Chapter 3

Jadrian

“So what’s her name?” Jadrian asked the bartender in the lounge room of the Sanctuary, staring at the woman behind him in the mirror across from him on the wall.

“Who?” The bartender, a middle-aged man wearing a black vest, black pants, and a white shirt with rolled up sleeves, plunked a glass of beer in front of Jadrian and looked around. “The redhead?”

“Yeah, the redhead.” The redhead was currently giggling with Jacqui, Cade’s wife, her hand resting intimately on Jacqui’s arm. Jacqui had thawed out then.

“That’s Allana, head of the Tuscola Clan.” The bartender’s eyes held a look of admiration.

“Alpha is she?” Jadrian asked, studying the woman more deeply. An alpha! Slugging back his beer he left some money for the bartender and stood. “Well, that girl is barking up the wrong tree. Again.”

“Might be, but what a tree to bark up.”

Jadrian had to agree as he walked away, heading out of the lounge and into the darkened hallways. He hated these things, anybody could sneak up on you.

“Where’s Jacob?” The voice came from behind and Jadrian turned to find his oldest brother standing there with the baby of the family, Kane. Kane looked like he was ready to head back to his farm and Jadrian felt ready to go with him. Jadrian and Cade were alike in many ways but not in the looks department. They were very much alike in personality but day and night in the looks department.

Jadrian looked over at his brother, leader of their clan, and gave an exasperated sigh of frustration. He wanted to get back to his room and brood in peace.

“Am I his keeper now? I have no idea where Jacob is. I’ll go look for him.” Jadrian was feeling frustrated and a bit peevish. Allana, the seductive temptress filling his head with fantasies, seemed to only have eyes for Cade’s wife. He’d hunted her down in the dining hall, hoping Jacqui would introduce them. They’d never looked up from whatever deep conversation they were involved in. He’d followed them into the lounge but was still no better off.

Normally Jadrian could intuit Cade’s thoughts, years of practice aiding him, but between Allana’s lack of interest and the vampire blood, he felt on edge. Cade looked at Jadrian and Jadrian knew he was seeing the anxiety but his brother chose not to comment on it. Jadrian breathed a sigh of relief and went off in search of Jacob, but the beautiful woman took up most of his thoughts.

He wandered the cold halls that even the humid Louisiana heat couldn’t penetrate, and cursed under his breath. He wasn’t used to feeling like this, it was something totally new. With a deep breath he wondered if this was love at first sight. He laughed to himself, dismissing the idea. He didn’t have time for love, for a family, as his brother’s adviser and aide. Besides, she didn’t even know he was alive. She was barking up the wrong tree, this alluring creature, if she thought Cade and Jacqui would give her the time of day in their bed.

Jacqui and Cade’s wedding had come as a shock but Jadrian had kept his thoughts to himself. He’d seen their love for each other bloom and knew, no matter how their relationship started, they were a unit now, deeply in love and committed to each other. Everyone could see that. Well, everyone but the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, that is.

He’d still not found Jacob so Jadrian walked into the darkness outside of the former monastery. Disconcerting sounds came from the swamp nearby, chirps, growls, and drawn out sounds that were likely the death-cries of small animals, sending a shiver down Jadrian’s spine. He doubted Jacob was out in this. Jadrian took a deep breath, trying to clear the redhead from his mind but she stayed resiliently put.

Stalking back into the safety of the building, Jadrian wondered if he’d ever get the woman’s attention. He walked back to the sleeping quarters, hoping to report to Cade, and saw his brother, Jacqui and Allana heading into a sleeping chamber. Jadrian went back to the corner he’d just passed and stole a glance around the side. Allana’s hand was gently resting on Jacqui’s elbow and there was a gleam in her eye, a promise.

Jadrian’s head fell back against the stone wall. Had he been wrong? He would have sworn Cade wouldn’t allow another woman into his marital bed, but maybe? There was a curiosity about Jacqui, a need to explore that made her a bit wild, but Cade usually provided her with all she needed. Jadrian knew Cade could be possessive, keeping some things for himself. Would he share his wife with anyone else, even a woman, in such an intimate way?

The woman whispered something into Jacqui’s ear and his sister-in-law giggled. Jadrian glared, pulling his head back around the corner again, hating the charming woman for a moment. He adored all of his sisters-in-law and though Jacqui had been hard to warm to at first, he would protect her life with his own if it came down to it. He felt treasonous for the moment of disloyalty and headed for the area of the place where he knew he could find some alcohol. It was late but he needed a drink. He obviously would not be speaking to Cade anymore tonight.

