Inhaling, the trail he followed was stronger when the zillions of forest pines didn’t mask it so heavily. He knew exactly where the Vampire coven was, though not wanting to risk running into them, he wanted to take his sweet time getting there. His own scent needed to remain concealed from them as well. It was only a matter of time before Aiden would find exactly what he wanted. Bait. A decoy. A distraction. A lure. Something the band of leeches would leave thoughtlessly behind.
Looking up, he could see hundreds of stars glittering overhead through the thick blanket of winter clouds. It was to snow again any moment. The chill that might once have bothered him did not as he stood as still as he possibly could in the center of the road. Shirtless. Bootless. Careless. He preferred it this way. The new feeling of the cold air against his skin was actually energizing, though a black scarf masked the bottom half of his face. The earth came alive beneath him in an entirely new way, as though it had a pulse. And while he devised his revenge, exploring this different life would only be half the fun.
He turned to glance in the distant direction of the Bohemian Occult—the place he’d once called home. Getting to Charlotte would be too easy, but that wasn’t what he wanted now. He could hear Valek’s wild trepidations from miles away—how he feared the day when they would meet face to face again. No. Aiden didn’t want that to happen yet. He wanted Valek to sit in his sick stew of fear and self-loathing for a while. He wanted him to suffer for as long as possible while Aiden carried out this new plan. A grander one. A plan that Valek’s band of idiots and misfits could never intercept.
Aiden spun on his naked heels and began running in the clear opposite direction. He continued to run toward that harsh Vampire smell. He picked up on something else also. The smell of iron and rust. Blood. Just several yards to the north, where he knew there was a tiny, human village. Just like he’d anticipated. Easy. Vampires had such little self-control. He understood that fact better, now that he was closer to being one. A new creature caught in the in-between of light and darkness. His father would definitely disown him, that was, if he was even still alive. So would the rest of whatever was left of the Regime, knowing Vladislov would have never wanted a creature so vile to take his place. Aiden had been exiled for what he had become. For catching the ‘disease’. Quarantined for eternity. But he no longer cared to rule the Regime. He had broadened his horizons. There was more power to be had. A dark chuckle bubbled from his chest as he continued to run.
His hair whipped wildly around his face in the wind. He ran faster than a mortal-made train. Unseen, and deliciously invisible to the world. The next town to the north was only a few kilometers ahead of him, though that would only take him about forty-five seconds. And finally, he reached its border.
The road continued down a steep hill before it forked off to varying parts of the village, which was eerily silent. The only sound Aiden could hear was the harsh January wind blustering through the open windows of these modest homes and over the cold shingles of the rooftops. The silence was almost deafening. He proceeded forward slowly through the bleakness.
Kojakovice had been left in shambles, just as Aiden expected. Those parasites were never careful, especially now they thought they’d found freedom. The putrid smell of death and dying made bile lift in the back of his throat as he treaded through the ransacked streets, disbelieving that a single coven could be responsible for this much destruction. The village’s population had only started out at around a few hundred, he guessed as he assessed his surroundings. One general shop. A tavern. A few modest brick homes with the lights on and the doors left wide, though this discovery only made his devious plan seem that much easier.
He stopped walking, closing his eyes to listen further for any sort of movement or life.
A few yards away, a bird rustled the snow off a branch. But that was it until another moment went by, when he finally heard a faint and fairly familiar sound. It was wet and even sounded warm somehow…if noise could even take on the characteristic of being warm. It thudded once. And again. It was living, and sounded as if it was submerged under something thicker than water.
Aiden stepped forward in the direction of the noise. A human heartbeat, he finally deducted. He felt a grin spread across the part of his face covered by the black scarf. His gaze shifted across the empty street toward the sound until it was finally met with the cause. A single, human arm lay extended from behind an open threshold of one of the houses. Aiden raced to it and pushed the door open farther to see that the arm continued on to the rest of the dying male human that lay before him on the floor. His breathing was shallow, and he was young—only about eighteen, Aiden guessed. His heartbeat was so faint; Aiden knew there was no way this person would survive. He was dying quickly. Perfect.
