Styx shuddered. It was hard to remember that the Dark Lord had been resurrected into the body of a young female. “That I believe. You, however, I don’t.” He pointed his sword toward the center of the vampire’s chest. “Hand over your medallion.”
“This?” Gaius covered the heavy metal necklace with his hand, a faint smile curving his lips. “It’s nothing but a trinket.”
“You truly must think I’m stupid.”
Gaius pretended to ponder his answer. “To be honest, I haven’t given it a lot of thought one way or another.”
Styx wasn’t amused. “Even if I didn’t sense its power, I have seen Nefri’s. It’s remarkably similar.”
Something flashed through the man’s dark eyes even as he took a step backward, his fingers clutching the medallion. “So, the frigid bitch has left the Veil,” he growled. “Astonishing.”
Styx allowed his power to fill the room, even as he debated the wisdom of attacking the vampire to get his hands on the medallion. He was fairly certain he could overpower the vampire, but he couldn’t stop him from disappearing before he could get his hands on him. For now, it seemed his only hope was to provoke him in the hopes he could discover what game he was playing.
“You will show respect to your clan chief.” He allowed his power to shove the vampire against the silver-lined wall. “She offered you sanctuary when you were at your most vulnerable and you repaid her trust with betrayal.”
Gaius cursed, struggling away from the wall as he glared at Styx. “I had no choice.”
Styx rolled his eyes. He’d heard the same excuse used thousands upon thousands of times over the centuries. Hell, there’d been once or twice he’d used it himself. And it was always a cop-out.
“Try again.”
Genuine anger tightened Gaius’s expression. “It’s so easy to be noble when you have your mate safely tucked in your bed.” Gaius tilted his chin, his gaze defiant. “But tell me, Anasso, how far would you go to keep her there? Is any betrayal too great to have her back in your arms?”
Chapter 15
Styx shut out the accusing words. He couldn’t afford to feel sympathy for the traitor. Not when the future of the world hung in the balance.
“None of us can comprehend the loss you suffered, but Dara was not the only one to depend upon you,” he said, trying to stir the vampire’s ancient loyalties. Just perhaps it wasn’t too late to remind the once honorable clan chief of his sense of duty.
“My clan was better off without me.”
“And what about your son?”
Gaius stiffened, his eyes dark with a vast sense of loss. The sort of loss that destroyed a man.
“Santiago?”
“So you haven’t completely forgotten about him.”
“Of course not.” Gaius clutched the medallion so tightly his knuckles turned white. “He is my child. He will always be my child.”
Styx didn’t have to fake his contempt. Not when he’d personally witnessed what had happened to Santiago after Gaius’s abrupt departure behind the Veil.
“A father doesn’t abandon his child.”
Gaius frowned, visibly disturbed by the memory of leaving behind the child he’d sired. “I couldn’t allow him to be tainted by my bargain with the Dark Lord.”
“So instead you allowed him to become a slave to one of the most vicious vampires it has ever been my misfortune to meet?” Styx rasped, recalling Santiago’s broken and bleeding body he’d found in the fighting pits beneath Barcelona. “He made him into a Gladiator. Santiago was forced to fight every night in the blood pits just to stay alive.”
“I suppose you slayed his dragon and became his hero?” Gaius attempted to mock.
“Would you rather I had discarded him like you did?”
Gaius flinched, his gaze shifting away from Styx’s accusing expression. “No.”
Styx lowered his sword, but he wasn’t foolish enough to approach the skittish vampire. “Gaius, it’s not too late to redeem yourself,” he urged.
Gaius shuddered. “It’s later than you can even imagine.”
On cue, the door behind Styx was shoved open and a female with short, spiky strands of red hair and black eyes rushed into the cell. Laylah, the Jinn mongrel and mother to Maluhia.
“The baby’s gone,” she announced, her face white with a combination of shock and fear.
God dammit.
He’d known that Gaius was merely a distraction.