He spent an hour staring glumly into the same glass of bourbon, his stomach in knots. Why did she have this effect on him? He hadn’t even really spoken to her yet. Was she a witch as well as a shifter?

He decided to give up on the questions for the night when he saw the sun was starting to rise and thought it best to try for some sleep. Heading into the sleeping quarter, he saw Allana coming out of his brother’s room. She didn’t look as though she had been participating in any kind of adult activity but just the fact that she was walking out of his brother’s room in the middle of the night made his stomach tense. He wanted to hit something but balled his fists instead and stalked up to her. Grabbing her wrist he turned her around and only just missed being punched squarely in the head. That vampire blood might make him squiffy sometimes but it sure improved his reflexes.

“What are you up to?” he demanded, his hand clamped around her wrist. She broke the contact easily. She was a shifter, after all. His fists might be iron but only to a human.

“What the fuck is it to you?” She shot daggers at him with her eyes; angry blue eyes that made his groin tighten with awareness. Fuck, she was hot when she was angry!

“That’s my brother‘s room you have just moseyed out of, missy. Now, what are you up to?” His eyes stared their own daggers. She needed to know just because he was human it didn’t mean he could be played. He wasn’t going to back down from her haughty attitude, he didn’t care if she was the queen of Sheba. This was family and you didn’t fuck with family.

“If you must know, “brother dear”, we were talking about an alliance between our clans.” Her glare had changed to curiosity and a new fire lit the dark blue of her eyes. It seemed she liked a challenge.

“I see. Care to discuss it with me, catch me up over a drink?” He changed tack so quickly she blinked at him for a moment. He’d seen the calculation in her eyes and knew she had some kind of ploy going. His question tripped her up.

She licked her bottom lip and looked him up and down, a move that drew his eyes to her sultry wet lips. He knew she saw a very tall, very blond man with a body most human men would pay their soul to own. Every inch of him was muscled, his skin tanned from a summer of work, with the face to match his body. He knew his looks were exceptional but took it for granted. Most of the time he didn’t care, but now he was glad he’d been blessed in that respect.

Staring down at her, his eyes hard, he felt something tighten in his abdomen, something beyond need. Hunger perhaps, a hunger for her? Jadrian kept his face impassive as he looked at her, hoping but not daring to let this woman who bore herself like a queen know his thoughts.

“I have a better idea.” He’d seen the moment she made the decision to accept his offer and waited for her counter offer.

Jadrian’s heart pounded in his chest, her seductive words making his pulse race as scenarios played through his mind. Scenarios that included a lot of drinking and no clothes.

“What’s that?” He threw the question out with no inflection, his tone implying he didn’t give a fuck what she had to offer but was humoring her. And pretended he wasn’t staring at her lips, imagining them otherwise occupied.

“I have an entire bottle of Scotch in my room. Care to join me?” She’d walked up close to him, her eyebrows rising in question.

She was gorgeous; her heart-shaped face a perfection of peaches and cream. Pale and clear, her skin enhanced her features and the smattering of freckles over the top of her nose were enchanting. Jadrian had to fight to keep from pulling her to his own body and when a painted green fingernail found its way to his chest he couldn’t stop the sharp inhalation that gave him away. His nostrils flared as he became hyper-aware of Allana, of how tempting she was, of how much she’d been on his mind since he’d first seen her.

“A bottle you say? And what else do you have planned for the evening, or should I say morning, besides a drink?” His words were a whisper that made her visibly shiver, the timbre of his voice just the right pitch to make his words a sensual promise.

Her response made his own skin feel too tight and he flexed his hands, trying to ease his tension. Playing with shifters could be dangerous, both physically and emotionally. One had to walk on eggshells or risk being little more than a toy to play with, even with the females. He’d learned that long ago.

“Whatever you have in mind.” Her full peach lips parted at the end, inviting him in.

What the hell was he supposed to do now, he wondered, as he tried to shove his hands in his trouser pockets. Stupid, sissy skinny jeans were too tight so he stood there with his fingertips in the tight pockets.

Shifters mated with who they chose, when they chose, sometimes even the married ones mated with others. But she had something up her sleeve and he wasn’t sure if that was going to benefit his own clan or if it would put them in even more danger than they were already in. She could be working with the Mungons to eradicate his tribe, or perhaps she was trying to use him to get to his brother and the other man’s wife? Maybe she was being truthful and she had been discussing an alliance with his brother. Something about her set him on edge and it caused him to doubt what she said. With a tight groin screaming at him to follow her, Jadrian wasn’t sure if he should listen to his body or his mind. He wanted her but maybe he’d made a mistake when he’d stopped her in the hallway.

