The Dark Bond

I gripped the steering wheel of my 1967 Beetle while Liv sobbed in the seat next to me. I had just told her that Sterling was killed and that I’d found his head in a box at Riverfront Park. Now I was following a black stretch limousine which carried Prince Luka and his betrothed into Vampire City.

“It’s my fault.” Liv wiped her tears on the back of her hand. “It was my idea to involve him.”

We’d all grown up together. Sterling was like a brother to Liv. This was a pain that would take a while to heal. I was too numb to feel anything right now. I still had to tell her that we had no money and weren’t entirely human. But now didn’t seem like the best time for that.

“No, Liv. We both made the decision to tell Sterling, and he made his own choices too.”

Maybe that wasn’t totally truthful, but it was the only thing getting me through this drive.

“That poisonous bitch!” Liv screamed suddenly. “I loved her!”

Maz.

The numbness fled my body, quickly replaced with a pulse of anger so strong I thought I might snap the steering wheel right off.

“We all loved her,” I growled. “Believed in her.” I wanted to turn this car right around and drive back to the society so that I could take her head clean off.

Liv chewed on her lip. “I mean, are we sure it was her…?”

I sighed. I guess now was as good a time as any. Reaching into the back seat, I retrieved the manilla envelope Sterling had sent me and handed it to her.

“Start with his letter to me,” I told her.

She frowned, taking the papers out and finding the handwritten letter. Small gasps came from her mouth one after the other and she reached out to squeeze my leg in support. “Our money is gone?” she asked.

“Yes. I checked,” was all I said.

She lifted off the letter and went through the papers. My heart jackknifed in my chest. I should have said something, I should have maybe just verbally told her, but I was too much of a coward. Or maybe I wanted her to find out the same way I did, so I could see what conclusions she came to. So that I could make sure I wasn’t crazy, that I hadn’t jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Gasp after gasp tore from her throat until finally her hand covered her mouth. “I feel sick.”

My heart shattered. Watching someone you love go through a pain and shock you couldn’t take from them, it cut deep. Soul deep.

“Yeah … I had a similar reaction.”

“We’re not … fully human? We were bought like slaves?” There was disbelief in her voice as she pulled back and looked at her hands as if expecting to see fey magical powers come out of them.

I just nodded, comforted that we’d come to the same conclusions.

“And Maz signed off on it!” she growled, her fists clenching.

I knew there was nothing I could say, so I stayed quiet over the next hour as she ranged between venting and screaming. Finally, she just leaned her head against the glass in a numb catatonic state.

Liv. My sweet sister, best friend. I wanted to console her, but I was in the same depressed and disbelieving state, so all I could do was be there as we both processed this new reality together.

We’d already crossed the border into Idaho, and now made our way past Coeur d’Alene and up the US-95 toward Bonners Ferry.

When the limo pulled off at an unmarked exit, I followed. I hadn’t really paid attention the last time I’d been in Magic City. I’d been flown in under sedation and Sage and Walsh had driven me out in a barely conscious state. Now that I was paying attention, I saw that there was a weird shimmer to the air on the far right, like a dome or bubble. We turned off the main road and onto a dirt road in the direction of the shimmering tree line. After a long winding road through the thick forest, we came upon a giant wrought iron gate.

There was a man sitting there, on a chair in the middle of nowhere, reading a book. He looked human, but now I wondered. As Luka’s limo approached, the man put down his book and stepped over to peer inside their car. I looked at the man more closely, the way he walked, the paleness to his skin.

Vampire.

I had that involuntary inward cringe and then chastised myself. It would take a while before the mental conditioning I’d been exposed to all my life wore down. He was a vampire, yes, but that didn’t mean he was evil.

The limo pulled through the gates and then he waved us inside as well without so much as a second glance. Luka must have told him he needed his feeder.

That bastard. “I can’t believe he’s engaged and didn’t tell me.”

Liv shrugged. “Who cares … unless.” She spun on me. “You totally like him!”

I winced. “I mean, he’s charming and sexy, so yeah he got to me for a hot minute, but I’m over him.”

She grinned. “He got to you how?”

“Shut up.”

“You kissed him!” She pointed an accusing finger at me. “Holy crap, you kissed a bloodsucker.”

