Dark Embrace (Principatus) (3 page)

Ezryn bit into the apple again, enjoying the incensed impatience on his twin’s face as he chewed the mouthful without hurry. “And when did I start following your orders, Harry?”

The overlord’s wife gasped again, her lush breasts almost spilling over the top of her red latex corset. Ezryn gave her an indifferent glance before wiping at his lips with the back of his hand. “What are you doing here, Haral? I can’t imagine Australia was your first choice for a honeymoon, especially during the summer. The sun doesn’t set here until nine most nights.” He finished the apple, savoring its succulent sweetness before dropping the core into the closest carafe of blood. It broke the still, red surface with a satisfying plop, the sound like a gunshot in the cavernous room. “In fact,” he went on, arching an eyebrow, “I can’t see any reason for you to have left your compound at all.”

The overlord flared his nostrils, a pathetic attempt to look intimidating. “I wanted you to meet Chantise.” He flicked his bride a quick look. “And she wanted to meet you.”

Ezryn chuckled, the sound low and almost a growl. Of course she would. She would want to see for herself the fabled son groomed to be the ruler of the vampire race, destined to be the next leader of them all—before the oracle, the vampire race’s high priest, had changed everything. He gave his new sister-in-law a slow inspection and bent slightly at the waist. “Your ladyship.”

The woman’s gaze raked him from head to toe, her eyes aglow with the taint of a recent feed. She touched her tongue to the tip of her right fang, tracing her fingertips over the swell of her breasts. “Ezryn.”

Ezryn suppressed a disgusted grunt. The woman was well-suited to his brother—he could see the covetous hunger in her blood-drunk eyes, the smug conceit in the tilt of her chin. He turned back to Haral, eager to be done with the perverse family reunion. “What do you want, Harry? I thought I made it clear the last time we spoke that I never wanted to see you again. In fact, I moved to the other side of the world to make sure that’s exactly what would happen.”

The overlord straightened his spine, his eyes igniting with cold rage. The last time the two brothers had faced each other—over fifty years ago—the vampire lord had threatened to have Ezryn marked as a traitor to his kind. The last time they’d stood in the same room, Ezryn had come very, very close to destroying the vampire lord. Close enough for Harry to sweat blood. A lot of blood.

“I am your
lord
,” Haral snapped. The muscles in his face quivered and his yellow eyes dilated. “I can speak to you and call upon you whenever I wish.”

Ezryn barked out a harsh laugh, the sound like cracking ice. “I have no lord.”

Haral stamped his foot, his human face distorting into a demonic mask. “As the supreme ruler of our people, I hereby command you to a task.”

Ezryn narrowed his eyes. “Go to hell, Harry.”

“Not before you, Ezryn.”

With a low growl, Ezryn sprang forward, crossing the distance to Haral in a blurring leap. Clamping one hand around his twin brother’s neck, he yanked Haral’s feet off the floor. “You destroyed any right you had to command me,
brother
, when you invoked the power of the blood trial.”

Haral scratched at Ezryn’s hand, his eyes bulging. “And yet…” he rasped, “…the blood trial named
me
overlord. Not…” he bucked in Ezryn’s hold, “…you.”

Ezryn tightened his grip, the mention of the ancient ritual filling him with cold contempt. Since birth, he’d been groomed to take over from his father as the next leader of the vampire race. For six hundred and fifty years, he’d known little except that as the first son of the First Family, born but a mere five minutes before his twin, he was destined to be the next overlord. He’d been educated to lead a race on the verge of imploding. Too many of their number had grown disillusioned with the old ways, the violent use of humans as a food source, an equal number disgusted with the progressive notion humans weren’t just cattle. He’d been ready to restore harmony where only conflict existed. Ready to take his place as overlord. And then his father had been killed, staked by an emo demon-slayer wannabe with acne on his cheeks.

The day after the overlord’s death, the day before Ezryn was to ascend to the position of his birthright, Haral had invoked the blood trial, an ancient and barbaric ceremony designed to reveal the
true
overlord’s identity. And on the whispered words of the human virgin sacrificed for the trial—a young woman known as the oracle’s voice throughout the proceedings—the course of history had changed.

