Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
Darkness.
Utter, complete, world-encompassing lack-of-light darkness.
When Zack first opened his eyes, he wasn’t sure he had. The seamless black didn’t change no matter how many times he rapidly batted his eyelids. He couldn’t see. With a shout, he reached for his face to feel for the damage.
But his face was smooth, not a blemish or a bruise. He wasn’t in pain either.
That doesn’t make sense. Does it? Why would I be in pain? What happened?
His memories came in a confusing blur. Certain things he knew as true: his name was Zackery Benedict Wright. He’d been born October 31, 2001. He had an older brother and a younger sister. But he’d been living with Roger since his parents disowned him a few months ago.
There . A recent memory snapped into place. He’d fought Cal because Cal was trying to kill Roger. And he’d pushed Roger out of the way and taken a stake to his shoulder. A day later, he’d moved into Nell’s mansion with Roger for extra security, and he’d discovered that his family had locked him out of his social media accounts and changed the passwords on the family accounts that he’d monitored.
Was that what he was supposed to be recovering from?
No, no. Life had gone on after that. Zack raced down the road of memories leading from that first signpost. He’d moved to Chicago with Kit and Carver and Roger and Takashi. Takashi . Roger and Takashi were his boyfriends. Takashi had given him a beautiful necklace for his birthday. Reflexively, Zack went to touch his neck and discovered it was missing. When Takashi had given him the tiny white-gold dagger, he’d kissed him.
He and Takashi had shared a dance at the ball. That was where he’d worn the necklace. And Zack had danced with Roger. That dance, God , that dance had changed the world, hadn’t it? Because not only had Roger stood up to Seamus, but he had nullified Seamus’s attempt to cause fear among the partygoers. Roger had started to pull Zack to his side as an equal instead of upholding the vampire bullshit of calling him a pet.
But Zack hadn’t been able to relish what Roger had done because he’d noticed Vincent was missing. Vincent … confusion threatened to sweep in, but Zack held to the road. Vincent had been in the bathroom. He’d been beaten, and Zack had insisted on helping him.
The group of them had left the party. Carver, Kit, Vincent, Takashi, Roger, and him. Not left, fled. Because Seamus was pissed. And Roger had learned … something that was eluding Zack. That something was important.
But not as important as the way Seamus broke into the hotel suite and tore into Carver’s neck. Zack had come out of the master bedroom, dagger in hand, and he’d thrown it straight for Seamus’s head. The fucker had dodged, but Zack had felt the movement of his cold aura and met him in battle.
Battle.
Fuck me, I lost . Zack ran his hands down his cheeks. Thinking of the blows Seamus had landed caused phantom aches, so he refocused on the present.
The room was too dark. The bed too stiff. Hospital beds shouldn’t be so goddamn stiff. Only, Zack didn’t have any wires or machines attached to him. They’d need to monitor his heart rate, right? Were hospital rooms ever pitch-black?
How long was I out? Zack groaned and started reaching for the edge of the bed. He touched a wall on his right and then another on his left. The firmness had to be some sort of trick. They must have boxed him in out of caution. I guess they didn’t want me to accidentally roll out of bed and hurt myself .
He moved to sit up, but his head bumped into the ceiling within a few inches. Something stiff was at his back.
Ceiling? What was he doing close to the ceiling? As he lay back down, he realized his enchanted dagger was tucked into the back of his belt. What was that doing on him? Weird to put that in bed with a patient. And weird that he’d have it and be up against the ceiling. He ran his hand along it, the slick satin cool to the touch.
Satin.
He wasn’t in a bed.
He was in a coffin .
They buried me alive! Zack put both hands on the lid and pushed, but it didn’t budge. “No. No, no no no no no no.”
With a scream, he pushed with all his might. Adrenaline surged, making him stronger than he’d ever felt, but even that wasn’t enough. He teetered toward panic and gave in to repetitively pounding on the lid.
He was going to die because no one had noticed that he was still alive! Screams tore out of him. His panic grew. Stop it! You’ll run out of air!
A calmer, more detached version of his own voice answered, Why haven’t you already ?
The singular thought shunted his panic to the back of his mind. He held his hand to the satin lining. If he had been in a coffin long enough to heal his injuries, he should have run out of oxygen. And Roger and Takashi would have been able to hear the slightest sign of life.
So, to test his forming hypothesis, Zack held his breath and waited for his lungs to burn.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited .
No burn came.
That shouldn’t be possible. Zack thrust his hand through his hair, holding on near his roots to ground himself from the new wave of mounting anxiety.
