Fated Betrayal: A Paranormal Erotic Romance (The Twisted Destiny Saga Book 2) (9 page)

Luca bit down harder and sucked harder, drawing more of Ryan’s blood into his mouth.

Ryan struggled against him, but it was useless, because of his damned silver restraints.

Suddenly, he heard Cora’s voice. And then, he
felt
his wolves. Cora was here? She was here with his wolves?
No! No! She’s gonna get herself hurt!

A sudden rush of dark energy snapped him from his panic.

A moment later, a dark figure crashed through the window. He moved so fast that Ryan couldn’t see who the hell he was.

His back to him, he ripped Luca away.

And then, the guy’s fangs were in
Luca
’s neck.

“Stop! No, father!” he heard Luca scream as the guy drained him dry and then threw his limp body across the room.

He turned back to Ryan.

Holy fucking shit!

Shock
wasn’t a strong enough word for what he felt as he looked upon his rescuer.

“Nathanial?”

He simply nodded. He slashed his talons at the restraints around Ryan’s ankles. They were so sharp that they cut through the silver with ease. He turned his attention to his wrists and freed him the same way.

Too weak to hold himself up, Ryan started to fall forward. But, Nathanial was there, catching his hefty dead weight.

He studied him intensely for a few seconds and shook his head. “He’s drained you completely. You are too weak. We must go now.”

“Go…where?” Ryan rasped, exhaustedly. He could barely keep his eyes open. He felt them close against his will.

He forced them open a moment later and that was when he saw a flash of black light enveloping him and Nathanial.

And then Nathanial teleported them away.

#

As Cora watched Michael struggle to his feet after she’d blasted him back down the corridor with her magic, David pushed back two vampires that attempted to launch themselves at her. She tried to ignore the sickening stench of blood and the sounds of wolf teeth and claws ripping through flesh just a few feet behind her as Ryan’s pack battled Luca’s vampires.

In a sudden burst of vampire speed, Michael blew past her into the bedchamber where she’d seen Luca feeding from Ryan just moments prior. She ran in after him and was shocked to see him helping a weakened and barely-conscious Luca to his feet.

“My…father…he…drank…from me,” Luca choked out.

“What?” Michael snapped.

“Where is my husband?” Cora demanded.

Michael spun around at the sound of her voice. He thrust a bolt of red lightning at her. It caught her off guard, because she was distracted by her search for Ryan, and she failed to deflect it. It slammed into her chest, but she only stumbled back a single step, before she managed to catch her balance.

Michael seemed more than a little shocked. “That should’ve knocked you to your knees,” he said. “Vazra has been teaching you.”

Cora ignored him and threatened, “Tell me where he is, or I’ll blow this place apart.”

“My…father,” Luca said, eyeing her weakly.

Cora’s eyes narrowed. “What? Nathanial was here?”

“His bite mark,” Michael told her, gesturing to the bloodied incision on the right side of Luca’s neck.

Cora was taken aback. The King of the Dark Realm had been
here
? And he’d rescued Ryan? It was incomprehensible. The very man that had murdered Ryan’s father, had just saved his son? It didn’t make sense. “What the fuck does he want with him?”

“Does it look like we have any idea? He just drained his son!” Michael snapped.

“Then I have no use for either of you. Now, you die!”

She raised both her palms and called her magic to her. She could feel the power rising within. Since her training with her father, it no longer hurt. It was now a welcome feeling—a reassuring warmth. She gathered the full force of her power, intending to incinerate both of them where they stood.

And then a painful wave of dark energy hit her. Calling her power to her put her in a vulnerable state to any other magical interference and she couldn’t cast out the dark energy as it hit her. She gasped and clutched at her head, as someone’s thoughts violated her mind and forced their way into her.

Stop, princess. You must not kill my son.

“Nathanial?” she gasped aloud.

Yes. I have Ryan. I will not harm him. He is safe with me.

“I don’t believe you.”

I have no reason to lie to you. He is weak. There isn’t time. I must tend to him.

“Where is he?”

I will let you see soon enough.

Cora felt Nathanial’s energy leave her and she screamed, “No! Where is he, Nathanial? Where is my husband? Answer me!”

But there was no response. She removed her hands from her head and turned back to Luca and Michael, but they were gone. “Fuck!” she bellowed.

