Gerrod had met a human named Abigail, who had relieved him forever of his blood starvation.
Sweet Goddess of Life, the woman standing alone at the bar, with vampires moving away from her on either side of her, was a goddamn blood rose.
His stomach cramped hard in anticipation of taking from her.
She must have registered his desire because she lifted her hand and pressed it against her neck as though trying to hold her vein steady. He could feel her blood singing for him, a soft vibration that forced another cramp through his stomach.
She shook her head and he could see she was bewildered. She had no idea what she was or why he, and every other vampire in the place, leered at her.
He knew the crowd was still there, waiting on him. The moment he’d entered the club, the owner had cut the music. Yet for a long, terrible moment all he could do was stare.
The woman was tall. He liked that. Shapely. Nice br**sts. She wore her thick black hair straight and to the shoulders with a slight upward curve at the ends. Her eyes were the lightest blue he’d ever seen, almost unearthly. She wore jeans and a short-sleeved purple blouse, nothing fancy or even welcoming. He could smell her sex, though, her desire for him; she couldn’t disguise what she felt, what she was experiencing.
Sweet Goddess, a blood rose in Shreveport, right next door to the Bergisson plane.
He walked toward her but only because he couldn’t seem to help himself even though he could see from the way she wrinkled her nose that she wasn’t exactly happy about what was happening.
Well, he wasn’t either.
Maybe Mastyr Gerrod of Merhaine had found bliss with his blood rose, but Ethan wasn’t interested in this kind of liaison. He’d watched Gerrod become possessive and lose himself in the woman, the last thing he wanted to do with any woman, human or otherwise, yet still he moved toward her.
“What’s your name?” he called out.
She glanced around, growing more uncomfortable by the second. Everyone in the place stared at them both. He was used to that kind of attention; being in charge of an entire realm did that to a man, but she looked ready to run away.
Then she got mad. He saw it in the glint in her eye as she lifted her chin. “Samantha Favreau. And you’re Mastyr Ethan.”
“I am.”
“What do you want here?”
“What do I want?” His voice boomed once more. He glared at her now, angry that her body offered what he was unwilling to take, yet something he hungered for.
He was about to force himself to turn on his heel and leave her the hell alone, when he saw something in her eye, not just a flash of anger, but this time a flash he’d often seen in the eyes of powerful fae women as they slipped into a vision.
Holy f**k, the woman wasn’t just human, she was part fae.
And he’d bet his last Goddess be-damned farthing that she didn’t know, or hadn’t known until this very second, that she carried realm-blood in her human veins.
*** *** ***
Samantha reached to either side of her and grabbed hold of the bar, anchoring herself. She didn’t understand the sensations that now poured over her, a strange vibration accompanied by images that began commanding her mind.
An entire scene came to life as though she was watching a movie, the colors rich and vivid. An event was taking place at night, a kind of fair, she supposed, with tables laden with food, trinkets, musical instruments, stuffed animals, the usual kind of carnival-ware.
At one end of a wide, playing field, lively, round canvas tents lined the grounds. They were painted with all kinds of pictures, some of woodland settings, some of animals, some of children playing games.
The vision caused her to pan to the right and over to a distant hillside, up which a beech-wood climbed to the top. But the trees grew red with what looked like fire at first, but couldn’t have been since the foliage didn’t catch and burn.
No, the red seemed to be a kind of wind and then she remembered from her studies that when the enemy attacked, the wraith-pairs called the Invictus, a kind of red aura would appear, followed by the fighting pairs.
As though she stood in the middle of everything, Guardsmen suddenly flew past her in their strange levitated-flight, some high in the air, others just a foot above the ground, Mastyr Ethan in the lead. On they raced in the direction of the hill, the trees, and the red wind.
The vision took her with Ethan, something that made sense since his appearance in front of her at the prave had set the strange vision off in the first place.
She watched the men, maybe fifty of them altogether, join in battle though she stayed back, yet found herself levitating high in the air. Her gaze was drawn to whatever place Ethan seemed to be as he moved up and down the line.
Pairs of strange beings, joined in some mystical, powerful way, appeared in the red wind. Jolts, like an electrical force, moved from the pairs to each individual Guardsman. A light show emerged of red and blue sparks and streams of energy, from one side to the other, back and forth.
Daggers and other weapons emerged as well, thrown, sometimes connecting. At intervals, Guardsmen rushed the pairs and brought them down screaming.
The Invictus.
She knew what made up the battling pairs: a wraith and some other enslaved realm-folk. She’d even heard that sometimes humans could engage in the same way, which made her shudder. Other than being bitten by a vampire, she couldn’t think of a worse fate.
The vision suddenly tunneled down to Ethan. She could sense him faltering as he called out for Finn, his second-in-command. She could feel their bond, that they’d been brother-warriors for decades.
Finn took charge as Ethan fell to the ground.
She hovered over him now, within the body of the vision. She felt how weak he was and that it had to do with a lack of blood. Mary had told her about the mastyr vampires, those men of stature in the world of the Nine Realms who served as leaders. Something about their natural power used up donated blood at light-speed so that they constantly needed their supplies replenished but were never really satisfied.
Yes, another shudder.
She drew closer and felt herself moved to offer up her vein, because she could feel that he was close to death. Once more, her heart pounded and she touched her neck.
“He’s dying. By the Goddess, we need help here. Mastyr Ethan is dying!” Finn’s panicked voice rose above the sounds of the battle.
In the vision, Ethan’s eyes closed. His skin paled out. Somehow, from deep within her mind, she heard him call to her, Help me, Samantha. Only you can save me. You’re a blood rose and you can help me.
Samantha struggled to leave the confines of the vision, but Ethan was so desperate. She felt, she knew, she held his life in her hands because she was something called ‘a blood rose’.