King of Darkness (3 page)

What. The. Fuck? It was far from common to meet a human who knew of their kind, period. This one was apparently the patron saint of handing Blow Pops to vampire ravers. Perhaps she and the male were intimate? Sure, occasional trysts were common, but usually the human came away none the wiser as to who or what they had really been involved with. This human… Alexia… she
knew.
Then again, his father had once had a relationship with a human. Maybe it wasn’t all that crazy.

Thad was busy pondering all the ways that his perception of reality had been shot to shit in the past hour when he realized that Lee was talking. To the human girl.

“Friend of yours or something?” Thad was surprised to see a touch of animosity glittering in Lee’s blue-green eyes, but Lee had never been fond of interacting with humans. Certainly he would be bothered by the fact that the male who’d just walked off seemed to have a connection with this one. Or maybe it was the wine. In all the time Thad had known Lee, he’d never seen his friend so much as drink a beer, let alone something stronger.

Alexia hadn’t missed Lee’s attitude, either. She took a step back, like maybe she had changed her mind about being helpful.

Uh, yeah
. Thad cleared his throat. “Look. Just tell Isabel…” The words were thick and awkward and didn’t want to come out of his throat. “I’m her king. And I need to speak with her.”

The girl’s eyes widened, but then she nodded in a manner that was far too perky for the wee hours of the morning and did another 180 to leave.

Alexia headed toward the opposite corner while Thad’s previous words to her rattled around in his head. “Fuck!
Seriously?
” he exploded, suddenly irritated by his own sophomoric stupidity. “Maybe you could talk to her for me? Could I
be
a bigger pussy right now?” He scrubbed his hands across his face for what seemed like the tenth time since they’d entered the club. At this rate he’d be fully exfoliated before the night was through.

Lee relaxed against the wall and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Nah,” he said shaking his head slightly. “It was a good move. Less likely that she bolts if it comes at her from someone she knows.”

“Maybe I should’ve passed a note in fucking gym class.”

The older male shook his head. “You’re being too hard on yourself. It’s a tough situation.”

“That’s touching, man. Thanks.”

“Fuck you.”

Thad let out a low chuckle. Lee clammed up and continued his vigilant survey of the room. Both watched as Alexia bent slightly at the waist to speak into Isabel’s ear. Even for a human the girl was tiny. Tinier seen from across the way.

Isabel’s reaction was nearly imperceptible. For a second Thad wondered if perhaps she’d decided to just ignore them. Not that he’d blame her, but his best plan B was to muscle her out of there caveman-style. It wasn’t an option he relished, but he hadn’t come all this way just to leave without talking to her.

She rose slowly, though, gently sweeping her tongue along the blonde’s neck and murmuring some kind of sweet nothings into the human’s ear as she vacated her lap. Probably wiped the woman’s memory of the whole erotic experience. The blonde rose from the chair without a word and headed toward the stairs.

More words were exchanged across the way. Isabel was the one to stoop down, now that she was out of the chair. Her back was mostly turned to them, giving a fantastic view of her legs and a peek at her curvaceous ass coming from under her skirt. She cast a quick glance in their direction. Furrowed her brow. Another glance. More furrowing. More talking. That brow was beginning to resemble a relief map. Still more talking. Some eyebrow raising. A “what the hell?” gesture.

Abruptly, Isabel turned to face them. Her intense frown shifted to something more thoughtful as she cocked her head to one side and started toward them.

God. Damn
. Forgoing the speed with which their kind was able to move, she advanced slowly, purposefully. Thad’s cock throbbed and his gut clenched with each fall of her thigh-high boots on the floor. Dark shadows caressed her long legs and shapely body, and as her face came into full view, he noticed a slight smile curling the corners of a very generous mouth. Jesus… so sweet and angelic… but she was wearing such a naughty schoolgirl getup. The combo was as dizzying as the inexplicable realization that had just arrowed straight into his soul:
This
was
his
female.

He couldn’t begin to explain it, but as she drew nearer, Thad was caught in her gravitational pull. That was, until she did a sudden deer-in-headlights and then broke for the bathrooms. “Shit!”

He was on the verge of taking off after her when his guard’s paw gripped his shoulder. “Do it, and we’ll have to clear the memories of everyone on this floor.” Lee jerked his head across the way. “Besides, we’ve got her. She left the friend.”

Thad nodded and started toward Alexia, who had the look of a person who knew she had just been screwed. He had to hand it to the girl: she kept her head held up proudly. But a defensive stance and minute chin tremble gave away her unease. Poor thing. Sometimes it didn’t pay to be helpful.

Despite Anton’s best effort, his body went cold and his blood pressure spiked as he was led into a large, dimly lit room. The walls were bare cinder block, and the ceiling was very low, only clearing his head by a few inches. It was one of the spaces used for sacrificial rituals, and the stale air was thick with the stench of dried blood and fear.

At one end of the room, upon a low, roughly carved throne, sat the Master, his dark robes blending into the shadows, his black eyes glimmering in the darkness. He was the eldest and strongest of the wizards. Their founder, so he claimed.

The man was the greatest evil Anton had ever known, and growing up in his charge had been completely soul rending. It took someone truly fucked in the head to cut open all those vampires day after day, year after year. Anton always half expected to see a gnarled old set of talons peeking out from the arms of the man’s robe in place of hands.

Flanking the Master on both sides were two other groups of wizards in dark, hooded robes, a few dozen in all. Their heads were shaven like Anton’s and their faces obscured. Only Petros’s face was visible, his cruel jade eyes glinting with a spark of satisfaction as he folded his arms in front of his chest and stepped in with the group. Were it not for that evil gleam, he and Anton would look an awful lot alike.

