Vamped Up (13 page)

She’d married Ruan, the love of her life, earlier that day.

Soundless, he approached her side. Leaned down, tickling her skin with his whiskers as he pressed a kiss to her blushed cheek. She looked at him then, her heart beaming with pride. Her husband, her love, Ruan, had come to join her on this beautiful evening. Only, his expression didn’t match hers. He looked miserable, his emerald eyes so dark they were nearly black, his color ghastly pale.

“I’m sorry, Eve,” he whispered against her neck, his moist breath clamming her skin. “I didn’t know my own strength.” He fell back on his haunches and scrubbed his face. “Never in my nightmares would I have dreamt I was capable of such a thing.”

“It’s all right, Ruan. I’m okay, I’m here.” No sound escaped Eve’s lips. “Ruan?”

Shoulders trembling, he buried his face in his hands.

“Ruan, what’s going on?” Her heart cracked in two, seeing him so torn apart. Eve tried to sit up, but couldn’t. Pinned to the earth, she squirmed and fought, desperation clawing its way through her. “Ruan, can you hear me?”

He choked out a breath and pressed a kiss to her lips. “I love you so much, Eve . . . forever.”

“I love you too.” Unable to kiss back, Eve gazed into the hollow pits of his eyes. He hadn’t heard. Something terrible had happened. “Ruan?”

“I promised you a lifetime together, my beautiful wife.” Using two fingers, he gently closed her eyes. She fought against him, against whatever power was holding her down, but it was no use. His tone went flat, distant. “I never thought, not in a million years, that I’d be the one to cut your life short . . .”

With another blast of hot, cinnamon-filled air, and a few seconds of agonizing pressure against her head, Eve was sucked back to the present. She gasped for air, legs trembling from the vision, and rolled back on the hardwood of her apartment.

“What happened?” Sitting upright, Eve rubbed a hand against her neck. It was still warm and clammy where Ruan’s mouth had been. Her gaze shot to Lilith’s. “That was Ruan . . . and me, but not me. Ruan was here. He was
right
here.”
Wasn’t he?
God, she was so confused.

Lilith rubbed her shoulder with slow, massaging strokes. “I had to show you the truth.”

“You didn’t show me anything,” Eve said, replaying the scene in her head. She took a deep breath, trying to grasp a hint of the lavender that had enveloped her, and caught nothing but the sugary sweet cinnamon emitting from Lilith’s side.

“The Ever After restricts me from showing anyone their death, so revealing the
exact moment
when he drains you dry is an impossibility. His confession in 1812 should be more than enough proof for you.” She leaned close. “He kills you, Eve. He said so.”

“No.”

“You could hear the regret and pain in his voice. It’s undeniable. Deep down you know what you saw and what you felt within him . . . what you still feel in him to this day.”

Eve shook her head, pulled away from Lilith to clear her head. As her gaze focused far off, Eve thought back to the first time he bit her thigh in the training warehouse and how panicked he was that he’d hurt her. His eyes had darkened to the same ominous black. His color had changed to the same solemn gray. And when he’d pierced her vein in ReVamp’s office, he practically shoved her off him when he lost control. Each and every time she’d gotten close to uncovering the truth behind his fear, he’d pulled further away.

Lilith was right. Eve couldn’t deny what she felt in the vision. What she picked up from Ruan’s grief and his pain in this life.
God, what did it mean that Lilith was right?

“Was that, um, the first time?” Eve asked, unable to muster a full breath.

“Yes, but it won’t be the last in your history together.”

.“Even if what you’re saying is true, it can’t happen like that this time. It won’t. Ruan is different, his will stronger. He won’t hurt me.”

“That’s not enough this go-round,” Lilith said on a sigh. “Even if I ignored the doubt in your aura. Ruan’s will is dimming and I’m not taking chances, especially with a mad vamp on the loose who’s trying to gain control over our death shades. It is time for more drastic measures; hence my coming here tonight and surprising you like this. We haven’t much time before the evil in Crimson Bay spills over into the streets. We can’t stand by and let Ruan kill you again.”

“Why is my life so damn significant?” Eve’s temper flared. “Why do you care if Ruan kills me a million times over? What does it matter? With me gone there’ll be another pure spirit to step up.”

“It is not another’s destiny. It is yours. Every time we see the light at the end of the tunnel, Ruan rips our chance at peace from our hopeful fingers. Every time he prematurely takes you from this earth, our chance at salvation is gone for another hundred years.” Lilith took Eve’s hands in her own. Her sugary sweet scent intensified until Eve couldn’t think about anything other than Lilith’s next words. She whispered, “Because you’re the one who’ll bring the elders’ shades together again. You’ll unite the light with the dark. When we die, our spirits will no longer separate, one becoming bound to earth for eternity and the other fulfilling evil deeds at the hand of our murderers. You’ll bind our shades with the combined powers in this amulet. Without
you
fulfilling your destiny, we roam this world lost. You are our guide. Our ticket to the Ever After.”

