Violette Dubrinsky (8 page)

***

His head throbbed like an anvil was beating it on its merry way to Hell. Victor groaned and clutched at his temples, hoping the pressure eased the pain. It didn’t.

Forcing an eye open, he squinted at the bright, white light above him. Where was he? And how had he gotten here? He remembered Hallows Brook. Was he there? An image of Antoinette teaching him to bake made him grimace. Where was she? The other image saddened him. Antoinette dead, cold to the touch, as her eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling.

His head throbbed more. Another image came. This time, of a woman with toffee-colored skin, a bright smile and laughing brown eyes. Nothing, not even the pain in his head, could keep his torso from shooting upright.

Where is she
?

“Calm yourself, my son.”

The gentle, but firm feminine voice made him still. It sounded familiar. He’d heard it many times before. His eyes slowly brought into focus a richly dressed woman wearing a mass of diamonds, covering her neck and wrists—bite points—and a long, black gown with a vee that ran from shoulder-tip to shoulder-tip and stopped above the slight swell of her breasts. Her face was pale and doll-like, not a wrinkle or imperfection in sight, though he sensed she was aged, and her wealth of golden curls was pinned atop her head in a way that allowed a slight, diamond tiara to fit just centimeters from the front of her hair.

“Do you know who I am, Victor?”

Still holding his pounding head, he answered. “No. Where am I?”

“You’re home.”

“Where is she?”

The woman’s brows, a darker blonde than her hair, furrowed. “For whom do you ask, Victor?”

“Azaleigh. What have you done to her?”

Her lips tightened as if the question displeased her but Victor didn’t care. “Your witch is safe. For now.” She turned and addressed someone. For the first time, he noticed there were others in the room with her. Two women stood behind her, eyes demurely lowered, two men stood beside the door, another two were behind him, and an older man stood to his left. “Do you have what you need, Reinard?”

“Yes, My Queen.”

“Do it.”

Do what
? Victor wondered, brows wrinkling when he was suddenly dragged back to the ground. The old man placed a hand to his forehead and began to chant. As he heard the words, Victor tried to move, but the weight kept him down.

“NO!”

“Settle, my son. This is the only way for you to return to me.”

Azaleigh’s laughing face entered his mind, and he relaxed briefly, but just as soon, the image was pulled, snatched into the darkness, a black void, on the outskirts of his mind. Then came Antoinette, and that too was pulled. Nameless faces of the townspeople he protected, pulled away. Gone. Afterward came the shadows, swirling like great black billows of smoke from a wildfire. He needed to get through them, but couldn’t see a way. Somehow, the dismal clouds parted, and once more, he saw Antoinette.

This was a memory he didn’t remember. He approached her at night, shook her hand. He’d thought her pretty for a witch who’d seen over forty summers. She didn’t look past her thirtieth year. His father had sent him on business. A treaty. They wouldn’t attack her town so long as she aligned with them. She caught him off guard with a spell, and he knew no more.

The smoke cleared more, and he saw the woman with the diamonds, though she was dressed more demurely in a dark purple blouse and beige skirt. She was brushing his hair, though he was in an obvious hurry to go somewhere. His first hunt. Yes, that was it. She took her time until finally, there was a loud, impatient knock on his door and a man dressed in a white cotton shirt, khaki pants and riding boots—his father—barged in.

“If you coddle the boy, Rachel, he’ll never take the throne.”

Rachel ignored the blustering man, and gently placed the brush on the mirrored vanity table. Swiveling his chair around, his mother knelt before him and kissed his forehead. The gesture had embarrassed him as it was done before the very man to whom he struggled to prove his manhood.

“One day, my darling, you’ll be a great king.” As a whisper, she’d added, “Better than your father.”

“As great as your father,” Dorian corrected with an indulgent smile to his queen.

More memories rushed him, of the king, the queen, his people, Antoinette, Azaleigh. It was so much, yet too little. His head seemed to be splitting under the pressure, and Victor groaned.

“It is over now, My Queen.” Someone was saying these words in the distance.

“Is my son back?”

“If he isn’t, My Queen, then he is lost to you forever.”

***

“How long has she been like this?”

Azaleigh’s body shook with the tremors of fever. Her skin was clammy, her lips chapped. Last she’d opened her eyes, she’d gotten a headache for her effort, so she kept them closed. There was nothing great about her cell anyway. It was made of stone, cold, and smelled of decaying flesh. Possibly hers. The wound in her neck had festered, and led to the fever that currently racked her body. She didn’t know much of medicine but suspected sepsis had set in, and knew blood poisoning was fatal if untreated. Her thoughts ran to her mother. Priscilla wouldn’t be able to deal with her death. Not for a long time. She’d been her mother’s beacon when her father passed. She prayed her mother didn’t fall apart. Victor came to her next. He’d drunk of her, so that did mean he was a vampire? And was he still alive? And what of the town? With both her and Victor gone, had her dream-vision come to pass? Had the monsters massacred everyone? Bile rose in her throat, but the effort to expel it was too much.

“Dorian brought her here. He doesn’t care if she dies, but I do. Can you save her?” The woman spoke again. Her voice was a soft force, a firecracker compared to a grenade.

