Nicholae
I burst into the Salem coven house of Caeler, ready to spill blood, with William, Laramie, and Benny right behind me. No one opposed us as we invaded their opulent home, and I suspected that it was for Crimson’s benefit—if they harmed me right in front of her, she would never trust them.
I was beyond relieved to smell her delicious human scent when I entered the common room. Caeler hadn’t forced himself on her, at least not yet.
“Nicholae!” I heard her lovely voice ring out to me with a note of distress. I followed the sound to find her on the floor, with Caeler kneeling over her. Though her expression was shining with relief at my entrance, her pretty face was pinched with pain.
I went to her side instantly, moving my hands lightly all over her to find the source of that pain. Finally, I saw that her hands were hugging her knee against her chest. Caeler hurt her. Red infected my vision, and all I wanted to do was rip his head off. “What have you done to her?” I growled at him, claws poised in attack position.
“I did nothing to her,” Caeler said, looking down his nose at me. “I would not harm a hair on her head. She did that to herself.”
I turned back to my delicate human charge, hoping to find evidence of his lie in her eyes; I knew Crimson, and she would not hurt herself.
A rosy blush flared on her cheeks, and I could sense both embarrassment and irritation itching under her chest. “He kissed me, so I kicked him and broke my knee,” she confessed.
The other vampires that were gathered around the room snickered. Oh, I was going to rip them all to pieces!
The idea of this pompous self-proclaimed vampire monarch putting his filthy lips on Crimson made me furious beyond words. I had killed someone once before for attempting to steal her innocence, and I would be more than happy to do it again.
But first, I needed to tend to Crimson’s broken kneecap. I bit into my wrist until it bled, then put the dripping wound to her lips. She turned away instinctively, but with a gentle finger under her chin, I pulled her face back in that direction.
“Drink,” I instructed, with such a soft tone that it surprised me; it betrayed nothing of the rage I felt inside. “It will heal your leg.”
She nodded and obeyed. She opened her mouth and closed it over my wrist, letting the thick magical liquid flow onto her tongue. And just like that, her repulsion dissolved, her senses overcome by the fiery taste of my blood.
I suppressed a shudder as she drank from me. The soft lapping of her tongue against my skin was unbelievably tantalizing. For the briefest of moments, I forgot where we were, forgot that anyone was watching, especially our enemies.
“So, Benny, I see you have run along to fetch your new master,” Caeler demeaned, snapping me out of my trance. “I should have just killed you.”
I tapped Crimson’s shoulder, signaling for her to stop, and then gently pulled my wrist away. Her eyelids were heavy as she blinked, and I could almost feel the tingle she experienced in her kneecap as my blood healed it. I helped her to her feet, and those green eyes roamed the room, trying to reorient themselves. She noticed Laramie and William. Then her eyes widened as they landed on someone hiding behind Laramie.
“You!” she snapped, springing to her freshly reinvigorated legs. Her nostrils flared, and she stomped toward Benny. “How could you sell me out like that? I thought you were my friend! But the first opportunity you get, you betray me! I could have been killed!”
“But you weren’t,” Benny said with a shrug, trying to play it cool, trying not to show how much Crimson’s anger at his weaselly actions hurt him. “It was just business, Crimson, nothing personal. I wasn’t actually going to let anything happen to you.”
Now Crimson was the one growling. “Benny, I swear, when I do become a vampire, I might just kill you!”
He laughed uncomfortably and patted the top of her head, which only made her glare at him more fiercely.
“Be careful,” said one of the girls from above. “You don’t want to go breaking your hand as well.” More laughter from the vampire peanut gallery.
Caeler put up his hand, and the laughter died.
“Well, I do hate to break up this little reunion,” he said, coming to stand between Crimson and me, “but you are trespassing on my property. Please leave.”
“Gladly,” I scoffed, then nudged past him to lightly grab Crimson’s arm.
Caeler swatted my hand like I was a child he was reprehending. “I don’t think so. She stays.”
“Like hell!” I said. “I’m taking her back home, where she belongs.”
