The knight shrugged.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tristan. Just say whatever it is you’ve got on your mind.”
“If you let them get to you, they’ll see it as a weakness and keep tryin’ to exploit it.”
He rolled his eyes, glancing at Gabby.
“Don’t look at me,” she said.
“I believe this was your idea, little witch,” he replied sullenly.
“You’re meant to be this badass vampire, Nye,” she bit back. “So be a badass vampire.”
“Badass doesn’t always translate.”
“I’m going home to Ashburton,” she said, ignoring his quip. “Alex… Alex has some loose ends to tie up, and I’m needed.”
At the mention of Alex, Nye stiffened. Alex was a new vampire, and mere weeks had passed since Gabby herself turned him into a founder. He’d been used as a weapon against the insane-as-they-came fae hybrid Aed. Alex was the only vampire left on the planet who couldn’t be killed by normal means. It took a special kind of magic to bring him down.
But Nye wasn’t interested in Alex. The founder was on their side being that he was childhood friends with Gabby so no problems there. He was more interested in Alex’s older sister, Isobel, and wanted to ask how she was doing after returning to her studies at Oxford…but he wasn’t supposed to be interested. Isobel was never meant to be part of this world. Kidnapped by Aed before he and Zac could stop him, she’d already been put into more danger than he liked.
“Then go home,” Nye said, putting the redhead out of his mind. “I’ve survived for four hundred years without you Gabby. I’ll survive a few weeks more.”
“Wow. That’s so nice of you,” she said sarcastically. “But I don’t need your permission, Your Majesty.” She flipped through the grimoire. “I’ll be gone a week or so at most. Then I’ll be back to assist you with bringing order to this place.”
“Is that what you dragged me back here for?” Nye asked. “I was in the middle of doing just that, you know.”
“No, not entirely. I need to destroy the spell that created the founders,” she explained.
“And you need us here for that?” Nye asked, raising an eyebrow. “Can’t you just rip out the page and throw it in the fire? Sounds easy to me.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Tristan said, butting in.
“A grimoire is an extension of a witch’s soul in a way,” Gabby went on, her fingers tracing the lines of the spell. “And when a witch casts a spell, she obtains an affinity with it. When I turned Alex…”
“It was a big deal?” Nye finished for her.
“A very big deal. When I tear this page out and burn it, I’ll likely feel all of it. If it’s too much, it might…” She shrugged.
“It might kill her,” Tristan said.
Nye shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “So we give you some vampire blood before your heart stops completely.”
“Hopefully, you won’t have to,” Gabby said, staring at the spell. “But this needs to be done. Aya is the only creature alive who can kill a founder. If something happened to her, I’m not sure nature could find a way to balance out the difference.”
Nye snorted. Aya was Zac’s love and was half vampire and half Celestine. The Celestines were the race that created the first witches and were all but gone, which was why they were forced to leave their magic inside a bunch of frail humans with corruptible hearts. Katrin was one of the first and hadn’t been the best choice if anyone had been around to ask Nye. She’d created the founding vampires and they’d taken the last Celestine, Aya, and killed her family. The Roman founder Arturius had changed her into a vampire, not knowing what he was creating, which was the key to their demise.
For two thousand years, they’d all been embroiled in a sick, twisted game of revenge…all in the name of keeping the balance of power within the earth.
“Then rip, little witch,” Nye said. “We’ll be here to bring you back if you fall off the edge. Then you can go on your holiday.”
Gabby squared her shoulders and picked up the edge of the page. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and ripped. A gasp escaped her lips as the paper tore, her heartbeat quickening as pain flowed through her body. Nye listened and waited as she held the spell in her trembling fingers.
“Shit,” she cursed.
“Okay?” Tristan asked, leaning forward.
“It was worse than I thought…” She swallowed hard but didn’t back down from her duty.
Closing the grimoire, she placed it on the side table and held the page out toward the fire. Holding steady, she sucked in her deepest breath yet and let the page flutter into the flames.
