Blood Vengeance (Blood Curse Series Book 7) (8 page)

The woman stretched out her hand and held it over the phone. “Don’t!
Please
… don’t call security.” She looked positively scared to death, and then she withdrew her hand and took a cautious step backward. “Look, the truth of the matter is this: My boyfriend beat the crap out of me last night, so I’m a little bit out of sorts.” She looked down at her clothes. “And yes, I realize that I’m wearing pajamas and my hair is a mess, but I was just downstairs in the car…
with him
… and I had to get out and run, somewhere, anywhere. So I came into the building. Then he followed me, so I took the elevator upstairs. And then I wandered into your office, hoping to stall for some time.” She wandered to the window and peered out at the parking lot below. “It looks like his car is gone, so no worries. I’ll just get out of your hair.”

Tiffany felt oddly conflicted.

Normally, she would feel enormous compassion for someone in this woman’s predicament, but there was just something
not right
about her. She stood up abruptly and gestured toward the hall, beyond the open doorway. “Are you sure that he’s gone?” Even as she asked the question, she had a hard time believing that such a creepy guy could just slip right past Ramsey and Julien, both coming and going? That seemed utterly impossible. She reached once more for the phone. “We should call the police, Tawni.”

“No!” the woman protested. She hugged her arms to her chest and took several steps back, heading for the door. “Please, believe me; that will only make matters worse. You have no idea just how much worse that would make matters.” She forced an insincere smile and practically curtsied in her pj’s. “I’m so sorry to have bothered you like this.”

Tiffany frowned and waved her hand. “No, not at all. You did what you had to, to get away from danger.”

Tawni let out an exaggerated sigh. “
Thank you
.” And then she shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I really am a graphic artist, and any contract work I could do would go a long way to helping me get the heck out of Dodge, if you know what I mean.” She held up Tiffany’s business card. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll keep this. Maybe I can send you my resume or something, some samples of my work. No pressure. Just a thought. And if you like what you see, that’d be great. If not, I totally understand—crazy woman stalking the office, not exactly a vote for confidence and dependability.” She straightened her shirt, took a few steps forward, and held out her hand. “Thank you again, Tiffany. And I really am sorry for freaking you out.”

Tiffany stared at the proffered hand and frowned. What if this woman was telling the truth? “Tawni, you should really let me call someone for you. If you’re not comfortable with the police, then maybe we can find a shelter nearby, a nonprofit that works with these types of situations.”

Tawni just shook her head sadly. “He’d find me, Miss Matthews.” She straightened her shoulders and tried to perk up. “But if you really want to help me, then keep your eye out for my resume. The thing I need most, right now, is a job, just a chance at independence.”

Tiffany watched as the strange and deeply troubled woman strolled quickly out of the door and practically jogged down the hall. If she’d had a better relationship with Ramsey—well, any relationship at all—she would have almost considered calling him, just to ask him to follow the woman for a little while, see what was going on.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

She sat back down in her chair and tried to shake it off, the chills and the overwhelming sense of foreboding that came, and left, with the peculiar woman.

Shaking her head, she tried to get a grip:
Good grief,
her own life was nothing but one chaotic mishap after another. Or at least, so it seemed. The last thing she needed was to get involved in some stranger’s domestic violence situation—her own domestic situation was more than enough to handle right now, no matter how pitiful the woman had seemed.

Tiffany quickly dismissed the subject from her mind.

She had more than enough to concern herself with, and while some bizarre-looking woman wearing hundreds of dollars of silk over a pair of men’s pajamas, and running away from some psychopathic boyfriend, may have been tragic, it really wasn’t her problem

Not today.

She could only wish the lady well.

*

Tawni Duvall ducked into the nearest bathroom, pressed her hand to her lower belly, which was aching like the dickens, and darted into the closest stall. She held Tiffany Matthews’s business card in front of her face like it was made of pure gold, and then she raised it to her mouth and kissed the font, right over the woman’s name, before carefully placing it in her right pajama pocket.

In
Salvatore’s
right pajama pocket.

She leaned back against the smooth gray metal door and sighed: Talk about thinking quick on your feet!
Holy crap, that had almost ended in utter disaster
, in failure, discovery, and imminent death.

Hers.

She brought her hand up to her mouth and bit into it, trying to calm her nerves as she thought about her impossible situation. Things had not gone well with her master last night, to put it mildly. In fact, this whole thing was turning out to be a never-ending nightmare, nothing like she had hoped or dreamed.

