The warrior didn’t bother to acknowledge his opponent’s words, or to correct his usage of a bastard term for the faraway steppe tribe he had been born into. Talk was nothing but a waste of time and energy in battle. All that mattered was who would prove stronger this night—the Ventrue prince called Alexander or the Gangrel chieftain known as Qarakh the Untamed.
Qarakh grinned, displaying a mouthful of sharp teeth. He raised his curved saber, bellowed a war cry and charged.
Chapter One
Two Weeks Earlier
The sky was clear, and stars hung in the darkness above, cold and glittering like chips of ice. Though it was spring in Livonia, the night air held enough of a chill to turn his mount’s breath to mist. The temperature meant nothing to Qarakh. He’d endured much worse during his mortal life on the steppes of Mongolia. And since his rebirth as a creature of the night, the only time he had ever truly been warm was when he had a bellyful of fresh blood. His horse, however, wasn’t quite so hardy. Even a steppe pony would’ve had trouble keeping the pace Qarakh had set for the last week, and with this less hardy breed the effort was finally beginning to show. The mare’s coat was covered in froth, and her gait had been erratic for the last mile or so. She was a ghoul—fed on his own blood since she’d been a foal—and therefore stronger and faster than a normal steed. For all that, she was still a mortal creature. But unless her master commanded otherwise, she’d continue on until her heart burst.
He slowed the mare to a walk by merely willing her to do so. There was no need for Qarakh to tug on the reins—the blood she’d drunk meant his desire was her desire, simple as that. Sparing her was no product of sentiment; the mare was no more than a tool to him, akin to his saber or bow. And he hadn’t spared her out of need. He could travel just as easily, and more swiftly, in wolf form. But he was returning to his ulus—his tribe—after months away, and it was more dignified for a khan to return on horseback from a long absence.
The landscape in Livonia was primarily flat and forested, and there was little to differentiate one place from another—at least by sight. But Qarakh navigated by other means: the position of the stars, the sound and feel of his mount’s hooves on the ground, the scent of the trees. All told him that it would take a little over two hours to reach his tribe’s main territory, its ordu, at this pace. He would still arrive well before sunrise, and his horse would be alive, its death postponed for a night when its blood was more needed. On the Mongolian steppe that had birthed him, Qarakh had learned not to waste anything. That lesson held true even here, in this distant land to which he had been exiled. Where he had made a new home.
Since his Embrace twenty-four years ago, Rikard had—like all Cainites—shunned the deadly light of day. But now, sitting here in the branches of an oak tree, arrow nocked and ready, with nothing to do but sit and listen to the sounds of nocturnal animals scurrying about as they foraged for food or searched for mates, he found himself actually looking forward to the pink of predawn. For then he could retire to his tent, crawl beneath a blanket and sleep while one of the mortals was forced to endure the mind-numbing monotony of watch duty.
This wasn’t exactly the glamorous existence that his sire had promised Rikard before his Embrace. The picture she had painted was that of an eternal bacchanal filled with unimaginable power and endless dark pleasures. So how was he spending his unlife these nights? Sitting in a tree like some damned owl.
I should be nuzzling the smooth, alabaster neck of some young virgin instead, he thought. Running the tip of my tongue over her artery as it flutters ever so gently…
His canine teeth began to ache at the roots, and his stomach cramped. His sire had told him all about the Beast—the raging fury and hunger that was the curse of all Cainites. But what she hadn’t told him was that the Beast could manifest itself in numerous ways. In his case, as pain—from mild discomfort, like now, to agony so intense that he would do anything, anything at all, to make it stop.
Thank you so very much for the dark gift you bestowed upon me, Abiageal. The thought was directed at his not so dear but very much departed sire. He hoped she could detect his sarcasm from whatever level of hell she’d been consigned to after her Final Death at the hands of overzealous churchmen.
He’d come to Livonia because he’d heard rumors of a Cainite kingdom here, a place where the undying could live openly and without fear. And while all that was true enough in its own way, what the rumors had failed to mention was how dreadfully boring it was. The leader of the kingdom, a savage called Qarakh, insisted on being addressed as “khan” instead of “prince,” as was more common with Cainite rulers. He also insisted that all the members of his “tribe” be skilled warriors in order to protect the region from “those who would take our land from us.” Those would be the Livonian Sword-Brothers—second-rate Templars intent on Christianizing the place—and the few German vampires who seemed to lurk among them. But they’d been beaten back last year, well before Rikard arrived. No, his time with the tribe had been spent training. The Cainites in Qarakh’s tribe, as well as the ghouls, trained nightly in the martial arts, learning how to use a bow, wield a sword and ride a horse. Tedious though such training was, it had proven effective. While Rikard didn’t consider
