The cottage was a one bedroom with a tiny living room and efficiency kitchen. It had been so small compared to the doyen’s estate where she’d grown up. She remembered her disappointment as her mother shook the sheets free of the furniture. The memory of her mother’s tinkling laugh seemed to echo in the tiny room.
Don’t worry, baby girl, it’s not so bad. We’ll make it a home.
Swallowing hard to dislodge the sudden emotion that choked her, she stepped forward into the living room, deeper in her nightmares. The windows were boarded up, leaving deep shadows in the corners. One thin stream of golden light angled across the darkened room, slipping through the boards over the windows and glinting over something on the floor. Bending down, she picked it up.
A red glass bead.
Such pretty red beads.
Kel turned in a circle and saw that the beads littered the floor, like they had fifteen years ago. Little droplets glittering in the darkness.
Like blood.
“You were such a pretty little girl.”
Kel rose slowly to her feet. She inhaled deeply, memory seeping in with the familiar scents of the cottage. His smell was acerbic, like antiseptic. Like a hospital. It was the scent that had been so familiar on the dead little girl but that she hadn’t been able to identify.
“Your skin was so soft and smooth. The taste of your blood haunted me. I searched and searched but none of them were right.”
Kel turned slowly to face the man who had stripped her of all her childhood dreams and filled in the golden spaces with nightmares. She wanted her phantom to finally have a face.
It was narrow, his watery eyes widely set and a faded green. His hair was a light brown and pulled severely back at the nape of his neck. His mouth was small, his lips thin. Small white fangs flashed from behind that mouth as he spoke. She remembered the halting walk and she realized he was slightly hunched forward. He didn’t look like the monster that had haunted her all these years. He looked like a sick man. That disabling fear slid from her body. A sick man could die.
“You’re one sick son of a bitch.”
The wistful look on his face dropped away and those thin lips curled in a sneer. “All those years of being a guinea pig in that Triumvirate Disease Center hoping for a cure and here you are.”
Kel’s eyes followed him as he shuffled slowly around her, confident that she would rip his throat out.
“That blood dealer must really hate you. He all but gift wrapped you.”
“Jimmy? We go way back.” Kel cast a look around the dilapidated cottage. “Where is my little friend? I have a gift for him.” Kel lifted her hand palm up and her long sharp claws slid out with a hiss.
“Now, now, now, my little kitten. Sheathe your claws. You don’t wish anything to happen to that sweet little thing Jimmy took from that witch. Put your hands out, my dear. We wouldn’t want you trying to warn the other.”
Kel felt her heart slam against her chest as he shuffled in closer and clipped something cold and smooth over one of her wrists. She didn’t have to think too hard to guess what it was.
“What others? I thought this was about you and me.”
“How very self-absorbed of you. They are all going to pay for taking my birthright from me, and you are going to help me kill them.”
Kel sneered but fear pumped cold and dark through her veins. Could she choose between Gabe and Madison?
He snapped another silver band around her wrist and ran one soft, pale finger up her arm, tracing the thin blue lines of her veins.
“Did you know that in ancient times the doyen would have many women in his House to bleed? They all wore silver bracelets to make sure they behaved. If they were obedient and pleased him he might even have them set with jewels.”
Kel lifted her wrists up and eyed the wide silver bands. “Lucky them.”
“Unfortunately, since the disease began the elders became more discerning in their doyen’s bedmates. They attempted to breed out the mutated gene.”
“Which obviously didn’t work for you.”
The slap snapped her head to the side. Her claws immediately shot from her fingers, but he shuffled a step away with a hissing sound. “Think of the child, my dear. If I die she will die.”
Kel took a deep breath to control herself and retracted her claws.
“Good girl. Think of the little girl’s safety as your jeweled bracelet. If you please me she will live. If you do not…” He shuffled in closer to her, and she stiffened as he reached out to run his thumb over her lip. There was one drop of crimson on the pale digit as he slipped it past his thin lips with a sigh.
Kel thought she was going to be sick.
“Isn’t it ironic? We’ve come full circle.” He stepped away and circled the room with that shuffling gait. “How appropriate, don’t you think?”