After returning to the colony, the term Salvatore used to describe the truly gothic, underground labyrinth where he made his home, the sadistic vampire had taken Tawni to a dusky underground
lair
, carved out of limestone and granite, littered with stalagmites and gargoyle-shaped candles, all over the floor, and that wasn’t even the part that had bothered her. She was all about the creepy, occult-looking symbols. After all, she had tried to summon a demon, and she had fully expected to explore the unseen bowels of hell, to descend into the depths of depravity…

What she hadn’t expected was to be chained to a massive iron bed on a garish raised platform and then beaten within an inch of her life, just to be healed again with venom, over and over…
and over
. The entire scene had been terribly savage, her master’s way of demonstrating his superior vampiric powers and inherent male supremacy. She hadn’t expected to be used like some cheap, two-bit whore. Sure, she had expected her master to want sex, and she had even hoped she might enjoy it—after all, Salvatore Nistor was drop-dead gorgeous, despite his blackened soul—but what had transpired between them last night had been so brutal and violent, so debasing and painful, that even in her demented imagination she could not find a way to reconcile it. She had not expected for her womb to still ache or her thighs to be covered in mottled bruises, even after his
after-glow
healing. And who the heck wore three condoms at once, anyhow? Something about avoiding pregnancy at all costs: babies with claws, ribs exploding, and a foul, distasteful smell that her master wanted to avoid.

Tawni shivered and quickly dismissed the thought. There was no point in recalling all the horrific details. The truth of the matter was simple: Salvatore Nistor had a rare and demented sense of humor, to be sure, and she had just made the biggest mistake of her life, one she could never take back. She drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. It was a little late for regrets.

Now, as she stood in a lonely bathroom stall in the Dark Moon Vale executive suites, she closed her eyes and just let the terror, anguish, and grief sweep over her. As it ran up and down her legs like a dozen tiny spiders, traveled along her spine in an ever-expanding web, and ricocheted throughout her head like a host of animated silk sacs, she struggled to accept her new reality: a life without pardon or even a moment’s peace.

“Stop it, Tawni,” she whispered. “This is what you asked for. This was the bargain you made.”
Besides
, she added silently,
maybe Salvatore will actually be pleased with you for once
.
Maybe he’ll actually do the soul extraction and the conversion, sooner than later, and you’ll have powers of your own to fight him with.
She stroked the outline of the business card, rubbing her thumb over the thick, expensive paper, and hardened her resolve.
Just stay strong, and concentrate on the assignment.

The
assignment
Salvatore had given her had been ill-advised, way too soon, and dangerous as hell, not to mention just plain stupid: Tawni had no idea what she was doing yet; she had no idea what Salvatore really wanted from her; and she had almost screwed it up. That woman was far too smart and perceptive to fall for her pathetic story—her boyfriend had just beat her up in the parking lot…

Yeah, right.

All Tawni knew was that Salvatore was hell-bent on testing her, making her prove she was worthy of his gift of immortality before he bestowed it, and he had ordered her to take a cab to DMV Prime, find Tiffany Matthews, and engage the woman at once: try to make some positive inroads, start up a friendship, see if she could even get a job. According to
his highness
, Tiffany was the key to Tawni’s salvation, as it were, because the woman had access to the second most important vampire in the house of Jadon, Prince Phillip… or Pharaoh… or something like that. And more than life itself, Salvatore Nistor wanted to strike at the heart of the house of Jadon by destroying the little prince.

Whatever.

All Tawni knew was that Salvatore was utterly and completely mad, as in crazy as a loon. She had tried to explain that she needed to wash her hair, groom herself, especially if she hoped to apply for a job. Hell, a skirt and blouse would do nicely as compared to a pair of baggy pajamas and a too-expensive silk shirt, but her comments had only stoked the fire of his anger. His madness. And after two more rounds of Salvatore’s version of sex play, Tawni had been willing to crawl into Tiffany’s office naked if necessary, plead for the woman’s mercy, and demand to know where to find Prince Pharaoh at gunpoint, if that’s what it took.

Salvatore had given her one imperious directive: “Come back with Tiffany’s business card as proof of your success, or die a slow and painful death without ever knowing immortality.” Even now, Tawni shuddered as she remembered the threat. Salvatore had not been kidding—the vampire didn’t kid. And since he had taken her blood, running away was not an option. According to him, he could track her anywhere on earth, and she had no reason, whatsoever, to doubt him. As far as Tawni was concerned, the male could make it rain, thunder, and lightning. He could probably spin straw into gold or reverse the sun and the moon if he chose to, let alone hang them in the sky.

