Last Vamp Standing (31 page)

“I wasn’t walking out on you,” she said, leaning against him. “They were my parents. I belonged with them.”

“I couldn’t let you go.”

“You could’ve given me the freedom I craved. I loved this place enough. I would’ve come back.”

“Bullshit,” her Primus seethed, nearly biting into her ear. “You forget my maware is truth-setting. I can smell the truth on you. Taste it as it seeps through your pores. You would’ve been gone and I would’ve been dead. Now, thanks to Savage, I’ll be safe no matter what, after I hand you over, that is. Turns out after all the elders he’s drained, he hasn’t absorbed a healing maware yet. Doesn’t that make you my hot little commodity.” His lips snarled into a smile as he brushed her braid over her shoulder. And leaned her bare neck toward Savage’s saber-like fangs.

Dante snapped.

Fury marred his vision, streaking it red. Death shades swarmed, but he didn’t give them a second thought. Nothing would stop him.

He charged the Primus, unsheathed his Glocks, and fired as many rounds at his head as he could before the coward ducked behind Ariana, leaving not an inch of skin showing for a target.

Slade and Ruan followed Dante’s lead, storming after Savage. The evil sucker rounded the stones, disappearing into a swirling shadow of death shades.

Dante wasn’t worried about Savage. Not now. Not when the Primus had Ariana in his grasp.

Tossing his guns aside, Dante slipped two throwing stars from his belt, spun them in his palms, and let the silver fly. One star scraped the Primus’s arm, tearing his coat at the elbow, and the other sliced his neck, lodging into the side. As if Dante’s precision stunned him, the Primus fell back, Ariana toppling against the stones with him.

Dante was only a few feet away now. Only a few feet from tearing out the coward’s jugular. Except as the Primus landed on the ground, Ariana spun in his arms and landed on top of him, face to face.

Adrenaline firing hot, Dante raced to Ariana’s side and snatched her by the elbow. He had to get her somewhere safe. As long as she was safe, and away from the Primus, nothing else mattered.

But she didn’t budge. She crouched over the Primus, ripped the star out of the side of his neck, and, damn it, hesitated.

“You were like a father to me!” She poised the spiky tip of the star against his neck. “You were working with Juan Carlos and I should’ve seen that coming, but how could you do this to me? To the rest of the elders?”

“If there was only going to be one to survive this, it needed to be me. It was always going to be me.”

Ariana waited too long in his arms, too close to his most lethal weapon.

He reared up, baring his fangs, and grabbed Ariana by the back of the head. He didn’t have time to flinch another burly muscle. In a surge of speed and strength, Dante grabbed the Primus by the back of the head and smashed it against the stone. And when the blunt impact rocked the Primus’s world, his hold on Ariana slipped. With another quick strike, Dante let his nails stretch to their fullest and buried them deep into the Primus’s heart.

Ariana jumped off the Primus like he was on fire. Or perhaps she didn’t want her touch to inadvertently heal him. Either way, Dante was glad to have Ariana back, safe and sound, in his arms.

“It’s not over yet,” he said as bullets fired on the opposite side of the stone. “Stay here and stay safe. This time I mean it.”

“No.” She curled her fingers around his bicep. “This time I’m coming with you.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

O
N THE OTHER
side of the stones, Ruan and Slade fought an enemy they could barely see. Savage swathed himself in death shades that spun around him like a cyclone of dirt and shadow.

“Split up!” Slade hollered, backing against the stone. “We’ll be harder to hit that way.”

As two death shades slid off his sides and slithered over the ground, Dante pushed Ariana behind him. “Eve! Where is she?”

“I’m here!” She appeared from behind them, bathed head to toe in radiant white light.

As she squeezed the amulet around her neck and closed her eyes, Savage gave an agonized cry. Dante pulled Ariana into his arms, shielding her from what was to come. Every death shade surrounding Savage evaporated into the night sky. Savage stood in the middle, his arms oddly relaxed at his side, his eyes burning an impenetrable shade of black.

“It’s really going to end like this, brother?” Slade asked, circling Savage from the west. “I thought it’d be you and me fighting at the end. But I thought you’d be brave enough to stand on your own two feet.”

Savage shot a glare at his combat boots. “Looks like I’m standing on my own feet to me. And I don’t have nearly the amount of weapons you do. Bravery, it seems, depends on your viewpoint.”

