Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (35 page)

The mind of a vampire in bloodlust was a
crowded place to dwell. The souls of the tormented, now too many to
count, called to her. They told of the many atrocities committed in
her name and all the sorrows they’d experienced by her hand. It was
a price duly paid by the dark princess, but one she came to revel
in over time.

She became engorged by the voices in her head
and sought to see their misery amplified with the souls of all they
knew added to her subconscious. She was pulled from one direction
to the next, lost in a sea of blood with her sanity not far behind.
So when one of the wolves she put down so many times before reached
out and touched her, it was too much to take for her shattered
psyche.

They were laughing, all of them, laughing and
mocking and taunting her with their cruel remarks. She wasn’t
untouchable anymore, worse still, that touch had come from one
mired in filth and fur.

“I was many things in my life,” one of the
voices whispered, “but never was I stained by the grubby paw of a
werewolf.”

“The Lord of the Isles never would’ve stood
for such disregard.”

“I always knew she fancied the touch of a
dog.”

Corina fought to shut the voice out. She
needed to focus on the task at hand and see her business in this
forsaken city come to a close. The distressed, worried look of Akil
Fayed brought the princess back to reality, and in that reality,
her jaw still ached from the wolf’s touch.

“That’s enough,” said Corina with a hand on
the shoulder of her on-again, off-again lover. “I don’t think he’ll
be trying anything that foolish again.”

“You’re going to come with us,” Akil yanked
on the wrist of Lukas to force him in the princess’ direction, but
the young werewolf fought him at every twist and turn. “You filthy
runt, I’ll see this arm ripped clean off if you press me
further!”

The two of them almost came to blows, but a
surprisingly tender hand from Corina Petravic saw both of them cool
down. Akil relinquished his grip from the werewolf’s wrist, yet he
did so with a lingered nail that ran the course of his hand.

“Don’t be rude, habibi,” said a haughty
Corina. “He’s going to come willingly.”

“Why would you ever think that?” Lukas asked.
His hand was cut wide open from the serrated vampire nail, but he
refused to show the dark twosome any ounce of weakness. He would
heal soon enough. Then the struggle would begin anew. However many
times it took until the vampires tired of a bloodless fight.

“Because you’re a good dog,” Corina said as a
serpentine smile crept over her face, “yes, you are.”

“It’s not going to happen.” Lukas stood firm
against his two undead aggressors. With his hand healed, all he
needed was for someone to reach out and try and take him once more.
“I don’t know what kinds of crazy you’ve got going on in your head,
but this union isn’t going to happen.”

She leaned in and crooked her head sideways.
“Who said anything about a union?”

Corina’s laughter, much like the tormented
souls in her head, droned on into the night. Every joke of hers was
a private affair in which she alone was entitled to hear the punch
line.

When Lukas was locked up in her basement
crypt he looked in her and saw a black hole. He saw a woman devoid
of the slightest bit of compassion or warmth, and enriched solely
by the misery of others. Now that he was on free, equal ground, he
looked on her with an entirely new light. The dark princess was a
bottom pit of despair and self-doubt, lost to the world, and as
much separated from others as she was from reality. He pitied her
undead upbringing. He pitied her dreams. He pitied every damn thing
about the girl.

“I’m going to mass produce you, sugar,” she
said with a slow, drawn-out kiss in his direction. “My maker didn’t
quite know what to do with you, but I don’t seem have that problem.
She wanted to make packs of your kind, packs that called them her
queen, as would any vampire, but I see things differently. You’re
too strong, too unpredictable for that. No, I’m going to breed you
like the cattle you were meant to be, but cattle to my exact
specifications; every single one of you. And let me tell you, baby,
you’re all going to
love
me.”

She ran her forked tongue across her lips
slowly, and methodically, in attempt to antagonize the werewolf. It
almost worked, too, and Lukas had to fight the near irresistible
urge to reach out and rip Corina’s slithery tongue from her
mouth.

“A tall task,” said Lukas, visibly shaken,
his lip aquiver in the prospect of devouring her whole, right here
and now. “How does one plan to accomplish such a grand feat? I fear
not even the vampire queen was so bold.”

