KEITARO

Peace.

Quiet.

And family harmony…

At last.

Keitaro Silivasi sat on the edge of the fireplace hearth next to Vanya, observing his family and feeling truly blessed. Marquis and Ciopori were snuggled together in a single high-backed armchair with the princess nestled on the warrior’s lap. Apparently, the woodshed had done the trick, and all was right in their household. Nathaniel and Jocelyn were on a two-person settee opposite Marquis and Ciopori, and Jocelyn’s legs were draped over Nathaniel’s lap, covered in a soft-beige throw blanket, even as Nathaniel stroked his hand lovingly back and forth over Jocelyn’s knee—he probably didn’t even know he was doing it.

Kagen and Arielle were on the sofa opposite Keitaro, and the two were as perfectly—and seamlessly—matched as wine and cheese: easy, intoxicating, and mellowing to perfection. Arielle rested her head on Kagen’s shoulder, and the healer held her hand with so much reverence, one would have thought she possessed the secrets of the universe concealed in her lifeline. Nachari and Deanna had claimed the second settee, and at least for now, Deanna was seated on the elegant cushions, a blanket over her lap, while Nachari stood behind her, tenderly massaging her shoulders and pausing every so often to brush an affectionate kiss on the top of her head. Her expression was nothing short of serene.

Content.

Grateful.

And while Kristina sat alone on the remaining wingback chair—it would have been nice if Braden could have been there, but it was heartening to know the young vampire was finally spending quality time with his parents—she looked as comfortable and at ease as the soft yellow flame flickering atop a candle on the mantel. For a once-human female who had come from the streets—from a life as a homeless runaway, before she was saved from a Dark One and taken in by the Vampyr—she could not have been more at home. Plainly put: Kristina looked as if she had been born to the Silivasi family.

And didn’t that just warm Keitaro’s heart.

He had all his children around him.

Well, all but Shelby…

But he wouldn’t let his mind drift in that direction, not tonight. Despite missing his destiny, Serena, so much that it sometimes hurt to breathe—as it had for 481 years—Keitaro had his offspring’s undying love; he had their genuine respect; and he had the blessing of their precious children, his beloved grandsons: Keitaro Storm, Nikolai Jadon, Sebastian Lucas, and Shelbie Ryder, the latter named after Keitaro’s youngest son. The children were finally sleeping peacefully—thank the celestial gods—and Keitaro wanted to use this rare, precious moment to somehow convey how deeply he cherished his offspring. He wanted to show each and every vampire in the room just how much they meant to him as their father.

Not being one to squander the moment—to put off for tomorrow what could gratify today—he cleared his throat to command the room’s attention and reached into an oversized blue knapsack lodged beside his feet. “I know we agreed not to buy gifts for one another,” he began, addressing the now-attentive parlor, “that our observance of this particular holiday was mainly for our valued human friends, but I could not forego the opportunity to do something, however small, for each of you, for your families. I wanted to show my respect.” Without delay, he turned to face Nathaniel and Jocelyn. “Son…daughter.” He felt his heart virtually swell with love. “I could not place your entire gift in this sack, so you will have to come by the homestead to get the rest of it. I did, however, bring a replica of sorts.” He handed three color photographs to Jocelyn, watching her intently as she accepted the vivid images, glanced down, and lit up with excitement.

“Oh, Keitaro, thank you, Father!”

He beamed with warmth and pleasure. “You’re welcome. They’re for your aquarium…obviously.”

Prior to meeting Nathaniel, Jocelyn Levi had collected rare, exquisite fish, which had taken her years to acquire. Once mated, Nathaniel had promised to retrieve the entire collection from San Diego and bring it to Dark Moon Vale, as well as to enhance her aquatic treasure trove by building a large tropical atrium on his sprawling estate. Complete with mist, exotic birds, and waterfalls to add to the marine ambiance, Nathaniel had made good on his promise. And now, Keitaro had contributed his own special touch to the collection: a white-and-blue platinum arowana; an enchanting peppermint angelfish; and a gorgeous, horizontally striped, purple-and-orange candy basslet. Having access to the house of Jadon’s resources hadn’t hurt with the $431,000 price tag, but the real benefit had come from being a vampire—Keitaro had been able to get around the required government special permits with nothing more than a wink and a nod, a carefully placed compulsion.

