AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dominique leaned his head against a hard surface that jiggled against his back and under his ass. Jackson stood behind Esteban, staring straight ahead, blind in this total darkness. All three of them were inside a cage, an elevator, dropping into nothingness. The weight of the sun lessened by the second. As it diminished, his mind cleared, and more murky memories rose. The ones from later in the day felt almost real. Those from earlier were specters that changed shape the harder he tried to focus on them.
Esteban shook his shoes and fine trousers. Whatever it was Dominique had foolishly eaten today had been disgorged all over the other vampire’s shins and feet. “What is this nonsense? Food? Are you mad?”
The corner of Jackson’s mouth betrayed laughter attempting to break free, but he otherwise appeared convincingly compelled, though of course he could not be.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Dominique remembered Esteban’s bite and erected his mental barriers. But Esteban was too distracted with the affront to his wardrobe to keep tabs on his prisoner’s mind. “What do you think you are, you irrelevant child?”
Dominique pushed himself up the side of the elevator to stand and tower over the petite Spaniard. “I am your lord and master.”
“Right.” Esteban’s will brushed against Dominique’s defenses. “I can hardly wait to see you explain that to Adilla Khan.”
“Neither can I,” Dominique drawled. He adopted a careless air, though the blistering pain wrapping his wrists pushed his ability to concentrate to the brink. Any other night, he could have broken these shackles, but not after a day spent awake. He was as helpless as the last time Esteban had cornered him, except this time there would be no Isao to save him. This time—his single mortal ally notwithstanding—he was on his own.
The soupy gloom thinned as the lift slowed and clanked to a stop. Beyond the gate lay a small cavern, containing just enough light to allow sensitive eyes to adjust. A small archway opened onto another world entirely. There, a gilded hallway worthy of a palace stretched into the distance, ablaze with light from glittering chandeliers suspended from massive beams of burnished wood. Dozens of ponderous, iron-studded doors lined both sides of the hall. Massive tapestries depicting life-size scenes of historic battles and feasts covered the stone walls between them.
As they walked, the polished parquet floor creaked beneath the red silk runner covering the center of the hall. Murmuring voices drifted from up ahead, along with the softly haunting music of a drum-accompanied violin and piano. The voices and music sputtered to a halt when Esteban steered Dominique around a corner. They descended three broad stone steps into the midst of a gathering of blood-drinkers such as he had never seen. Hundreds of eyes—some of them darkening—found him and pinned him with intense curiosity. The vampires lounged on chairs, settees, or in piles of pillows on the floor in conversational clumps and were dressed in everything from business suits and cocktail gowns to blue jeans and saris. They were of different races, and judging by the miasma of scents mingling with the smell of blood, of vastly differing ages.
One thing they all had in common, though, was beauty. Every one of them could have compelled an army with a smile alone. Some probably had.
In contrast, the being seated on a dais at the other end of the hall would have been almost plain if not for the gold-embroidered purple regalia he wore. Or the gold-and-gemstone-encrusted throne he occupied.
Behind the throne and a little to the side, stood two others Dominique recognized from Isao’s memories. Bhavanur, a young-looking man of uncommon loveliness, sparkled almost as much as his lord did. Markandeya, a regal, stone-faced man with thick gray hair and sharp eyes, had in life been Adilla’s biological father. He now flanked his immortal son, wrapped in a drab gray cloak.
Adilla’s voice was as hard and clear as the precious stones on his fingers. “Esteban. You have brought me a present.”
Esteban shoved Dominique to his knees and dropped to the gleaming marble floor beside him. “My lord Adilla. The fool has brought himself. He desires an audience.”
Every head swiveled to Adilla, who took his time finishing a crystal tumbler. When he held it out to the side, Bhavanur snatched up a decanter and scurried forward to refill his lord’s glass with what could only have been blood. Blood no doubt drained from the innocents who had disappeared all over Vancouver. The same blood also filled countless other glasses in the room. This was how they survived here. And survived well, by the looks of them.
Adilla smiled as a snake might smile at approaching prey. “By all means, let him speak.”
Esteban hauled Dominique up by an elbow and propelled him forward until they reached the dais, where he shoved him down again, smashing his knees hard into the floor.
Dominique caught Adilla’s scent of a sun-warmed forest. A thousand years, probably more. But with his dark hair trimmed short and smoothed back from a wide forehead, he could have been anyone, anywhere, and in any age—except for the eyes. Mesmerizing even for a blood-drinker, their jade green depths glittered with ruthless power. They willed him to speak and give him an excuse to kill him. It wouldn’t take much. And the only weapon in Dominique’s arsenal right now was the truth.
It would have to be enough.
Not taking his eyes off Adilla, he rose to his feet. A shocked susurrus from the audience rose with him, but faltered into a horrified hush when he spoke. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dominique Marchant, the Lord of Night, and I kneel before no one.”
The benevolence of seconds ago vaporized. Nostrils flaring, Adilla put down his drink. “You are either the most courageous creature I have ever seen…or the most foolish. But one thing you are most certainly not is the Lord of Night.” He leaned forward a little, giving the impression of a snake again, this time preparing for a strike, and spoke in a hushed whisper. “I know the Lord of Night, you see. For he is my sire.”
In the silence that followed, the tiny splats of blood dripping from Dominique’s blistering wrists grew deafening.
“Then you should welcome me as a brother. I, too, am a child of Kambyses. And his heir,” he finished on a growl. Whether or not he felt like it right now, he wasn’t about to convince anyone if he didn’t act like it.
“Outrageous,” Bhavanur hissed with bared fangs.
Markandeya raised a single brow and crossed his arms.
Adilla chuckled, a humorless, patronizing sound, followed by a smattering of nervous laughter bubbling through the audience. “So you are a fool, then. You would have to be to believe this…if you know anything at all about Kambyses.” He rose from his throne, a towering figure robed in purple and gold. “I am Adilla Khan, and I am the last the great Kambyses sired with his own blood. Not only was I strong enough to survive both his blood and his mind then, I am now the strongest he has ever made.” His gaze swept over his followers as he made this pronouncement. They all lowered their eyes in deference, or perhaps just trying to escape his notice. “If he has any heir at all—as much as an immortal requires such a thing—that heir is I.”
“Then come see the truth for yourself,” Dominique said and bared his neck in invitation. If he could get Adilla to feed from him, he might be able to launch a re-siring by getting his own teeth into him and finish this madness. He fisted his shackled hands, forcing more blood from the expanding sores, seasoning the air with his vulnerable youngling tang.
In a flash, Adilla’s eyes turned into obsidian glass—but it was Esteban who struck.
The Spaniard sprang up, forced Dominique to the ground with a vicious kick to the back of his knees. Then, he seized his head in both hands and battered into Dominique’s mental defenses so hard his vision blurred. Since Esteban had already fed from him, Adilla wouldn’t. Adilla would take what he wanted through his sire bond with Esteban.
So be it.