“This is her new home now,” Caeler said, cool as the autumn breeze. “She’ll be much safer here. We have an entire coven full of well-trained vampires that would take the proverbial bullet for her. All you have is a glorified school teacher, a hermetic laboratory nerd, and a lowlife scumbag who would sell you out faster than he could shake your hand. Honestly, what could you possibly offer Crimson that I cannot?”
“I love her,” I said.
Caeler chuckled darkly and stepped closer to me until we were face to face. “Love, you say? Are you so sure about that?”
“Yes. Not that you have a clue what real love is,” I hissed.
He frowned. “Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t love require total honesty?”
As his black eyes bore into mine, I realized where he was going with this, and my heart thumped anxiously in my chest.
“But, you haven’t been completely honest with the girl you claim to love, have you?” Caeler continued, overflowing with haughty patronization.
His words triggered Crimson’s curiosity, and she circled around him to look at our faces. I tried not to let the fear I felt slip onto my expression, but Crimson must have caught sight of it somewhere, because she narrowed her eyes at me with concern and asked, “Nicholae, what is he talking about?”
I was stuck. I was not going to lie to her, especially since Caeler was about to spill my secret anyway. I should have told her. So many times, I wanted to tell her. But I just couldn’t. It would have revealed to her the monster I truly am, and I was terrified that she would run from it. So, all I could do was meet her increasingly concerned green eyes, begging with my own that she understand.
Caeler turned to her. “Crimson, my dear. Didn’t you think it was odd that young Stephen was murdered right after your date with him?”
I watched the understanding cross her face, watched the shock widen her eyes and drain the color from her face. The look in her eyes was one I had dreaded since the night I made that fateful blunder, the look of betrayal. Then she turned away from me, and I never felt more desperate in my entire life.
“Of course,” she said softly. I saw the memories flash in her mind, felt the pain and confusion and guilt that Stephen’s death had caused, and it forced my own guilt to fester inside me. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” She looked back at me, and my heart shattered into a million pieces. “You killed Stephen.”
“Oh, my dear,” Caeler said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t just kill Stephen. He mutilated him. Drained him just enough to keep him alive, and then beat him to a pulp.”
“Stop!” she snapped at Caeler, squeezing her eyes closed and pressing her hands to ears. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Crimson, I couldn’t let him live after what he did to you!” I blurted out, coming to my own defense. “He almost—ugh! And you were so upset, reliving all the horrible things your bastard, piece-of-shit father put you through. I couldn’t stop your father back then, but I was going to be damned if I wasn’t going to stop Stephen. I wasn’t going to let him find a second chance to get what he wanted from you.”
Tears spiked her eyelashes, and mortification darkened her face. We had never talked about her history with her father. She never wanted me to know that part of her because she foolishly thought it would make her seem somehow tarnished to me. That I was blatantly erring this particular dirty laundry in front of so many people stung her deeply. I was only making this worse.
The anger I had felt before this reveal suddenly boiled over. I turned on Caeler and shoved his chest with a powerful thrust, hurling him backward, but his loyal fledglings caught him and set him back down on his feet.
“You bastard!” I bellowed. “You couldn’t just leave this alone! You couldn’t just let this secret stay buried! Why put her through this pain?”
His sycophants set him down, and he sauntered a bit closer, standing tall, looking unruffled by my attack. “I’m not the one who killed her little boyfriend. You did. Tell me, what kind of love is that?”
“I killed him because he tried to rape her!” I yelled, my body rippling with the fury I tried to restrain. “If you had any concept what it meant to care about someone, to protect someone, you would understand that I had to do it.”
“Oh, don’t lie to me, boy,” Caeler scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You can lie to her, but I know what’s in your heart. You hated the human before he ever touched Crimson. You were so afraid that she would fall for him, the boy she had harbored affections for her whole young life, and forget about you. You were all too eager for an excuse to kill him, a reason to vent your jealousy.”
It was true, I had hated Stephen. I had been jealous of Crimson’s growing interest in him. But that was only a meager incentive to end his life.
