Kagen wrenched the offensive hand off his mouth and slapped Marquis’s arm away in a fury. “Didn’t you hear me? Arielle is gone! The lycans have her. We have to go after her!”
Nathaniel appeared, as if out of a fog, a forest wraith emerging from a tree. He shoved his hand where Marquis’s had just been and snarled. “Be quiet, healer! Lower your voice.”
Kagen bit him in a rage, and Nathaniel withdrew his hand. What the hell were they doing? He leapt to his feet and tried to continue his pursuit, but Marquis grabbed his waist from behind. “Kagen, listen.”
Kagen broke free and spun around, facing both Marquis and Nathaniel like a cornered bear. He was ready to release his claws and swipe at their hearts if necessary—had the entire world gone mad? He tried to glide around them, continue his pursuit, but Marquis only sidestepped in front of him.
“Wait,” the Ancient Master Warrior snarled.
“The lycans have Arielle! They’ve taken her, probably to Thane, and possibly to the castle. We have to go after her before the trail goes cold!”
Marquis looked unusually conflicted, more than just a little bit tortured, but he did not give in. He spoke in a clear, even, hushed tone of voice, while his body practically oozed authority. “Brother, you are not thinking clearly right now. Our father is slated to be executed tomorrow at noon. In the arena. It is still ten hours away by foot. We cannot teleport across the distance carrying an object over fifty pounds in our arms, and we cannot fly while keeping ourselves and our armaments invisible, not for such a sustained period of time, not if we hope to remain undetected, not so long as we are subsisting on bagged human blood. Until we come in contact with more humans, we have no way to fully rejuvenate from any real type of battle, to replenish our strength, and we will need every ounce of it to save Keitaro. We must think about this strategically. We cannot fly off on an impulse.”
“Fly off on an impulse?” Kagen could hardly believe his ears.
“They are going to kill our father tomorrow, Kagen,” Nathaniel cut in. The male spoke as calmly as Marquis, yet his voice still held a perilous edge. His strong, chiseled features were etched with concern.
“I…I know that, but Arielle…we have to go after her. I have to go after her.” He peered beyond Marquis’s shoulders, staring at the vanishing trail, trying to keep the lycans’ tracks in his view. “Fine. Then I’ll go it alone.”
“To what end, Kagen?” Nathaniel asked.
“To what end?” Once again, Kagen sounded incredulous.
“You would fight an unknown number of lycans alone? And what if you are confronted by Alphas? What if the males who took her are Alphas?”
Kagen shrugged. “I don’t know. Then—”
“Then you will surely die!” Nathaniel supplied the answer, his words resounding as harsh as they were true.
Kagen glared at his twin with barely concealed resentment. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, brother.” He took a step back and shook his head.
Nathaniel wasn’t dissuaded. He held up his hands in an act of supplication. “Kagen, even if you live, then what? Then what becomes of our father?”
Kagen responded to the softer tone of Nathaniel’s voice with increased reason. “Then I’ll return. I’ll catch up with you. I’ll run.”
“With Arielle?” Marquis asked. “She will likely be hurt. You will likely be hurt.”
“No,” Nathaniel cut in, leveling a stern, sidelong glance at Marquis before turning back to Kagen. “You will likely be dead, and so will she if you try to go after her alone. I don’t even know that the four of us could get her back right now, not against a large enough contingency of lycans. And even if we have the element of surprise, we will lose it. We will lose it before we go after Keitaro.”
Kagen couldn’t believe what he was hearing…
On one hand, his brothers were right.
They were thinking and acting as warriors—just as they should—but what did they expect him to do? “And what would you have me do, brother?” Kagen finally asked Nathaniel. There had to be another solution. “Leave her to that monster? Forget her…and move on to Keitaro? Choose between the woman I love and our father?”
Nathaniel whistled low beneath his breath. “So you do love her, after all?” He shared a knowing glance with Marquis.
