The girl hissed like a rabid animal, scuttled backward toward the bed, and swiped at Nachari’s face with a hand absent of claws. Then she immediately tucked her chin to her chest, threw a defensive arm up, and shrieked in abject terror.
Nachari raised both hands in a gesture of surrender, trying to let her know he wasn’t there to hurt her.
Keitaro moved to Nachari’s side and pitched his voice in the silken tone of coercion. “Tell us who you are,” he commanded. “Why are you in this penthouse?”
Her voice was raspy and raw as she obeyed the powerful compulsion. “Zayda,” she squeaked, clearing her throat to produce a better sound. “How can I serve you?” She reached out to stroke Keitaro’s groin and hissed—yet again—when he shuffled backward and manacled her wrist in his fingers.
“No.” He said it sternly.
She shrank at the sound of his voice, this time quivering like a child and yanking on fistfuls of her wild hair.
“Holy mother of Perseus,” Nachari murmured. “She isn’t right…in the head.”
Keitaro slowly nodded. “She’s been abused beyond her mind’s capacity to withstand,” he added.
In a shift as nimble as a cobra, with a strike as fast as lightning, Zayda lunged forward and bit Keitaro’s finger, catching her neck on the collar. Her dull, human teeth sank deep into the digit.
He caught her at the back of the neck in a powerful pincer grasp and gave her another command. “Release me.”
She was instantly compelled to obey.
Relaxing her jaw, she released Keitaro’s finger and swiped her mouth with the back of her hand. And then, just like that, she switched again, going from feral to terrified animal. “I’m sorry-I’m sorry-I’m sorry.” She rushed the words in a hurried sequence, sounding positively frantic. “Please…please don’t hurt me…I’ll never do it again.” She turned to plead with Nachari, batting those beautiful, mysterious eyes, and then she swiped at his face again. “Don’t touch me!”
Nachari veered out of her reach, easily avoiding her nails, and then he shook his head in a slow, pitying nod. “We’re not going to get anything from this female…at least not now, and not like this.”
Keitaro agreed wholeheartedly.
Clearing his throat to catch her attention—and her momentary, faery-princess gaze—he gave her another imperious command. “Be at ease, little one. Go to sleep.”
Nachari caught her head in a gentle palm as it tilted to the side, careful to keep the collar from tugging against the chain and restricting her delicate airway. He reached forward with his free hand and crushed the metal links, freeing her from the restraint.
Keitaro reached for the piece of stationery, affixed by a metal clasp to her thigh, and turned his nose up in revulsion when he realized what it was: a note, written on the penthouse’s guest stationery, stapled to her flesh. And by the width and depth of the zinc-plated steel, it was clear that the note had been attached with a staple gun. “Son of a shit-eating hyena,” Keitaro cursed beneath his breath. “What kind of a bastard does this?” He snarled, removing the embedded wires from her flesh, and quickly scanned the missive:
Vampires—one and all—whoever finds this missive; salutations from the land of Mhier! I trust you have found my pet. Please feel free to use her (she’s like a wild cat: hungry, savage, and oh-so-responsive). Don’t bother to track me all over this city; I’ve returned to my world, beyond the portal.
But do not fret; we’ll meet again…
When you least fucking expect it!
General Matista
Keitaro crumpled the note in his hand. Saxson would be so disappointed, and who could honestly blame him? He relayed the contents of the note to Nachari, rose from his perch in front of the girl, and strode across the penthouse: sniffing out each corner, searching for remnants of Xavier’s occupation, for data, or any clues, trying to restrain his temper.
He wanted revenge for his family…and for Saxson.
He wanted to break the lycan’s neck.
