met him before but he’d heard enough tales to know that this wasn’t going to be an easy task. He saw Kristoff look up, having sensed their approach. The lines etched into his face made him look middle-aged in human terms, but Ryan knew he was far, far older than that—many centuries. His eyes were a fiery red; they were a lot like Luca’s when he was pissed. He wiped away the blood oozing from the corner of his mouth and then licked the neck of the vampire vixen perched on his left knee, soothing the puncture wounds from his bite. He whispered something to them and they both climbed off him and sauntered away.

Ryan looked away briefly as he saw Kristoff adjust the obvious hard-on in his leather pants.
Lovely. Just want I don’t want to be seeing. Ever.
As they reached him, he straightened the lipstick-stained collar of his silky silver shirt and turned on his stool to face the two of them head on.

“I wondered when you’d finally pay me a visit, Wolf King.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed with distrust. “You were expecting me?”

“I led you here—I fed you the information that brought you here.”

“You want to make a deal,” Luca accused.

Kristoff flashed him a smug smile.

“Not happening,” Luca said. “The fact that you believe you have leverage to be able to make a deal with him means you know where his son is. Now, you’re going to tell us—freely or via compulsion.”

Kristoff laughed. “Always so heavy-handed, Luca.”

“With you it is a necessity.”

“If I was the man I used to be, it wouldn’t be a possibility. I would crush you.”

Ryan saw Luca’s eyes flash as he shot back, “Interesting. The way I’ve heard it, power and might weren’t really your forte when you were ruling over the Dark Realm all those centuries ago, before my father destroyed you and stripped your royal powers from you.”

“My magic can eclipse yours, Luca.”

“I’m always willing to test that theory. Just say the words.”

Kristoff chuckled and said, “You’re still upset about Amelia, I see.”

“Yes,” Luca hissed.

“And now you share your brother’s woman?” Kristoff said, smiling with amusement as he looked between the two of them. “Ryan, you have to understand how coveted a prize your wife is. Even as vampire she will be
more
. The only reason others haven’t tried to take her is because they fear Luca’s wrath—all vampires know of his obsession with her. I suppose you can be grateful for that much, because the rest wouldn’t be so gentle with her. She has a pull like no other—all vampires feel it. Mmm…and when she awakens as part vampire, she will be a wild thing indeed—
willing
to be taken.”

Ryan growled and lunged forward. Luca threw out his arm, holding him back.

“She no longer possesses her white power,” Luca told Kristoff.

“You’re lying.”

An odd look passed between them that Ryan didn’t understand.

“What do you
think
you know?” Luca demanded.

“I have spies everywhere, Luca. I have been paying special attention to her condition.”

“Why?”

“Because she has an important role to play.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Ryan snapped, done with all the bullshit between them.

Kristoff shifted his weight and said, “Nathanial has been unable to locate your son, because he is in a place beyond his reach.
Spiritomb:
the
Home of the Dead
.”

Luca scoffed. “Impossible. Only the dead can pass through there. Those who have faced
absolute
death. No being can just pass in and out of there freely. Only death can take one there.”

Kristoff sighed and brought his hands to his face and murmured, “There is another way.”

“What?” Luca asked. “Did you—tell me you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” Ryan pressed.

Luca’s gaze was fixed on Kristoff as he said, “
You
helped her to pass through, didn’t you? You used black magic to help her?”