Blood Father (Blood Curse Series) (21 page)

Kagen Silivasi stumbled like a drunken human, lost in a fog of disbelief and anguish.

The lycans had won…

A
gain
.

They had taken all he valued and claimed it as their own, and he was as helpless as a child swept away in a turbulent stream, tossed relentlessly beneath a rotating current of evil.

It was impossible.

Unthinkable.

Beyond reckoning.

The tragic choice was more than he could bear, and as his body folded beneath him, he sank to the forest floor and wept. Thank the gods emotion did not have the same effect in Mhier, for he was powerless to contain it.

Then, as darkness continued to descend upon him, the strangest thing began to happen: He was swept into an icy tunnel, an unfamiliar void, where the past and the present swirled all around him like an arctic wind, each divergent force seeking to pull him in an opposite direction in order to force his hand. One sought to anchor him in Mhier, to compel him to deal with the present situation, to get hold of his emotions and stay the current course, no matter how reprehensible. The other sought to take him far, far away, back in time, back to Dark Moon Vale.

Back to the night his father had disappeared.

And the origin of his rage had been born.

As his consciousness splintered, he thought he heard his brothers calling his name, hovering above him, shouting and shaking him in desperation. He thought he felt imploring hands on his shoulders, entreaties being made with pleading voices, each one more alarmed than the last; but all of it was waning, fading into a collective, distant dream. He withdrew into the tunnel, traveled back in time, and his brothers became like mere skeletons in the mist as he embraced the ghosts of his past.

The crisp colors of Mhier were gone.

The heavily treed forest was no longer there.

Instead, he found himself in Dark Moon Vale, walking beneath a luminous autumn moon. He looked down at his chest and then patted his arms and legs, trying to reacquaint himself with his body. He was no longer an Ancient vampire, ten months past his first millennium birthday, but a recent Master Healer of 521 years, who had just suffered the loss of his mother.

He was alone and wandering aimlessly in the night.

He was overwhelmed with grief and concerned for Keitaro, afraid that his father might be suicidal: It was two days after his mother’s burial, and Keitaro had yet to come home. While all of them were still reeling from the finality of Serena’s ceremony, the shock and anguish of losing her in such a horrific way, Keitaro had been absolutely beside himself with grief: heartbroken, inconsolable…teetering on the brink of madness.

Kagen knew that the Ancient Master Warrior needed some time alone—perhaps he had just gone off into the forest to mourn his mate in privacy—but just the same, he had to know how much his sons needed him right now.
How badly Kagen needed him right now
. Marquis was lost in a virulent rage, consumed with an overpowering lust for blood; Nathaniel was only moments away from doing something self-destructive; and Nachari and Shelby—well, the twins were just lost. Broken and confused. On the verge of giving way to despondency.

And Kagen had no one to talk to.

He rolled his shoulders to release some tension and forced his feet to continue plodding forward. Things were…exactly as they were…and no one could go back and change them.

He rounded the corner of the mineral plant, hopped down into the center of the old, dried-out riverbed, and continued to follow the contours of the ravine as he made his way toward the northern forest. Glancing upward as he walked, he couldn’t help but notice that the sky was as black as coal. While the moon shone brightly all around him, there wasn’t a star to be seen in the sky, and the air—it was so cold it was arctic. The valley floor was as hard as granite.

All at once, every hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he froze in place in order to tune more acutely into his senses. He saw nothing but the thick canopy of trees in front of him. He heard…only silence. He felt no strange vibrations in the atmosphere, save the constant heavy vibration of grief—and death—that continued to hover over Dark Moon Vale like a dense fog rising up from the sea. He closed his eyes and sniffed the air…

And that’s when he knew he wasn’t alone.

The northern forest was infested with lycans, killers hiding like cowards, hidden amongst the numerous trees, and they were watching his approach.

His muscles contracted involuntarily, the need to draw blood rising up within him like an insatiable hunger, gnawing at his gut, demanding that he fight, kill, and maim. But he held it at bay—if only for a moment—as he fought to employ reason, instead.

