Rise of Blood (The Vampire Crown Book 2) Read online

  Rise of Blood

  The Vampire Crown: Book 2

  C.J. Castle

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Untitled

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Untitled

  Prologue

  Just Outside Rome, 1813

  She strode down the street, her heels clicking against the cobblestone streets, and her head held high. They called this place the Eternal City, but for the life of her, Katerina couldn’t imagine why. Rome was not eternal, not in any way that impressed her, at least. She remembered when this city, with its tall buildings and penchant for art and religion, was nothing more than a row of forests. She remembered the days before Italy itself had been created, forged by lines that had been decreed into existence by men of power.

  Men of power were stupid, though. These mortals with their puny minds and inadequate imaginations knew nothing of what it truly meant to be eternal. She would teach them one day, she decided. She would take this world by the throat and drain it of every drop of blood. She would rebuild it. She would sire it anew, in her image, to lines that she decreed into existence.

  That day was not today, though. There was much work to be done before Katerina could truly step into her glory. That work started at a small drinking establishment, as it were. This meager brick building with swinging doors and a row in which to tie up horses outside was where all of it would start. She had walked to the small farming town that sat outside of the city, a cove tucked away just outside of the hustle and bustle of the city. This is where her true destiny would start. She couldn’t believe her luck.

  She was early, perhaps too early, but she didn’t want to keep him waiting. The Shadow was a man of means, that is, if you believed he was a man at all. There were stories that claimed he was more than man, vampire, witch or anything in between. These stories claimed he came from somewhere else, a spawn of who or whatever was responsible for creating the earth itself. Katerina didn’t believe those stories, per say. She was old enough to know that most fables were built around lies a person might tell about himself. Still, the Shadow was one of the only creatures on this planet who was actually older than her, and as such, he held that mystery over her head.

  Brushing that truth aside like the inconvenient gnat it was, Katerina took a deep and mostly useless breath before she pushed into the den of inequity and prepared herself to meet the man who she had heard stories about since before people even knew how to tell them.

  She fancied herself as early, though not too much so that it might breed desperation. Still, as she stepped through the doors, she knew the Shadow had been here for at least a while already.

  Bodies covered the floor, laying on their backs and looking up at the ceiling with eyes that would never see anything again. She hadn’t smelled the bodies from outside, which was strange. Usually, Katerina could smell blood from a mile away. As she took the scene in, she realized with sickening clarity just why she hadn’t caught the scent before.

  “There’s not a drop left, is there?” she asked, mostly to herself as she didn’t see a moving thing in the entirety of the place. This was insane. The idea that any vampire, even one with all the bravado that surrounded the Shadow would be able to drain the blood of this many people so thoroughly that there wasn’t even a drop left to smell was an act of almost mythical proportions.

  “Waste not, want not,” a voice, deep and intense, said from the other side of the room. Katerina’s head jerked to the left just in time to catch the back-door opening. Coming through it, strode a tall man with jet black hair and green eyes that looked like shining emeralds set against storm clouds. He smiled, and even on his lips, was not a single trace of the meal he’d just had. In fact, the only telltale sign on the man walking toward her now, a man she knew without any doubt was the Shadow, was the smug and satisfied look on his face.

  Katerina tried not to tremble. He was a force, indeed. She could tell as much just from the look of him. She steadied herself. She was no wilting flower. She had lived through the Dark Ages. She had slogged her way through plague ravaged villages and come out smelling of roses. She was a force herself, and the Shadow would be made aware of that fact.

  “There is something to be said for discretion,” she answered, offering her hand for him to take, to kiss, as was the custom of the time. “This sort of carnage will only serve to breed questions.”

  “Questions from who, my dear?” the Shadow asked, taking Katerina’s gloved hand and bringing it toward him. He kissed her, though he did so on the bare skin of her wrist. The contact sent shivers through the woman, and she couldn’t tell whether they came from fear, awe, or something even more carnal. “A search of this village will show you that nothing lives in it anymore.”

  “What?” Katerina asked, her eyes narrowing and her throat tightening. “You’ve killed the entire village?”

  “You asked for a private place to meet,” the Shadow reminded her, quoting a letter Katerina hadn’t even been sure would reach the enigmatic man’s hands before she received word to come here last week. “I can think of nothing more private than a city that now exists only for the two of us.”

  “How many?” Katerina asked, kicking aside one of the many bodies that littered the floor and walking away from the man.

  “How many people?” the Shadow asked, tilting his head to the side. “Does it matter?”

