Immortal Craving (Dark Dynasties) (6 page)

“So,” Lily said, “from what I understand about the Rakshasa, you must have come quite a long way to find me.”

There was the briefest flicker of hope across Tasmin’s face. “You have heard of my kind, then. Perhaps you know of others, scattered about this country?”

“No,” Lily replied slowly. “I’m sorry.”

The regret in her voice was genuine, Bay was certain. Still, Tasmin’s expression was stony again in an instant. What emotions that grim mask concealed, Bay had no idea.

“Oh,” was all he said.

“The prides are long gone,” Ty said. “Exterminated one by one. Most of the good went first. The worst lingered… but the Ptolemy got them all, in the end. One way or another.”

“I see,” Tasmin said. He sounded calm, but when his eyes met Bay’s for an instant, they were gold fire. She couldn’t imagine what he had been through, waking up after hundreds of years to discover he’d lost everything. The fury she saw in his gaze seemed fathomless.

She only hoped he pointed it in the right direction.

Ty sighed, running a hand through his shaggy crop of dark brown hair.

“I don’t feel like I should be the one telling you this. Most of your kind were gone by the time I was sired.”

“Most?”

“Yeah. I saw the end of it,” Ty replied. “It wasn’t pretty. It never is with Arsinöe… You must remember that.”

Tasmin looked as though he was fighting to keep his lip from curling.

“Yes. I remember. Emperor Akbar was infatuated with her, and she used him well to begin culling us in my time. Most of us sensed it would escalate. Arsinöe has always hated what she could not control, and our bloodline had far too much power with too little oversight for her to be comfortable with our existence. And of course… we were beasts to her.”

Ty simply nodded, looking lost in thought. Bay watched him, her heart aching a little for him as it always did when his many years as a Ptolemy slave came up. Arsinöe had a legendary disdain for any creature with an animal side, and couldn’t stand it when vampire animal shifters held positions of power. She’d kept the Cait Sith, Ty’s bloodline, as slaves, and she’d been determined to start a war with the bat-shifting Dracul. It didn’t surprise Bay to hear that the woman had been responsible for the genocide of Tasmin’s kind. Especially not considering the mark she’d seen on him—a large and feline paw.

“Akbar had a few willing prides who were paid handsomely to act as his weapons,” Tasmin continued. “But he never trusted them. Not really. The people said we were Brahma’s dark children. Some revered us. Most were terrified of us.” He shrugged. “It came to the same, in the end, I suppose.”

“You didn’t exactly help your cause,” Ty said. “Even when there were few of you left, in my time, the Rakshasa were famous for dirty tricks. Switching sides in the middle of battle, causing havoc just for the hell of it. Bunch of bloody anarchists. And once your kind started to push into Europe, all you had to do was look for the
most destructive forces at work and you’d find Rakshasa helping them along.”

Bay looked sharply at Ty, surprised by the ice in his voice. Tasmin was glaring at him.

“So,
bill
, you were happy to see us go, yes? Maybe you even hunted some of us yourself.”

Ty’s fangs flashed. “I may be just a
cat
to you, Tasmin, but my kind has more honor than yours ever gave us credit for. The Rakshasa didn’t deserve to be exterminated any more than the Cait Sith deserved to be enslaved. I knew good men who were killed just for bearing the Rakshasa mark. But I also saw some of my blood brothers and sisters, slaves with no choice of refusing to fight, who were driven mad, played with, tortured cruelly by Rakshasa before the end.” He shook his head. “I didn’t wish your people dead. But only a fool would forget what your bloodline was capable of.”

Bay’s stomach sank. Now she understood the look on Ty’s face when he realized she’d taken in a Rakshasa. There was history there. And like so much of vampire history, it was ugly.

Tasmin’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you mistake self-defense for torture.”

“No. There is self-defense. And then there is sadism.” Ty leaned forward. “Many of your kind crossed that line.”

