Then I need fighting support. He glanced back and saw that Daniel was keeping pace and had a large detail with him. I’m thinking we go with one of our earlier plans involving your security team. Daniel has about twenty men with him.
How far out are you?
Two minutes.
Jesus H. Christ. What? Are you like flying at super-Ancestral level?
Hell if I know. I’m just damn determined to save Shayna.
All right. All right. Let me think.
Marius knew there was no place in the vampire world he’d be safe with Shayna, not right now, not with Daniel so close.
Marius had a safe house in New Zealand that Daniel didn’t know about, but if he’d headed there with Shayna, Daniel could have followed them, just as he was doing now.
His only hope was in facing off with Daniel and his force, making use of Rumy’s security personnel. Rumy could summon at least a hundred men, but it might take a few minutes.
The only problem was speed. Rumy would have to orchestrate and pull his team together while Daniel was right on Marius’s ass.
Timing would be critical.
However, Marius was confident he could hold them off long enough for Rumy’s men to arrive.
As he flew the last stretch to Italy, Marius now questioned his wisdom in taking Shayna to the Dark Cave system in the first place. Except that in his desperation, he was hoping against hope that if she actually saw the atrocities committed against her people, then she might be willing to engage with him and help him find the extinction weapon.
It had been a last-ditch effort that might just prove fatal to Shayna. Then he’d have one more death on his hands.
But what else was fucking new?
Rumy came back on the telepathic line. Okay, we’re moving to plan B. I’ll contact you as soon as I have a location locked in, about thirty seconds.
Got it. Plan B involved Rumy setting up a battlefield deep inside the Como system, well away from the various clubs and restaurants associated with The Erotic Passage.
Because Marius was flying at top speed, he could feel that pain piercing Shayna’s head once more; even the power she streamed from the blood-chains wasn’t helping.
Marius, can you slow down? You haven’t gone this fast before.
I can’t, because Daniel’s after us. Just hold on. I’ll be putting us down in less than a minute.
Hurry. Oh, God, the pain. It’s worse than before. She started to scream.
Shayna, I’m so sorry.
He felt nothing but relief when she passed out.
CHAPTER 4
When Rumy came back on the line, he said, I’ve got it set it up and my men are on the way. He then sent Marius a visual.
Marius homed in on the image until he locked onto the exact cavern. Got it.
I’m sending my toughest two dozen. But they’ll come in waves because they were on maneuvers in the north. Just keep Daniel talking. That bastard loves the sound of his own voice.
Thank you, Rumy.
Just stay alive. We need you, Marius. He felt Rumy shut the communication down.
Marius was only seconds out now. Once at Lake Como, he headed into the hills and dipped through solid rock. He could feel the cavern’s pull on him as he held the image fixed in his mind.
When he reached the location, he shifted from altered flight to regular levitation then sought out a stretch of even ground close to the cavern wall. At the same time, he started building the layered shield that Gabriel had taught him to construct. With any luck, Daniel wouldn’t find him right away.
With great care, he laid Shayna next to the rock wall, then rose up, turning to face into the massive cavern space. The area was completely unimproved. The ground was boulder-strewn, with scattered pools of old water, as well as a number of stalactites and stalagmites, the dripstone making it hard to do battle. Rumy had chosen the place well.
He hated that this was the best he could do, but he didn’t have an auxiliary fighting force like Rumy did. Building an army in his world was illegal.
Just as Daniel and his men started to arrive, he pulled two long battle chains from deep, narrow pockets in his leathers, then started them spinning. He still held his disguise, but Daniel took one long look around the cavern and began spacing his men out.
Then he turned to Marius because he could see right through his layered shield. Daniel waved an arm and Marius’s disguise faltered and fell away. Shit. Just when he thought he knew the breadth of Daniel’s power.
“Don’t be a fool, son. I don’t want to kill Shayna or you, but I’m so sick of you boys rebelling. It’s been four hundred years and you’d think by now life would have shaped you up and brought you to serve at my feet.”
“Then you shouldn’t have hurt us like you did. We would have had no reason to rebel otherwise.” Stating the goddamn obvious.
Daniel looked as he always did, like an elegant dictator. He wore an expensive, tailored suit of dark-blue silk and a goatee trimmed close, with his short, dark hair slicked back. He had unforgettable eyes, teal, and flecked with gold. Marius shared the gold flecks but his eyes were a less impressive hazel, a distinction Marius preferred.
Daniel represented everything evil in their world and Marius hated him with a passion. Like all the Briggs boys, Daniel had tortured Marius, slicing the length of his spine and flaying him open again and again in order to preserve the scar for posterity. Only repeated cuts could leave a scar on a vampire. Daniel called it a character-building exercise. That’s how he justified his pleasure in brutalizing his children. How often had he heard Daniel say that the beatings, cuttings, and slicings-up would make men of his sissy-boys.
Daniel hovered forty feet away, levitating behind his line of fighters. He wouldn’t dirty his hands unless he had to.
“You were always my biggest disappointment, Marius. You were the little boy that cried all the time, looking for Adrien and Lucian to protect you. I know how much you used them—and don’t pretend you didn’t. You and I both know the truth. Of course it pleased me to see you writhe in your guilt when one or the other of your brothers would take your pain for you.”
