Read Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred Online
Authors: Lynn Viehl
Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fiction
Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred (29 page)
ads
“I won’t leave you alone like this,” he told her. “I’ll skip going to the cave and instead follow you around the villa and harass you unmercifully for the remainder of the night.”
“Of course you will. I had to get stuck on Pregnancy Island with the only man in the world who wants to talk about my feelings.” She shoved him aside and stalked down the hall to the master suite.
Samuel followed her, and watched from the doorway as she began tearing apart the bed. “Am I sleeping on the couch?”
She ignored him as she tossed aside the coverlet and sheets. When he came over to her, she glared at him. “Will you just stop? Please?”
“Let me help you.” He removed the fitted sheet to reveal the bloodstained mattress.
Charlotte’s expression changed, and she climbed onto the mattress, stretching out in the center and looking down at one particular stain. She sat up quickly. “That son of a bitch.” She stood up, walking off the mattress.
Samuel glanced at the stain, which was located halfway down the left side of the mattress. He could touch it and discover exactly whose it was and how it had gotten there, but Charlotte appeared to already know. He went to stand beside her at the glass wall, where she was staring out into the night.
“I always check myself twice a week,” she said in a hollow voice. “I forgot until this morning, and when I felt for the strings they weren’t there. So I ran an ultrasound on myself, and my uterus was empty. It’s gone. Under the circumstances I should have expected it, but things have been so insane that I didn’t think.”
“I’m sorry, but what’s gone?”
“My IUD.” She gave him an ironic look. “They must have removed it here while I was unconscious. That’s my blood on the left side of the mattress.”
Samuel slipped his arm around her waist, and after a moment she rested her head against his shoulder. “How much time do we have before you could conceive?”
“None. It’s not like the pill,” she added. “Once it’s out, I’m unprotected.”
“So you could be pregnant now.”
“If I am, I won’t test positive for a couple more days. And if we keep having sex . . .” She shook her head.
Samuel knew beneath the anger she was frightened, enough that she might consider taking desperate measures. “Honey, listen to me. If you discover that you are carrying my child, I want to know. Before you decide to do anything about it, please talk to me.”
She looked puzzled for a moment, and then her expression filled with disgust. “My God. You think I’d abort our baby without telling you? What kind of woman do you think I am?”
The tightness in his chest eased. “I didn’t mean—”
“No one has the right to force us to have a child,” she snapped. “By doing this they’ve violated both of us. But if there is going to be a baby, Sam—and there probably will be—then it belongs to us, not them. We have the responsibility, and we decide what to do about it, together.”
He didn’t mean to say it, but the words spilled from him. “I want our child to live.”
“So do I.” She gave him a tired smile. “Now go talk to the friendly natives, and find a way to get us the hell off this island.”
Drew sat in one corner of the cage and watched a beetle creeping down one of the bars. Dusty threads from an old spider’s web clung to its legs and wound around its dark green carapace, hampering its movements. He reached out as it slipped and caught it in the palm of his hand.
“Nothing to eat down here, pal,” he said, and he gently freed it from the webbing. “Not yet, anyway.”
With no windows, the only light in the room came from the single bulb hanging overhead, but Drew’s Takyn abilities included an acute sense of night and day, and told him the sun would be setting in a few minutes. His imagination kept bouncing between two images: the dolphin tattooed on Gracie’s forearm, and the bruised wounds on Conchita’s neck.
Dinnertime.
To build even a small replica of an Aztec temple required serious money, as did collecting artifacts made from pure gold and kidnapping Americans right off the street. Gracie had called the mystery man “the master,” and claimed he could read her mind. It all added up to one big, ugly reality that Drew wasn’t sure he wanted to face.
“If you see Samuel, tell him I’m sorry I screwed up,” he told the beetle as he set it on the floor. “But don’t mention it was because of a girl. That’ll make me look like a real chump.”
“Andrew, it’s time.”
He looked up to see Gracie unlocking the door to his cage. Her face appeared pale and drawn, but there were no marks on her neck. But then, why did he care if there were? “For what?”
