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  From what he could garner from the aerial views—as well as a set of blueprints he had studied the night before—the Giovanni compound was nestled in a well-fortified valley, bookended by two lofty canyons and erected parallel to the Winding Mill Creek River, which flanked the entire property. Depending on the season, the gulch might be filled with flowing water or dry as a bone. Either way, the enormous family residence sat forward on the southwest corner of the property, almost abutting the road, and a massive white-brick building—hell, it was more like a modern castle, a fortress of sorts—sat farther back on the property in the distal northeast, about six or seven miles from the family home. The river ran behind both structures, a few acres back, and several well-worn roads snaked between the two prominent structures, the second one—the one that looked like a castle—surrounded by an ominous, ten-foot-high wall.

  There were also several outbuildings: perhaps huts, housing guards, or cottages for servants; maybe guest houses or supply stores…who knew. One way or another, it was a fortified complex, as opulent and luxurious as it was naturally defended. Natalia had grown up in the lap of luxury, but for all intents and purposes, she existed in a corrupt, gilded cage.

  Santos turned his attention to another set of images—screenshots of Natalia Giovanni’s personal calendar. Yep, he had managed to snap three good images of the female’s schedule before she had launched a counterattacking virus, one that he had managed to avoid just in the nick of time.

  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, she went to the gym. Apparently, she liked to swim, take Pilates, and jog around an indoor track. Tuesdays and Thursdays, she alternated between the salon—hair, nails, or massage—and some sort of outing: shopping, a lunch date, some charitable or public event. It was obvious at a glance that Natalia was Luca Giovanni’s public persona, like a mascot or a pet. He paraded her around like a pretty, prized pony for all the world to see, and he invested in her outward appearance—her looks, her body, her attire—like one might invest in stocks. No doubt, she was lucrative to his image, pivotal in selling Giovanni, Inc. as an upstanding and oh-so-attractive community-focused corporation.

  What a crock of shit.

  Question was: Did Natalia participate in the public circus with full knowledge of her father’s crimes? Was she a major player in the human-trafficking ring, or was she being used like all of Giovanni’s unfortunate girls? Just how long had Giovanni, Inc. been providing human women to the Dark Ones, most likely unknowingly, and how the hell did the lycans fit in? When the hell did Xavier Matista find out about the compound and the sex slaves—based on Zayda’s age, he’d known for at least twenty-one-years—and how was it that the two mortal enemies, the Lycanthrope and the Vampyr, had never crossed paths? The result would have been major bloodshed.

  Santos zeroed in on today’s date: Thursday, June 16th.

  Natalia would be at the salon: a two-hour, deep-tissue massage at 8:00 PM.

  Much later than her usual appointment, but the time would work.

  In fact, being that the sun generally set around 8:30, this early in summer, the timing would actually be optimal—it would provide the HOJ sentinel with the cover of darkness, providing a nocturnal creature’s playground. After all, the night belonged to the Vampyr…

  To Santos’ way of thinking, men like Luca often used legitimate commercial businesses to clean their dirty money, and a quick search of public records had confirmed what Santos suspected: Giovanni, Inc. owned both the Max Fitness Gym and the Serenity Salon & Spa. More than likely, anyone working at such a late hour was under Luca’s special employ, and that just meant Santos had to be careful. He needed to slip in undetected and scrub the female’s memories before he made his way back home.

  Easy peasy.

  Piece of cake.

  Humans were no match for vampires.

  Dismissing all concern, he turned his attention to the next string of items on his agenda: stopping by Saxson and Kiera’s cliffside estate, letting his brother know what was up—what Santos was into—and making sure Saxson brought Saber into the loop. The king had already given the sentinels the thumbs-up to investigate the compound to the fullest, and as for Keitaro Silivasi? Well, the Ancient Master Warrior wanted Blood Vengeance on Xavier Matista worse than Saxson did. Yes, Xavier had held Kiera hostage, given her to a band of nut-job vampire-hunters, and put Saxson’s destiny through pure, unadulterated hell—but Keitaro’s grievance was far more severe: The Alpha General of the Western District Pack in the Lycan world of Mhier was one cruel, brutal, son of a bitch, quite literally, and as one of the late King Thane’s inner circle, Xavier had reveled in torturing Keitaro in the slave camps for centuries before the Ancient Master Warrior’s sons had brought him home. If anyone was going to have the pleasure of ripping out the general’s throat, it was going to be Keitaro Silivasi.

