Authors: Melody Johnson
Dominic nodded, still reserved. “Fair enough.”
“But my brother is out there, just outside these walls and above this coven, and at the moment, there’s nothing I can do to save him.” I shook my head, sorrow squeezing my throat. “Nathan’s a monster, and we’re going to have to kill him to stop him.” My voice squeaked on a sob at those last words.
Dominic walked passed me to the bed and climbed under the comforter.
I watched him cautiously, my eyes narrowed.
He patted the space next to him on the bed.
“Seriously?” I asked, looking down at the blood and dirt stains spread liberally over my clothing and then deliberately at Bex’s clean sheets. “I don’t think so.”
He smiled, showing the full, lethal length of his fangs. “I promise not to bite.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m filthy. You could probably wring the blood from my shirt it’s so soaked.”
“Bex won’t be surprised by a little blood on the sheets. I’m sure she keeps spares in the closet, as do I, for just such occations,” Dominic said, dismissing my concerns with a flick of his wrist at the linen closet. “I have a story to tell you, and perhaps after you’ve heard my tale, you will gain a modicum of hope concerning your brother.”
I inhaled sharply. Hope was Dominic’s fangs against my neck, that poignant fear of my destruction should I concede, intermixed with the pain of the unknown should I resist. “You think we can save Nathan?”
“I think you owe it to him and yourself to try. He is already gone from you, so what do you have left to lose?” Dominic patted the bed again.
I sighed heavily and reluctantly conceded. I climbed under the comforter next to him and snuggled into its warmth with an even heavier sigh. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until the warmth of the sheets, comforter, and mattress surrounded me.
“I healed you the best I could under the circumstances, but you need to rest and drink more fluids.” Dominic looked around, and his gaze, so penetrating, seemed to look through walls. “I wonder if Bex keeps an IV in the coven.”
“No IV,” I said quickly. The last time Dominic had fitted me with an IV, he’d pumped me full of morphine. I was already resisting Jillian’s cravings. I didn’t need more of my own. “I’m healing just fine.”
Dominic flashed me a look from the corner of his eyes. “I’ve never met someone so incredibly stubborn about her wellbeing. You would benefit from medical attention.”
“I agree. It’s too bad there aren’t any trained medical personnel here to administer that attention,” I said pointedly.
“My coven and I have survived for hundreds of years without doctors and nurses tending our wounds.”
I leveled a flat look at him. “That’s easy to say when your blood is rapidly self-healing and you don’t age.”
Dominic cracked a smile. “Some vampires in my coven heal rather slowly compared to me, and in those cases, I have administered my fair share of medical treatment.”
I shook my head. “I thought you mentioned something about a story. Something that was supposed to give me a scrap of hope for my brother.”
“Keep perspective in mind, but to be honest, I believe we have a little more than a scrap,” Dominic said. He slouched into the covers until he was buried up to his chest in pink bedspread. “We have an inch or two of hope at best.”
I shimmied onto my side to face him, my head in my hand and my elbow propped on the pillow. “Funny.”
“I’ve been trying,” Dominic said, and his expression as he turned his head to face me said it all.
I’ve been trying for you
.
“Well,” I said on a swallow, “what can we do? What makes you think we have any chance at all?”
“When I found her, Jillian was one of the Damned.”
I stared at Dominic in silence as that statement and its implications sunk into my brain. “What?” I asked, shocked.
Dominic smiled ruefully at my reaction. “Let me start from the beginning. This particular story took root when my younger brother and I were turned. After our transformation, we didn’t understand what we had become. Unlike you, we’d never encountered vampires during our human existence, and we didn’t readily accept our new life. We certainly didn’t readily accept its limitations as described by our Master: avoid sunlight, drink blood, everlasting life. We questioned the existence of our immortal souls, and we resented our Master for damning us to an afterlife in hell.”
I closed my mouth, realizing it was gaping. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“He wasn’t around often. As first-born, I was to inherit my father’s trade, so I worked with him in his shop. Desirius helped in the shop when he was younger, but once he was of age, he enlisted in the military. I rarely saw him through the years, maybe two or three times before we were transformed.”