“And many did not. Did you live among us? Do you know anything about the world in which I lived?” Tasmin didn’t bother to wait for Ty’s answer, slicing a hand through the air in curt dismissal. “No, you don’t. We were always scattered, always at cross-purposes. It was not in the nature of the prides to band together. The cruelty you speak of is no different than what any dynasty
of highbloods has done since the bloodlines began. The worst elements are always the most visible. The difference,” Tasmin said, his voice going deadly soft, “was the nature of our power. It made us a target. And now there is only me.”

“Yes. Only you, but with all the gifts of your line,” Ty agreed. “The prides may have been as different from one another as you claim… but I know what I saw. And I’ll withhold judgment until I get a better idea of who and what you were… and are.”

Tasmin winced as though his head ached, just as he’d done earlier, and Bay stood before she could think better of it. He glared up at her from where he sat pressing the fingers of one hand into his temple. She heard his voice loud and clear in her head.

Don’t. Say. Anything.

She stopped, feeling incredibly awkward as both Ty and Lily stared at her curiously. She scrambled for a way to save face.

“Um,” she said. “I’ll be right back. Anyone need anything while I’m up?”

Ty ignored her in favor of his staring contest with Tasmin, but Lily shook her head. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here. Bay understood, even if it stung. This wasn’t how their first get-together in weeks was supposed to go. And she wasn’t used to Ty, normally one of the least judgmental vampires she knew, coming down so hard on someone because of his mark. Obviously, he’d seen things that had caused that reaction… but that didn’t make it any more pleasant.

And Tasmin still didn’t look well.

Bay slipped quickly away to the hall bathroom. She
went to the sink, splashed cool water on her face. After drying her hands, she headed quickly back into the family room, hoping nothing irreparable had happened in the few minutes she’d been gone. Like, say, decapitation.

Fortunately, everyone had their heads attached when she stepped back into the room. Bay took up the same perch on the arm of her couch, unnerved by the thick silence. It seemed further words had been exchanged, since Lily gave her a pleading look. Bay got it. She was usually the go-to girl for chatter, the one who set everyone else at ease. She searched desperately for something to say that wouldn’t trigger a war.

“So you said prides,” Bay began. “As in, lions?”

It was a relief to see Tasmin’s eyes light with something other than anger.

“Lions,” he agreed. “And more. We were illusionists, able to spin dreams out of shadow, to bewitch minds with fantasy. A wonderful, terrible power.”

His voice was seduction itself, and Bay focused on him, managing to forget everyone else in the room.

“That sounds like magic,” she said.

“We all have magic, of a sort,” Tasmin replied. “It is no more and no less than what the Lilim have, or the Empusae, or the Grigori.”

“It is, though,” Lily said quietly. Bay turned her head to look at her, startled. Her friend looked pensive. Not entirely unhappy, but not happy either.

“What do you mean?” Tasmin asked.

“Mind control. Hallucination. I think that’s a much more potent weapon than being able to throw bolts of energy at people. I have a weapon I can fight with. Your weapon can make people forget the fight exists.”
Lily shook her head. “It’s a wonder you didn’t take over everything.”

“Some vampires are more susceptible to their tricks than others,” Ty interjected. “And some Rakshasa had stronger gifts than others. It’s true, though. If your kind had been set up differently, with a central power instead of scattered into prides that wanted little to do with one another, it might have turned out quite differently for you. For us all.”

Tasmin shrugged. “
If
does nothing for me. We were what we were. That’s gone.” His voice took on an edge. “I am hardly a threat to the dynasties on my own, whatever you think I am.”

“How long did you sleep, Tasmin?” Lily asked.

His answer was immediate, and without reservation. “More than four hundred years.”

Ty cursed softly. “Gods above and below, how is that even possible?”

“That’s what I want to know. How, and why,” Tasmin replied. “Just as I want to know what happened to my pride.”

“But you
do
know that,” Lily said, not unkindly. “I don’t see how the specifics matter. One way or another, it’s almost certain the Ptolemy killed them. It isn’t likely you’ll find anyone who knows more, except for the ones who did it. And I doubt they’d be very forthcoming if you or I asked.”

