Frater, Rhiannon - As the World Dies 04 Read online

  “You're not going to throw me out, are you?”

  “No. No. Of course not. I invited you here.”

  “You kidnapped me,” she reminded him.

  He smiled lightly. “Same thing. Plus, I am the one who offered you my throat. I'm responsible for what happened.”

  “I'm sure I didn't help,” she mumbled.

  Glancing toward her, Cian took in her pensive expression. He said softly, “No, but again, I invited you here.”

  Those enormous eyes turned up at him and he once more thought her features were quite intriguing. With blond hair they may have faded to bland, but with black, they were intense and lovely With a sigh, he realized he had to stop thinking like this and looked over at the picture of Samantha. She had such a cute turned up nose and glorious smile. She was everything good and light in his life. He had to remember that.

  “Are you going to tell her?” Amaliya asked after a long beat.

  “No. No. She wouldn't understand. She doesn't see this side of me,”

  Cian admitted.

  “But she knows you're a vampire.”

  “Yes, she does. She found out unexpectedly one night, but it didn't phase her.” He smiled and laughed a little. “She said, 'Oh, wow. So sunscreen doesn't help, huh?' That's Sam for you.”

  Amaliya smiled at that and looked at her hand. “If only sunscreen did work...”

  “Sam has a tendency to try to see everything in a positive light. I think that is why I love her. She didn't run screaming from the room.

  She just stood there, staring at me, and then told me she knew I was a good man.”

  “Are you?” Amaliya asked.

  He frowned slightly, then shrugged. “When I'm with Sam I believe I am.”

  “But tonight I fucked that up,” she said with a sigh.

  “I fucked it up,” Cian answered.

  “You're trying to live a normal life with Sam. You don't me need screwing it up for you.”

  “When I was turned no one helped me,” Cian said in a soft voice. “I floundered. I struggled. I destroyed people I loved. I was mad with the hunger and I barely survived. You're doing much better than I did, but I want to make sure you truly understand what is going on, what you are, before you do something that will get you killed by The Summoner or-” He cut off his sentence and pondered what he was going to say.

  “You?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to live. I don't want to die. I did it once and it sucked. My whole life I've been trying to find out who I was, what I was about, what I wanted to do. And now, I know who I am. I understand what I am.”

  Cian turned his attention back to the young woman sitting on his floor and took in her sincere expression. “And what is that.”

  “I want to live. I want to be what I am. What happened between us...that was amazing! Beyond anything in my life. I never felt so alive! That was like...” She shook her head. “I can't even define it. But I felt alive. And honestly, these last few days, though my brain has felt kinda off and weird, I actually feel motivated to do something other than coast through life.”

  Sliding from his chair, he walked over to her and squatted down.

  “Then you're going to live, Amaliya. You're not a self-loathing, hateful fledgling or an insane one. You're already accepting what is going on and that puts you far ahead of most.”

  “Why do you hate it?” She tilted her head up to look at him curiously.

  He reached out and ran his fingers over her soft cheek, then across her jawline. The desire to kiss her and push her down on the floor rose. His teeth grew sharp at the thought of driving them into her throat or more erotic places.

  “You should take a bath. Freshen up. I have work to do.”

  Her very still body showed that she was feeling the heat growing again. Before she could act on it and doom them both, he stood up and returned to his computer.

  “There is a master bedroom upstairs with a large bathroom.”

  Awkwardly, she crawled to her bag and pulled it close to her. “Is that where you sleep?”

  “No.” He shook his head and pointed to a nearby wall that looked like burnished brass. “I sleep there. I told the contractor it was a panic room, but its actually my sleeping chamber. Roberto takes good care of me, but once you have been nearly turned to ashes by the sun, you do not take any chances.”

  Amaliya walked over and pressed her hand against the wall. He watched her slowly walk along its length, feeling the cool metal under her fingers. He fancied the thought of those fingers on him and quickly pushed it away. He had not felt this way in a long time and it disturbed him deeply.

  “So its a big box,” she said, and disappeared around the far corner.

  “Essentially. To anyone else, it looks like a walled in elevator shaft or something of the sort. That was the idea at least.”

  She walked around it and came out the other end. Her hand was still resting on the cool metal. “So how does it open?”

  “The walls retract up into the ceiling. I can open them one by one if I want.”

  “Will I sleep here, too?”

  Cian felt a pulse of arousal, but he knew he could not deny her safety.

  “Yes.”

  Nodding, she walked toward the second staircase that led to the upstairs. “Thanks, Cian. Again, I'm sorry.” Her expression was wistful, but thoughtful.

  “No worries,” he said with a smile.

  She ascended the steps and he could not help but watch her skirt sway over her hips.

  “I'm so fucked,” he whispered to himself.

  ***

  The Summoner strode down 6th Street, hands tucked behind his back. The club scene was not as wild tonight as it would be on the weekend, but there were plenty of college students and young professionals out and about.

  Now that he was no longer Professor Sumner, he had let his hair grow to its normal length and it hung around his shoulders. It was almost white and glowed slightly in the glare of the neon signs. He could not remember the original color of his hair anymore. It had slowly turned this color the more magic he had performed and the darker the magic was.