I frowned. The name Desirius nagged at a distant memory. I’d heard that name before, but I couldn’t place it.
“Although I resented our Master, he was the only being who could teach me what I’d become, how to survive, and eventually, grow into the best version of that being possible. After years of his encouragement and praise as I surpassed his power, he became a second father to me.”
I bit my lip, suspecting where the story was headed. “And your brother? Did Desirius stay and learn from your Master, too?”
Dominic shook his head. “No. As he had in his human life when faced with competition of our inheritance, Desirius left us to find his own way, to carve his own path. He learned from experience and the vampires he met along his journey, but he didn’t believe all of the limitations that bound him. Avoiding sunlight and drinking blood are easy enough to prove, but more complicated matters, like Masters being the only of our kind able to transform night bloods into vampires, were more difficult for him to accept.”
The name Desirius finally clicked in my memory, and I gasped softly. “Desirius was Jillian’s Master.”
Dominic nodded. “They fell in love while she was a night blood. He joined her intended coven to remain near her, but he wanted to be the vampire to complete her transformation. Eventually, so did she.”
“Why would the current Master allow that? Why wasn’t Desirius stopped?” I asked.
“He waited until the Leveling, when the current Master was powerless, and then he transformed other night bloods.”
I frowned. “Not Jillian?”
“He thought it would work, but he wouldn’t risk failing the first time with Jillian. So he experimented on other night bloods to perfect his technique. The creatures he transformed were Damned—horrific, mindless creatures who killed on sight—but as Desirius continued his experiments, the creatures became less mindless and slightly less horrific. He kept them caged beneath the coven, boxed in silver where no one would find them, not even Jillian. Similar, actually, to how I’ve contained Jillian now.”
“Eventually his experiments were a success because he was able to turn Jillian, right?” I asked.
“Wrong. The creatures escaped their imprisonment and killed Jillian. They drained her nearly dry, and when every last drop of life had been stolen from her, they tried to eat her heart.”
The image of Nathan eating Officer Montgomery’s heart flashed over my vision. I swallowed the bile that rose in the back of my throat. “But?”
Dominic smiled. “But Desirius saved her before they could steal her heart and gave her his blood to transform her into a vampire.”
“And it worked on her this time,” I insisted. “She transformed into a vampire.”
“No,” Dominic said. “She transformed into one of the Damned.”
I slid down into the comforter and laid on my back, my head on the pillow next to Dominic instead of facing him. “I don’t understand. When I met Jillian, she was a normal vampire, her betrayal aside,” I added at the skeptical look he shot me. “She wasn’t one of the Damned.”
“Exactly. She was one of the Damned when
I
met her, and we were able to transform her into a normal vampire, despite having risen as the Damned first.”
“Oh,” I said, barely daring to hope, but a kernel of nervous warmth spread through me. “You think Nathan could be transformed into a vampire, too?”
Dominic nodded. He propped himself up on his elbow to face me. “I think there’s a chance. Make no mistake, the other night bloods who rose as the Damned died as the Damned. The damage done to them was irreparable. They killed on sight and massacred thousands of people—humans, night bloods, and vampires alike. Jillian was the only one capable of being saved.”
I bit my lip, thinking of Nathan eating Officer Montgomery’s heart and all the other people he had already massacred. “What was different about Jillian?”
“Love,” Dominic said, and by his tone it sounded as if even after all this time, he didn’t quite believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “And the fact that Desirius
had
improved upon the transformation with practice, but ultimately, love was what saved her. She didn’t kill Desirius when he confronted her, like she had killed others. She hesitated, almost as if in recognition of him and her former feelings for him, and it gave us the chance we needed to kill her.”
“Why were you there? Were you part of your brother’s coven?”
“No, I was visiting. Word of the massacres and rumors of the existence of vampires were growing in the human population. I was there to find the source of the rumors and stop them. When I realized what my brother had done, it was only a matter of time before the Day Reapers came to rectify the situation. The Damned population was completely out of control.”
“The Day Reapers are your government, right?”
