CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
Swinging her into his arms, Logan drew back the covers and lowered Mara onto the mattress. After sliding under the covers beside her, he gathered her close. The night was beautiful, and so was the woman nestled in his arms. He had dreamed of this moment many times over the years, but he had never believed it would happen, and now she was here. He had never put much stock in fate, but he couldn’t help thinking it was more than coincidence that had brought them together at a time when she desperately needed help. Exactly what kind of help, he wasn’t sure, but he was prepared to do whatever was necessary, up to and including sacrificing his own life for hers.
“Logan . . .” Her hands moved restlessly up and down his back. “Kiss me,” she murmured. “Kiss me . . .”
“That’s it, darlin’,” he said, his hand caressing the silky length of her thigh. “Just tell me what you want.”
She locked her hands behind his nape. “I want you. All of you.” A seductive smile tugged at her lips. “Every inch.”
Other titles available by Amanda Ashley
A WHISPER OF ETERNITY
AFTER SUNDOWN
DEAD PERFECT
DEAD SEXY
DESIRE AFTER DARK
NIGHT’S KISS
NIGHT’S MASTER
NIGHT’S PLEASURE
NIGHT’S TOUCH
IMMORTAL SINS
EVERLASTING KISS
EVERLASTING DESIRE
BOUND BY NIGHT
BOUND BY BLOOD
HIS DARK EMBRACE
DESIRE THE NIGHT
BENEATH A MIDNIGHT MOON
AS TWILIGHT FALLS
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Night’s Mistress
AMANDA ASHLEY
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
Also by
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Epilogue
Copyright Page
For all the readers who have
waited so patiently for
Mara’s story . . .
Chapter One
Mara stood on the balcony of her home in the mountains of Northern California. Staring out over her domain, she lifted her gaze to the endless indigo vault of the sky, to the moon that had been her sun since the night she became a vampire so many centuries ago. Even though she could now walk freely in the light of day if she was so inclined, she was still most comfortable in the darkness she had inhabited for thousands of years.
In the silvery wash of the moon’s light, the world around her looked peaceful. The people who lived in the small town located in the shallow valley below were all sleeping now, dreaming their innocent mortal dreams, blissfully unaware that one of the Undead lived in the sprawling old house near the top of the mountain. The War for supremacy waged between the vampires and the werewolves had ended, and most humans were content to pretend it had never happened.
After a time, she let her mind expand, homing in on the few people in the world that she cared for.
Roshan DeLongpre and his witch wife, Brenna, were on an extended vacation in Venice. Vince Cordova and his pretty blond, blue-eyed wife, Cara, were at home in Porterville. At the moment, they were sitting outside, enjoying the quiet of a star-studded Oregon night. Their son, Raphael, and his bride, Kathy McKenna, were in bed, wrapped in each other’s embrace. Mara wondered how Kathy was enjoying her new life as a vampire.
Mara had once offered to bequeath the Dark Gift to Kathy. As Mara’s fledgling, the girl wouldn’t have been affected by the Dark Sleep, but Kathy had wanted Rafe to be her master. Mara couldn’t blame the girl; after all, if one had to be bound to a master, it was always more pleasant if it was someone you loved and trusted, someone who would guide you patiently, and gently teach you all the things a new vampire needed to know in order to survive. Someone who would never abandon you, or betray you. Not long after being turned, Kathy had sold her bookstore in Oak Hollow, and she and Rafe had moved to Porterville.
Raphael’s twin brother, Rane, had finally made peace with what he was. He and his wife, Savanah, had also bought a place in Porterville. Just now, Rane and his bride were at home, sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, their three-month-old daughter, Abbey Marie, sleeping peacefully on a blanket between them. Savanah had not yet accepted the Dark Gift her husband was so eager to give her. They had both agreed it would be best to wait a few years, until Abbey was older.
Mara told herself she wasn’t jealous, that she didn’t envy any of them the love or the happiness they had found, but deep within the hidden recesses of her heart where she didn’t look too often, she knew it for the bald-faced lie it was. She was Mara, the oldest and most powerful of her kind. Vampires, male and female, envied her. Men sought her favors, willing to do anything she asked just to be near her. She should have been blissfully happy and content, and yet her existence lacked any real purpose or meaning. She was finding it more and more difficult to find a reason to rise each night; she was growing increasingly weary of her self-imposed lonely existence.
