Eternal Beast: Mark of the Vampire (36 page)

“We’ll need to put in a pool,” Helo said, looking around the warehouse-like space with its brick walls and thick pillars. “I’ve got to have my water.”

“And some type of aviary,” Phane put in. “Doesn’t have to be big, just somewhere for the hawk to stretch its wings.”

Over near the window, Lycos snorted. “I suppose I’ll have to go up north to hunt.”

Phane chuckled. “Unless you want to find prey on the New York City streets.”

“Don’t tempt him,” Helo said tightly.

“And we’ll need to break down this wall.”

All four
mutore
turned to look at Alexander, who stood in the doorway and took in the great space before him.

Erion raised one black eyebrow in his direction. “You want to have us all together? Think hard on that, Brother.”

But Alexander didn’t have to. Or maybe he already had, because he seemed so confident. “It is how family should be.”

“Would be more convenient,” Nicholas agreed with a grin. “As we keep expanding this Roman clan.”

As Lucian held an example of this growth close to his chest, all eyes shifted to him. He hadn’t noticed and was doing a sort of jig with his body and a shushing sound with his mouth. It was the last thing in the world a near animal like a Breeding Male would be doing, and laughter broke out among all the brothers, sending Lucian’s head up and his fangs down.

He sneered at the lot of them and flipped them off.

“You look like a
tegga
,” Erion remarked, using the ancient vampire word for “nanny,” as he continued to chuckle.

“Well, you look like a demon-faced bitch,” Lucian returned, though his hands cradled his child’s head with nothing but extreme care.

The juxtaposition of harsh
paven
and soft, doting father
had Erion sobering for a moment. “This
balas
,” he said, nodding at Lucy. “You are pleased with it?”

Lucian looked at the Beast as though he were crazy, and Erion rephrased his question. “Being its father. You enjoy that role?”

“It’s pretty fucking great, yeah,” Lucian said, then gave the male a hard stare. “And call her an ‘it’ again and I’ll be forced to demonstrate how parental I and my five friends here are.” He made a fist.

Behind Erion, the Romans and the Beasts laughed heartily.

“I meant no disrespect,” he told Lucian. “It is how we were always referred to.”

A shot of reality, or maybe it was a reminder of the past and all they’d seen and been exposed to, but it commanded the room and caused both the Romans’ and the Beasts’ laughter to cease. Lucian walked over to Erion and regarded the demon-eyed male. “What’s got your
mutore
panties in a bunch, E? For a
paven
who is pretty terrifying to look at when you got the Beast mask on, you look terrified.”

It wasn’t something he was used to or comfortable with—allowing his insecurity to be seen. Especially not by one as unsympathetic as Lucian Roman, and yet Erion knew the
paven
would be honest with him. His voice dropped to a harsh whisper, “I have my concerns with this role.”

“Are we talking about the role of Daddy Demon?” Lucian asked, his eyes glittering with amusement.

Erion growled low in his throat, but the defensive reaction died off quickly and he asked, “What if you
drop her? Hurt her?” His voice grew tense with worry. “And doesn’t it worry you that she might see you as…”

“An asshole?” Lucian interrupted with a grin.

Erion shrugged. “Asshole. Monster. Take your pick.”

“Her mother has seen me as an asshole and as a monster,” Lucian said, “and she still loves me. I’m hoping for the best from my little bloodsucker here.”

“But a
balas
that has already grown,” Erion said tightly. “He already has beliefs and opinions.”

“And? You think that Ladd won’t accept you if you decide to kill this fear thing you’re holding on to and tell him the truth?”

“Something like that,” Erion admitted, a strange sensation coursing through him. It felt oddly like fear, but no fear he’d ever felt before.

Lucian dropped his chin. “Talk to him.”

“What?”

“Just start something. Let him get to know you—you get to know him. Find out what he likes, what he doesn’t.”

“What if the thing he doesn’t like is me?”

Lucian grinned, then dropped a kiss on the top of Lucy’s head. “The chance we all take, Brother.”

Erion’s gaze moved over Lucy’s sleeping face, and for one brief moment he wondered what Ladd had looked like at that age. “She’s very small. But strong and beautiful. You are fortunate.”