“How?” Styx didn’t bother with platitudes. People didn’t come to him for comfort. They came to him for results.
“I don’t know.” Laylah struggled to contain her panic. “I was holding Maluhia in my arms when he was suddenly snatched away. He”—she gave a helpless lift of her hands—“disappeared.”
“Magic?”
“I don’t think so.” Laylah shook her head, turning to reach out a hand to the male vampire with Polynesian features and a dark mohawk who rushed into the room.
Behind Tane was another vampire, this one a slender female with long dark hair and tilted blue eyes.
“I could feel the hands as they grabbed Maluhia,” Laylah continued, her voice breaking. “And I’m certain something stirred the air when I raced through the door.”
Tane tucked his mate tight against him, his expression warning that when he got his hands on the evil bastard who had taken his son, he was going to rip them limb from limb. Then he was going to stitch them back together and do it again.
“The kidnapper was invisible?” he demanded.
There was a minute of silence as they all pondered the strange turn of events.
Then, Jaelyn growled low in her throat. “Kostas,” she said.
Laylah sent the one-time Hunter a puzzled frown. “How can you know?”
Jaelyn shuddered. She had never fully revealed what had happened to her in the hands of the Addonexus, and in particular Kostas, but what little Styx had discovered had been enough for him to make a clean sweep. He wouldn’t have his people terrorized by tyrants.
“There’s no one else who is capable of cloaking themselves so deeply in shadows,” Jaelyn pointed out, her gaze turning toward Styx. “And he’s been crazed with the need for revenge since you removed him as Ruah.”
Shadows.
Styx felt the urge to ram his thick head into the wall.
“Beware the shadows,” he snarled. “Dammit, we were warned and I still failed.”
“No, the failure was mine,” Laylah said softly, her voice filled with such heartbreak that it filled the air with sorrow.
“We will get him back, Laylah,” Styx said, his gaze shifting to Tane. “I swear.”
“It’s too late, Anasso,” a voice said from behind him. “Concede defeat and bow to the Dark Lord.”
With a snarl, Styx spun on his heel and prowled toward the forgotten Gaius, delighted as hell to have something to stab with his big-ass sword. It was obvious the vampire had deliberately distracted them to give Kostas the opportunity to steal the child.
Now he would pay the price.
“Never.”
Gaius smiled with unmistakable bitterness. “Then die.”
His words were still hanging in the air when he abruptly vanished from the cell.
“Shit.” Coming to a halt, Styx lifted his eyes toward the ceiling. “Could this day get any worse?”
“Don’t tempt fate,” Tane muttered.
Leashing his fury, Styx forced himself to concentrate on the best means of tracking Maluhia. Then, turning back to his companions, he took command.
“Jaelyn, see if you can pick up the bastard’s track.”
The Hunter gave a swift nod. “Of course.”
“I’m going with her,” Laylah abruptly announced.
Styx frowned. The half-Jinn was powerful, but no one was certain if she was truly immortal.
“Laylah.”
The hint of lightning prickled through the air. “I’m going.”
“Fine.” He glanced toward the silent vampire at her side. “I suppose you intend to go as well?”
There was no compromise in the eyes the precise shade of honey. “Yes.”
“Take Jagr,” Styx said, reluctantly realizing his place was here, organizing additional search parties to look for the babe. “He’s the best tracker we have.”
“We’ll also need the gargoyle,” Jaelyn startled them all by announcing.
“Levet?” Styx scowled. The tiny demon was a walking disaster.
“He can see through illusions,” Jaelyn said.
Tane’s growl trickled through the room. “Then why didn’t he sense Kostas when he entered the lair?”
The Hunter shrugged. “I think he has to be searching for the illusion to actually see it.”
Styx rolled his eyes. It was a sad day when the damned gargoyle was their best hope for halting the end of the world. “Fine, take him.”
“What about Gaius?” Jagr demanded from the doorway.