Jocelyn leaned toward Nathaniel so he could see the photographs, pointing at each image one at a time and describing the various fish. She instantly knew what they were. “I love them,” she breathed, her voice raw with emotion. “I absolutely love them.”

Since Nathaniel was not one to be upstaged in skill, expertise, or accumulated knowledge, he had taken a keen interest in each and every species in the aquarium—often going hog-wild on additions to the atrium—and his deep satisfaction was evident. “Thank you, Father.” There was something extra, if not indefinable, in the last word he spoke: Father.

A trace of deep emotion.

A passing hint of angst.

A fleeting recollection of all Nathaniel and his brothers had been through in order to bring their sire home from a world of deprivation and slavery.

Keitaro nodded, and a wealth of love transferred between the two males in that fleeting, intimate gaze.

Keitaro shifted restlessly on the hearth and turned his attention to his eldest son. “Marquis, I have something for you and Ciopori.” He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Princess Vanya. “And I have something for you as well.” He had to pause to consider his next words carefully, because this gift was truly epic, and there was no adequate way to describe it. He reached into the knapsack and withdrew two plain wooden boxes, each lined in virgin-white silk, and nodded in deference at each of the recipients as he handed over the boxes—first, to Ciopori and Marquis, then to Princess Vanya.

“Marquis’s distant ancestor, Timaos Silivasi, brought this with him from Romania, and it has been passed down in our family for generations. I kept it in a trunk, buried beneath the floorboards of the homestead where you boys grew up”—he swept his eyes around the room—“waiting for the day that you might have destinies and children of your own, in order to pass it down to my eldest son as well. And it just so happens that it will likely have even greater meaning to Ciopori and Vanya.”

Ciopori blinked several times, her brilliant golden eyes twinkling with curiosity. She flashed an eager glance at Keitaro, and then slowly opened the box, her eyes immediately scanning the aged, time-worn parchment resting against the silk. She ran a soft, delicate finger over the elaborate Romanian script. “What is it, Father?” She spoke quietly, though her heart was beginning to race.

Keitaro gestured toward the box. “Pages from Queen Jade’s diary—from a journal she kept when she was eighteen years old.”

Ciopori gasped, and Vanya choked back a sob. “This…this is our mother’s diary?” Vanya asked, her hand shooting up to her mouth.

Keitaro smiled and nodded. “Yes, Princess. There were one hundred pages in all. I placed fifty pages in each silk-lined box, after taking them to a bindery to have a conservator-archivist preserve them.”

Ciopori pinched the bridge of her nose in an obvious effort to stave off tears, and Vanya pressed the box to her heart, rose from the hearth, and left the room—her emotion was too raw to contain.

Millennia ago, both Ciopori and Vanya had fled the Romanian castle of King Sakarias in the middle of a stormy night. Desperate to escape Prince Jaegar’s bloodthirsty army—their brother’s bloodthirsty army—they had made it out with their lives, just barely. Soon after, the ancient wizard Fabian had accompanied them to North America, where he’d placed them deep in the ground in an enchanted sleep to await Prince Jadon’s return…and their ultimate awakening.

Only Fabian had never returned.

And neither had Prince Jadon.

The women had remained in the ground for eons, until Marquis Silivasi had—at last, and inadvertently—awakened his destiny from what might have been an eternal slumber. And Ciopori, along with Marquis, had awakened Princess Vanya in turn. To have such a cherished piece of their past—of the castle, of Romania, and of their mother—was truly invaluable.

And deeply stirring to the soul.

As for Marquis? Since the male was as scholastic and curious as he was socially inept—the male spoke twenty-one languages fluently, had studied numerous ancient civilizations, and was particularly well-versed in Romanian culture—he would appreciate the gift on more than one level. Placing a strong, rugged hand over the ancient parchment, he closed his eyes and absorbed the energy.

At the same time, Princess Vanya reentered the room, placed a silent hand on Keitaro’s shoulder, and squeezed it, still trembling. She sat back down on the hearth and sighed. “Keitaro…” There was nothing else to be said.

Not by any of them.

If Ciopori was to elaborate, she would likely do it later…in private.

And as for Marquis?

