If not for Dominic, he would probably be in Malkolm’s straits. For the hundredth time, he cursed himself for siring the mayor and angering his uncle and thought again about ways he could rectify the situation. He opened the trunk as a seabird flew overhead, shattering the quiet with its screech.

His skills lay in ending life, not creating it. He should have stuck to what he knew. After putting the container away, he closed the trunk and got in the car. Destroying the child he’d sired would be difficult, but nothing was as difficult as the reason he’d come to Paradise City in the first place.

He felt for the bottle of pills in his coat pocket before he started the car. He didn’t have the alchemist skills of his uncle, but he’d learned enough over the years and Dominic’s laboratory was a storehouse of supplies. What he’d put together should do the trick. All he had to do was convince Hector, which shouldn’t take much. The comar would still be servicing fringe females at Seven if Luciano hadn’t brought him in to supply the mayor with blood after her turning. He drove toward Lola’s house. Starting tonight, he would begin to make things right, because there was no way he was going to ruin his chances of staying here.

Tatiana’s new comar, Aaron, staggered from the room. She’d drunk from him until the ashen hint of death had tinged his blood, taking all he had to offer and then some. Daciana raised a concerned brow, but said nothing. Tatiana tipped her head against the back of her office chair and stared at the ceiling as her heart began to beat. “I know I took—” She gasped as the power of Aaron’s blood gripped her. Icy hot pain coursed through her body. She tensed, bowing up off the chair with the sensation, teeth clenched, muscles contracted. Another gasp and it began to mellow into pleasure. A soft mew of contentment left her mouth. “Amazing. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this good.”

She pulled herself upright, almost panting with the life inside her. “I started to say I know I took more than I should have. I won’t do it again. I just needed to renew myself.” Heat suffused her being. “And judging by the power rushing through me, I have.”

“You feel well, then? Enough to call the ancients?” Lines of apprehension snared Daciana’s mouth.

“Yes, but you needn’t be here. I know they are unsettling.” Daci had done so much for her, there was no reason to put her in harm’s way unnecessarily.

“No, I want to be here. I am your Elder.” Daci stood a little straighter. “It’s my duty to be at your side.”

“Fair warning, then.”

“I know what the ancients are like.” Daci nodded. “Call him. I’m ready if you are.”

Tatiana moved out from behind the desk to stand in the office’s open space. Every fiber of her being thrummed with energy. If there was ever a time to call the ancients, this was it. She lifted her hands and called him by name. “Samael, my lord, my maker, please grant me your presence.”

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She teetered toward disappointment, expecting him to ignore her again.

Then shadows began to form, leaking out from the corners of her office. They coalesced into a dark, spiraling storm in the room’s center. Lightning flashed over the whirling mass, shattering the blackness with bursts of heat and fire. The musty sourness of brimstone and unwashed flesh rose to an almost unbearable level. With a final crack of thunder, the storm split to reveal Samael in all his squalid resplendence. He wore his usual skirt of undulating shadows, the faces and hands of his victims visible as they failed to escape him over and over. From the waist up, his naked body was the burnished red of a flayed carcass left to dry in the sun.

But unlike the previous times he’d come to her, he was not alone. Another figure stood behind him, this one completely cloaked in shadows so that Tatiana was unable to determine anything except that the second being was closer to her size. A secondary Castus, perhaps? There were legions of them, but Samael was the only one she’d met face to face. The idea of what might lay in store for her with two of them made her stomach turn.

She immediately dropped her gaze and bowed, as overjoyed that he’d come to her as she was terrified. Time spent with him in the past had rarely been pain free. “My liege, thank you for coming to me.”

“I know why you’ve called me,” he growled.

To her side, Daciana was almost prone to the floor she was so low. Tatiana kept her head down but her gaze locked onto the razor-edged hooves visible beneath his shadowy covering. Respect was one thing; carelessness was another. She knew enough to stay quiet and let him speak, so she just nodded.

“You want to know about the child.” A distant, eerie laugh followed his words. The second Castus?

“Yes, my lord.” She lifted her chin a bit, her gaze still averted. As best she could tell, the figure behind him hadn’t moved.

“Tell her,” a high, feminine voice whispered. Definitely not Daci, as it carried traces of power unlike anything Tatiana had heard. Goose bumps rose on her arms.

Her gut reaction was to look up and see who’d spoken. When she did, she found herself staring at Samael. He’d gone oddly still and his eyes were slanted downward as if he was listening to the creature behind him.

Curiosity swept Tatiana like a wildfire. “Please, my liege. I promise I am fit to raise her now. My enemies are behind me. No harm will come to her. I swear it. I need Lilith back. I need—”

More laughter.

Samael regained his stern countenance. “You don’t know what you ask.”




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