Josh came bounding into the room in wolf form. The huge, light brown wolf approached her and sat at her feet, looking up at her expectantly.

“Ryan’s no longer here.”

He growled and clawed at the hardwood floor ferociously.

“He’s safe!” she called out. “He’s no longer in pain. I’ll explain once we get the hell out of here.”

The wolf calmed at her words and he followed her out of the room.

She led Ryan’s pack out of the vampire mansion with David bringing up the rear. She cast a protective shield around them that deflected attacks from several angry vampires that launched themselves at them as they passed through the gates.

She fought to bite back the emotion that gripped her. She couldn’t break down now. She had to protect the pack and lead them back to the safety of Shaye’s barrier of protection.

But Ryan was gone. Taken by Nathanial, of all people. Despite Ryan’s awful history with him, she had believed his assurances. Her instincts told her that he had been telling the truth. He wouldn’t harm Ryan at all. She couldn’t explain how she knew it. She just did. Ryan would be okay. But that didn’t lessen the ache of being away from him and not being able to take care of him herself.

I will let you see soon enough.
Nathanial’s promise to her.

He’d better let her know soon, or she would move hell and earth to get to Ryan. She would rip all the realms apart to find him. No one could stop her now; her power was beyond all. And when it came to Ryan all bets were off. She would destroy anyone who stood in her path.

“Stop,” she murmured to herself, shaking her head to cast out her rage.

She was concerned at the ferociousness and…evil of her own thoughts.

What’s happening to me?

CHAPTER 12

“Ryan, wake up! Wake up. Now!”
a deep voice boomed through his subconscious.

He wanted to respond, but he couldn’t. He was too weak. And so, he ignored it and let the serenity of his painless and carefree unconscious state pull him further in.

But then a sudden surge of dark energy ripped through him, forcing him back to reality.

He opened his eyes slowly to see Nathanial leaning against a doorway. A doorway? It looked familiar.

“This is your lodge,” Nathanial told him.

Ryan glanced around weakly. He was lying on the floor of the living room of his secluded lodge. He was on his stomach, his head by the front door. It took him a moment to realize the front door had been ripped off its hinges. Nathanial must’ve kicked it in. He stood outside eyeing him expectantly.
What…what does he want?

His long, black hair blew wildly against the harsh wind outside. And his piercing eyes of red fire glowed in the moonlight, giving the impression that they were actually alight. His black, leather pants clung to his legs and his matching silk shirt flapped in the wind.

“Invite me in.”

“What?” Ryan responded, exhaustedly.

“I am a vampire,” Nathanial reminded him condescendingly. “You need to invite me in, wolf.”

“No,” Ryan said, feeling his eyes growing heavy again and his body willing him to sleep.

“I pushed you inside the house to protect you, should Michael and Luca come for you here. But you need to let me in now. Or, you will die.”

“No…go…hate you….”

“Luca drained you dry. You will die without my help.”

Ryan hesitated.

“You are really so stubborn that you would let yourself die, rather than let me help you?”

“Yes.”

“Then, let me remind you of your duty to your wolves—here and in the Dark Realm. You do not have the luxury of entertaining your personal preferences here, Ryan. And, what about your wife? Your
son
? They will not survive without you. Cora may be strong, but she is not wolf. She cannot raise a wolf child without
you
.”

Ryan’s tired eyes met his. He held out his hand weakly and rasped, “Come…in.”

As soon as the words had left his mouth, Nathanial stepped over the threshold. He fixed the door back into place. And then his arms were around Ryan, hauling him to his feet. He dragged him across the living room to the nearest armchair and heaved him into it. And then he turned away and muttered some incomprehensible words and extended the fingers of his right hand. Moments later, dozens of blood bags littered the living room floor.

“What…are you…doing?”

Ryan watched him snatch up a couple of the bags and place them on the end table beside the armchair. And then he dropped his fangs and ripped through the veins of his wrist. He held it to Ryan’s mouth. Ryan jerked his head away.

“I drained Luca of the blood he took from you. I will explain why later. For now, all you need to know is that this is Cora’s blood you will be drinking from me, not mine. You must drink or you
will
die. The blood bags are for me. I will need to feed once I let you drain me.”

