Page 10 of Ruthlessly Mated (Shared Mates #2)

T ailor

They say you don’t wake up to the smell of fire, but I do. I wake to the scent of our world burning. I look down at the end of the bed and discover that it is empty. Did that girl set us on fire? I wouldn’t put it past her, I suppose.

I pull on my clothes as fast as I can and grab all the weaponry that comes to hand.

“Sirs! Sirs!”

The vampire who tipped us off to Kita’s existence is banging at the door, thin fists creating a booming annoyance. I discover this when I fling the door open. Conroy is not far behind me.

“Where is the female? He will want to see her.”

“Who will want to see her?”

“Alexander,” he says, as if that is a name we will recognize. We push past him. Conroy and I are both much more concerned with our missing mate than wondering about our latest visitor.

“Where’s the fire?”

The answer to that question is everywhere.

The docks are ablaze. A massive ship with red sails furled is anchored just off shore, and fiery arrows are arcing through the air, landing among the overly dried old wood structures of the port and turning it to tinder.

The mainsail of the ocean-going leviathan is marked with an arcane fang insignia, and it is a sight that sends a chill through me because I thought I would never in life see such a thing with my own eyes.

It is the mark of dark history come sailing out of the pages of old books to assault us.

“Vampire ship,” Conroy says, the lights from the burning port playing in his eyes and across his face. Smoke is billowing directly upward, turning our once proud yet hidden place into a beacon for all to see.

“Alexander,” I say. “He meant Count Alexander.”

Count Alexander is a historic figure, an ancient warrior who still lives, technically, to this day due to a run-in with a vampire when he was at the height of his conquests.

He has known the world by a dozen names.

He has been in every single country, redrawn its boundaries with his warmongering.

He has living descendants in the tens of thousands due to his aggressive mating strategy while he was still a man.

Seeing Count Alexander’s ship in our port is like being visited by a dark god. It seems impossible that a being so powerful would show any interest in us at all, let alone come to set our world ablaze.

Alexander has no need to trade illegally.

If he does, he would use proxies on top of proxies.

He does not need to have his flagship dock dead center of the port where it has already spooked so many of our patrons that the other boats are gone.

I look for signs of wrecks, masts sticking from the water, that sort of thing, but I think they saw him coming and fled while we were distracted with our mate.

The port is eerily quiet. I hear the crackling of wood burning, and the popping of glass windows, the occasional boom of a gas canister giving up, but there are no screaming voices, there is no panic. There is absence.

“Where is she?” The scrawny vampire paws at me. “He wants to see her.”

“Kita?”

“Yes. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

The vampire goes paler than pale, as if my answer frightens him. “You do not know? You will have to know. He wants to see her.”

I look over at Conroy. Neither one of us is much given to panic.

“Should we run?”

He shakes his head briefly. “I’m not leaving my port,” he says. “Not for anybody, beast, man, or vampire.”

I think it is too late to run.

A boat is coming through smoky waters, a small runabout launched from the main ship.

It is being rowed by several shady figures, but none of them draw my attention as much as the man standing at the prow does.

He is not a man at all. He is the butcher of the seven kingdoms, the father of a thousand daughters.

He is stepping out of every single historical event I ever learned about in my historical studies.

Alexander founded over thirty cities, many of them still in existence, others of them covered by sand or water due to climate and tectonic shifts over the years. More of his great works have been covered by lava flows than I will ever achieve in this or any lifetime.

As he draws closer, I also remember he is responsible for the deaths of millions, and that he has razed many more cities than he ever created. This man—no, this creature—is as powerful a force of destruction as has ever walked on this world.

He steps onto the burning dock, and a gasp of admiration hitches in my throat. I have lost all sense in a manner of speaking. I am in a state of such intense awe and admiration I cannot entirely process the revelation that his presence here is clearly hostile.

I have seen this man’s face before. In portraits, in books, on broadcast shows.

He has been represented in all kinds of media repeatedly.

I did a book report on him when I was just a pup.

I never imagined we would encounter a vampire so ancient and so powerful he is more akin to a god.

Even when the skinny wretch of a vampire said Alexander, I did not imagine it was his name the little vampire was using.

The shadow becomes visible, the fire of the port illuminating the beautiful monster.

He is tall, though not as tall as one might think, because he was originally born at a time before humans had access to the kind of nutrition they have now.

I would say he is not quite six foot in height.

Conroy and I both look down on him, though I feel a pulse of impropriety doing so.

It does not matter, for Alexander emanates the kind of ancient power that makes his actual stature irrelevant.

He has the light brown skin of desert dwellers and the features of an angel.

Big soulful arches of brow, high cheekbones, a slight delicacy around his nose and his mouth.

He is elegant, as if his creator formed him with special attention, knowing how important he would one day be.

His eyes are a rich red, two rubies gleaming with uncommon brightness.

He is wearing a black suit, surprisingly modern and anachronistic at the same time. I do not think there is anything this creature could do that would seem truly contemporary. He is out of time entirely, unmoored from temporal concerns.

He brings an air of dark menace with him.

Not just a sort of generally threatening demeanor, but an intensity that indicates he enjoys causing pain.

I can feel it radiating from him. It is not anger, though I do think he is annoyed.

I can see that in the quirk of his brow as he comes to a halt in front of Conroy and me, recognizing us as those who own this port.

We need no introduction, for no others would dare stand before him this way.

I look deep into his eyes with animal curiosity, and draw in a deep breath, trying to scent him.

The information I receive from my senses is deeply disturbing.

He has been dead for thousands more years than he was ever alive, and all that is left inside him is sadism.

“Count Alexander, your presence here is an honor,” I say, speaking first before Conroy can say something disrespectful and hostile.

He will not be as impressed as I am. “I have heard of your deeds my entire life. Your exploits and conquests made up my bedtime stories more nights than I can number. To have met you is truly…” I pause.

“There needs to be a word deeper than honor.”

“Veneration,” Alexander says, his voice deep and accented with a hundred different tongues. He speaks languages so lost that modern scholars probably don’t know they ever existed.

“Yes, I…”

“Where is the girl?” He interrupts me curtly, cutting me off like an unworthy mutt. My pride flares instantly. I am showing him some deference even though he is in the process of destroying everything my pack and I own. A little politeness would not go amiss.

“Which girl would you be speaking of?”

He turns his gaze on me with more direct irritation than before, and I get to see the same expression thousands have probably seen as their last sight in this life. “The one who was here. The one reported for failing to pay her toll. My envoy told you, so she might be captured. Where is she?”

“We do not know…”

He turns to Conroy. “Where is she? Stop wasting my time crawling on your pathetic mongrel bodies and tell me what I want to know.”

He has picked the wrong man to attempt to intimidate. I do not think that Conroy knows how to be intimidated. It wouldn’t occur to him. Before I can answer more deferentially, and with more diplomacy, Conroy steps forward, hands fisted, lip curled in an animal snarl.

“Not here. Not for you. Not ever.”

Alexander’s eyes flash with red ire. He waves a hand with casual grace and speaks to servants unseen.

“Destroy this rat pit.”