He was just about to call out telepathically to his brothers when he noticed a strange, enigmatic ring of light glowing in the forest: Translucent beams of violet and blue flickered in the moonlight, coalescing into a circular pattern like a radiant halo, the center glowing fiery red, and for reasons he couldn’t fathom, the word that came to mind was
portal
.

It was as if he were gazing at a doorway to another world.

Kagen blinked several times in quick succession, trying to dismiss the strange, unbidden thought, and then the next thing he saw stole the breath from his body: There were six enormous lycans hovering about the halo, and by all the gods, they each looked like Alphas, angry, formidable, lethal
A
lphas
; yet their arms were linked in unison. And, for all intents and purposes, they appeared to be working together like one cohesive unit. No one was fighting for dominance or control, and they seemed to be of one mind and purpose.

He stood for a moment, transfixed by the sight, watching them warily and trying to decide what to do. Despite his calm demeanor, he was a roiling vat of emotions inside. He couldn’t help but wonder: Were these the Alphas who had ordered the attack on the valley? Had one of these creatures murdered his mother?

A low, feral growl rose in his throat, and his fangs began to descend from his gums, but he took three deep breaths and forced them to recede.

And that’s when he noticed the prisoner.

The vampire
.

The broken and bloodied male swaying in the center of the circle. His arms were bound behind his back; the femur in one thigh jutted out at an unnatural angle—the bone had clearly been broken; and his eyes were so swollen they were practically shut, the dark brown centers barely discernible beneath the heavy, distended lids.

Kagen recoiled.

He could not believe his eyes.

The male in the center of the circle was
his father
…Keitaro Silivasi.

Something so primal—so dark, hateful, and venomous—rose up inside of him, he thought he might just shatter from the intensity of it. Every cell in his body was exclaiming the same thing:
I will kill
them!
I will kill them all!
And
I will not stop until the rivers run
crimson with
their
blood.

In the next instant, he heard one of the Alphas speak: The lycan wore a gold medallion around his neck, and he addressed the man beside him as
Teague
. “General Teague, forget the lone intruder. We have what we came for. Along with our Betas and Omegas, we have laid this valley low with devastation, and we are returning with a prisoner worthy of our king.”

The general nodded, and just like that, the lycans were gone.

Kagen’s father was gone
.

Kagen startled at the suddenness of it all, and then something inside of him virtually exploded with panic. He shouted a harsh, guttural cry; leapt from the floor of the riverbed in one lithe bound; and closed the distance between him and the lycans in an instant, grasping wildly at the space where his father had stood.

But there was nothing there.

There was no one there
.

He spun around in wild circles, shouting, snarling, raving like a madman:
“
I
’ll kill them!
I’ll kill them all
!
And the rivers will run crimson with
their
blood!
” He thought he heard a harsh, keening moan in the background, and he whirled to confront the source of the sound before he realized it had come from his own hoarse throat. “No.
No!
I will not lose my father.
I
cannot
. I
will kill them
.
I will kill them all!
And the rivers will run crimson with their blood
!”

Somehow, the lycans must have heard him.

They must have either perceived his threat, or registered the insult, because they came back through the portal: All six of them returned.

W
ithout Keitaro
.

Kagen knew that he needed to call out to his brothers, right then and there, but there wasn’t any time. The lycans gave him no quarter. They stealthily surrounded him in their own garish circle, and in that singular, harrowing moment, he knew he could not concentrate on two things at once: detecting the barest twitch of an enemy’s hand—which one would lunge at him first?—and calling out telepathically for help.

So he concentrated on the six hulking males in front of him, instead, praying he would make it out of this alive. And then he summoned the depths of his rage:
I will kill them! I will kill them all! And the rivers will run crimson with their blood
!