No, this couldn’t be right.
“Ruan told me about elders. He said you guys can come and go from the Ever After as much as you please. He said you aren’t bound by laws of this earth and that you can skip from dimension to dimension. He said—”

“Yes, dear, sweet Eve, all those things are true. But where in all that business of coming and going from the earth is the end? Where is our rest in peace? Where is our slice of heaven?”

Eve took in the sight before her. Lilith’s timeless beauty. Her Scarlett O’Hara figure. Her ‘20s Hollywood features. Her flawlessness. “You want to die?” Eve’s voice cracked.

“My poor naïve lamb . . .” Lilith patted Eve’s cheek like a mother to a child. “If only it were that simple. I want you to relay a message for me. Tell Ruan I’m done taking chances. If he touches you again, I’ll mind-fuck him so good, he’ll wish he was dead.”

Chapter Seventeen

“There is light and dark, good and evil, in everything. You see what you choose to see.”

Fight Those Cravings!
by Shea Silver

“D
AMN IT!”
S
AVAGE
roared, slamming the chamber door behind him. He stormed to the cement wall at the far end of the room, then turned back, his hands clenched into fists. His breathing was ragged, his skin clammy. He scrubbed his hands across his head. “What the hell is going on? What the fuck is wrong with these death shades? Controlling them shouldn’t be this goddamn difficult.”

With another thunderous roar meant for the gods below to hear, he kicked his duffel across the room. “There’s got to be something I’m missing. It has to be right in front of me.” He planted his hands on his hips and looked around the room, his mind searching through Fort Point to the Golden Gate Bridge beyond.

He supposed the night wasn’t a total loss. He kicked serious ass in the alley behind Mirage. If that rogue group of vamps hadn’t shown up—spooking the mundanes out of the trance he’d held them under—he might’ve been able to send the death shade sweeping into the club, do real damage to the vampire race, and send a grim message about his plans for their future.

He thought over his tally: two elders killed, two shades controlled, then lost, future-predicting maware, an orb of protection used and abused, and now . . .
what?
He couldn’t make all the vampires of Crimson Bay pay for their treachery by killing one elder at a time, he knew that now. Controlling a single death shade wouldn’t be enough to succeed in his plan. How long could he possibly go on hunting and killing elders before the Crimson Council started cracking down and elders went deeper into hiding?

The element of surprise might’ve been the best weapon he had. The more time he took figuring out their powers, the more he lost his grip on that advantage.

He pounded his fists over the tablet, where Meridian and Ingrid’s blood had dried, staining the white tablet reddish pink. Their bodies had been dumped over the walls of the fort, their blood washing out into San Francisco Bay. How many more elders would join their little swim before he figured this shit out?

Leaning over, scrubbing his head until his scalp was worn raw, Savage realized how close he was to failure. He focused on the one question bothering him most: why couldn’t he control the death shades longer than a single day and night?

He checked his watch. Twenty-four hours ago he’d killed Ingrid and possessed her death shade. His thoughts streamed to Meridian and how long he controlled her death shade. Wasn’t that twenty-four hours as well? Now that he thought about it, the two cases were almost exactly the same.

He forced himself to think logically, taking into account worst-case scenarios to cover his ass. If, by killing an elder, he only gained possession of their death shade for the span of twenty-four hours, how would he complete his plan? He’d need much more time than that, wouldn’t he?

When he killed his next elder, gaining control over his or her death shade, could he bring down a large, organized haven such as San Francisco’s in such a limited amount of time? And would that elder’s maware do the trick? Would it give him the power he needed to be a formidable enemy to reckon with? No, upon calculated consideration, he didn’t think so.

He needed more. More elders. More time. More power.

He left the chamber, walking down the shadow-riddled passageways of the underground lair of the fort with newfound purpose. He needed to find a way to hold a group of elders captive. And a way to slaughter them while crippling the powers they’d use to defend themselves.

He’d need heavier drugs. And chains. Lots of chains.

Pushing open a wrought-iron door on the right, Savage looked inside. No chains, no bars, nothing that would do the trick. He strode down the hall, his boots striking the wood planks with hate-fueled determination. He opened up the next chamber door. It creaked loudly, blowing dust clouds into the small room. No chains, no bars—just dirt, a wooden bench, and a single narrow window offering a limited view of the city. He searched level after level, chamber after chamber, racking his brain trying to figure out how the hell he’d hold a handful of elders captive.

The door at the end of the hall, illuminated by a bare yellow bulb, called for closer inspection. Double wooden doors with railroad nails spiked into the wood in an over-arching pattern were closed tight. He pushed on them hard, using his shoulder and body weight to shove them open. The hinges creaked, the seal finally giving way.