“Yes, essentially. Masters ensure that their covens prosper in anonymity, and the Day Reapers ensure that Masters are keeping control of their covens. They are the most powerful of our kind and able to withstand sunlight.”
I took a deep breath. “So what happened? How did you save Jillian if you killed her?”
“The Damned are unstoppable. As you’ve probably noticed, their scales are impenetrable, and their strength and speed can’t be rivaled.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
“But as her maker, Desirius had a modicum of control over her. His fangs could penetrate her skin. He drained her, and then I gave her my blood, the blood of a Master.” Dominic sighed. “And then I killed Desirius.”
I stared at him. “You killed your brother?”
Dominic nodded. “He’d created a horde of monsters that massacred thousands and exposed the existence of vampires. If Jillian hadn’t been harmed, he would have happily continued his experiments. He didn’t want vampires to remain a secret, to remain creatures of the night. Jillian agreed with Desirius, but after her experience, I’d thought her views had changed.” Dominic was silent for a moment, staring down at the sheet between us. “I was obviously wrong about her.”
I shook my head, stuck on one specific detail. “But he was your brother.”
“The Day Reapers would have made an example of him to discourage other Masters from the path he chose. I spared him their torture,” he whispered. “The memory of him and the rift between us still haunts me, but I take comfort in the fact that I protected him from the Day Reapers.”
“Spare me your protection,” I murmered.
“We heal instantly from devastating wounds, Cassidy. Torture for one of our kind in the hands of a Day Reaper can last several years without reprieve,” Dominic said, his words clipped. “It was a fate he begged me to avert, and I willingly abliged.”
“And Jillian?” I whispered.
“She transformed into a vampire, no worse for having first transformed into the Damned, and although she grieved Desirius’ loss, as did I, she understood his fate otherwise. She forgave me. Supposedly,” Dominic added. “When it comes to Jillian, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“So correct me if I’m wrong, but let me see if I understand the implications of this tale,” I said carefully. “You want to drain Nathan and then give him your blood to transform him into a vampire?”
“I’ll give him my blood to transform him, but I won’t be the one to drain him.”
I frowned. “If not you, who?”
“His maker transformed him into the creature he is, and she is the only one capable of taking it back.”
I sighed warily. “She?”
Dominic didn’t even hesitate. “Jillian, of course.”
“Of course,” I rolled my eyes. “How do you know Jillian’s to blame for Nathan’s transformation? It could be anyone.”
Dominic shook his head. “No, it couldn’t. Jillian believed that she, like Desirius, could transform a night blood, and she’s the only vampire I know motivated enough to try.”
“Fine. Let’s assume Jillian is Nathan’s maker. How do you suppose she drains him? Before or after he eats her heart for dinner?”
Dominic’s smile was sheepish. I knew that look and his intension behind it before he even uttered a single word. “Now that we know Nathan is hunting you, we shouldn’t have any trouble locating him.
“You want to use me as bait,” I said flatly. “Again.”
“Don’t think of it as bait,” Dominic said quickly. Too quickly. “I—”
“We’ve gone down this road before, and it didn’t end well for me!”
“As I recall, it ended very well. We took back control of my coven, and we both survived. I consider that a win.”
“I suffered! Kaden broke my leg, my ribs, and my arm. He snapped my finger and nearly drained me,” I shouted. “I suffered terribly.”
Dominic leaned forward. “And it was worth it. Think about it, Cassidy. This is your brother we’re talking about this time, not my coven. Will you risk temporary suffering for the chance to save him?”
Fuck
, I thought. When he put it in those terms, there was no question. “Of course,” I ground out.
“So you lure him, Jillian drains him, I give him my blood, and to seal the transformation, I kill his maker.”
I blinked. “You kill Jillian?”
“You’ll finally get the execution you’ve been waiting for.” Dominic’s smile turned wary. “I will do what is necessary to protect us from the Day Reapers. If I don’t instill order to their satisfaction, they will.”
I pursed my lips, not entirely convinced. “What if his maker is Kaden? You don’t know for sure that Jillian did this, and Kaden’s already dead.”