Dark Embrace (Principatus) Read online

  Then stop messing around, woman.

  She slammed his head to the ground once more, drove her knees between his shoulder blades and snagged his left wrist with her right hand. “This is going to hurt, fucker.” She yanked his arm to the side, pulling it until his armpit was stretched taut.

  “Going to kill you, bitch,” he blustered, writhing under her knees. He was strong even with his injury. But Inari was stronger.

  And seriously ticked off.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She curled her lip, jerked his arm a little straighter and ground her weight into his back. “Whatever.”

  She closed the fingers of her left hand around the grip of the long, silver dagger sheathed in the lining of her boot, withdrew it in a single, fluid motion and sank it to the hilt into the vampire’s armpit. Straight into the side of his unbeating heart.

  A screeching wail tore from the vamp’s throat. He thrashed once, twice and then Inari was kneeling on the footpath, a man-shaped smudge of oily dust staining the concrete under her knees.

  “Eww.” She crinkled her nose, the stench of instantly decomposed vampire turning the air putrid. Climbing to her feet, she slid her dagger back into its hidden sheath and stepped away from the residue of terminated vamp. “Why are bloodsuckers always so smelly?”

  She bent at the waist, casting a disgusted look at the knees of her leather trousers, and straightened immediately when the back of her neck prickled with heat.

  Someone was watching her. Again.

  Demon.

  The word whispered through her head. She squinted into the blackness around her, seeing nothing. Why would she? It was one in the morning on a moonless night, and she was standing on the sidewalk of a quiet side street far from the bright, flashing lights of the main strip. Not even the ten-buck hookers and crack users wandered so far into Kings Cross suburbia. She was alone on the street, surrounded by silent houses, sleeping cars and the low drone of hungry mosquitoes.

  And yet…

  The Principatus force within her stirred. Agitated. Alert.

  Wary.

  Inari turned on the spot, scanning the darkness. The back of her neck prickled again, stronger this time. Hotter.

  She narrowed her eyes, not for the first time wondering why the hell God had deigned to create a demon assassin capable of incomparable physical prowess without electing to add hyper-vision.

  “Shit.”

  Her muttered curse fell into the silence. She turned once more, her neck on fire, her gut churning. Someone was watching her, but whoever they were, they were keeping themselves hidden.

  She didn’t like it. Not at all.

  “What are you waiting for?” She held her arms wide, her call bouncing off the houses around her.

  A bird flew out of a nearby tree, the wild beating of its wings making Inari jump. She bit back another curse, shaking her head. Fuck this. If the demon wasn’t going to show its face, she had other things to—

  The fiery prickles on the back of her neck vanished. Just like that.

  Inari frowned, far from relieved. “What the hell?”

  She stood motionless, half-expecting an attack, half-convinced she’d imagined the whole thing. Something felt off. Wrong.

  The night stayed silent around her. Not even the sound of the startled bird returning to its roost destroyed the stillness.

  Inari let out a sharp sigh and stared into the darkness around her one last time. Nothing. With a shake of her head, she turned and ran up the road, back to the bright lights of the sexual capital of Australia. She’d make an anonymous call to the paramedics from a payphone, tell them about the human male bleeding in the gutter, give them his exact location and then find herself an empty seat in one of the Cross’ more reputable bars. It was one a.m. for Pete’s sake. If she wasn’t going to terminate some more demon ass, it was time for a coffee. If she was lucky, some idiot would try to pick her up before the sun rose and refuse to take no for an answer. At least then she could work out what was left of her agitation with a fistfight and go to bed more relaxed. Hopefully. She still needed her beauty sleep, damn it, whether she had the powers of a Principatus or not.

  Ezryn Navarr strode through the ballroom, his footfalls echoing in the cavernous space, his stare fixed on the overlord and his new bride seated on a raised dais at the far end of the room. It might be customary for master vampires to pay homage to the visiting overlord within the hour of his arrival, but Ezryn never bothered with tradition—even less with any practice meant to appeal to the self-indulgent egomaniac currently ogling the lush breasts of the woman perched beside him.

  Ezryn curled his lip in a silent sneer. The leader of the vampire race was a disgrace to his kind—wrapped up in his own importance, courting a dangerously disrespectful and violent attitude toward humans, obsessed with the accumulation of wealth and material possessions. The moron threw his considerable weight around without thought of consequence, his only concern the fulfillment of his every whim.

  It pissed Ezryn off. A lot.

  “Ho, friend Ezryn,” the overlord called, raising his hand and waving it a mere inch. His washed-out yellow gaze slid to his wife, and Ezryn’s fangs lengthened with contempt. The royal fool actually believed he could irritate Ezryn with his blatant parading? If that was the case, he was a bigger imbecile than Ezryn suspected.

  Suspected? You’ve known he was an imbecile for almost seven hundred years.

  The overlord flashed a wide smile, his pointed fangs glinting in the muted light from the many candles littering the ballroom. “You do us a great honor with your presence, Master Navarr.”

  Ezryn suppressed the urge to snort, casting the room a disgusted glance. Candles? Dark Ones, what century did the fat fool think it was?

  “Although,” the overlord continued, raising black eyebrows, “you are almost four hours late. We feared the Navarr master would not present himself to us before the sun rose.” He shot his new bride another quick look, as if eager to see her reaction to his royal disapproval.

  Ezryn gave him a flat stare. “I had better things to do.”

  The new bride gasped, pale skin bleaching white. She gaped at Ezryn, her eyes wide, candlelight turning her extended fangs a sick yellow.

  The overlord snapped to his feet, jowls wobbling. “How dare you insult—”

  “Give it a rest, Harry.” Ezryn cut him short. “Or I’ll pin you to the floor and drain you within a drop of empty like I used to.”

  Haral Navarr, twin son of the first family, overlord of the vampire race, turned beet red—an interesting feat for someone deprived of sunlight for close to seven centuries. His mouth flapped in silent protest, his knuckles popping as he clenched his fists.

  Ezryn shook his head, a sour taste coating the back of his tongue. “Do not fret, baby brother.” He ambled over to a long table overburdened with carafes of what could only be human blood, eyeing the ridiculously ostentatious ice sculpture of the overlord positioned amongst them. “I would not dream of harming the great leader of our people.” He pulled an apple from his inside jacket pocket and polished it on his sleeve, turning back to the royal couple. Very few of his kind could tolerate human food, his twin brother included. That Ezryn had no difficulty consuming it caused many a vampire to clench their jaw in envy—and trepidation.

  Lifting the apple to his mouth, he parted his lips, letting Haral see his fangs before biting into the fruit’s flesh.

  Haral narrowed his eyes, his face—so like Ezryn’s if not for the fat of indulgence—still red with anger. Or was it shame? “You will not call me ‘baby brother’, Ezryn. I ordered you to cease doing so over half a century ago.”

  Ezryn bit into the apple again, enjoying the incensed impatience on his twin’s face as he chewed the mouthful without hurry. “And when did I start following your orders, Harry?”

  The overlord’s wife gasped again, her lush breasts almost spilling over the top of her red latex corset. Ezryn gave her an indifferent glance before wiping at his lips with the
back of his hand. “What are you doing here, Haral? I can’t imagine Australia was your first choice for a honeymoon, especially during the summer. The sun doesn’t set here until nine most nights.” He finished the apple, savoring its succulent sweetness before dropping the core into the closest carafe of blood. It broke the still, red surface with a satisfying plop, the sound like a gunshot in the cavernous room. “In fact,” he went on, arching an eyebrow, “I can’t see any reason for you to have left your compound at all.”

  The overlord flared his nostrils, a pathetic attempt to look intimidating. “I wanted you to meet Chantise.” He flicked his bride a quick look. “And she wanted to meet you.”

  Ezryn chuckled, the sound low and almost a growl. Of course she would. She would want to see for herself the fabled son groomed to be the ruler of the vampire race, destined to be the next leader of them all—before the oracle, the vampire race’s high priest, had changed everything. He gave his new sister-in-law a slow inspection and bent slightly at the waist. “Your ladyship.”

