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He didn’t wait for an acknowledgment, just shifted to altered flight and sped in the direction of the room with all the tablets. Somewhere in the middle of flying, however, he realized he couldn’t feel her at all. He wondered if she’d taken off her blood-chain.
As he touched down, he touched the matching chain at his neck, but got nothing in response.
And the tablet room was empty.
Anxiety flowed through him and quickly turned to panic. “Shayna!” he shouted, turning in a slow circle, reaching for her repeatedly.
But she wasn’t in the guest suite.
A tablet lay broken on the floor several feet away from the table, the only sign that something must have happened in this room once he left. Shayna would never have broken a tablet unless something extraordinary had happened.
He opened up his telepathy but still couldn’t find her, couldn’t reach her, something he’d never experienced with Shayna once she’d put the chain on.
He returned swiftly to Gabriel’s conference room. The men were laughing, until he arrived. Both Adrien and Lucian dropped into fighting stances then relaxed, but each expression grew instantly concerned. “What’s wrong?” Adrien called out.
“Shayna’s gone.
I don’t what happened.” He described the emptiness of the rooms and the broken tablet.
Gabriel spoke Marius’s thoughts. “Daniel has her.”
Once the words were spoken into the air, Marius held his arms wide and hands upraised.
How long had the monster had his woman? Had he hurt her already? Would he have had reason not to?
Rage, both ancient and new, flooded his veins with fire. He let that fire grow, heating up his limbs, his torso, the very center of his soul.
Daniel had been the creator of all things evil in his life, starting with the murder of Marius’s mother when he was only four, then all that torture both he and his brothers had endured, then the ensuing slavery of both humans and vampires throughout their world, more maiming and murder.
And now he had Shayna.
Marius moved in a slow circle, hands wide and outstretched. He reached for something he didn’t understand, except that it had a name: power.
He lifted his chin and started drawing in what had been gifted to him through his father’s genetics and the latent ability that his mother must have possessed and which Daniel had sensed four centuries ago.
He took deep breaths, reaching into his gut, opening his soul wide. Power surged through him, filling every cell of his body. His shirt grew tight around the flexing muscles of his shoulders and arms. His thighs expanded, pressing against the leather and the weapons he carried.
And finally, a roar came out of him, filling the cavern, a roar that would echo throughout the world birthed to the vampires and given to them by the ancient ones, those who had gone before and built this world.
Ancestral power and something more, something greater, filled his bones, his blood, his muscles. Strength came to him, as nothing he’d known before.
He opened his eyes and saw the room as though it moved in circles spinning around him, though he was the one that moved.
When he finally stopped, he saw the stunned expression on each of their faces. But he didn’t have time to process what it might mean. Instead, he moved to stand in front of Gabriel, noting that he now looked down at him from increased height, as though he’d gained an inch or two. He searched Gabriel’s eyes, then his mind, whipping through quickly, something he’d never been able to do before.
“Gabriel, you’ve built an army, haven’t you.”
He heard both Lucian and Adrien exclaim from behind him. “What?”
Gabriel nodded. “Rumy as well. We both thought it prudent and began the project ten years ago. Just when we would have started taking our intentions public, Daniel took over the Council of Ancestrals, gaining control of the courts, then imprisoning the three of you. We waited. We would have come for you, but—”
“You couldn’t do that. I understand. You weren’t ready to face Daniel and he would have probably killed us and broken your army. You did right to wait. Now is the time.”
“It sure as hell is and you’re the one to defeat your father. Through the years, I had glimpses of what you could become, but I didn’t see this, and I certainly didn’t see what hindered the process. I also know that what you’ve become was what Daniel wanted to harness. You were the real weapon he’s been after all this time.”
Marius closed his eyes, and because he was now more than even an Ancestral, he felt the breadth of his ability to communicate. He also understood how Daniel had found Shayna and captured her with no one the wiser. At first, he’d thought his father had been that powerful. But now he recalled that Daniel had done something to Shayna on the land bridge when he’d held her arm in his hand. She’d cried out at the time, but Marius had thought she’d been frightened by his touch. Now he knew his father had planted a tracking device beneath her skin.
Marius searched for Shayna and found her hidden behind a thick layer of multiple disguises. He couldn’t see her but he felt her. Slipping into her mind, he spoke softly. Shayna, it’s me. Hold steady. Try not to show any emotion right now because we’re engaging telepathically. Just tell me first if you’re okay.
