Lucas ducked as a fourteen-point stag head flew at his face, and Klemens attacked from where he knelt, wielding his power just like the club Lucas had imagined. It beat against Lucas’s shields from all sides, pounding until Lucas could hear the concussion of air against his shields, a deep resonance like the clapper on a huge bell. And Lucas stood in the middle of it all.
He contracted his shields tightly around himself, making them more secure, even as it drew the blows from Klemens’s attack closer to his physical body. But that didn’t matter. As long as his shields held, even an inch of protection was enough. From within the cocoon of his power, Lucas studied his enemy. Klemens was bleeding from everywhere, blood pooling around him where he knelt, his flesh hanging in gory strips that mingled with the shreds of his clothing. Lucas changed his attack, no longer wielding a many-barbed whip, but a whippet-thin rapier instead. A sharp needle of power aimed directly at Klemens’s heart.
He thrust it outward, felt it penetrate Klemens’s shields, felt the vampire lord’s shock as it pierced his flesh and burrowed into his heart. Lucas’s lips curved into a bare smile of victory as he flicked the rapier once, cleaving Klemens’s heart in mid-beat, slicing it in two as it staggered within his chest.
Klemens howled and dropped his shields, scrabbling at his bloody chest, desperately trying to gather the dregs of his power, to heal the unhealable. Lucas was all but certain Klemens would not succeed, but he didn’t take any chances. He slashed at the unprotected vampire lord, carving into his flesh and bones until his heart finally surrendered the fight. Klemens died, his final scream of denial echoing in the night long after his body had turned to dust.
Lucas had the space of a heartbeat to savor his victory, a mingling of relief and triumph as he reached out to his vampires, touching each one, affirming their link, reassuring them that their master still lived, still held their lives securely in his power. Then the world collapsed, and he fell to his knees, overwhelmed by the weight of Klemens’s subjects, the thousands of vampires suddenly cast adrift by their master’s death, crying out in fear and desperation, searching for someone to hold them together, to keep their hearts beating, their walls secure against enemies.
Lucas bowed beneath their demands, his back bent nearly to the floor as he struggled to impose order, to hold onto his own people and still protect those who had belonged to Klemens. Raphael had warned him of this when they’d first discussed the need to confront the Chicago vampire lord. When Lucas had insisted he had no desire to rule the MidwesternTerritory along with his own.
Lucas was Vampire, and all that it meant. He was aggressive, territorial, possessive and downright feral when forced into it. But as Raphael had observed with some despair on more than one occasion, Lucas was at heart a cheerful soul, a playboy who enjoyed life more than conquest.
So, Raphael had schooled Lucas on how to take Klemens’s people under his wing, how to shuffle them safely aside, holding their lives securely until a new lord arose in the aftermath. The territory would be thrown open to all comers. Dominance battles would be fought, and some contenders would die, but eventually a new lord would emerge, and Lucas would be rid of this extra burden.
Lucas sucked in a long breath as the voices died down at last, the drain on his strength diminishing until it was no more than an irritating scrape against his nerves.
“Sire?”
Lucas looked up into Nicholas’s concerned face. “We did it, Nick. Ding dong, the bastard’s dead.”
Nick laughed and offered his Sire a hand up. Lucas took it gratefully. He trusted Nick, and he was exhausted. “Any problems I don’t know about?”
“None, my lord. Klemens’s people were wholly unprepared. Several tried to sneak out through a basement window, though whether their intent was to run away or defend their Sire, I don’t know. In any event, Kathryn gave us warning and kept them pinned down until we got there.”
“I heard the shots. Is she—”
“Uninjured, my lord. I’ve asked her to remain up there until we clear the house.”
Lucas gave his lieutenant a quizzical look. There was no reason for Kathryn to remain on watch, and no danger for her here in the house. Nicholas knew this as well as he did.
“I have people searching the house for survivors . . . or victims,” Nick admitted. “I agree with you that her brother was likely never here, but—”
“She won’t believe it until she sees for herself,” Lucas said, as understanding dawned. “Right. Okay, get some of our daylight guards here as soon as possible. I want this house secured for at least the next few days. After that—” He shrugged. “I’ve no desire to live here, but I suppose the next lord might.”
“Will we have to stay here until the new lord is figured out?”
“Hell, no.”
Nicholas grimaced in agreement. “I’ve already put in the call to Minneapolis HQ. Daylight security will be on station before dawn. Shall I radio Kathryn and tell her—”
“Lucas!” Kathryn’s voice wafted up the staircase.