Daniel always got to the heart of things.
“Fuck you, Daniel.” Hatred boiled in Marius, stronger than ever, especially recalling how his father hadn’t even bothered to dispose of all the dead bodies in his most recent torture room. He’d left them there to rot as though even in death they had no value.
Daniel waved his arm and three of his fighters shifted in Marius’s direction.
Marius lowered his chin. His nostrils flared. He’d battled a long time and the adrenaline flowed like fire through his body. With his battle chains spinning, Marius levitated, rising five feet into the air.
The men attacked, one in the front, and one from each side.
Marius flipped his wrist, and the spinning chain in his right hand flipped to wrap itself around that vampire’s neck. He did the same with the left. From his periphery, he could see he’d brought both down and each now struggled to remove the chains.
The center assailant, as big as Marius, barreled down on him. But Marius pulled a dagger from his leathers, shifted to altered flight, whipped behind the attacker, and drove the blade deep into his kidneys.
The big body arched, then fell.
Three down.
Marius flew back to stand in front of Shayna. This time, Daniel sent five toward Marius, each maneuvering in levitated flight through the various dripstones, but no one moved against him.
Daniel shouted. “Ten thousand dollars to the one who cuts the woman’s throat.”
Marius contacted Rumy. Need your men here. Now.
They’re on the way. Ten seconds out.
Marius backed up a little more. His reputation as a fighter, and the fact that he’d just killed the first three attackers, made the men wary as they approached him.
Marius counted backward, bloodied blade in one hand. His other outstretched for balance.
Three
, two, one …
The next moment the cavalry arrived. Twenty of Rumy’s best men shot into the cavern, shifting from altered flight. Three flew from behind Marius, the rest from various entrance points all over the battlefield.
Chaos erupted.
Marius moved to position himself just inches away from Shayna, body hunched as he shifted his blade from hand to hand, waiting for one of Daniel’s men to break free and attack.
Rumy’s security hands fought like maniacs, all of them set against Daniel and his kind. Not a life in their world had gone untouched by Daniel’s tactic of systematically taking over smaller enterprises, forcing the courts to side with him in critical civil disputes. Nor had Daniel limited his sex slavery to just humans. Many innocent female vampires had been ripped from their homes and put to work.
To his left, one of Daniel’s men struck down one of Rumy’s and flew slowly in Marius’s direction. He was a big motherfucker, taller than Marius, and one of Daniel’s finest.
He rounded a stalagmite, whipped a long chain held in his right hand, and caught Marius’s left wrist, trapping him as the chain held tight.
Marius flipped his blade with precision and caught the bastard in the throat. He went down, which pulled Marius with him.
The chain around Marius’s wrist had him trapped since it was locked to a manacle on the attacker, now bleeding profusely from his throat. Marius knew he was trying to self-heal, but a wound like that was almost impossible to repair fast enough. Blood drained quickly.
Daniel skirted the battle, heading in Marius’s direction. If he didn’t figure this out fast, Daniel would kill him—every other guard in the place was battling hard.
He mentally called out to Rumy. Need a few more men.
Sending another dozen, but it’ll be three minutes.
Thanks. It wouldn’t be soon enough, but what else could he say.
When Daniel reached him, Marius was on his knees trying to work the chain off his wrist. “You’re in a bit of a fix, Marius. Looks like your luck finally ran out. Or more to the point, Shayna’s did.”
He saw a blade flash.
“Don’t hurt the woman. Take your vengeance out on me, but leave her alone.”
“Attached already, I see. Well, this should be fun.” He turned and moved slowly in Shayna’s direction.
Typical of Daniel to take his time when he was about to make a kill.
* * *
Shayna hurt in so many places, she could hardly move. She felt as though the two hemispheres of her brain had gone to war and planned to be fighting for a long time. Marius had flown so swiftly out of the Dark Cave system that no amount of his siphoned power had helped. And now, yeah, she was in pain.
Her hearing was screwed up as well. Everything was muffled, maybe because she hurt so badly.
With Marius’s blood-chain still wrapped around her wrist, and vibrating softly, she could also feel that whatever was happening to Marius, the vampire was in a rage. And something else: She felt a kind of fear that went deep and had ugly layers, something Marius had known his whole life.
Which meant Daniel had to be nearby.
She wished she could help, but she was so disoriented.
She had no idea where he’d taken her. She lay on some kind of rocky surface and could smell that this cave had a lot of damp. She tried to shift position, but the rocks made it hard to move without more pain.
Some kind of whirring sound reached her ears, but it was like listening through thick cotton balls. At the same time, she felt really sick to her stomach again, no doubt as a result of the flight. Of course it didn’t help that images of the Dark Cave system still poured through her mind, especially the last location where Daniel had killed all those women in an attempt to subvert his son.
She breathed through another heavy wave of nausea.