Another memory sprang forward. For a fraction of time during the fight, Seamus had grabbed his hair like this while raining blows down on him. Each slam of his fist or foot had brought such pain that Zack had struggled to stay conscious.
Zack had clung to one desperate desire: the urge to kill Seamus. Beyond the need for survival, the hot liquid pull of revenge had filled him. Because Seamus had killed Carver. Had forced Zack’s hand into cutting Kit. Was planning to hurt his lovers. Seamus was trying to kill his family; not his blood family, but his actual family.
I promised myself vengeance. And then … And then Seamus had cradled Zack and told him he could slip away into death, or he could drink Seamus’s blood and become a vampire. Seamus had said, “All you have to do is open your mouth, and it’s yours.”
There had been other words, ones that Zack couldn’t recall with perfect clarity because he’d been caught in the moment of that choice.
Go out in a valiant effort.
Or become everything his parents and grandparents and ancestors had always hated.
A corpse couldn’t have revenge.
A vampire could.
He’d opened his mouth, and Seamus had put his wrist against it. His blood had been honey-sweet, and it brought a strange tingling zip to Zack’s tongue that coursed down to his fingers and toes. He’d swallowed once, twice, and then he latched onto Seamus and drank as fast as he could. He’d … oh, God, he’d chewed into Seamus’s arm when his blood had begun to slow and reopened his vein.
“Go on.” Seamus had stroked his hand through Zack’s hair like he was trying to comfort and encourage him. “Drink your fill, my precious boy.”
Each drop brought more of that electric feeling, and a distant part of his mind knew what it meant. Vampiric magic was infusing his veins. He couldn’t get enough of it. The taste—the sheer power in it was everything he’d ever wanted in the world. When he came back from the dead, he would be stronger than he’d ever been. He would survive.
If he couldn’t save his loved ones, then his enemies would feel his wrath.
The past and present blurred as Zack tumbled down a pothole in memory road that left him stuck in a vivid playback loop.
The tingling in his fingers and toes crawled up his limbs to his chest and formed a molten core. That heat was intoxicating, nearly as orgasmic as sex, and Zack kept drinking in hope that it would flood through him and make him whole.
But that liquid heat wrapped around his heart and froze in place. The cold worked outward and sliced through every nerve as his injuries began to knit together.
In this moment, in the coffin, those injuries were gone. Healed. But he continued reliving the agony before his death. He screamed and broke away from Seamus, writhing on the balcony. He couldn’t curl into a ball now like he did then. The world had been—was again—ice and fire and tiny stars blackening into oblivion.
Seamus had pulled him back into his arms. “Shh, child. Shh. Embrace the night. You will be well when you wake.”
Well? Well ? Zack was a freaking vampire stuck in his coffin reliving his death. He had fucking died . And he had become everything his family had said he’d be. A monster. You know you don’t have to be that. Roger. Takashi. Josefina, Nell. They’ve shown you that being a vampire doesn’t mean becoming the worst version of yourself .
Are Roger and Takashi still alive?
What would he do if they weren’t? What if he was now trapped in this immortal body, and the only ones waiting for him on the outside of the coffin were Seamus and Anton and his birth family, who would likely start hunting him the second they discovered what he’d become? Zack could practically hear his brother convincing other family members—grandparents, cousins, aunts—that hunting Zack to oblivion was the “right thing.” Even his father wouldn’t be able to resist turning against him.
What if the world was only pain?
He slammed his hand against the coffin lid. A burning sensation started in Zack’s chest. The lack of air was finally suffocating him. That doesn’t make sense . Maybe his immortal body didn’t totally remember he was dead.
You are remade , a voice that sounded far too much like Seamus said in his head.
Seamus.
His killer.
His sire . He’d turned Zack into this … this creature .
Zack was going to tear him apart.
With what little leverage he had, he punched upward. He rocketed his fist upward again. And again. The wood started to crack, so he continued pummeling it. When it finally splintered, dirt skittered down onto him.
No wonder he couldn’t open the damn thing. Seamus had fucking buried him. How many feet was he in the ground? Three? Six? He only knew that the more he broke the lid, the more dirt rained down on him. Icy fear seized his lungs, and the burning in his chest grew, but he kept going. He didn’t need anything except an escape.
His knuckles broke and healed and broke and healed. Over and over. He punished the wood with every ounce of fury in his soul. Finally, the hole grew large enough, and he pulled himself upward into the dirt. Clawing and fighting, he searched for the surface.
The burning ache in his core clenched his stomach. Hunger was too mundane a word for the growling emptiness inside him. Thirst didn’t encompass the roughness of his throat. His whole being needed a source. As he stretched, reached, and pulled, the crackling ache spread from his core through the rest of his body. Dirt filled his mouth, and it wasn’t what he needed.