And from his many years fighting as a slave in the lykos arena, he didn’t have a single doubt that he could do it: quickly, efficiently, and with brutal finality. He turned to regard his youngest living son, who had lifted the girl from the floor, removed the offensive collar, and placed her on the bed, covering her battered, naked body with the velvet gold coverlet. “Master Wizard,” he addressed him with his formal title, “your touch is safer than mine, and your mind-probes are much, much cleaner. Deeper. Faster. Far more efficient. Try to read her recent thoughts, retrieve her short-term memories, and if necessary, go back, all the way to the date of her birth. I want to know who she is and where she comes from. I want to know how she came to be here, in this expensive, top-floor penthouse with a lycan from another world. I want to know what he did to her, and why he let her live. And we don’t have a month to funnel through a string of a trillion impressions. Search for the lycan’s imprint; search for the vibration of fear; sort through the myriad of supernatural encounters, and relay them as you go. I will continue to scour the apartment, try to find Xavier’s lease, see if he left anything of value behind.”
He glanced out a floor-to-ceiling window, staring at the city lights. “Son, do you know anything about this particular building, these specific penthouses, anything that might be relevant to our enemies’ earth-bound organization…to Xavier?”
Nachari lifted Zayda’s left arm and began to test her veins, rubbing his thumb along the pale green tracks beneath her mottled flesh. “I believe the Swingle-Duplex Suites are owned by an extremely wealthy corporation, Giovanni Inc., and their use is…well…highly dubious. From what I understand, there are two 20,000-square-foot units on each private floor, but the condos are not for sale. They’re rented, like hotels, by the week, the month, or the year, borrowed by extremely wealthy patrons.” He glanced at the naked woman lying on the luxurious bed and cocked both eyebrows to emphasize his point. “As you can see, they’re used for all kinds of…nefarious dealings…including prostitution.” Finding a vein that suited him, Nachari released one claw, nicked the female’s flesh, and brought her arm an inch from his mouth. “But I don’t know if there’s any direct connection to Xavier—or the lycans. Giovanni Inc. is a multibillion-dollar conglomerate—the investors own half of this city and a large portion of several others, all along the East Coast and the Midwest. Marquis and Giovanni Inc. have never had a single run-in concerning the casino, so they don’t appear to meddle in their competitors’ affairs.” He lowered his head and lapped at Zayda’s blood.
And then he froze in mid-swallow, drew back to release his fangs, and plunged them directly into the brachial artery instead.
“What is it?” Keitaro asked, instantly catching the shift in approach. Nachari wanted a much larger taste—he needed a broader stream of information.
The vibrations…in her blood, Nachari responded telepathically. This human woman is part lycan.
Keitaro flashed to Nachari’s side in an instant, braced his large, powerful hand along the base of the female’s neck, and raised her head just high enough to scent the underside of her jaw. He took a deep, full-bodied sniff, swirled his tongue along her jugular, and stiffened. “You’re right! What the hell?” He sniffed her again and recoiled: He would know that faint secondary scent anywhere—that almost imperceptible, familiar taint wafting from the deepest recesses of the female’s DNA—it belonged to Xavier Matista.
And that meant the two creatures were related.
Blessed Goddess Andromeda—had Xavier done this to his own relation?
Females were rare as hell in Mhier, and while they were anything but cherished, they were kept very close to the alpha males. Used, but protected. Abused, but kept alive. Owned by their male mates and masters—they were not left to die in city penthouses on the other side of the portal. “Sift through her memories; go back to the beginning. Do it now, Nachari.”
The Master Wizard retracted his fangs, closed his eyes, and swirled Zayda’s blood
around his tongue. He placed an absent hand over her heart to deepen the physical—and spiritual—connection, and then slowly, albeit at a much swifter pace than anyone other than a wizard could achieve, he began to relay various memories and impressions in a quiet, reflective tone. “She’s human, Father. At least to her own recollection.”
Keitaro grew quiet, concentrating on every single word spoken by the Master Wizard. Nachari received more than facts and impressions—he received divine premonitions and psychic intimations.
“Xavier purchased her from a middleman about two weeks ago—definitely a human-trafficking ring, a sex-trade operation—and then he brought her to this penthouse.” His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I can’t be sure because I only have access to Zayda’s words and thoughts, but the two did not recognize each other. Xavier showed no familial reaction. If they’re related, they don’t seem to know it. And there’s something else that stands out.” His features relaxed once more. “She wasn’t feral at the time. She was petrified, disgusted, sad, and spiritually broken—I would say she was resigned, but her mind was sound.
