Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1) (3 page)

Reluctantly, Taris allowed Hayley to test her theory personally, though he only gave in after she forced his hand and threatened to test it elsewhere. The idea that she would put her life in jeopardy at the hands of a complete stranger sent a wave of panic through him, and knowing that she was perfectly serious, he finally gave in. Of course, where she would manage to find another vampire was a notion he didn’t immediately consider.

But if she was going to play a game of existential roulette anywhere, she was going to do it within the safety of his home and under both his watchful eyes and those of his sister, Kalin.

Months of constant supervision, countless discarded test-tubes, and thousands of small flesh wounds later, Hayley was able to ingest almost half a pint of Taris’ blood without any kind of adverse side effects. The fact that she was as giddy about drinking blood as most girls were about their senior prom gave him a big case of the head scratches. Not once did she explain her motives. At first, he thought it was the prospect of a lengthier, perpetually youthful life—that precariously coveted state of being that plastic surgeons and health gurus alike struggled to give to the masses. He asked her, repeatedly, but every time, she just shrugged, turned away, and smiled mysteriously. She
always
smiled. Now that her system could tolerate the dominant blood, she smiled even more because she knew she was finally ready.

“Tomorrow, you really will be my Papa Bear,” she said as she kissed him on the cheek, hugged Kalin, and flitted off to bed. She beamed like a new bride, the smile splitting her face from ear to ear as she blew him a gigantic kiss before closing her bedroom door.

That was yesterday.

And now, she was dead. Lying in a heap on his bedroom floor, her brilliant green eyes clouding and her long, blonde hair matted to her skin by drying blood. She was gone.

Taris walked through the living room, straight into the den, and didn’t stop until he reached the bar on the other side of the pool table. He didn’t bother going behind the bar. He simply leaned over it and grabbed the first bottle he could get his hands on. With a flick of his fingers, he twisted off the cap and threw it against the wall before flopping down onto one of the large black leather recliners. He tipped the bottle up, taking a long draw. The smooth burn made him close his eyes.

“Is she gone?”

Taris shivered. Kalin’s smooth voice drifted across the room. He squeezed his eyes even tighter with every step that drew her closer to him.

“Yeah,” he whispered, his already rugged voice made even more gravelly by the heat of the straight Scotch. “She, uh…she didn’t make it.” His eyes slipped open as he lifted the bottle to take another deep draw. The seal of his lips was broken by the jolt of Kalin plopping down next to him. He turned to look at her.

Kalin looked like a nightmare. Her elegantly straight black hair was thrown up on top of her head in a mess of bobby pins and small plastic clips. Replacing her usual attire of tailored pants and designer shirts were a pair of old hospital scrubs and an oversize sweatshirt. Her eyes were rubbed raw and bloodshot, their brilliant amber hue taken over by distress and grief. She knew before he told her. Somehow, she knew.

Taris took another pull from the bottle before absently holding it out to her. She looked down at the offering for a moment before reaching out with shaky hands to accept it. She tilted it up and took several long gulps.

“Drinking isn’t going to make this any better,” she coughed, wiping her mouth. Absently, she lifted the bottle again, taking another long sip before handing it back.

“What are we going to do now?” Her voice was so small, so broken.

“We start over. Until we get it right, we start over. This time is no different.” Taris scanned the bottle’s liquid level and took another swig.

“But this time
is
different, Taris.” Kalin lifted her legs, clutching her knees to her chest. “I loved her. Like my own, I loved her.”

It was an innocent enough statement. It was simple and kind and mournful, but something about those few little words caused Taris’ heart to pump into overdrive and his blood to boil out of control. He shot up from the couch, sending the half-empty Scotch bottle shattering against the opposite wall, just shy of the wide-screen television. He couldn’t stand still. His longs legs were shaking as he paced around the glass coffee table.

“You think I feel any better about it? Do you? I fed her. I fed
from
her! I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want her to do this, but she did, and I’m a selfish fucking prick because I let her!”