“I tell myself that every fucking day,” Lucian said.

As if he’d been waiting outside until they’d finished their conversation, Ladd burst through the front door,
Kate behind him. His grin wide, his eyes bright with excitement, he held something high in the air. A piece of paper. He waved it around, showing it off to all the brothers.

“I have it,” he announced, nearly singing the words. “My letter to Santa.”

Frowning, Erion stared at the paper. He wasn’t familiar with this person, Santa, but perhaps this was a place to begin with the young
paven
.

“Is this a friend of yours?” he asked the boy. “Another vampire
balas
?”

The three Roman brothers burst out laughing, and Ladd gave Erion a huge, sweet smile. “Oh, Uncle Erion. Santa’s not a friend. He’s a toy maker. He rides on his sleigh with reindeer and drops down people’s chimneys and puts presents under their trees.”

It was like a new language. Erion glanced at his Roman brothers. “Is this true? Is it some sort of magic?”

But before Alex, Nicholas, or Lucian could answer, Ladd nodded. “The best magic ever. I’ll show you my letter, if you want?”

Erion nodded, and Ladd started toward him, happy and brimming with excitement. But just a few feet from Erion, he stopped. His face bunched up and he glanced down at his middle. “Something’s wrong,” he said, his voice frightened.

“Ladd,” said Erion as the fear in the boy’s voice clawed at his chest.

The boy whimpered. “I feel…” His gaze flipped up to Erion’s and held. “Help me.”

It was all he said, for he was gone in an instant.

His letter drifted to the floor.

The floor that was being carved into with an unseen hand.

Erion shifted into his Beast and roared as around him the room erupted into chaos.

“A
re you listening to me, Your Highness?”

Hellen drew back her bow, aimed it at the streaking ball of pale yellow light ten feet in front of her, and let the arrow fly. She waited for impact, for the impish little rogue demon to drop, but it didn’t. It ran away, cackling.

She turned and glared at Eberny. “You must cease talking while I hunt.”

The ancient demon, a male-female hybrid, was undaunted. “You will be leaving us very soon, Your Highness. Your father has instructed me to make certain you understand your duties.”

Under the haze of auburn daylight, Hellen grabbed another arrow from her quiver and said in a dangerous voice, “My duties.”

“Indeed,” said Eberny, following Hellen as the young female demon suddenly took off, jogging along the
perimeter of the Rain Fields. “How you are to conduct yourself.”

That little bastard, thought Hellen, her eyes searching for the lost rogue. Ah! There. It was ducking in and out of a cloud, grinning its toothless grin, toying with her.

With one easy movement, Hellen drew back her arrow and sent it straight for the cloud. It whizzed through the Rain Fields like a bolt of lightning.

Flash!
A hit.

Hellen grinned as the rogue demon exploded.

“A worthy shot, Your Highness,” said Eberny in a contained voice before picking up the topic of discussion from a moment ago. “It would be wise to recall the lessons learned in the Academy. The ones stressing a female’s obligations to her male counterpart.”

Scanning the Rain Fields for more rogues, Hellen snorted. “Unfortunately, I do not recall them. A much-needed nap was taken during that bout of instruction, I believe.”

Eberny’s mud brown eyes narrowed with disapproval. “Your highness, that is not at all amusing.”

And yet girlish laughter sounded behind them. Hellen looked up to see her two younger sisters skipping down the black-earthed hillock toward them, yards of fuchsia and gold skirt trailing behind. Levia and Polly looked like a painting, so demure, so female. Perfect demon royalty. While she—if not for her long red coils of hair—looked like their brother.

“Hellen, dear.”

“Pray, don’t shoot at us. We come in peace.”

Each female gave her a kiss on the cheek. They
smelled of fireflower, the only flower allowed to grow in the underworld. It was most rare, picked and bottled the moment it bloomed, then made into a perfume oil for the daughters of the Demon King.

Hellen preferred the scent of ashes, of the black soot beneath her feet—of the death of each rogue demon.

She was strange that way.

She had been told many times that she was named for her place of birth.

Hell
.

