The Vampire Gift 6: Secrets of Hope Read online

  Table of Contents

  Welcome!

  The Vampire Gift 6: Secrets of Hope

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  The End

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  TO THE VAMPIRE GIFT SERIES

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  Currently Available:

  The Vampire Gift 1: Wards of Night

  The Vampire Gift 2: Kingdom of Ash

  The Vampire Gift 3: Throne of Dust

  The Vampire Gift 4: Darkness Rising

  The Vampire Gift 5: Whispers of Evil

  The Vampire Gift 6: Secrets of Hope

  Coming Soon:

  The Vampire Gift 7: Prophecies of Light

  The Vampire Gift 8: Shadows of Mist

  The Vampire Gift 9: A Taste of Crimson

  by E.M. Knight

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  The Vampire Gift 6: Secrets of Hope

  By E. M. Knight

  Copyright © 2017

  Edwards Publishing, Ltd

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or vampire, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover art by B. Wagner

  First Edition: May 2017

  Prologue

  Carter

  A cell in the stronghold

  “Get up.”

  My head jerks up at the raspy voice. I hadn’t heard—or sensed—anyone approach.

  “Who’s there?” I whisper, not quite believing my ears. My eyes pierce the thick darkness, but I don’t find a soul.

  Yet I was sure I heard someone address me.

  My vampire senses expand, and I take stock of my surroundings.

  Nobody.

  The cell and the hallway are as empty as a whore’s heart.

  I blink and push myself off the ground. I approach the bars of the cell door. My hands hover near them but do not touch.

  Contact with silver would cause enormous pain, even to a vampire as strong as me.

  “Behind you!” the voice rasps.

  Alarmed, I spin around.

  And, once more, I find nobody there.

  But this time, I am absolutely certain I heard the voice.

  “Who are you?” I snarl, feeling like a fool for speaking to the empty air. My senses are all fully on alert, and they tell me of nobody’s presence. “Who’s speaking to me?”

  Laughter. Laughter comes from the back of my mind. I’m not laughing, but that voice… that voice is.

  “Goddammit, reveal yourself!” I demand.

  The laughter continues unabated in my head. Am I going crazy? Have I lost my mind? The time I spent in The Paths, especially in that unfamiliar, unidentifiable area down past the mist, where I murdered Deanna… could it have addled my senses? Enough for me to be hearing voices now?

  The laughter cuts off. It’s all in my head, but I can’t control it.

  In the sudden silence, I tense and go absolutely still.

  All my hunter’s instincts flare. I am one with the room, with the cell, with the Earth and the Air and all my surroundings. I can feel the subtle shift in the ethereal material around me. My body is attuned to the most miniscule reverberations that come through the air. I feel the shifting currents, oh-so-subtle, of the electromagnetic force that rules the earth.

  And still, given all that, all the feedback I receive from my surroundings tells me that I am here completely and utterly, alone.

  “You don’t have to see me to know I’m here.”

  I jump, snarling. That damn voice again! It’s going to drive me crazy.

  “Relax, Carter. Just because you can’t see me does not make me any less real.”

  “Who are you?” I growl. In a hiss, I demand, “What do you want!”

  “I want you to make good on all that you promised me,” the voice answers. I can’t even tell anymore if the speaker is male or female. The words come to me almost as echoes of thoughts, not true sound.

  “And what,” I indulge it, “do you consider that to be?”

  “You don’t remember.” A mocking jeer. And then an irritated tsk. “But, of course. I placed the block...”

  A sudden blinding pain explodes in the base of my skull. I give a wordless cry and crash to my knees. The pain intensifies. I grab my head and try to control it, but it only grows and grows, until my entire body is overcome by the most horrid, agonizing suffering.

  Just as quickly as it had come, it’s gone. I’m left panting on the floor, staring at the darkened ceiling above me, feeling humiliated, feeling weak…

  A memory, from not so long ago comes into view.

  I see myself in third person. I’m standing in an indistinguishable underground cavern. I see the whole scene there in front of me, not from my own perspective, but from that of an on-looker.

  My own back is turned to me. But I am speaking to someone. A woman, I think, but I cannot be sure from this vantage point. Shadows hide her face. In fact, her whole figure is shrouded by swirling wisps of black.

  A flash. The memory disappears. But its taste, its essence, still lingers.

  And I know exactly what it means.

  “Cierra,” I say, speaking through the link between our minds. My lips don’t move. “Tell me what you want.”

  Laughter. And then:

  “I want you to kill the Queen.”

  Chapter One

  James

  A cave in the Pacific Midwest

  I look out at the faces spread before me on the other side of the blazing bonfire from where I stand.

  Nine members of the vampire tribe, sworn loyal to protecting their alpha, sworn loyal only to their leader.
>
  Only to the vampire I killed.

  Only to Chandler.

  He claimed blood relation to me. But I am not so sure. The now-dead vampire bore no resemblance to me.

  If he was right, and Soren blood flowed through his veins, why were there no similarities? Why did he look nothing like me, or my brothers, or my mother, or father?

  The answer to that, were we mere humans, would be simple. If he really were a cousin, it would be no great stretch of the imagination to have our features different.

  But we are not humans. We are vampires. And the vampiric serum, the essence, the unidentifiable substance that gives us life enhances certain features. Enhances, augments, and refines them over time.

  Those features then become more and more pronounced. As centuries pass, those vampires with the same ancestral blood have the same sort of features stand out.

  For the Sorens, it is always our eyes. More cunning, sharper, and more dangerous than those of other vampires. Women might call them seductive.