“She’s a witch, My Queen. She can save herself.”

“Obviously, she prefers death to facing her fate. Save her, Reinard.” There was a swish of material. “Victor will appreciate it, and you will forever have my gratitude.”

Hearing the name, Azaleigh peeled her eyes open. A wizened old man with knowledgeable eyes stood just inside her cell. He came forward, laying gentle hands on her shoulders as he inspected her body. She groaned as pain shot from her neck to every cell in her body.

“Heal yourself, St. Croix.”

She shook her head.

“So you’re guilty, then?”

Once more, she shook her head. He didn’t understand.

“Why do you lie in your own filth and wish for death? The St. Croix have always been among the finest of healers.”

“Don’t...know...how.”

“Don’t know how?” he scoffed, laying a frail hand on her cheek. The man leaned closer, so close she could make out his rheumy eyes, deep wrinkles, and some type of cinnamony smell, before he added, “If I had any pity in me, I’d let you die.”

He began chanting in a low voice that gradually rose, and a warm heat filled her body. Moaning, Azaleigh closed her eyes and let his magic heal her.

***

When Victor awoke in the large, opulent bedroom, he immediately remembered it. He took in the heavy black and red curtains and reinforced windows with indoor, steel shutters mechanically controlled by an automatic security system. There was a button to the left of his king-sized bed for manual control as well. This was his bedroom at the renovated Savannah plantation that served as his father’s main seat. They had more houses, mostly throughout Georgia, but none were as big or secure as this one.

His mother had been there, anxious to see if he remembered her, and blood tears had marred her porcelain cheeks upon finding he did. It had been emotional for Victor as well, seeing and remembering the woman who, for most of his life, had been his greatest ally. His father stormed in next, eyes searching out his queen as if she’d disobeyed him in something. Dorian had been distrustful in the beginning. Victor’s shame at almost killing his own father had been lessened by his father’s reassuring hand on his shoulder, and his understanding words that he’d been under a witch’s spell.

Within moments, he remembered all.

His name was Victor Dorian Winters, and he was the born son of Dorian and Rachel Winters, the King and Queen of the Georgia Night Walker Clan. He was born in 1934, made his first kill in 1949, and led his first hunt in the mid-1950s. He didn’t have siblings, but he had two cousins, Nicholas and Patrick, with whom he’d been close. He was a vampire,
Night Walker
, a creature superior to every other race.

Victor dressed in the outfit that had been left out for him. It was the equivalent of a dinner suit, Armani, with a crisp, white collared, placket shirt and diamond studded cufflinks. A black-plated Panerai watch adorned one wrist, and though the fingers on that hand were unadorned, a golden, classic signet sat on the pinky finger of the other.

He felt himself, yet not. The luxury was something he was accustomed to, but he also craved the simple person he’d been as Victor St. Croix. Anger seeped through him as he thought of Antoinette, the woman he’d thought of as a mother. She’d tricked him, made him her
zombie
for almost forty years. He’d killed his own people for her.

His mind went to Azaleigh. She was an innocent in this. When he’d asked his mother about her this morning, Rachel had only said she was alive and well. She hadn’t elaborated further, and feeling torn in his body, Victor hadn’t asked for more.

The marble entrance to the dining hall descended into stillness when he arrived. His parents were hosting a dinner for their friends. It was to reintroduce him to the society who’d thought him dead. Pale faces searched his as if in disbelief but eventually his people rushed forward to greet him. Two of those faces brought genuine smiles to his.

Nicholas, dressed similarly to him in a black dinner jacket, dipped his blond head. “
Cats
are supposed to have nine lives, Victor. Not vampire royalty.”

“Night Walkers, Nicholas. Vampire is the human term. Night Walker is more sophisticated. At least, that’s what the elders seem to think, and who are we to tell them that Stephenie Meyer and HBO have made the term ‘vampire’ cool again?” Patrick shrugged his broad shoulders and smirked. His dark eyes twinkled. “So, where’ve you been hiding? Did you run off to Europe with some acrobatic beauty?”

“Absolutely,” Victor said drolly, surveying the familiar faces who smiled at him. Many were females he’d had intimately. The thought was both arousing and repugnant. Half of him was pleased, seeing each contorted face as evidence of his prowess. The other half barely resisted the urge to vomit.

He’d told Azaleigh she’d been his first. It wasn’t true. He’d had countless females, both human and vampire, before her.

“Great. Next time I think of taking a forty-year hiatus, that’s exactly what I’ll do.” Patrick’s voice jarred him from the memory of Azaleigh taking him into her body, and he was glad for the distraction.

The two sat next to him at dinner, a result of Patrick tampering with the seating cards, and both pestered him for the truth. Apparently, his parents hadn’t told any of their guests where they’d found him, just that they had.

“So, really, where’d you go? Last we heard, you were hell-bent on making treaties with witches.”

Victor froze with his wine glass just inches from his lips. Of course Nicholas and Patrick would know that. They’d been closest to him, his confidants. Tilting the wine-and-blood mix until he’d drained most of the contents, he responded, “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try us,” Patrick murmured. “If we tell you some of the things that happened in your absence, you wouldn’t believe it either.”