Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
REMUS
I stare at Lauren seated beside me on the helicopter, which is finally flying calmly now after all that delicious chaos. Layden even managed to get the back ramp up, though it squealed something awful on the way—metal grinding against metal in a way that made my teeth ache pleasantly.
My chest hums with the buzzing adrenaline of the recent conflict and whatever waits ahead of us. Battle always does this to me—lights me up from the inside like I’ve swallowed lightning. My fingers twitch with residual energy, wanting to grab something and tear it apart.
But on the other hand...
I frown, the expression feeling foreign on my face.
For the first time in my entire godforsaken existence, I actually want to run in the opposite direction of a fight.
I want to grab Lauren and flee whatever dangers lie behind these startling developments that have chased us out of our fortress home. Take her somewhere safe. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere far away from all of this.
I’m disturbed by the impulse even as I have it.
The feeling is so wrong it makes my skin crawl.
I’m War. I meet fury with fury and fire with fire. I am chaos incarnate. I don’t run from fights—I start them.
I do not have pacifist thoughts and have never fled a battle in my entire life. Never even considered it.
I should be delighted that we’re flying toward a nest of vampires. Should be practically vibrating with excitement.
I should be planning how fun it will be to fight an unkillable foe should they get out of line. To test myself against something that won’t simply die and rob me of my entertainment.
Father briefly took an interest in the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II as he fought to retake Constantinople—a pet city of our father’s.
One of many pets he’d played with over the centuries.
He enjoyed backing different leaders as one after another wrestled the city from each other’s control like dogs fighting over a bone.
He once told me, laughing, that the humans were toddlers fighting over cities like toys. That watching them was better than any theater.
I’d wondered only very briefly what that made him—whispering poison in warlords’ ears and dispatching his sons to do his deadly bidding on behalf of his whims. He played with humans like pawns in a game, relishing their destruction over and over again. Building them up just to watch them fall.
And when a game piece was crushed, he felt nothing. Certainly not remorse.
I didn’t question too deeply, though, for I knew it was in his nature.
As it was in mine.
We couldn’t help ourselves. And heaven pity the poor humans caught in our endless bloody ‘game,’ for we certainly did not. We allowed cities to be built up, knowing that a hundred or two years later, we’d be back to raze them to ash again.
It was just what we did. What we were made for.
Mehmed II was conquering the world at that time, for Father had not yet turned on him and soured things as he inevitably always did with his favorites.
But at the Battle of Vaslui in what is now Romania, we met a surprise that made even me pause.
We had far superior numbers—one hundred and twenty thousand to their forty thousand.
A massacre in the making. With Romulus helming our strategy, we’d foreseen their planned ambushes.
We were confident of our victory, arrogant even.
My brothers and I went in amongst the armies with our usual swagger, strengthening our numbers and weakening our opponents.
Then our troops began falling at alarming speed.
Not just falling—being slaughtered. Cut down like wheat.
Romulus and I kept swapping back and forth—him trying to strategize our way out of the suddenly losing battle, me fighting with all the bloodlust in my heart. Each switch more frantic than the last.
It was Layden who first alerted us to an inhuman being fighting among their ranks. One with an unending thirst that was decimating our forces.
It was no angel, though, and soon Thing—Kharon’s old nickname, back when he was just Death—was able to give us more detailed reports of those he was carrying to the plane of the dead.
They’d all died the same way. Not by crossbow, halberd, or sword.
Instead, they’d been taken from this plane by brutal gashes at their necks. The neater ones showed two fang marks, precise and surgical. Other times, throats were simply ripped out entirely, leaving ragged wounds that still pumped blood when the bodies fell.
I had clenched my two scimitars—one in each hand, the blades still wet with blood—and raced into the fighting throng, eager to encounter this thirsty being.
The battle was already lost. I could taste it in the air, smell it in the fear of our troops.
But I didn’t care.
I wanted to find it and claim its head as a trophy. Finally, a battle worth fighting. Finally, something interesting.
When I found it, though, I was surprised to discover it looked just like a man.
At first.
It moved so quickly it was difficult to track—a blur of motion flying through the ranks and ripping out throats with its bare hands. Occasionally it would pause to gulp the bright red blood before dropping the body of its latest victim like discarded rubbish.
Then it whirled toward me.
Its face cocked sideways—inhuman, predatory—as if it had sniffed out something different on the battlefield. Something that wasn’t prey.
Blood gushed like a fountain from its mouth, running down its neck and chest in rivers. It didn’t wear the uniform of our opponents. Instead, it was dressed like a peasant—rough-spun cloth soaked through with gore.
I lowered my scimitars, suddenly more curious than aggressive. “What are you?” I called across the space between us.
It looked directly at me, obviously seeing past my rune shield of invisibility like it wasn’t even there.
I’d barely finished my words before it launched itself at me in attack.
So fast. Faster than any human could move.
I easily brought up my scimitars—my reflexes honed over thousands of years—but my blades clashed against flesh as hard as stone when I struck.
Harder, actually, because I’d cracked stone before with these same blows. This was like hitting granite. My arms rang with the impact.
It flew at me, fangs bared—elongated canines dripping with blood and saliva.