  Rising from his languid repose on the divan, Santos headed inside the glass-and-steel house.

  First stop: Saxson’s estate.

  Second stop: Keitaro’s homestead.

  Third stop, later that evening, the Serenity Salon & Spa.

  It was time to meet Natalia Giovanni in person.

  Deep in the underbelly of the Dark Ones’ Colony, Oskar Vadovsky sat at the head of the council table and glared at the remaining subordinate council members: Milano Marandici, Demitri Zeclos, Sergei Gervasi, and Salvatore Nistor, the idiotic but invaluable sorcerer for the house of Jaegar.

  If one of these bastards questioned him again, he was going to lose his shit.

  Yes, he understood their concerns, and he had answered their incessant questions with undue patience. But at the end of the day, Oskar was the chairman of the council—no one else—and as leader, his word was inviolable. Hadn’t he proved that point, beyond question, just two short years ago when he had violated Salvatore on this very table, with all eyes watching? When he had removed Milano’s eye and Demitri’s right testicle as punishment for insubordination—hell, insurrection and treason—refusing to allow the powerful vampires to heal their wounds?

  He glanced at Milano, making note of the gruesome scar running from the lateral side of the male’s left temple to the corner of his insolent mouth, and he knew he had made his point. The fact that Salvatore could no longer look Oskar in the eyes for more than a fleeting second spoke volumes, in and of itself: Indeed, Oskar had made himself crystal clear to Salvatore as well. Vadovsky chuckled inwardly, eyeing Sergei Gervasi, who was sitting at the opposite end of the table. The male had no freakin’ idea that his father, the previous Council Chair, Stefano Gervasi, had been murdered by Sergei’s fellow council members.

  He had no idea that Milano, Demitri, and Salvatore had butchered Stefano like a lamb cornered in a slaughterhouse, in order to appeal to the Dark Lords for favor—that the trio had hoped to purchase victory against Napolean Mondragon, and the price had been Stefano’s blood.

  That shit hadn’t worked.

  But the guilt and the shame—such as it was—had compelled the threesome to decorate Sergei with his father’s honors and to install him on the Dark Ones’ Council. To this day, the lie remained: Stefano, in all his fury, had gone after Napolean himself, and the venerable Chief of Council had died in the ensuing one-to-one battle.

  Hogwash.

  This council was filled with mutinous traitors, which was why Oskar kept one Master at Arms to his left and another on his right; it was why two members of the Colony Guard remained outside the chamber doors.

  It was why Oskar was not about to take any shit from these bloodthirsty cocksuckers.

  The tips of his fingers began to glow as he punctuated his words with animated gestures. “For the last time,” he groaned, “I get it. Our own Nistor brothers, along with the house of Jadon’s Silivasi jackasses, more or less destroyed the ancient cavern, the secret chamber in the belly of the Red Canyons where we brought our human captives to birth our beloved sons…where we watched them die in agony and sacrificed our firstborn to the Blood. Yet we are still beholde
n to the Curse. I get it,” he reiterated with a guttural growl. “And Luca Giovanni has provided a valuable alternative; he has given us a convenient and easy substitution. We have always purchased his female slaves for our sacrifices—Nathaniel Silivasi’s stupid mate was wise enough to figure that out, for all the good it did her—but now, we do more than purchase the piteous, doomed females. We use Luca’s underground chamber, the basement beneath The Fortress, to carry out our sacrificial ceremonies, and the humans are none the wiser. A one-stop shop. Yes!” he thundered. “I get it.” He clasped his hands behind his back and continued, dropping his voice to a lethal purr. “So why fuck it up?”

  Milano leaned forward in his chair, his one good green eye practically glowing with anticipation…and hope.