No doubt his half brother had wanted him dead for some time. Perhaps all of them had. For Anton, being the son of the great and powerful Master had held a status akin to that of dog shit on the bottom of a shoe.

“What do you have to say for yourself, son?”

Anton bent low at the waist. It was an act of habit, not reverence. “Master—”

“Think you will save yourself by bowing before me now?”

“No, Master.” He straightened. “I have failed you. I am prepared to accept the repercussions.”

“And you shall, my son. Most certainly, you shall. First, though, what explanation do you have to offer me?”

Anton cleared his throat and worked to breathe through a windpipe that was trying to close. Willed his heart to calm the hell down. He was going to die. He knew that. But the base instinct of every living thing is to survive, and a sudden panic tried to pull him under. If he had any chance of protecting Tyra, this needed to look good. He would not be weak. He would
not
show fear.

Here
goes
. “Children, my lord. There were young children around… I could not do violence in their presence. And I believe that we cannot claim Tyra Morgan’s power, so the effort would have been wasted. The effort and the collateral damage would not have been worthwhile. She’s of no use to you.”

The Master’s laugh was a deceptively hearty rumble. “You have always been weak, son. Such a bleeding heart. Too much like your mother. Had I known, I would have killed you myself upon your birth. Maybe even before.”

Sick
bastard.

“I’m sorry, my lord.” Anton couldn’t begin to understand what else one might say in response to that. There had never been any love between the two men, but the implication that Anton’s father would have cut Anton out of the womb? Or what? Killed his mother while she was with child? It made his stomach turn.

The Master was trying to bait him. None of the wizards knew where they came from. The Master made sure of that. It helped him to ensure total control.

As if to prove that dominance, the Master raised a hand. It was a casual gesture. Had the man been standing on a street corner, it might have been mistaken for an attempt to hail a cab or a halfhearted wave to a friend. But with the lift of that hand, Anton’s robe came open and was swept off his body. It landed with a whisper somewhere behind him. So it wasn’t enough that Anton was going to die; he was going to have to do it naked.

He should have seen this coming.

The coal-black eyes of his father bored into him. There was a dare or a challenge in there, but Anton couldn’t really think about that because the Master’s hand remained poised aloft, still as death itself. Anton wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his heart hammered even faster. Seconds ticked by, echoing loudly in his head as he waited for a hint of movement from the appendage. One twitch could end it all for Anton.

The hand, as they say, was quicker than the eye. By the time Anton had registered the quirk of the Master’s lip and the simultaneous flex of fingers, a searing, white-hot pain had streaked across his side and he doubled over. He looked down to find a deep slash crossing his torso and rib cage. Blood welled up from the gash in his skin.

“You’re lying to me, son. Perhaps you should like to rethink your response?”

Anton gritted his teeth and straightened. “No. Not lying, Master.”

Another flick of his father’s hand. Another slash of skin, this from his upper thigh. Some screaming. His own, apparently.

“She was a prostitute, you know. Your mother.”

The Master’s finger swung through the air like a conductor’s baton, and two more searing cuts were made across Anton’s chest. Another dangerously close to where Anton thought his jugular might be. Another harsh cry was pulled from his throat. He focused on staying off the floor, but the pain and cold made his body tremble. “I don’t… care. About my mother. Master. You raised me sufficiently.” He couldn’t believe for the life of him that the Master bought that lie, but there was no indication either way.

“So.” His father rose and strode toward him. “You did not want to harm the poor little children, and you didn’t think there was use in acquiring the female because she’s ‘too human.’ Do I understand that right?”

Anton continued to pant and heave. He swallowed some bile that had shot into his throat and tried not to grimace at the burn. “I admit… has never been in me to kill… my lord… the children… it was too much.”

“Ah, but you were not asked to kill. You were asked to bring Tyra Morgan to me. She has unique abilities, and I intend to study them. She is a key to furthering our cause.”

And
what
exactly
is
our
cause, you sick freak? Cutting vampires open just to hear them scream?
As far as Anton knew, the Master did not have the power to read his thoughts but the subtle smile on the old man’s face almost seemed to answer him.

“I was… only able to find her at the shelter… collateral damage… too likely…” Stupid, stupid. He’d already said that. Anton allowed his body to sag just a little. The slick of blood and sweat made it difficult to keep his hands braced on his thighs. “Besides, we don’t even know for certain that she has multiple powers. I didn’t witness any when I was tracking her.”

His father took a step closer, and Anton was struck by how much smaller than himself the man was. Maybe it was the way he wielded his powers, but Anton had always seen his father as larger than life. But now? The Master stood a good few inches shorter than Anton’s six feet, and he was much thinner. Almost scrawny. Didn’t the guy ever eat?

“Surely you must have. How else did she manage to slip into and out of the shelter without you being able to track her?”

Anton managed to stand a little straighter. For the briefest second he wondered if perhaps he could overpower his father physically. A glance over the man’s shoulder at the restless huddle of underlings put the kibosh on that idea fairly quickly. “One power, my lord. We have established that she is able to transport herself in some way without being detected. A single power is nothing unusual.”

“But her father had the power of fire.”

Yeah, he had hoped that the Master didn’t know about that. If she hadn’t inherited the power to teleport from her father and her mother had been human, that certainly left a gaping hole in his argument. But what if… “It could be from her mother.”

“You must think me a fool, son.”

“I d—”

“Silence.” The command came out in a quiet growl.