Surface Below: Dark Secrets (The Surface Below Book 1) (14 page)

His deep voice filled the room. “I have no opinion. I’m only here out of circumstance.”

Jackson Hiram, the leader of the Beast Nation, had no intentions of getting involved with an organization so corrupt. Their very tactics in taking over the Bottom hierarchy had been barbaric. And the laws they enforced even more fierce. It was his father, Braxton Hiram, that had been on the Council. Upon his death though that right passed on to Jackson, along with the leadership of the Beast Nation. He took it to protect his nation. He did not share in their ideals.

“Oh come on, Jackson you must have some kind of opinion on what is happening.” Preston turned to face him, an amused smile on his face.

“You wouldn’t appreciate nor share my feelings on the matter,” he said, glaring down the long table at Viktor.

“Oh for goodness’ sake.” Constance rolled her eyes and threw her hands up on the table. “Enough with the big macho man stuff okay, good lord it’s like dealing with a bunch of children. Were Tobias’ and Merrick’s children born before or after the Fall?”

That was the important question. If the children were born before the Fall then the bloodline would have been finished. With no next born to transfer to, the Heir and Heiress spirits would have died along with their physical deaths. Born after the Fall though, like they were and they paved the path for the Heir and Heiress to live on.

“After the Fall,” Viktor said, leaning back but keeping his eye on Jackson.

“Okay, then they need to be found and taken care of.” She threw her hands up. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is William Marks has a twin brother, Markus Marks. I’d venture to say that wasn’t a mistake.” Again Viktor pinched the space between his eyes.

“Ha, are you trying to say that there are now two Heirs and two Heiresses?” Reuben laughed at the idea.

“I’ll have some of my people look into it,” Preston assured him. “Becca Lorde, right?”

“Yeah and William Marks,” Viktor replied.

“You’d best hope this gets resolved quickly, Viktor.” Reuben was gathering his belongings. “The last thing we need is people believing the Heir and Heiress are returning. Could start a revolution.”

A rare October rain had hit the Surface. Caleb looked up and down the busy street before running across towards the rhythmic club beat. The sign lit up the street but as he neared the building the surroundings were dimly lit. People crammed inside a roped off line close to the building, all of them waiting to enter the club.

He pulled up the collar of his brown leather jacket as a cold wind swept through the street. The bouncer nodded as Caleb walked up and he unhooked the rope, giving him entrance to the club. Several disgruntled people yelled expletives as he passed and gave them a smug smile.

Inside the techno club music made his body pulse, and lights danced across the walls and floor. Bodies crashed together in rhythm with the music on the dance floor. Caleb pushed his way through the people and towards the bar. His eyes scanned the length of it, looking for suitable prey. He thirsted for anything that could satiate his growing hunger.

At the end of the bar sat a twenty something redhead, with legs to die for. Her black, skin tight dress hugged her slim frame and stopped just mid-thigh. He took in the air around him and picked her scent out of the mixture of perfumes, sweat, liquor and sex aromas that crowded the room. She was nothing like Becca but she would have to do. He pushed more aggressively through hordes of people. She was already inebriated, which worked in his favor.

As he approached her, she caught sight of him and smiled seductively. He noted the too dark lipstick she wore and the heavy eyeliner. She was a far cry from Becca’s natural beauty.

“Hi,” he said, walking up close to her. She said something back and he was sure it was “Hi, I’m Samantha.” He really didn’t care but it would be his in. Leaning closer into her, his fangs so close to what he wanted. “What was that?”

The people around them were none the wiser. Hardly noticing when his fangs protruded past his lips or how he dipped down into the crook of her neck. To anyone else it looked like he was nuzzling her. He gave her a swift bite, just enough to poison her with his numbing toxin. Her

eyes twisted weirdly in her skull and she slumped into his arms.

“Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you out of here.”

The bartender eyed him and gave a nod. Caleb nodded back and led the barely conscious girl to the back of the bar and down a secluded hallway into a doorway, just out of sight. Pushing her up against the wall, he again inhaled her scent. It did nothing for him but the crimson red substance below the surface of her skin did.

“Nothing personal, doll. But a man’s gotta eat,” he whispered against her ear before biting into her tender flesh. She let out a gurgled whimper.

It didn’t taste anything like he had hoped. Bitter almost compared to the small sample he’d had just a day before. It made his anger build and he jerked the girl’s body up hard. He sank his fangs again into her skin, and her head fell backwards.