“The master is here.” She opened the door. “He wishes to see you.”
He eyed the two armed men standing behind her. “And if I refuse?”
“Then they will hit you and drag you upstairs,” she said flatly.
He stood and stepped out, recoiling a little as she took hold of his arm. “I’m not going to make a run for it,” he lied.
“The master would never let you escape.” She pressed her forearm against his and curled her fingers over his palm, and that was when he felt the length of the blade under her sleeve, and the tingle that told him it was made of solid copper. “You must accept this if you want to live.”
Drew moved closer, using his body to hide her arm from the guards. “So it’s do or die, huh?”
“You will have only one chance to do the right thing.” She fiddled with her hair, dropping her hand long enough to slip the copper dagger from her sleeve to his before she moved ahead of him. “I hope you will.”
Drew dropped his arm to his side as he used his ability to reshape the copper blade into a cuff of metal wrapped around his wrist. The leather-and-wood hilt he slipped into his pocket as they made their way into a wide, dark room lit by burning torches.
Stanton had installed a shallow indoor pool in the center of the room and edged it with a deck of tiny, brightly colored tiles that formed an intricate mosaic of a flowering garden. Reflected on the surface of the pool was a wall made up of curved, shallow recesses. Only a dozen or so were illuminated by built-in lights, but those held small, primitive ceramic statues of male and female figures, each with the head of an animal.
Drew saw Stanton behind a sheer curtain at the other end of the pool, where he was handing an ornate goblet to a large, shadowy figure sitting on an odd-looking bench. The Englishman spoke in a low voice to the shadow before he emerged and dismissed the guards.
“Mr. Riordan.” Stanton offered him a chilly smile. “Our most gracious master has decided to forgive you for your transgressions against him, and will permit you to rejoin your brothers and sisters. From this day he expects you to serve him with the love and the loyalty of a devoted son.”
“He does.” Drew glanced at the curtain. “Maybe you should tell him that I’m an only child, I already have a terrific father, and . . . oh, yeah. I don’t serve bloodsucking monsters.”
Stanton scowled, but before he could speak, a deep, rasping laugh echoed around the room.
“This one has a bold heart,” the laughing voice said in heavily accented English. The figure lumbered to his feet, sweeping aside the curtain with a flick of his hand. “Come closer, boy. See what the beautiful path makes of a god.”
At first Drew thought the flickering of the torches made the peculiar patterns of light and shadow on the towering body approaching him. The man appeared to have painted his skin white and black, and bedecked himself with so much heavy jewelry that his movements sounded metallic. Then Drew saw that his skin wasn’t painted, and the gold on his body wasn’t jewelry.
The gold
was
his body.
was
his body.
What might have once been human stood nearly seven feet tall and wore an open white linen robe over a black loincloth. His legs and arms were partly covered in pale, dead-looking flesh that had turned black around the rough gold that formed his joints and most of his muscle. From collarbones to waist no skin was visible; his torso appeared to be solid metal. Gold also slashed across his face, covering one eye and bisecting his nose and one corner of his mouth. The hair growing from his scalp fell around his ghastly face in long, two-toned strands that were black hair at the roots and then became thin gold wire.
Drew expected to smell decay from the exposed dead tissue, but the only scent that came from the master was hot and acrid, the way metal smelled when it overheated.
Suddenly the copper Gracie had slipped him felt too tight around his wrist. “How did this happen to you?”
“Not easily.” The bottom half of the master’s ravaged face split to show two rows of golden teeth. “You are not afraid? Most men cower when they look upon me.”
“I can cringe and whimper with the best of them,” Drew said, “but I’m more interested in finding out what’s happened to my friends. Did you abduct them? Are they here?”
“Mr. Taske and Ms. Marena have joined the master’s other children,” Stanton said. “We’ve seen to it that they now have a very happy and comfortable life together. Don’t you agree, Agraciana?”
“Yes.” Gracie, who stood pale and silent beside Drew, looked at the floor. “The master is very good to us.”