“No,” I said with conviction. “If there had been any chance that Crimson could have been happy with Stephen…I would have walked away.” And I felt the truth in my words as I said them. “I would never have hurt her by taking away someone she cared about. But Stephen ruined any future they might have had together, and he had to be punished for the way he hurt her, for the way he tried to use her. And you’re no better.”
Caeler scoffed. “I hardly think I’m comparable to a silly mortal boy. I would never hurt our precious Crimson here.”
“No, you just want to use her,” I said. “You only want her so you can become the king you already think you are. I actually care about her. I could care less about her powers.”
“Yes, and what a truly foolish boy you are for it,” Caeler said. “But I do not want to use her. I want to guide her, counsel her to assure that she will have every advantage, and to see to it that her powers are put to good use. Why waste such a rare treasure?”
“Oh, you ancients, you’re all so damned pompous.”
I heard Laramie clear his throat in retort.
“I don’t want to, for Crimson’s sake, but I will kill you,” Caeler threatened. “I am much older than you, boy.”
“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
“You should be.”
“Enough!” Laramie boomed loudly, coming between us before we could clash. “We really don’t have a lot of time to fight about this. They won’t stop looking for her. They will come eventually, and it will be a bloodbath.”
“My coven is sufficiently large and strong enough to subdue any who attack us,” Caeler said, and all of his coven nodded.
“That may be true for the rogues and the couples,” Laramie said. “But our biggest problem is Delilah. I’m sure you’ve heard of her coven, Caeler.”
“Yes. Hers is the second largest after mine.”
“Not anymore,” Laramie corrected. “She’s been collecting, recruiting from all those who are afraid of what Crimson might become. Even if the others back down from your coven, Delilah will come to end Crimson herself.”
Caeler thought about this for a moment. He looked around at the faces of his beloved fledglings. Then he looked at Crimson.
An eerie melody of bell tones filled the house, and I realized it was a doorbell. All was silent as we watched one of the female vampires go to the door. She peered through the peephole, looked back at Caeler uncertainly, then opened the door.
A human man in his mid-twenties, dressed as a pizza delivery boy, stood in the doorway. He didn’t acknowledge the vampire holding the door open as he passed her. His body was too stiff as he stepped into the center of the parlor, his movements almost robotic. And his eyes were blank, as if seeing nothing.
“Crimson Wilkinson,” the man announced clearly. “Tomorrow night, you will surrender yourself. To refrain will be a declaration of war, and all who protect you will die. Sincerely, Delilah.”
Then he raised a knife to his neck and slit his own throat. Crimson gasped and put her hands over her mouth in horror. The only sound in this great house was the man’s morbid gurgling as he choked until he died.
Delilah knew where she was, and tomorrow night, they would all come for her. I had to get her out of here. We had to go into hiding until we found a solution to this. I was a great fighter, but I couldn’t stand up against a whole coven.
“Crimson, let me do it now,” Caeler said, taking her hands in his imploringly. “If you are made one of us, they won’t stand a chance.”
“There’s no time,” I protested. “The dying process alone will take the rest of the night, at least. She won’t have time to adjust to the change or satisfy her thirst. She won’t be prepared for a battle. And there hasn’t been an Amarant turned in over a century. None of us really knows what to expect from her. What if there is a complication? We simply don’t have time.”
“Then what do you propose we do?” Caeler asked.
“You will do nothing,” I said. “I will take Crimson far away, where Delilah will never find her.”
“And then what?” Caeler asked. “You know that Delilah will never stop looking for her. No, this has to end here and now.”
“I hate to say this,” Laramie said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “But Caeler is right. And if they are willing to stand with us and fight, we would be fools to reject them.”
“We will fight for Crimson,” Caeler said. “A temporary truce until her enemies are defeated?” He offered me his hand.
I glared down at it, gritting my teeth for the longest time. Then I looked at Crimson, whose mind was swarming with fear and anxiety, as well as the residual sting of my betrayal. Her protection was the only thing that mattered, even if she decided to leave me when this was all over.
“Very well,” I said, accepting his hand and shaking it once. “Gather as many of your trusted allies as you can. Laramie, William, same to you. Tomorrow, we go to war.”