By all means, stop by whenever you get the urge; we don’t even require an RSVP.
These were the missives Keitaro and Nachari left…week after week…after week.
And each note, without exception, had Keitaro Silivasi’s address stamped on the bottom, lest the general get lost or forget where to go…where to show up…who it was that was dying to see him.
In truth, there was no way—absolutely none—that a band of lycans were going to come through the portal and wage a war with the Vampyr in Dark Moon Vale. Been there. Done that. They’d all bought the bloody T-shirts. And the Silivasis had left the lycans’ world—their government and hierarchy—in virtual ruin. The werewolves no longer possessed the organization, strength, or numbers to contend with their mortal enemies, at least not in a full-scale war.
But General Matista?
He was one arrogant son of a canis.
Eventually, his pride would get the best of him, and his temper would snap.
When it did, Keitaro hoped to confront him man to man—vampire to lycan. But just in case, and at his king’s and sons’ insistence, the wolf traps, the lycan wards, were wired to go off at each Silivasi household simultaneously. Every member of the Silivasi family would hear the alarms the moment Xavier tripped the magical wires. And for added protection, Keitaro had cached a hoard of weapons beneath the planks of his remodeled front porch in an easily accessible trunk. There was a spiked cestus awaiting Marquis; an M4 carbine, cleaned and oiled, with Nathaniel’s name all over it; a set of rusty scalpels, too antiquated and bizarre to contemplate, placed just so for Kagen; and a sickle, plus a sword, polished to a shimmering gleam, tucked safely away for Nachari—as if the wizard or the panther needed either one.
Just the same, the destinies had also insisted: If the grandchildren were going to stay overnight, then Keitaro’s sons—the Silivasi brothers—could be no more than a heartbeat away: weapons ready, strategy prepared, able to defend the homestead and the grandkids in an instant. Naturally, Keitaro had acquiesced to all his daughters’ requests—he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Car.” Zayda Patrone stepped out on the porch and looked off into the distance, her voice as monotone as it was hushed. “Someone’s coming.”
Keitaro’s muscles tightened; he closed his eyes and listened for the sound of tires kicking up gravel in the distance. Next, he scented the air for the odor of flesh versus fur, and then he slowly nodded. Zayda was right—maybe three miles away, a vehicle was approaching the homestead. “If Xavier comes…when Xavier comes,” Keitaro spoke evenly as to not alarm her, “he won’t be driving a car.”
Zayda Patrone lowered her head even as she lowered her thick, curly lashes, shielding her luminous faery-princess eyes from Keitaro’s ever-keen, watchful examination. “Don’t like visitors,” she murmured, the sound coming out as a hiss.
Keitaro took a cautious step toward her, and she instinctively stepped back. She wasn’t afraid; it was just a reflex, one she hadn’t managed to quell in all this time. “Go inside,” he instructed, gesturing toward the door with a gentle yet commanding hand.
Zayda held up two fingers, as if drawing a microscopic symbol in the air, an odd tic Keitaro had noticed on more than one occasion—she did it whenever she was deep in thought—and her nose twitched at the tip, several times in quick succession. Her wolf was sniffing the valley, trying to identify the stranger’s scent, yet her human mind didn’t even register the instinct, the fact that she was doing it.
Weeks ago, Keitaro had sat the girl down and cautiously explained the reality of the situation: the fact that he was a vampire, the cold, hard truth of her biological origins. Xavier Matista was both her father and a lycan, which meant Zayda belonged, at least halfway, to a race of prehistoric, vampire-hunting creatures. Yet and still, the female had no idea, no conscious awareness, of her primordial behavior or her inbred lykos instincts, whereas Keitaro saw them in everything she did.
She raised her chin and met Keitaro’s stare head-on, causing his heart to skip a beat in his chest. Those eyes. Those damn, mysterious, enigmatic eyes. Silver blue. Spun from glass. Too large to be real; too exotic to be human. “If Xavier comes,” she said. “When he comes,” she corrected, pausing to lift her eyes upward and to the right as if retrieving a mental image from her subconscious, “can you remove his heart and save it for me?”