* * *

Jacob

Jacob woke up in the cell, sunlight barely beaming into the room through the tiny window above him, high on the stone wall. The silver chains were still in place and he groaned, the silver starting to burn after hours of contact with his skin. The chains were thick, brutally thick, and even he wouldn’t be able to break through them, not with the enchantment on them. Flinging his head back against the pillow, Jacob wanted to scream, but out loud this time.

“You won’t be in the chains for much longer, little blackbird. Soon you’ll be one of us and you’ll be bound to me and only me. I have begun the process already.” Her silky voice came from somewhere around his feet and Jacob shifted, his head swiveling as he looked down his own nude body to the bare woman at the end of the bed.

“What have you done?” Her words had showered him with fear; she could only mean one thing but you had to give permission for what she was suggesting, the magical world required it!

Jacob’s fear was forgotten for a moment as his gaze finally found her huddled in a chair at the end of the bed. She looked so vulnerable, so chaste even in her nudity, that his heart melted for a moment. Then cold fury washed over him as she looked up and her gaze caught his.

“I have done what needed to be done, what your brother was too weak to do. The Mungons only grow stronger as we sit here, investigating, making plans, trying to follow our own laws. It’s admirable, I’ll give Cade that, but this isn’t the time for diplomacy. This is the time to attack, to annihilate that which threatens us the most.” Her words had grown more vehement as she spoke, the anger, fear, and urgency making him pay attention to her.

“And where do I fit into all of this? Will my blood make you fertile again and create a child that’ll be the chosen one or something?” Jacob scoffed at her and let his head fall back against the pillow again, his body and mind tired out even from the brief exchange. Something was wrong with him.

Jacob became more aware of this as the strength began to ebb away even quicker, he could barely even find the strength to breathe now.

“You’ll find out soon enough, Jacob. I’m sorry, but as the queen of my people I had to take matters into my own hands. There is knowledge we have kept from the world, from even the magical world, about a shifter that is unique, that can save us all. Even amongst our kind, the shifter is considered a myth, but the first time I saw you I knew there was something different. I suspected but I wasn’t sure until you flew away. You’re a dragon shifter!”

Her eyes revealed a bright spark of hope, and Jacob felt as though he’d been plunged into an even deeper well of fear and powerlessness. As his strength ebbed he looked over at his arm. An IV was sending a red liquid into his veins, the line open and running quickly through the process. His eyes widened as he realized his fears were valid, she wasn’t only breaking the law, she was destroying him!

“But it’s only a myth. Sure, I’m a dragon shifter, but what you’re doing is... you can’t do this! You don’t have my permission!” He pulled at his arm but it was strapped to a board connected to the bed. His other arm would not reach and he was well and truly stuck. He looked back at her pleading. “Please, don’t do this to me! I beg you, please!”

The woman, he still didn’t know her name, looked away, hiding the heartbreak in her eyes but he saw it. She didn’t want to do this but then why was she doing it?

“It has to be done. You will save us all, Jacob. You will become the vampire shifter, the only one capable of surviving the transformation, and you will become the most powerful being on this earth. My king, my minion, and my savior. The savior of us all.” She walked away then, leaving him alone as his organs began to fail.

“No! You can’t! You’ll kill me! It’s only a myth!” His words rang out in the cell but not a soul answered him. As he lost the ability to breathe, as he felt his heart begin to stop, Jacob mourned for his brothers, for their families, and for himself. He also mourned for the selfish stupid woman that had done this to him. She was killing him for nothing. She’d bring her own clan down by breaking the law, and she’d cause a rift in the magical world that might never be repaired. As he thought his final thought, as the world went dark, he mourned the failure of such a stupid and desperate plan. She’d killed him rather than saving him!

* * *

In the darkness of death Jacob felt a presence, a gentle soul that was little more than a spark in the darkness. The blue light came near, and he sensed rather than saw, that he was nothing more than a red flame burning in the darkness. He had no form, no shape, just thoughts and flame. What had she done to him?

“You are safe, Jacob, you’ll make it through the process. I know you will. You’re the dragon shifter.” Her words weren’t really words, more the memory of sound, something he couldn’t explain but he knew that he could communicate with her in this hell of nothing.

His thoughts blasted her, his rage formless as the flame that he was became a roaring inferno of grief and anger.

“What have you done to me?” When the fire had roared for what felt like hours he calmed down enough to communicate with her but it was little more than a whisper of a memory.

“You are changing. This is a phase, that’s all. Only a phase. We all go through it when we’re changed.” Her light shifted, came nearer to his now that he wasn’t flaming so high and Jacob was aware that the anger was still there but he could only be resigned to his fate for the moment.

