Chapter Thirteen
New Year’s Resolution Number Thirteen: Decide what matters most.
“You were burning!” Salvatore shouted. “Turning to ash right before my eyes!”
The bastard had tackled Devereaux just as Noren’s flames had flared higher—and then the hellhound had vanished with Lark.
“He took her!” Devereaux shoved his friend aside and rushed down the stairs. Noren had taken Lark, but Devereaux knew where the hound had gone. Just like Charles, the bastard probably wanted to make a deal with Lark’s father.
Just like Charles.
“Fuck!” He used his super speed to rush down to the basement. Charles was still there. The guy hadn’t been released yet. Devereaux went right to the prisoner, and he tore the metal bonds away, using extra strength born of fury and desperation before he yanked Charles toward him.
“You know where Oris is.” Oris. A vampire who’d been around for thousands of years. Oris had first gained power back in Egypt, and through the long, dark centuries, he’d only had one child.
Lark.
A woman who was nothing like her scheming asshole of a father.
“I-I was going to him!” Charles sputtered. “I was going to take the message—”
“Fuck the message. You’re taking me to him. Now.”
Salvatore rushed up behind Devereaux. “You’re going with backup.”
Hell, yes, he was. Because this battle was the most important one of his life. “I’m going with a whole freaking army.”
Charles gulped. “I’m not going to betray you. You don’t need—”
“This isn’t about you, dumbass. It’s about her. I will take my army, and I will fight anyone in my path. If Lark is so much as singed, I will drain every vampire under her father’s command.” Time for a river of blood. And when it came to that hellhound…
Noren will wish for the fires of hell before I am done with him.
Devereaux’s breath came faster. Harder. He had one mission. Only one. Get to Lark. Protect her.
And kill all of her enemies.
But in order to do that, he was going to need some help. “Salvatore…” Devereaux glanced back at his friend. “Get the witches here, now.”
Salvatore’s eyes doubled in size. “Why would witches come here?”
“Because I didn’t kill the local coven when I had the chance. I let a few live, so they owe me.” Each word was a growl. “Get them here. If they don’t come willingly, then tell them I consider their refusal an act of war.”
Salvatore exhaled. “We’re fighting witches now, too?”
“Only if we have to do it. The first option…” Fuck, he needed their help. Only witches could transport him to Oris. Because the bastard was half-way around the world. “The first option is a truce. If they refuse, then we make them help us.”
One way or another, he was going to get what he needed.
Lark. I need her. I have to get her back. I have to fight for her.
He’d do whatever was necessary to free her from her father.
***
Her father let out a dramatic sigh. “You’re still angry over that, Noren? I mean, come on, it’s been years. Centuries.”
Noren glared at him as the flames continued to dance over the hellhound’s fists.
“I needed more power—and hell needed a new hound. So, I traded a warlock.” Her father shrugged. “Don’t act like it was all bad. You’ve got enormous power now.”
“I have a cage in hell!” Noren bellowed.
Lark flinched. “Okay, sorry, but I need information.” She also needed to buy some serious time because she did not intend to be on the highway to hell that night. If she could buy time, then she’d either (A) figure out a way to save her ass or (B) Devereaux would come in with guns blazing.
She pointed to her father. “First, what in the hell is your name?”
He blinked. Looked a little…depressed. “Devereaux didn’t tell you?”
“He barely mentioned you. And when he did, Dev didn’t sound overly impressed.”
Her father’s fangs snapped together. “I am Oris! I was walking this earth when the first sands blew across Egypt! I was considered a god, worshipped and adored, and I was—”
“You were the guy who lied to my mother. Who somehow tricked a monster hunter into not realizing you were a vamp.” That’s what she knew about him. What she didn’t know… “How?”
Now it was Noren who spoke up. “That would be…because of me.”
Her head whipped toward him.
The flames kept crackling.
“Oris got power when he traded me to hell. The power allowed him to conceal his vampire side for a limited time. You see…” A mocking smile curled Noren’s lips.
“Your father really has walked the earth for thousands of years, but in all of that time, he never had a child. No matter how many vamps or humans he fucked. He realized that maybe—just maybe—fate was being a cruel bitch. Perhaps he needed a very special kind of human to father his child. Perhaps he needed—”
“A monster hunter,” she finished as understanding flooded through her.
Noren nodded. “Exactly. Only then you were born and you didn’t show any signs of being a vamp.”
“Signs?”