Ryan took his words in.

He knew he was right.

So, when he felt Nathanial grip the back of his head and force him to his wrist, Ryan opened his mouth to allow it. As soon as he tasted it, he knew it was Cora’s blood. He drew more of it into his mouth and the power of it rushed through him. It was so overwhelming that he found himself sucking harder. He gripped Nathanial’s wrist and fed from him frantically, wildly. He found himself moaning aloud from the pleasurable feel of Cora’s blood coursing through his veins.

“Good. All of it,” Nathanial told him.

Ryan looked up at him and saw him gripping a blood bag tightly in his free hand. But he wasn’t drinking from it. It took him a moment to realize why. He had to let Ryan drain him of all of Cora’s blood in his system first. If he drank the human blood in the bags while Ryan was feeding it would course through his veins quickly and Ryan would be ingesting it as well. And a wolf couldn’t ingest human blood. It would make him violently ill. They weren’t vampires. They weren’t made to drink from humans. Their blood just didn’t mix well. But, a wolf ingesting supernatural blood, was fine. It was just the way it always had been.

“That’s all of it,” Nathanial said after several minutes.

Ryan heard the change in his voice—weakness. He felt Nathanial trying to pull his wrist away, but he was too weak now to do so. The bloodlust enveloping Ryan was so powerful that he had to use every ounce of will at his disposal to push Nathanial’s wrist away from his mouth.
Fuck, so this is what vampires deal with whenever they feed.

Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. He felt invigorated, powerful once again. His full strength had returned thanks to Cora’s blood.

He looked at Nathanial and saw him struggling to lift the blood bag in his hand to his lips.

Ryan shot to his feet and snatched it from his grip. He slashed his claws across the top and then held it to Nathanial’s lips. He watched him drink quickly…incredibly quickly. He tossed the empty bag aside after mere seconds and Ryan helped him with the next. By the time Nathanial had devoured that one, he had regained enough of his strength to stand up. He crossed to the other bags littering the floor and, in a burst of vampire speed, he devoured every single one of them.

When he was done, he wiped the blood in the corner of his mouth away with the back of his hand and turned back to Ryan.

“Much better.”

“Where did you get those blood bags?”

“I called them forth from the closest human hospital.”

Ryan shook his head with disapproval at him depleting a good portion of the hospital’s blood supply.

“Would you rather I had summoned several humans here and drained them dry instead?”

“Fine,” Ryan said, relenting.

They stood, staring at one another in silence for several minutes, neither of them saying a word. There was so much history between them, such pain and tragedy, that they both felt the weight of it. And knowing that they had now both saved one another’s lives within the last few minutes was a profound realization. The Wolf King and the Vampire King standing in the same room, just a few feet from one another? It was beyond comprehension.

Ryan watched Nathanial studying his ring. “You are fortunate that you were wearing Cornelius’s ring tonight. They would have broken you without it.”

“Don’t say his name,” Ryan seethed.

“I don’t condone such methods of torture,” Nathanial told him. “I am ashamed that my son does.”

“Speaking of that asswipe…why did you drain him? Your own son?” Ryan demanded, ignoring his niceties.

“He was planning to use the blood he took from you to gain access into the White Realm. Because of who he is—the son of the Vampire King—the very act of entering without an invitation would have been an instant declaration of war between the Dark Realm and the White.”

Ryan brushed past him and made his way upstairs. He needed to put a damned shirt on. He made no apologies as he unceremoniously walked away from Nathanial in the middle of their conversation. He pushed open his bedroom door and started as he saw Nathanial standing there.
Damn royal vamps and their teleportation abilities.
He tried to hide his shock at seeing him there so suddenly and crossed to his chest of drawers. He pulled out a gray, ribbed t-shirt and put it on quickly. And then he reached into his closet and snapped up a leather biker jacket.

“You expect me to believe that you didn’t want Luca to breach the White Realm gates?” he asked as he slipped on his jacket and then walked back to Nathanial.

“I do not want war with the White Realm.”

Ryan heard the conviction in his voice and it took him aback. It took him a moment to respond. “Interesting, because you certainly didn’t want peace before.”

“You don’t know the whole story.”

“Then enlighten me,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and eyeing Nathanial expectantly.

