Blood Shadows (47 page)

Damien Alexiares had been wrong.

Dead wrong.

And his remaining son had paid with his life when the human brother of the woman he had violated, a vampire-hunter on top of everything else, had stormed into the cavern and sprayed the child with diamond-tipped bullets, tossing him into the very fire that consumed his sister in his lust for revenge.

Damien had flown into a virulent rage. He had been utterly inconsolable. On one hand, the Blood had come for his firstborn son, taking him in an eternal cycle of vengeance that never ceased, even as, on the other hand, the brother of the worthless piece of trash he had used to incubate his children had put his second son to death.

He had been absolutely devastated—just as he was now.

Rendering himself invisible, Damien Alexiares had shredded that brazen vampire-hunter into a thousand pieces of so much trash, sending him to whatever afterlife his sister now inhabited. Yet even that had not been enough. He had stewed and paced and spat in a red haze of fury, until, in a rare moment of clarity, he had remembered the house of Jadon and the recent Blood Moon: that damnable, taunting sign that appeared in the heavens whenever a son of Jadon was given his
destiny…
and his own twin sons.

In the midst of his grief and rage, Damien had somehow recalled the fact that the sign had occurred exactly thirty days before: The Celestial god Serpens had showered his favor on one of the sons of Jadon, giving him thirty days to claim his
destiny
, bear twin sons of his own, and sacrifice the Dark One of the two progeny to the Blood.

It didn’t require any divination to figure out who the chosen male was—or to obtain the name of his human
destiny
: Such things were common knowledge in the house of Jaegar, and whenever they could, the Dark Ones used that knowledge to strike out at their formidable enemies of light. Indeed, the male had been a Master Warrior, not yet an ancient, named Rafael Dzuna; and his destiny had been a human woman passing through the valley by the name of Lorna. A quick trip to the upper hall of annals, and Damien had garnered the name of their surviving son: Sabino Dzuna, born under the ruling moon of the god Serpens, child of light to a sacrificed twin of darkness.

Had Damien’s own tragedy occurred only a couple of hours earlier, he might have had a chance to steal the Dark Twin, the child that was to be turned over to the Curse, but fate had not blessed him so that day.

Thinking of Saber now, how could he wish that? The dark lord of hell could not have given him a better son than the one he had taken on that fateful night.

Sabino.

Saber
.

He smiled at the memory, even as his heart wept from the knowledge of his impending loss. Eight hundred years ago, the Light Vampyr had lived in hidden cliff dwellings as well as sparse stone lodgings that were much more spread apart. As attacks from Dark Ones were infrequent, they were generally carefree in their comings and goings.

Taking Sabino—Saber—from his crib had been as easy as taking blood from a human baby, hardly sport at all. But the moment he had looked into those dark eyes, he had known…this was his son for all time.

And so it came to pass: He had brought the light infant back to the colony and passed him off as the child he had lost, a son of his own blood, subject to the approval of the dark lord S’nepres—the twin energy of Serpens, residing in the abyss. When at last he bathed the child in his own blood, and S’nepres consecrated the babe by turning his hair a true crimson and black, like those of the males born to the house of Jaegar, Damien had known it was fate.

Providence.

Always meant to be.

For whatever reason, his true firstborn son had been lost, but Sabino Dzuna, inaugurated with the name Saber, had simply and divinely taken the lost child’s place. And 200 years later, when Damien had decided to kidnap and violate another human woman in order to sire more sons, he had been allowed to keep both of the twins: Dane and Diablo.

His family had been complete.

Only now, he would lose one of his own, the most precious to his rotting soul.

Saber.

Damien stared at the symbol he had etched into the wall, the pictogram representing the Celestial deity Serpens, and quickly scratched it out, lest the dark lord S’nepres strike him dead where he stood. Would S’nepres answer his prayer now and save Saber? Demons rarely delighted in the giving of life—but if he prayed to Serpens, the true god of Saber’s birth, would even Serpens care enough to help the child now?

He hung his head in despair and fury.

By all that was unholy, Saber was going to die.

Saber Alexiares tugged at the ties that bound him to the post, knowing that he was too weak from blood loss to break free or escape. As he glanced toward the eastern horizon, his heart sank in his soulless chest.

The sun.

That great ball of fire that journeyed every day from the east to the west…

Entire civilizations of humans had worshipped it throughout history; many more counted on it to give life to the trees and the plants of the fields today; but to his kind—the sons of Jaegar—it was an abomination, a scourge of nature to be feared above all else.

The sun was dreaded more than the vampire-hunting societies, the Lycans, or even the males in the house of Jadon—for its rays meant certain death. And not an easy or painless passing, but the slow, insidious cleansing of darkness by light. A purging by fire that was said to burn like acid flowing through the veins, like alcohol permeating an open wound, to pierce the skin and the internal organs like a thousand blades of steel, each one sharper and more finely honed than the last, rendering the dying vampire incapacitated by an agony that assaulted his mind, body, and soul without mercy.

