Kagen shrugged. I’m okay with that—for tonight, he qualified. But eventually, we’re going to have to tell her something.
Marquis waved his hand in dismissal. At this point, what the human does or does not want is of no consequence to me; what matters is Nachari’s safety and figuring this out. He rubbed his brow in frustration. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think we need a wizard.
Deanna threw her arms up in the air. “What in the hell are you guys doing?” She took several steps back from her chair and shuffled in the direction of the front door. No doubt, she had seen the body language and hand gestures…in the absence of speech.
Kagen stood slowly. “We’re just considering your request,” he said.
Deanna shook her head vigorously. “It’s not a request. This is America, and last I checked, I was free to come and go as I please.” She raised her purse strap on her shoulder and hugged her attaché case to her chest. “So if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m outta here.” Without looking back, she started to walk briskly toward the front door. Her heart was practically beating out of her chest.
Marquis immediately rose to cut her off.
Let her go, Marquis, Nathaniel said.
Marquis glared at him angrily.
“Call Ramsey,” Nathaniel whispered in a voice so slight only another vampire could hear. Ask him to meet us at the cabins. The moment she pulls out of the driveway, we will cloak our appearances and follow her while remaining invisible. He turned in the direction of Nachari’s room. Kagen, of course, will stay here with Nachari.
Marquis thought it over. He would never understand why his brothers went out of their way to see to the comfort of humans. Perhaps this Deanna was Nachari’s destiny, perhaps she was not; but either way, she had answers they needed in her drawings. What she couldn’t explain—because she honestly didn’t know—perhaps another wizard, or even Napolean himself could discern.
It will be as I say. Marquis spoke with authority then, making it clear that he was pulling rank as the eldest brother and the most senior Ancient Master Warrior in the room. She will return to the cabin tonight under the protection of Ramsey and Nathaniel. She will be brought back to the clinic at first light tomorrow to meet with our wizards, Jankiel and Niko. Until then, the drawings will remain here at the clinic where we can study them. I do not care to waste an entire night waiting for the girl to get her beauty sleep.
As you wish, Nathaniel responded. And then, flashing a brilliant smile, he called after Deanna. “Ms. Dubois?”
Her back stiffened and she looked over her shoulder, but she didn’t stop walking.
“You will stop walking now,” he said in a low, melodic tone.
She froze in place.
“You will hand me your collection of drawings willingly.”
She blinked several times, glanced down at her attaché case, and held it out to Nathaniel.
He moved at the speed of light, all at once appearing before her, and gently removed the case from her arms. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Now go home and get some sleep. And do not think to leave Dark Moon Vale—as you will gladly return to the clinic tomorrow morning.”
Deanna stood before Nathaniel like a statue as his words were absorbed into her consciousness—as his will became her own. She slowly nodded her head and smiled. “So, I’ll see you all in the morning, then?” Her brow creased in confusion.
“That would be perfect,” Nathaniel responded, releasing her from his compulsion.
She gave him a harsh look of suspicion. “Good night,” she clipped. And then she turned and nearly ran to the front door.
Deanna threw open the front door to the clinic and took a deep breath of cool night air, trying to fill her lungs with as much as she could. Trying to return sanity to her befuddled mind.
If someone had told her that her name was Alice and she had just fallen down a rabbit hole—or that she was actually Dorothy from Kansas and finding the Wizard of Oz was her only way back home—she would have believed it without question.
What in the world had she gotten herself into?
She shuddered, thinking of the three predatory men who had kept her in the clinic all day long, hurling question after question, hour after hour, in her direction: When did she first begin to sketch the drawings? What went through her mind when it happened? What was she feeling? Did she dream about the sketches? Had she told anyone what she was doing? How had she found the Dark Moon Vale Clinic? What did the clouds in the pictures mean to her? Whose hands were reaching out of the ground for the mysterious man? What did she feel when she thought about the man lying so lifeless in the hospital bed?
She placed her hands over her ears and fought so hard to stifle a scream that the resulting sound came out as a long, drawn-out moan. She had come to Dark Moon Vale for answers, to convince herself that she wasn’t, in fact, crazy. And now, all she believed was that the whole world was crazy right along with her.
The hair stood up on the back of her neck, and she quickly spun around, fully expecting to see someone standing right behind here. There was no one there. She glanced nervously around the parking lot as she took the stone steps in front of the clinic two at a time, all the while digging for her keys at the bottom of her purse.
A branch broke from the limb of a tree overhead, and she jumped.
She could have sworn she heard a second set of footsteps right beside her.
The heat of another body drifted tangibly around her, and it felt as if her left arm were brushing against an invisible person. She yanked her arm away and accidentally dropped her purse. “Who’s there?” she called, squatting down to gather her now scattered belongings.
In her mind’s eye she could still see the giant, terrifying man—the one who called himself Marquis—scrutinizing her with his penetrating gaze. His eyes were such a dark black that they practically shone blue; and his huge, rock-hard body dwarfed everyone who stood near him, not just in size but in power. In presence. He was like a living, breathing pillar of stone: harsh, unrelenting, and deadly with purpose. There was no give in that man, no soft edges. Like the rest of them, he was ungodly handsome, but there was something harsh and unforgiving in his style. Something that made Deanna want to scream and run…all the way back to New Orleans.