The male could do anything.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true…

Salvatore Nistor could not go out in the sunlight, and that’s why he had sent Tawni, instead. That’s why he had refused to make her immortal, like him.

At least not yet.

She sighed, once again rubbing her hand over her pants pocket to feel the edges of the card, so safely tucked inside. And then she checked her watch—it was only 10:45 AM, so she still had lots of time. As it stood, she would have to take a cab to the outskirts of the Red Canyons, hike a couple miles in, until she came to a series of crumbled caves, and then wait like an idiot for her master to come and claim her, once the sun went down.

So be it.

This was her new life.

In the meantime, she would use the wad of cash Salvatore had given her to buy a decent pair of pants, and then she would swing by the local library to use their computers, see if she could google Tiffany Matthews, learn more about her soon-to-be best friend.

And after that?

Well, if she still had time, she would try to buy some marijuana at a nearby dispensary and maybe even score a couple bottles of ibuprofen. She would need all the pain relief she could get, and if she had to get through the next few days by remaining high, then she was all for the prospect.

One way or the other, she had to survive just long enough for Salvatore to convert her.

And to do that, she
had
to help the ancient Dark One kill the little prince.

Unless she appeased her new master, she was as good as dead.

And there was just no way—
no way
—she was going out like that.

Not when she had come this far.

seven

“Close your eyes, baby girl.” Ramsey planted both hands on Tiffany’s shoulders, turned her in the direction of the third main-floor bedroom, and gave her a gentle shove forward.

Tiffany tried not to stiffen in reaction to his touch as she reluctantly complied, taking several stutter steps forward. “Okay,” she whispered, forcing herself to go along with whatever this was: After several fruitless hours of trying to work while utterly distracted, they had just returned from DMV Prime, put her clothes away in closets and drawers, and Tiffany was a taut bundle of anxious nerves, to put it mildly. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but wonder
what came next
, and if going along with Ramsey’s latest surprise would get her past that hurdle, that ever-present fear of the unknown, then so be it. She was game.

To an extent.

As it stood, there was no point in pretending this Blood Moon wasn’t happening, no matter how badly she wished she could remain in denial. And opposing Ramsey Olaru at every turn was a bit like trying to walk an elephant backward when it wanted to go forward. Truth be told, Ramsey was always in control, even when he tried to pretend he wasn’t, which, really, when did Ramsey
pretend
anything?

She held her breath, waiting.

“Open them,” he said gruffly.

Tiffany opened her eyes and blinked several times, staring into the open room. And then her jaw dropped in genuine surprise. It was no longer a bedroom, but a beautiful, exquisite office. She took an unwitting step forward as she gazed at the luxurious accouterments: Toward the rear of the room, nestled in front of a huge picture window, was the most gorgeous mesquite desk Tiffany had ever seen, with a plush, ergonomic swivel-chair nestled beneath it. To the right of the desk was a high-tech drafting table, and perched atop the desk was a brand-new PC with a sleek HD screen that matched the gorgeous surroundings in artful design. Anchored on the opposite wall, toward the left, was a second flat-screen monitor that appeared to provide both TV and computer broadcasting. Basically, she could access her computer from the desktop screen or the television monitor while she worked, depending upon her mood.

She turned around in a semicircle, still in awe of what she was seeing.

On the adjacent wall to the monitor were a series of polished mesquite shelving, housing everything from reference materials to art supplies. There was a soft reading chair with a matching ottoman placed inconspicuously in the forward, right-hand corner, beside a gently flowing waterfall, and an acoustic-wave stereo with Bose speakers at her disposal in the corner shelves behind her desk. And the artwork on the walls—there were three of her favorite paintings: Monet:
Nympheas
(1926); Greco:
Toledo
(1599); and Rousseau:
Sleeping Gypsy
(1897).
How in the world did he know?
Despite her persistent uneasiness with Mr. Olaru, she spun around to face him. “When did you do all this?”

She stepped further into the room and began to walk around leisurely, taking meticulous note of the smallest architectural and design details. “You did
all of this
… for me?”

The corner of Ramsey’s mouth quirked up in a self-satisfied smile, and for the first time since she’d been taken from the forest, he nearly took her breath away.
Good Lord, he was stunning when he smiled.

“You like?” he drawled.

She swallowed hard, caught her breath, and nodded faintly. “Well, of course.”

He followed her into the room. “Brooke told me what you’d like”—he pointed to the three art pieces—“and Saxson brought in a team of contractors while we were in town today to knock out the work.” He ran his hand over an intricately carved design in the apex of the waterfall, a gorgeous baroque garland crafted in lime-wood after Grinling Gibbons’ work, etched seamlessly into the framework of the piece. “This… the definition… Saber did it.”