His breath was coming and going like a steam engine, loud, full of heat and power. The pacing wouldn’t stop. The heat in his body wouldn’t let him be still.

“I can still feel her rolling around in my gut, and it makes me sick.”

Kalin’s weary eyes were on him. They were filled with more than just her grief for Hayley. In them was empathy, the knowledge that no matter what kind of a spin he put on it, Taris was just as torn up inside as she was. Possibly even more so. With every loss they suffered, he bled a little himself, died inside just a little bit more.

“Taris, I’m sorry. You can’t blame yourself. Cub knew what she was getting into. She knew what she was doing when we started this. Death was something she was willing to face.” Kalin gently set her feet flat on the floor and rose from the couch. He was still pacing when she stood in front of him and forced him to stop by putting her arms around his waist and pulling him to her. Her head met the very top of his shoulder, and she used all of her strength to stop him from pushing her away. With a sigh of resignation, he threw his arms around her shoulders and squeezed her tight to him.

“She loved us, all of us.” Kalin’s voice was muffled against his chest. He could feel the vibration when she spoke. “She wanted to save us, Taris, the way we saved her. This time was different because of who we lost, not because of what we did not gain.” She pulled her head back, and as she did, she met his eyes. They were the same strange amber color as hers, only they were touched with something different. They were frosted, hazed with the sheen of unshed tears. Tears were something she had never seen in him before. Not ever.

“I need to take care of her,” he whispered as he pulled away from the embrace and slowly walked toward the door. Once in the large doorway, he stopped. He didn’t want to turn around, but the clearing of Kalin’s throat caused him to tilt his head enough to see her staring at him, hugging herself in that gigantic sweatshirt.

“She deserves to be with us, Taris. You know that.”

“I know.” He turned and walked out, not bothering to look back.

As he walked toward the bedroom, Taris could hear the uncontrolled sobs breaking loose. The incredible loss she felt hung thick in the air around him. Actually hearing her pain ripped a new, completely different hole in his heart. This was not a wound that would heal easily, and the wrenching cries coming from his sister drove that point home harder than a railroad spike. Kalin truly did love Hayley. Like her own daughter. From the moment the skinny girl set foot in the door, his sister had doted on her, given her every luxury she would never have been afforded out there on the streets. There was nothing Hayley wanted for: clothes, education, the little things that spoiled a young girl…all were given to her freely and with love. Kalin even let Hayley call her Mom.

The attention and affection Kalin had showered on the girl were just more reasons why he had to solve their lack-of-population problem, and fast. It wasn’t logical for women of his race to adopt human children. Human children had human life spans, not the extremely lengthy ones the vampire race were privilege to. The end result would be nothing but broken hearts that lasted infinitum. The pain he could hear emanating from his sister was proof positive that he needed to find a way to prevent the rejection of the change. It was the only way she could ever actually have a child of her own, a child who would live to term within her womb—a child who would be as they were. Finding a cure was the only way a vampire mother could have a vampire child.

Taris gripped the knob to the door and took in a long, slow breath before pushing it open. In the back of his mind, a small part of him halfway expected to see Hayley standing in the middle of the room, dancing around in her new body with her new life. He wanted to hear her silly laugh fill the emptiness. He wanted to see her smile and watch her twist her hair in her fingers.

All he got, however, was the same lifeless body he had left lying there just a short time ago. Steeling himself, he took a few strides over to her and scooped her up into his arms. His heart smacked against his chest wall in a sickening
thud
when he felt her form beginning to grow rigid. Her skin was already getting cold, and her eyes were still open and fixed on him. It took everything he had not to collapse under the weight of his own guilt as he walked out of the room and through the house to the basement crypt. They would give her a proper burial tomorrow evening, with every ceremonial rite that would have been given to blooded kin.