His fingertips brushed frigid air. He choked on dirt as he cried out in surprise. But there was air . He yanked upward, and the next thrust plunged his hand into that bitter void. With one hand free, he fought to break the other one out. Desperately, he scrambled. He managed to push out his entire arm and used that to heave himself upward.
The crisp air was welcoming to his lungs, but it couldn’t cool his throat. It did nothing to alleviate the burning heat in his body.
But he smelled something good . He needed that good thing. Twisting his head, he caught sight of a woman sitting at the end of the dirt patch holding him down. She trembled like a leaf on a blustering wind and fell over. Her heart thundered in his ears. Relentless and fast-paced, it called to the void inside him, and that void screamed its need to consume her.
He crawled, quick handfuls over loosely packed dirt, toward her. The dirt tried to keep him pinned. He growled as he worked himself free.
Suddenly, she was on her feet, and a man stood beside her. A man he should know, but he didn’t give a shit. The man didn’t have a heartbeat and smelled like rain and dirt. The man said … something. Something that didn’t matter.
Then the woman ran.
In a desperate, hungry surge, he pulled himself out of the patch. She was what he needed. She was a source . That was all that mattered. He chased, and exhilaration joined his hunger.
As she fled, she stumbled over smooth stones as if she couldn’t see them, but they were in plain sight. He vaulted over a large rock and cut her off. Her hands were bound, which made grabbing her easier. He didn’t care that she had something in her mouth. Her blood was in her veins, her neck. She wriggled in his grasp, fighting like a fish already drawn into the air.
With a snarl, he took hold of her hair and wrenched her head to the side. Her pulse jumped in her throat. He sank his fangs into her soft flesh.
Delicious, mind-bending liquid filled his mouth. He was made of stardust and darkness, and the blood fueled his journey. He clutched her close and moaned as he swallowed each wondrous spurt of warmth. It dripped into that burning, aching void inside him. Finally, his throat was soothed.
If you keep going, you’ll kill her , a rational voice whispered. His voice. Zack frowned and drank more. Who would he kill? The woman .
But he still had an ache in him, and the blood was so perfect . And coming so fast.
Stop!
He growled, angry at that voice. He drank. Her heartbeat was quick and loud, and he raced against it. Then it skipped. And the skip became longer.
She’s dying .
Startling clarity struck Zack as if someone had activated a breaker in a darkened house. He broke away from the woman and released her. She sagged to the ground.
She was near dead. Technically alive, but not for long. Wasted blood .
No. No, he couldn’t have possibly thought that. Zack backed away, smacking his ass into a nearby headstone. Headstone? Fuck, I’m in a cemetery . He held on to the granite while his mind caught up to the world. The plethora of sensations that came with reality threatened to overwhelm him.
His hunger wasn’t fully satisfied. It lingered like a ghost teasing the corners of his sight—present and unwilling to leave him alone or step into focus.
He had her blood all over his chin, on his shirt. And this suit he was wearing felt awful and wasn’t anything he’d ever owned. Every fragment of dirt on him was a grain of sand rubbing against tender flesh. Too much of it coated him; he couldn’t easily knock it off.
Her heartbeat was slowing further.
“No,” Zack cried. He rushed forward.
Seamus stepped in front of him. Zack could track his movement and tried to step around him, but Seamus remained that fraction faster and caught him by the arms. “Ah, ah. Let’s not have any accidents.”
“ Accidents ?” Zack demanded. “She needs help!”
“The last thing we want is for you to try to feed her your blood to ‘help’ her,” Seamus replied sharply.
“We need to put pressure on the wound.”
“She’s gone , Zackery. The way she should be.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Zack yanked backward.
Seamus let him go. “It has been a thousand years since I was a father. Don’t make me ruin this joyous occasion by punishing you, son.”
Son? Zack ran through the information that he’d gathered on Seamus over the last few months. Though he would have had more details with his notebooks in front of him, he realized he could recall his notes faster and with better clarity than he ever had—and his Grandma Bonnie had always called him one of the brightest hunters of his generation. Wait, do vampires think faster than mortals? What the fuck? He stashed that question for later research.
He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t refer to any of your sirelings as your children. What’s your game?”
“Souls as special as yours are rare, Zackery,” Seamus replied.
Meaning that Seamus saw a killer in Zack. Just like me, little bro , Cal’s voice said. But he’s got you switching sides .
I’m not the same as him . Zack slid his hand behind his back and under his suit jacket.