She had taken mortal lovers from time to time, but she had loved none of them. Afraid to fully trust any man, be he mortal or vampire, she had always withheld a part of herself, never letting any of the men she had known get too close, or see too much.
Until she met Kyle Bowden. She had been captivated by him from the moment she first saw him standing at the foot of the Sphinx with a sketch pad in his hand. He had been hatless in the sun; his short brown hair highlighted with streaks of gold. The sleeves of his white shirt had been rolled up, revealing suntanned skin and muscular arms. She had watched his hand, quick and confident as it moved over the paper, and wondered if he possessed that same confidence with women.
Eager to meet him, she had purposely bumped into him with a murmured, “Sorry.”
He had turned toward her, stared at her a moment, and then blurted, “Good Lord, but you’re beautiful.”
Before meeting Kyle, she had intended to find a place to go to ground, to bury herself deep in the earth in the Valley of the Nile an
d sleep for a year or two, perhaps ten, but with Kyle at her side, the world no longer seemed like such a dreary place; the lethargy that had plagued her disappeared, and she found herself wanting to travel the globe again, to see it anew through his eyes.
As giddy as a schoolgirl with her first crush, she had quickly fallen head over heels for him, charmed by his innate sweetness, by the sincerity and adoration in the depths of his deep gray eyes. For the first time in her existence, she had given her heart to a man, something she had sworn she would never do.
But then she had foolishly trusted him with the truth of what she was, and seen the look in his eyes turn from love to revulsion. She remembered that night so well. They had been reclining on the loveseat in his studio, their arms and legs intimately entwined . . .
Kyle reached for a bowl of black grapes and offered her one. With a slight smile, she shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“You never eat with me,” he remarked, popping the grape into his mouth. “Why is that? Are your table manners so terrible?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “I’m quite tidy.”
“Tidy?” he repeated with a grin. “That’s an odd way of putting it.”
“I have odd tastes.”
He ate another grape. “Odd? How so?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I love you, Mara, with all my heart. I want to know everything.” He set the bowl aside and traced the curve of her lower lip with his forefinger. “Everything. I want to know what makes you laugh and what makes you cry, and why you sometimes look at me strangely, as if . . .”
“As if I want to eat you up?”
“Yes, something like that.” He withdrew his hand, his brow furrowing. “But that’s not the only thing.”
“No?”
“I don’t know how to explain it, how to put it into words . . .”
She ran her fingertips along the side of his neck, her nostrils flaring. “Try.”
“Your eyes . . . sometimes, like now . . . they change . . .”
Her eyelids fluttered down and she drew a deep breath. She was getting so comfortable in his presence, she sometimes let her guard down. Especially at times like these, when they were lying close together, when the scent of his blood was almost overpowering. She had to be more careful, had to remember that he didn’t know what she was.
“Mara? What are you keeping from me?”
Back in control, she opened her eyes. “Trust me, Kyle, if I tell you, you’ll never look at me the same again.”
“Trust you? It’s you who doesn’t trust me. If you did, there wouldn’t be any secrets between us.”
He was right, of course. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust anyone, but maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to find out if he truly loved her, or if they were only empty words.
“Fine.” She rose to her feet. “You want the truth? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” And so saying, she unleashed her power and let him see her for what she was. Lips drawn back, fangs extended, her eyes blazing red, she towered over him.
It was a mistake, just as she had known it would be.
He had jumped off the loveseat and practically flown across the room in his haste to put some distance between them. “Get away from me, you bloodsucking fiend!”
His words had shocked her, her insides going cold as the love in his eyes swiftly turned to revulsion. She could have mesmerized him, made him forget what he had seen, but she had been too proud. He couldn’t accept her for what she was, and she couldn’t accept that . . .
She shook the unpleasant memory from her mind. She loved being a vampire, loved everything about it. She wouldn’t have gone back to being mortal again even if it was possible. Not for Kyle. Not for anyone, or anything, else. She had seen the world change and grow through the centuries, witnessed the rise and fall of kings and queens, of kingdoms and nations, observed the Dark Ages and the Industrial Revolution, seen the birth of innumerable inventions that the people of her day would have hailed as miracles—things like space travel and the automobile, iPads and Kindles, satellite television, wireless computers, Twitter and Facebook, and cell phones that did everything but cook and clean house. She grinned wryly. In her day, a roll of toilet paper would have been acclaimed as a miracle.