And I laughed.
Delighted. Thrilled.
I felt the tickle of its fangs against my neck as it tried to bite, tried to tear into me like it had done to so many others. But my skin wouldn’t break. Couldn’t break.
It roared in frustration—a sound that was half-human, half-animal—and I placed my hand on its chest, pouring runes into it to blast it back from me.
The white-blue light erupted from my palm like an explosion.
It knocked the creature halfway across the battlefield, scattering troops from both armies as it landed in a crumpled heap. Bodies went flying. Horses screamed and bolted.
Then it stood up, shaking its head blearily like a dog shaking off water.
It took one last look at me—those eyes intelligent and calculating despite the blood-madness—and fled in the opposite direction. Disappeared into the chaos of battle.
I was about to give chase, my whole body thrumming with the need to hunt it down, when Romulus stole my body back. His focus snapped entirely to the battle at hand instead of the fascinating prize that was slipping through our fingers.
The bastard.
It was little comfort that Father later agreed with me, beating Romulus with hell-metal chains for not realizing that long-term gains were more important than short-term tactical goals. For losing sight of the bigger picture.
Especially since we lost the battle anyway. Forty thousand farmers and peasants defeated one hundred and twenty thousand trained soldiers because of one creature that wouldn’t die.
And when I next woke, I had to pay for Romulus’s failure with a body sore from the harsh beating Father had given him. Purple bruises blooming across our ribs. Welts on our back.
Always. Always paying for his bad decisions.
I close my eyes as the helicopter blades whir steadily overhead, trying to access our shared memory to see what happened when Lauren awoke. To see what Romulus said to her, how he touched her, what promises he made.
But still, there’s nothing. Just blank space where our connection should be.
I swallow a growl that wants to rip out of my throat.
I didn’t intend for my gambit with the potions to work in both directions. I’d only wanted to hide my actions from him, not his from me. The separation was supposed to be one-sided—my advantage, my secret.
My eyes pop back open, and I look at Lauren.
Her eyes have dropped closed as if she’s napping, or perhaps just trying to regain some equilibrium after the insanity of our escape. Her face is pale, exhausted. There are still tear tracks on her cheeks.
I did not mind the chaos of battle—I even enjoyed it, if I’m being brutally honest. The explosions, the dragons, the near-death. It was exhilarating.
But these humans have more fragile constitutions. Fragile bodies. Fragile minds.
She almost died. Multiple times. And I wasn’t there to protect her when it mattered most.
Did the potion Layden gave me allow me to permanently sever that connection to our shared memory, or like the long bout of wakefulness, will it too wear off eventually?
I need to know. Need to understand what I’ve done and whether I can undo it if necessary.
We haven’t had any more run-ins with the vampires since that battlefield more than five hundred years ago. Romulus always thought the encounter with my angel runes had sent it scurrying underground like a cockroach fleeing light.
We only heard tales of pale bloodsuckers over the years from the same region of eastern Europe. Whispers and legends. Stories told to frighten children.
Yes, I have to say my interest is piqued to meet them again. To test myself against creatures that don’t break easily.
If only these were different circumstances.
I frown deeper, feeling my eyebrow furrowing as I continue to look at Lauren.
Fuck, she’s so young and perfect and... innocent.
That word whispers like a curse through my mind, unwanted and uncomfortable.
And now we’re taking her from one den of monsters into another. From Russian military to vampire territory.
All for what? Because I wanted a consort? Because I was selfish and impulsive and didn’t think beyond my own desires?
I press a hand to my chest where something uncomfortable is squeezing. My heart, maybe. Or whatever passes for one in creatures like me.
“What is it?” Kharon asks from across the helicopter, his dark eyes sharp and concerned. “Are you well, brother?”
I drop my hand quickly. “I’m fine,” I bark gruffly, defensive.
Lauren’s eyes pop open at my harsh tone, and she looks at me with those beautiful eyes—confused, worried, exhausted.
Which makes me feel even—
Dammit, that’s the problem.
She’s making me feel things. Things other than want and lust and bloodlust—the only emotions I thought myself capable of experiencing. The only ones I’ve ever known.
But this...
Again, my chest squeezes uncomfortably, and I want to press my palm against it until the sensation goes away. Want to tear it out and throw it away.
For the first time in my whole, long, blood-soaked life, I worry I’ve done the wrong thing.
Not wrong tactically. Not wrong strategically.
Just... wrong.
If I end up putting her in harm’s way because of my selfishness, I’ll never forgive myself.
She is not just another human. Not just another piece in the game.
I knew she was a prize above all others when I first saw her at that fountain, but I did not anticipate how...
How much she would matter.
Yes, my dumb brothers were capable of falling for their humans—I watched it happen, mocked them for their weakness. But I thought getting a consort of my own would just be like any other thing I conquered. A possession. A trophy.
She is not just some prize, though.
She is more.
She is—
“Okay,” Layden says from the front, his voice cutting through my spiraling thoughts. “We’re about to land. Glamours on, everyone.”
I look down at my hands, watching as the runes flow over my skin, changing me. Making me appear more human. Less monstrous.
But the monster is still there underneath.
And Lauren is clever. What if she still sees?