Ezryn stared into his brother’s eyes. “Just what do you want me to do…
lord
?”

Haral flashed his fangs, his Adam’s apple jerking under Ezryn’s palm. “My wife’s cousin was slain by a Principatus. I want
you
to destroy her.”

Ezryn clenched his jaw, a cold fist of disquiet in his chest. “A Principatus?”

What Haral commanded was insanity. To destroy a divine assassin in self-defense was one thing—the Powers would not retaliate against such a death. If a Principatus could not survive a fair fight with their foe, than the Powers seemed to wipe Their divine, righteous hands of Their failed assassin. But to destroy one in an act of revenge? That was to start a war beyond all comprehension. A war that would bring about the mass destruction of vampire and Principatus alike.

The Principatus were no easy kill. Once demons themselves, they were selected by the Highest of Powers for reasons unknown, granted a soul and
reborn
then and there as assassins of all things unholy and paranormal. Whether vampire, shifter or hell-spawn, if a being threatened the divine status quo, chances were the Powers would mark it for assassination and send a Principatus to carry out the kill. A Principatus’s rebirth gave them immeasurable powers and knowledge of their target. Few of those targeted escaped to brag of the battle. Still, the divine assassins could be beaten. If you were strong. And ready to face ultimate death yourself.

Releasing his hold on Haral’s throat, Ezryn took a step back, noting the feverish light in his brother’s eyes. There was more to this than Haral would have him believe. “Why do you want me to do this? Are you not capable of the task yourself?” He flicked his gaze over his twin’s soft, round body, remembering a time when it was almost a carbon copy of his own. “Are you having performance problems, Harry?
Tsk, tsk
. At your young age too.”

The overlord drew himself straighter, his incensed stare fixed on Ezryn. “I charged you with a task, Master Navarr. If you do not obey your lord, you will see yourself punished by our laws.”

“Punished? Laws?” Ezryn raised his eyebrows, struggling to control the growing fury seeping through his veins. His twin always had been a pompous pain in the ass. Now it seemed his position of power had finally gone to his empty head. “Any laws worthy of respect you perverted on ascension, Harry. As for punishment, remember who you’re talking to. Every vampire on earth knows who the
true
overlord is. Do you really think your punishment would be dealt?”

His brother snarled at him, demon face glowering with contempt and hatred. “Yes, of course, the
true
overlord. Born first by a mere contraction of our mother’s womb. And yet that simple order was proved false, wasn’t it? By the blood trial itself, the doctor who named you first born was proved a liar and executed. Thanks to ritual, the rightful son finally claimed his rightful title.” He paused, his smile smug. “I always knew I was better than you, Ezryn. It just took the words of a semi-catatonic virgin to prove it to the rest of our race.”

With a silent hiss, Ezryn grabbed Haral’s throat again, sinking his fingers into his brother’s fleshy neck before Haral could stop him. Cold contempt laced through the anger simmering inside him. The blood trial. Even the words made him sick.

The blood trial had not been invoked for over two thousand years. Why would it have been? It was an ancient ritual from a superstitious, barbaric past before common sense prevailed and the position of overlord became decided by birthright. Two master vampires would feed on a human virgin selected for her purity and spiritual nature to be the “voice” of the oracle. Almost draining her of her blood, they would let her linger in the void between expiration and transformation until she was a heartbeat away from death. When her pulse began to fade, when her lips began to turn ashen and her body began to convulse, each vampire would open their own vein and let a single drop of their undead blood fall onto her tongue. The vampire whose name she uttered into the waiting oracle’s ear, seconds before he claimed her virginity, was pronounced overlord.

It disgusted Ezryn, going against everything he believed in about the vampire/human relationship.

That Haral had invoked the blood trial the day after their father’s death had shocked everyone. As had the name the dying virgin had whispered. No one had expected the young woman to whisper Haral’s name. No one except Ezryn. He knew what his brother lusted for most of all. What Haral had
always
lusted for—the position and power of overlord, supreme ruler of their kind.