Keitaro and his eldest son were best friends—they always had been. Their bond transcended language.

The flames beyond the hearth flickered and danced, swaying from side to side, as if caught up in the vampires’ emotion, and the silence in the parlor was golden: companionable and serene. Keitaro allowed the moment to linger for the space of several heartbeats, and then he turned his attention to Kagen and Arielle: his son, the healer, and the daughter of his heart who had nursed him back to health—and preserved his very soul—over countless days and nights in a gods-forsaken slave camp.

“Kagen, Arielle.” He spoke softly, reaching once again into his oversized pack. “These are for you.” He handed each of them a separate gift: Kagen’s was in a decorative silver bag, and Arielle’s was tucked inside a black velvet box.

Kagen’s rich brown eyes lit up, and his mouth dropped open as he peeked inside the bag. And then he laughed aloud. “You didn’t…” Reaching into the sack, he retrieved an old wooden receptacle full of ancient, rusted implements; small, corked vials, their lids looped in twine; and several medieval-looking drawings. “It’s my first alchemy kit, the one I played with as a boy.” He ran the pad of his forefinger along several of the aged utensils. “I can’t believe you kept this all these years.”

“Of course I did,” Keitaro said, his voice resonating with satisfaction. “There’s a story behind every one of those containers.” When Arielle raised her eyebrows in question, he shook his head. “Another day…another time.” He gestured at the black velvet box with his chin. “Open it.”

Arielle wriggled in her seat like an excited schoolgirl as she slowly pried open the lid, and then her features grew slack and her expression inscrutable. “Father…” she whispered softly, running her fingers along the string of ancient jewels. “How old is this necklace?”

“Very, very old,” Keitaro said. “It belonged to my wife, Serena.”

Arielle audibly gasped, and her eyes clouded with tears. “Keitaro…no…I can’t accept—”

“You can, and you will,” he interrupted, feeling positively smug. “Arielle, you truly are the daughter of my heart”—he surveyed the rest of the room with an apologetic glance—“not that each and every one of you doesn’t have a very special place in my soul. You do. But Arielle and I have such a special history…” His voice trailed off, and he recaptured her gaze. “Serena would have wanted you to have it.”

Arielle brushed a tear from the corner of her eye and nodded.

And Keitaro understood: The female would cherish it always.

“Can we see it?” Nathaniel asked, his gaze growing soft as if he were reliving a memory, perhaps recalling his mother wearing the necklace.

“Of course,” Arielle said as she passed it along. “Thank you so much, Keitaro, father of my heart. I love you to the moon and back.”

Keitaro bit down on his lower lip and tried to shake it out. If he spoke now—even one word—he was going to lose his composure and cry in front of his sons. Not that he was too manly to do so, but he wanted to get through all the gifts. He winked at Arielle instead, and her answering smile told him she understood.

Thank the gods for the knapsack.

An immediate distraction.

Keitaro reached into the bag, yet again. “Kristina…” He extended a long red case in her direction, and waited as she rose from her chair, clipped across the room in her five-inch heels, and took it with a cute imitation of a curtsy. “Thank you, Papa,” she said, mimicking the grandkids’ term of endearment. She strolled back to the chair, sat down, and opened the case.

At first, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.

It was a gorgeous Romanian dagger, and her eyes swept over every detail, from the tip of the hilt to the bottom of the blade, as she studied each nuance carefully. At last, she narrowed in on the cross guard, and her mouth began to quiver: An artistic black-and-red insignia, shaped like a shield, with the constellation Canes Venatici, was painted on the armor. “Is that…” She had to stop and catch her breath. “Is that what I think it is?”

Keitaro Silivasi nodded. “It is. The Silivasi family crest with the celestial god Venatici engraved in the armor. Venatici was Timaos Silivasi’s Blood Moon, the first in our family line. Each of my sons has a dagger just like that one.”

Marquis, Nathaniel, Kagen, and Nachari nodded, their expressions reflecting approval.

“You are family now, Kristina. Always and forever a Silivasi.”

Kristina scrunched up her nose and fashioned a truly unattractive frown. “Damnit, Papa!” she groused. “Why’d you go and do something like that?” Her voice cracked, and the waterworks began to flow. “Now look what you’ve done.”