Keitaro furrowed his brow.
Could he remove Xavier’s heart and save it for Zayda?
Why?
“Excuse me?” he said.
“I’d like to eat it,” she murmured, and then she giggled like a little child. “Just kidding.” She turned on her heel and strolled back inside, and Keitaro took a deep, steadying breath.
Blessed Sagittarius!
Okay…
So perhaps he had overestimated Zayda’s progress, and her improvement needed to be measured in miles, not steps—this was a marathon, not a sprint. And perhaps Kagen had been right about seeking traditional human therapy for Keitaro’s beleaguered guest.
Zayda would like to eat Xavier’s heart…
Just kidding?
Before he could ponder her words any further, a smoky gray Porsche Cayenne SUV pulled into the drive and snaked its way toward the house.
Keitaro shook off Zayda’s odd behavior and bounded down the steps, waiting patiently as the six-foot-three sentinel climbed out of the driver’s-side door and slammed the panel behind him. “Greetings, Master Warrior,” Keitaro called to Santos Olaru.
Santos Olaru unfolded his lithe, muscular body from the SUV and nodded in reply to Keitaro Silivasi. He strolled across the uneven ground and met the approaching vampire halfway, falling seamlessly into a formal greeting: “It is with great joy that I greet you this day, my celestial brother; a fellow descendant of Jadon; an Ancient Master Warrior; father to two noble warriors, a healer and a wizard; and son of Lord Sagittarius, who makes his home around the Trifid Nebula.”
Keitaro clasped Santos’ hand, then drew back in surprise. “Damn. Mighty formal, sentinel. So this isn’t a casual visit?”
Santos declined his head in both respect and affirmation. “No, it’s not.”
“The king? Is everything well with Napolean?” Keitaro asked, his brows shooting up.
Santos smiled then, relaxing a bit. “The king is well…as usual. Thank you for asking. This is more of a personal visit. Business, yes, but of the private variety.”
Keitaro held up one hand, ostensibly to slow the vampire down. “Okay.” He looked off into the distance, took a deep, measured breath, and flashed an amiable smile of his own. “First things first: How’s the family? How are your nephews?”
Santos felt a spark of warmth alight in his chest. It radiated outward—then upward—until it settled in his eyes, and he could feel the creases, the corners beneath his eyelids, deepen from the joy. “Ramsey’s good. Real good. And Saxson is still on cloud nine—in fact, I just came from his house—and Roman and Legend; they’re growing like weeds. Roman will be six months the beginning of next week, and Legend will be four months, one week later.”
Keitaro chuckled softly. “Good. Good…they’re going to grow up close in age. And Tiffany? Kiera? How are the destinies doing?”
Santos shook his head from side to side, a sly, mischievous grin curling along the edges of his mouth. “Tiffany is still giving Ramsey fits, but if you ask me, they’re two peas in a pod, which is why they bump heads when they’re not…well…tearing each other’s clothes off.” His humor lessened. “And Kiera…she’s adjusting. She and Saxson were definitely made for each other, so I think their lives are far more complete, but it’s gonna take time…all the drama with her sister, Kyla…that kind of thing doesn’t heal overnight. It isn’t easily forgotten.”
The house of Jadon was a close-knit community, and even those who weren’t as intimately involved in Saxson Olaru’s Blood Moon as Santos and Ramsey knew all about Kyla Sparrow’s betrayal of her twin sister, how she had tried to take
Kiera’s place and pass herself off as Saxson’s destiny with only one end goal in sight: to murder as many vampires as she could. She’d been a member of a secret vampire-hunting society, and the whole plot had hit way too close to home. After all, Santos and his two younger brothers had lost their mother to a stake through the heart…
But that had been many centuries ago.
And it had made Saxson uniquely qualified to comfort his mate.
Ultimately, Kyla had lost her life to vampiric justice, so Saxson and Kiera were embracing both a beautiful beginning…and a tragic ending…together.
“Those two are strong,” Keitaro said, drawing Santos from his internal thoughts. “Both separately and together. Your sister-in-law is a welcome addition to the house of Jadon.”
