Analise and Evangeline.
“But now?” he echoed, his haunting moonstone-gray eyes searching hers for sincerity.
“But now, I feel like something inside of me, something I didn’t even know was there, is awakening. Like maybe, on some inexplicable level, I’ve always been with you. And now…now I’m seeing you for the very first time. I’m hearing your words and feeling your pain, and I can barely even breathe…knowing.” Her voice trailed off on a whisper.
Julien’s throat noticeably constricted as he swallowed his caution. “Knowing what, șoarec micuț?”
“Knowing that you have lived so long…with so much…alone. I am sorry, warrior.”
Julien scrubbed a large hand over his face before turning to face her more squarely.
After a brief hesitation, he raised his muscular arms and grasped Rebecca by both shoulders. His touch was as gentle as a lamb’s as he brushed her exposed skin with his thumbs. “Come to me, Rebecca. I want to taste your soul.” His eyes dipped down to survey her mouth, and they were filled with so much longing, so much indescribable need.
Rebecca shivered, shaken by the intensity of his gaze.
She took his left hand, brought it to her cheek, and angled her jaw into the warmth, leaning softly forward into his massive warrior’s frame. And then she kissed the center of his palm, not knowing what else to do…or say.
Julien exhaled like he had been holding his breath for a lifetime.
He removed his right hand from her shoulder and ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip, slowly—tenderly—before cupping her face in both hands.
And then he bent to her mouth and kissed her with fevered abandon.
nineteen
Nachari stood behind Braden Bratianu as the youngster shifted nervously in his chair, eyeing all the sentinels in Ramsey’s formal living room: Santos, Saxson, Saber, and of course, Ramsey Olaru himself.
Ramsey leaned back against an adjacent wall and removed the toothpick from his mouth. “So let me get this straight: This Grigori Antonopoulos, this vampire, stuffed an invitation in your mailbox in the middle of the night—in other words, he didn’t come out in the day—yet Braden swears he had blond hair, not black-and-red coils.” He glanced askance at Saber and shrugged in apology. “No offense.”
Saber scowled, and flicked his wrist, dismissing the entire subject.
“But the male could travel as mist,” Saxson said to no one in particular. “Damn, that’s some serious power…or sorcery. I mean, we can all dematerialize, and we can all scatter our molecules to move through objects, pass through walls, but becoming the mist? Actually transforming one’s chemistry into chlorides and sulfates, becoming predominantly sulfuric acid? That’s shape-shifting, brother. That’s sorcery.”
“And the hair turned into a snake,” Santos added for good measure.
Nachari hissed beneath his breath. “That about sums it up.” He paced to the other side of the room and glanced out the floor-to-ceiling windows, beyond the large wraparound deck, turning the conversation over in his head for the umpteenth time. “But here’s the thing…” He spun around to face the room. “No matter how I turn this over, it just doesn’t make sense. The Dark Lords marked the house of Jaegar—hell, the Blood marked the sons of Jaegar—the hair color isn’t optional.” He gestured toward Saber and raised an apologetic eyebrow. “I mean, shit. Saber isn’t even a Dark One, but he was consecrated to Lord S’nepres, and his hair is still banded.”
“You need to get over that shit,” Saber interjected, scowling. “All of you.”
Nachari chuckled. “Already have, brother. Just let me make my point.” He ran an absent hand through his own thick raven locks and continued. “So something does not add up. Unless…”
“Unless?” Ramsey grunted.
Saxson sat forward from his perch on the couch and braced his elbows on his knees, waiting.
“Unless he’s not from the house of Jaegar,” Nachari said quietly. He paused, letting the suggestion settle, allowing the words to linger.
Santos wrinkled his brow. “I’m sorry, but I’m not following you here, wizard. A Dark One, but not from the house of Jaegar?”
Ramsey snorted as the implication hit him with a start. “Born without a soul…to the house of Jadon. Is that why he could mask the hair, at least with several centuries of practice and a healthy dose of magic?”