Her hearing began to clear up and she realized that some kind of battle was taking place. She lifted up just enough to shift her head the other direction and then she wished she hadn’t. Some kind of brawl was going on with thirty or forty huge men. Blood was everywhere as well as knives and chains used as weapons. A vampire nearby had died not ten feet from her, a chain around his neck, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, eyes bulging, the tips of his fangs showing.
That’s when she started dry-heaving. She’d already been sick earlier and there was nothing left, but she heaved anyway.
Suddenly Marius’s voice was in her head. Shayna, look out. Daniel’s behind you and I’m caught. If you can move, try to get away, hide behind one of the bigger dripstones.
Fear now started moving like lightning through Shayna, and she forced herself to rise to a sitting position.
Her head was killing her.
Then she saw the one that had to be Daniel, standing in front of her maybe ten feet away. He stood like an untouchable god in the middle of the battle, wearing a dark-blue suit and looking pristine against all the blood and gore.
He smiled, a terrible smile full of a desire to cause pain, probably to cause her pain.
He was extremely handsome with unusual teal eyes, his dark hair plastered against his head, his goatee tight to his face.
Daniel.
The evil in this world.
The monster who had hurt his own sons, who enslaved tens of thousands of women, who wanted to rule his world.
Crossing her arms over her stomach, she could do little more than watch as he started moving toward her.
She clutched the blood-chain in her hand harder and siphoned as much of Marius’s power as she could. She grew dizzy with pain and something more, something that made the smile on Daniel’s face grow dim. Even Daniel grew dim, as though fading away, but not quite.
She felt herself moving backward, though not moving. She felt suspended in time and space. But where had she gone? What was she doing?
She knew three important things: First, that whatever she’d just done had bought her some time; second, that Daniel could no longer see her; and third, that this thing was damn temporary. She searched the blood-chains for knowledge and found that she had exactly thirty seconds; then she’d leave this bizarre safe space.
Marius, can you see me?
Marius, struggling with something on his arm, shifted in what should have been her direction, but his eyes went wide. No, where are you?
I’m not sure, but in twenty seconds, I’ll return, then Daniel will have me. You’ve got to help, got to figure this out.
Daniel advanced on her position. “Where are you, Shayna, and what kind of power do you possess that you can disappear yet I’m able to feel you nearby?”
Nine, eight, seven …
Shayna felt the momentary power surge begin to fade. Marius, he’s right there. He’s standing in front of me and I’m about to become visible.
Daniel searched her previous location. “Where are you, pretty Shayna? Ah, I can see you now. How clever.”
He reached for her and she felt his hands graze her arms; then he arched and grimaced, shouting his pain.
Marius had freed himself and stuck him with a blade.
Daniel suddenly just disappeared.
Shayna glanced upward, sensing where he was. She caught a glimpse of him, blood trailing as he shifted to altered flight and headed through the rock of the cavern ceiling.
Shayna saw Marius’s bloody dagger as he turned away from her. The battle still raged all around the cavern.
Then suddenly, a new host of fighters entered the space, which changed everything abruptly.
One of Daniel’s crew shouted an order and just like that, the rest of Daniel’s force shifted to altered flight and retreated, disappearing through dripstone and rock alike.
Silence reigned for about ten long seconds. Then Marius gave a cry of triumph, a guttural masculine shout that vibrated all the way through to Shayna’s heart. She’d never heard a better sound in her life. Tears flowed down her cheeks.
She’d survived something horrible, despite the severe headache that
still hurt her.
She was safe. She released a deep sigh and the odd thought went through her that apparently she would live to see another day.
Through the haze of her pain, however, something sparked within Shayna’s mind as she realized all over again that she was looking at a brand-new, never-before-discovered civilization. Yet the men celebrated as warriors had through the millennia, with shouts of triumph.
Marius turned toward her, his face blazing with passion and a sense of victory. But almost as quickly the expression died away and concern filled his hazel eyes. “Shayna. Shit, I’m so fucking sorry you had to see all this. And you’re hurting. Let me get you out of here.”
She nodded. She tried to gain her feet, but the pain in her head was too much. Marius leaned down and gathered her up in his arms once more as though she were as light as air.
She slid her arm around his neck. Despite the fact that he’d been warring, he smelled amazing, that wild grassy scent of his. He called out a few orders, mostly involving the disposal of the enemy fighters. There was some discussion about the one called Rumy, then suddenly she was airborne once more, moving through solid rock as though it were little more than a bank of fog.
However, he must have taken off too fast, because once again her brain felt skewered with swirling knives. She tried to access his power, but it was too much. She screamed, then blacked out. Again.
* * *
Marius settled Shayna on his bed, this time in his secret New Zealand home, a place even more secure than the one in Chile.
She looked horribly pale against the black linen, her blond hair fanning out. He still couldn’t believe that she’d made herself disappear like that, a trick very few vampires could do. And it wasn’t a layered disguise. She’d actually made herself invisible, even to Daniel, but how?
He trembled as he looked down at her. The battle adrenaline was easing back but had left him with the shakes. Not a good thing since it wasn’t a normal reaction of his after a battle, which meant his other problem had started to surface. He wasn’t in trouble yet, but he soon would be. He’d already been through one round of blood-starvation recovery, which involved a violent madness. And now it looked like the second one was on him.