“Even if I didn’t…” Kagen’s voice trailed off. “I still couldn’t leave her with those monsters. You don’t understand what she’s been through…what she fears.”
Nachari stepped forward, emerging from the shadows as if he had been standing there all along, just waiting for the right moment to chime in. Knowing the wizard, he had donned his sword the moment Kagen had called out, and then, he had taken some extra time to walk…and think. “Kagen…” He spoke softly, kindly. His voice was low, soothing, and gentle. “We are not asking you to choose between Arielle and our father. We are asking you to choose between life and death. To choose the possibility of something over the inevitability of nothing.”
“You, too?” Kagen asked.
“Think about it.” Nathaniel jumped back in. “Try to be rational for just a moment: If we go after Arielle right now, one of three things will happen: One, we will all get killed or captured in the process; two, Keitaro may be executed tonight in retaliation; or three, our numbers may be so reduced that any chance of rescuing either one is made futile. After all, we have no idea what their numbers look like; how they’ve fortified their district; what Thane is prepared to do in the event that he detects a band of vampires in his realm. No matter how you turn it, we lose the element of surprise for tomorrow; we burn the precious time we need to make it to the arena; and we doom either Keitaro, Arielle, or both, to death. If we go after her now, we can’t win. If we regroup and go after Father first, then there still may be a chance…for both of them.” He sighed in frustration and sympathy. “The lycans will all be in one place tomorrow, at the arena. If Arielle is being kept at Thane’s castle, you will have a better chance of getting to her after we rescue Father—”
“You will also have human prey to feed upon in case you’re injured,” Marquis interjected.
“Exactly,” Nathaniel said. “And if she’s there, at the games, we may be able to kill two birds with one stone, to get to her during the ensuing commotion and confusion.”
“We may still be able to save them both,” Marquis added.
Nachari sighed. He captured Kagen’s eyes like a snake-charmer might capture a snake’s, and held them in his powerful, empathetic gaze. “Kagen, we have already told you our suspicions about Arielle, about you and Arielle, the fact that we believe she may be your destiny. This makes the situation even more volatile. It makes our plans even more critical. You must know—you have to know—that our desire to see her safe, to retrieve her alive, is as great as your own, if only because of our concern for you. But what we aren’t willing to do is rush recklessly forward with a plan that is doomed to fail from the start, risk losing Arielle—which means we may also lose you, too—risk losing Father, and risk losing our own lives in the process. Not when there is still the chance of salvaging everyone. It is a horrific choice. We understand. But it is the only one we can make.”
“By all the gods, brother, think about it,” Nathaniel implored.
Kagen paced in an anxious circle, his fingers digging absently into his scalp, as if by clutching his head, he could make his mind work better. “Do you have any idea what the lycans will do to her if we leave her alone with them overnight? What Tyrus Thane will do to her?” He knew it was a cheap shot, but he said it anyway. “And what if it were Jocelyn, or Deanna, or Ciopori?”
Marquis bit down so hard on his lower lip that his emerging fangs drew a trickle of blood that snaked down the side of his chin. “Ciopori was once in the hands of Salvatore Nistor, held captive in the Dark Ones’ Colony, being tortured in a chamber filled with snakes, yet I waited for the warriors to gather together, to plan a strategy, and to go in…united. I felt she would be better served by
my life than my death. And I’m sure Nathaniel and Nachari would’ve felt the same way if it had been Jocelyn or Deanna.”
The brothers nodded, and Marquis drew a deep breath. “We have every idea—I have every idea—what King Thane might do, brother. And I say to you, if there was anything we could do to prevent it, we would; but there is not.” He placed his hand on Kagen’s arm. “How does your death at the hands of the lycans protect Arielle…or prevent her violation? How does getting captured or killed, or allowing our father to die, protect this female…or prevent her humiliation? How does leading your brothers to their deaths protect her…or you? Tell me, Kagen, so I might understand and join you.”
