Shades of Darkness Read online

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not leaving until I find Brigette.”

  He hissed in frustration. “Why are you being so stubborn?”

  He expected her to ignore the question. Or flip him off. That was her usual response. This time she glanced away, as if hiding her expression.

  “Do you know how I became the sacrifice?”

  Basq stilled. “No.”

  She kept her face averted. “I was sound asleep when the witches came to my village and dragged me out of my bed.” Her voice was hard. Empty. As if she’d stripped the memory of all emotion. “I was paraded out of my home in front of the entire village, who stood silent as I was tossed into a wooden cart and hauled away.”

  The words battered into Basq. It was all too easy to picture a young, frightened girl being ripped from everything and everyone she knew.

  “Your family?” he demanded.

  Her humorless laugh echoed through the narrow lane. “It was my mother who chose me as the one to be taken.”

  Basq flinched. “Why?”

  “She didn’t bother to say. She just waved goodbye as I screamed for her help.” She paused to wet her lips, as if they were dry. “Less than an hour later I was in the burrow and the witches were slitting my throat.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want your sympathy.” She turned back to glare at him with a smoldering gaze. “I want you to understand why I’ll do anything necessary to make sure Brigette isn’t allowed to spread the beast’s evil toxin.”

  “Shit.” Basq conceded defeat. He’d lost this battle, but that didn’t change his determination to get Chaaya out of this place and back to the safety of Vegas. “We need to find someplace to stay while we consider our options.”

  “Why?” Chaaya shrugged. “As you said, this place isn’t that big. If we search building by building, we’re bound to run across her.”

  “After our bar fight there’s going to be people looking for us.” As if to prove his point, the sound of a baying hellhound ricocheted between the buildings.

  It was close. Too close.

  Chaaya scowled. “What people?”

  “The bar owner. The orc.” He waved a hand. “Whoever’s in charge of this place.”

  She continued to look unconvinced. Aggravating ghost.

  “I thought you were telling me it’s like the Wild Wild West with no rules except violence?”

  “Every society has some sort of power structure,” he insisted. He’d traveled to a dozen bullas over the centuries, and they all had one thing in common: greed. “The local chieftain will maintain whatever laws they want, but their primary responsibility is demanding a tithe from demons who enter their bulla,” he told her. “Now that they know strangers are in their city without paying the entrance fee, they aren’t going to be happy.”

  “Oh. Can’t we just pay?”

  “With what?” he asked. “I have a few coins, but not enough to satisfy a chieftain. Plus they usually want something besides money.”

  “Like what?”

  He deliberately allowed his gaze to travel from the top of her shaven head to the tips of her leather boots.

  “Like you.”

  Chaaya grimaced. “Point made,” she muttered. “We’ll find someplace to crash. At least until the demons settle down.”

  Basq closed his eyes, allowing his senses to flow outward. He could feel the heat of the numerous demons stuffed into the building next to them and catch the nasty scent of the sewer beneath their feet. Behind them the streets were littered with packs of demons, probably searching for them. Ahead was an empty building that was one stiff breeze away from collapse. Perfect.

  “This way.”

  Chaaya easily kept pace with his long strides as they moved down the lane to enter the back courtyard.

  “Why do you know so much about these places?” she asked.

  Basq concentrated on their surroundings, refusing to be caught off guard. Too many demons possessed the ability to cloak their presence for him to accept there was nothing lurking in the shadows.

  “I used them to stay hidden.”

  “Hidden from who?” She wrinkled her nose. “Or is it whom? I never remember.”

  “From the previous Anasso.”

  She looked genuinely startled by his answer. “Isn’t the Anasso the title for the King of Vampires?”

  Basq halted at the edge of the building, peering through a broken window. “He was never my king,” he told Chaaya. “I was pledged to Tarak until he decided to join with the Anasso.”

  “You didn’t want to be a part of the revolution?”

  Basq wasn’t surprised that she knew so much about the history of vampires. During the endless centuries she’d been locked in the hell dimension, she’d had the ability to peer into the world. There were few events that she hadn’t tucked away in that clever, constantly curious brain.

  “I choose Tarak to be my master because I was weary of war.”

  “Isn’t that what the Anasso wanted? To unite the vampires?”

  Basq curled his lips at the memory of the first King of Vampires. He’d been a massive, powerful creature who could make the earth tremble when he walked past. It was no wonder that the vampires had flocked to his side. He had the strength to demand their obedience. But Basq had seen something beneath the male’s seeming determination to halt the vampire wars by creating one clan beneath his rule. There was a restless hunger in his eyes that had sent Basq fleeing from his promise of peace.

  “That was his claim, but we all know what happens when you give a demon unlimited power.” Basq shook his head in disgust. “It was only a matter of time before the Anasso went from benevolent leader to tyrant.”

  “And you were right.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Basq leaned his head through the busted window, scanning the long room that was filled with broken furniture and shattered glass. There was the stench of charred wood, as if there’d been a fire. Or maybe it’d been caused by magic. Whatever the case, he couldn’t sense anyone or anything inside.