“Too late,” Lucas said.
Kathryn had scrambled to put away her gear and get over to Klemens’s house next door. Or rather, what used to be Klemens’s house. Nick had radioed to let her know they were cleaning up and to assure her that Lucas and everyone else had survived the battle. He’d asked her to remain where she was, in case anyone tried to make a break for it. She’d done as he asked until she’d spotted several of Lucas’s vampires hanging around in the yard, slapping each other on the back in victory. She suspected Nick was trying to keep her away from the house for some reason, and that reason could only have one name. Daniel.
Her heart had wanted her to race over there to see what they’d found, but her brain had insisted she make sure there was no trace of her presence left in this house before she left. So she’d sacrificed the few minutes it took to put the furniture back where she’d found it and tossed the two heavy sand bags out the window. She watched where they landed so she could pick them up later, rather than lug them down the stairs. She then closed the window and drew the curtains halfway, just as they’d been when she arrived. She took a final look around the small bedroom, grabbed the rifle case and raced downstairs and out the back door, locking it behind her, making a mental note that someone would have to come by later and set the alarm.
Kathryn deposited her rifle case in the cargo compartment of one of the SUVs idling just outside Klemens’s house. The trucks had been pulled through the gates and now stood near the front porch. There was no one around, so she walked into the house via the gaping doorway and stood for a moment, listening. The lower level of the house was mostly unlit, but there was enough moonlight that she could see silhouettes of furniture to either side of where she stood. The hallway to the right had a dim light shining out of it, and she could hear a low rumble that made her think there was an emergency generator somewhere, probably the kitchens. In front of her was a wide staircase that went straight up to a second floor mezzanine that fed into closed hallways on either side.
“Lucas!” she called and started up. Lucas appeared on the mezzanine before she’d climbed more than a few stairs.
“Don’t come up,” he called down. “I’ll come to you.”
Kathryn studied him as he descended the stairs, moving with his usual lethal grace, and something more. He looked . . . victorious. It was hard to describe. He was as gorgeous as ever, his black hair attractively mussed, his big body encased in black leather, hazel eyes glittering with gold. But, then, it wasn’t so much his physical appearance that was different. It was an air about him, as if he were surrounded by an invisible nimbus of power.
He came even with her. “Do I look that bad?” he half-joked, glancing down at himself.
“No,” she said quickly. “Just different somehow.”
“Somehow,” he agreed with irritating vagueness.
“Klemens?” she asked.
“Dusted, along with most of his cohorts.”
Kathryn stared up at him. She hadn’t counted, but there’d been a lot of vampires coming out of that basement window, and in a house this size, probably more that she’d never seen. They were people, just like Lucas and Nick and the others. And just like that they were dead and . . . dusted. She’d seen what happened when a vampire died.
“Kathryn?”
“Yeah. Is this . . . usual? I mean, how often do you guys fight each other to the death?”
“Don’t worry, Agent Hunter. It doesn’t happen that often, and it doesn’t concern you anyway. We choose our path within vampire society, and none of those who died here had to be fighters. They could have been shop owners, lawyers, plumbers, whatever they wanted, and been perfectly safe from all of this. It’s like your own military. It’s all volunteer.”
“That doesn’t make it any less of a loss when they die,” Kathryn snapped back at him.
“No, it doesn’t,” Lucas countered tightly. “And there are those, myself included, who will mourn the unnecessary death of every one of these vampires. But my responsibility is to the living, to all of those vampires Klemens held in his power, vampires who would have died in an instant if I hadn’t stepped up to protect them. So I don’t need your judgment, thank you.”
“Lucas.” She grabbed his arm when he would have gone past her down the stairs. “I didn’t mean that.”
He stopped a step below her and met her gaze, their eyes even. “No, I don’t suppose you did. It’s late, Kathryn. It’s been a long night, and I won’t sleep in this house. We’re going back to the St. Paul condo. Are you coming?”
“What about Daniel?” she asked urgently.
Lucas sighed, and she heard the exhaustion in that simple breath. “Your brother isn’t here,” he said patiently. “My vampires have searched every foot of this grotesque house. There is no one alive within these walls, other than my own people. And there are no fresh graves, either,” he added, before she could voice that horrible possibility. It was cruel of him to say it, but she couldn’t deny she’d had the same thought.