Brooke narrowed her eyes and blinked several times in confusion. Now that was strange. Was the nutcase defending him now? And after everything he had done to her?
Tiffany seemed momentarily caught off guard by the odd reaction as well as the protective statement. She took a deep breath, as if preparing to respond, and then she abruptly stopped short and took a reflexive step backward.
Brooke leaned forward.
What the hay?
Tiffany was staring dazedly at Tawni’s eyes, and she looked like she had just seen a ghost.
Brooke shifted her bottom in the seat, absently scooting back and forth, as if she could get a better purchase, and consequently, a better look. Tawni’s eyes were noticeably bloodshot and incredibly intense—she probably hadn’t slept well in weeks—but they didn’t seem all that interesting, unless one considered…
Holy shit!
Her eyes weren’t bloodshot.
They were blood red.
As crimson as the petals of a dark velvet rose, and their origin was all too familiar.
Vampyr?
Tiffany backpedaled a few steps further, unconsciously shielding Prince Phoenix with her body, and her gaze dropped lower, dipping from Tawni’s eyes to her mouth.
Brooke’s gaze instinctively followed, and that was all she wrote.
The woman’s lips were curled back into a wicked snarl, the reedy flesh twisted into a thin line just above the tops of her teeth, and her gums practically twitched with anticipation as her canines grew sharp, long, and deadly… as they extended into fangs.
For a moment, Brooke could only sit there and stare, stunned into inaction, all the while wondering: What the heck is this?
After all, it simply wasn’t possible.
There were no female vampires in Dark Moon Vale, none but the destinies who had been chosen for the males in the house of Jadon, those converted by their mates, and this sure as hell was no female destiny she had ever heard of.
It only took a moment for her body to catch up with her mind, for her concern to override her confusion, for her heart to synthesize the information.
Who the hell cared what, why, or how?
The woman was turning feral right before Brooke’s eyes, and she was only moments away from lunging, from sinking her teeth into—
Oh, dear goddess, Andromeda!
The woman had her sights set on Phoenix.
In her haste to get out of the car, Brooke wrenched the handle right off the door. When she could no longer get it to open, she flung her shoulder into the panel, shoved with all her might, and fell from the Jaguar, sending the driver’s-side door spiraling into the night.
She sprang to her feet and sprinted toward the playground, willing her muscles to move faster, ordering her body to take flight as it had never done before.
“Tiffany! Tiffany! Look out! Get the baby!”
*
Ramsey Olaru pulled onto the main county road, about five or six blocks beyond the park, watching for the dark gray sedan. In the absence of a visual cue to lead him, he had his window cracked open, and he was concentrating on the distinctive purr, that deep, rumbling drone made only by a BMW’s engine.
Sure enough, the familiar hum was about five hundred yards in front of him.
He stepped on the gas and sent a powerful mind-command to the driver, even as he approached the shiny bumper. Pull the hell over. Now.
The dark gray sedan slowed down, and the driver pulled over to the side of the road.
Ramsey brought the Escalade to a complete stop, right behind the BMW, and then instantly teleported his body from one vehicle to the next.
He was just about to snatch the despicable human by the neck, pull him into the backseat, and get the whole sordid business over with, when the driver instantly vanished before his eyes.
What the hell?
He hadn’t even gotten a good look at the guy.
Although what he had seen, if only a momentary profile, was more than a bit unsettling: long dark hair that fell from a widow’s peak, masking deep sapphire eyes beneath thin, arched brows, and the hair appeared to be dyed partially red.
The hairs stood up on the back of Ramsey’s neck, even as his senses quickened.
The sedan was filled with the faint scent of sulfur, the telltale signature of a sorcerer, and the air practically hummed with preternatural power. Not to mention, the vibrations were way, way off.
Errant.
Supernatural.
Evil.
Before his mind could even register the data, he heard a faint, terrified cry from a distance—it was coming from a female, and it had to be close to the park. “Tiffany! Tiffany! Look out! Get the baby!”
Son of a bitch!
That was Brooke Mondragon’s voice, and the baby was none other than Phoenix Mondragon, the prince of the house of Jadon!
Ramsey was just about to will his molecules to dissolve, to hurl his body in the direction of the park, when he suddenly thought better of it: He scrambled to the back of the Escalade, punched through the glass, and withdrew three weapons: a sheathed dagger, which he tucked inside his belt; his familiar trident, which he melded to his hand; and his AK47. And then he took to the skies like a vampire of old, his rich, flaxen wings punching through his back as he spiraled toward Tall Pines Village Park, and his mind at last made the final connections.
Sweet goddess of mercy.
He knew that profile intimately, and he also knew that smell.
The miserable boyfriend wasn’t human at all. He was a Dark One.
And by all that was unholy, the bastard probably had a name.
Salvatore Nistor.
fifteen
Tiffany Matthews heard Brooke scream, but there was nothing she could do. Tawni was transforming before her very eyes, turning into something savage and terrifying, something utterly unthinkable.
Impossible.
And she was just about ready to lunge at Phoenix Mondragon.
Tiffany took several quick steps to the left, placing her body more squarely between Tawni and the child, even as her mind raced frantically, spinning in hysterical circles, searching for a viable solution:
What the hell what she going to do now?
What the hell was happening?
Whatever Tawni had become—whatever she intended to do—Tiffany was only human.
And Ramsey?
Holy Virgin Mary…
What a fool Tiffany had been. The warrior had driven away from the park, following the so-called boyfriend at Tiffany’s request.
She sucked in a deep breath of air, focused her attention on the matter at hand, and summoned every last ounce of her courage. “Hey!” she shouted, trying to rattle Tawni’s bones with the sheer velocity of her voice. She waved both hands wildly in front of the crazy woman’s face, hoping to draw her attention away from the child in the swing. From Phoenix. “What the hell are you doing?”
Tawni whipped her head to the side in an eerie serpentine motion and snarled. She hunched her shoulders in an unnatural arc, and her breath came out with a hiss. “I’m simply following my master’s orders”—she paused long enough to smile—“now move away from the prince!” She drew her right arm over her left shoulder, preparing to strike, and Tiffany instinctively threw up an elbow to block the blow.
It was an utterly useless maneuver.
The powerful backhand landed halfway between Tiffany’s elbow and her shoulder, instantly launching her off her feet and sending her spiraling through the air, soaring across the playground, and heading straight for a huge wooden fort.
Tiffany was just about to slam, spine first, into the main post when Brooke appeared out of nowhere. The queen leapt into the air, caught Tiffany around the waist, and then spun them both around in a nimble display of prowess, setting her evenly back on the ground. “Run,” Brooke snarled. She didn’t wait for an answer. She released her hold on Tiffany, dropped into a crouch, and then launched herself at Tawni from nearly twenty yards away.
Tawni dove at Phoenix.
Brooke dove at Tawni.
And in a clash of flesh, bone, and willpower, the two enraged women hit the ground with a thud and began to tussle like a pair of wildcats, each vying for supremacy, each seeking the other’s throat.
Tiffany gasped as Tawni sank her wicked fangs into Brooke’s forearm, yet Brooke ignored the pain. She fisted a handful of Tawni’s hair, wrenched the woman’s head forward, and then slowly, deliberately, sank her own deadly canines deep into Tawni’s throat. Brooke snarled and bit down harder, whipping her head from side to side like a crazed dog worrying a bone, trying to break Tawni’s neck.
Tiffany gawked for a few heartbeats longer, unable to tear her gaze from the terrible sight, and then she took her best friend’s warning to heart and took off like a bat out of hell.
There was simply no point in sticking around to watch.
She would only get in the way.
And if she became a liability to Brooke, she would further endanger the prince. Besides, Ramsey had told her in no uncertain terms to make her way back to the spot where he had parked the Escalade if anything went down. Surely, the Master Warrior could not be that far away. Surely, he would hear the feral snarls, savage bites, and life-and-death struggle ensuing in the park, and he would come running.
Tiffany glanced over her shoulder, even as she continued to make tracks toward the small, circular parking lot. The battle behind her was as vicious as it was shocking. The women were trading blows, bites, and lunges. Brooke’s arm was torn open and bleeding, the flesh hanging loosely from the bone, and Tawni’s throat looked like someone had run it through a meat grinder.
In the blink of an eye—if only for one opportune moment—Brooke gained an advantage: She kicked Tawni in the chest, knocking the wind out of her sails, and then she sprang to her feet, rushed to the swing-set, and unfastened her son. In a series of movements that could only be described as a transient blur, she lifted Phoenix out of the harness, turned to face Tiffany, and promptly launched the child into the air, tossing him across the park in an effort to get him out of imminent danger.
In her haste, her aim was way off target.
At best, the child would land fifty feet to the right of Tiffany.
Prince Phoenix squealed at the top of his lungs, his little arms and legs flailing wildly in the air, as if he were desperate for someone to catch him, something that was not going to happen. His eyes grew wide as saucers, and his little throat convulsed with screams as he flew like a missile toward a hard, barren patch of grass.
Tiffany turned to run in his direction, all the while praying for divine intervention, and then just like that, something primordial must have kicked in, because his thick down jacket exploded into a dozen spiraling pieces of cloth, and the most perfect pair of obsidian wings shot through his back and began to flutter wildly in the air.
Phoenix floated gently to the ground, where he curled into a ball and began to sob.
“Oh, baby,” Tiffany whispered, desperate to get to him quickly. “It’s okay, sweetie. Auntie Tiff is coming.”
“Get behind me, and get down!” A deep, commanding voice brought her up short, and Tiffany whirled around to see Ramsey standing right in front of her. He was clutching that gruesome pitchfork in his left hand and some perilous-looking machine gun in his right, and his eyes were literally ablaze with fury.
“But, Phoenix,” she tried to argue. “He’s—”
“Get behind me, now!”
Tiffany scrambled behind him and dropped to the ground just in time to see a Dark One appear before him.
“Greetings, son of Jadon,” the wicked vampire snarled. “It did take you quite a while to figure this whole little scenario out.” He bowed infinitesimally and gestured toward the swing-set, where Brooke and Tawni were still going at it, both women now balanced on their feet, knees bent and arms locked around each other’s wrists, both trying to gain an advantage, waiting for an opportunity to let go of a wrist and strike. “Mmm, I trust you’ve met my bride?”
The left side of Ramsey’s lip twitched rapidly, several times in a row, as if someone were yanking a string attached to his flesh, and then his smooth, ivory canines descended from his gums like two brandished daggers, long, lethal, and menacing.
Tiffany shivered and scooted even further back as a deep, feral purr rumbled in his throat, and then he abruptly angled his body toward the swing-set, leveled the gun in the females’ direction, and shouted an implacable command to his queen: “Brooke, let go and drop down!”
The compulsion must have done its job because Brooke didn’t hesitate.
She released Tawni’s arms, fell to the ground, and covered her head, even as Ramsey began to unload the clip into Tawni’s fully exposed torso.
Tiffany screamed.
Salvatore lunged at Ramsey.
And Ramsey dropped his pitchfork, caught the Dark One by the throat, and continued to spray what were obviously diamond-tipped bullets into Tawni’s chest and head. His body hit the ground, and he fought to keep the automatic weapon steady.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God!” Tiffany panted, scrambling backward to put more space between her and the vampires. “Please don’t let him hit Brooke. Please… please… please.” She watched in utter horror as Tawni’s body jerked this way and that, convulsing in the air like a jackhammer torn free of its handler, and the bullets struck home, again and again… and again.
After several terrifying moments, the park grew silent.
The clip was empty, and Tawni’s bloody carcass slumped to the ground.
Brooke stood back up and headed straight for Phoenix, even as Ramsey turned his full attention on Salvatore. The dark vampire was chewing his way through Ramsey’s extended arm, frothing at the mouth and spitting like some kind of rabid dog.
