Page 24 of Blood Lovers (American Vampires #1)

A fresh start.

My heart beats faster at the sight of Ryet’s blood lust.

But it’s more than just blood lust now. It’s a true sign of his turning. Finally, after hundreds of years of trying—of inbreeding, outbreeding, crossing, outcrossing, and yes, so many, many culls—finally, Josep has done it.

But the success is not only his.

Yes, Josep came up with Ryet’s bloodline, but it was me who fed him all these years. Patient with his lack of interest in learning more about who and what he is. Tolerant of his need for space and autonomy. And, most of all, indulgent with the blood at just the right times and in just the right quantities.

And here he is. On the eve of arrival. There is but one more step to turn him completely. And that’s the girl.

That sweet, sweet Syrsee. Her grandma hid her well, but she wasn’t hiding her for the reasons she told her granddaughter.

There is a reason there is only me. It is very difficult to make evil. You’d think it would be easy. It’s all around us, all the time.

But doing evil and making new evil, well, it’s just more complicated than it sounds.

I need new feeders, that’s true. And Syrsee is my young blood.

But I am not always in control of myself. It’s hard to believe, I know. But it’s true. Even I have temptations. Even I give in to them on occasion.

And if I wanted Ryet to be my first, I could make no mistakes with Syrsee.

She is mine, but she is his first.

So I bade the grandma put a spell on us. It was difficult, but the magic she stole from her daughter just moments after Syrsee’s birth gave us the power we needed.

It would hide Syrsee until Ryet was no longer able to be sustained by my blood alone. Until he needed her so thoroughly, the Black blood flowing through her carefully bred veins would be the exact concoction that would push him over the edge.

From scion to vampire.

It was agony, waiting. Another testament to my patience.

I let baby Syrsee go. I let her live at the Guild. I let them poison her with tales of me and my kind. I allowed all of that to happen and look where we are now.

Ryet is writhing beneath me. Like a wolf, or a lion, or a demon.

I smile at him, still holding him down. “Shhhhh. It’s all right now, Ryet. You’re here. All you have to do is take your drink.”

“What are you doing?” He’s growling these words out. “What is this? I want you to tell me what happened to my family!”

I pet him with one hand, holding him down with the other. “Dear boy, they are so close.”

“What?”

“Yes. You heard correctly. They’re at the compound right now.”

His look is pure confusion. “Liar! You’re a liar! They died. Decades ago!”

“But I still have them, Ryet. I dug up their charred and blackened bodies just days after they were put in the ground. Not only did I need them, but I wanted to save them for you. I will show you.”

His eyes change color—red, then gold, then purple. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The eye change is yet another confirmation that not only are we on the right track, but that he is very, very close.

I bite my lip again because all my wounds have already closed up. I do this because he needs the drink. All those nights with him when I had to hold back. And I did. Reluctantly. When all I wanted was for him to devour me, and then me him.

Ryet latches on to my lip and the touch of his mouth is enough to send me into ecstasy. I breathe through this, closing my eyes and enjoying the ritual. Not wanting to miss a single moment. Never will I forget this day.

He has always had the blood lust. Ever since that very first time I offered him the drink, the night of his family’s funeral, he has longed for it.

But just a sip here and there until recently.

And never, ever has he ever had quantities of blood like he’s going to get from now on.

The long drink is how you kill the Black witch feeders long after their natural lifetimes have expired. But it’s also how you make a shiny, new vampire. It’s how you start yourself a new line after you are thrown out of the Old World where you grew up.

New blood.

New vampires.

New rules.

A dynasty.

There are but three of us here now.

Me, the true king of America.

Lucia, not a second-in-command—not even a substitute. More of a mistake, really. A vampire only in that she feeds on blood and nothing more.

And then there is my dear, dear Josep. Oh, how I wanted to leave him behind when I was exiled to this New Babylon.

But he told me a secret while I was looking in his eyes on that dark night. When I was chained to a wall in a prison cell at the bottom of the fortress, scions feeding on me like I was a rat. Halfbreeds licking me like I was a sweet from the shops in Salzburg.

And then the monster called Josep commanded them to scurry away so he could make his offer. I would be free, but in exile. Never, ever to set foot on any lands owned, or presumed owned, by my accusers.

It was not a good deal, but it was the only one I had. So, of course, I took it. And I took Josep too. They wanted to end him. He had lived longer than any monster has a right to. And he was a failure, his glory days long, long past.

So, of course, I took him. He was a slim chance at a new life, but slim was better than none.

I had no hope of ever turning America into anything worthwhile. Not even as the centuries passed and things started looking up. Because Josep was an absolute failure.

Until Zecharyet Wagner, adopted into some stupid little town in Ohio. One drop of blood at birth, right after the Black witch I was feeding off took his mother’s life and gave him to me.

Mine. He is mine. She gave him to me.

Black witches do not have boy babies. But there are ways to make it happen. Dark ways, vile ways, sinful ways.

He is an abomination. Pure evil in his veins. But only half.

The other half was Josep’s crowning glory. All that time I thought he was failing. But with each failure, he took a bit of this and a bit of that, and he used it to tease the perfect sire out of the Darkness.

Ryet’s father.

Everyone has one. You can’t get new babies without fathers.

And this one was spectacular.

Ryet is starting to lose consciousness.

“It’s all right, Ryet.” I soothe him as I rearrange us so I am sitting with my back against the tree and he is draped across my lap like a vampire in the midst of birth. He needs more blood. So much more. I dig a sharp claw into the side of my neck and open it up. Then I help him lift his head back up to take more blood and the moment his new, sharp fangs touch my skin, he knows what to do. He latches on like a babe on a tit, and he sucks me.

My head falls back in satisfaction.

I have waited for this. Patiently, I have waited.

But I knew it was going to work and I knew it would be worth it. I knew before I killed his family. I knew before I showed him my true self in that alley. I knew before I bit my lip and let him kiss the blood off me.

I knew we would succeed this time because we were doing something different with this particular scion.

We had another bloodline ready to go.

The bloodline of his feeder.

The creature that would take nurture my newborn partner and take him into maturity.

And that is where our dear Syrsee comes in.