The moment the two elements connected, Gabby let out an agonized wail and fell forward. Nye sprang into action and caught her in his arms before she had a chance to hit the floor.
Glancing at Tristan as she writhed in his arms, the knight frowned, but there was nothing they could do until the fire had erased all trace of the spell. Why witches always had to do things the hard way never failed to confuse the hell out of him.
His gaze flickered to the fire where the spell was smoldering into ash, and as his keen vampire eyes observed the last of the magic fading away, Gabby began to settle. Her heartbeat had accelerated but never slowed, not until the pain was leaving her body. Either the spell wasn’t as powerful as she first thought or she had more power than any of them knew.
“I’m okay,” she finally whispered, her voice wavering. “I’m okay.”
“Shit,” Nye said, helping her back into the chair. “You witches are a morbid lot.”
“Me? Morbid?” she asked, swatting him on the shoulder. “Says the vampire who drinks human blood to survive.”
He smirked, trying to hide the fact that he actually liked Gabby. A lot. Vampires and witches were meant to be mortal enemies given their beginnings. It was the dawning of a new age in more ways than one.
“Point well made,” he said, ignoring Tristan’s chuckle in the background. “Death becomes me, right?”
“Still a smartass,” Gabby murmured, looking tired.
“And I’ll still be the smartest ass of the lot when you get back.”
“Thank you, Nye.”
Chapter 2
The mansion was quiet without Gabby within its walls.
Nye leaned back in the chair behind the desk in the study, stabbing a gold letter opener into the mahogany. A million and one problems to deal with and no discernible way to begin tackling them.
Outside, night had fallen, the air had taken on iciness, and the witching hour was upon the city. Trouble was brewing—he could feel it in every breath he took—but he wasn’t sure where it was coming from first.
Tristan appeared in the doorway in all his curly-haired Irish glory, and Nye glanced up at the knight. He had better have good news or at least a lead on someone he could kill. It was far too long since he had the pleasure of dealing the ultimate punishment.
“What are you doing?” Tristan asked, watching the trajectory of the letter opener.
“Stabbing shit,” Nye replied, rolling his eyes. “What do you want?”
“There’s a prize fighter who’s stirring up trouble,” Tristan replied, getting right to the point. “Hate speech, anti-witch…”
“Anti-Nye,” Nye spat. “I know what they say about me, Tristan. I’m a spineless witch lover. Traitor to his own kind. I did conspire to kill Regulus, after all.”
He and Zac had killed the Roman, but Gabby had tricked them into believing the deed had actually been done. Zac had been prepared to die, knowing that if he took the founder’s life, he’d bite the dust along with him. Gabby had put a stop to that, not knowing the founder was the only creature who could end a larger threat, which was crazyass vampire-fairy hybrids. It wasn’t until Aed had bitten the founder that he actually kicked the bucket, but Nye would never live down the fact he’d been a part of the conspiracy.
Regulus had been respected, and Nye…well, apparently, he was a spineless wit
ch-loving traitor if the rumors were to be believed.
“I think we should do somethin’ about him before it gets out of control,” Tristan said, eyeing him.
Nye’s fingers tightened around the letter opener. “And what would you have me do?”
“That’s not for me to decide,” the knight went on. “You’re the leader here, Nye. Not me. I agreed to be here to help, not use you like a puppet.”
Nye scowled and imbedded the letter opener into the surface of the desk, the gold blade sinking deep into the mahogany. Things had been so easy when he only had the Six to worry about. Orders were handed down. He made sure they were carried out, and he was congratulated on a job well done. Now he had to compile those orders and gather his own followers to hand them to.
Snorting, he straightened up in the chair and smoothed down his black shirt. There was only one thing he could do in this situation.
Glancing at Tristan, he said, “Let’s go pay him a visit he’ll never forget.”
The city was buzzing as they ventured through the darkened streets to the warehouse, which sat just off Old Street in Hoxton.