  “Because Natalia Giovanni is simply exquisite. Her body is perfection; her face is a work of art; and her mind—her intelligence—is damn near flawless. Is there any other human woman worthy of bearing my offspring, bringing my firstborn son into this world? Is there any other host whose death would be more glorious; whose suffering would be more orgasmic; whose body I would rather desecrate and ravage?”

  The council chamber fell silent, and Demitri turned away.

  “Makes your ball itch, boy, doesn’t it?” Oskar chuckled. He knew Sergei wouldn’t catch the singular reference to only one gonad, but the other council members would, and it was worth the timely reminder. “Who is Luca to question me?” Oskar continued. “He may be a dangerous criminal; he may be a notorious thug; he may even be a human monster—but to me, to us, to the immortal Vampyr, he is a bug to be squashed beneath our feet. Luca will do as I bid him. He will believe whatever I tell him to believe. He will think the thoughts I give him and offer the gifts I demand from him. He will continue to provide his slaves and his fortress for as long as I see fit. Taking Natalia. Killing Natalia. Using Luca’s daughter to spawn my seed will not affect our arrangement, and frankly, I’ve grown tired of the discussion. No, I will not choose another woman. It is time for me to fulfill the demands of the Curse and secure my immortality.” Standing to his full six-feet, two-inch height and flexing all two hundred pounds of hard-steel muscle, Oskar brushed his long, twisted black-and-red locks behind his shoulder and glided backward in the slink of a panther. “Does anyone…have anything…else to say?” The pauses were laced with vitriol, and the words were drenched in sarcasm.

  Salvatore Nistor suppressed a smirk and cocked his brows upward, a gesture that accentuated his stark widow’s peak. “Your Excellence,” he drawled in a fake, arrogant tone, “your reasoning has assuaged our concerns. If you would like to go through the machinations of pursuing a human courtship…continuing to attend dinners you can’t even eat at the Giovannis’ compound…if you wish to continue dating Luca’s daughter in order to garner her father’s favor, as opposed to, oh, I don’t know”—he shrugged a haughty shoulder—“simply placing a compulsion in the bastard’s head, shagging the girl on the dining room table, and getting the whole sordid game over with, once and for all, then by all means, we support your need to play with your toys. We only ask that you keep us in the loop and let us know when the recreation grows tiresome.”

  Oskar licked his bottom lip.

  One of these days, he was going to kill that insolent bastard.

  He stepped forward and stared at the council table. “Shag the girl on top of the table?” he mocked. “Interesting suggestion—tabletops and sex.” He let the words linger for all but Sergei to consider. “Do you think she would enjoy that, Salvatore?”

  The ancient sorcerer gulped, his pupils shifting between black and red.

  Oskar licked his lips again, and on a private, telepathic bandwidth, he added, Did you enjoy it, vampire? The tabletop, that is?

  Salvatore’s long, urbane fingers curled into fists even as his expression hardened to stone.

  Oskar smiled amiably. He could be as fake as the next vampire. “For the record, it is my intention to compel Giovanni to continue our lucrative arrangement even after Natalia is gone. I would rather not have to control the minds, behaviors, and memories of all Giovanni’s henchmen, the entire fortress full of guards, his family, his business associates, and every other Tom, Dick, and Lackey that gets wind of Natalia’s death. However, I shall take Salvatore’s sage advice into consideration and let everyone know when I am finished…playing with my toy.” He swept his hand in a graceful yet demeaning arc. “Alas, I have lived a long time. Sometimes games are a welcome distraction. Does anyone else have something to add?”

  Demitri shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  Milano scratched his scarred temple.

  And Sergei glanced around the room, obviously clueless, like he had missed the first course of a delicious meal or failed to grasp the punch line of an inside joke…which, in truth, he had.

  “Very well,” Oskar intoned. “Now that Natalia Giovanni is no longer an issue, let us move to more important council business.”