Tiffany’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Saber?
Alexiares
? The Dark One?” She quickly caught the error. “I mean, the guy who’s mated to Princess Vanya?”

Ramsey nodded. “One in the same.” He eyed the woodwork appreciatively. “He’s pretty damn talented.”

Tiffany stared at the baroque garland, marveling at the detail in the flowers, grapes, and leaves, and nodded. She couldn’t disagree, but what really surprised her—no, stunned her actually—was the fact that Ramsey Olaru had gone through all this trouble for her, that he’d even had enough forethought to arrange it. When? How?
Why?
She was utterly speechless.

He shrugged. “I thought it might make your… imprisonment a little more tolerable.”

Tiffany grimaced. Geez, she really had been acting like a captured POW, hadn’t she? She wanted to apologize, but she couldn’t. Nothing had changed, at least not in terms of how she felt about being his
destiny
, how intrinsically she feared him, the way she primarily saw him. Yet and still, he had gone out of his way to accommodate her in something so very important, recreating a beautiful—
no, positively magical
—work environment so she could at least feel at home. The least she could do was offer an olive branch of her own.

She took a deep breath for courage, ran her hand through her immaculately groomed hair—and, of course, it just occurred to her that they both had that in common: blond hair—and strolled to the desk to try out her chair.

Ramsey leaned back against the solid pine doorframe, crossed his feet at the ankles, and folded his arms over his massive chest. He looked like he was posing for a
GQ
centerfold, maybe one entitled “Dark, dangerous, and decadent eye-candy.”

Where had that thought come
from?

She shivered and placed her hands, palms down, on the desk to feel the smooth, grain-filled wood beneath her fingers. It was positively exquisite. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it.

“You’re welcome.” If he was nervous, she couldn’t tell. And then he just continued to stand there, staring at her like she held the secrets to the universe in her eyes, his own piercing hazel gaze penetrating her inner armor like a beacon of light invading the dark.

She wrung her hands together and shifted nervously in the chair. “So,” she said quietly.

“So,” he repeated.

She exhaled slowly. “Am I allowed to ask you a question? Any questions?” She decided to walk it back a bit. “Basic questions?”

His features tightened a bit, but other than that, he remained calm, cool, and collected, at least on the outside. “Of course,” he said in that typical deep rasp of his, probably not meaning to sound like death in black jeans, although he did. He just… did.

She shook her head briskly to dismiss the thought. “About anything at all?”

He cocked his head to the side, and that interminable lock of blond hair that often hung over the corner of his right eye shifted, unveiling his steely gaze like a magician’s revelation. “That’s probably only fair.” His perfectly sculpted nose twitched, almost imperceptibly, and Tiffany couldn’t help but wonder how…
why
… when had the gods decided to pack all that lethality and brutality into the statue of a Roman god?

She stared down at her desk to avoid his unsettling gaze. “So… ” She may as well start with something
real
. Test the waters. See if he was as willing to open up, just a little, as he pretended. “Do your parents still live in Dark Moon Vale?” She bit her lip, only half expecting an answer.

“My parents don’t still live… anywhere,” he said, so coolly, so distantly, that it genuinely surprised her. “They passed away centuries ago.”

He never even paused before answering, and that brought Tiffany up short. Good heavens, he was so blunt. She swallowed her rising discomfort. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He nodded, and she waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she decided to dive in and ask another question, not at all certain that he wouldn’t just leap across the room and snap her neck for daring to be so brazen, so intrusive. “Do… um… is it okay to ask… what happened?”

His stunning, evocative eyes flashed several shades darker, but only for a second. “My mother was staked through the heart by vampire-hunters, and five years later, my father was killed by a Dark One when he was ambushed in a cave.”

Tiffany gulped
.

Oh, heavens.
That was
awful
.

She opened her mouth to reply and then closed it, completely at a loss for words. She reached up to scratch her ear. “So, it’s just you and your brothers: Saxson and Santias?”

“Santos,” he corrected.

“
Santos
,” she repeated. Well, this was getting more and more awkward by the moment. She was just about to excuse herself to use the restroom, maybe try to kill a couple hours by soaking in the jetted tub, when Ramsey cleared his throat.

“There are very few families intact in Dark Moon Vale, at least not from the earlier generations.” He paused, and it really looked like he was trying. “While tragic, my story isn’t that uncommon.”