Instead of burying her on the hill with the others, he would place her behind the house, in their family cemetery. Tomorrow, they would bathe her skin and make her as beautiful in death as she was in life. In the meantime, he had to allow her body to rest. He had to allow her soul to be completely free of its human confines before committing her to the ground. It was their custom, and if Kalin had ever been right about anything, it was this. In Hayley’s attempt to save the vampire race, she had indeed become one of them.

After making the silent journey to the crypt below the house and placing Hayley’s body on the large funeral stone, Taris locked himself in his room. The silence that permeated the house was deafening. It used to be full of music and laughter. The stories of boyfriends and first dates, the loud singing, and the late-night wine and horror movie marathons were all gone. Now there was nothing, and that fact was threatening to drive him insane.

Taris leaned against the large paneled door and didn’t even bother with the buttons of his shirt. He grabbed the collar, and in one swift motion, he ripped it off, shredding it into two halves and dropping it to the floor. His bare feet padded across the cold tile. He didn’t care that he stepped through the crimson puddle that encompassed a large section of the floor. Bloodied footprints were tracking behind him as he walked through his bedroom. He crouched down onto his knees and reached underneath his bed, retrieving a slim, ancient box. The dark, antiqued wood smelled like smoke and pine, and Taris inhaled, taking the scent deep into his lungs before he walked back to the large bloody spot on the floor.

Try as he may to set aside the emotions of the situation, the last twelve years of Hayley’s life came flooding back to him in a rush. He remembered the way her small, scared eyes met his in the alleyway. He remembered the overwhelming feeling that welled deep within him that told him she was different, that she needed help. That she needed
them
. All at once, the memories snapped in his head like images on a television screen. The birthdays, the holidays, the first time she discovered what they were, her determination to be as they were. He remembered her smile, her laugh, the way her arms clutched around his neck on the night he brought her to live with him and his sister.

The most haunting memory was the words she spoke as she drew her last breath.

“I will save you.”

It pierced him straight through to his core, and he could no longer keep his emotions in check. His eyes began to let out a silent stream of previously unshed tears. Their heat washed over his cheeks and fell from the tip of his nose, sending ripples through the blood pool as they fell to the floor. The internal pain he felt was stabbing, and it was dying to get out. He needed to feel something externally. He needed a reminder on the outside of the pain he felt on the inside.

The box was now sitting on his lap, and with one finger, he flipped open the lock. Lifting back the lid, he withdrew a dagger from the velvet lining. The blade was once shining, white ceramic, but now it was stained the color of the pool on the floor, the tip of it a dark crimson. The blood-red hue faded to a dark pink as it widened out to meet the hilt. The handle was black lacquer, carved intricately with a language so ancient it was rarely seen anymore. He held the blade in his right hand, squeezing his eyes shut, looking toward the ceiling as he pumped his left fist repeatedly, the rows of scars that ran horizontally down the length of his forearm dancing as he flexed the thick muscle.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The words trickled from his lips as he touched every single white line with the tip of the blade. When he reached the smooth patch of skin near the top of the inside of his arm, he pressed the tip of the blade into his flesh. An immediate rush swept over him as he lowered his eyes and watched the thick river of crimson begin to flow from his veins.

The pain was intense, but somehow, it didn’t feel like enough. He tightened his fist and dug the blade in deeper, yelling out as he pulled it across his arm. In its wake, he left a wide chasm of blood and split flesh, the open wound now a symbol of his internal devastation. For every life lost aiding their cause, Taris made it a point to mark their memory. He saw them as warriors, men and women who were martyrs for his people’s right to save themselves. Every loss was hard. And every loss was there, cording his thick arms in tribute, starting at the base of his hand and now running the entire length of his arm, all the way to the crook of his elbow.

The pain he inflicted upon himself was the only way he could allow himself to feel more than the immediate disappointment of their loss. He made it a point to disconnect himself from their deaths, steeling himself for the fact there would be more. For two hundred years, he had participated in this ritual. That morning, there had been fourteen white lines from cuts he had made over the years, cuts that left scars he chose to keep.

Now, there would be fifteen, and the last cut had been deeper than any of the others.