Page 10 of Between Bloode and Death (Between the Shadows #5)

CHAPTER

TEN

Khent groaned and spilled onto his bedsheets, not half as satisfied releasing into silk as he would have been jetting into the warm little human he’d been about to take.

Really, Morpheus? You bring me there and leave me high and dry?

He swore he heard laughter, but when Khent opened his eyes, he saw nothing but darkness in his room.

The sun had set. He felt it, as all his kind did, an innate knowledge of when it was safe to move under a sky shielded from sunlight.

Khent was out of sorts, aware he hadn’t had one of those dreams in over five hundred years, when he’d first gone through puberty.

He cleaned up in the shower, shocked at yet another dream he shouldn’t have been able to have, wondering what it meant.

Returning to his bed, he stripped his sheets and used a spell to dissolve them. He’d find new linens later. He didn’t need Hecate or Mormo learning of his loss of control and judging him. And Death forbid his kin learn he dreamed of a human. They’d never let him hear the end of it.

But what a delicious human she’d been. He could still smell her, savoring the sweet taste of her blood on his tongue.

His fangs elongated in arousal, and he had to get a grip on himself.

Khent never lost control. He rarely grew angry. Annoyed, yes. But enraged?

Yet he recalled hissing at the necromancer in his dream. How odd.

He’d seen her, the real her, and she’d been so much prettier with her dark hair and dark eyes, her body curvier yet still petite. He liked her small size, just as much as he’d liked dominating her in his bed.

He swore as his erection returned. Khent didn’t mind sex, though he’d never been all that keen on mating. Many of his kind viewed procreation as entertainment, but reapers saw it as a means to an end. A need to populate the species.

Though vampires could only sire one progeny, and they only kept the boy child as only males could become vampires, the duty was held sacred.

Sex felt pleasurable, but after centuries, it had waned for him.

Too busy serving his clan and learning all that he could, Khent had never felt such affection for a female, none of them coming close to being his equal.

It had nothing to do with gender and everything to do with other magir and humans being so much weaker than his kind.

Which made him recall the small human taking him by the throat.

Morpheus, that bastard, must have planted the notion in her feeble mind. Allowing a human to get the better of one Of the Bloode, even in a dream, was ludicrous.

Khent might just need to kill the god after all.

Annoyed, he mentally reached out to Mila, only to see her watching a familiar house he’d visited before. How interesting that his prey was hunkered down in the site of a previously demon-infested, black magic sacrifice.

Did Valentine Darkmore think to take over where a rogue sorcerer once had? She had talent. She must have known the place wasn’t safe.

After dozens of lycans had been killed to bring forth an evil entity, two of Khent’s kin and a berserker had cleared the place. Then their Bloode Witch and Khent had gone over the area with spells designed to keep demons, or worse, at bay.

He supposed it was a fitting spot for a new necromancer to take residence. But as expected, she hadn’t hidden well enough from him.

With that thought in mind, he sat down at his desk and composed a brief note. Pleased with his exquisite penmanship, he called for one of his other ravens to deliver the note for him.

Make sure it gets into the hands of Valentine Darkmore. He sent the raven Valentine’s image.

The bird clutched the rolled note in her claws. He opened the door and let her out, knowing she’d soon deliver his summons.

So Valentine wanted to play. Dreams or not, no one had ever issued Khent a challenge like that and not received an answer for it. He could still feel her silken heat surrounding him, could taste the smoky sweetness of her blood inside him.

Joined in more ways than one.

Annoyed with his ridiculous thoughts, Khent left his bedroom in search of his leader. His patriarch, Varu, would no doubt have some direction for Khent to follow. Go back to the bazaar? Hunt down the source of the demon scent? Or torture answers out of Valentine?

Personally, Khent chose door number three.

He found Varu in the basement with Rolf. They were sparring, taking the time to let out all the lovely aggression that made vampires the very top of the food chain.

Khent took a seat to watch, irritated when the dusk elf sat beside him.

“They’re pretty fast,” Onvyr commented. The fae was tall and filled with muscle befitting a warrior.

Unlike his sister, who had light gray skin, Onvyr’s skin and hair color turned at the setting of the sun.

During the day, he was pale with dark hair.

At night, Onvyr possessed white hair and black skin.

Not the brown shades of most humans, but the pitch-black of magir.

Which reminded Khent. “I fought a dark elf last night. He and five of his kin arrived at the bazaar with a hell-threader.”

Rolf turned to him, appearing wounded at the news. “Seriously? And you didn’t call me?”

That inattention cost him. Varu punched Rolf so hard he flew backward and made a dent in the wall.

“Nice,” Onvyr commented. About Khent’s news or Varu’s hit, Khent couldn’t tell.

Onvyr would never be what he once was. Tortured by a sadistic master vampire for years, he’d only started to relax with them all since coming to live with his sister, Varu’s mate.

Though he no longer tried to kill them whenever the mood struck, he had a bad habit of starting brawls around the house, and not just in the gym.

Khent found him more annoying than worrisome, though Mormo had on several occasions sent the dusk elf into some pocket dimension to cool off before Hecate saw damage to the house.

For a goddess, she seemed pretty attached to material things.

Khent reached into his pocket and tossed a few earrings and a gem to Onvyr. “The dark elf wore these.”

Onvyr studied them. “Hmm. He was a high captain. A soldier in the war against the light fae, I’d bet.” Instead of giving them back, Onvyr pierced his own ears right then and there.