Savage’s breath hiccupped in his chest as he stepped into the room. The space was perfect. The air was thick with age, musky and stagnant. Two long metal rods about hip-high were anchored to the walls flanking him and spanned corner to corner. The room had no windows. A single door. Cement floor with an inch-thick layer of dust and dirt.

As long as he could get an entire flock of elders here one by one, drug them, and chain them to the bars, he’d be set. All he’d have to do when the time was right was walk into the room and stake them one at a time. Sure, it’d take awhile to round them all up, but once they were here—bound and drugged—it wouldn’t take long.

Bloody perfect.

He grinned at the thought and mindlessly trailed a finger down the crevice on his cheek—the scar a dangerously seductive elder gave him during the massacre of 1912 to forever remind him of his treachery against his race.

Oh, he remembered what happened all right. With crystal clarity.

Lilith was not only an elder then, but his Primus, and he was her top guard.

That fateful night, the bitch had tricked him good. Persuaded him to do her bidding with her heart-stopping maware of overpowering lust and love. He took the bait, did what she asked without question, and guarded an underground chamber hiding the “gem” that was supposed to grant him and Lilith unmentionable power. Though for the life of him, he couldn’t remember exactly what he was supposed to be protecting. It was as if he could remember every detail about that night . . . except
what
Lilith had hid behind that goddamn chamber door.

While therians and vampires fought in the fort, Savage’s ache for Lilith’s touch got the best of him. He’d left his post to accept her painfully erotic offer, creeping behind her as she watched the riots unfold from one of the rooftop lighthouse towers. He slid his hands around her waist and nuzzled into her mane of sunset-red curls as she spun around, slicing her dagger across his cheek.

She’d been furious he left his post. Only he wasn’t the reckless, lust-driven vampire she’d assumed he was. She was too hot-headed to listen to reason. He’d assigned Ruan, a haven drone, to watch the door. That fool would do anything asked of him to get into the good graces of a vamp in power.

He couldn’t have known Ruan’s insatiable need to investigate things himself.

He couldn’t’ have known Ruan would open the chamber door and jeopardize the race for another hundred years.

Shame overcame him. Savage didn’t ask why Lilith couldn’t request the gem back or why Ruan couldn’t simply replace it. He didn’t understand what was so important about a stone that couldn’t be undone with another elder’s maware.

Head hung low, his title stripped from him, Savage fled the fort and didn’t look back until he heard the ear-splitting
boom
that rocked the stronghold, killing everyone inside.

Now, as he stood in the center of the repaired underground facility of the fort, he realized this wasn’t the therian PR show of 1912, designed to get vampires to drink from mundanes so they could slander their reputation to the ordinary world . . . no. This was
his
performance of a lifetime. His only chance to come to power in his own right.

Fortunately, over his hundred years or so on this earth, he’d heard about just the place to round up a few elders. They’d be weak and immature, not the wise powerhouses to match the likes of Meridian and Ingrid, but if he could snag a group of them it probably wouldn’t matter. Their mawares combined would have to be stronger than a single ancient elder . . . theoretically.

The elder black market.

Run by a group of prestigious therians, the market had been underground for centuries. Anything worth stealing and everything illegal passed hands among society’s elite paranormals behind closed doors, including drugs, weapons, and of course, elders. They were a bitch to track and capture, but there were a few who had become skilled in the art and worked for high prices. Although usually only the newly transitioned elders were naïve enough to get caught, their mawares were still powerful and a hot commodity for a therian with a thirst for power.

Buying a handful of elders would cost him an arm and a leg, and certainly attract a shitload of attention that he’d originally wanted to avoid, but what choice did he have at this point?

He pushed through the heavy doors of the fort and strode to his car. He had to remember to keep his eyes on the prize.

For so long he thought that prize was finding and deciphering the scrolls. That the secrets to becoming all-powerful were hidden in the Grimorium Verum’s pages. Then, as he discovered Meridian’s burning desire to keep Eve safe, Savage realized
she
was the key—the prize he’ d been longing for. Oh, she was more than just a pure blood source, Savage knew that much. How she’d help him wipe out vampires in Crimson Bay, he didn’t have a fucking clue.

But it didn’t matter anymore.

Now that he’d figured out how to unleash the death shades, he didn’t need to slave day and night deciphering scrolls to figure out why Eve was so damn important. Hell, it didn’t matter if the scrolls mentioned her name. He didn’t need her or her secrets anymore. He could unleash the dark powers of the Ever After all on his own. To do that, though, he needed mawares, and he needed them in number. That was the only way he’d get what he wanted now.

Consumed by a few dozen mawares with elder blood on his hands, Savage would soon earn the status he’d wanted all along. This time he wouldn’t need it bestowed upon him by a swoon-worthy elder. He only wished Lilith were alive to see him now . . . so he could gouge out her eyes and drive a stake into her himself.