Kagen’s head began to spin, and his heart began to ache, literally ache. This was inconceivable. And, try as he might, he simply could not process Marquis’s words. His soul would not allow it.
“We cannot get Father out of that arena as three—we may not even be able to get him out of there as four,” Nathaniel said. “And with the gods as my witness, we all know that our father will need a healer.”
“Arielle may need a healer…” Marquis’s voice faded into the background.
Nachari said something next, but his words were no longer audible.
There was nothing but space…and pain…and darkness. A void that was closing in on Kagen like an oncoming train in a dark, narrow tunnel. He tried to look up, to meet his brothers’ eyes—any of his brother’s eyes—just to anchor himself in the present moment.
But he couldn’t.
I don’t know how to leave her, he tried to say, but his voice failed him. You don’t understand—I can’t. He felt something slipping out from underneath him, but he couldn’t define what it was. I want to do what’s right, what I must, but it’s not within my power. He tried to convey all of it, but his throat closed up and betrayed him. I can’t breathe!
He tried to warn them, but he was utterly and completely lost.
Lost to the insanity of the choice…
Lost to a fog of despair, beyond any he had ever known.
And it made no sense—it wasn’t rational, and it wasn’t defensible.
And his ability to communicate any of it simply eluded him.
As the fog that had hovered over Mhier all day began to seep into Kagen’s soul, the skeletal, shadowed hands clutching at his heart with cruel, meandering indifference, he felt his arms fall to his sides and his legs buckle beneath him.
nineteen
Kagen Silivasi stumbled like a drunken human, lost in a fog of disbelief and anguish.
The lycans had won…
Again.
They had taken all he valued and claimed it as their own, and he was as helpless as a child swept away in a turbulent stream, tossed relentlessly beneath a rotating current of evil.
It was impossible.
Unthinkable.
Beyond reckoning.
The tragic choice was more than he could bear, and as his body folded beneath him, he sank to the forest floor and wept. Thank the gods emotion did not have the same effect in Mhier, for he was powerless to contain it.
Then, as darkness continued to descend upon him, the strangest thing began to happen: He was swept into an icy tunnel, an unfamiliar void, where the past and the present swirled all around him like an arctic wind, each divergent force seeking to pull him in an opposite direction in order to force his hand. One sought to anchor him in Mhier, to compel him to deal with the present situation, to get hold of his emotions and stay the current course, no matter how reprehensible. The other sought to take him far, far away, back in time, back to Dark Moon Vale.
Back to the night his father had disappeared.
And the origin of his rage had been born.
As his consciousness splintered, he thought he heard his brothers calling his name, hovering above him, shouting and shaking him in desperation. He thought he felt imploring hands on his shoulders, entreaties being made with pleading voices, each one more alarmed than the last; but all of it was waning, fading into a collective, distant dream. He withdrew into the tunnel, traveled back in time, and his brothers became like mere skeletons in the mist as he embraced the ghosts of his past.
The crisp colors of Mhier were gone.
The heavily treed forest was no longer there.
Instead, he found himself in Dark Moon Vale, walking beneath a luminous autumn moon. He looked down at his chest and then patted his arms and legs, trying to reacquaint himself with his body. He was no longer an Ancient vampire, ten months past his first millennium birthday, but a recent Master Healer of 521 years, who had just suffered the loss of his mother.
He was alone and wandering aimlessly in the night.
He was overwhelmed with grief and concerned for Keitaro, afraid that his father might be suicidal: It was two days after his mother’s burial, and Keitaro had yet to come home. While all of them were still reeling from the finality of Serena’s ceremony, the shock and anguish of losing her in such a horrific way, Keitaro had been absolutely beside himself with grief: heartbroken, inconsolable…teetering on the brink of madness.
Kagen knew that the Ancient Master Warrior needed some time alone—perhaps he had just gone off into the forest to mourn his mate in privacy—but just the same, he had to know how much his sons needed him right now. How badly Kagen needed him right now. Marquis was lost in a virulent rage, consumed with an overpowering lust for blood; Nathaniel was only moments away from doing something self-destructive; and Nachari and Shelby—well, the twins were just lost. Broken and confused. On the verge of giving way to despondency.