Rising noiselessly from the hearth, Keitaro Silivasi glided across the room and pulled Kristina out of the chair. Then he wrapped his strong, loving arms around her and held her close to his heart as the skinny redhead cried. “Never alone again,” he whispered in her ear. And while he only knew her story from what his sons had told him, he felt the breadth of her relief in his bones. When, at last, Kristina wiped her nose with the back of her hand and smeared it across her dress, the rest of the family chuckled, and he was able to let her go.

Keitaro took the opportunity to step out of the parlor and retrieve his final present, a gift for Nachari and Deanna. When he walked back into the room and set it in front of the fire, there was a collective gasp throughout the parlor, and then a permeating silence.

One could have heard a pin drop.

Nachari bowed his head and closed his eyes for an interminable series of heartbeats. Then he came from behind the settee, strolled across the parlor, and knelt in front of the portrait, pressing one hand against the canvas and grasping his amulet with the other: the amulet, according to Marquis, that Nachari’s twin, Shelby, had given him one fateful night in the Chamber of Sacrifice and Atonement; the amulet Shelby had crossed dimensions to impart to his beloved brother.

Keitaro placed his hand on Nachari’s broad shoulder to steady him. “I don’t know if you remember that trip to France. You and Shelby were only ten years old, but a local artisan painted your likeness as the two of you sat together on a bench—Serena and I were saving it for when you had a son of your own. Only, since I wasn’t there at the time, I was waiting for the next-best moment.”

Nachari tightened his fist around his amulet and took a slow, deep breath. He traced Shelby’s ten-year-old features with a graceful, reverent touch and whispered, “Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, twin of my soul…” His amulet began to glow, and he closed his eyes, once more, in gratitude. “Thank you, Father.” There was nothing more he could say.

Keitaro knew the moment would need some…gentling…so he returned to his knapsack, withdrew a window-box, and handed it to Deanna. “This is one of the brushes the artisan used to paint the portrait.”

Deanna was an artist, and that made the gift precious beyond measure. She studied the antique implement with the eyes of a craftsman. “Keitaro.” She gave him a heartfelt hug, then padded to her mate’s side, bent down, and wrapped her arms around Nachari’s shoulders, showing him the paint brush.

Nachari squeezed her hand.

A moment of silence later, Ciopori cleared her throat, breaking the tender tension in the room. “I feel positively abominable, Keitaro—we have nothing for you.” She held up her hand in apology. “We foolishly believed you when you said, ‘No gifts.’” She winked at him and smiled. “Alas, we should have known better.”

Keitaro grinned from ear to ear.

The “gift exchange” had turned out exactly as he’d planned.

He reclaimed his seat at the top of the hearth, reveled in the warmth of the fire, and waited for Nachari and Deanna to finally return to the settee. Once all were seated and quiet, he glanced into the flames. “When I was a boy growing up in the ever-evolving house of Jadon, I could have never imagined this moment, or envisioned this valley, the way it is today. I could have never foreseen that I would one day have such a beautiful, noble family. To think that I would one day be so blessed by the gods—Draco, Cassiopeia, Auriga, Perseus, and Orion—would have simply been unimaginable. But I was. And now, Aquila, Perseus, Pisces, and Ophiuchus have blessed me again. My family is everything to me.” He turned away from the fire and faced his amazing children. “You are everything to me. And this human holiday—while it does not reflect our own sacred and ancient traditions, our deep veneration of the earth, the stars, and the elements—it certainly has its merits. It has given me an opportunity to say something we are often too busy to stop and say.”

He made a fist with his hand and placed it over his heart. “The Blood may have cursed our ancestors and sent us into the night like dark, soulless vagabonds searching for a new salvation, but together, we rose from the ashes: as warriors, as healers, as wizards…as family. As Vampyr. And what we have created—what we have endured, survived, and overcome—will live on forever in our children, in our name, in our house…and in our blood. We have created brotherhood, sisterhood, loyalty, honor, and love. And the only thing I am prouder of than being a son of Jadon is being this family’s sire. I am honored to be your father.”

In a show of veneration typically reserved for the Vampyr king, Keitaro Silivasi’s sons rose from their seats one by one, dropped to one knee, and placed a fist over their hearts. Bowing their heads in veneration, they spoke his name in unison: “Keitaro.”