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Walking briskly through the streets of New Onyx, with Yves in all his unrepressed vampire beauty, brings me back to the times of old when we snuck around behind Hadrian’s back. Obviously, we weren’t as sneaky as we thought we were, but the thrill of touching Yves, kissing him, tasting him, is as real and tangible as it was centuries ago.
I can still sense his concern for his family rippling under the surface, but he knows how to use that concern to fuel his anger toward Hadrian.
I wonder what our maker looks like now. Is he still flawlessly handsome, pompous, his muscles cut like a statue from marble? Does he still smell like sweet honeysuckle?
A funny yet bitter memory strikes me. “I destroyed a garden once because it reeked of honeysuckle.”
Yves glances at me. “My stomach still turns if I smell it. Fortunately, it’s not a popular flower for gardens in the city.”
“Do you ever wonder how many things affect us as a result of him? Things we may not even recognize in the moment?”
“No. I haven’t intentionally thought of Hadrian in hundreds of years. I buried his memory.”
“And mine too?”
“Sadly, yes. The pain of your loss crippled me for many years.”
“Before he takes his last breath, I demand to know how he did it. How did he manage to tear apart a love like ours and keep us from finding each other.”
Yves nods, gripping my hand. “He has a lot to answer for.”
We turn the corner and nearly fall to the ground as the stench of rotting flesh and dead blood hits us. Yves’s brothers are just slightly ahead, also stopped in their tracks. In the distance is an old brick building, obviously the source of the stench.
“Fucking hell,” Midnight murmurs. “What happened in there?”
Yves shakes his head. “Only the gods know at this point. I don’t feel life coming from there. Anyone else?”
“No,” Syn says. “Just death.”
“We were just here,” Thorn says. “How could everyone be dead?”
“Hadrian,” I reply. “He’s taunting Yves. He knows Yves’s weakness for protecting the innocent and he’s abusing it.”
Yves nods, his eyes dark with anger. “He knows everything about me. He made me.” A low growl emanates from my lover. “The words are bitter on my tongue. He created what I am, but destroyed so much in the process.”
“He didn’t destroy you,” Syn says. The others nod in agreement. “You rose above him. You spread love instead of hate. If he’s all evil, you’re all light and goodness.”
“Don’t make me a saint, brother. We all know my deeds.” He scoffs. “We murder people for a living. Have you forgotten?”
“We do a service that needs doing,” Thorn says. “It’s not like the old days.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Yves,” Eros says softly. “We are not saints, but we are not evil either.”
Yves nods and I feel his energy shift. He believes them. “You’re right. His presence is tainting my thoughts.” He clears his throat. “Let’s go inside.”
We proceed as a group, Yves and I safely surrounded by his brothers and their mates. The doors to the old nightclub hang open, barely attached to their hinges. Inside, we find nothing but darkness and spilled blood, but there’s a strange scent in the air.
“It smells like rotting…” Raphael starts, pausing.
“Flowers,” Midnight finishes. “Like rotting flowers.”
“It’s him. He’s sick.” Yves turns to me. “Wounded?”
I think about it for a second. “You said you left him at the bottom of the ocean, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, let’s say he’s been there all this time. Centuries, half dead and stuck in the sea. Somehow, he’s brought back up, his resting place disturbed. He’d be barely alive, right?”