And the seductive, charming one—the guy named Nathaniel—he wasn’t anything to play with, either. In fact, the word that came to mind was panther: sleek, powerful, hypnotically beautiful, and oh-so-very dangerous. He had the charm of a Lothario yet the stealth of a hunter. Like he could sidle up to a woman, purr enticingly in her ear, and then pounce and rip out her throat all in one graceful motion…without ever abandoning that beguiling smile. He was the kind of man who could make a woman weep for his favor…or beg for his mercy.
Deanna sat on the last of the stone steps, bent over, and hung her head between her knees. She needed air. She needed to get a grip. She did not want to freak-the-heck out—not now. She did not want to do anything that might bring the good doctor out of the clinic to her rescue.
Or demise.
The good doctor.
What in the world did she think of him?
The thought made her picture the brown-haired, brown-eyed physician, and she wished she’d had the good sense to avoid the clinic altogether in the first place. Too late.
Kagen Silivasi.
He was the least outwardly intimidating of the three brothers, the most casual and restrained; yet in his own way, he frightened her more than the other two—there was just something about his carefully controlled demeanor.
He was eerily calm…too calm.
His nonchalant behavior was too easy, too refined, too measured.
Like the quiet before a storm, Kagen Silivasi was all bottled-up ferocity just waiting to happen. As far as Deanna was concerned, dealing with Kagen reminded her of the Old West warning about dealing with an Apache: If you ever find yourself cornered by one, save the last bullet for yourself.
Deanna dropp
ed the last of her scattered belongings, a thin tube of rose-pink lipstick, back into her purse, and sat up straight, raising her head from her knees. Normal men were just not that threatening, at least none of the men she had ever met, and certainly not without trying to be. And they were never that handsome.
They were never that…feline.
Something was so wrong with this whole picture. So why was she planning on returning in the morning? And why had she chosen to sleep hours of the day away in the room next to Nachari’s?
In a pit full of vipers?
Nachari.
His name played over and over in her mind.
Oh God…Nachari.
Why, in spite of so much danger, when every warning bell in her head was going off—screaming Run! Get away!—did she want to march right back into that room and wake that beautiful man up? See his eyes.
Save him.
It made no earthly sense. Surely, he would be as strange, intimidating, and dangerous as his brothers. Not someone she wanted to meet.
But still…
Forcing herself to stop thinking about it—and ignore the very real sense of danger she felt all around her—Deanna rose from the steps and made her way to her SUV. She opened the door and was just about to toss her purse onto the seat when she felt a sudden, inexplicable tingling on the inside of her left wrist. It was as if her skin were on fire…but not…burning without pain. She held up her arm and rolled back her sleeve; perhaps she was having an allergic reaction to something she had come in contact with in the clinic…
And that’s when the sky turned black.
The lights in the heavens simply went out, leaving the world in utter, terrifying darkness.
Deanna held her breath. She waited, motionless, as her mind tried to make sense of what was happening around her: Was it a lunar eclipse? Some rare, astronomical phenomenon she had never heard of? She could hear her own heartbeat as she stared up at the sky, waiting for the stars and the moon to return to the heavens.
And then they did—only not at all like they were before…
The moon was the color of fresh blood, a red so vivid that it looked like an artist had climbed a ladder to the sky and painted it by hand. And the stars were back, but they had shifted their position in the sky—was that even possible?—to form a very clear and distinct image. Deanna had loved astrology in high school, and she immediately recognized the constellation: It was Perseus, the Victorious Hero, holding his sword in one hand and the head of the Gorgon in the other. Despite her trepidation, she was awestruck. Fascinated. What in the world was happening?
She ducked into her car to retrieve her cell phone from her purse. She wanted to use the camera—she just had to snap a picture—and that’s when she noticed the unusual markings on her arm. Jolting in surprise, she traced the vivid lines and dots along her wrists, comparing each and every one to the same vivid lines in the sky: Perseus, the constellation, was indelibly etched into her forearm.
Deanna set her phone down on the seat.
She was scared now. Really. Scared.
She didn’t want to go back to the cabins. She didn’t want to try and figure this out. She just wanted to head back to New Orleans on the next plane out of DIA and check herself into a hospital where she could get the help she needed.
To hell with this.
Her danger meter was registering off the charts. If ever there was a time to throw in the towel, this was it.
“Calm down, D,” she whispered to herself. “Just get in your car and go. It’s going to be okay…you just need to get somewhere where someone can help you.” She ran her fingers gently along her wrist and trembled. It’s not cancer. Diseases don’t just suddenly appear out of nowhere. It’s probably not even real—after all, the sky doesn’t just change out of the blue; and if it did, those changes wouldn’t just suddenly appear on your arm. There’s gotta be some rational explanation.
Maybe those guys drugged you…
Maybe that’s why you slept so long…
Maybe you’re just hallucinating…
Of course, that was it. The emergency room. She just needed to find a local emergency room and get some help.
“Deanna.” A soft male voice interrupted her thoughts, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
Where the heck did he come from?
“Nathaniel?” she gasped in shock. Then just as quickly, she shouted, “Get away from me!”
She shoved at his chest and turned to duck into her car, but he blocked her with his arm. “Deanna, don’t.”
She quickly ducked beneath the obstruction and took off running across the parking lot, kicking off her two-inch heels along the way so she could really pump her arms and put everything she had into her stride.
“Deanna,” he called after her, his voice never rising above a conversational pitch.
To hell with you! she thought.
Every breath burned like fire as she pushed her body to the limit and strained her lungs against the altitude. And then, a piercing scream escaped her throat as she looked up to find Marquis Silivasi standing like a brick wall in front of her, as if out of the clear blue sky.
Now where had he come from!?
Circling her arms in a backward rotation to stop her momentum, she pulled up short and took several steps back. Suddenly, the doctor was standing to her left, both of his hands held out in front of him like he was trying to coax a frightened jumper down from a ledge. “Deanna, slow down…just breathe,” he whispered.
She whipped her head to the side: Nathaniel was now on her right.
Impossible!
The brothers were the three points of a triangle, practically surrounding her, and she had never seen—or heard—any of them approach. “Leave me alone!” she cried out, completely reversing directions in order to run back to her car.
As she neared the SUV, Nathaniel suddenly appeared again, standing in front of the driver’s side door, as if he had never left.
She whirled around, utterly frantic. Nathaniel was in front of her. Marquis was behind her. And Kagen was quickly approaching from the side. She spun around in hysterical circles. She ran a few steps this way, then a few steps that, heading wildly in all directions, only to find one of the brothers blocking her path no matter which way she chose to run.
“Oh my God…Oh my God…Oh my God,” she chanted desperately. She shifted directions yet again, this time heading for the stone bridge. If only she could get to the water, leap into the river, the current would carry her downstream, and…and…maybe they couldn’t follow. And that had to be better than—
“Noooo!”
She shouted so loud it hurt her throat as Nathaniel’s iron arms closed around her from behind. Once again, he had simply appeared out of nowhere.
She kicked and struggled in earnest.
“Deanna, please…don’t.” His smooth, raspy voice terrified her even more than his sudden, inexplicable appearances. He had used that voice…many times…to do what? To make her do things against her will? Like give him her drawings?
“Oh…shit,” she uttered as the realization hit her: Kagen had put her to sleep earlier—with his voice. Marquis had compelled the answers to his questions—with his voice! Nathaniel had taken her drawings and ordered her to come back the next morning…
With his voice!
“What are you?” she demanded. And then, before Nathaniel could answer, she clasped her hands to her ears and began reciting the word No in an attempt to drown out his voice. That powerful, dangerous, inhuman voice.
Nathaniel pried Deanna’s hands from her ears easily. “Deanna, I am not going to compel you…again. But you must listen to me.”
“Compel me? Again?” she repeated. Then it was true. “How? Why?” She took two careful steps backward, and he let her. “What are you?”
“Deanna—”
“What the hell are you!”
“We are Vampyr.” Marquis Silivasi spoke evenly, having swiftly closed the distance between them.
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Deanna felt her knees go weak. “Did you just say vampire?” She almost laughed. Almost. “As in Count Dracula? Blood-sucking monsters?” She heard herself giggle for real then and knew it was from hysteria.
“No,” Kagen answered, all at once standing before her and reaching out his hand. “As in a separate species from humans that has existed on the earth for over twenty-eight hundred years.”
She shook her head in disbelief.
He sighed. “Deanna, you are strongly connected to our brother Nachari. That is why you felt compelled to draw sketches of him. When he was…hurt…you must have sensed it.”
Deanna listened as if from a great distance away, the words floating around her more than sinking in. It was more like eavesdropping on a conversation than participating in one. Absently, she looked at her arm. “What is this?” she asked.
“Perseus,” Kagen whispered. “You recognized the constellation the moment you saw it.”
“No…what does it mean?” she heard herself say.
Nathaniel took a step toward her. “Perseus is Nachari’s reigning constellation. He is the Celestial god who chose you for my brother long before you were born.”
“Chose…me…for…for what?”
“You belong to Nachari,” Marquis said in a stern voice. “It is that simple, and now you must come back inside with us.”
“Marquis,” Kagen chastised, sounding clearly irritated, “let Nathaniel and I do the talking…please.”
Marquis grunted. “It is what it is, and we can’t stand out in the open all night. She’s Nachari’s. Period. Bring her inside.”
Deanna blanched, looking back and forth between Nathaniel and Kagen. Would they obey Marquis and just snatch her? Kidnap her? “Wait,” she said, turning her full gaze on Kagen. He seemed to be the most reasonable one. “How did you know that I recognized that constellation? That I knew it was Perseus? Were you…reading my thoughts?”