  The woman’s gaze raked him from head to toe, her eyes aglow with the taint of a recent feed. She touched her tongue to the tip of her right fang, tracing her fingertips over the swell of her breasts. “Ezryn.”

  Ezryn suppressed a disgusted grunt. The woman was well-suited to his brother—he could see the covetous hunger in her blood-drunk eyes, the smug conceit in the tilt of her chin. He turned back to Haral, eager to be done with the perverse family reunion. “What do you want, Harry? I thought I made it clear the last time we spoke that I never wanted to see you again. In fact, I moved to the other side of the world to make sure that’s exactly what would happen.”

  The overlord straightened his spine, his eyes igniting with cold rage. The last time the two brothers had faced each other—over fifty years ago—the vampire lord had threatened to have Ezryn marked as a traitor to his kind. The last time they’d stood in the same room, Ezryn had come very, very close to destroying the vampire lord. Close enough for Harry to sweat blood. A lot of blood.

  “I am your lord,” Haral snapped. The muscles in his face quivered and his yellow eyes dilated. “I can speak to you and call upon you whenever I wish.”

  Ezryn barked out a harsh laugh, the sound like cracking ice. “I have no lord.”

  Haral stamped his foot, his human face distorting into a demonic mask. “As the supreme ruler of our people, I hereby command you to a task.”

  Ezryn narrowed his eyes. “Go to hell, Harry.”

  “Not before you, Ezryn.”

  With a low growl, Ezryn sprang forward, crossing the distance to Haral in a blurring leap. Clamping one hand around his twin brother’s neck, he yanked Haral’s feet off the floor. “You destroyed any right you had to command me, brother, when you invoked the power of the blood trial.”

  Haral scratched at Ezryn’s hand, his eyes bulging. “And yet…” he rasped, “…the blood trial named me overlord. Not…” he bucked in Ezryn’s hold, “…you.”

  Ezryn tightened his grip, the mention of the ancient ritual filling him with cold contempt. Since birth, he’d been groomed to take over from his father as the next leader of the vampire race. For six hundred and fifty years, he’d known little except that as the first son of the First Family, born but a mere five minutes before his twin, he was destined to be the next overlord. He’d been educated to lead a race on the verge of imploding. Too many of their number had grown disillusioned with the old ways, the violent use of humans as a food source, an equal number disgusted with the progressive notion humans weren’t just cattle. He’d been ready to restore harmony where only conflict existed. Ready to take his place as overlord. And then his father had been killed, staked by an emo demon-slayer wannabe with acne on his cheeks.

  The day after the overlord’s death, the day before Ezryn was to ascend to the position of his birthright, Haral had invoked the blood trial, an ancient and barbaric ceremony designed to reveal the true overlord’s identity. And on the whispered words of the human virgin sacrificed for the trial—a young woman known as the oracle’s voice throughout the proceedings—the course of history had changed.

  Ezryn stared into his brother’s eyes. “Just what do you want me to do…lord?”

  Haral flashed his fangs, his Adam’s apple jerking under Ezryn’s palm. “My wife’s cousin was slain by a Principatus. I want you to destroy her.”

  Ezryn clenched his jaw, a cold fist of disquiet in his chest. “A Principatus?”

  What Haral commanded was insanity. To destroy a divine assassin in self-defense was one thing—the Powers would not retaliate against such a death. If a Principatus could not survive a fair fight with their foe, than the Powers seemed to wipe Their divine, righteous hands of Their failed assassin. But to destroy one in an act of revenge? That was to start a war beyond all comprehension. A war that would bring about the mass destruction of vampire and Principatus alike.

  The Principatus were no easy kill. Once demons themselves, they were selected by the Highest of Powers for reasons unknown, granted a soul and reborn then and there as assassins of all things unholy and paranormal. Whether vampire, shifter or hell-spawn, if a being threatened the divine status quo, chances were the Powers would mark it for assassination and send a Principatus to carry out the kill. A Principatus’s rebirth gave them immeasurable powers and knowledge of their target. Few of those targeted escaped to brag of the battle. Still, the divine assassins could be beaten. If you were strong. And ready to face ultimate death yourself.

