Nonsense.
Random syllables.
He leaned forward and stared even closer at the object.
Ah, yes; it was a blanket. And he was somehow tangled up inside of it. He started to wiggle and squirm in a desperate effort to get the creepy thing off of him, when all at once, he was startled by the sound of loud, disturbing voices.
“Rafael, no! Please…I’m not ready.”
A high-pitched voice, the female, the one called Lorna was rushing toward him—how was she doing it? Could she fly?—and she looked like a giant. Great Evil Lord S’nepres, he had to get free from this green and blue restraint!
He started to cry.
No…to wail.
The sounds were just too much, too loud, the vibrations spinning all around him as the woman argued with the man. He told her it had to be done, and she begged him not to do it. He told her that the Blood would come for the unnamed one and claim him, too, if he didn’t hurry, and she bawled like a ninny.
Saber cringed.
The one called Rafael was gone now. He had simply left the inconsolable woman kneeling on the floor in a pile of her own grief, pleading—nice guy—and now… now she was slowly pulling herself up and approaching—
Approaching what?
A bassinette?
Him?
Saber reached up to grasp his head, and his tiny arms flailed wildly instead. Holy Demoness of the Night, he had no control over his body whatsoever. Shit! What was this?
As the giant figure of the woman loomed closer and closer, he folded in on himself in a panic. He had to get out! Get away! Stop her!
Wake up!
“Wake up!” Ramsey’s thunderous voice pierced the vapor of confusion, and Saber shot upright on the cot.
He was lying in his cell covered in sweat, his feet loosely bound by diamond-studded leather straps to the end of the cot.
“Bad dream, Chief?” Ramsey asked, his husky voice cutting through the haze. “You’ve been asleep for about ten hours—didn’t think you were coming back.”
Saber’s eyes flashed to the sentinel’s, measuring the distinctive hazel orbs for signs of truth. Ten hours? What in the world?
Last he remembered, he had been feeding on someone’s neck. He turned to regard his captors; there were two of them present: Ramsey and Saxson Olaru. Last time, it had been Santos, right before the duo had…drugged him.
Still gasping for air, he made a point of slowing down his breathing, and lay back on the cot. The sentinels had drugged him, and he must have been dreaming.
As relief began to wash over him, a funny feeling prickled his spine. Wait a minute. Had he been dreaming…or remembering? He swallowed a lump in his throat and ran a tired hand through his matted hair. Damn, he needed another shower! The woman he had seen, Lorna, had she been real or imaginary? Had he imagined the whole awful scene, or had he recalled something while in a drug-induced sleep?
Impossible, he thought. He couldn’t recall anything between Lorna and Rafael Dzuna, least of all the night they sacrificed one of two twins to the Blood—unless…he had been there. And how was that even possible?
He bit a hole in his tongue, as if the action could cut off the thoughts.
No.
Absolutely not!
“What’s going on?” Ramsey asked, as if the sadistic bastard gave a crap. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Saber stared at him blankly, trying to process all the madness converging in his mind. He was Saber Alexiares, firstborn son of Damien Alexiares, brother to Diablo and Dane, soldier in the house of Jaegar, descendant of the offspring of humans and dark lords. He wasn’t anybody’s punk, and he hadn’t been raised to hide like a pitiful human from things that went bump in the night.
Hell, he was the thing that went bump in the night.
And he’d be damned if he didn’t face his enemy—any enemy—head-on.
“Can you…can you check something for me?” he mumbled, hating that he was reduced to asking Ramsey Olaru for help. But what else could he do?
The six-foot-five, muscle-bound sentinel raised his sculpted eyebrows—and wasn’t that just a walking contradiction, a lethal-looking vampire with the sculpted features of a print-model. Funny that. “Like what?” Ramsey asked suspiciously.
Saber exhaled slowly. No point in dragging it out. “That family—the Dzunas—was there a blanket?”
“Excuse me?” Ramsey said.