Despite herself, Tiffany asked the next obvious question: “Why is that?”

He seemed to settle back into his own skin, as if it required a great amount of
shifting
to answer. “How much do you know about the history of the house of Jadon?”

Tiffany softened her voice. “Um, some, I guess. Not much.”

He nodded then. “How much do you want to know?”

She laughed nervously, and then she thought about his parents, what he had just told her. No doubt, the history had a lot to do with who Ramsey Olaru was, and if this was her fate, as impossible as it was to reconcile that fact in the present moment, the least she could do was try to understand what had made him who he was. “I’d like to know,” she said, wishing she sounded more like her usual, confident self.

He nodded. And then he ran his hand through his hair and slowly exhaled. “Back in 800 BC, at the time of the original Curse, things were… a lot different than they are now.”

Tiffany leaned forward in her seat. “How so?” It was a sort of silly question, but she wanted to keep him talking.

“The vampires. The culture. Life.” He settled into his stance as if sinking deeper into the conversation, and she waited quietly for him to continue. He sighed heavily; again, as if it were an enormous amount of information to try and organize in his mind, let alone convey, while standing at the threshold of Tiffany’s new office. “Right after the males were cursed,” he began, “there was nothing but chaos, confusion, and bloodlust.”

Her palms began to sweat.

She could only imagine.

“You gotta think about it from the point of view of those who were there.” He reached into his pocket, drew out a small sterling-silver case with the letters
RDO
engraved in the front, from which he withdrew a
toothpick
, and stuffed it between his full, sculptured lips. Turning back to the subject at hand, he continued. “For centuries, they had been privileged beings, half human, half celestial, favored by the gods; then just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“they were turned into these supernatural creatures with all these strange and powerful abilities. But mostly, they were just overwhelmed with bloodlust. Absolutely crazed and out of control.”

Tiffany tried to envision what that would have looked like, been like, but it was hard. “What did they do? I mean, right after it happened?”

Ramsey chuckled low in his throat. “Oh, they preyed on humans; they destroyed each other; and they died by the hundreds.”

Tiffany glanced away, slowly shaking her head. What a statement. “I don’t completely understand. I mean, some of it is obvious, but… ” Her voice trailed off, and Ramsey shrugged.

He glanced out the window and stared off into the distance, as if he was seeing the picture in his mind. “First, it depends on which house you’re talking about, Jadon’s or Jaegar’s, and you have to keep in mind: There were no formal
houses
back then, just half-crazed men—
males
—who had pledged their allegiance to one prince or the other. The followers of Jadon blamed Jaegar’s supporters for the Curse, and the followers of Jaegar blamed Jadon’s loyalists for the same. So it was pretty much open season.”

Tiffany nodded. It made sense. She decided to ask about the house of Jaegar first, perhaps save the best for last. “Tell me about the Dark Ones then. What happened next… with them?”

Ramsey blew out a short, derisive breath and rotated the toothpick to the other side of his mouth, using only his teeth. “The followers of Jaegar did four things pretty consistently: They murdered as many males from the house of Jadon as they could; they fed on humans, openly and indiscriminately, like the earth was an endless buffet table—which caused dozens of human vampire-hunting societies to emerge—they repeatedly burned in the sun because they forgot they were immune; and they reproduced like rabbits, raping human women with the ferocity of locusts devouring stalks in a field of grass. According to the history, Prince Jaegar wanted to wipe all of Prince Jadon’s progeny from the earth as quickly as possible, but his own followers were too crazed, too out of control to manage… or organize.”

Tiffany shuddered all the way down to her toes. She rubbed her forehead in consternation and frowned. “So, what did the house of Jadon do? How did they survive?”

Ramsey rolled his shoulders in a slow, languid stretch. “Well, as you know, both tribes were banished from their homeland,
from our homeland
, so they slowly migrated to North America—”

“Why North America?” She immediately regretted this second interruption—she and Ramsey were not that familiar with each other, not by a long shot. “Sorry,” she whispered.

He smiled.

And it was a genuine smile…

“Well, I think part of it was the fact that the newly made vampires could fly, so they were able to travel the world in a way they had never done before, and they were drawn to the Rocky Mountains because of the vast similarities with the Transylvanian Alps. They were drawn to an isolated, mostly uninhabited
continent
. Not to mention, the wizard Fabien had already been here a time or two—
think Ciopori and Vanya
. I happen to believe the gods were already lining things up, knowing what the future would hold, making sure Marquis would one day be close to Ciopori. Basically, the followers of Jadon came first, and then Prince Jaegar’s loyalists followed.”