Kel let her gaze roam over the room and struggled to bring the layout of the cottage from her memory. She and her mother hadn’t been there long. Maybe a few days. Her mother had seemed so lost after her grandfather died, as though she wasn’t quite sure how to get along. That day her mom had seemed even more agitated than usual and then the man had come. This man.
“Your mother was such a gullible thing. I knew I was going to blood you from the moment you stepped foot on our complex. I’m not permitted to drink from a source, you see. House law. Those with the disease suffer from severe anemia, and they were afraid the survival instinct would kick in and I would drain my source. But I knew you would be different.”
Kel curled her lip in disgust. “I was twelve, you perv.”
“Yes, and so sweet. I wanted to savor you, but your blood was quite a surprise for me, my dear. For a brief time I felt stronger, nearly whole. I first thought it was from my drinking directly from a source but that turned out to be false. I knew it was you.” His gaunt face darkened. “But your mother surprised me. I thought I had her under control.”
Kel turned to watch him shuffle behind her as a memory surfaced. “You told her you were going to be doyen.” Gabe’s father hadn’t sent her away. She’d spent most of her life hating a man who probably thought she was dead.
His laugh was harsh. “Yes, and she believed me. At the time I hadn’t understood how close your blood could take me to that. But she hid you away and refused to tell me where. You should be proud of her. She held out right to the end, taking her secret with her.”
“You killed her,” Kel said slowly as the truth dawned. Once she’d finally escaped from the Triumvirate home, she’d hated her mother too much to care what happened to her and then she’d turned her back on her past completely. Never to look back until Gabe.
“Ah, yes…well, in this instance the elders were quite right. I couldn’t control my thirst, and I drained her. I had to make it look like a suicide. You see, my brother felt responsible for your disappearance and would not let it be. My father somehow knew of it and sent me away to that research hospital. They took everything from me. Liam got everything that should have been mine.”
Little bits of saliva collected in the corners of his mouth and sprayed out as he spoke. Kel recoiled in disgust. Physically she could easily overpower him but then what of Madison? Did Jimmy still have her? What if he was instructed to kill her?
“But now I have you, my dear. When I blood you I will be able to make them all pay, even that interfering mate of yours.”
He reached out and gripped her wrist, ran his thumb over the pulse on her inner arm as he lifted it to his mouth. There was a sharp pain as his fangs sank into her flesh and an intense burning as he began to drink from her. She swallowed down the bile and turned her head away as he fed greedily from her arm, making little mewling sounds while his wet, disgusting mouth moved over her skin.
In her mind she saw Gabe’s beautiful green eyes and remembered the feel of his hard body pressing against hers as he drank from her. With him it felt right. Sacred. His arms cradled her, giving her the feeling of being cherished. She wanted to reach out to him, but she couldn’t risk his life, not again.
A flush of cold infused her skin and the air hissed from her lungs as her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground. He followed her down, finally tearing his mouth from her and jerking back on the floor.
Her blood stained his lips crimson as he gasped for air and gave a lusty laugh. “It’s so much better than I thought. I can feel everything.” His eyes blinked as he glanced around the room. “I see every detail, even in the dark.” His laugh rumbled through the room as he came up to his feet and looked down at her. “My dear, you look a little peaked. Let’s get you to bed.”
He bent down and lifted her easily into his arms, and her head lolled back against his arm. He carried her down the hall of the little cottage into the basement and laid her on the floor.
“I brought you company, my sweet.”
Kel rolled her head to the side when she heard the whimper. Gagged and bound, little Madison curled up against the wall.
“I’ll be back, my dear. I need to have a little talk with my brother, the doyen.”
LIAM WAS SITTING in his inner office, his head tilted back against the top of his leather chair. The elders had just retreated to their private meeting chambers to confer. It hadn’t looked good for his son. The elders believed allowing their future doyen to breed with a woman not of pure blood would weaken their race.
“Brother.”
Liam sat up with a sigh. “Maxim, I fear they will expel him.”
“They just don’t understand the strength, the power his crossbreed mate’s blood can offer.”