  Still, he carefully plucked out the remaining shards of glass from the window. In this sort of place you never entered a seemingly empty building through the front door. Not unless you were eager to fall into a trap.

  “In here,” he said, grabbing the frame and pulling himself into the building.

  He braced himself for an attack, but there was nothing but a thick silence. Chaaya quickly followed behind him, landing so lightly she didn’t even stir the dust coating the floor. Basq’s heart clenched. Sometimes he wondered if she was even real. Or just a figment of his imagination that might suddenly evaporate in a puff of smoke.

  Shaking away the strangely painful fear, Basq crossed the long room to push open a narrow door. As he’d hoped, there was a flight of stairs that led to the cellar below.

  “This should do.”

  Motioning toward Chaaya, he headed down.

  Chapter 8

  Chaaya reluctantly entered the cold, damp cellar. The space was long and narrow with a dirt floor and stone walls. There were empty wooden barrels stacked at the far end and dried herbs hanging from the low ceiling. Closer there was a shelf covered in layers of dirt, indicating that no one had been down there for years. Maybe centuries.

  Basq moved to grab a tablecloth that was tossed on a broken chair. Carefully shaking it free of dust, he placed it around her shoulders.

  “It doesn’t smell very good, but it should keep you warm.”

  Her mouth opened to inform him that she never noticed the temperature, no matter how extreme it might be, only to have the words die on her lips. It wasn’t that she was pleased he was worried about her comfort. Of course not. That was just…lame. She was simply tired of squabbling. At least for now.

  “I’ve had worse,” she assured him,
clutching the cloth around her as she plopped down on the hard ground.

  It at least kept the dirt off her clothes.

  With that astonishing grace that was unique to vampires, Basq sank down beside her.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  Chaaya leaned against the stone wall, turning her head to study Basq’s fierce profile. Just for a second her stomach clenched with excitement. Not the fluttery butterflies she’d read about in her favorite stories but a brutal, all-consuming awareness.

  “Tell me why,” she abruptly demanded. Anything to keep herself from reaching out and touching that cold, perfect face.

  He turned his head to send her a baffled frown. “Why what?”

  “Why you went into hiding.”

  “I told you.”

  Chaaya shook her head. Ever since she arrived in Vegas she’d heard rumors about the mysterious Basq who’d returned to the Rebel clan after disappearing centuries before. None of the explanations of his leaving or his return had made sense to her.

  And now his own explanation had only added to her puzzlement.

  “If you didn’t want to join with the Anasso’s clan, why didn’t you just walk away?” she asked. “As long as you weren’t fighting against his leadership, I can’t imagine he would care. After all, there had to be hundreds of vampires who weren’t eager to become a part of the Anasso party crew.”

  A faint, secretive smile curved his lips. “You’re the first to have worked that out. You have the mind of a warrior.”

  “A survivor,” she corrected.

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  He paused. Not as if he was deciding whether to answer, but rather to choose his words with care.

  So very Basq-like. Cautious. Meticulous. Dependable.

  Everything that had been missing from her chaotic life.

  “You’ve seen a portion of my power,” he said, thankfully intruding into her idiotic thoughts.

  “The darkness?”

  He nodded. “I can spread it for miles and make it so thick that no demon can see through it.”

  She considered his words. “Impressive, but I don’t understand what that has to do with the Anasso.”

  “I left my original clan because my sire insisted on using my powers to destroy his enemies.”

  She frowned. “How could your darkness do that?”

  “He would arrange his warriors in hidden locations and then lure the rival clan into an ambush,” Basq explained. “When they were at a precise spot, I would smother them in darkness so they could be destroyed.”

  Chaaya sensed his tension, as if he was recalling the precise moment he’d cloaked the vampires in blindness so his fellow clansman could cut them down with savage fury.

  “Like lambs to the slaughter,” she murmured.

  His lips twisted into a humorless smile. “If you could ever compare lambs and vampires.”

  “You were tired of death, so you went into hiding?”

  “First I joined with Tarak. He promised peace.” Basq shrugged. “It was only when he pledged his loyalty to the Anasso that I left.”

  Chaaya couldn’t deny a stab of admiration. Why not remain with his clan and simply do as he was asked? It would have been easier. And it wasn’t like the vampires they battled against were some sort of choirboys. But he chose morals over comfort.

  “Why did you travel to bullas?” she asked. “That seems a little extreme.”

  “The Anasso wasn’t happy when I decided to leave, so he put out a reward for my return. My eyes make me distinctive enough that it was like walking around with a target on my back.”

  She studied his glorious eyes. They were more than distinctive. They had fascinated her since the night she’d first seen him in the Dreamscape Casino. And she wasn’t the only female who’d sent covert glances his way. There’d been one nymph in particular who’d…

  Chaaya shut down the thought as she realized she was clutching the spear at her side. As if she was mentally savoring the thought of punishing the nymph for even looking at Basq.