“A blanket,” Saber repeated. “The night of the sacrifice, before their son was taken; did the kid have a blue and green blanket?” He braced himself for the laughter and scorn he knew was coming, but to his surprise, Ramsey’s face tightened with intensity, and his light eyes grew dark with contemplation. “Anything else?”
Saber shook his head from side to side in disgust and tried not to virtually hiss the words. “Frogs or dragons…whatever! Just find out about an effin’ blanket.”
The brutal warrior leaned back on his heels and dropped into a casual, indifferent stance; whatever concern had shone in his eyes was now gone. “I’ll think about it,” he grunted.
Saber nodded. That was all he could ask.
It wasn’t like the information would matter one way or the other.
Vanya Demir retreated once again to the private cabin toward the back of the plane. She closed the shade over the small cabin window and reclined on the slender compartmental bed. She was travel-weary, and her sense of time was all muddled. She had twelve more hours of flying to go; and although it would be around noon in Colorado, it was still around nine PM in Romania—no matter how she turned it, she was exhausted.
She fluffed the pillow, flipped it over, and fluffed it again. Then she tossed and turned on the semi-comfortable bed in an attempt to find a better position.
The problem wasn’t really the accommodations: The house of Jadon kept an incredibly nice private plane. It was her restless, beleaguered mind that kept her from sleeping peacefully, the incessant nightmares that had recently begun to haunt her. Whether sitting upright in the plane’s main cabin, or reclining in the sleeping compartment, every time she drifted off, the dream would begin again where it last left off.
Where in the world were these strange images coming from? Vanya wondered. By all the celestial gods and goddesses, what was going on? She hadn’t been this plagued by night terrors in centuries. Okay, well, she had no memory of her dreams during The Long Sleep—the term both she and her sister Princess Ciopori used in reference to the 2,810 years they had remained in the ground, cocooned in the earth, in a state of unconscious limbo, sleeping deep beneath the fertile soil of Dark Moon Vale, awaiting a rescuer to awaken them.
Vanya and Ciopori were the only remaining members of a long-ago race, the two surviving females from a time that preceded the Blood Curse. They were the royal daughters of King Sakarias and Queen Jade, the surviving siblings of the original twins, Jadon and Jaegar Demir, and as all of the Vampyr now knew, Jadon had secretly saved their lives during that fateful, tumultuous time. In a desperate attempt to keep Prince Jaegar’s bloodthirsty soldiers from sacrificing the last of the monarchy—every other female in their homeland had already been slain—Jadon had rushed them out of the castle in the middle of the night in secrecy. He had turned them over to a sympathetic convoy of warriors, a covert group of mercenaries led by the powerful wizard Fabien, and Fabien had placed the females in a deep, enchanted sleep far away in the New World, in order to await Jadon’s return. Needless to say, Jadon never returned; but thank the gods, Ciopori had been Marquis Silivasi’s destiny. It was the powerful connection between the two would-be lovers that had awakened Ciopori’s resting soul, and Marquis had rescued Vanya in turn.
Since then, a lot had happened: Ciopori and Marquis had fallen in love, mated, and given birth to their firstborn son, Nikolai Jadon Silivasi. And Vanya Demir, having shared a brief romantic tryst with the ancient king, Napolean Mondragon, had decided to return to the University in Romania in order to revive the original theolo
gy of the people. She had begun to draft what would soon become the first written texts of the forgotten spells, the Celestial Magick, that had been entrusted to the females of their race so long ago, an invaluable work of restoration and legacy for the surviving males in the house of Jadon.
Vanya sat up in bed and buried her face in her hands. It was simply no use: sleeping, that is. Her mind would not stop wandering. Perhaps, then, she should take a deeper look at her dream…give it the attention it demanded.
Perhaps if she set pen to paper in a literal sense, she could metaphorically put the images to rest, and her subconscious would give her a break.
Perhaps.
She had hours and hours ahead of her in flight; it was at least worth a try.
Deciding on this new course of action, Vanya rose from the bed, retrieved her journal from her carry-on bag, turned to a blank page, and began to record the nightmare.