Santos nodded, and he allowed a bit of silence to settle between them before pressing onward. “Speaking of recent additions to the house of Jadon… It’s why I stopped by Saxson’s clifftop estate, and it’s why I’m standing here now.”
Keitaro angled his head toward the house. “This is about Zayda?”
“Yes. Zayda. Luca Giovanni. Xavier Matista. The whole sordid affair.” The sentinel felt his features harden and his jaw slightly stiffen as he fell into a more businesslike protocol. “I stopped by Saxson’s before I came here because I wanted to bring the warrior up to speed on the same thing I’m about to tell you. I wanted him to pass it on to Ramsey and Saber, which sort of speaks for itself: There’s enough cross-over between players, enough concern to the whole house of Jadon, to make all of this official sentinel business, and I figured, since you’ve been watching over Zayda and goading General Matista, you need to be brought into the loop.”
Keitaro’s features were as placid as the lake below Santos’ house, which meant his emotions were running just as deep and murky. “Okay.”
“And there’s something else,” Santos added. “I’d like you to speak with Zayda—to allow me to speak with Zayda—assuming she’s stable enough…lucid enough…to answer some difficult questions. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
Keitaro nodded slowly, a lock of his thick black hair falling forward into his eyes, the hue of his mane so deep and dark it nearly gleamed purple in the afternoon sunlight. True to his cunning warrior’s nature, he cut to the chase right along with Santos. “Give me the gist of it, Santos: the executive summary. A few paragraphs or less.”
Appreciating the vampire’s brevity, Santos tried to rise to the challenge. “Over the last few years, give or take a month here and there, I’ve been…followed…in cyberspace by a human hacker, a sort of cat-and-mouse game between computer aficionados.” When Keitaro’s brows immediately dipped down into a frown, Santos decided to take another approach—hell, the male had been held captive in a prehistoric world, reminiscent of the Flintstones or Clan of the Cave Bear—he could do without the technological jargon. “Let’s just say someone was watching me closely, and that someone happened to be Luca Giovanni’s only offspring: his daughter, Natalia.” He paused for the space of several heartbeats to let the significance sink in. “I made contact with her last night, and while I intend to follow up, try to meet her in person, I have more questions than answers. I’d rather not go in blind if Zayda can fill in some holes.”
There.
That was short, sweet, and to the point.
Now it was just a matter of awaiting the vampire’s answer. Zayda was Keitaro’s charge, and the formidable patriarch was nothing if not fiercely protective over his ward. No one knew exactly why, and no one, save Napolean, had the rank or right to question the Ancient Master Warrior—Keitaro would either say yes…or no.
Keitaro glanced at the house, looked out across the acreage, and drew his shoulders back. “You think this Natalia might know something about Xavier or whatever goes on in that compound? Zayda’s plight and her upbringing? You think Zayda might be able to connect some dots?”
Santos shrugged. “Don’t know, but it’s possible. If nothing else, she can fill in the blanks with regard to the compound’s blueprints, and she may have heard a thing or two, growing up. Regardless of circumstances, people gossip.”
Keitaro bit down on his lower lip, and a stern, almost imperceptible hint of warning flashed in his deep, espresso-brown eyes. “You can speak to her as long as I’m present. But if she starts to degenerate, if she gets too agitated, the conversation is over. We understand each other?”
Santos let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Understood. And since I don’t know her as well as you do, just signal me if something goes awry.”
At this, Keitaro smirked. “I highly doubt you’ll need a signal, not with Zayda, but we’ll play it by ear.” He gestured toward the front door. “Please, come in. I’ll go get Zayda, and we can talk in the living room.”
Chapter Five
Zayda Patrone stood in front of the full-length, oval mirror, staring at her wild, unruly hair. She had tried to plait it into a smooth, even braid, just like Deanna had shown her, but there were tresses sticking out everywhere: thick, golden red, and rebellious. For a moment, she wondered, What would Keitaro think? But the thought was quickly replaced by another: Who cares!