Saber gawked at Nachari, grimaced at the insinuation, and then, despite himself, he chuckled—that was just Saber’s way. “A freakin’ dark twin? A sacrifice that was never made?” He raised his hand and grabbed a fistful of his own banded locks. “And before anyone opens his mouth; I ain’t no damn wizard or sorcerer. Despite where I was truly born, this shit is staying as it is.”
Nachari winked in reply. “Clairol, Nice’n Easy, brother. Number 2BB.”
Saber flipped him off.
“You know,” Saxson interjected, “when Saber was still a Dark One, impersonating Ramsey, he had to portray blond hair, and he was born in the house of Jadon.”
“That was different,” Saber snarled. “Salvatore used a spell. It was some sort of holographic image or something, had nothing to do with my house of birth.”
“Yeah,” Ramsey snorted, “but Salvatore is a sorcerer.” He eyed Nachari with a sidelong glance and cocked his brows in question. “Wizard?”
Nachari shook his head and shrugged. “Don’t know. Have no idea.”
Saber flashed a scowl. “Enough with the damn hair, already. Move on.”
Nachari raised his hand, extended his forefinger, and drew three clear symbols in the air: 2BB.
Saber cut his eyes at the vampire and turned away, snickering.
“Fine,” Saxson said, his voice reflecting his own amusement at the banter, before returning to a more serious tone, “putting the issue of hair aside, but assuming Nachari might be right: Suppose this male is a dark twin, born to the house of Jadon. Who the hell—”
“Would consider himself a best friend to Julien?” Santos supplied.
“Exactly,” Saxson murmured.
“Oh…shit,” Ramsey snarled.
“Yeah,” Nachari said. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
The entire room grew quiet as the warriors let the association settle in.
Finally, Ramsey Olaru turned to face Braden. “Word for word, son. What exactly did this vampire say…about Julien?”
Braden seemed to be thinking it over, fishing for the memory, and then his eyes lit with recognition as he retrieved the conversation in an unbroken stream. “He said, As an only child, I did not have many friends, save one: a boy I grew up with who became my best friend. I have come back to surprise him, to see him again, but I would prefer to take my time. To do it my own way. I have traveled the world for many centuries, young Braden, and I doubt that I’ve been missed. My role in the house of Jadon was never that…important. He said he saw the sky, and that’s what prompted him to come home: But I really do hope to surprise him, Braden. I think it would mean the world to…the tracker.” Braden’s eyes grew wide with sudden understanding. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” Nachari asked.
“He said, In fact, now that I know what he does—meaning Julien—I think it would be fun to play a little game. Perhaps I can leave little traces of my essence here and there—you know, my psychic fingerprint, my individual vibration, my unique, distinctive calling card—and see if Julien picks it up. I told him I thought Julien would be pretty busy for the next twenty-eight days—you know, because of his Blood Moon—and the guy said, All the more reason not to bother him, right away.”
Ramsey shook his head in disgust. “The more we flesh this out, the more this sounds like Ian to me.”
“Which is exactly what Julien does not need right now,” Santos added.
Nachari nodded emphatically. “You didn’t see him, that day in his house. The tracker is walking on a razor-fine edge. I mean, he’s this close to snapping.” He snapped his fingers for e
ffect.
“And he promised his destiny that he would clean some shit up for her, deal with some nasty loose ends in her previous life, something about a group of human women with stalkers—he was gonna track ’em down and, well, eliminate the problem,” Saxson said. “I’m not a hundred percent convinced he’s going to go through with the Blood Moon as it is, try to appease the Curse. The last thing he needs is to be told about his twin.”
“Not unless you wanna see him blow a gasket,” Santos said. “Truly come unglued.”
“Yeah, but if you don’t tell him…” Saber shook his head. “That’s bullshit. He’s a grown-ass male. He has a right to know. Good, bad, or indifferent, it’s his call to make. I couldn’t stand it when everyone was trying to decide for me and Vanya, tell me what I needed to do or who I was meant to be. At some point, a man’s gotta be a man, and a vampire’s gotta be free to choose.”