A mere week after their father’s end, Ezryn discovered his brother had been fucking the oracle. Unfortunately, he’d had no way of proving the forbidden relationship. Ezryn also knew his father’s advisors had been unhappy with Ezryn’s approaching ascension. His father, a two-thousand-year-old vampire less interested in ruling his people and more interested in sticking his prick in anything wearing a skirt, had been a ruler they could manipulate, control. Ezryn, on the other hand, had proved difficult to dominate and influence in his grooming for the position of overlord. More than once he’d made it clear he would not be a puppet to their political machinations, refusing to destroy vampires accused of vague, unsubstantiated crimes, questioning dubious requests his father would automatically approve, seeking answers to questions few in court wanted asked.

To this day, Ezryn had to admit he’d underestimated his brother. Haral had played all the pieces to perfection. The dying virgin had allegedly whispered Haral’s name in the oracle’s ear, and the advisors to the position of overlord had supported and enforced that proclamation. Ezryn was denied the title he’d been groomed for a mere twenty-four hours before his ascension. But blood trial or no, Ezryn would not kowtow to his brother. Especially when he didn’t believe what the virgin had proclaimed.

He drew Haral closer to him, his anger a cold fist in his chest. “Tell me, brother mine, supreme and oh-so-revered leader of our illustrious race, after the oracle finished raping the human virgin to her death, did he wipe his pus-weeping dick clean before sinking it into your ass?”

Haral hissed, tiny beads of saliva splattering his bottom lip. “I charge you with a task, Ezryn Navarr,” he snarled. “And for every night you choose not to obey my command, I will slaughter one vampire who chose to rebel against my ascension.”

Ezryn’s cold blood turned to fire. “You wouldn’t dare. I accepted that ridiculous proclamation to save bloodshed.”

His brother sneered, wrapping his fingers around Ezryn’s wrist. “Try me, Ezzie.”

The nickname stabbed into Ezryn’s chest. They had always despised each other, from the moment Haral learned of his lower position in the family. One son born to be lord, one son born to be subservient. One groomed for the duty, the other hungering for it with every molecule in his body. Ezryn bared his fangs, releasing his grip on Haral’s throat and stepping away from him. “That we come from the same blood disgusts me.”

Smoothing his hands over the crumpled collar of his shirt, Haral smiled, the action both smug and perverted. “As it does me,
brother
. So tell me, will you have your loyal followers’ destruction on your conscience? Will they drown in blood and burn in sunlight? Or will you do as your lord commands?”

Ezryn thought of the hundreds of vampires who had adamantly and vocally refused Haral’s ascension. Vampires who had moved beyond the savagery of their race long ago. Vampires who continued to have faith in him, even when he stepped aside. Who bemoaned his move to Australia and begged him to lead a rebellion. He remembered Kristoph, his tutor and advisor in the royal court for close to four centuries. The ancient vampire had been one of only two to discover Haral’s relationship with the oracle. Kristoph had spoken at length to the court, petitioning them not to appoint Haral, but his pleas had fallen on deaf ears. Or scared ones. The mass slaughter of those immediately loyal to Ezryn had begun with Kristoph. Only Ezryn’s departure from Europe had halted the
cleansing
. Harry, of course, denounced his followers’ actions. He spoke verbosely and grandly of peace and coexistence but did little to stop the executions. Fifty years later, and the fury in Ezryn’s chest had not lessened one iota.

He stared at his brother. The disquiet in his chest grew colder. Tighter. What he was about to agree to do was insanity, but he had no choice. There was always a solution to lunacy—even if the solution was lunacy itself. “Where do I find this Principatus you’re so willing to see dead you will condemn hundreds?”

His overlord grinned at him, fangs glistening in the candlelight, eyes shining with cold triumph. “Why, in Australia, Ezzie. In the very city you now call home.”

“What do you mean, kill a
Principatus
? Is he insane?”

Jacob Ford, Ezryn’s closest friend and Sydney’s most successful nightclub owner, frowned, the glass of malt whiskey in his hand forgotten. He stared at Ezryn, his dark brown eyes troubled, his jaw clenched.