  He was clad in a simple black shirt and black trousers. It was a boring outfit. He had yet to change over his wardrobe, but his intense good looks were drawing plenty of attention. The goatee was gone now as was the glamor he had thrown up that made him look older and like a version of his long deceased father.

  “He looks like Sting,” a girl whispered as she hurried past with her girlfriend.

  He smiled at that and swept his hair back from his face and gave her a rakish smile.

  “Sting is old and doesn't look like that,” the friend responded with a snort.

  The Summoner found that amusing. Humans were ridiculous when it came to their concept of age. Continuing on, he strolled slowly away from the elegance of the Driscoll Hotel.

  Once more he was a new man. He wasn't sure what accent to go with.

  The British one was rather boring to his ears now and he pondered a German one or maybe Russian. The American accent was terrible in his opinion. The Texan one even worse. But he rather liked Texas. It was huge and truly a land unto itself. He marveled at its difference from the rest of the United States and how it changed from one border to the next. He liked its diversity and he loved its people. They were stubborn and rebellious and he thrived on that energy.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out quickly.

  “Rachoń ?”

  “Got it done. I left the package outside of Shreveport just like you said,” a deep, husky, but very feminine voice said.

  “Excellent. ”

  “They should find it within a few days. I hid it just good enough, but not that good.”

  “Well done, as always. I may swing by and see you soon.”

  There was bemused laughter on the other end. “You should. You owe me.” And she hung up.

  Rachoń was the only progeny he had actually established a relationship
with. She was from the bayou outside of New Orleans.

  He had found her as a runaway slave, making her way to freedom. He had, of course, given her the ultimate freedom. Unlike his other fledglings, he had made her to keep with him.

  At the time he was bored and in need of a companion. He had adored her dark skin and luminous maroon eyes. They had remained lovers for years until he had grown bored and freed her to her own existence.

  She had a cruel streak to match his. Perhaps he had twisted her into what she was, but he remembered how she had driven her stolen dagger into his gut to eviscerate him when he had found her in the swamp and knew it had been within her all along.

  He walked on, his white-blond hair floating around his shoulders, past the street musicians trying to make a buck, and the myriad of people rushing about to the various clubs before the fateful two o'clock last call.

  Now that Rachoń had planted the real Professor Sumner's body in Shreveport, he would be able to put that time behind him. He had only spent four months as the professor, but they had been enjoyable.

  Twisting the minds of those wonderful adult students as they looked at him anxiously for morsels of knowledge and truth had been delightful.

  Of course, Amaliya had been the most wonderful one of all.

  Hopelessly lost and drifting, unaware of her strength and her unusual beauty. At first he thought her unremarkable, but she was one of those people who slowly emerged from the shadows the more you learned about them. The dimmest of all the lights had grown to blind him and he had to take her.

  It was ironic that she had fled to Austin and found Cian so easily. The girl had glorious luck. So far she had been in surprising control of her faculties and had evaded several disastrous scenarios. When she had gone for the security tape in the motel office in Dallas, he had actually been quite impressed. What she had not realized was that she did not even show up on the tape. It was part of their cursed existence. But it had impressed him nonetheless.

  Calmly turning down an alley way, he made his way into the more dimly lit areas of downtown. There were many homeless in Austin and it was always easy for him to find servants. He needed at least a few of the dead to strengthen him and be his guardians during the day. With Cian entering the stage, he would need to adjust his plans.

  “That's a good girl,” he said to the young woman pressed up against the side of the building and hidden in the darkness.

  She moved toward him, with little jerky movements. Out of the entire family he had slaughtered earlier tonight in their mansion overlooking the lake, she was the only one he had spared a brutal death. He had slacked his thirst and need to destroy before he got to her and realizing he needed her as intact as possible, he had feasted off her inner thigh and left her neck unmarred.

  So far she had been a good girl, helping him move the pieces of her family down into the laundry room where they would remain until he was done and burned the place to the ground. He had been amused to see her struggling to carry the heads of her family in one hand and drag her father's torso with the other. She had cried the whole time as she slowly bled to death, only kept alive by his power. Now she hovered between life and death, more dead than alive. By morning she would be truly dead and he would lose her valuable voice.

  “She hasn't come out of the loft,” the girl whispered. She was dressed in jeans and a pink top. Her hair was done up in a ponytail and she looked quite pretty. She shouldn't be moving or talking in her condition, but the steady pulse of his power kept her from collapsing.

  He had posted the girl outside of the loft as a precaution. It had been a wild chance that Amaliya would find Cian, but as her luck seemed to be obscenely good, he had to be sure.

  “Jenny--”

  “Jeanne,” she said softly.

  “Yes, Jeanne. You look like a Jeanne,” he said with amusement.

  “Anyway, good girl. You did well.”

  “Will you let me die now?” she whispered.

  “No. Not yet. When dawn comes,” he assured her.