The dream always begins the same. I am wandering through the old country when I come across a cave, a place of unparalleled darkness. Something in my soul registers danger immediately, and I am overwhelmed with a feeling of flight. The desire to run. I don’t want to go any further or explore; I simply wish to retreat; but something draws me forward.
The cave is eerie and damp; it is covered in moss and stalactites, and I hug my arms to my chest in response to the chill. Yet and still, I push forward.
And that’s when I see him—it—the fire-breathing dragon. His eyes are like brilliant rubies at first, rare precious stones which conceal ancient secrets, reflect an uncanny intelligence back at me; but they quickly turn to a pair of hot coals, infused with rage, saturated with contempt, and full of demonic purpose.
I step back in alarm. The creature is fierce, and I know that he will destroy me if I let him. Slowly, ever so carefully, I begin to retreat. My feet are now bare, and the rocky floor is rough against my soles, tearing at my flesh and causing me great distress, but I am too afraid to cry out, lest the vicious beast pounce in response to my fear.
It is then that I notice the treasure.
It is a small chest, ornately decorated, and it rests behind the monster, almost as if he is guarding it. Hiding it. I don’t feel as if he is protecting it—perhaps he isn’t even aware of it—but he is certainly standing as an impassible barrier to The People, preventing them from discovering it.
When I say The People, I mean the Vampyr, the descendants of my brother Jadon’s house, those who still retain their souls. And I cannot tell you how I know, but there is something of such great value and significance in this treasure chest, something that belongs to the house of Jadon, something I deeply wish to return to the king.
The dragon levels his fiery gaze on me, and I am hypnotized by those eyes—those hateful, dangerous, glorious eyes. He will not let me get to the treasure; he will not allow me to return it to my people.
I don’t know what to do.
Everything in my soul screams at me to flee the beast; yet everything in my ancient memory demands that I unlock the chest. I am torn. Conflicted. Terrified.
And that’s when the dragon opens his fearsome mouth and begins to breathe fire, scorching me from head to toe. My thin linen nightgown is ablaze, and I gasp from the heat and the pain.
And then I scream, a piteous, never-ending cry.
And then I awaken.
Vanya wiped her brow and set the journal and pen down on the bed. There. She had recorded the dream. Perhaps, now, her subconscious would give her a moment’s peace. Wetting her suddenly dry lips with her tongue, she couldn’t help but wonder what the omen meant: She was a celestial princess, a female of a forgotten race, imbued with an ancient wisdom and mystical powers. Surely the gods were trying to tell her something, and whatever it was, it was vitally important to the people.
Frowning, she decided to try once again to get some sleep if possible. Soon, she would be back in Dark Moon Vale with Marquis and Ciopori, yet she knew what had to be done.
She had to let Napolean know about the nightmare…right away.
In fact, the moment she landed, she needed to go to the manse.
Surely the wise king would understand the meaning behind the prophecy.
six
Vanya Demir thanked her limo driver for bringing her to Napolean’s home safely, and instructed him to go to the lodge and get some sleep. He would be heading back to the airfield in less than twenty-four hours to return to Romania, and his services were no longer needed at her side. By all that was holy, it was too late to come calling on the ancient king, nearly ten PM in Dark Moon Vale, but she had made a decision and she intended to follow it through.
The vampire pilot, a Master Warrior by the name of Sloan, had landed the radar-deflecting plane nearly two hours early, making unusual progress without any headwinds, and she had called Ciopori and Marquis to let them know there was no need for them to pick her up from the airport: She would procure one of the king’s limousines from the airfield, allow the pilot to drop her off at Napolean’s compound, and catch a ride to Marquis and Ciopori’s home in the morning. Either that, or one of them could come fetch her after they awoke. Staying at the mansion might be a little awkward—okay, so maybe it would be more than a little awkward—but it was late; Brooke and Phoenix would surely be sleeping, should the gods be merciful; and she and Napolean could discuss her dream in private, leaving very little need to get bogged down with conversation pertaining to other, more trivial matters. The visit would be short and sweet, directly to the point.