It was a final reckoning that no one dared provoke. And even young boys were taught to flee from its light, to dive away from busted windows in desperation, to calculate their comings and goings from the colony with infinite precision for one reason and one reason only: to always,
always
avoid the sun. The fear of the sun was more than ingrained or conditioned; it was instinctive and all-consuming.

Despite his desperate attempt at courage, Saber’s heart thundered in his chest, and he refused to meet the eyes of his accusers, not because the warriors in the house of Jadon intimidated him—and not because he gave a damn what they thought—but because his mind was too consumed by primordial terror to focus on who was in front of him. Eight hundred years of conditioning had stricken terror into his soul, and his vision was growing blurry beneath the onslaught of fear.

He hung his head forward, not wanting to meet the sun with his gaze when, at last, it rose over the horizon. From all he had been told, the first rays burned the orbs right out of their sockets, and then it began to penetrate the brain—

“Stop!” he commanded himself, helpless to get control over the fear. “Do not think about it.”

In his debilitating state of weakness, he swayed where he stood, hanging from two posts like a sacrificial lamb, and then he prayed to the dark lord of his birth that the demon might take his soul before the sun began to scorch him: Even the tortures of hell were a welcome substitute compared to what would soon be rising over the canyon.

Saber felt a sickening wave of nausea wash over him, and he struggled not to vomit in front of his enemies, and then he saw the faintest glimpse of something he had never expected to behold in all of his 800 years.

Natural, solar light.

The sun peeking its blazing face over the horizon.

Terror seized him like a vise, and the air rushed out of his body. Every instinct, every ounce of training he had received over the centuries, assailed him at once, demanding flight. Demanding that he flee to the shade.

He had to get out of the sun!

Summoning whatever strength he had left, Saber succumbed to pure hysteria, his mind a red haze of insanity.

Get out of the sun! Get out of the sun!

The light! The light!

The sounds that came from his throat were inhuman; the contortions of his body, as he bucked and pulled and twisted and turned in a feverish attempt to break his bonds, were desperately grotesque. His arms snapped like twigs, and the vertebrae in his spine popped like corn behind the effort, yet he still continued to struggle mightily, his frenzied psyche driving him over a ledge from which he would never return. The flesh on his feet grew bloodied and torn, as the appendages tore against the stones on the ground. As he tried in vain to run…

Run!

But the air wouldn’t move through his lungs!

His body wouldn’t budge—not even when he broke his wrists in an effort to free his hands from the manacles.

Saber could not escape.

As his world became nothing but a living, breathing ball of fire, scorching away even the last remnants of what had been his sanity, Saber Alexiares descended into a world of madness where the sun was the devil, and he was the greatest sinner on earth.

Napolean Mondragon watched in morbid fascination as the macabre scene played out before him. He had sentenced Dark Ones to die in the sun before, and the brutal taking of their bodies by the great ball of fire had never been a pleasant thing to witness, but this was beyond gruesome.

Beyond comprehension.

The male tied to the stake was suffering unlike any other he had ever seen, but not from the sun’s rays, and not because his wicked body, soul, and mind were burning.

He was suffering because
his flesh remained untouched.

Saber Alexiares was not burning in the sun!

And that simply wasn’t possible.

Napolean turned to Nachari Silivasi and the council of wizards who sat beside him on the ground, those with a front row seat to the execution. “What is this?” he demanded.

Niko Durciak shook his head. “Milord, he isn’t—”

“Burning?” Napolean clipped, his impatience getting the best of him.
By all that was holy, would somebody stop that screaming?
He had never seen the likes of it. “Why not?” he demanded.

Nachari Silivasi turned his attention inward and began to chant softly beneath his breath, trying desperately to divine what his sovereign lord requested. And then, in an abrupt halt, he raised his head and furrowed his brows. “I heard something, but I don’t know what it means.”

“You don’t know what
what
means?” Napolean asked calmly. He had to keep his composure despite the ghastly display persisting in the canyon.

“The word that comes to me is
Serpens
.”

“Serpents?” Napolean asked, seeking clarification. “Snakes?”

“No, milord,” Nachari answered. “Serpens. Like the Celestial deity of rebirth.”

Napolean spun around, trying to make sense of Nachari’s words. He stared at the spectacle taking place before him, his own heart now racing in his chest, while his mind processed what he had been told:
Serpens…the
Celestial deity of rebirth
.

All at once, understanding dawned, and the earth stood still around him. “Who has the keys to the manacles?” he shouted.

There was a moment of confusion as the warriors searched their pockets and coats. Finally, Ramsey Olaru stepped forward. “I have them, milord, but why…” His voice trailed off in disbelief. Clearly, he couldn’t even form the question because the meaning was so absurd:
Why would they release
the Dark One?

Napolean gestured toward the keys and met Ramsey’s stare head-on. “Get him down from there and take him out of the sun—before he kills himself with fright.”

“Milord?” Ramsey’s voice was harsh with disapproval.

“He isn’t from the house of Jaegar, and he isn’t going to burn,” Napolean explained.

Nachari’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “I don’t understand.”

Napolean blinked several times and slowly shook his head. “Somebody find Rafael and Lorna Dzuna; I believe this male is their son.”

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