Nachari hung his head and sighed in irritation. “We need to bring Napolean in on this. If there’s even a chance that Grigori Antonopoulos is Ian Lacusta, then the king needs to know.”
At this point, Braden cleared his throat and glared at Nachari. “And you haven’t brought up the invitation: whether or not you’re going to let me meet with this vamp and settle the score.”
Ramsey visibly blanched. “Whoa, son; what do you mean by settle the score?”
Braden’s shoulders stiffened with anger. “This guy, whoever the hell he is, played me for a fool. I may be young, and I may be inexperienced. But I’m not a fool.”
Ramsey furrowed his brows. “No one thinks you are, son. But if this is Ian Lacusta, and he has survived for nine hundred, fifty-seven years on his own, if he has mastered enough alchemy to cloak his hair as blond and travel as the mist, then you are no match for his cunning, fledgling. You cannot dance toe-to-toe with this vampire.”
Braden shrugged, seemingly undaunted. “Maybe not, but I’m brave enough to be a decoy. I can lure the ass hat into a trap, and then maybe you guys—or better yet, Julien—can settle the score.”
Saber snickered. “Ass hat?”
Nachari shook his head and waved his hand to dismiss the comment. “It’s just…it’s another word for jackass.”
“It’s another word for asshole,” Braden cut in.
Ramsey harrumphed. “Fine, we all agree. The vampire’s an ass, one way or another.” He leveled his gaze on Braden. “And yes, you could lure him into a trap, and we could dispatch him. Or he could possibly strike faster than we could track or intercept, and we would have your parents and the king to answer to.” He turned to regard the other sentinels. “And I’m not trying to be disagreeable here, but let’s say this is Ian, and Braden’s plan could work. Which one of you is going to deny the tracker this kill? Go back to Julien and tell him Ian is dead, and we did it for him. After all this time?” Once again, the room grew quiet, until finally, Ramsey cleared his throat. “What time is it?”
“About 11:45,” Santos said.
Ramsey nodded and turned his attention to Nachari. “What say you, Master Wizard? Should we wait until morning, or should we wake the king? Let our Sovereign make the call?”
Nachari’s chest constricted with the heaviness of the moment.
Vampires were nocturnal beings, even though they often adjusted their schedules to accommodate their human counterparts, attend to their various business enterprises. One way or the other, Napolean was likely to be awake.
And if he wasn’t…
Nachari strolled back across the room, coming to a halt at Ramsey’s side. “Yeah,” he murmured softly. “It’s time to rouse the king.”
twenty
Julien lay awake on Rebecca’s cozy bed, holding his destiny in his arms as she slept somewhat fitfully on his chest, feeling way too large for the queen-sized mattress beneath him. While Rebecca had returned his passionate kiss, and for a moment, she had even been swept away by his ardor, she had stopped him before the interplay could go any further.
Despite the fact that his body—hell, his very soul—had been on fire, she had still been grieving, reeling…adjusting, and making love to a woman whose eyes were brimming with tears, whether from confusion, compassion, or anxiety, was just not Julien’s style.
Just the same, the two of them had made a real breakthrough.
Forged a sincere connection, however tentative.
No, they had not made love or exchanged promises for the future. They had not found solace in the sweat, heat, and embrace of each other’s welcoming bodies, but they had entered into a more peaceful, contented union: forged a truce of sorts, a quiet and more intimate understanding.
And now, as Julien reclined on Rebecca’s bed, simply holding his destiny in his arms, he felt deeply honored just to share the moment, just to lie beside her, to finally have her permission. Rebecca was an enigma to him, and what she had shared about the birds was nothing short of a miracle, the fact that they had been connected, so long ago, without even knowing it, the fact that she had named her beloved pets Analise and Evangeline.
The story had touched something deep in his soul.
He braced his arm behind his head and slowed his breathing, all the while thinking about Rebecca’s VOSU support group and the imminent needs of the women: the boyfriends, ex-husbands, and sometimes strangers he still needed to track.
And destroy.
