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“You mean you’re okay with me being with the two of you in your bed?”
Annoyance flickered on his face as he let his pants drop. “You’re her bonded. You have almost every right to her that I do. But remember who she’s legally tied to. Me. If I want her, I can take her just as you do. We share her in a sense, but she’s still mine. You still have to ask.”
“What happened to you?”
I couldn’t move. Could barely speak at how flabbergasted I felt.
“Aetas blood, I suppose. It isn’t such a bad thing. Who knows, maybe this will work out for the best. Tessa gets her best friend and lover back, and I get to keep her too. I don’t mind sharing with you. For now.”
Chapter 16
Marko
The City of the Dead. I’d seen the underground tombs beneath Headquarters before, but never once had I thought I’d be here so soon. A part of me knew I’d make it to the status to be put to rest in this place, but not like this. Never still alive, trapped inside Aetas’ memorial. And I knew that’s where I was. The energy around me told me my location, and surrounded by darkness, it was a hard truth to deny.
The City was miles wide, housing thousands upon thousands of past members and enforcers who’d made it as high as Headquarters. Some lasted days in their position, others decades, even centuries. Only once had I walked through the large, opened space, taking in the elaborate, yet gothic memorials. But even then, I hadn’t scratch the surface on covering the distance of how big this place was.
The passing of Bercolot had been hard on me at the time. He was a dear friend, a member in our city, before getting recruited as an enforcer. He lasted all of four months before he was killed by a rogue vampire. I went to his ceremony with a heavy heart, but I didn’t neglect to take in the one place vampires whispered about. Or the place I longed to make a mark in. Each monument told of status, and wasn’t that what I had always dreamed of? It was my biggest fault. A curse, just as The City of the Dead was. The place was a ghost story to our kind. For all of its beauty, it held dark secrets.
It was told that when a vampire of worthy status passed, his greed—even in death—caused him to take over the life of the strongest vampire present during the ceremony. Some said it wasn’t greed at all that caused him or her to do this, but a sacrifice to our leader to once again return to walk amongst us. A transitioning in bodies, so to speak.
The entire story was shit. I didn’t believe in ghosts coming back from the dead, nor did I think it was possible. But if I wanted to be honest with myself, being turned into Aetas and locked in a casket in the middle of a large, marble monument sort of fit the bill. The sacrifice was real, for here I was.
The entire situation was starting to make my skin crawl. The energy here was different. Intense. It was as if, even though I was secluded in a pitch black box, I wasn’t alone. Clicking kept echoing from somewhere near me, and a slight hum was constantly present. I knew the sounds were connected, and were more-than-likely the machine keeping me alive, but what about the whispering voices that woke me from my dreams?
Insanity. And this was only the beginning.
“Dammit!” I tried to thrash for what had to be the thousandth time since I’d awoken in darkness days ago. It took forever to remember what had happened to me, or where I even was, but when the tightness on the side of my neck made itself know at my struggles, everything came back in a rush of memories. Aetas.
He was going to pay for what he had done. There was no way I was going to let him live my life and bring down our kind. As for what he was doing with Tessa, I couldn’t bear to think about it. The sickness that plagued me at the thought only made my mental state worse. I was panicked. Losing my mind to the point of here phantom voices. Years, possibly decades, or longer, I could be confined here … no, I couldn’t survive that. Not mentally.
“Aetas! Aetas, let me out!”
As for Hunter, his role to me was as clear as day. I’d seen through Aetas’ blood that Hunter hadn’t been in control of himself. Nor did he know Aetas’ plan. What was uncertain during the attack, was now obvious. And things were only becoming sharper in my mind. I may have been locked away, but my tie with Aetas was supplying me with information as if I were there, witnessing it all. I felt all three of them. Tessa’s heartbreak at losing me, even if she didn’t know it was me who was gone, and Hunter’s growing love for her. His protectiveness.
They were all close. So close, I felt as though I’d see them if this heavy marble top was lifted off of me. There was only one reason for them to be at Headquarters—the ceremony. Grieving, for a leader that was determined to kill us all.
Chapter 15
Aetas
It wasn’t every day you got to witness your own funeral. The forlorn expressions, the ones of relief and eagerness, left an internal smile permanently etched within me. Fools. They were so clueless to what I had planned. They wouldn’t know what was hitting them until it was too late. Even now my plan was in motion and the distraction I was waiting for as I sat on the first row with Tessa and Hunter was just moments away.
“King Aetas will forever be remembered. He was our foundation. Our security and hope through times where we fought to survive. He took us from the bottom, to the top. We’ve come so far and it is all thanks to him.”
“As we sit here today, rulers and members of a vampire society greater than ever, we mourn a leader who can never be replaced. He was fearless. Brave in the face of what most of us would cower to. The centuries that I have served alongside him has been a great honor.”
Fantaza looked up through thick lashes, brushing back the short strands that fell into her eyes, continuing.
“Today we will not speak of the future, but of the past. I would like to tell you all a story of my first meeting with Aetas.” Her lips pursed and she took a ragged breath, wiping away what I knew to be fake tears. The female had no heart. Hadn’t, even before she was turned. It was the reason I chose her.
“The year was thirteen-forty-eight. I was but twenty-one, in human years, but far from a child. Times were not as they were now. To live as I did was an accomplishment of its own. But in Florence, where I had been born and raised, we suffered something far worse than any food shortage, or attack of our persons.”
“The Black Plague hit my home, hard. People were dying everywhere you turned. Bodies were littering the streets. My mother was the first to be taken. Then my seven brothers and sisters. I woke up just at sunset, feeling death approaching. It was only a matter of time.”
“I remember stumbling through the streets, bumping into the structures I was using to support myself. At that point I had accepted my life was over. I welcomed the end. I was merely passing time, taking in the sights I’d come to love and hate throughout my years.”
Her head dropped toward the podium. “That’s when he and Percival came to me. Child, Aetas said. Do you not fear death so much?”