And Kagen had no one to talk to.
He rolled his shoulders to release some tension and forced his feet to continue plodding forward. Things were…exactly as they were…and no one could go back and change them.
He rounded the corner of the mineral plant, hopped down into the center of the old, dried-out riverbed, and continued to follow the contours of the ravine as he made his way toward the northern forest. Glancing upward as he walked, he couldn’t help but notice that the sky was as black as coal. While the moon shone brightly all around him, there wasn’t a star to be seen in the sky, and the air—it was so cold it was arctic. The valley floor was as hard as granite.
All at once, every hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he froze in place in order to tune more acutely into his senses. He saw nothing but the thick canopy of trees in front of him. He heard…only silence. He felt no strange vibrations in the atmosphere, save the constant heavy vibration of grief—and death—that continued to hover over Dark Moon Vale like a dense fog rising up from the sea. He closed his eyes and sniffed the air…
And that’s when he knew he wasn’t alone.
The northern forest was infested with lycans, killers hiding like cowards, hidden amongst the numerous trees, and they were watching his approach.
His muscles contracted involuntarily, the need to draw blood rising up within him like an insatiable hunger, gnawing at his gut, demanding that he fight, kill, and maim. But he held it at bay—if only for a moment—as he fought to employ reason, instead.
He was just about to call out telepathically to his brothers when he noticed a strange, enigmatic ring of light glowing in the forest: Translucent beams of violet and blue flickered in the moonlight, coalescing into a circular pattern like a radiant halo, the center glowing fiery red, and for reasons he couldn’t fathom, the word that came to mind was portal.
It was as if he were gazing at a doorway to another world.
Kagen blinked several times in quick succession, trying to dismiss the strange, unbidden thought, and then the next thing he saw stole the breath from his body: There were six enormous lycans hovering about the halo, and by all the gods, they each looked like Alphas, angry, formidable, lethal Alphas; yet their arms were linked in unison. And, for all intents and purposes, they appeared to be working together like one cohesive unit. No one was fighting for dominance or control, and they seemed to be of one mind and purpose.
He stood for a moment, transfixed by the sight, watching them warily and trying to decide what to do. Despite his calm demeanor, he was a roiling vat of emotions inside. He couldn’t help but wonder: Were these the Alphas who had ordered the attack on the valley? Had one of these creatures murdered his mother?
A low, feral growl rose in his throat, and his fangs began to descend from his gums, but he took three deep breaths and forced them to recede.
And that’s when he noticed the prisoner.
The vampire.
The broken and bloodied male swaying in the center of the circle. His arms were bound behind his back; the femur in one thigh jutted out at an unnatural angle—the bone had clearly been broken; and his eyes were so swollen they were practically shut, the dark brown centers barely discernible beneath the heavy, distended lids.
Kagen recoiled.
He could not believe his eyes.
The male in the center of the circle was his father…Keitaro Silivasi.
Something so primal—so dark, hateful, and venomous—rose up inside of him, he thought he might just shatter from the intensity of it. Every cell in his body was exclaiming the same thing: I will kill them! I will kill them all! And I will not stop until the rivers run crimson with their blood.
In the next instant, he heard one of the Alphas speak: The lycan wore a gold medallion around his neck, and he addressed the man beside him as Teague. “General Teague, forget the lone intruder. We have what we came for. Along with our Betas and Omegas, we have laid this valley low with devastation, and we are returning with a prisoner worthy of our king.”
The general nodded, and just like that, the lycans were gone.
Kagen’s father was gone.
Kagen startled at the suddenness of it all, and then something inside of him virtually exploded with panic. He shouted a harsh, guttural cry; leapt from the floor of the riverbed in one lithe bound; and closed the distance between him and the lycans in an instant, grasping wildly at the space where his father had stood.