  “When I tell the story, I’d like to be accurate,” Katerina said. “It seems unfair not to credit you with your full worth.”

  “I have no interest in credit given to me by lesser men,” the Shadow said. “And, the way I see it, all men are lesser.”

  “That must be a lonely condition,” Katerina said, turning toward the man.

  “It can be,” he answered.

  “Have you ever considered the idea that it doesn’t have to be?” Katerina asked.

  “More than once,” he answered. “But, as I’ve said, all men are lesser. It’s quite hard to find an equal.”

  A smile spread across Katerina’s face. “Perhaps I should come closer again,” she said. “With less distance, you might be reminded that I am no man, sir.”

  “And I am no ‘sir’, Katerina,” he answered. “Nor am I a fool. So, I suggest you tell me why you felt the need to cross half of Europe just for an audience with me. What’s on your mind, Katerina?”

  The woman shook her head, staring into those emerald eyes and seeing her future. “Exactly what you’d expect,” she answered. “Nothing less than world domination.”

  Chapter 1

  A few days before I made the hardest decision of my life, I thought I saw my mother. It was just for a second, and out of the corner of my eye, but I
could have sworn I saw her standing there.

  She was leaned against one of the buildings in Tenebris, relaxing under a daytime moon- and moon that, thanks to me and the spell I’d crafted when I took out the entire Redwood coven, would never set. I thought she might have been smiling at me. I thought maybe she was proud. I thought maybe she was concerned. In the end, when I turned to look at her head-on, I was reminded that she was none of those things. My mother couldn’t be proud or concerned. She couldn’t be anything, because she was dead, killed because of choices I made…and there was nothing I could do about that.

  “Mercy,” a familiar voice said from beside me. “You okay?”

  Turning, I swallowed hard as I looked at my best friend in the world. Andy stared back at me with narrowing, curious eyes. The tilt to his lips spoke more of amusement than worry. Still, I knew one word from me could change all of that.

  “You’ve been hardcore looking at that building for like forty-five seconds now,” he said, shaking his head. “You want me to go rough it up for you or something?”

  A reluctant smile pulled across my lips and I ran a hand through my blonde hair.

  “I thought I saw someone, that’s all,” I said, sighing loudly, and taking one last look at the building. “It was just a ghost, though.”

  “What?” Andy asked, his eyes bugging out and his brows dancing upward excitedly. “Like, a for real ghost? You know how much I-”

  “Not a real ghost. It was just a figure of speech, Andy,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Oh,” my friend said, visibly deflating. “Don’t tease me like that. You know how I feel about spirits.”

  He began walking, and I matched his gait.

  “I can’t offer you much in the way of spirits, but this place is obviously teeming with the undead,” I answered.

  It was true. Tucked away in the Alaskan wilderness, Tenebris stood as a kingdom home to the single largest sect of vampires the world had ever known. My father, Caster the Merciless (as he had so ominously come to be known) reigned over them with what I saw to be something a little gentler than an iron fist. Still, he was king, and as such, that made me his heir. Not that I could tell anyone that. His secret lovechild, I was born of a relationship he had with a witch, something that was strictly forbidden when he embarked on it. My entire being was due to the fact that my parents did the nasty under the wonky light of the bloodmoon. So, calling me a moon child wasn’t exactly inaccurate.

  Still, because I was something of an abomination, depending on who you asked, it was better if the truth of my identity was still kept a secret. That was fine by me. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to live here, much less rule the place.

  “Pass,” Andy said, his nose scrunching up like he had just caught a whiff of rotten meat. “Vampires aren’t exactly my cup of tea, present company excluded, of course,” he finished, looking over at me and grinning.

  The word felt strange as it banged against my eardrums. It wasn’t that Andy was talking about vampires. At this point, I would be surprised if anyone talked about anything else. It was that he said the word in reference to me.

  Though I had technically been bitten under the light of the bloodmoon (That thing really knew how to screw with my life), being turned was a strange and unique thing for me. I didn’t change like the others. Probably due to the dual nature of my biology, I somehow became a vampire who was still in touch with the energies that gave a witch her abilities. Though, because that had never happened before, it was again important for me to keep that tidbit under my hat.

  As far as anyone knew, I was a witch who had been brought here by Kristoff Gates when he decided to return to Tenebris with his tail between his legs who had been turned at some point during the fight with the Redwood coven.

  The whole ‘hybrid princess’ thing was totally on a need to know basis.