Aiden moved to the boy’s side and carefully turned him over and on to his back, taking in a sharp breath of shock when he saw the human’s face. The identical, angular features. The eyes, with the exception of that immortal, deathly color. Uncanny. But, this was impossible. His brow furrowed as he watched the boy’s familiar eyes slit open to peer at him, a soft moan slipping out from between his pale, blue lips. His breath formed in clouds of mist in front of his face as he shivered there on the ground. In his fist, he clutched a crumpled piece of paper. Gripping the boy’s wrist, he pried his cold fingers open, snatching the document. Unfolding it, he revealed the indigo symbol of the Dark City. His breath caught in his throat as he scanned the words for the impossible information he had just uncovered. This finding certainly changed the game. It was as if every piece was falling so perfectly into place.
“How did you get this?” Aiden hissed frantically, the shaking the parchment in the boy’s face. “Who gave this to you?”
He was so close to death, demanding a reply would have been senseless. How had this average human ended up with knowledge that Aiden himself never even possessed? The legendary city of Abelim was real! And what was more was that this lonely human was linked to the whole affair. But did he know it?
“Boy, can you hear me?” Aiden continued, stroking the dark hair away from the boy’s face. His throat had been ravaged so brutally, Aiden wondered if this mortal would ever be able to speak again. Even after saving.
The boy finally acknowledged him with another shiver and a sharp exhale, followed by a slight, simple nod of his head. Even the mannerisms were eerily similar to Valek’s. To his sworn enemy.
Aiden slipped his hand under his head and pulled the boy from the frosted ground and into his lap. “I am not going to harm you,” he continued. “If you can, answer me with another nod. Can you do that?”
Again, the boy nodded once, struggling to keep his eyes open, the blood from his throat smearing over Aiden’s arms and clothes as he held him. His shaking was no longer crafted from the fierce cold, but from fear. Aiden could hear it in his mind.
“You were attacked?”
He nodded.
“You were attacked by something that was not human?”
The boy hesitated for a few moments and nodded once again. Aiden could hear his pulse was continuing to slow as each second ticked by. He had only minutes left.
“Listen to me carefully now, human. And answer me honestly.” Aiden began again. “Do you wish to live?”
Chapter Nine
The Deadly One
Lusian stomped in, a large, fanged grin playing on his jagged face lined with dark, rugged stubble. A miasmic smear remained at his chin. Valek looked back at Charlotte, her green eyes slanting in a dark gaze, and he knew she was about to get what she wanted again, hearing the intentions within both of their minds.
He mashed his lips together, narrowing his eyes at her before turning back to Lusian. “I’d say you’ve had enough to drink tonight,” Valek growled. “Get out.” He wound his fists tightly at his sides, attempting to quell his own trembling fury.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough. I’d ask you to hit me, but I fear you might take that request a tad too literally.” He snickered. “Brought you home some leftovers.” Lusian shoved forward another figure, sending whomever it was stumbling forward into the room. The gamy smell of human fear, tears, and warm, savory rust hit his senses heavily enough to make him stumble and swallow down his feral instincts. In the dim midnight, he looked down at a mortal woman, frantic and panicking like a hunted rabbit, collapsed onto the floor. She clutched her chest as her wide eyes traveled from each of the faces in the room, lingering the longest on Charlotte’s.
That girl’s not a monster
—he heard the woman’s garbled thoughts sputter in her head—
that girl’s like me. Are they going to kill her, too? Maybe I can save us both
.
“Don’t be a hero,” Lusian responded, though he locked his glare on Valek.
Valek moved toward the woman, who shrieked with his abrupt agility, her arms jetting up in front of her face, as if she meant them for a shield. Gently, he closed his hands around one of her wrists and felt the fraught pulsations thumping under her skin. Perspiration collected in silvery beads on her forehead.
“Trust me,” he murmured to her. A plan began to formulate in his mind. This human just might come in handy, indeed. But in order for it to work, he needed to calm her.
