Eternal Seduction (27 page)

He caught Raze’s wandering eyes. Unfortunately, her honesty only brought another problem to the already difficult situation. “If you witness Craig or one of his followers kill a vessel during feeding, in a situation which doesn’t rend the Veil, will you be able to stay your hand?”

She held his probing gaze. “I don’t know, Kerestyan. I honestly don’t know. If it were anyone but them, I know in my heart I could. To be as dramatic as possible, I feel the urge to rain down righteous fire damn near every time I see them. But, thus far, I’ve refrained. I promised you I’d only cull those who upset the balance or were hideously violent. And, as much as I hate to admit, these ten vampires are punks, who couldn’t upset the balance of the eight million humans in your city if they tried.”

“Then I think you should keep your distance for a time. Have your team keep an eye on Craig and his pack. If they commit any action that breaches the Veil, contact me immediately.” He stood up and rolled his shoulders. “I hold court in nine days. I’ll address the treatment of the humans and my displeasure at learning there are those among my residents who’ve been abusive in their dealings. If all goes well, Craig will make a fool of himself during the meeting and in return find his brethren rather unsympathetic to his cause. Perhaps when those Fledglings who do hold power in the city turn their backs on him and his group, they’ll end up with no where safe to sleep and seek their fortune elsewhere.”

Raze chuckled and flashed an evil smile. “You’re such an iron fisted tyrant. How do you live with yourself?”

Kerestyan laughed. There was only room for one tyrant in his family. “I’ll agree to strict and sometimes unyielding, but I’m no tyrant. I have one rule, and if the Fledglings can’t abide by something as simple as the Veil, their life is forfeit. I refuse to allow my very existence to be put in jeopardy because an ill begotten child can’t clean up after themselves.”

She patted the blade still resting across her thighs. “I’m with you. I just don’t discriminate based on age. I’m equal opportunity.”

He smiled down at her. “If you need me, I’ll be at my home or the Estate. I’ll also make sure I have my phone with me since I know how much you adore speaking via telepathy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah. It makes me wet just thinking about it.” She smiled then blew him a kiss. “By the way, I hope everything works out for you and Logan. Leech or not, you do a damn fine job of keeping this city running smooth. You deserve to go home to someone who makes you happy.”

“Thank you, Raze.”

When she waved, Kerestyan returned the gesture then closed his eyes. He concentrated on his penthouse, but as the cold winds began to swirl, he found himself wondering if maybe there wasn’t a shred of truth to Raze’s paranoid words. What if his Father did know more about Logan’s situation than he let on?

What if she was just another piece on the immortal chessboard?

Day 4 of Servio Training

Nelek Castle

Logan shrieked like a five year old who’d angered a swarm of killer bees as Trinity chased her across the polished wood floor of the training room. She didn’t care if she sounded like a schoolyard sissy. The bitch had been trying to punch her for the last five minutes, and under no circumstances did she think becoming one with Superwhore’s fist was pertinent to her survival as a
Servio
.

“Logan!” Trinity’s exasperated voice echoed through the expansive room, bouncing off the plain white walls. “Stop running. You need to learn how to fight. You can’t live in New York City without knowing how to defend yourself.”

Logan glanced up at the wall of mirrors across from her, only to see Trinity gaining on her. “Bullshit! I’ve lived there all my life and I never got attacked. Not even by another homeless person. This is crap. I didn’t sign on for getting my ass kicked.”

“Fine. I promise I won’t punch you. Just stop running.”

She slowed when Trinity’s reflection stopped pursuing her, but turned around and kept moving backwards. “Something tells me not to trust you.”

Trinity rolled her black eyes. “If I really wanted to catch you, I’d call on my blood for speed and mow your ass down. You’re four days old. Do you really think you can get the drop on me?” She didn’t leave time for an answer. “Besides, there’s a very important reason why I need to hit you.”

Logan huffed out a breath and picked up the pace. “Didn’t you just promise you weren’t going to hit me?”

She flashed a wicked smile. “Oh, I’ll keep my promise. I promise.”

Before Logan could even reconcile the flash of black leather and tanned skin, pain exploded in her stomach and she found herself with a perfectly unblemished view of the ceiling. She squeezed her eyes closed and rolled onto her side, clutching her white cotton t-shirt to her abdomen.