  Chapter Four

  The original Silivasi Homestead

  Keitaro Silivasi sauntered languidly across the wide wraparound front porch, luxuriating in the mid-afternoon scent of juniper and pine as a balmy summer breeze flowed through the valley. In the past four months, he had managed to finish the new rustic portico which encircled the entire house; add two spare bedrooms to the existing master—one for his grandchildren so he could keep them overnight, and another for Zayda so she didn’t have to come near Keitaro’s Valencia canopy bed; the four large posts were far too reminiscent of stakes and chains to expect the girl to sleep in it—and he had finished the kitchen by necessity. Unlike Keitaro’s species, the Vampyr, a half-human, half-Lycan female did have to fuel her body with protein, fiber, fat, and carbohydrates.

  Human fare.

  Lycan fare.

  Zayda couldn’t exist on blood.

  While he was still working on the front sitting room and the foyer, he was pleased with the ever-expanding progress. To Keitaro’s way of thinking, the sitting room was welcoming enough with its floor-to-ceiling, smoothed-stone fireplace; a row of skylights that welcomed the morning sun—as well as the nocturnal moonlight—and the comfortable, overstuffed furniture that Zayda had taken to like a cat to a cozy basket. He arched to stretch his back and considered Zayda’s progress: She was quiet, like a mouse, incredibly withdrawn and wholly reserved, and she no longer acted feral. She didn’t swipe at his face, try to destroy the furniture, hurl construction objects across the wide-planked floors, or scream at the top of her lungs for no apparent reason.

  And she no longer reached for his groin—thank the celestial gods and goddesses.

  Over the past five or six weeks, she had dropped the X-rated lingo, quit trying to seduce him, and she was no longer overtly sexual. More or less, she had ceased her constant weeping and trembling. In short, Keitaro had managed to gain her trust—well, some trust…a little trust. Zayda was still wary at best, but she no longer expected him to violate her, and she no longer sought to appease his base masculine appetites, assuming as she had before that all males were driven by their primal, carnal longings, however sick or twisted.

  He blinked several times, and a low, nearly inaudible growl escaped his throat.

  It was abhorrent what the female had been through.

  Nachari had been correct—she had been born into sexual slavery, and she had been traded her entire life, like so much garbage, beginning at an age that made Keitaro want to murder an entire village. But at least she had not been sold for torture…

  Until Xavier…

  And lords knew the bastard had made up for missing time.

  He had abused the hell out of his own flesh and blood—his biological daughter—though he likely had no idea who she was when he bought her.

  Strolling to the edge of the deck, Keitaro surveyed his property, admiring the acres upon acres of wild land and appreciating all the varied, rough-hewn boulders, the towering pines, and the swaying aspens. He regarded the numerous bushels of w
ildflowers and scattered pine cones, the randomly placed native shrubs and grasses that dotted the ancient homestead, and he zeroed in with absolute precision, one by one, on all the Lycan wards, the wolf traps that surrounded the homestead like a field of land mines.

  Sooner or later, Xavier would come.

  That is, if the general had any balls.

  And just in case he didn’t, the vampires were doing their best to egg him on.

  Week after week, Keitaro and Nachari left cryptic notes at the lavish Swingle penthouse, sometimes taped to the door, sometimes shoved beneath it, sometimes attached to a rock that just happened to fly through an expensive window. Xavier may have already vacated the premises, but if any lycan visited the building…even once…his wolf would catch the scent: Zayda’s blood, strained and diluted with Xavier’s DNA accentuated by a Master Wizard, enhanced via Nachari’s magic.

  The missives stank like the werewolf.

  They had Xavier’s fingerprints all over them.

  Vampires—one and all—whoever finds this missive; salutations from the land of Mhier! I trust you have found my pet. Please feel free to use her (she’s like a wildcat: hungry, savage, and oh so responsive). Don’t bother to track me all over this city; I’ve returned to my world, beyond the portal.

  But do not fret; we’ll meet again…

  When you least fucking expect it!

  General Matista

  That was the missive Xavier had left.

  Canines, lykos, loup-garou—but especially Xavier Matista—salutations from Dark Moon Vale!

  We welcome you to the valley: any day, any time of your choosing…

  We hope you have the courage to see your threats through.