Tasmin gave a harsh sigh, slouching a little as though the topic had already exhausted him. “I just can’t help thinking we might all have been hidden away. It isn’t an impossibility.”

“It’s… unlikely. There were some who searched for survivors for years afterward,” Ty said. “Different reasons,
but always the same result. Arsinöe was thorough. She seemed to have left no survivors. Until you.”

Tasmin looked up, and Bay was startled by the weariness etched onto his face. It occurred to her that this might be the first time he’d spoken much about all of this since he’d awakened. Not for the first time today, she wondered exactly where he’d been, what he’d been doing since he’d awakened.

“I wish it were different,” Tasmin said. “Still, no one found me all this time. There may be more.”

“Maybe,” Lily agreed. “And that brings us back to what you came here for. You need a place to stay, I assume.” He bristled, but he didn’t have a very convincing denial.

“I have managed well enough on my own.”

“Well, if you’d like to be comfortable instead of just managing, I can offer you a place for the time being. What Lilim there are have mostly gotten their own places around town. And outside of it. And… well, that doesn’t matter right now,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Bay watched her, suddenly curious. Lily had mentioned that her dynasty was having growing pains more than once lately. Had she meant that literally? There did seem to be an awful lot of new faces around these days. Maybe the new vampires were hard to handle.

She wouldn’t know. The thought arrived on a surprising wave of sadness. Part of her hadn’t wanted to know too much about the Lilim’s inner workings. And part of her wished that Lily would need her enough to insist upon telling her these things anyway.

“A room,” Tasmin repeated, tilting his head slightly like a watchful cat. “And your help discovering what was done to me and my pride?”

Lily frowned. “I have to ask, why me? My dynasty is young, Tasmin. I never knew your kind. We’re still in a very precarious position, since Arsinöe hates us. I don’t have a lot to offer.”

Lily’s question seemed to surprise Tasmin. He leaned forward, eyes intense. “You have everything to offer, even if you don’t see it. I knew when I heard your dynasty had awakened that I had to come to you. Lilith was the mother. Your line was always the convergence point for all the bloodlines, and it’s becoming so again. I know you’ve allied with these Dracul I keep hearing about, and the Grigori, and the werewolves. It’s why Arsinöe hates you. This is the
only
place I could come and expect to find what I need.”

Lily considered him for a long moment. Finally, she spoke.

“I’ll do what I can to help you,” Lily said. “So long as you respect the fact that as long as you’re in the area you’re a guest of my dynasty, and myself. We’ve had enough trouble lately, and more always seems to be headed our way. Create trouble, and my hospitality will end.” She arched an eyebrow. “Badly.”

Ty seemed to want to argue, but to his credit, he held his tongue. Bay guessed, though, that the two of them would be having a heated discussion about Tasmin staying with them once they were alone. He didn’t try to run the dynasty, but he was no pushover, and Bay knew he had to have good reasons for his reservations.

For the first time since Lily and Ty’s arrival, Tasmin showed an emotion besides anger: relief. Bay could see it in the subtle relaxing of his shoulders, the release of tension in his jaw. He was wound so tightly, she thought,
wishing there were something more she could do to help with whatever burdens he carried. But as with most things anymore, her mortality made that impossible.

Tasmin needed the help of other vampires, not her.

“Thank you,” Tasmin said. “I have little to offer in return, but you will have my loyalty. If the Ptolemy hate you, then we should be allies for that simple fact alone.”

“Oh, they hate us a lot, believe me,” Lily replied, getting to her feet. The men rose quickly as well. Tasmin’s foot jostled Grimm’s head and elicited an irritated sigh from the vicinity of the floor.

Bay stayed perched where she was, feeling as awkward as she always did when she ended up in the middle of vampire formalities. Lily always looked so
regal
in these situations—chin up, shoulders back, wearing her position like an invisible cloak. Bay knew that Tasmin had been right—whatever she wanted to be called, Lily was indeed a queen. When they were alone together, it was different… Lily was still her
Ghost Hunters
viewing partner, her movie buddy and confidante. Her best friend.