Rolf appeared in a blink. “Oh, elf blood. Gimme some.”

Onvyr sighed, wiped some from his ears, and held his finger out. “A taste, Rolf. Don’t make me regret it.”

Before Rolf could definitely do something they’d all regret, Varu appeared behind Onvyr, his arms crossed over his chest. The powerful strigoi possessed the power to dominate them all. With the Bloode Stones that now existed as a part of him, no vampire could resist his will.

Rolf sighed and carefully took the blood from Onvyr’s finger with his own before sucking his digit clean. “You’re no fun since you mated Fara.” He glared. “The old Varu, the good one, would have let me bite right into Onvyr.”

“Apologies for trying to maintain order,” Varu said dryly.

“No apologies needed.” Onvyr smiled. “I’ve been doing my best not to try to kill you all. I don’t even get the urge all that much anymore. Well, except for you, Rolf. I still want to rip your head off.”

Rolf smiled. “Thanks, buddy.” He jumped when a giant battle cat brushed by him to sit between Khent and Onvyr, settling her large ass on the couch she wasn’t supposed to sit on.

“Seriously?” Rolf pointed at her. “You know you aren’t allowed on the furniture.”

Onvyr cocked his head then nodded. “Yeah, Hecate did say that.”

The cat showed her massive fangs.

“I know. It’s not fair that the smaller ones do it all the time.”

Onvyr communicated with all the beasts in residence. A rare gift for an elf of any kind, and one that might come in handy if they could trust Onvyr to behave himself away from the house.

Khent could only talk to the pets he’d reanimated, and often they communicated in images or sounds and scents.

Varu shook his head, a small smile at the corner of his lips. Fara, his mate, had softened the powerful strigoi. Khent hadn’t liked him much at the beginning. He still barely tolerated his kin, but he no longer chafed whenever Varu gave orders.

Not that he’d let the strigoi know that.

Varu nodded toward the mats. “Onvyr, go play with Rolf while I talk to Khent.”

The dark elf immediately threw himself at Rolf while the battle cat pounced as well, lending her weight and claws to the skirmish.

Rolf, idiot that he was, laughed and nearly lost an arm when the battle cat slashed again.

“Ignore them.” Varu sat and leaned his head back. Despite appearing ageless and all-powerful, he seemed tired.

And that was unacceptable in a patriarch.

“You’re weak,” Khent accused.

“Don’t you start. Fara is all over me to start easing up on my practice with the stones. But they don’t like to be silent, and the more I get to know them, the more control I’ll have over them when I get the sixth and final piece.”

“Do you really think you’ll be able to control the Bloode Empire?”

According to legend, Ambrogio, their First Father, had cried—or bled, as the legends had it both ways—for his beloved Selene. Those drops became the revered Bloode Stones. Whoever possessed them could control any and all vampires.

The problem was that no one had seen the stones for millennia. Hell, Khent hadn’t believed they existed until Hecate had created the Night Bloode Clan to find them.

He wondered just what Varu might do with the stones. Hecate wanted him to use them to help her battle a great Darkness. But the stones would have the potential to do so much more.

Since their inception, vampires had been forced to fight one another. Yet, under Varu’s control, they might join together. To fight the rest of the magir.

To take over the world.

“Get that smile off your face,” Varu growled. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“So the stones give you telepathy as well? How fascinating.”

Rolf returned a blow to Onvyr that had the dusk elf falling over the battle cat, causing a lot of roaring and swiping of claws.

Varu grinned. “You might be a reaper, but I wouldn’t say you’re smarter than Hecate, me, Fara… I could go on.”

“Don’t. We all know I’m the smartest in the house.”

“He really is,” Rolf agreed before ducking Onvyr’s kick to the face.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Varu added. “I wouldn’t be opposed to killing everyone in a great big battle. Imagine it. Decapitations, tearing limbs, gutting our enemies. And the blood. So much blood.”

Khent sighed. “That sounds lovely.”

“But Fara wouldn’t like it,” Onvyr said before being body-slammed to the ground. The battle cat chirped at him then vanished.

“Thus I contain my need for chaos. Hecate nags, but Fara has a way of looking through me I find uncomfortable.”

“Ah well. I supposed you must obey your mate.” The nasty jibe didn’t have the effect Khent had hoped.

Varu studied him. “Enjoy being alone while you can. Rumor has it you’ve been dreaming.” His evil chuckle had the hair on the back of Khent’s neck standing on end.

“Who told you that?”

Varu didn’t answer.

They watched the battle between Rolf and Onvyr before Khent muttered, “It’s not really a dream. I don’t think. It’s Morpheus needing his ass kicked.”

“Good luck. I could never pin him down. So this necromancer. You think we should start with her to figure out why the demons are coming back? Or did you want to track the dark elves?”

“The answers lie with the necromancer. It ties back to Sebastian Castle and the bazaar. If you recall, the sorcerer once tried to create hell beasts from dead lycans. He had no problem dealing with demons. But he’s dead, and someone’s still tampering with the hell realms.”

Varu nodded. “Fine. Get the necromancer and find us answers.”

“Oh, I will. Don’t worry. I sent her an invitation. She’ll soon come to us.”

“I thought you said she was smart.”

“She is. Trust me, Varu. She does not want me coming after her.” Or her vulnerable friends.

Not if she wanted to keep any of them alive.