“Not all weapons are silver and wood-chipped,” Dante said, drawing Savage’s attention around. “Who knows how many elders you’ve killed or how many mawares you’ve stolen?”

Savage tsk’d his tongue against his fang. “Let’s say I’ve drained . . . enough. But I’ve saved room for one more.”

That was all it took. One wink at Ariana, one yearning glance, one sniff of her blood and Dante’s blood boiled. They charged Savage at once, fangs bared, ready to rip flesh from bone.

Without the death shades surrounding him, he was just a hybrid with a bag of magic tricks. But he was damn fast. He bolted out of the way, around the backside of the stones. Leaped over the top when they followed like smoke to his fire. He tumbled over the side like some sort of demonic gymnast. Then stood smiling, raising his arms from his sides.

“This all you’ve got?” he taunted. “None of you can get a single beat on me. If you five are supposed to represent what’s left of the vampire race, I’m sure killing you would be doing your khissmates a huge favor. They might’ve dropped dead from disgrace.”

Slade sprinted around the backside of the stones and came back as a panther, black and sleek. He flickered, showing his true therian form, then leaped through the air and clawed at Savage’s face.

Savage ducked. As Slade landed in a crouch, Savage blew a kiss, sending a wave of fire licking across Slade’s panther fur. Slade shifted back and sprinted around the stones the direction he came, brushing ash off his skin as he went.

“Bring it.” Savage rubbed his hands together like he was just getting started. “I don’t think you could handle a quarter of my strength. I’ve become too powerful. Too all-knowing.”

“And too cocky.” Ruan fired every bullet he had, dropped the Glocks, pulled two more from his back holster, and held the triggers until they were empty. Then he chucked those to the ground and let every silver throwing knife fly.

Savage moved out of the way effortlessly. Like he knew what was happening before it happened or slowed down time enough to predict the best way around the bullets.

“You think you’ve got the drop on us,” Dante said, stalking forward, his nails ready to dig into Savage’s flesh. “But you’ve added so many mawares to your twisted soul that you’ve muddled it all up.”

Savage laughed, low and raspy. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Ruan answered by lifting his palms to the sky. Savage’s coal black eyes widened in horror as an invisible string tightened around his throat. He dangled high above the ground, clawing at the string with desperate fingers. When Ruan closed his eyes, cinching it tighter, Savage flung a fireball at Ruan to get him to drop his hold.

Without thinking, Dante dove in front of Ruan and got a fireball smashed into his side. He writhed on the ground as flashes of fire seared his insides. He grimaced, holding his side, and looked up. Every ounce of strain lifted from his body.

Savage threw everything he had at the group, but it came up soft. Sparks flicked off his fingers. Smoke and dirt rose from the ground, then quickly dissipated. Thunderstorms rolled in, only to roll out again.

He was weakening. Scattered and unfocused. Most of all, he was scared.

Bounding back into the action, Slade jumped over a hole as it opened up at his feet, then unsheathed a dagger from his belt and held it high for all to see. It was Dylan’s dagger—Mathilda.

Savage snarled, his mawares flickering in size and strength. He kicked his feet, flailed his arms, tried to reach the rope above his head. But it wasn’t there.

And as Ruan tightened the invisible noose, cutting off Savage’s air supply completely, Slade buried Dylan’s dagger into his heart, right up to the diamond-encrusted hilt. Blood and water spurted from the wound, draining down his chest.

When it was all over, Dante collapsed. Ariana slid to his side in a beat, holding his head out of the mud.

“I’ve got it, love.” She pressed her hand against Dante’s middle and kneaded her fingers in his charred flesh. “It’ll be okay.”

“I know.” The wound burned something fierce, but Ariana’s touch was cool, soothing the pain away.

“Mathilda, huh?” Ruan said as he dropped Savage’s body to the ground with a thump. “You couldn’t have used your own blade?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dante watched Slade remove Mathilda from Savage’s chest and wipe the blood on his pants.

“Dylan couldn’t risk being out here with us, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t want to play a part.”

He stood over Savage awhile, tilting his head to one side, then the other. As if he was remarking their brotherly similarities.

“Next time we bring down a hybrid mastermind hell bent on vamp domination, wanna use my gun?” Ruan said with a wink. “I call her Betsy.”

“Oh shove it, Ruan.”

