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“You hear my call every time you pierce a vein, do you not?”
Know me.
The words thrummed in his bones like a struck chord. Know me. The desperate demand of the beast, full of sorrow and rage. “Know me,” he whispered.
“Know me,” Kambyses repeated, his smile growing thin. “The one genuine desire of every feeling thing.” He closed the distance between them. “You want to know me, don’t you? You hunger to know me. And through me, know yourself.”
Dominique couldn’t have denied it to save his life. Answers. There was nothing he wanted more. He nodded.
“Then my search has ended. You are worthy of my gift. Know me, Nico,” he murmured and tilted his head, chin raised, the invitation unmistakable. “Know all of me.”
Dominique smothered an involuntary gasp. Never had he known Kambyses to share his blood—and the thousands of years of time it contained. But here it was, in a quiet rope of vein lying across hard muscle, offered to him and him alone. His world reeled.
“Destiny,” Serge had said. And, “You know what you have to do.”
This time, Dominique didn’t argue. Or hesitate.
Long bottled grief and rage drove his fangs out, drove him to fist a hand in the thick hair and yank the head back hard enough to snap a mortal neck. The prey gave no resistance. Instead, Kambyses embraced him, cupped the back of his skull, and sighed when Dominique’s teeth slammed home.
Though there was no heartbeat, the blood squelched into his mouth—like lava.
Dominique tried to jerk away, but Kambyses held him closer. “Know me, Nico.”
Liquid fire blistered his tongue, scorched his esophagus, and, when he choked on it, fried his sinuses and nose. An inferno ignited in his stomach and bowels. The sun roared in his veins and burned away the world.
Burned it to ashes floating in an ocean of night.
The link didn’t just fade. It snuffed out like a candle—from an already dim flicker to full dark in an instant.
It’s nothing, Cassidy told herself, trying to shake off the sensation of being smothered, of…something falling over her. Dominique was dealing with an ancient vampire. There was no telling what mental games he would have to play.
“What do you think is happening?” she asked Monica. They sat side-by-side on a sofa in a small, immaculate reading room overlooking the back gardens. Her eyes kept straying past the luminous pool, drawn to the dock, where, at the far end, she could just make out a deep black presence. Only a handful of utility lights revealed the enormous shadow, the nightmare of Dominique’s memories made real: Apokryphos.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know. He doesn’t tell me these things,” said the temple priestess as she poured more tea into their cups.
“Something is happening.”
“Oh? How can you tell?”
Cassidy picked up the cup, saw the pale gold liquid inside shiver and put it back down. “I just can.”
“Interesting,” Monica said and helped herself to another pastry with delicate fingers.
It was nothing. Nothing for her to get involved in. Vampire things. Stay with the loopy human girl. Pick her brain. She buried her hands in her lap, fighting to still their trembling. “Um. How did you meet him? Kambyses, I mean?”
Monica beamed. “On vacation last year in San Juan. I was walking down a street, minding my own business, when he found me. My hair caught his attention, I think. I used to model it, you know.” She flipped the deep-red waves over her shoulder with a dramatic shampoo-commercial-worthy shake of her head. “I took one look at him, and I just knew what he was. I mean, I’ve seen the movies. How can you not know, right? Well, I came right out and said it. ‘You’re a vampire.’” She giggled. “Totally threw him, poor guy.”
“I bet,” Cassidy murmured for the sake of politeness and trying to keep the panic at bay. Dominique knew how to handle himself around the very powerful. He would be all right. They would both be all right.
“I’ve been traveling with him ever since, and I’m waiting for the night that he’ll turn me.” Monica’s eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?”
“Why?”
Monica glanced at Cassidy’s hands where they were wringing, white-knuckled, in her lap like a pair of suffocating fish. Cassidy untangled them. “No. Something is wrong. I feel it.”
“What do you feel?”
“Empty.” The realization hit her hard enough to drive the breath out of her. She couldn’t breathe for all the emptiness sucking at her innards. “Oh my God, he’s killed him.”