Ramsey dropped the machine gun, drew back his good arm, and punched the Dark One, dead between the eyes, sending him spiraling backward from the force of the blow. The incensed sentinel then rolled across the grass, grabbed his pitchfork in mid-turn, and sprang to his feet, his mangled left arm hanging limply at his side.
He tossed the pitchfork with a flick of his wrist, twirled it around like a baton, and rotated it into the center of his hand. And then he stalked toward the Dark One with a murderous rage in his eyes, his body moving more like a machine than a vessel of flesh and blood.
His muscles twitched.
His chest heaved with determination.
And his knuckles turned white from his murderous grasp on the weapon.
And then everything happened at once.
The north end of the park virtually filled with Master Warriors, vampires from the house of Jadon, materializing like Vikings from a prehistoric sea previously masked by fog: Napolean, Santos, and Saxson; Julien, Saber, and the Silivasi brothers; even Kagen and his new mate, Arielle, drove up in their jeep, appearing on the fringes, ready to treat whoever was injured.
Clearly, Ramsey must have called for the Calvary.
Tiffany was just about to get up, head for the safety of the warriors—check on Brooke and Phoenix—and leave the Dark One, who was clearly doomed, to Ramsey and his capable band of brothers, when Tawni Duvall stirred.
In fact, she didn’t so much stir as rise, like a ghostly apparition from a grave.
A brittle leaf, left over from autumn, crunched beneath Tiffany’s hand, and then the unthinkable occurred: Tawni ascended to her feet, dropped low into a squat, and vaulted the full distance of the park at Tiffany, her clawed hands extended in front of her, her sharp fangs protruding from her mouth.
Tiffany gasped at the terrifying sight, and she even tried to scream, but the sound got caught in her throat. She thought she saw Ramsey pause to glance over his shoulder, but there wasn’t any time.
What seemed like minutes actually happened in a fraction of a second. It simply transpired in the blink of an eye. Tawni landed in front of Tiffany, dropped into a squat, and gently grasped her by both of her
trembling cheeks, the pads of her inhuman fingers massaging Tiffany’s jaw.
It was almost like a lover’s embrace.
Tawni cocked her head to the side and smiled, and then she swiftly flicked her wrists, rotating each to the left in perfect unison.
There was a pregnant pause before the snap, the sharp, crackling pop, as Tiffany tried to speak. She wanted to say to someone, Hey, I think she’s about to break my neck, but the words never came out.
The thought never reached completion.
The pain was horrendous, yet so short-lived, Tiffany never had a chance to register its intensity.
It was simply and indelibly over.
Her pain, and her fear, and her life.
The world and everyone in it disappeared.
sixteen
Ramsey Olaru felt Tiffany’s fear.
He heard the silent scream his destiny couldn’t cry, and he registered that finite pause in her heartbeat, that sudden hitch of terrified breath.
Although he knew better than to turn his back on Salvatore Nistor, he couldn’t help it. It was instinctual. He glanced over his shoulder to see to his mate, to determine the reason for her dread, and his breath caught in his throat.
Dear sacred twins of Gemini, the Vampyr woman was bending over his destiny, cupping her face in her hands, and he knew—oh sweet Andromeda, he knew—what was coming next.
Ramsey Olaru was an immortal being. He was capable of moving faster than light or sound; gifted with the strength of a mythological god; notorious for besting the most seasoned of enemies, lycan or vampire, yet he was one step too far away; one heartbeat too late to turn around; one neuron firing too slow to comprehend, the only thing that had mattered in his entire, eternal lifetime.
Tiffany Matthews was human, and he was helpless to protect her.
He speared his trident into the ground and lunged toward the vicious female, cringing as he heard the pop, praying to any god who would listen that it hadn’t meant what he thought, hoping against hope that his destiny wasn’t dead.
He could feel Salvatore sneaking up behind him, but he just didn’t give a shit. Whatever the foul, demented monster was planning to do next…