  Releasing his hold on Haral’s throat, Ezryn took a step back, noting the feverish light in his brother’s eyes. There was more to this than Haral would have him believe. “Why do you want me to do this? Are you not capable of the task yourself?” He flicked his gaze over his twin’s soft, round body, remembering a time when it was almost a carbon copy of his own. “Are you having performance problems, Harry? Tsk, tsk. At your young age too.”

  The overlord drew himself straighter, his incensed stare fixed on Ezryn. “I charged you with a task, Master Navarr. If you do not obey your lord, you will see yourself punished by our laws.”

  “Punished? Laws?” Ezryn raised his eyebrows, struggling to control the growing fury seeping through his veins. His twin always had been a pompous pain in the ass. Now it seemed his position of power had finally gone to his empty head. “Any laws worthy of respect you perverted on ascension, Harry. As for punishment, remember who you’re talking to. Every vampire on earth knows who the true overlord is. Do you really think your punishment would be dealt?”

  His brother snarled at him, demon face glowering with contempt and hatred. “Yes, of course, the true overlord. Born first by a mere contraction of our mother’s womb. And yet that simple order was proved false, wasn’t it? By the blood trial itself, the doctor who named you first born was proved a liar and executed. Thanks to ritual, the rightful son finally claimed his rightful title.” He paused, his smile smug. “I always knew I was better than you, Ezryn. It just took the words of a semi-catatonic virgin to prove it to the rest of our race.”

  With a silent hiss, Ezryn grabbed Haral’s throat again, sinking his fingers into his brother’s fleshy neck before Haral could stop him. Cold contempt laced through the anger simmering inside him. The blood trial. Even the words made him sick.

  The blood trial had not been invoked for over two thousand years. Why would it have been? It was an ancient ritual from a superstitious, barbaric past before common sense prevailed and the position of overlord became decided by birthright. Two master vampires would feed on a human virgin selected for her purity and spiritual nature to be the “voice” of the oracle. Almost draining her of her blood, they would let her linger in the void between expiration and transformation until she was a heartbeat away from death. When her pulse began to fade, when her lips began to turn ashen and her body began to convulse, each vampire would open their own vein and let a single drop of their undead blood fall onto her tongue. The vampire whose name she uttered into the waitin
g oracle’s ear, seconds before he claimed her virginity, was pronounced overlord.

  It disgusted Ezryn, going against everything he believed in about the vampire/human relationship.

  That Haral had invoked the blood trial the day after their father’s death had shocked everyone. As had the name the dying virgin had whispered. No one had expected the young woman to whisper Haral’s name. No one except Ezryn. He knew what his brother lusted for most of all. What Haral had always lusted for—the position and power of overlord, supreme ruler of their kind.

  A mere week after their father’s end, Ezryn discovered his brother had been fucking the oracle. Unfortunately, he’d had no way of proving the forbidden relationship. Ezryn also knew his father’s advisors had been unhappy with Ezryn’s approaching ascension. His father, a two-thousand-year-old vampire less interested in ruling his people and more interested in sticking his prick in anything wearing a skirt, had been a ruler they could manipulate, control. Ezryn, on the other hand, had proved difficult to dominate and influence in his grooming for the position of overlord. More than once he’d made it clear he would not be a puppet to their political machinations, refusing to destroy vampires accused of vague, unsubstantiated crimes, questioning dubious requests his father would automatically approve, seeking answers to questions few in court wanted asked.

  To this day, Ezryn had to admit he’d underestimated his brother. Haral had played all the pieces to perfection. The dying virgin had allegedly whispered Haral’s name in the oracle’s ear, and the advisors to the position of overlord had supported and enforced that proclamation. Ezryn was denied the title he’d been groomed for a mere twenty-four hours before his ascension. But blood trial or no, Ezryn would not kowtow to his brother. Especially when he didn’t believe what the virgin had proclaimed.

  He drew Haral closer to him, his anger a cold fist in his chest. “Tell me, brother mine, supreme and oh-so-revered leader of our illustrious race, after the oracle finished raping the human virgin to her death, did he wipe his pus-weeping dick clean before sinking it into your ass?”