You’re a freaking murderer, little bro , the Cal voice continued.
The two vampires Zack had killed had been out of self-defense. One had been actively trying to kill him, and Anton had demanded Zack kill the other. And they were hardly innocents.
But he had a new tally to that list. The woman on the ground. She was dead.
Zack shook his head. “You’re wrong about me.”
“You were dying, clearly defeated, and yet your bloodlust overwhelmed that. I could feel it despite your tattoo.” Seamus smiled warmly at him. “You kept fighting. You wanted to kill.”
Seamus was roughly Zack’s height, though slightly broader. In a fair fight, Zack should have stood a chance, but vampirism and a thousand years of experience had given Seamus unnatural advantages.
A bit of vampire lore threaded into Zack’s calculations. The way that vampires created sirelings was to seed a bit of their own power into their sireling. Just after making another, a vampire was weaker.
Zack was stronger than he’d been. He’d taken that power from Seamus. We’re as close to level on the battlefield as we’re going to get .
“I wanted to kill you ,” Zack snarled. For the first time, he felt his fangs and the strange, reflexive way his lips curled back to keep from piercing on his sharpened teeth. A full-blown hiss was in the back of his throat. As he pulled his dagger, he indulged that primal urge.
“Tantrums are expected in the young,” Seamus said seriously. “But see reason, son. You took my blood eagerly. None of my sirelings have ever drawn from me like you did. Part of you wanted to become like me. To belong to me.”
Zack pulled his dagger and slid into a fighting stance. The runes of his blade were glowing with red light. That light should have been white, but it, too, had changed. Did it have new powers? He did. Seamus was quicker than him, but not by much. This could work .
“Son,” Seamus said, his demeanor growing colder, “stop your foolishness and put away the blade.”
“You’re not my fucking father!” Zack shouted.
“Our bond is eternal, Zackery,” Seamus said as he stepped forward. “I will never throw you away like he did.”
Zack flinched. How had Seamus known about his father disowning him? Who’d told him? When? Had he known since Zack had arrived in Chicago? Since before that?
His eyes closed only for the briefest flicker, but a rush of cool air came at him. Instincts clicked into place, and he reacted, rolling away from the rush and slicing at it in the same motion. Seamus grunted, and Zack grinned. As he readjusted his stance, he watched the wound across Seamus’s forearm heal.
“I’m impressed,” Seamus said quietly.
“You can stop this fucking nice-guy act,” Zack replied. “I know what you are.”
“I understand why you are upset. No doubt Roger has been filling your head with all kinds of stories, and I can’t fault you for believing them. I didn’t understand until recently what his interpretation of events was.”
“You’re seriously playing the ‘two sides to every story’ card?” Zack shouted.
“You are so very young, Zackery. You don’t yet know what the world is truly like. But given time, I believe you’ll come to understand what I have done and who I am,” Seamus said, his tone one of a patient teacher. “I gave you my blood because you are capable of so much more than mortal limitations, including their basic moralities. I see in you the weak man I once was, and I know you can evolve beyond that.”
He means you’re a monster like him , the Cal voice snickered.
With a furious scream, Zack lunged at Seamus. Seamus dodged his first strike and his second. But Zack wouldn’t let up, and he drove him backward through the graveyard. He had his target, and he would fucking kill him.
Seamus was that fraction of a second faster. The only strikes he made were to counter Zack’s attempts to hit him. And Zack began to predict them. Began to feint and strike true. He plunged his dagger into Seamus’s shoulder and laughed.
And Seamus laughed with him. He put his hand around the hilt and kept it in place.
“Shut up!” Zack snapped in his face. “Fucking shut up!”
When Zack tried to pull away, Seamus grabbed him by the collar and kept him close. “A fire as bright as yours happens once in a century. You are everything I could want for a son.”
“Take that back !”
“I won’t,” Seamus replied. “I told you. I will never throw you away.”
Thick tears crawled down Zack’s face. The monster who had torn apart his lovers and friends wanted him close? Wanted to be his immortal father ? It was fucked up. It was to o fucked up.
He hated how Seamus’s words soothed something deep in him. How he wanted someone to approve of him. Roger, Takashi, and his friends all did, but at the same time, they always looked down upon his hunter’s training. At the violent side of him.
Zack still had his silver dagger burning in Seamus’s shoulder, and the fucking bastard was praising him.
Zack sagged against Seamus and sobbed.
Seamus wrapped his arms around him and held him. After the worst of the sobs eased, he pulled the dagger from his shoulder and put it into his coat pocket. “Shh, son. It’s all right. Let’s get you home.”