“Whoa…” he suddenly intoned. “A shit-pot of money exchanged hands for her purchase.”
How much? Keitaro thought the words, not wanting to break the vampire’s train of thought or concentration…to interrupt the deep psychic connection.
“A hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Keitaro felt his heart sink in his chest. He wasn’t intimately acquainted with human criminal enterprises, but he knew enough to put two-plus-two together. Men didn’t pay 150,000 dollars for two weeks with a prostitute, not even a high-class call girl. That was blood money. Xavier was paying for the right to keep her, to never return the merchandise, to do whatever he chose with her body, including torture or kill her.
So, Giovanni Inc. was as corrupt as corruption came?
And Xavier knew just who to turn to.
Interesting.
“She wasn’t new to the life,” Nachari continued. “I’m streaming really fast, tunneling through weeks, months, years of memories and impressions, and they’re all the same, going back as far as thirteen years old: Zayda lived in a compound, a virtual walled-in fortress, with a host of other sex slaves. Shit, it looks like she grew up there. She was traded for years and years, but never sold for…torture…not until Xavier…” His expression darkened. “I’m looking everywhere I can, Father, but I’m just not finding the lycan connection. She never leaves the compound, unless she’s with a john. She never passed through the portal—she never spent a moment of her life in Mhier. I can’t be absolutely certain from such a limited perusal of impressions, but based on everything I’m getting, she doesn’t know she’s part lycan. She’s never had anything to do with them.”
Keitaro rubbed his hands together, growing increasingly perplexed and restless. “Dig deeper, son; go further. Can you travel back to her infancy? Can you crawl inside her mother’s womb, try to divine an impression of her father?”
Nachari pursed his lips together and let out a measured stream of breath, and Keitaro knew he was asking for a miracle. Such a thing would require more than a mind-meld or a memory retrieval; it would require the use of great magick.
The Master Wizard bit down on his lower lip, furrowed his brow in concentration, and spoke several words in Latin, a spell of some sort. “She’s still in the compound,” he said softly. “She’s in a one-room, sterile cubicle with another human woman—a very attractive woman.” He grew still, and then he sighed. “Her mother was a sex slave, too. Zayda was born to the life. She was born in the slave trade’s fortress.” His shoulders tensed, his lower jaw tightened, and his eyelids began to flutter without opening. “I’m in her mother’s womb now, and I’m hearing one name more than any other. It’s being spoken to the woman who is carrying her: Xia. Her mother’s name is Xia, and she’s definitely a sex slave. Zayda was an unplanned pregnancy, the result of a one-night transaction with a john.”
All at once, a bolt of purple-blue lightning sizzled in the Denver night sky. Thunder clapped, rattling the penthouse, and the expansive, cosmopolitan space filled with luminous light.
“I’m still in her mother’s womb…”
The vampire’s voice sounded distant.
Disembodied.
Almost ghostly.
And Keitaro knew what the Master Wizard was trying to do.
He was trying to recreate—and capture—the moment of Zayda’s conception so that he could snatch a fleeting impression…the identity of her father.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, blanching and flying backward off the bed, instantly breaking the connection.
Keitaro approached him cautiously.
Nachari looked positively ashen.
“What is it, son? What did you see…or feel…or sense?”
Nachari stared at the female on the bed with a mixture of revulsion, pity, and disbelief in his eyes as he slowly shook his head. “Xavier is Zayda’s father.”
Keitaro visibly recoiled. “What?” He followed his son’s haunted gaze to the piteous, tortured soul sleeping on the bed. “He did this to his daughter? To his own flesh and blood.”