He wanted to wrap up the nasty business as quickly as possible so he and Rebecca could return to Dark Moon Vale. He was not at all comfortable lodging so far away from the valley’s warriors or its strategically placed wards, not when Rebecca could still be at risk to the Dark Ones. Should someone in the house of Jaegar get wind that Julien and his destiny were alone in Denver, separated from the herd, then all hell could break loose in an instant.
It just wasn’t an optimal position to be in.
He ran an absent hand through the length of Rebecca’s hair and sighed: Many times, he had thought about locating the stalkers himself, then reaching out to Santos or Saxson, perhaps Nathaniel Silivasi, and asking the warriors to finish them off. He had even considered asking one or more of the sentinels to come to Denver, to sit with Rebecca and watch over her, as it were, while he handled the miscreants, swiftly and with finality; but his inner predator, his possessive, territorial core, resisted that possibility.
Still, he had to do something, and he needed to make a decision, once and for all.
His chest constricted with a gnawing ache as he wished, for the millionth time in his lifetime, that he possessed the awe-inspiring powers of Napolean Mondragon. While Julien was, without question, the best tracker the house of Jadon had ever produced, he was no match for the ancient king when it came to the ability to strike at an enemy from an indeterminate distance. As far as rumor had it, Napolean Mondragon could sit in a chair in his living room, sipping from a goblet of blood, and send his psychic body forward into any dimension of time or space. He could virtually follow the slightest vibrations in the cosmos, track a being via his or her thought patterns, disposition, and date of birth, and home in on them from anywhere on the earth. And then he could strike like a serpent, snuffing out the fragile life-force without ever breaking a sweat, without ever leaving his home.
Without ever spilling a drop of blood from the goblet.
But that was not the king’s foremost—or even secondary—duty.
It was not a good use of the monarch’s energy, nor was it in the best interest of the house of Jadon. What if something happened while the king was out of his body? What if the enemy struck back or somehow bested Napolean, as impossible as that seemed, and he never returned to Dark Moon Vale? What if an emergency cropped up while the king was mentally, physically, and spiritually elsewhere?
No, unless it was a matter of personal Blood Vengeance, and the king felt the need to protect or avenge his own, he did not risk his immortal life on matters of personal vendetta. Dark Ones were like weeds: The moment one was plucked, another sprang forth, eager to wreak havoc on the world aro
und him, and while destroying the enemy, any enemy, was always a worthwhile cause, it was not a duty for the ancient and sovereign lord of the house of Jadon.
As ugly as it might sound, Napolean Mondragon was vital; whereas, Julien was replaceable. As awful as it was to admit, every male in the house of Jadon was ultimately replaceable, save the infamous king. And besides, until recently, Napolean had not had a successor. Now, he had Prince Phoenix, Prince Paris, and Prince Parker, but he had not yet had a chance to train them, to raise them. The children were still neophytes, mere fledglings, with so very much to learn. They needed their father desperately.
Julien bristled inside, knowing that at any time, over the long, torturous centuries, he could have gone to the ancient king as a brother, as a servant—hell, as a male who was truly in need—and beseeched the imperious leader on bended knee to find Ian for him, to sort through all the scattered, ever-changing patterns of energy and deal with the abomination himself, but Julien had never been able to bring himself to do that, to risk the house of Jadon or to compromise the king, not for his own fragile sanity.
It just wasn’t that important in the broader scheme of things.
Rebecca stirred fitfully beneath his arm, and Julien stroked her hair, once more wondering at the softness and beauty that rested beneath his fingers. It was so strange to have her there, in his arms at last, to finally lie next to his chosen mate.
And truth be told, he hardly knew what to do with her.
His groin hardened in protest, and he had to stifle a masculine chuckle.
Well, yes, he knew exactly what to do with her in terms of male-meets-female, and gods be merciful, he was burning inside to do just that; but the operable words were with her, not to her.
He had already made enough mistakes.
He sent a peaceful current of energy through his fingertips, directed the pulse to circulate around her scalp, and she settled back with an adorable sigh. And that’s when he felt the energy all around him stir: