Not Another Vampire Book (15 page)

She
gave a delicate shudder at the dreadful name.  “I fear him so much.  His cold,
black eyes and aura of darkness.  He has no heart.  There is nothing he
wouldn’t do in the name of vengeance.  There’s nothing he wouldn’t sacrifice.”

“
Now,
now, my darling.  You mustn’t be afraid.  I will destroy him as I destroyed the
other monsters of his kind.”  Slade’s masculine arm engulfed her small
shoulders.  “See that?”  He gestured towards one of the headstones.  “It is one
of the Wizard Warlock dead.  He perished, like all other demons, beneath my
mighty blade.”

Melessa
knelt by the grave her delicate hand fingering the carved words as she read.  “Joseph
cari
of Jasmina.”  She glanced up at him.  “You killed this man?  But, he had a
wife.  Someone who loved him.”  Her innocent heart didn’t know how to accept
such a dreadful thing.  How could she ever grow accustom to the violence of his
world?  Her lovely hand came to her forehead, feeling her gentle heart break.

“He
was not a man, Eternal-One.  He was a creature, who could not feel or love as
we do.”  Slade’s granite jaw squared as he stared bravely into their uncertain
future. Tempestuous clouds darkened their bright horizon.  “For all of the good
beings of this earth, we must wipe out the Wizard Warlocks forever.  Else, we
will never be safe.  Never forget, a Wizard Warlock is merely an animal.”

“Must
you keep reading that lie?”  Damien demanded, not even glancing at the page.  He’d
refused to look at the book since the night before.

Kara
jolted back to the present, a chill racing through her. 
Eternal Passion at
Sunset
was a drivel, but for the first time, Melessa’s melodramatic words
echoed with logic.

There’s
nothing he wouldn’t sacrifice.

Damien
would do anything to have revenge on Slade.  Kara didn’t need the backstory to
tell her that.  She could hear the hatred in his voice every time he said the
Vampire’s name.

And
to Damien, Kara was still Slade’s Eternal-One.

He
didn’t really believe her about the mix-up.  He considered her Slade’s bride.  In
his ongoing revenge plot, she was Damien’s trump card.  She couldn’t forget
that.

Kara
felt safe with Damien on an unexplained, fundamental level.  She trusted him,
despite his general tendency towards badness.  But, she’d never really dealt
with a supervillain before.  When the blood hit the fan, how did she know what
he was capable of?  He’d been locked into his ‘Death to Vampires’ plans like a
nuclear warhead for centuries and he’d known her for one day.  No matter how he
made her feel, she couldn’t afford to underestimate him.

Kara
slapped the manuscript shut and sat staring straight ahead.  “Why did you kiss
me?”  Now that she thought about it, one surefire way to piss off Slade was to
seduce her.

“
Why?
” 
It was a drawl.  “You must be joking.”  He scanned her body in a slow sweep.

“I
mean it.”  She refused to be taken in by his seductive voice.  “If you think
sleeping with me will help you get revenge on Slade, it won’t.”

“When
I mate with you, it will have nothing to do with Slade.”

Kara’s
eyes narrowed at the arrogance of that remark, but she pressed forward because
she needed the truth.  “Would you be helping me if you weren’t trying to screw
over the Vampire?”

He
shrugged.  “You would be staying in my home, no matter who else thought to
claim you.”

“No
one’s trying to claim me!  Jesus, I am
not
the woman you and Slade think
I am.”  How many times did she need to say that?  “I am
not
his
Eternal-One.”

“When
Slade and I next meet, be assured, I plan to tell him just that.”

He
just wasn’t getting it.  He still believed she was Slade’s bride.  Kara could
tell.  She tried a different approach.  “So, you think I’m your mortal enemy’s
girlfriend, but that has
nothing
to do with your attraction towards me?”

“No,
it doesn’t.”

Kara
pulled out the big guns.  “I don’t have any truth herbs, so I’m going to ask
for your solemn vow, understand?  I want your
solemn vow
, on your sister’s
memory, that you did not kiss me to get back at Slade.”

Damien’s
face tightened.  He turned to study her for a beat.  “And you would believe the
word of a man who you think is villain?”

“I’ll
believe you.”

Silence. 
Then, “I want you for myself.  Slade has nothing to do with that.  That’s the
truth.”

“You
promise?”

“Yes.”

Kara
relaxed slightly at the vehemence in his tone.  “I’m not Slade’s.”  She needed
him to understand that.  “Really, I’m not.”

Something
raw and untamed flashed across Damien’s features.  “No.”  He agreed, in an
ominous tone.  “You’re
not
his.  Remember that.”

“
Me
remember it? 
You
remember it.  I’m not the one who’s been saying it all
along, buddy.”

Satisfied
that she’d gotten the last word in, Kara refocused on the show.  Loud trumpets were
sounding the Calvary Salute.  Or maybe they were bugles.  Whatever, they
drowned out any more attempts at talking.

Some
guy in buckskin stepped out and began a spiel about the wonders of the West
they were about to witness.  For a second, Kara was completely caught up in
experience of actually sitting there and listening to him.  Buffalo Bill Cody
was right in front of her.

Amazing.

Damien’s
arm came up to drape behind her neck, resting on the back of her seat with
nonchalant propriety.  His fingers caressed in her hair, toying with the curls
and watching the show like a bored potentate.

Kara
looked around in surprise.  And not just at the territorial feel of his hand. 
There hadn’t been backs to their chairs a second before and Kara seriously doubted
Tanya St. Clair was adding them, since everyone one else still sat on
bleachers.  She and Damien were the only ones who now had comfortable, padded
seats.

It
was impossible.

Magic.

Damien.

She
flashed him a glare, which he ignored.

“You
can’t do things like that.”  She hissed.  “You’re going to be caught.  And nineteenth
century humans won’t be happy to see someone casting spells in public.”  They
probably still burned people as witches around here.  “You’re the one who was
complaining about being inconspicuous, making me wear this glorified bridesmaid
dress.”

“The
humans won’t catch me.”  He sounded amused by the idea.  “And if you’d worn
your own clothes, it would have drawn attention.  I was right about that.”

“Magic
tricks don’t draw attention, I suppose.”

“Not
as much as me slaughtering men for looking at you.”  He said it so casually
that it actually took Kara a second to process it.

She
opened her mouth to respond to that typically patronizing comment when her
bizarre day went and got even stranger.

As
a fake wagon train began lumbering along, a loud shriek sounded from the sky.

…And
dragons attacked the
Wild West Show
.

“Gentle Melessa, how could you know of the suffering
I’ve endured?  The battles I’ve had to fight for the good of all.”  Slade
pounded a heartfelt fist against his massive chest.  “You are a mere mortal
woman. Young and innocent.  For your own good, I must let you go.”  He held up
a hand when her soft lips would have protested his sacrifice.  “No, my sweet
love.  Only a monster would seek to take something so pure and sully it with
his own dark world.  Farewell, my darling.  My own Eternal-One.  I shall see
your heavenly face no more, save for in my lonely dreams.”

Eternal
Passion at Sunset- Chapter Eight

So
often, since Kara arrived, Damien had experienced twinges of wrongness.

Not
with
her
, but with the rest of the world.  His instincts told him that
something was… different.  Imbalance and disorder filled his senses.  Like
reality was terribly askew, but everyone just had to pretend not to notice and keep
going.  It was unnerving.

Off-kilter.

He’d
never felt that sensation more clearly than when he saw fire-breathing monsters
chase cowboys around the
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
.

Damien
swore as the four dragons swooped down, revealing themselves to the tourists. 
Looking remarkably similar to reptilian humans with wings, the mercenaries of
the supernatural world descended like a primordial plague.

It
was an unprecedented display.  Since they’d entered this dimension, the
supernatural world stayed hidden from the humans.  It was their oldest law. 
One not even Damien broke, regardless of his small, public magick tricks.  What
the hell were the dragons thinking?

They
weren’t even eating anyone, which he could have almost accepted as motivation, given
their carnivorous appetites and generally poor planning skills.  Instead, they
seemed to be searching the crowd, watching as the
Wild West Show
attendees
scattered in all directions. The humans were screaming and praying and making a
hell of lot of useless noise, but the dragon weren’t killing them.

This
was definitely not normal.

Beside
him, Kara’s jaw hung open.  She stood up, her hands braced on the railing as
she gazed at the reptile men.  Chocolate eyes went from the manuscript in her
palm to the invaders and then back, again.

“This
is
so
not part of chapter eight.”  She whispered.

Damien
ignored that and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting out the conflict.  He
hadn’t even wanted to come to this fiasco.  He’d been humoring Kara, again,
still not wanting her to realize how much of a prisoner she actually was. 
Giving into her peculiar plans to find this Melandra woman was such a small
thing and it satisfied her for some reason.

As
he suspected, the
Wild West Show
had been painfully boring, but he’d
endured.  It worried him what he would endure for this woman.  And, after a few
moments, Damien found that he didn’t hate the experience as much as he should. 
He sat beside Kara, watching her watch the humans in ten gallon hats cavort about,
and it had almost been… peaceful.

Then,
the dragons ruined it.

That
was just annoying.

He
had no idea what they were planning, but he wished they’d get on with it and go
away.  Let the bastards kill the humans or the humans kill the dragons.  What
did he care, just so they did it quickly?

Damien
didn’t care about anything except vengeance.

The
leader of the dragons landed, his crimson eyes siting on Damien.  He gestured
for his men to join him on the ground and take positions around the wide open
arena.  Nestor’s roughhewed face shone with triumph as he headed towards Damien’s
seat in the stands.  He plowed forward through the stampede of humanity, his
huge body stalking towards his target.

Ah. 
Damien arched a brow.  The dragons must have been looking for him.  Not overly
surprising.  Damien was never surprised to learn that someone else wanted him
dead.

And
it wasn’t like he and Nestor had ever been close.  The Dragon’s leader was even
more amoral than Damien, his services for sale to the highest bidder.  Usually,
that involved gruesome slaughter and intimidation tactics.  With their looks,
dragons were good at scaring the locals.  Nestor’s gold-colored pants clashed
with the green hue of his scaly skin.  His wings were large and bat-like.  Like
all the dragons, he wore his red hair long, so it hit the middle of his bare
chest, barbarian style.  All in all, he looked like a badly-dressed demon from
hell.

Damien
wasn’t impressed.

Wizard
Warlocks were the least popular supernatural beings on the totem pole, but only
because dragons were willing to make themselves useful and take on the grunt
work for the other species.  They were hired muscle.  Nestor and his men were
physically stronger than everyone else alive.  Since Damien didn’t plan on
fighting them in hand-to-hand combat, though, it didn’t much matter.

Even
four against one, his powers could crush their own.

“Kara
Lynn, get back.”  He ordered, so she wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire.

She
disregarded that.  “Those guys were flying, Damien!  God, did you see that? 
And they’re green.”  She shook her head in mystification.  “What the hell was
Tanya thinking, huh?  You can’t do any spin-offs with green guys as the heroes,
that’s for sure.  They’re green!  I mean, maybe the Hulk can make it work,
but…”

“They
aren’t the damn heroes!”  Why did she insist on believing everyone was a good
guy except him?

“Oh,
you know what I mean.”  She looked up at him in wonder.  It apparently didn’t
even occur to her to run away from the monsters who were setting fire to
everything they saw.  Kara stayed right by his side, because she felt
safe
with him.  It did something strange to his chest to realize that.  “Why are
they here?”  She asked, wide-eyed.

“To
kill me, I imagine.”  He watched Nestor close in, completely unintimidated by
the dragons swagger or the multiple fires blazing around them.  It was real
hard for a dragon to hurt someone who couldn’t burn.

Damien
didn’t care about the dragons or whatever they were planning.  Didn’t care why
they’d apparently spooked the herd to flush him out hiding.  Didn’t care what
they wanted to fight him.  Didn’t care…

Nestor’s
gaze flicked from Damien’s unconcerned smirk to Kara’s amazed face.

…And
Damien’s heart stopped.

Karalynn.

Slade
.

The
Vampire had hired Nestor.

Slade
couldn’t go out in the daylight, so he’d hired trackers to find his
Eternal-One.  The dragons weren’t here to kill Damien.

They
were here to take Kara.

Getting
the destined Queen of the Vampires back from a Wizard Warlock was worth a few
hundred humans seeing a whole new kind of show.  Slade wanted his bride and
Slade always got what he wanted.  The dragons would bring Kara to the Vampire
Isle and Damien would never see her again.

Something
howled through him, louder than even his need for revenge.  For an endless beat
of time, Damien forgot his long awaited plans to destroy the Vampires.  His
reaction was entirely based on some new emotion that he didn’t recognize.  A
desperate, all-consuming fury that someone would try to take Kara from him.

She
was
his
.

“
Son-of-a-bitch
.” 
The sword appeared in Damien’s hand without him even consciously willing it
into being, the magicks just feeding off his rage.  His other arm reached for
Karalynn, intending to grab her and teleport her back to the safety of the
hotel.  His home was shrouded from supernatural beings.  Not even the dragons
could find it.

When
he reached for her, though, his hand hit nothing but air.  Damien’s head
snapped around just in time to see Kara climb over the railing and drop down
into the melee. 

His
eyes widened in horror.  Was she crazy?  “Kara Lynn!”

“Hang
on!”  She shouted back.

If
she thought she was leaving him, she was wrong.

Karalynn
Donnelly was his
cari
.

Now
that he’d admitted who she was, Damien would literally die before he let her
go. Vampires had an Eternal-One.  The equivalent for Wizard Warlocks was a
cari
. 
A beloved.  The person the sorcerers could bond with and join with for
eternity.

Kara
was his other half.

Damien
had suspected it on some level from the minute he saw her, but he’d been trying
to deny it.  It was a disaster.  He
knew
that.  Since he kissed her and felt
the wild possession to mark her as his own, he’d been resigned to the truth, though. 
Inconvenient as it was, there was no denying the woman was supposed to be his. 
All the animalistic instincts Damien normally suppressed screamed that she was
the one.

Kara
was a crazy, frustrating, possibly-insane woman who insisted he wasn’t even
real… and he’d never give her up.  He didn’t even
want
to want her, but
Damien was stuck with the girl.

And
she was stuck with him, whether she knew it or not.

Kara
was a human.  Theoretically, she could choose anyone she wanted.  She didn’t
have to follow the rules of the supernatural world.  And, even worse, she was
also a mate for Slade.  Apparently, fortune had given her to both men, probably
because only one could live through their war and, honestly, it seemed even more
likely that they would both die.  Hedging its bets, fate ensured that either of
them could have her.  Slade could steal Karalynn, like he’d stolen everything
else.

It
infuriated Damien to even think of that son-of-a-bitch Vampire coming near Kara. 
Every dark, primitive trait that had ever been ascribed to the Wizard Warlocks
ached to kill
any
other man who might claim her.

Especially
Slade.

And
even worse, Kara herself could easily forsake the bond with Damien and choose
the Vampire, instead.  Why wouldn’t she?  She said herself Slade was the hero. 
Of course, she’d try to go to him.  Be his Eternal-One and live
happily-ever-after as Vampire royalty in their golden castle.

Leave
Damien all alone, again.

He
would
never
let it happen.

It
went against the laws of his people for a man to hold a
cari
against her
will.  There was a choice.  Freewill.  But, if Damien was the villain in this
story, than he was going to make the most of it.  He’d abducted Kara from Slade
and she’d damn well
stay
abducted.  The woman was his destiny.  His
doom.

His
.

Damien
vaulted over the railing, landing in the dirt arena.  The
Wild West Show
had
flattened a large, flat area for their production.  Luckily, most of it was
sand, because the dragon’s flames were setting fire to anything green.  Well,
except for themselves.

“Damien!”

He
heard Kara’s voice calling his name and started for her.

One
of the dragons tried to intercept him and Damien’s free hand gave a sharp twist
in the air.  Nestor’s henchmen dropped like a stone, his head twisted at a 180
degree angle.  Such an easy, elegant way to kill … and against all the rules of
civilized warfare.

God,
it was simple to win when you had magical powers and no conscious.

He
stepped over the body like it wasn’t even there, black eyes scanning for Kara
in the chaos.  It didn’t take him long to see her kneeling next to a fallen
human female.

Damien
started for her, intent on chaining the woman to his side.

He
didn’t even need to turn his head to kill the next dragon running at him.  He
threw the sword in a wide swing that sent it sailing through the air.  Wizard
Warlocks had impeccable aim.  It was their animal instincts, again.  The blade
flew right into his enemy’s throat, sending the man flying back into a covered
wagon prop.  It pinned his body there like a decoration.

Damien
didn’t bother to retrieve his weapon.  He just created another one with his
magic and kept heading for Kara.

Nestor
got there first.  The dragon grabbed Kara, dragging her to her feet, trying to
take flight, again.

Damien
could do a lot of things, but he couldn’t fly.  “
No!
”  It was roar from
his empty soul.  If Nestor got off the ground, Damien would never catch up. 
You couldn’t just teleport to the Vampire Isle, you needed to fly.  How could
he retrieve Karalynn from a place specifically designed to keep him out?

Kara
wound up buying him the extra moment he needed to close the distance.  She didn’t
want to go with the dragon.  Obviously, she
hadn’t
been trying to run
from Damien.  She fought Nestor’s hold, hiking up the cumbersome length of her
skirts.  “Green bastard.”  Her knee came up to slam into privates.