Nachari shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t think he knew.” He took a moment to slowly exhale, as if purging the profanity from his lungs. “I think it was one of the world’s most effed-up coincidences. Twenty years ago, he bought a human woman from a sex-trafficking ring, brutalized her for one night, and likely went back through the portal. Twenty years later—”
“He bought another one,” Keitaro supplied.
“I think so,” Nachari offered. “Only this time, he purchased her for two weeks in order to exploit, torture, and kill her.” He paused to catch his breath. “For what it’s worth, which isn’t much, this particular female was not the general’s cup of tea. From what I saw, he never…consummated…their union. He got off on cruelty, the torture, and watching others do it for him.”
“Well, no wonder she thought we were here for—”
“Yeah,” Nachari murmured.
He ran an absent hand through his thick, wavy black hair. He appeared fatigued, drained…completely tapped out. He opened his mouth to speak, but there truly were no words.
“And you think it was just a coincidence—”
“That he happened to purchase his daughter?” Nachari finished Keitaro’s sentence again. “I do.”
Keitaro slowly nodded, then sighed as the information sank in.
“What are we going to do with her, Father?”
“We’re going to take her back to Dark Moon Vale,” Keitaro said bluntly.
“To Napolean’s manse?”
“No,” Keitaro said. “I’m going to take her back to the old house…to the cabin.”
Nachari drew back in surprise. “The home where we grew up? The home where my mother lived? Father”—he sounded positively dumbstruck—“innocent victim or not, the female is half lycan! Not to mention, she’s deeply damaged…broken…dangerous. She’s feral.”
Keitaro stared at the female lying so peacefully on the bed, and he replayed her earlier reactions—the hissing, the cowering, the salacious overture…the fact that she belonged to a primordial race of the Vampyr’s eternal enemies…the fact that the vampire-hunting instinct was woven into her blood—and he understood his son’s objections: Ever since the Silivasi brothers had returned from Mhier with their father in tow, Keitaro had divided his time between his cherished sons’ houses and the old, isolated cabin where he had once lived with Serena. While he resided with his sons, he poured all his free time and extra energy into remodeling, revitalizing, and reanimating the original homestead—it was where he felt closest to his departed destiny.
To her spirit.
Now, to take not only a mortal enemy, but the child of a monster who knew and conspired with the one who had murdered his beloved wife back to the pristine valley…back to the home where Serena had given birth to their sons…it seemed almost sacrilegious.
Zayda stirred fitfully on the bed, her feral, faery-princess eyes fluttering open.
And Keitaro had his answer.
He, too, had been held captive for much of his life.
He, too, had been brutalized by depraved lycans…
He would nurse the female back to health, or euthanize her himself.
But she wasn’t staying with Napolean.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Three days later
Saxson Olaru practically held his breath, waiting to be transfixed by Kiera’s playing. She had done as she’d intended, taken three full days to sleep, try to heal, and rejuvenate, leaving all other cares—and obligations—behind. And now, she was finally ready to try her new violin.
He sank into the plush, comfortable cushions of his overstuffed sofa and bit his bottom lip in anticipation. By all the gods, his destiny was lovely, standing before him like a pajama-clad angel, wearing his silken PJ’s; and Saxson was feeling everything he should—and then some—for this rare, incomparable beauty.
Her posture, as she tucked the timeless instrument beneath her chin, readied her bow, and placed it noiselessly on the string, was mesmerizing. Her tall, elegant form was almost regal. And for a moment, Saxson absently wondered if her new vampiric abilities might turn her into a preternatural virtuoso: After all, she was faster now, her mind was keener, her fingers could move with unerring precision. She could bow at any speed or velocity she chose, recall notes without even trying, and employ the most difficult hand positions or vibrato as if it were second nature. From what he’d seen in Kyla’s memories—what he’d found in Keira’s too—his destiny was already a master of the instrument. What in the name of the gods would she play like now?
The first languorous notes began to vibrate throughout the canyon-top great room with the lofty resonance of a cathedral recital, and he immediately caught his breath—it hitched in his throat. And then she played a series of flawless, transcendent tones, and his heart actually skipped a beat.