Eve’s shoes moved into Dante’s line of sight. “You two gonna be all right while we head back to finish the fight?”

“Don’t think there’s going to be much of a fight left,” Ruan said. “Look.”

Dante raised his head. Hundreds of vamps covered the forest and headed east, away from Black Moon and away from the fight. They stepped over pits and swerved around trees. They were disoriented, stumbling about as if they didn’t have a head on their shoulders.

“What’s that about?” Dante said, as newfound strength surged through him. “They don’t seem to care we’re over here. Twenty minutes ago those vamps would’ve been all over us.”

Ruan squatted over Savage, his gaze focusing on their slow retreat. “I don’t think they remember,” Ruan whispered. “They were possessed by death shades, but those shades were controlled by Savage. We’ve just killed their power source. I’m guessing they’re back to the vamps they were before.”

“And my elders?” Ariana asked.

“They’ll need our help.” Eve squeezed Ariana’s shoulder. “Are you ready? They’ll be hurt, dying, and begging for reprieve.”

“They’re my brothers and sisters.” She finished healing Dante’s side, massaging the last of his burned skin. “Of course I’m ready.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Victory is not awarded to the brave and strong. It is earned by the weak and fearful just as the valiant and bold . . . it is earned by those who stand against evil. Victory is ours.”

W
ATCHER
A
RCHIVE, UPDATE

T
HE NEXT WEEK
dragged by so slowly, Ariana thought she’d never find time to be alone with Dante again.

There was simply too much to do. Too much to take care of. And she couldn’t put it off.

With her Primus gone, Ariana occupied herself with studying the inner-workings of Black Moon. She conducted funerals for elders and designated a team to make sure each grave was properly marked to honor the fallen. Each headstone had Black Moon’s emblem, the crescent moon with a blade stuck through the middle, matching the mark on her arm. After their bodies were laid to rest, Ariana made sure Eve got their spirits accustomed to the Ever After.

She spent two days in the forest, clearing the blood trail and identifying the fallen. She was tired, weary, and ready for things to go back to normal.

It was almost time to head back inside. Almost time for the ceremony.

She stepped over a fallen log and spotted Thom lying face down in a bed of moss. He was so beat up, his body such a charred mess, she wouldn’t have recognized him if it wasn’t for the scar above his ear—the one he’d gotten by missing a beat in one of their training sessions. From the look of things, he’d missed another one, too.

She kneeled beside him as sunlight pierced through the trees and settled over his broken body. “Thom, thank you for your service and your sacrifice. I pray that your spirit finds peace in the Ever After.”

She’d said the same prayer over and over again to each fallen elder, but this time, when she laid Thom to rest in her heart, something pinched.

She knew him.
Really
knew him. Worked with him on a regular basis.

It could’ve been her.

For the first time since Savage attacked, the gravity of the situation washed over her. In the mud and clay, behind a fallen log, next to see-the-future-Thom, Ariana let her tears fall. It wasn’t until someone stepped up behind her that she wiped the tears from her cheeks and spun around.

“Echo,” she said, looking up into his ruddy face. “What are you doing here?”

“You okay, Ari?” he said, smashing one of her rolling tears with his thumb.

“I will be.”

When the recovery and reconstruction were over she’d be fine. When she didn’t have to think about the hundreds of elders lost or the amount of blood that was shed.

“I got a message from Pike.” He pulled a dingy envelope from his back pocket and handed it over. “He says it’s for the eyes of the Primus only.”

“I’m not Primus yet.”

“But you will be in an hour, after the ceremony.”

“I don’t want to touch it.”

He quirked a bushy brow.

“My hands, they’re . . .” . . .
covered in things she didn’t want to think about.
“Just read it to me, okay?”

“If you say so.” He opened the envelope, pulled out a note, and read in his slow, monotone voice: “ ‘Ariana, it’s my hope that Watchers and elders will have a new understanding and newfound friendship without walls or barriers that may hide our intentions from the other. It is my dearest wish that we may put the past behind us and move forward into the dawning of a new day. Dante was right all along: it is not the fighting that condemns us but the motivations behind our fighting. But there is more. It is not lusting after the pleasurable energy we pull from a woman that will banish us from the Ever After. It is lusting after what is impure. Sex in a committed relationship, sex that is pure and full of love, strengthens the bond between us. We’ve been blind to these things, to our own heritage, and we are truly sorry. With deepest respect, Pike.’ ”

“That’s a lot to take in,” she said.