The building had been spelled a long time ago by an unknown witch to be negligible to humans, which was a juxtaposition considering vampires weren’t meant to take favors from their kind. Nye didn’t know who had originally set this place up or why, but nothing about it pointed to the fact the spell was consented to. Most likely, it was under duress.
The man on the door was the usual stock standard security thug. He was a six foot five, bald, mean-looking son of a bitch who looked like he delighted in dishing out punishment. Not of the kind they’d find inside…no, more like a tiny power trip that made men like these think their pitiful lives were worth living.
Nye knew the guy was a vampire, he had to be considering the patrons he let in and out all night, and as they sauntered down the lane, the stench of blood and sweat began to seep through the cracks around him.
The bouncer’s eyes widened as he recognized the two vampires, and he began to back away. Nye nodded toward him, and Tristan sprang into action, moving forward silently.
Pushing the oversized man against the wall, the knight said, “You didn’t see us, understand? If your mouth so much as opens, I’ll remove your tongue and shove it up your ass.”
“Very dignified,” Nye drawled.
“Vampires like him love to lick ass to get ahead,” Tristan replied, still holding the bouncer in place. “Seems like he understands, yes?”
Nye looked the guy up and down and could smell his fear mixed with the delightful scent wafting out the door. Patting him on the shoulder, he smiled condescendingly. “There’s a good boy,” he said. “Keep your mouth shut, and you’ll get a good show tonight.”
He nodded, his head bobbing up and down eagerly. “Yes, sir.”
“See, Tristan?” Nye said as they walked into the warehouse. “Fear is a wonderful tool when death is a normal part of everyday life. We may live a long time, but it means little when it can be taken away with a flick of the wrist.”
“Much like a human life,” the knight replied.
Nye snorted. “Enough philosophy. I want to see what this fighter is preaching to these imbeciles.”
Keeping to the darkness, Nye averted his face as they moved among the crowd of vampires assembled to watch the fights that would be taking place tonight. Right now, he was the most recognizable member of the London underworld with his roguish good looks. His face was certainly a sight to behold.
Before things went tits up after he’d sided with Zac, the one-time member of the Six Maddox had fought here. Nye’s lip curled as memories of Zac punching on with the vampire came to mind. Beating them at their own game was the only way to win allegiance with men like these.
“There,” Tristan murmured, nodding across the room.
Nye followed the knight’s gaze, finding a group of men huddled around a makeshift table that had been assembled out of wooden pallets and crates. Bottles of alcohol in various stages of completion littered the surface as their voices carried through the other groups of vampires present.
One man was becoming more passionate as their conversation progressed, his eyes wild with passion.
“He will drive us to ruin,” he was saying. “Siding with witches and allowing them into Regulus’s home. Taking advice from them.” Regulus had fallen in love with the witch he was so against, but he wasn’t to know that. “What has he done for us? Nothing. Our kind has splintered and started forming their own gangs, running riot in the streets. They threaten the balance with the humans. Soon, our secret will be out, and we will become the hunted. We need to hunt them. The humans, the witches, the werewolves. We are top of the food chain. Not them. We need to take it back.”
Nye and Tristan lingered in the shadows, watching the scene unfold before them.
“Diggory,” Nye said, recognizing the fighter.
“He’s arrogant,” the knight added beside him. “But his following is gaining momentum fast.”
“He couldn’t lead his way out of a one-way street.”
“That’s not the point,” Tristan said. “He could unseat you and be in power for a few days before someone else tried their luck. Then we’d be back at square one in an endless loop. Chaos.”
Nye’s lip curled. A great deal of what the fighter was saying had a lot of truth in it. The vampires of London needed to be brought back into line and fast.
The werewolves never came into the city, and when they did, it wasn’t for long. They returned to their forests and abandoned castles before their compulsory change with the moon became a problem.