“I’ve got a buyer lined up,” she said with
unsettling conviction. “While my lady never approved of his sort, I
figure it’s best to hitch my wagon to a rising star, not one that’s
plummeting well past sea level; and when our beloved king perishes
in the fires of Salem, I won’t shed a tear. Few among our race
will, for his death means a new beginning, a greater beginning, in
which we will ascend to previous heights. You should be honored to
be a part of this movement—as should all that survive our rise to
dominance.”

“The vampire kingdom isn’t what it once was,”
said a suddenly demoralized Corina Petravic. One moment she was hot
and the next she was cold. No one could read the dark princess. Not
even Corina, herself, was privy to where her mood would shift next.
“While I don’t blame my brother for that particular failure, he
isn’t the one our kind needs to lead them back to greatness.”

Each word that the dark princess spewed
filled Lukas Wendish with a fire that originated from the centuries
of oppression his people faced at vampires hands. Those were the
dark times for the werewolves of the world. A world they were
forced to flee or face a life of vampire subservience. Corina
Petravic would have those dark times return, and she would use
Lukas to get there.

“Despite our many, many differences,” said
Corina, neither hot nor cold, but instead a blank canvas devoid of
any emotion, “Remus and I shared one commonality in regards to
rule. The vampire race can no longer thrive in the world if we
remain isolated and alone. Allies are needed, and while your mangy
pack of mutts and the broomstick bunch were enough for the soon
departed king, they’re not
quite
up to my standards. Don’t
take it personal, sweetie. It’s just survival, and I am to be the
fittest.”

Lukas looked towards the bodyguard of the
insane monarch. Akil seemed ill at ease with Corina’s remarks. Not
that it would help him much in the fight that was to come. It was a
losing battle, whether he fought against two of them or one.

“Whose business is it to send the world into
such upheaval?” Lukas asked with the hopes of stalling a one-sided
fight. “What you speak will tear national borders apart. Millions
will perish and countless more will be forced to endure a life of
degradation and sorrow. Is that the world the spoiled, little
princess envisions?”

“Won’t it be wonderful?” Corina threw her
arms together and leapt up in a gleeful state. “For too long we’ve
suffered at the hands of lesser beings. In that, you and I are not
alone. All supernatural races will be given the chance to join us
when the time comes. Some will just have more value than others.
The Master wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“You’d call yourself vampire queen and bow to
another?” Lukas asked as his eyes burst alive in an amber aura.
“Remus Castalon’s a lot of sick things, but he’s no errand
boy.”

“Oh, don’t look so pissy,” the dark princess
said with the wave of her hand. “Everyone bows to someone in this
world. I just have the decency to see that my particular someone is
a man of insuperable means. You may call me vile, enemy, but the
hard truth is that one day you’ll come to know the actions that
move me. You’ll come to know of the chosen few that fought for
Earth before, during, and in its dying breaths; but more
importantly, you’ll come to know the untold horrors that await you
on the other side of the Hell Gate.”

“Billions will suffer if the Hell Gate isn’t
lifted from our world,” she continued with a singular mindset, dead
certain that every word she said was a proven fact. “It happened to
the nosferatu home world. It happened to the lycan home world. Now
it’s going to happen to Earth and our vampiric father’s escape from
the nine circles will have been meaningless. Humans and
supernatural, we’ll all become slaves to the arch demons of Hell.
You can save them, Lukas; all the werewolves of the world. Even
that precious, little Elsa Dukane you fancy so much. All you need
to do is come with me. See our races nourished by the offerings we
give them. Let us become destroyers of the gods that once enslaved
our two peoples.”

“Go suck a gutter rat,” he answered with his
feet firmly placed in the ground. He knew the princess was
deranged, off the rails, and barely lucid half the time she spoke.
In spite of herself, Corina Petravic managed to make an inkling of
sense. If any of what she said could be true.

A few months ago, Lukas might’ve taken that
offer to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. He would’ve spared his mother
and father the horrors of war, but those pains had already come to
pass. His father was dead, his mother marked with lesions across
her body, and what remained of his pack soon to be in a fight for
their lives.

He wouldn’t bow down to the dark princess. He
wouldn’t bow down ever again.