“So good he has to kidnap people to get them to join the family?” Drew looked into the golden eye of the living statue. “What’s really going on? Are you keeping them somewhere so you can feed on their blood? Is that how you’re able to live in this condition?”
The master laughed again. “I am a god, boy. When Cortés realized he could not end my life, he had his men dig deep beneath the temple, and there put me in the ground. Five hundred years I lay trapped in the earth, waiting for my children to come for me. But I was forgotten.”
“I found him under a temple some workers uncovered in Mexico City,” Stanton said, his voice filled with pride. “It was my blood that brought the master back to life.”
Drew had never been much of a history buff, but even he remembered the name Cortés. “So you were an Aztec.”
Gracie drew in a quick breath, and the master’s smile faded.
“This is the last king of the Aztecs, Mr. Riordan.” Stanton gave Drew a pitying look. “This is Motecuhzoma.”
“That was the past,” the master said, making a dismissive gesture. “Now I am Energúmeno, returned to life and restored to my people. I have found my children, and saved them from the dogs who would butcher them. With my protection and care they will be safe, and in return, they will give me back my House of Eagles.”
“The Eagles were once the king’s warriors,” Stanton explained. “They devoted their lives to battle in his name.”
Drew’s stomach turned. “Harvesting their DNA to make your Eagle soldiers is a waste of time. My ex-boss has been trying to do the same thing for years, and he still isn’t able to make it work.”
“We’re not cutting them up the way Mr. Genaro does, Mr. Riordan,” Stanton said. “We’re allowing them to reproduce naturally. This guarantees that their offspring will inherit their unique attributes.”
Drew’s jaw dropped. “Are you saying that you’re
breeding
them? Like farm animals?”
breeding
them? Like farm animals?”
The Englishman shrugged. “In a few weeks the first child will be born, at which time it will be brought to the master to be trained as its parents were. As soon as the rest of the women give birth, we will take their children, switch their partners, and begin again. Within fifty years we will rebuild the House of Eagles with an army of superhuman warriors, ready to fight.”
“To fight for what?”
“My kingdom,” Energúmeno said.
“Our warriors will take back the land stolen by Cortés and those who came after him,” Stanton said. “When Mexico has been purged of outsiders and interlopers, then he who was Motecuhzoma will resume his rule. Your sons and daughters will be among those who restore our king to his throne, Mr. Riordan. They will change history.”
Digging up the rotting Aztec vampire had probably driven Stanton crazy, Drew decided, and abandoned the idea of reasoning with him. “Look, Your Majesty,” he said to Energúmeno, “I’m sorry about what was done to you. No one should be made to suffer. . . .” He gestured toward the vampire’s grotesque body. “But this happened hundreds of years ago, and the men who invaded your kingdom are all dead. The world has changed and moved on. We’re civilized now. No one goes around conquering other countries.”
“Indeed.” Energúmeno seemed amused. “I have been watching man since I was set free, and it seems that very little has changed since my first rule. You have better weapons and larger armies, but you still battle over land and power. You invade distant lands and kill those who oppose you. I have watched these wars being fought on your television. CNN.”
Drew felt frustrated. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“No, boy. When it comes to war, it is always very simple. What you take belongs to you.” He made a sweeping gesture. “This land and its people are mine.”
“No matter who you were, the Mexican government won’t hand their country over to you,” Drew warned. “They have their own military, and they can call on the American government for help. Your ‘children’ may have powerful abilities, but they’re no match for the kind of weaponry used today. Don’t start a war you can never win.”
ads
Other books
The Wind Rose by B. Roman
Jaxson (River Pack Wolves 1) - New Adult Paranormal Romance by Woods, Alisa
Meow If It's Murder (Nick and Nora Mysteries) by T.C. LoTempio
Bloody Heretic by Emily Barker
Blond Baboon by Janwillem Van De Wetering
No Time Like the Present: A Novel by Gordimer, Nadine
El Teorema by Adam Fawer
Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold
Learning to Cry by Christopher C. Payne
Mabe's Burden by Kelly Abell