The witches had always been a part of the city—from its creation a thousand years before and since the Celestines created them. They were never going away. The only way Nye could see things moving forward with them was by creating an alliance. That was why Gabby was so important, not just because they were friends but because they all wanted the same thing. To continue existing.
But the vampires were the most troublesome of the lot. Natural predators, they were prone to bouts of unprovoked violence. Nye knew this better than anyone.
It was a full-time battle keeping the human world unaware of the thriving supernatural community that lived among them. If all hell broke loose and the fighting spilled onto the streets in broad daylight, it would be bad. Real bad.
“I need to send them a message,” he said, keeping his voice low so only Tristan could hear.
The knight nodded. “What do you have in mind?”
Nye’s lip curled as a devious thought came to mind. He watched the way the vampires crowded around the cage, howling for blood and filling their veins with alcohol to stop their own blood lust from rising too far. They had come here for a spectacle, so he would give them exactly what they wanted. It was the only decent thing to do, after all.
“How are we going to take them on?” a different male vampire asked.
“We need to show them who has the most power,” Diggory replied. “We need to lead ourselves out of the darkness and into the light in a shower of blood. We will rip them apart if we have to, but they will obey in the end.”
“That’s a fine proposal,” Nye declared, stepping out of the shadows.
The crowd fell into an abrupt and shocked silence, and a few voices murmured softly in the background as all eyes focused on their leader’s impromptu appearance.
“Who do you suggest leads this rebellion?” he went on when Diggory didn’t bite. “You?” He looked the fighter up and down and sneered.
“What happened to you, Nye?” Diggory asked. “You were the one-time leader of the Six, feared and respected…and what are you now? A witch lover.”
Nye didn’t react even though Diggory’s words had a grain of truth to them. Before Regulus had recruited him, he had loved a witch. Eleanor.
“I can see you have a rather large axe to grind,” Nye said. “So let’s fight.”
“You want to fight me?” Diggory’s
eyes widened slightly, giving away his fear even though his voice remained steady.
“Yes,” Nye said. “Or are you all bark and no bite?”
Diggory snarled and shoved the bottle of beer in his hand at the man standing next to him. “Fine. We’ll fight. To the death.”
The vampires who had crowded around watching the scene unfold, began to talk heatedly among each other. A fight to the death? Nye didn’t expect anything less from a bottom dweller who thought he had the chops to take the crown for his own. It was exactly what he wanted the fighter to do. When he ripped Diggory’s head off and made his royal decree, it would send a message that would never be forgotten.
“Now,” he commanded, his eyes beginning to swirl to black at the promise of blood.
Shucking off his overcoat, he handed it to Tristan as Diggory moved toward the cage in the center of the warehouse followed by his hangers-on.
“This was exactly what you wanted, wasn’t it?” the knight asked.
“Let him think he can take the city from me,” Nye replied. “Let him think he has a chance in this moment. When I take his head, the rest will fall in line. Fear and violence, Tristan. It’s the only thing they listen to.”
“You’ve got guts.”
Nye winked as he began walking away and held his hands open wide. “Consider this my coronation.”
Standing in the middle of the cage, he ignored the catcalls from the assembled vampires and began unbuttoning his shirt. Diggory watched him intently, his chest heaving. Nye didn’t need to play up to the theatrics of this place by pacing and growling like an animal. What he was about to do would be spectacle enough.
Casting the material aside, his boots followed, and the two vampires faced off.
“I’ll enjoy this,” Diggory said, his eyes black as he allowed his fangs to grow in. What was Nye thinking about theatrics earlier?
“No more talking, Diggory,” he said. “Not unless you’re spoken to.”
His barb hit home, and Diggory snarled. The fighter lashed out, his fist sailing through the air…right toward Nye’s face.
As he dodged the blow, Nye wondered if he should’ve asked Tristan if he knew the fighter’s age. He was four hundred and twenty-one himself, which made him quite formidable paired with his long years of servitude. Just as a fine wine aged over time, so did a vampire’s strength. It was too late to contemplate these things about his opponent now.