He drank angrily and greedily from her and when her once healthy, vibrant body had nothing left to give him, he let it drop from his arms. It hit the ground with a loud thud. His fist punched the wall and he took in quick breaths. His hunger still lingered too strong.

Caleb walked back down the darkened hallway and back into the lively atmosphere. He leaned against the bar with his elbows, and the man behind it walked up and leaned forward. Caleb pulled two one hundred dollar bills from his pocket and handed them to him.

“The usual clean up.” The man examined the bills before shoving them into his back pocket.

“Yeah,” Caleb said, searching the crowd.

“She was a looker. Hopefully she tasted as good as she looked.”

“No, she didn’t.” Caleb pushed away from the bar.

He walked back out and into the street, another bitter cold wind whippingd around him. He breathed in, and then his breath came out against the cold. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he started down the sidewalk and towards an open portal. If he stayed too long, Viktor would grow suspicious.

Caleb became lost in thought, though, as he absently followed his earlier path.

The taste of Becca’s blood still lingered on his palate and tongue. Sweet and spicy but most of all it was powerful. He could feel the smallest amount of untapped, raw and carnal power that her blood held. The way she smelled; strawberries and vanilla mixed with a flower filled meadow. It still lingered in his nostrils. He had to have more of her.

Her big, bouncing curls and the way they hung around her face, the few freckles that spotted her cheeks. He had watched her when she left the bar the other night with William’s protective arm around her. She seemed to glide across the blacktop. The way she smiled up at his enemy. It sent a jealousy through Caleb. He hadn’t noticed but he had balled his fists up in his pockets. 

His father’s words rang clear in his head. He demanded him to be objective and not to lose sight of the bigger picture.

“He just wants her for himself,” his voice echoed throughout the alleyway near the portal.

Passing a dumpster, he turned and kicked it violently over and over. The sound of his foot making contact with it echoed between the two buildings. “Well he can’t fucking have her,” he said through gritted teeth as his hands gripped the top of the open dumpster, still kicking it until finally the rust weakened metal gave and his foot went through it.

“She’s mine.” He breathed hard.

When he released the receptacle and pulled his foot free, food waste covered his black running shoe. “Fuck.” He threw his hands up in the air and he shook loose larger pieces of lettuce and tomatoes. But a mixture of condiments just splattered off still lingered on the surface.

“Maybe a quick visit is in order.”

Defeated and even angrier now, he closed the gap between him and the invisible portal and disappeared into the brick wall as if there had been an open door.

Becca sat on the old white porch swing suspended just in front of the bank of kitchen windows. She held tightly to herself, hugging the grey sweater that hung loosely at her shoulders. It was William’s. She loved the feel of his clothes on her. The smell of floral fabric softener just tinging the fabric.

Her foot hung down from the swing, slowly rocking it. A cup of hot coffee, steam still rising from it in her hand. She looked out over the landscape. It hadn’t changed since she was a child. Memories of all of them running and giggling through the yard filled her mind.

The red barn just as she had remembered. A broken window in the back of the building. The boys had been trying to throw rocks at empty cans, a pastime she didn’t quite understand still. And Z, of course, threw one and it missed it completely. She giggled at the memory. Craeden had yelled at them and Danny had laughed too hard at it.

“Becca?” Her mother’s voice brought her back from the memory and she looked up at her. “You okay?”

“Yeah mom, I’m fine.”

She wasn’t sure yet if that had been a lie. Sarah walked over and sat down on the other end of the swing. The sun was just beginning to set and the sky filled with oranges and pinks. Swirling together like a piece of art. She stole a look at her daughter, not sure what to say. Sarah had begged for this day for so long, and now that it was here she was lost.

“You wanna talk about what happened?” Becca’s cheeks heated up and she kept her stare straight ahead, taking a sip of coffee to distract her. She grimaced at the temperature and taste. Her taste buds detested the taste of Hybrid. It did nothing for her growing hunger and even less for the urge to hunt.

William though, she thirsted for him with every passing minute. The taste of him still fresh on her tongue. It had been intoxicating and extinguished the wildfire burning fierce in her chest. His blood was like fine wine, velvet against the inside of her mouth. Tangy, sweet and bold. She could drink from him all day and night and still not be satisfied.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, honey,” Sarah assured her, letting her hand come to rest on Becca’s knee.

The two had been so sure that no one had heard them. That they had been conscious enough to keep their moans and cries to an inaudible level. But they had been wrong. In their throes of passion their sound level had been quite capable of being heard. The whole family had heard the intimate tryst. Almost rendering them frozen in place at the table as the sounds filled the house.