“Make no mistake, werepup,” said Corina as
her frame of mind swung back towards the depraved and unrestrained.
“Your essence is mine whether you’re dead or alive. Such
distinctions
don’t matter to my buyer—.”

Lukas heard enough of Corina Petravic and her
supernatural dogma. He struck back at her with and connected with
several blows against her chin and torso. His surprise assault
lasted all but a few seconds before the dark princess countered his
blows with a stiletto to the inner thigh.

Lukas backed off to heal from the deep tissue
wound. He braced for any reprisal sent his way, but none came from
the madwoman in front of him. Instead, she stared back at him with
cold, dead eyes as a wiry smirk spread across her face.

“Yes, yes,” said Corina, as that grin swept
to the upper corners of her cheeks, “become the beast inside. I
want to see all of you!”

As Lukas healed from the last of his wounds
she lashed out with tendrils of nail that tore at the forearm of
Lukas. She raked back and forth in a furious fashion until his
cries of agony were muffled by the sounds of nails against
bone.

“My lady,” a shaken Akil said to his
Technicolor love. “We don’t know far his regeneration has advanced.
If you take off his arm there’s no guarantee it will grow
back.”

Corina ceased her attacks to consider Akil’s
words, but his words held little weight while the blood boiled
inside her. Corina didn’t wait for Lukas’ wounds to heal this time
and kicked off one of her high heeled pumps before she planted a
foot to his midsection.

Lukas was thrown back with enough force to
topple the tree he collided with and both went thrust down to the
ground with force. He tried to rise above the pain, but no matter
how much he willed his legs to lift him, they wouldn’t work under
his command.

His back was broken.

Corina turned dispassionately to her long
term confidant, and said, “It appears this shall be a lesson taken
to heart. Thank the unholy father, really now. How much fun can one
have inflicting punishment when the wounds of the guilty always
heal? Not much fun, that’s for damned sure. At least now we know my
new hordes can be housetrained.”

Lukas caught the scent of another headed
their way. Unlike the dead on the inside vampires that lacked even
a human scent to call their own, a turned werewolf smelled less
like the wolf it resembled and more the demon that once kept them
it chained. He desperately scanned the environment with hopes to
intercede, but that proved impossible when the silhouette of a lone
werewolf appeared behind the dark princess.

The smoke filled air clogged their vampire
senses and allowed a bloodthirsty and berserk Kaleb Ramsey to
approach them unannounced. He threw himself at the undead bodyguard
without abandon for his own wellbeing, in a lust for blood and
battle, and eyes locked on the ashen woman of red and black
patterns.

Kaleb wasn’t attuned to the thought of Lukas,
as the wolves of the pack were, but the pack master didn’t need
attunement to see the man behind the tawny eyes. It wasn’t the wolf
or the moon god that controlled his actions. It was the man deep
inside. He needed to pay for his sins, but for a member of the
warrior caste that could happen only one way. He would pay with
blood, as much as he could spare.

Akil was thrown into the darkness and soon
the teeth of the frenzied werewolf were at the throat of the
vampire princess. The hands of his undead opponent proved quicker
than his feet and, while Kaleb was only a few inches from her cold
flesh, he was grabbed by the nape of his neck.

“What have we here?” Corina asked with her
eyes locked on the pack master, not the rabid wolf that snapped at
her throat. “Someone miss their daddy?”

With her free hand she clamped on to Kaleb’s
snout and drew him in for closer inspection. “This one’s got the
smell of freedom on him and it stinks to high heaven. It appears
your werewolf has trouble following rules. You know how I’d treat
such insolence? Now, you’ll want to pay attention to what happens
next if you’re to have any hand in the birth of your new werewolf
race.”

She stabbed at his throat with the many rows
of fangs that descended from her gaped mouth. What little blood
managed to avoid her widespread lips cascaded to the ground. As the
life drained from his eyes, Kaleb watched with the satisfaction
that came from the knowledge that his sacrifice wouldn’t be in
vain. In the corner of his eye, Kaleb could see Lukas Wendish
approach with fists raised; and this time he moved in for the kill.
This wouldn’t be the rest he wanted, but maybe it would be the rest
he deserved; and as the yellow light faded in his eyes he had only
one man to thank for that privilege.