Ariana knew she’d have to thank Pike for the way he fought alongside them. There was no way they would’ve defeated Savage’s army without their help. Along their road to recovery there’d have to be some forgiving and a whole lot of understanding. Pike had been right about that part. There was still so much to learn about them.

“What’d you want me to say back?” Echo flopped a dreadlock out of his face.

“I say you better make a wife out of one of those wood nymphs if you plan to kick it in the Ever After.”

He smiled, pushing out a coughing laugh. “We’ll be seein’.”

“Come on, I’ve got to get inside for the ceremony. I’m already running late.”

“You mean that I . . .”

She hooked her arm in his and led the way into Black Moon. “I want you to be there when I become Primus. If that’s all right with you.”

His cheeks blushed as red as his hair. “It’d be my honor, Ari.”

“All right, but you’re going in the front door. I have to sneak around back. I’ll catch you inside.”

As Echo left her side, Ariana slipped through the back door and whisked into the elevator before anyone was the wiser. When she hit the floor of her suite, Dante was waiting with a handful of roses. Buck. Ass. Naked.

The fully bloomed beauties completely covered Dante’s manhood, but Ariana couldn’t take her eyes off the marbled glory standing before her. Dante was a warrior with scars galore, a black vine-like tattoo snaking up his side, and chiseled muscles that made her legs go weak and her mouth go dry.

“For me?” She reached for the flowers and came up with a whole lot of rock-hard flesh.

“Always.” Dante handed Ariana the roses, then dragged her into his arms and kissed her.

She melted into his lips, into the warmth of his body. And when his mouth drifted from hers, Ariana kept her eyes closed in the hope he’d return for more.

“I picked them from your garden,” he said, pulling her by the hand into her living room.

She studied the flowers: the crimson reds, the pastel pinks, and the ivory whites. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

“Today is a special day, and it’s important that you cherish every minute of it.” He stood in front of her balcony, a seductive gleam in his eye. Ariana felt like she was in trouble. Heaps of very bad—yet very good—trouble.

As she set the roses down and wrapped her arms around his neck, she thought of nothing but this moment. This man who was half-Watcher, half-vamp, born of an angel, fathered by a former Primus of the haven she was about to lead. The man who filled her completely, any and every which way.

She’d never loved anyone more. Hell, she’d never wanted anyone more.

“I cherish you,” she said as her core flushed with liquid heat. She was close. So close to experiencing heaven with him all over again. “And every moment I’m with you.”

“Are you ready to take your seat as Primus?” He kissed the arch of her neck, then stripped her out of her shirt.

“I think so, there’s just so much to remember. Slade is going to ask me a bunch of questions from the records of Crimson Council and everyone will be watching, hanging on my every word. If I don’t answer them correctly, the way every Primus before me has, I’ll disgrace everyone.”

“You’ll be fine,” he soothed, rubbing the stress from her shoulders. “Ruan, Eve, and Dylan will be there cheering you on, and everyone simply adores you . . . I adore you . . . and that’s all that matters. I have faith in you and what you can do here. It doesn’t matter how you answer a question from the Crimson Council rep. What matters is how you run your haven and how the khissmates view you.”

She thought about it, nibbling on her lip. “I guess you’re right.”

“I know I am. I’m a downright genius.”

“Is that so?”

“I told you that if we kept meeting beneath the sheets the voices would go away completely, didn’t I?”

She smacked him in the shoulder, though he didn’t flinch. “Yes, but you didn’t know you could feed from me without pulling the innocence from my soul. That idea came from me.”

“How was I supposed to know that your healing abilities stretched that far?” He nipped at her lip, then moaned into a kiss. “What do you think about showing up to your ceremony thirty minutes late so we could . . . stretch your abilities a little more?”

She hopped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. “I suppose they can’t start without me.”

As he kissed her harder, deeper, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth, Ariana felt the world beneath her disappear and the soft plush of her mattress replace it.

“It’s over,” he said, fevering kisses over her breasts. “You’re in my arms and you’re safe, the two most important things in the world to me. I can’t believe it’s finally over.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” She unzipped her pants and pushed them down, then pulled him down over her. He hissed in utter pleasure as they met, flesh to flesh, heart to heart. “For the vampires downstairs, the elders in the Ever After, and for us . . . it’s a whole new beginning.”