But that wasn’t what had either of them mortified. Their intimate moment had brought forth the Heir and Heiress. Giving way to break through and spread throughout their bodies. To be reborn again. Filling them both with their essence, knowledge and history. And the smallest taste of the power they would acquire when they ascended. It had been a groundbreaking moment and in those few moments it had quaked the ground beneath them. It had nearly made the foundation of the house crack. The long foretold, overdue Merger had shaken the earth.

That had them hiding their faces from their parents and siblings. The looks of shock and terror in the faces of their family when they had finally emerged from the bedroom had been too much. Furniture toppled over, pictures in now broken frames on the floor and plates shaken from their resting places in the kitchen, shattered on the counters.

Becca and William had been oblivious to anything happening around them. They had had only one concern; each other.

“Says the mom that hasn’t been around for twenty years,” Becca snapped. Quickly though she closed her eyes. “Sorry.”

“No, I deserve that,” Sarah admitted, sipping at her coffee. “At least you’re talking to me.”

Miranda and Nikki had been taking it much harder than Becca. Maybe it had been the moment in the cell with her mother that had made her feel differently. Her mother’s desire to make something right for her. Granting her access to childhood memories they had taken from her.

It was more than that though. Becca had kept her parents’ picture on her bedside for twenty years. Every day wishing she could go back in time and change it. Unlike Nikki or Miranda, Becca’s memories of her parents had been pleasant. She’d held no resentment.

Miranda had grown up believing Craeden was her father, her mother having died at a young age. He had told her that her mother had passed away from cancer when she was very young. An unlikely illness for a vampire, but it had happened. So Miranda had never questioned it. Becca understood her anger and resentment towards Sarah and Tobias.

And Nikki, endless foster homes haunted her faux childhood memories. Left to believe that her parents hadn’t wanted her. That she was too much a burden to have kept. Danny had been her saving grace. Z a steady constant in her life.

Yes, Becca understood why her sisters had so much bottled up anger and resentment. Their implanted memories were so much worse than what Becca had. She had memories of her mother baking cookies for her, reading her bedtime stories and braiding her hair.

Becca finally looked up and met her mother’s stare.

“The Heiress is powerful,” she said. “It took over before I even knew what was happening.”

“Yeah, it’s the Merger. Guess that’s just another thing to add to the list of things we never explained,” Sarah said.

“The Merger?” Becca shrugged and questioned. Even with the plethora of information in her mind. The ability to rattle off random Bottom history. There was still so much she didn’t understand.

“Really it had already begun when you were children. We watched it happen back then, more subtly of course.” She smirked at her daughter. “But we saw it. The bonds that were forging between each of you. William to you, Markus to Miranda and Nikki to Zachariah.”

“Ha, I haven’t heard him called that since elementary school,” Becca interrupted, savoring the thought. Sixth grade year to be exact. He denounced his birth name and was insistent that everyone call him Z. “Sorry go ahead.”

“That bond was meant to grow over the years until you were old enough to understand and act on it. But we were forced to cut it short. After the Fall, Caroline and I ran for the Surface before they closed off any portals. Tobias and Merrick made the impossible decision to go and hide in the Dark.” She stopped and looked out into the yard. Again the memories cut deep. The sacrifices they were all forced to make back then had almost been too much to carry.

“It was a sacrifice, I know,” Becca whispered, hoping she could at least somewhat ease some of her mother’s pain.

“Craeden and Danny were great with the six of you. But they weren’t your fathers,” she began. “Six years we were able to stay here without so much as a whisper from the Bottom. Then the Drifters’ Order came and that’s when we got word from your fathers. We needed to leave.”

A Drifters’ Order, the greatest weapon the Council had against the Bottom and its inhabitants and its non-inhabitants.  Its very purpose to round up any species that had turned its back on the laws and the Council.

The Bottom laws were very clear. Humans were off limits. It was forbidden to interact with them in any intimate way. This law was probably the most broken. Any abilities that a person had could not be used on another. Living on the Surface was forbidden. All Bottom kinds were to live in one of the four nations or in the Conjurer Dimension. And most importantly you gave your allegiance to the Council.

Found guilty of violating any of the laws, and the punishment was death.

It was finding the lawbreakers that was hard. The Council was expected to follow the same laws they enforced. Which meant they couldn’t pursue many of the violators without using some kind of magic to find them, because they were on the Surface. And that’s what the Drifters’ Order was for. It was a martial law for the Bottom. It suspended the law hindering powers used on others.