The instant the first lycan started to shift, Kagen struck with amazing speed and precision. He caught him by the throat, even as his jaw was beginning to distend, and ripped out his esophagus with his teeth. The swift, immediate kill was as surprising as it was satisfying, but there wasn’t enough blood. Not nearly enough blood! As he spat the enemy’s spine on the ground, he rocked backward, stooped down into a crouch, and angled his body to face the five remaining Alphas.

In the blink of an eye, there were no longer five intimidating persons in front of him, but five enormous beasts with wicked teeth and jagged claws; and each emitted a rancid, gut-wrenching smell, an odor that could only be described as
rage-filled
L
ycanthrope
.

He started to call out to Nathaniel, but the lycan called Teague lunged at him so quickly, so savagely, that he barely had time to raise his left arm and block the attack. As the massive, furry jaw clamped down on his wrist, snapping the radius in two, the one who wore a gold medallion maneuvered behind him, sank down on his paws, and tore a quart-sized bite out of Kagen’s flexed hamstring. Kagen bit back a cry of pain and wrenched his leg free from the monstrous jaw, watching in morbid fascination as another of the lycans shifted back into human form, retrieved a syringe from the ground, and plunged it into Kagen’s neck.

He had no idea what was in the syringe.

It burned like molten lava, and the effects were instantaneous: He immediately began to feel weak and disoriented. As he staggered backward in reaction to the substance, he tried to call out to his brother again—this time, to Marquis—but the communication would not go through.

It was as if the focused thought were a stone slung against a brick wall: It hit an implacable barrier, bounced off with a ping, and then shattered on its way to the ground. There would be no communication with his brothers.

Kagen was on his own.

Against an enemy every bit his equal, down to the last, solitary male.

Realizing that death may be imminent—if not
inevitable
—he fought like a vampire possessed. He severed limbs, gouged out an eye, and even managed to rip out a spleen before the red haze finally cleared enough for him to measure the carnage. Lying before him were three dead lycans, sprawled out unnaturally on the valley floor, their bodies a mangled heap of blood and gore and excrement: the one he had killed earlier, right off the bat; the male who had injected him with the syringe; and another wiry beast with a gruesome, ejected eyeball lying near his mouth, still attached to the optic nerve. He spat on the corpse closest to him and turned to face the remaining three. “Where is my father!” he demanded, his voice wild with volcanic fury. “
W
here have you taken him?
And w
hich one of you killed my mother!
”

In a brazen act of insolence, one of the remaining males took a defiant lope toward him and snarled like a rabid beast. His grotesque mouth was drawn back in a smile; his garish yellow teeth were gleaming in the moonlight, and blood-tinged saliva swung from his jowls, emitting an odor so foul Kagen could taste it on his tongue. The beast’s very existence was repugnant. And then, in an act of careless arrogance, the wolf shifted back into the body of a man, flipped Kagen off with his third finger, and mocked him with a scowl. “
We’ve taken him to hell, and you will never see him again
!
”

Kagen took immediate advantage of the idiot’s insolent pride.

He crouched even lower, speared his hand through the male’s groin, and ripped out his intestines. Then he sucked the blood out of the carnage before tossing it to the valley floor. “
I’ll kill you
.
” He seethed in defiance.
“
I’ll kill you all. And the rivers will run crimson with your blood
…
”

The wolf named Teague rose to his full height—he must have stood at least ten feet tall on his hind legs—and he glared at Kagen with utter madness radiating in his feral, amber eyes. He opened his mouth, baring a vicious set of canines, and bellowed his rage at the moon.

Kagen hissed in reply, preparing to take him on; but this time, they attacked as a unit.

Pain shot through Kagen’s sternum as Teague struck like a viper, sinking his massive teeth into Kagen’s shoulders; clamping down as if his life depended upon it; and snapping the large clavicle like a twig. A second set of canines sank into Kagen’s neck, tearing through the now-exposed tendons from behind. A forepaw raked across his bicep; another slashed him through the cheek; and a third swipe temporarily blinded his eyes.

As teeth pierced deep into muscle, as muscle gave way to broken bones, as blood splattered and organs rent, Kagen doubled over on the valley floor and then scrambled to his knees.