  “I can’t get used to this,” Andy said, looking up at the sky and squinting, even though neither of us had seen the sun in months, since we’d gotten to this place. “I mean, how can you even tell what time it is?”

  “The same way we used to,” I answered, shrugging at the man. “With our phones.”

  “Oh, like you have service here? Don’t make me laugh,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “I understand that vampires aren’t exactly fans of the sun, and this place offered that whole ‘endless night’ thing, but couldn’t they have found a place to hunker down that was a little closer to a cellphone tower?”

  “I doubt that was high on their priority list,” I answered. “Especially since this place was founded well over a hundred years ago.”

  “It’s just as well,” Andy sighed, biting his lower lip. “It’s not like I have anyone to call anyway.”

  That singular sentence was enough to break my heart, and not just because I loved this guy more than myself. His entire coven had been depowered when I cast my spell, pulling the energy, not only from them, but from the Redwood trees that held the power of their ancestors. As such, Andy was the only Redwood witch in existence, and while his family wasn’t dead, they certainly didn’t want anything to do with him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath and reaching for his hand. He jerked it away from me, not because he was upset, but because my touch would have burned his flesh. It was a vampire’s natural defense mechanism against other supernatural creatures, and it was something I hadn’t remembered until the instant Andy pulled away from me. He remembered it, though. His left hand was still scarred because of the last time I touched him.

  “I’m sorry again,” I said, sounding like a broken record.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “For any of it. You did what you had to. My mother was going to kill you. Hell, she was probably going to kill me, too. You heard her. She said she would never stop while you were still breathing.”

  “Maybe she hasn’t,” I lamented, remembering Marion’s face and the way she looked at me, like I was the worst thing that had ever existed.

  “Fat lot of good it’ll do her,” Andy said, stuffing his ands into his pockets, perhaps to stop me from reaching for them again. “She hasn’t got enough magic left to power a kid’s birthday party, much less mount an assault on one of the most impressive supernatural strongholds in the world.” Andy nudged me with a very clothed shoulder, smiling. “If she wants to get ahold of either of us, she’s got one hell of an uphill battle on her hands.”

  “Maybe,” I muttered, blinking hard and trying to push the thought of Marion out of my mind once and for all. “That never stopped her before, though.”

  As I passed another building, walking with Andy toward a training session I had set up with Kristoff, I thought I saw my mother again.

  Only, this time, she wasn’t smiling.

  Chapter 2

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, my eyes cutting over to Kristoff as he stared at me from an adjacent tree branch on the giant sequoia where we were both perched. It was strange. Just a few months ago, I would have thought this was insane. Kristoff was simply ‘Gray Eyes’ to me then; a name Andy and I had given him based on his most prominent physical feature because neither of us actually knew what to call him.

  We were close now, though. Andy and Kristoff were something close to friends, and Kristoff and I were decidedly more, though we were taking that slow and had decided that-like the fact that I was the blood daughter of Caster the Merciless- our budding relationship was something that was better off to stay private.

  Still, in moments like this, when it was just me and him, and I’d catch him looking at me like this, I couldn’t help but want to scream the way I felt about him from the rooftops. Though, in this instance, I suppose a treetop would do.

  “What am I supposed to be staring at?” he asked, shrugging and smiling at me. It was a sight that would have taken my breath away in any scenery. The fact that he was doing it set against the absolute most amazing place I had ever been only served to add to the magic of this moment.

  “
I’m going to go out on a limb, pun intended,” I said, grinning myself and looking down at the limb where I now sat. “And say you should probably be looking at the deer, seeing as how that’s what we’re hunting.”

  “It’s a reindeer,” Kristoff corrected me without so much as blinking to break his stare on me. “Besides, I can hear its steps just fine. I don’t need to look at it, especially when what I’m looking at is so much more pleasant.”

  A rush of warmth ran through me. “You’re going to get us both in trouble if you keep acting like that,” I said, feeling butterflies dancing around in my stomach.

  “That’s the point, Mercy,” he answered, sliding further across his branch so that we were closer to each other. I winced a little as I watched the branch shake under him. “I’m fine,” he said, seeing my reaction and reading the meaning behind it. “We’re both fine.”

  “I know that,” I said, swallowing and nodding firmly. “It’s just that we’re so damn far off the ground.” I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I looked down. Being a new vampire, I still wasn’t used to all the ways my senses had been heightened. Sight was the most obvious, though. I could see things I never even knew were there before. There are over five million pores on the average human face. I didn’t know that before I turned into a living member of the undead, but I did now, and I had a front row seat to all of them.