Once a Drifters’ Order was enacted all violators were expected to return to the Bottom. Those that came willingly would be given a pardon and then recorded as a Drifter for future reference. Second offenders would not be forgiven again. It was the ones that didn’t come willingly that the Council had to use other means to find. Like Magi and Conjurers, one to find them and the other to open a portal to go get them. Involuntary return meant punishment by death.

The only place safe from the Drifters’ Order and prying eyes of the Council was the Dark. A place meant for the nightmares of children. Created nearly three hundred years earlier by the Bottom’s most notorious Magi. A man running from the consequences of his heinous crimes against the Heir and Heiress. It became a place for criminals to go in their most desperate hour. But in the last twenty years it had become a sanctuary for those needing to escape the meddling hand of the Council and Viktor. Including Tobias, Sarah and Merrick.

It could not be infiltrated by anyone without the help of a Conjurer. No other species had the ability to open a dark portal. And the Council did not recognize the Dark as a dimension or a nation, and as such they did not earn a place on that Council. Without that spot it left the Council with no power over the Dark. And their laws did not govern it.

Becca understood her parents’ urgency when it came to the Drifters’ Order. Not only would they be forced to declare themselves to the Council, but to declare their children as well. But why they felt they needed to separate them all she couldn’t wrap her head around. It had created a division that severely crippled their ability to be strong. Their ability to be a family.

“Why separate us?”

“You have to understand if for a second Viktor thought something was up. If he had any inkling that the six of you were the last first borns, it was over. He would have hunted you all down,” Sarah insisted. “By altering your memories and splitting you up it hindered Viktor’s ability to use the Drifters’ Order to find you all. Without the memories and barely matured he would never even know about any of you. Not at all for you three. And for many years for Markus, William and Miranda.”

Sarah paused and tried to gauge Becca’s reaction. But her face was blank. She continued to explain.

“Craeden took Caroline and the kids and went to the Conjurer Dimension temporarily until the Order could be lifted. Returning to their respective dimension gave them amnesty. And Danny, he buried his ability and took the three of you with your new childhood memories and went on as if that life had never existed. And as far as anyone knew, it hadn’t.”

“How did you even decide who went where?”

“Hmmm, couple of factors really. William, Miranda and Markus were already starting to show signs of maturing. That is something that can’t be stopped once it’s started. You, Nikki and Z though hadn’t. So we knew right then who would have to go with whom. But…” Her voice faded and she looked up at her daughter curiously.

“But what?”

“You and William are the primary. You two were born first which means you are the most powerful. Your powers will far outweigh Markus and Miranda’s and theirs will to Z and Nikki. In other words you and William would control when the final Merging would begin.” Becca looked away and leaned against her hand.

“So what you’re saying is that William and I have set into motion a domino effect. Miranda and Markus will be next and then Nikki and Z. We were the final puzzle pieces.” Becca looked down at the mug in her hands. The contents no longer steaming hot. She swirled it around in the cup. “Did you know this would happen? This legacy? Our birthright?”

“Yes and no. When it happened, the murders, we knew what it meant for our children. What we didn’t know was that we would each have triplets.” Becca’s head whipped over, her brow coming together in confusion.

“What do you mean?” she asked. But somehow in her mind she knew what it meant. It could only mean one thing.

“There’s a reason you and William are the primary.” Again Becca’s hand covered her mouth.

“The others wouldn’t even exist if the Heir and Heiress hadn’t been killed and the royal bloodline driven to extinction,” she whispered. Her eyes widened at the revelation. Sarah nodded slowly and she could see her daughter piecing together the events in her mind.

The memories were there. The knowledge Becca needed to understand it all was jumbled in her mind, still trying to sort itself out.

Becca and William had been the only ones conceived naturally. Markus, Miranda, Nikki and Z had been created for the sole purpose of the Heir and Heiress return.

When they had died they’d had to implement a plan swiftly. And with what little power they had left in their dying moments, they had set into motion the events that would lead not only to their return but to the repopulation of the bloodline.

“The Heiress came to me in a premonition of sorts and explained everything to me just days before you were all born, and just days after they had been murdered by Viktor.” Again Becca looked at her mother, horrified. “Oh yes, he slowly killed the bloodline and then the Heir and Heiress in cold blood just to secure his spot on the Council and as the High chair.”

Becca fell quiet again, a cool breeze passed over the porch and she held tightly again. The coffee doing nothing for the coolness that touched her skin and made her shiver. She tried hard to make the now foggy, unclear memories come into focus. Trying to ascertain some kind of knowledge from the endless supply that was there. It made her head hurt trying to understand it all.