“The betrothal
was
intended as a peace offering—its primary purpose, at least.”

Ryan scoffed. “Don’t insult me with your lies. It was intended as revenge for my father fucking your wife. Preventing his son from being with his rightful mate was the ultimate revenge.”

Nathanial snarled at Ryan’s brash comments about his wife and pushed off the wall and approached him, glaring heatedly at him. “The betrothal was only intended as a temporary thing. Cora would have remained married to my son for a few years at the most until things had settled in the White Realm after…after I killed Cornelius and threatened Oriana with my wrath, forcing her to disappear. And, for the record, I didn’t have a problem with my wife
fucking
anyone. Vampires are known for sharing. I had my whores, so I had no intention of denying her the same, if she so chose. But she didn’t.”

“Until she realized my father was her true mate, not you.”

“She was never anywhere near your father for the first few centuries of our marriage. Until one day when a volatile situation broke out among two vampire factions in the human realm and I was forced to leave her under his protection for an extended period of time in my absence. I didn’t know at the time, but that first night she gave herself to him—bonded with him—and they conceived a child. You. The power of her magic allowed her to erect a veil, preventing me from seeing the truth—for many years. For one hundred years I had no idea that you were her child. I knew you were Cornelius’s heir, but I had believed your mother to be one of the many wolf whores that he kept. But then, one day, your mother fell sick. It weakened her enough to cause the veil she’d cast over me to dissipate. And then I was able to see everything, to smell her essence on you and I realized that you were hers.”

“But she was pregnant,” Ryan said, still not believing him.

“She hid it from me with more of her magic. Only she and your father could see the truth.”

Ryan shook his head vehemently. “No. No. You compelled her to marry you. She only ever loved my father. It’s impossible for mates to love anyone else.”

“Compelled her?” Nathanial scoffed. “Do you have any idea how much power your mother held? I just told you that she was able to keep the truth from me for an entire century. It would have been impossible for me to compel her, but I never tried to, Ryan. You are only partly correct about the love between mates. She
did
love me. But, as I was not her true mate, she could never love me as deeply as she loved your father. But she was capable of showing me love. I can assure you.”

Ryan felt sick from Nathanial’s revelations. He stormed out of the room. But, as he reached the bottom of the stairs, Nathanial stood there blocking his path.

“Step aside,” Ryan growled.

“You know I am speaking the truth. That is why you are so upset,” Nathanial told him calmly.

“You murdered my father!” Ryan roared.

To Ryan’s surprise, emotion flickered in Nathanial’s eyes and he lowered his head sadly. “I am sorry.”

“What?”
A vampire showing remorse? Well, this is a first.

“I let my rage over their betrayal control me and bring forth the monster within.”

Ryan sank onto the steps and he looked up at Nathanial, who leaned dejectedly against the wall. “You have remorse for what you did? You’re a vampire.”

“I learned years ago, before I became king, to control the monster, Ryan. I regret that I lost that control with Cornelius. He was my brother in arms. I have regretted it for the last two hundred years. I banished
you
from the Dark Realm to prevent me from killing you as well. I had lost control. Sending you away was the only way I could spare your life.”

“And Luca?”

A look of distaste passed over Nathanial’s face at the mention of him. “I had been considering banishing him for some time. The volatility of his temperament had become a grave concern to me. Despite my teachings, he would not learn how to control himself—his compulsions. A great problem for a future king. I sent him to the human realm in the hope that being around humanity would soften him somewhat and that it would open his eyes to the necessity of controlling his monster. But…it has not. He cannot become king. A vampire with his temperament would be dangerous in a position of such power.”

“You must’ve known what Luca has been up to for the last few months. Why not do anything sooner?”

“I
didn’t
know. Michael had cast a veil between the Dark Realm and the human realm, preventing me from seeing what was happening here. Tonight, it shattered and I was assaulted with a rush of visions. That is when I saw Luca draining you.”

“The veil shattered?”

Nathanial nodded. “It was destroyed by a powerful wave of white magic—Cora’s magic. She must have assaulted him with it. The power behind it weakened Michael enough for it to affect his spell.”

Ryan shot to his feet.
Cora!
In all the craziness, the fact that he’d heard her at the mansion had completely slipped his mind. Coming back from the brink of death could do that to a man.