As he read, the manila envelope dropped unnoticed from his fingers and silently floated in a sideways drift to the floor at his feet.
His heart began to pound. His gaze skipped down farther, to the bottom of the page.
His arms, strangely numb, lowered to his sides. He raised his head and stared at the stone statue of Horus against the wall, glowering blank-eyed into the gloom. Outside a new day was dawning, but here in the dank belly of the catacombs, darkness held fast. Twenty-five years it had taken him, but now he would rise from the darkness, take back everything that had been stolen from his kind, and rain death on that spreading stain that was humanity. All he needed now to complete his happiness was that unmated full-Blood beauty he’d seen at the Spanish Steps.
And by this time tomorrow he would have her. Demetrius’s dreams had attested to that.
“My lord?” murmured Silas, emerging from his ever-present silence in the shadows of the library. He approached in a rustle of robes and the smoky tang of incense they always burned to diffuse the scent of mold that saturated everything.
“It’s time, Silas,” Dominus whispered, gripped suddenly by the fear that to say it aloud would jinx it. But he was a man of science, a man of action—he didn’t believe in superstition. He straightened and spoke louder. His voice echoed through the room. “I’ve finally done it. It’s time.”
He turned to find Silas staring at him with a look of stunned disbelief. He sank to one knee on the stone floor, pulled the gold medallion he wore around his neck out from beneath the collar of his robe, and kissed it.
Seeing him on his knees got Dominus’s mind to working. “I feel like celebrating,” he announced, walking to his massive oak desk. He opened a locked drawer and carefully set the report inside. He laid his hand flat on it for a moment before locking the drawer again. “Go get that new blonde I had last night.”
Still on his knees, Silas shakily replied, “She was not able to withstand your...attentions, sire.
She died in the infirmary just an hour ago.”
Dominus’s brows rose. He gazed at his servant, silent.
“I shall find you a replacement,” said Silas, rising. He bowed. “Immediately.”
Dominus smiled into the gloom, victory singing through his blood.
“Make it two.” He thought of the full-Blood female again—her lush body, her exotic scent, her mind a surprising, sweet tangle of brilliance and loneliness and guilt—and a surge of heat washed through the room. “And make them brunettes,” he said, smiling.
Xander crouched on the balls of his feet with his back against the rough bark of a twisted umbrella pine at the top of the grassy, ruin-dotted Palatine Hill, looking out over the breathtaking view of the morning sun climbing over the Forum and Circus Maximus below. From this elevation all of Rome was laid out before him like a banquet: the six other famous hills, Vatican City, the Colosseum, the endless miles of twisting streets and red-tiled roofs, the ancient Aurelian Walls that enclosed the city, the snaking green Tiber, the surrounding countryside and far- flung, smoke-purple mountains.
It was a view fit for a king. Which was exactly why he’d chosen it.
A cool morning breeze ruffled his hair, and he closed his eyes a moment, savoring the relief it brought his overheated skin. He was drenched in sweat; the skin on the palms of his hands had blistered and rubbed raw; all his muscles ached.
Grave digging was hard work. Harder than he remembered.
From beside him Bartleby quietly said, “Are you all right?”
A quick glance left revealed the equally sweaty and disheveled doctor leaning on his shovel, gazing down at Xander with real concern in his eyes. Xander swallowed and looked away. “No,” he murmured honestly. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be all right again.
The doctor’s slow exhalation was almost drowned out by the harsh squawking of two ravens chasing a peregrine falcon away from their nest in one of the trees nearby. The old man slowly sank to a crouch, using the handle of his shovel for support, then sat back abruptly on the grass with a great sigh as if relieved to no longer be standing. They sat in silence for a few minutes, looking at the view, the brilliance of the rising sun, the flattened, choppy patch of disturbed grass and dirt directly in front of them that housed the shrouded remains of Julian, six feet under.
“He’d approve, I think,” said Bartleby, gazing slowly around. He set the shovel down next to Xander’s on the grass between them and brushed a few clinging clumps of dirt from his hands.
Xander’s heart clenched in his chest as a memory seared an agonizing path through every nerve in his body. The doctor had said those exact words—with the exception of changing the
So much death. So much loss. Idly he wondered if he’d be alive in another twenty years to look back on this. He decided he hoped not.
“This is my fault,” he said morosely, drowning in self-loathing.
“He was a big boy, Alexander,” Bartleby answered sternly. “He made his own decisions. There was absolutely nothing you could have done to prevent him from fighting—”
“He should never have been at that bar in the first place,” Xander interrupted, running a hand through the sweaty mess of his hair. “I’d never have allowed it.”
“Now you’re his mother?” The doctor’s voice was gently chiding.
“They left the safe house because of me!” Xander exploded. He leapt to his feet in a fluid motion, adrenaline singing through his veins, his anger finally breaking free after being held in check all night. He stared down at Bartleby with flexed fists and the overwhelming need to punch something bloody. “We fought! I drove them out!
“Stop it!” Bartleby snapped, rising to his feet with surprising agility. He stood in front of Xander, staring up at him with livid, blazing blue eyes. “Stop blaming yourself for everything bad that happens and twisting it around to make it your own fault! You can’t control everything, Alexander, and Julian was no exception! And may I remind you because you seem to have forgotten—they
At that, Xander shuddered. Yes, he was right. Julian, Mateo, and Tomas had to leave because there was a female in heat in the house...and he should have gone with them. He’d refused to leave Morgan alone because of what he wanted from her, because of how she made him feel and the man he thought he almost could be, a happier man, a
He’d chosen Morgan, and now Julian was dead.
Bartleby narrowed his eyes at him, scrutinizing. “Whatever you’re thinking, I guarantee you it’s wrong.”
“I’m thinking what a wonderful guy you are,” Xander said between clenched teeth.
Impossibly, it brought a smile to Bartleby’s face. “At least you haven’t lost that charming sense of humor.”
Xander growled and looked away. The morning sun was bright in his eyes—too bright—and for a moment he closed his eyes against it. Immediately, too many images flared beneath his closed lids, ghosts rising to taunt him in his misery.
Finding Julian near dead in the surgery suite at the testing facility, the chemical stink of drugs all over him, speeding away in the stolen SUV to the safe house, frantically trying to revive him even after all signs of life had disappeared. Bartleby pulling a sheet over his big friend’s body, going to care for Mateo and Tomas in the impromptu infirmary he’d set up for them in the gym. Stumbling in shock out of the room in search of Morgan, only to find her gone from the room they’d shared, all her things moved out, the room sterile and clean as if she’d never been there at all. Standing outside the room she’d moved into, smelling her scent beyond the locked door.