She lowered her arms and blinked up at him, her mouth gaping. Struck with his impossible beauty, he heard. His lips twitched, fighting back a grin. She was moderately attractive. Around thirty years old, Valek assessed. She smelled strangely of garlic. The scent was mostly on her hands. He narrowed his eyes. Had she attempted to escape Lusian’s capture by utilizing some ignorant several-hundred-year-old legend? Valek snorted.
Quickly, he shoved the mortal woman behind him to block her from Lusian, just in case. He didn’t quite know what the obnoxious Vampire’s game was yet. “If you’ve fed to your satisfaction, I bid you a good evening. Get out.”
“I am sustained. However,” Lusian began again. “I did not have dessert.” His glare shot to Charlotte’s face and quickly grazed the level of her shoulders and breasts as he grinned. “And you know what a horrible sweet tooth I have.”
Charlotte sat up in the bed. Valek’s stomach tossed with the longing configurations in her mind.
“Not tonight, Lusian.” Valek blockaded him from Charlotte. “I think you both have had enough satisfaction for one night. Consider this my last warning.”
Dusana raced in then from downstairs, her gaze quickly flicking from face to face to land specifically on Lusian’s.
“Don’t worry, friend,” Lusian said confidently. “I’ll be gentle with her.” He swiftly darted behind Charlotte and cupped her chin, pulling her back against his chest. “After all, she
is
such a delicate thing.”
“Lusian, don’t!” Dusana pleaded from the door.
Charlotte’s back arched out of human instinct, though Valek could hear in her mind how badly she needed this. He only pretended that he could not hear how intensely her addiction ailed her—how much pain she was really in. But the truth was, that was the
only
thing he could hear, the only thing he could think about. Every single hour of every day, hearing her pain just might have scathed him more than it did her. Living with the fact that he was responsible for her suffering was the worst punishment. It was torture enough to watch her disintegrate before his very eyes.
He winced as he watched Lusian sink his fangs deep and drink from Charlotte’s neck. The mortal woman on the floor, the one that Lusian had carelessly dragged in from outside, shrieked as she witnessed it. Valek gripped tight around her arm to keep her from dashing to her escape. She wasn’t going anywhere. Charlotte let out a little sigh as Valek cut out the distraction and tuned in to her mind again. Relief rolled down from the top of her head to her knees. Frozen at the edge of the bed, she slit her eyes to peer at him, watching as he watched her.
Valek turned his back on her. “You are insatiable.”
Lusian tore his mouth away, the ichor dripping from the corner of his mouth, and grinned. “Who? Me or her?”
“What is that we smell?” The twins, Ana and Aneta, appeared at the threshold as well, both sets of almond eyes black. They rushed to either side of Charlotte on the mattress, each taking a wrist.
“
Get away from her!
” Valek roared, digging his talons into Ana’s shoulder, and sending her hurtling into the wall. Aneta released Charlotte and gnashed at Valek, who quickly wrapped his arms around the Vampire’s head, threatening to snap her neck. Fear completely overtook the other mortal in the room, her thoughts so entirely loud, they deafened Valek as she sat shriveled up in a corner and sobbing. She knew she was going to die. He’d deal with her later.
Lusian swiftly pushed away from Charlotte, discarding her like a piece of rubbish, and tore Valek away from Aneta before he could act on his impulse. Valek’s body crushed the bedside table to splinters. The three of them regrouped on the other side of the room, smirking.
“So tell me, Valek. She gives you a piece of that every time you come crawling?” Lusian snickered. “Lucky bastard.”
Valek lunged at him again, the two of them tumbling to the floor. The sound of their fury rolled deep like thunder as a battle cry spewed from Valek into Lusian’s face.
“I will tear your head off!” he threatened as Lusian rolled on top of him.
“Not in
this
lifetime.” Lusian mocked him, pulling Valek up by the material of his jacket shoulders, and threw him a few feet away.
But Valek was graceful enough, and he caught himself with one hand to the floor as he skidded backward. He quickly stood, adjusting his military coat, not taking his eyes off Lusian for a moment.
Ana and Aneta just watched, completely entertained, a mirrored grin playing on each of their pointy faces.
“If I wanted to kill you, Lusian, believe me, I could do it in an instant.”