“You’re lucky you know.” Her communication held a hint of her own anger. “My maker was a cruel man, a man that created out of lust, not out of the need to enhance our species as we do now. Back then they just did it to whoever they wanted to, without even so much as a reason. I know I took you without permission, and there will be consequences, but this had to be done, Jacob. It had to be.”

Her communication stopped for a moment and Jacob felt his flame go lower, his calmness making his form calm as well.

“I was born Sabrina Adelasia Giuletta Margherita Tornabuoni in the 15th century. I was distantly related to the Medici family. I lived a life of privilege, of wealth that is unimaginable, even for today’s billionaires. Excess didn’t even begin to cover the life we lived, even as females in that time period. It was a fairy-tale that can never be repeated on this earth. I hope it is never repeated because for all of the wealth there was sickness of the mind and body, there was unimaginable cruelty, and brutality that is only rarely seen today. We had no limits, no law to stop the things we did or schemed to have. The world was a rotten place, even if I did love my dresses and the way my hair was done, even if I did love my mother beyond all things.”

So her name was Sabrina. At least he knew her name now. Little comfort as he felt a twinge of pain begin in the area where his feet should be. What was happening now? Sabrina started to communicate again and Jacob forgot the tingling pain of a thousand ants biting his non-existent toes as she spoke.

“I was married at nineteen to Giovanni Bardi, an old man from another banking family in Florence. I was grateful that he would have me at such an advanced age. He took me away from Florence, to the hills of Tuscany, when the plague came to the city. We left my family behind, my friends, anyone that could have protected me, and we fled to a small villa he owned there. I didn’t like my husband but I respected him as my partner. I was heavy with our first child and I think he was more concerned about me giving birth than preserving my life.” Her communications stopped and as soon as she paused the pain came back, now spreading as far as his heels and as the torture tore through him he wanted to scream.

Quickly her communications came back, easing the pain once again.

“I was having pains the night Antonio came to our door, begging for bread. If I’d known what he was really after I’d have bricked the door up to prevent what came next. I didn’t know, though. I wasn’t completely naïve. My father had consented to my education up until my marriage was arranged, and growing up near the Medici’s you don’t stay innocent for long, but I had no sense that the man was evil. Nothing jumped out at me, you know?”

The strange mix of her old world Italian, a language he had only just realized she’d been using and that he’d astonishingly understood, and modern day English drew his attention and interrupted the story.

The pain was in the back of his heels now, and the desire to scream was becoming unbearable. How did you scream without lungs?

“My pains started in earnest as I let the man in after I gave him bread and sausage to eat along with some beer, and I took to my bed. Giovanni sent for the doctor and midwife, telling them to argue it out amongst themselves over how to best treat me. I left it to the house servants to care for the man and to see him out. For whatever reason, they decided to let him stay the night. Perhaps they had discussed it with my husband, perhaps they had simply forgotten him, but he stayed.”

She paused again and Jacob felt the pain crawling up his legs, legs that had not been there a moment ago. She spoke again and the pain was gone and he knew his flame was flickering with his relief. He couldn’t scream but the urge to do so was there, growing stronger each time she paused.

“I labored for hours, my body fighting against me because the child wasn’t turned correctly. The doctor and the midwife also argued, disagreeing over how best to save it. By the time the doctor came to me with a dirty kitchen knife to cut the child from my womb, I didn’t care. I just wanted it to all be over. I was barely nineteen, newly married, newly dying.”

This time his knees exploded and Jacob saw with eyes that didn’t exist that her light became brighter as she came nearer, the coolness of her light dimming his own flame, somehow easing his pain.

“The child was cut from me and I heard him crying in the darkness, needing his mother, but I was too exhausted to do little more than watch my blood flow out of me. The doctor didn’t bother to sew me up, he just left me to bleed to death, my duty done. My husband didn’t come, and one by one the servants disappeared, until there was only my son beside me in a basket. I slipped into unconsciousness and woke up only long enough to see the man hovering over my son’s basket, and then even my son was gone. And then the pain truly began. I had thought I had died but instead I was being reborn. To a world of pain, agony that is unimaginable. The pain you feel now.”

For a moment, his flame grew to something that should encompass the entire globe but she came near once again to soothe him and spoke some more.

“I spent an eternity in that hell, unable to find my way out of it. When I woke up only the day had passed, no more time than that, not even eighteen hours, but my entire world had been destroyed. I found the doctor and midwife first, drained of blood, their bodies torn apart to get out even the marrow in their bones. Then my husband and the servants. I ran through the house, terrified, unaware of what I was, what I had become, but knowing only that my child was in that house somewhere. I found him in the library with Antonio.”