But over the years she had come to wonder if her mother had known what grew inside her womb, what she would be unleashing into the underworld. A true hellion. Had the female demon had a premonition about a fiery gust of flaming hair and a defiant disposition? Then come to a quick decision about the name?

A sudden flash of light, bright blue and practically spitting off rogue energy, caught her peripheral vision, and she whirled around, grabbing for an arrow.

“Your Highness, please,” Eberny implored. “Listen to me.”

Hellen shifted the bow and arrow, tracking the muted blue light deep in the Rain Fields before her. “My eyes may be on my target, Eberny, but my ears are open. What is it you think I need to know?”

“The male you are to be given to will expect certain behaviors.”

“Indeed. I spread my legs when instructed, yes?”

Behind her, Levia and Polly gasped. Hellen drew back her bow and grinned. She could practically see the girls’ wide eyes and gloved hands covering their mouths. She would miss them terribly, miss their sweet ways
and perpetually outraged reactions. But, then again, she was glad to be going. Her sacrifice would be their safeguard, always.

Eberny’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Sexual relations are only a small part of being a submissive partner, Your Highness.”

Submissive.

Hellen’s urge to kill amplified and she narrowed her eyes on the acres upon acres of Rain Fields, where the rogue demons who hunted her family loved to hide.

“Do not look him in the eyes when he speaks to you,” Eberny continued.

“Where shall I look, then?” Hellen asked with an emotionless tone. “Between his legs?”

Again, her sisters gasped. “Oh, Hellen, you are wicked,” said Levia, her voice muffled through her gloved hand.

Eberny turned to them and sniffed. “She enjoys giving me pains in my head.”

Very true
. Hellen chuckled and drew back an arrow, waited for the flash of blue, and sent the arrow flying. It missed by a good ten feet. The little bastard’s subsequent cackling killed her laughter.

“If you could just be more like your sisters,” Eberny said on a sigh.

Hellen glanced back at the lovely specimens of female demon and shook her head, her gaze affectionate in the extreme. Yes, she would miss them terribly. “I know. It would be easier all round.”

Levia and Polly laughed, rushed forward, and embraced her.

“You are perfect as you are, Hellen,” Levia crooned.

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Polly. “Except for the hunter attire…Perhaps if we had something made in a pale shade of pink—”

The mute button was pressed on Polly’s appraisal of her clothing as Hellen spotted the blue rogue staring at her through a thin layer of cloud. It grinned. Hellen’s blood heated and she gripped her bow tightly. She had been hunting demon rogues ever since she could hold a bow, and they knew how to play with her. They weren’t afraid to die or to be hunted. On the contrary. They loved it.

And so did Hellen.

Sir Ugly and Blue widened his yellow eyes and made a disgusting noise at the lot of them, then took off.

Hellen smirked. “I’ll be back.”

“No, Hellen, wait,” Levia called.

But Hellen raced into the Rain Fields. Drops of water as hot as ash fell from gray clouds only feet off the ground. She’d been inside the Fields hundreds of times, and knew how to maneuver through them without getting burned. Bow and arrow at the ready, she kept her quick pace, her eyes narrowing each time she lost sight of the blue flash of light.

It came as sudden as a breath; a rush of intensity, a familiar scent. Hatred and disappointment, sadness and intense power.

Hellen stopped short and dropped her weaponry. A forced and familiar action. A tornado ripped through the Rain Fields, came straight for her, and stopped a foot away. The blood of excitement, of chase that had been rushing through Hellen’s veins a moment ago turned to black ice.

He was before her.

The Devil himself.

The Demon King, Abbadon.

Hellen looked up. “Hello, Father.”

In his present state Abbadon looked the very essence of a demon. Ten feet tall, red skin pulled tight over heavy, impervious muscle, eyes the color of the clouds that only moments ago parted for him. As Hellen stared up at her sire, she saw nothing of herself in him and yet knew that she of all her sisters was the most like him.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a voice unworldly and growlingly low.

Unlike her sisters, Hellen felt no fear when standing in her father’s presence. Only a desperation within her mind to be cautious and thoughtful with the words that came out of her mouth.

“Preparing myself for wedded bliss.”

His scaly-skinned eyebrow lifted. “With a longbow?”