  Her pretty pink lips trembled and he drew her close and kissed her forehead. “Come now, darling. It's not so bad. You're serving a higher purpose.”

  “My family-”

  “Are dead. And soon you will join them and all will be well, correct?”

  The young woman nodded, her expression stricken, yet muted. “Yes.”

  “You did very well calling me and letting me know she has arrived.

  Very good. I am proud of you.” He smiled at her warmly and enjoyed the little shiver that ran down her body. “Now, I want you to go home and sit down in the laundry room and wait for dawn. Sit with your family and keep them company until you can join them.”

  Tears filled her eyes as she looked at him desperately. She would not be able to resist his power and the terror in her eyes said it all.

  Swallowing hard, she turned and trudged into the night, a pale little thing in pink, doomed and pathetic.

  He laughed softly and smiled with delight.

  Turning, he gazed up at the windows high above the street. It took only a few moments for Cian and Amaliya to come into view and he shook his head with wry amusement.

  She was a lucky little thing.

  ***

  I have the worst luck in the world, she thought for the hundredth time.

  Amaliya lay next to Cian in his sleeping chamber, trying hard not to feel his presence or go near him. After her long bath, she had come downstairs in black leggings and a tank top to find him working hard at his computers.

  He had obviously been engrossed in whatever he was doing, so she had let him be and had gone into the library to look through the tomes. She had found a whole assortment of vampire novels, which she found amusing. But among them was an encyclopedia of vampire myths and legends and since she really didn't know much beyond what was commonly known about vampires, she had snagged it to read. Settling down in a chair, she had stayed there reading the rest of the night.

  Rolling onto her back, she tried not to panic at the absolute darkness inside the chamber. His bed filled the entire compartment and the four walls retracted back into the ceiling when he hit a secret switch.

  She thought it was rather opulent with its fine silk sheets and rich velvet comforter.

  It was cold and she rather liked that fact. She pulled more of the covers over her and smelled his cologne on them. He was very still beside her, but she knew he was still awake. Beyond the metal walls, the sun would soon pour through all the windows in the loft. Just knowing that was terrifying.

  “It can't reach us,” he said softly out of the blackness, as if he read her mind.

  The compartment was drenched in darkness and she was safe, but it was hard to accept that truth.

  “Are you afraid of it, too?”

  “The sun?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, rolling over toward him.

  “To the point of absolute paranoia and building this compartment,”

  he answered. His hand trailed over her cheek to her neck. “You're safe.”

  “Is this why the old vampires slept in coffins?”

  He laughed softly and said, “Yes. Safer to sleep in utter darkness than risk someone opening a curtain.”

  Her eyes were acclimating to the darkness and she could see his features now. He had an intense sort of face with strong cheekbones.

  Not really her type though. She had a bad crush on Rob Zombie and any long haired metalhead had a good chance with her if he seemed dangerous enough. Cian was almost too clean cut and had a slightly feminine tinge to his lips. But still, he had rocked her world earlier in a way no one ever had.

  “It's weird,” she whispered. “You know, being so powerful and yet being so vulnerable.”

  “It's the irony of being a vampire. Being immortal and being terrified of death.”

  Rolling onto her stomach, she propped herself up on her elbows and her hair fell over her shoulders to pool on the bed. “And the mirror thing is annoying.”
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  “I know. But when you learn how, you can see yourself through the eyes of others,” he assured her. His hand slowly stroked her hair cascading over one shoulder. “Sleep, Amaliya. Can't you feel the call of sleep as the sun rises higher?”

  Laying down on her stomach, she tucked her pillow up under her chin. She could see his face clearly now and wondered why his eyes glinted almost like metal in the darkness.

  She was feeling more and more drowsy. Almost as if drugged. She could feel the sun, her enemy, rising over the hills. Her hand found Cian's neck and she curled her fingers over it to reassure herself. He could kill her so easily, but she no longer believed he would.

  “Damn,” he whispered, then was on her.

  Their kisses were intense and searing, his tongue thrusting into her mouth as he clutched her tight. Blood filled their throats as their fangs sliced open their lips as they kissed fervently. His arms swept her up close to him as he feasted on her bloodied mouth.

  The sun was rising higher and they both were growing more and more drowsy.

  “Damn,” she whispered, as she fell away from him, licking her lips.

  Her body felt leaden and his mouth touched hers one last time before he fell over beside her.

  “We can't anymore,” he said softly in a very drowsy voice.

  “I know,” she answered, her eyes fluttering closed.

  But they both knew they would. It was a matter of time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Samantha mumbled to herself as she punched in the code to get into Cian's apartment and twirled the keys in the lock. It was nearly sundown and she was anxious to set up the white candles and flowers she had bought. A nice bottle of Chardonnay was tucked into one of her bags and she figured they could have a romantic night together.

  No talk of the wedding, just the two of them enjoying the night and relaxing. They both needed it desperately.

  Work was a real drag on her mental well being of late. Working on solar energy projects was extremely interesting at times and utterly dull at others. Cian wanted to be on the cutting edge of alternative energy resources and she supported him one hundred percent.