I rolled my eyes, my cheeks heating up at the memory. “One kiss. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Liv stared at the rolling green hills and thick trees as a city in the distance grew larger. “Does this mean we don’t have to stay virgins?” she queried.

I chuckled. “I don’t know. I still think it would be nice to wait until my wedding night. Save it for the guy I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.” She had a point though … I think what made me the maddest was that Maz used God to control us. My relationship with the creator was an important thing to me. Praying brought me comfort, helping others gave me joy, vanquishing evil in God’s name was my purpose. But Maz distorted all that with the Hunter Scriptures, handpicked verses from the Bible that proved our cause was to hunt the demons of this earth.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12

Maz had built an entire religion on that one line in the bible … a book that was supposed to be read in its entirety and not cherry picked to fit her narrative.

I am such an idiot, I thought.

I’d never even read the entire Bible, but I knew the Hunter Scriptures by heart. Shame burned deep inside of me as I warred with my own spiritual collapse and what this meant for my beliefs.

“Holy crap,” Liv breathed. “Is that Vampire City?”

Tossing my inner turmoil aside, I followed her gaze. “Whoa.”

I hadn’t expected it to be so … old. It was beautiful, but didn’t feel like it should be in the middle of Northern Idaho. Gothic spires shot up from the tops of stone cathedrals. Smaller buildings dotted the landscape, but at the very top of the hill there was a giant castle with a stone wall surrounding it. Outside the wall sat many other stone outbuildings, all with the same Old World European look.

There were no farmlands, just rolling green hills and trees, and then I remembered vampires didn’t need food, they drank only blood. A small village off to the east had some more modern looking houses and I wondered if that’s where they kept their feeders. We passed through a village but there weren’t many people out and about. Cute, old English-looking cottages dotted the village roadside. It was odd to see a brand-new Mercedes parked along an old cobblestone road. Vampire City reminded me of Rome—not that I’d ever been, but I’d seen pictures of it.

We reached another set of gates at the high stone wall surrounding the castle. They let Luka’s limousine through, but this time had me roll down the window to speak with someone.

“Hello, Miss Rose. Luka has requested that you and your sister be brought to his guest quarters on his estate while he attends a meeting.”

I just nodded. I was too tired to care about anything right now. A man dressed in a suit, who resembled some type of butler, suddenly appeared before us in a black golf cart and waved for me to follow.

I pulled through and the giant white stone castle rose up to an incredible height as I drove around the back of it to a smaller house. There was a stone sign in front that said Drake Guest Cottage II.

I shivered. That Drake name was synonymous with murder, rape, and all things evil. I had a hard time believing that Luka was from such a wicked family.

The butler dude pulled into a little space in front of the cottage and I parked to the side of him. After getting out and grabbing our duffle bags, Liv and I walked across the simple yet beautiful garden and into the open front door of the small home. All vestiges of Old World vibes were gone the moment we entered the home. Dry wall had been put up over the stone and there were granite counters, flat screen TV’s and all the modern comforts you could ask for. The furniture was plush and comfortable in creams and grays.

The butler stepped inside and turned to face us, bowing deeply.

He wasn’t a vampire, that much was clear. From the tips of his pointy ears I would suspect he was fey or at least part. Now that I knew that was a thing…

“Good afternoon, ladies, my name is Gunner and I will be at your service during your stay here.”

We both waved at him awkwardly.

He gestured to the flat screen TV. “On your TV, you will find an app called Home Assistant, from which you can order food, house cleaning, medical and emergency assistance. You can even call me directly.” He held out his phone. “Anything you want, I will bring to you.”

Whoa. Okay, that might be cool.

“Burger King?” Liv raised an eyebrow.

He nodded. “There is one in Coeur d’Alene. I can have it for you within thirty minutes.”

Liv grinned. “I’ll take a bacon whopper with cheese and onion rings.”

He tapped something on his phone and looked at me expectantly. “And for you, miss?”

Okay … I could definitely get used to this. “The same. Thanks.”

“Shoot wait, we don’t have any money,” I added. It was going to take some time for it to settle in that I was suddenly broke.

Gunner looked nonplussed. “Everything is paid for by the crown. You’re feeders to a prince. It’s a very important job.”