With a frown Liam came to his feet and glanced around, realizing he had not heard the door. “Maxim, how did you get in here?”
“It’s incredible, brother. I feel strong, so incredibly strong. I never realized how alive it makes you feel to shimmer.” He disappeared and reappeared next to his younger brother. “I’m finally whole.”
“Whole?” Liam’s eyes traveled over his brother, understanding slowly dawning on him. “It was you. You killed those girls. Why?” Liam asked.
“Because they made me feel strong. For just a little while I was the man I should have been if I hadn’t gotten the defective gene. I was you.” Maxim shimmered to the other side of his brother. “You had everything that should have been mine. Everything!” Saliva foamed at his lips. “Now, I can take it all back.”
“I never took from you, Maxim. I tried to give you all I could. To include you.” Liam tried to placate his brother. He’d been raised to care for his sick brother, to protect him. He’d even brought him back from the Disease Control Center their father had sent him to after the Mackinaw woman had committed suicide. Liam’s green eyes widened on the sudden realization. “It was you. You killed that little girl all those years ago. Father suspected it.”
Maxim smiled. “Oh, what an imagination you have, brother. I didn’t kill that girl. I just took one small taste, and her mother panicked and hid her from me.”
“I thought you loved Mary Mackinaw. You tried so hard to find her daughter.”
“I hated that crazy bitch. It was her beautiful little daughter I craved.”
Liam’s face twisted in disgust. “You must be held accountable for your crimes, Maxim. The elders –”
“The elders will never know, brother. Did you think I would let you keep this from me?” His arms swept out to encompass the private office of the doyen. “This is my right. And now that I am whole I will take it all back.”
Liam stepped back away from the unholy light in his brother’s eyes. “How?”
Maxim smiled. “Your son. He stumbled upon a little secret. The blood of his mate can heal.” He clenched a fist and stared down at it. “And the power and strength is incredible.”
“What have you done?” Liam stepped back in horror. If his brother killed the crossbreed it would mean the death of Gabrial.
“I haven’t killed her. Yet.” Maxim’s smile revealed the sharp point of his fangs. “I wanted to share my good news with you, brother. Like you have shared everything with me.”
Liam didn’t see the knife until it was too late.
“We’ve made him comfortable but he lost too much blood. I’m terribly sorry, my lady.”
Gabe felt his chest tighten at the words of the doctor. Laying his hand on his mother’s shaking shoulder he stared down at the pale face of his father. He was lying quietly, a tube coming from the base of his throat, breathing for him. Someone had slit his throat and stabbed him more than twenty times.
They didn’t think he’d last the night.
He needed Kel. He wanted to hold her in his arms and absorb her warmth into his body. But he couldn’t leave his father’s side and he wouldn’t endanger Kel by bringing her here.
His Uncle Maxim sat in a chair next to his father’s hospital bed, his face lined with grief. “You must ascend, Gabrial.”
“No.” Gabe shook his head. “Not until Father is gone. As long as he breathes he is the doyen. I will not believe he is dying.” Gabe stared down at his father and thought of Dr. Mahoney. Could she save his father?
He embraced his mother and kissed her temple. She silently sobbed into a tissue. “I know some brilliant doctors, Mother. If he can be saved they will know how. I’m going to call them. Uncle Maxim will stay with you until I return. Uncle?”
Maxim turned bleak eyes on him. “Yes, of course. We must try. Go, I will sit with them.”
Gabe shimmered into his father’s inner office. Blood splattered the walls and stained the thick, wine-colored carpeting. His stomach clenched at the sight of so much blood. His father was not going to die. He turned away and used the phone on the side bar and dialed the main line at Incog and requested Dr. Mahoney’s lab.
“Marshal Ferrar.” Dr. Mahoney’s lilting voice answered the phone. “Do none of you carry your phones? I’ve been trying to reach Kel all evening with new information. Dr. Tanner has made a very astute observation about the evidence in your case. She –”
“Kel is resting at her apartment,” Gabe interrupted, ice congealing in the bottom of his stomach.
“Well, of course I called there after I could not reach her on her cellular phone. We may have pertinent information on your killer.”