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Dominique followed the look, then scanned the room again with his peripheral vision. There were inactive lighting fixtures recessed into the walls and ceiling that, given the room’s size, seemed excessive. So it was a trap. If the door shut and those lights triggered, chances were he would be broiled alive. Dominique trusted Jackson with his life by walking in here, and now Jackson did likewise by remaining in his presence without a single defense left at his disposal.

“Have you lost all sense of—”

“Just listen to him. All we have to do is check his story out during the day.”

“I have no interest in—”

“It’s his sire. Don’t tell me you’re not itching to end that bastard and Nick right along with him.”

“Listen to yourself, you idiot. What you’re saying doesn’t even make sense. He’ll never let you put down his sire, knowing that’ll kill him, too. If that’s what you believe—”

“Not only me,” Dominique interrupted. He was done listening to the familial bickering. They were wasting night. “I suspect thousands descend from him. You are welcome to all our blood as long as you get Cassidy out of danger.”

Jackson gestured at Dominique. “Any questions?”

Garrett stared at his nephew and the blood-drinker waiting for him to come to grips with a situation all three of them would have considered inconceivable only an hour ago. When he didn’t speak, Jackson volunteered all that Dominique had shared with him so far, asking clarifying questions along the way. Dominique answered as best he could about the yacht, its owner’s habits, Bijou, and some details that led up to Cassidy’s kidnapping. To his amazement, he and the hunter worked well together once they got past their innate hostilities and focused on the common goal of rescuing the woman they obviously both loved.

That last bit he tried not to think about. Since he wouldn’t survive long enough to see her again, it didn’t matter. At least she would know he gave his life for her.

“What do you think?” Jackson finished. “Are we doing this?”

Garrett still stared straight ahead, probably at Dominique on his screen, and rubbed a knuckle over his lower lip in thought. The shock and disbelief in his face had given way to something more guarded and calculating. “That depends. Does your demon sire have a name?”

Somehow, Dominique spoke the name without a trace of emotion.

“I see,” Garrett said, leaning forward. “Don’t suppose you know just how old this…Kambyses might be, do you?”

“He claims five-thousand years.”

“Shit,” Jackson whispered. His right hand fidgeted, the thumb rubbing two amputated fingers. “We knew your sire had to be old, but this—”

“Not just old,” Garrett broke in. “Kambyses.” He rolled the name around his mouth as though tasting a fine wine. “That’s a myth name among their kind, one of several this guy has taken over the ages. The younger ones don’t usually know much about it, though. Including you, I’d wager.”

The small hairs all over Dominique’s body rose in silent and primal warning. “I know enough, and I promise you, he is no myth.”

“We never thought he was.”

“Then why haven’t I heard about him?” Jackson said.

“Because you’re still working on getting all the facts straight, kid, and this is a character we didn’t think we’d ever find.” A smug smile spread across his hard face. “Kambyses isn’t just ‘old.’ He is the oldest. The first one. The whole sorry lot began with him.”

Dominique sat, motionless as stone, as his mind flashed back to the haunted abyss and eons of time in his sire’s blood—and the utter lack of daylight in his memories.

“You’re looking a little paler than usual there, Nicky,” Garrett drawled. “I trust you know I’m right? And you’ve figured out what it means?”

He had. So had Jackson. “You mean when we take this thing out, we’ll—”

“Destroy us all,” Dominique whispered.

“All one hundred thirty-three thousand of you, give or take.” Garrett hummed with anticipation. “Which is only the ones we know about, of course.”

Dominique felt wispy, as close to fainting as he ever had. What had he done? For Cassidy, he had been willing to send thousands to their eternal deaths, himself included. Now he had irrevocably sealed the fate of them all. The hunters were on to the scent now, and while stopping Jackson would have been simple, he had no means to even reach Garrett, the far more efficient killing machine.

And what of Cassidy? She was at the center of this storm. He was doing this for her, for the slim chance that she would survive and carry with her the memory of their love.

For Cassidy, he would obliterate an entire world.

She is the key, and you are the lock. Together, you will change the world of night forever.