Vanya sighed, remembering her brief conversation with Marquis. She had called the Silivasi household the moment she had landed, and Marquis had tried to raise holy hell with her over her decision to call on Napolean rather than wait on him and Ciopori. Not that Marquis didn’t raise holy hell over just about everything, but she’d had to be very firm in order to get the Ancient Master Warrior to back off. She chuckled to herself; after all, she understood Marquis’s objections, even if she didn’t agree with them: It was late; the sun had already set; and Dark Moon Vale was a valley ripe with potential dangers and enemies. Nevertheless, Vanya was not a child. She would be at the king’s house overnight, and what could be safer, when Ramsey, Saxson, and Santos were, as always, ever near? Not to mention, Napolean Mondragon was not about to let any harm come to one of the original princesses.
Vanya felt quite safe, really.
However, now that she actually stood before the massive, arched doorway at the front of Napolean’s compound and prepared to knock on the king’s front door, she felt the first real pangs of uncertainty.
She tucked a long, flowing lock of her tousled hair behind her shoulder, straightened her back, and then glanced downward in a last-minute appraisal of her physical appearance.
And then she cringed.
Her dress was a mess; her hair was positively unruly; and she more or less looked like a disheveled vagabond. At the very least, she should have taken the time to braid several locks of her hair, bind the interwoven braids in silk ties, and change into something more formal, perhaps her sapphire-blue gown with the cross-laced bodice and ankle-length hem, in order to make herself more presentable for the king.
She smoothed the front of her asymmetrical skirt—a modest black swirl made of light cotton cloth in a simple layered pattern—and unraveled a thin piece of twisted lace along the collar of the cream-colored vest. She sighed. Was all of this nitpicking really about propriety, or was it about something else entirely?
Perhaps Napolean Mondragon still held a very special place in her heart—perhaps she merely wanted to appear beautiful when the king saw her again, and that was simply wrong.
Not okay.
Inappropriate on so many levels.
The king was happy now. He was mated to a beautiful, intelligent, independent woman, Brooke Adams, and the two of them had a child, a son they called Phoenix, the future king of the house of Jadon. He deserved to be happy, and she was happy for him. Truly, she was.
Vanya grasped
the tattered journal tighter in her hands and tried to summon her courage. It wasn’t like she was still a maiden—well, in some ways she was—but she wasn’t petty, insecure, or unable to handle the more awkward aspects of life. She winced as she thought about how the king might view her impulsive, nocturnal behavior. It was bad enough that she had ventured into the night alone—Napolean would scold her as mercilessly as Marquis had for daring to be so independent; and that, she could handle—but what if he found her impetuous visit in poor taste? What if he did not see the immediate urgency of her nightmare? After all, she wasn’t the only female to ever have a recurring bad dream—why should she demand the attention of the king the instant she felt…unsettled?
What if he viewed her behavior as not only unsuitable but self-indulgent?
Vanya sighed. She knew the dream was significant, very significant, and Napolean would see it the same way. Still, what if she woke up Brooke and the young prince? Could this not wait until morning?
Vanya quickly withdrew her hand from the door, placed her palm against her stomach to steady her nerves, and exhaled slowly with relief. Of course it could wait. Stepping slowly away from the door, she sought to formulate a new plan, a compromise that might work better for all.
She opened the well-worn journal to the section she had so recently penned and turned back the corner of the first page. She would not disturb the fearsome leader in the middle of the night, not at his home with his wife and his child. She would simply take it to one of the nearby sentinels and ask them to deliver it to Napolean in the morning with a message: Contact Vanya the moment you read this. And then she would ask one of the sentinels to chauffeur her to the Dark Moon Lodge, where she would stay for just one night. She could meet up with Marquis and Ciopori tomorrow, as planned, after meeting with the king in the light—and propriety—of the day.
Yes, that would do just fine.
It was a much better idea.
Turning on her heel, she raised the collar of her vest for warmth and headed toward the Chamber of Sacrifice and Atonement—more specifically, to the guard watch-room, where the Olaru brothers secured the recent prisoner twenty-four hours a day, keeping a careful eye on the holding cell and the newly detained Dark One.