It was a damn good thing she hadn’t eaten dinner.

“I promised I wouldn’t punch you,” Trinity laughed somewhere close by. “I never said I wouldn’t kick you.”

“You’re a bitch,” Logan groaned. She should have known to listen to Trinity’s exact words. They’d spent the last three days discussing vampire society and politics, and how the words a vampire or
Servio
chose could mean the difference between great success on an endeavor and abysmal failure.

She’d had no idea vampires were such ruthless, selfish, backstabbing bastards. The meanest, most corrupt CEO in the world didn’t have shit on a well-trained vampire. And the sharpest lawyer in New York couldn’t find as many loopholes in a set of rules as one motivated member of the undead race. The sheer amount of power a single vampire could wield over an entire city was startling.

If anything, she’d fallen asleep last night rather content in her choice to give up drugs and learn about what really went on around her all those nights she’d spent on the street.

Logan grimaced as another wave of nausea washed over her. Of course, right now she didn’t really appreciate the knowledge.

She sat up and opened her eyes for no reason other than to glare at Trinity. “What the hell did you kick me for?”

Trinity frowned. “Because we’re at the point where I need to teach you about the beast, and usually the best way to get the little monster riled is through inflicting pain. But it doesn’t seem to work on you.”

“Nope,” Logan coughed. “It just hurts and makes me want to puke.”

Trinity extended a manicured hand. “Come on, get up you sissy.”

Logan knocked her hand away and crawled to her feet on her own. “If you’d asked before you decided to obliterate my spleen, I’d have told you Odin and Kerestyan already explained a little bit about the beast to me.”

She chuckled. “Well, if anyone would know, it’d be them. What all did they say?”

Logan rubbed a hand over her upset stomach. “Odin said it’s the predatory side of a vampire that craves blood, power, and loves watching humans do things they shouldn’t. Kerestyan said the beast is pure instinct and only knows emotion.”

Trinity nodded. “That pretty much sums it up. It’s different for every vampire, and even more so for
Servios
. Your beast will never be as pronounced as mine, but it lives in the blood, and since you have vampiric blood in your body you get to have one, too.”

“You make it sound like it’s a present.”

She laughed. “The beast isn’t bad.” She tipped her head from side to side. “Well, it’s not all bad. If a vampire gets too much stimulation, be it from extreme emotions or injury, or sometimes even blood, the beast takes over and they attack and try to eat everyone around them. The younger a vampire is, the harder it is for them to control the beast, but the older a vampire is the more destruction they can cause.

“
Servios
are the same, it just takes a lot more provocation to get their monster riled. Oh, and anytime you hear a supernatural say monster, animal, predator, goblin, or pretty much any word like that, they’re referring to the beast.”

Logan smiled as the image of a little green goblin flashed in her mind. She could almost see it ripping out of her chest like some kind of alien and chasing people down the street with a Spork. “I think I’ll call it the goblin.” When Trinity frowned, Logan rolled her eyes. She’d seen that particular look a lot over the last three days, too. “I know, I know.” She raised her hands in mock surrender. “This is another serious piece of information and I need to treat it that way. I got it.”

“Good. I know your detached ass finds some of this funny, and it’s okay, as long as you understand this life isn’t always fun and games. I know Odin and I make it seem that way, but we’ve adapted really well to the modern world. Not all vampires and
Servios
have.” She motioned around them. “Some of us get stuck in a time period we really liked and refuse to let go. I love my Dad, I really do, but he’s a prime example of someone who won’t take well to your humor about parts of our condition that have literally toppled entire empires.”

Logan stared at her. She couldn’t be serious. “Toppled empires?”

She nodded rather sharply. “Ancient history, and not the kind you read about in a schoolbook some human wrote, but the kind I was there to see with my own eyes…is chock full of disasters caused by a vampire who lost themselves to the beast. Rome fell at the hands of an Ancient Warrior, which is the old term for a Thug, who went to sleep for two hundred years then woke up and got so pissed about how the city had changed in his absence, he flipped his lid and destroyed it. You don’t even wanna know how many humans died under his fangs.”