Noren shrugged. “Born vamps come with tiny fangs, in case you didn’t know. Weird fact, but there you have it. You looked all normal and you even bore the mark of a monster hunter.”
He meant the small birth mark on her hip. Every monster hunter had one—a half moon above the left hip. Only Lark’s mark had been sliced away by a coyote shifter’s claws when she’d been thirteen.
“But you could’ve been a late bloomer,” Noren continued mockingly. “So dear old dad put in a protection order for you. He gave you two and a half decades to see if you were a hunter…or a vamp. And he pulled Devereaux into the mix because the prince is the other most powerful vamp out there—”
“Devereaux wishes that he was as strong as I am!” Oris shouted.
She growled at him.
Noren ignored his shout. “Oris had long range plans for you, Lark. He wanted you to take Devereaux’s kingdom. He wanted you to take it, and then to destroy Devereaux. He thought you’d have the same, ah, I believe he called it ‘killer instinct’ that Oris himself possesses.”
She could only shake her head as she gaped at her father. “All along, you intended for me to kill Devereaux? I don’t get it! I thought you wanted me to-to bond with him!”
Oris strode toward her. Didn’t touch her.
Just stared with his cold, green eyes. “Bonding is necessary so that you become the heir to his kingdom. Devereaux is still a prince because he hasn’t bonded—he has to take a mate before he can be king.
And when he’s king, the fucking bastard will have more power than I do!
He will have his mother’s kingdom and what’s left of his father’s.
But if you were his mate, you would have it all, too!
So, then we could kill him. We could kill him and take everything! ”
She backed away. “I am not killing Devereaux.”
Now Oris gaped. “Why not? He took you away from your human life! He made you into a vampire. He—”
“You did all of that! I was a vampire long before Devereaux came around because you wanted a vampire child! And my mother hated me because of what I was. Or maybe she just hated me because I was your child.” But Lark was done.
So over it. “Screw that. Screw you and your insane, power hungry self. I used to wonder about my father. Dream about him. But you are a serious nightmare, and I’ve had enough nightmares, thank you very much. ”
“You dare to insult me?” His voice boomed around them.
That booming and echoing was weird. What in the hell?
Were they in some kind of tower? “I do dare. Because you dared to leave me alone my whole life. You weren’t there when I was attacked as a child.
You weren’t there when I buried my mother.
You weren’t there when I went to college.
You were never there. And here’s a newsflash for you.
I don’t want your kingdom. I don’t want Devereaux’s kingdom.
” She pulled in a deep breath. “But I do want him. I want Devereaux!”
Silence.
Well, silence except for the crackle of flames that came from Noren’s fists.
Lark glanced at the hellhound. “The reason my mother summoned you all those years ago—she knew what my father had done, didn’t she? And she was going to torture the truth from you.”
Jaw locked, Noren nodded.
Now she directed her fury at her father. “Free Noren from whatever curse you put on the guy! Do it!”
But her father just gave her a cold smile. “You’d reject what I offer to you? You’d choose Devereaux over me?” A shrug. “Then maybe you do need to spend some time down in hell. Perhaps it will teach you how to be a grateful child.”
The bastard. “I am no child.”
He waved toward Noren. “The curse can’t be undone. Take her.” Another shrug. “And when she pleads long enough, I’ll bring her back.”
Noren didn’t move. “A vampire will die in hell. You know she won’t be able to stand the flames.”
“Yes, well, she’s not a full vamp. A monster hunter can always survive hell’s flames. So she’ll burn and she’ll suffer and she’ll come to realize how lucky she is to have me. When she begs enough, I’ll take her out of hell.”
Lark realized the truth. The full, terrible truth. “You are a monster.”
Oris bared his fangs. “When did I pretend to be anything else?” He waved to Noren. “Take her!”
Noren turned toward her. In a blink, she leapt at him and put her fangs against his throat.
“I don’t want to kill you,” she snarled at him as he froze.
“But I am not going to hell. I’ve got a man waiting for me, here, and I want a life with him.
So if I have to rip out your throat in order to survive, I will do it. ”
No bluffing this time. No Oscar performance. Just cold, hard truth.
“I believe you,” Noren rasped.
Then she heard the rush of footsteps. Thundering toward them. Heavy, wooden doors flew open, and she expected to see Devereaux rushing into the room. All swashbuckling and hero-like.
Instead, Charles stumbled into the room, chest heaving.
Charles?
She lifted her head away from Noren’s throat.