She stared at the plain white T-shirt hanging down to her knees over a boring pair of gray yoga pants and winced, not so much because she didn’t like the outfit—again, who cared—but because she didn’t like the constant noise in her head, the opening and closing of separate compartments Zayda could no longer control.
Growing up in The Fortress, she had learned how to shut those doors, to literally force her mind to be blank, like a cold, empty room without windows or doors. Nothing but dark gray silence. And when she’d been forced to meet with a John, she’d crawled inside that compartment while her body remained outside of it. Basically, Zayda could go in and out of nothingness…at will.
Until Xavier Matista.
Until The Fortress guards had moved her from the eastern wing to the south…
She knew.
Of course, she knew!
Everyone did.
She had just gone from a $200-per-night prostitute to a deranged hunter’s prey. The next time she was purchased, she wasn’t coming back.
And when Xavier had chained her inside that duplex, her walls had broken down…like they had crumbled or cracked. She had tried to slip inside the gray ramparts, but they wouldn’t hold. They wouldn’t hold. And so, it was kind of like she created a whole new set of compartments…of rooms…places she could go. As odd as it sounded—especially to her—those partitions split apart as well. She could be in several compartments at once or moving in and out. She could be nowhere—or everywhere—depending on the event. Sometimes, the calm, cool call-girl she had learned to perfect strolled in and out of the compartments with ease. This was the girl who still doubted Keitaro Silivasi, wondered what he wanted, when his mask would break. Still other times, she felt like a little girl, lost in her imagination, running in and out of the rooms, pretending: wishing on a rainbow, making things up, wanting Keitaro to love her. Yet other times, she was just Zayda, too old for her years. Cynical. Bitter. Maybe broken. And this was the girl inside the compartment who thought, Who cares!
A brisk knock on the door startled her out of her musings, and then she heard Keitaro’s deep, commanding voice: “Zayda, can you come out for a minute? There’s someone here who would like to see you.”
Her throat immediately constricted.
Someone there who wanted to see Zayda?
Who?
Why?
Maybe Deanna or one of Keitaro’s other daughters—maybe that nice one, Arielle—or was it a man…a predator… Had Keitaro Silivasi’s mask broken after all?
She shuffled slowly to the heavy, six-panel door and spoke through the partition. “Who is it?” Her voice sounded feeble, and she hated that.
“His name is Santos Olaru,” Keitaro said evenly. Why was he controlling his voice?
So it was a man…
A Jo
hn? she wondered.
“Zayda…” This time, Keitaro’s voice held something almost magical in it, something soothing and gentle and warm. And Zayda felt her anxiety let go, release, as if she’d just taken a wonderful drug. How the hell did he do that with his voice? “There’s nothing to fear. I’ll be right beside you. Santos is like…he’s sort of a police officer, but you aren’t in trouble.” He rushed the last five words. “And neither am I. He wants to ask you some questions about your life, before we found you. I know it’s not a pleasant topic, but it won’t take too long. And if at any point, you wish to stop, just say the word. Zayda, I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. Will you do this for me, wild one?”
Zayda shut her eyes.
Wild one…
She loved when Keitaro called her that.
It didn’t feel like an insult; it just felt…true.
“You know him. And trust him?” she asked, her voice a little stronger.
“I do.”
She took a long, measured breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth, prolonging the exhale through slightly parted lips, and then she opened the door and followed her protector—no, her keeper—into the newly remodeled living room.
A tall, handsome man stood up at once, and his smile was actually jarring.
Spectacular.
Well, it would have been if Zayda didn’t inherently distrust all men, which she did.
Still, the guy was stunning to the eyes and intimidating as hell. He camouflaged all that raw, barely leashed power beneath a slow, gentle smile, and unless Zayda was mistaken, the kindness reached his eyes. Eyes were amazing crystal balls. They usually—but not always—told everything. And kindness was sort of a glow, like a light behind the pupils that radiated outward, and those little lines in the corners became smooth instead of tight.
“Zayda,” the handsome guy said, “it’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Santos Olaru. I’m in charge…I work with a security detail here in Dark Moon Vale, and I’m hoping you can answer a few questions for me.” He extended his arm and offered his hand in greeting.