Logan lowered her eyes and studied where the black fabric of her running pants covered the top of her tennis shoe. For the first time since her training had begun, she felt kind of small and a little stupid. “Sorry.”

“Don’t feel bad. I just want to make sure you understand, much like your life on the street, immortality isn’t all roses. I’ve practically stuffed you full of information over the last few days, and you’ve done a really good job absorbing it all, even when you’re laughing so hard water shoots out your nose.”

Logan shook her head and smiled. “It wasn’t my fault you decided to use the phrase ‘testosterone driven penile fever’ to explain why Kerestyan’s body is cold one minute and hot the next. If you’d just said some of his human body functions kick back in when he’s aroused, the water would’ve never gotten into a position where it could shoot out my nostrils.”

“Hey, you asked,” Trinity laughed. “I just wanted to make sure you had a clear understanding of what was going on. Like I said, any vampire worth their salt can will their heart to beat and make their body warm back up to 98.6. Doing so uses a lot of the blood’s power, but it’s a great way to keep the Veil intact. Look at it this way, if you make Kerestyan so hot that the beast does it for him, he can just grab your ass whenever he needs to have a heartbeat and save himself the blood.”

Logan turned her back to Trinity when heat flamed in her cheeks. While she wasn’t at all ashamed of anything she’d done with Kerestyan, being teased about their exploits was still new for her. Hell, having someone to do those kinds of dirty things with, let alone someone around her long enough to tease her about them, was strange in its own right.

“Oh my God! Are you blushing? I didn’t think it was possible!”

“Shut up, Trinity.”

“Come on, Logan. Don’t close up on me,” her voice was more serious now. “There’s nothing wrong with missing Kerestyan. I know it’s foreign to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. If we’re lucky, it happens to the best of us.”

Logan slowly turned around. “I don’t like it. It feels wrong, like it’s not me.” She folded her arms over her chest as an odd sensation tingled through her. “I feel like there’s some other person inside me, and I don’t know who she is or what the hell she wants from me. I can’t figure it out.”

“Stop trying.” Trinity offered a reassuring smile. “You’re immortal now. You have all the time in the world to learn about who you really are. Nine times out of ten, over the next few months, you’re gonna learn a lot of things about yourself you didn’t know before. Believe it or not, that’s one of the good sides of the beast.” She tapped her stomach with a flattened hand. “Your goblin will let you know what’s good for you. You just have to decide if you listen.”

The clatter of heavy footsteps and rhythmic clicking filled the air as Logan opened her mouth to respond. She snapped it shut and watched as Syn burst through the doorway leading back to the main hall with Odin hot on his heels.

“Syn! Get your ass back here!”

She nearly fell over as the wolf skidded to halt next to her then pushed between her legs as if he were a horse. He pinned his ears back as Odin approached, displaying every sharp tooth he owned as a menacing growl vibrated against her legs.

She glared at Odin. “What did you do to him?”

Odin looked absolutely appalled. “I didn’t do shit. I was trying to keep him out of the training room since I knew Trin was doing some combat with you, but the bastard won’t listen.” He pointed down at Syn. “I’m telling Kerestyan you’re being difficult. And I swear to Christ, the next time you boost a bone from Dad’s chair, I’m gonna let him skin you.”

Syn snapped his massive jaws together and growled again.

Logan couldn’t help but laugh. Odin could paint the greatest picture with just a few crude words. So vivid and so damn funny, she was sure if he wasn’t such an asshole they might actually get along.

Might.

She reached down and scratched Syn’s head. “Don’t worry, Syn. I won’t let the Greek God of War hurt you.”

“Norse!” Odin boomed. He stabbed a finger in her direction. “I told you, Greek’s are pussies.”

“Hey!” Trinity yelled. “I’m Greek.”

He smiled at her, but there wasn’t a shred of sincerity anywhere to be found. “Sorry. But I’m right and you know it. All those columns everywhere, it’s like they were compensating for what wasn’t in their pants.” He clapped his hands together. “So what are we learning about? Do I need to take the mangy mutt elsewhere?”

Trinity rolled her eyes. “It’s not even worth arguing with you.” She shook her head in the same manner Logan often did when faced with Odin. “Logan and I were discussing the beast.”