  “Why did you go to Vegas?” she abruptly demanded.

  “The new Anasso has proven he’s an honorable leader.”

  Chaaya had met Styx. The huge Aztec warrior had shut down the entire electric grid when he’d discovered Levet had used his credit card to buy a treasure trove of Backstreet Boys action figures.

  “He has an awesome sword,” she said.

  Basq frowned. Was that jealousy in his eyes? “It’s big, I suppose,” he said in dismissive tones.

  “Exactly.” She flashed a provocative smile. “Bigger is always better.”

  Basq leaned forward, wrapping her in his cool velvet power. “If you believe that, then you’ve been with the wrong sword,” he assured her in a soft voice.

  Chaaya choked as a white-hot hunger sizzled through her. Oh no. She was in trouble. Big, fat, ugly trouble.

  She swayed forward, almost as if she intended to grab his face and kiss him. Then, with a stern effort, she forced her thoughts back to their conversation.

  “So you trust the new Anasso?”

  He nodded, his gaze wandering over her face as if memorizing each line and curve. “I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “And you were tired of hiding?”

  He nodded. “We have a lot in common.”

  Chaaya frowned at his ridiculous words. “The only thing we have in common is our appreciation for black clothes.”

  She expected him to move back at her rebuff. Instead he lifted his hand to trail his fingers down the Celtic tattoos that decorated the curve of her neck.

  “We both spent centuries locked away from the world. We were both prisoners, although I chose my cage.” His fingers paused over the pulse that hammered at the base of her throat. “And we’re both trying to find our place.”

  She told herself to push him away. What right did he have to touch her? None. But she couldn’t move. Or rather, she didn’t want to move. Not when his fingers were sparking delicious jolts of desire. She’d never felt anything so intense. As if sparks were dancing over her skin.

  “I thought you hated me,” she breathed.

  He leaned closer, the tips of his fangs visible. “You drive me nuts.”

  “Because you can’t control me.”

  “In part,” he agreed.

  “And the other part?”

  “You make me remember that there’s more than ice flowing through my veins.”

  * * * *

  Troy strolled into the Royal Guard’s private command center. Unlike the rest of the castle, this area was blatantly devoid of marble or fluted columns. And there wasn’t one fresco to be found. Instead the area had been dug out of the hard bedrock of the ocean floor.

  The only concession to comfort was the thickly padded chairs that framed the long table and the fairy lights that danced near the low ceiling. They spilled a warm, golden glow over the room that softened the stark severity. The tang of salt was thick in the air.

  Stepping through the door, Troy easily located Jord. The merman was standing at the front of the room, where a large map hung on the wall. He was gesturing to various locations as he spoke to the four guards who were seated at the table.

  Jord cut off his words as he noticed Troy strolling toward him, a scowl on his face.

  “Are you lost?” he demanded.

  Troy flashed a smile. The one that he’d perfected to cause maximum annoyance.

  “Ah, just the little fishy I was looking for,” he drawled, halting just a few feet from the merman. “We need to speak.” He sent a glance toward the younger guards. “Alone.”

  With a flattering haste, the guards jumped out of their seats and scurried toward the door. It was no secret that Troy had the ear of the queen. Obviously they didn’t want to
piss him off.

  Jord, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to skewer Troy with his trident.

  “I’m busy,” the male snapped. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re attempting to locate the missing prisoner.”

  “Oh, I noticed.” Troy lifted his hand to inspect his polished nails. “You’re certainly making a good show of searching.”

  “Show?” Jord took an impulsive step forward. A strategic mistake. Troy was at least three inches taller than the merman. It made it all the easier to tower over him. “What are you implying?”

  “If you must know, I find it curious that you were so reluctant to ignore your fellow guard’s warning.”

  “What guard?”

  “Riza,” Troy reminded the male. “He insisted that there was something strange happening with Brigette, but you refused to believe him. In fact, if I remember correctly—and I always remember correctly—you tried to prevent him from sharing his concern with the queen.”

  “Oh.” The guard shrugged. “Riza is young and has a wild imagination.”

  A convenient excuse, Troy silently acknowledged. “Why do you say that?”

  “He swore that he’d seen a real-life kraken, even though they’re a myth. And a few weeks ago he was convinced that he’d seen a strange shimmer in the air.”

  “Where?”

  Jord waved an impatient hand. “It was always moving from place to place. Once it was in the ballroom. The next time he claimed to see it in the kitchens.”

  Troy narrowed his eyes. They’d seen a shimmer in the throne room just seconds before the portal had appeared. Did that mean Zella had been moving the portal around, waiting for an opportunity to rescue Brigette? Or maybe some other creature had created the portal. Or just as likely, this male was lying.

  Deciding to play the game, Troy arched a brow. “You do know that was probably the portal used by Brigette to escape?” he pointed out. “Which only proves you should have listened to the male.”

  “I couldn’t know that.” Jord acted offended. “It sounded crazy.”

  “Hmm.” Troy polished his nails on his shirt, his expression one of deep skepticism.