Her flame flickered for a moment, fell in on itself as her pain increased at the memory. Jacob knew it was pain but could do little to comfort her. He was going to explode himself. Besides, she was the reason for his pain. He’d kill her if he had hands to do it with, or so he thought to himself.

Sabrina struggled but finally pulled herself together and he felt the relief her words gave him with satisfaction. Jacob wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He’d felt his thighs this time and dreaded the pain the rest of him was going to feel as the change took hold of his vital organs and not just muscles, sinew, and blood vessels. He didn’t think he would make it through the whole thing.

“Antonio didn’t speak as I flew into the room on feet made swift by horror. The man was covered in the blood of the dead. In the blood of my servants, my husband. And he was cradling my son, the only son I would ever birth, in his arms. So when you asked me if I was trying to make some kind of hybrid child… well, I do not know. I will only ever have one child and Antonio took him from me. He sucked every last drop out my son’s tiny little body and then broke him open to find every stray bit of blood he could. He did all of this as I wailed helplessly in front of him. As you will soon learn, you cannot raise your hand to your maker, you can’t tell them no, and you cannot stop them from doing whatever they choose to do.” Her pain flared again and Jacob knew that what he’d felt before didn’t compare to the sanity-stealing pain he now felt, almost as much as hers.

“I hadn’t even seen my child alive, I only saw his broken and torn body, nothing more. Lifeless, shattered, and drained of even his essence, my child was thrown at my feet, taken into my arms, and I was allowed to look on his bruised face for only a moment before Antonio dragged me away. He wanted to dress my newly healed body and take me for a night with his friends. I won’t bore you with the details of the few weeks I spent with him, I will let it suffice to say that he ruined me, he ruined my reputation, and my family disowned me, though they had no idea of what I was by then. I had three weeks of absolute hell before he discarded me. I was to be grateful he taught me to fend for myself as he threw a stack of bills down at me, money to support myself until I got on my feet. I suppose that was his payment for ruining my life.”

Jacob’s pain when her words stopped became unbearable and he knew this must be what Hell truly was. To have your organs and body attacked by a million biting ants, ants that you couldn’t brush away, or wash away, pain that was unending and unstoppable, almost cracked him. Almost.

There was a small glimmer of hope, hope that would lose consciousness once again, that the black world of nothing, where you didn’t exist might return. She gave him another moment of bliss by continuing the tale, easing the pain before he went completely insane.

“I took my new clothes, my new knowledge, knowledge I’d gained, that Antonio gave with his blood the same as I give it to you, and the money I had left and I went to the Medicis. I threatened to kill them all, to wipe out the entire family line, and I could. They complied with my demands and I set out to live a life more suitable to my new status as an immortal. When people began to whisper my name too much I would move on, a new town, a new country, wait a few decades before making the rounds again. I did this endlessly for one hundred years, and though the hold of the Medicis would eventually falter, the settlement I made with them continues to support me.

In the late 18th century I found Adrian in Venice, little more than a male prostitute at the time, and turned him. I can’t say that I loved him but he understood me. As the eighth child of a nobleman he had little prospects for the future but I took him under my wing, gave him far more than he could have ever dreamed of. I gave him the world. Our affair lasted for decades, we were passionate about each other and devoted. The passion has since cooled but the devotion is still there, we still have an intimate relationship, but it is not the same as it used to be.” Her communication paused and Jacob could only communicate a scream of mortal agony.

“Please, do not stop.” The words were communicated with the scream and she continued, understanding fully that every time she paused his pain came back. His eyes, his brain, no he couldn’t survive this, he just couldn’t, not without her speaking to him, not without her taking some of the pain away. Just that small moment without her words was a lifetime of torture that no creature should ever have to endure.

“For over six hundred years I have survived. I carry the knowledge of the first hominids with me, I have an advantage that many do not. For centuries I have made my own way and have been nobody’s pawn. Now your brother and the other magicals want to negotiate with the Mungons? They want to appease them or whatever it is you want to call it.” Jacob could imagine her eyes rolling as she waved her hands. “No, I will not have it. These people need to be dealt with and dealt with swiftly. That is why I am creating you. I swore I would make no other vampire, other than Adrian, that he would be the only one. But we need you. We need your fire, your strength, Jacob. Do not give up. The hardest battle has not been faced yet.”

And that’s when Jacob exploded, when his entire being turned into little more than a firework and he shattered into orange and silver shards within the midnight darkness of the world they now inhabited. He became nothing but he knew everything. He had no form but he could create anything he wanted, centuries of knowledge passed instantly into his existence. As the light faded, so did he. There was nothing left, nothing at all.