For the first time in her long existence, she felt the weight of past centuries sitting heavily on her shoulders. These days, there was little in life that surprised her; few things that she hadn’t seen or done a hundred times. Twining a lock of hair around her finger, she wondered if perhaps it was time to end her existence, to find out what, if anything, waited on the other side.
It would be a new adventure, she mused, a place she had never been before. Was there another life, another existence, after this one? She had seen no physical evidence of an afterlife. If one did exist, would her soul find rest in some heavenly paradise? That seemed doubtful. It was far more likely that she would be tossed into a sea of endless damnation, forced to spend eternity in the deepest pit of a cruel and unforgiving Hell.
With a sigh of resignation, she closed her eyes as thoughts of her past washed over her.
She had been raised a slave in the house of Chuma, one of Pharaoh’s trusted advisors. She had been a month shy of her fifteenth birthday when Chuma presented her to Shakir, a wealthy ally, as a reward for a service well done. Perhaps that had been hell enough. Mara had not taken kindly to being a slave in Pharaoh’s household, but she had been treated well enough. Captivity in Shakir’s household was another thing entirely. He had been a cold and cruel man, one who demanded instant obedience, one who did not hesitate to wield the lash at the slightest provocation, real or imagined. Shakir had allowed only female slaves under his roof. Many in Chuma’s household had mocked Shakir behind his back, saying it was unseemly for a man of Shakir’s position to have women working in his stables, caring for his armor, preparing his meals, acting as his butler, driving his chariot, but Shakir had ignored their taunts. He refused to share his quarters with male servants. There were no eunuchs in his household staff, no stallions in his stable.
Shakir claimed to love women. Old and young and in between, he professed to love all the female slaves in his household. And he bedded them all, from the oldest to the youngest, whether they were willing or not, eager to prove his manhood by the number of children he sired. His touch had made Mara’s flesh crawl. For some reason she never understood, her blatant distaste for Shakir’s touch soon made her his favorite. At first, he had found her loathing amusing, her temper tantrums entertaining.
Desperate to escape both his bed and his whip, she had run off many times in the ensuing five years until, finally wearying of her constant attempts to leave him, Shakir had put her in chains.
Mara had thought her life a hell before, but now it was much, much worse. Shakir kept her chained in a small cell in the bowels of his residence. Food was delivered once each day, unless the wrinkled old slave, Kesi, forgot. Shakir refused Mara the ease of a pallet, the warmth of a blanket, the comfort of a light. He even denied her the opportunity to bathe except on those nights when she was brought, still in chains, to his bedchamber. Once she was bathed and powdered and perfumed, he chained her to his bed and used her as he saw fit. She would never forget his cruelty or the humiliation of being bound and helpless, forced to submit to whatever he demanded of her.
She had begged Kesi to kill her, or to bring her a knife so that she might take her own life, but the old woman had feared Shakir’s wrath too much to help her.
And then, late one night, when she was huddled in a corner of her cell, her back raw from the lash, the candle outside her cell sprang to life and a shadowed figure appeared beside her. One minute she had been alone in the dark, the next he was there, a dusky-skinned man of medium height. A long black cloak fell from a pair of broad shoulders, the hood pulled low over his face, shadowing his features, save for his eyes, which seemed to glow with some dark inner fire.
“Who are you?” She had
scrambled as far away from him as her chains would allow, the pain in her back forgotten. “How did you get in here?”
“I go where I wish,” he had replied. “No one can keep me in. Or lock me out.” He took a step toward her. “Tell me, my raven-haired beauty, are you happy here?”
“Of course not.” She recoiled when his hand snaked out from under his heavy black cloak to brush her cheek. “Leave me alone!”
“And if I refuse, what will you do? Cry for help? Who is going to hear you down here, I wonder?”
“Who are you?”
“I am Dendar, master of the night.”
He moved closer. She could see little of his face or form in the near darkness of her cell. But she could see his eyes, red and glowing now, like Hell’s own light.
When he put his arms around her, she struggled for a moment, and then went still. She had prayed for death, and now Death stood before her.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and waited. Soon, her misery would be over. Soon, she would discover the Great Mystery that awaited everyone.
There was a moment of pain, and then there was pleasure beyond anything she had ever known. She felt weightless, as if her spirit had left her body far behind and was now floating effortlessly in the air. She had no fears, no worries. There was only a deep, sensual pleasure she hoped would last forever.