  I saw that trait in my father when we first came across one another in The Crypts. My mother has it. Both my brothers do.

  By extension, Chandler should have, too, were we truly related. Maybe not to the same extent as mine or Raul’s or Phillip’s, but something should have been there.

  The vampiric essence latches onto a family’s strongest traits, and the cousin-to-cousin separation in our lineage is close enough for at least some of those distinctions to stand out.

  None did with Chandler.

  My last image is of him lying in a pool of his own blood, on the ground, after I’d somehow gotten the better of him in our fight.

  I might be a conceited bastard, but even I am grounded enough in reality to admit that I had no right winning.

  Of course, I would never say that out loud. I am still cloaked, which means none of these vampires have any way of gauging my true strength. For all they know, I could have been holding back in my fight with Chandler, only to fabricate a dramatic ending to the proceedings.

  That plays to my advantage. It makes these pack members wary.

  I need to continue to hold up that perception of me in their minds. They must fear me every bit as much as they respect me. I know nothing of their true loyalty—I’d never heard anything as ridiculous as a “pack” of vampires before—and I cannot be careful enough to squander what precious advantage I’ve gained.

  Gained for myself and for the rest of the Nocturna Animalia.

  “James? Are you even listening to me?”

  The sudden rebuke stirs me from me reverie. I turn my head to the left, and my gaze lands on Victoria.

  By the light of the flames, the blonde spitfire looks every bit as intimidating as Mother at her worst. Victoria has been strengthened by the blood she took from each one of the members of this pack.

  The same blood that was shared with all the members of the Nocturna Animalia.

  The order for these wild vampires to stand down and offer all of us their necks was the first I made. I thought they would balk, I half-expected them to revolt, but all of them took heed of what I said and did as I’d commanded.

  Now, all the true vampires of my coven are strengthened and energized, a hundred times more than they would have been otherwise. April, Liana, hell, even Sylvia drank the rich, powerful blood of these other vampires.

  The only one not given the opportunity was Smithson. Just because he’d been subdued does not mean I would trust him more than a sliver of what his slimy self is worth.

  I blink and—showing absolutely not a care to the outside world—offer the little vampire my most winning smile.

  “Of course, I was listening,” I tell her sweetly. “Forgive me if I drifted, but I find it unendingly dull how often you must repeat yourself about Cierra.”

  That earns me an even greater scowl. I feel the shift in the air as all the pack vampires tense, oh-so-slightly, watching this interaction as a way to get a better read on the dynamic between me and Victoria.

  “I was repeating my point,” she says through gritted teeth, “because it is imperative that all of us gathered here understand the threat posed by the Black Sorceress. All of us, James,” she emphasizes, just as I’m about to cut in. “Most especially you.”

  I sweep up a twig from the ground and roll it through my fingers. I affect a look of pure boredom.

  “Spare me,” I say. “Cierra is none of our concern. Not now. Not here. What is important, however—” the twig stops between thumb and forefinger and juts out to point past the gathered vampires, “is what’s contained on the other side of that door.”

  After giving us their blood to feed upon, the pack vampires stated they’d be returning to their lair and asked if we’d like to come.

  Of course we would. I had to see for myself just what kind of dwellings these vampires lived in.

  So, yes, I told them we would all be going. They led the way. It was not a long walk through the woods, but with adrenaline from the fight still pounding through me, all of my suspicions about the honesty of these creatures crept up again.

  Yes, I consider them “creatures.” Whoever heard of vampires adhering to such absurd rules of leadership and hierarchy as I find here? They call themselves a pack. Well, they are no better than a pack of wolves!

  But I do not let my distaste for their traditions show outwardly. After all, I know how strong this group is. For me to simply inherit rule of them is not a gift I can say no to.

  But that does not mean I cannot be rightfully cautious.

  We ended up near a burbling stream. A small waterfall fed it from one of the nearby cliffs.

  The entrance to their lair was behind the falling water.

  Truth be told, I was not expecting much... but then we stepped in.

  The lair was cavernous. It was carved into the rock with as much skill as anything contained in The Haven. As soon as I crossed the threshold I felt a chill wash over me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the same reaction take hold of each one of my coven’s vampires.

  Even Smithson was affected.

  In the middle of the floor lay the burned out makings of a fire pit. The pack vampires threw some tinder in there and lit a match. Next thing I knew, the place was illuminated.

  It was only by light of that fire that the ancient door I’m standing in front of now revealed itself.

  “There’s energy here,” Victoria mutters, half to herself. “I feel it. Radiating out from the door.”

  “I feel it, too,” Sylvia confirms.

  The watching vampires of the pack say nothing, instead looking at me for leadership.

  But I can tell from their body language they are uncomfortable having my two vampires so close to the mysterious door.

  So I call the women back. We all settle around the fire. Obviously, the first question I have is what the door is, and why it only becomes visible with firelight.

  “We don’t know,” answered Paolo. He is the pack vampire I take as second-in-command after Chandler.

  Well—now after me.

  I look at him for more of an explanation, and he continues.

  “The door was there when Chandler carved out this cavern for us. He always gravitated to it. But we could never break through.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “It’s impenetrable,” comes the answer.

  “We believe Cierra enchanted it before she went to rest,” offers a different vampire. “Past that? All knowledge died with Chandler.”

  I growl in irritation. “We won’t be mentioning him again,” I command.

  From there, the conversation turns back to Cierra. Sylvia and Victoria take turns explaining to the pack vampires what they know. Smithson glowers on and stays absolutely mull.

  But the riddle of the door gnaws and gnaws at me. It gnaws at me even as I listen to Victoria babble on.

  “They told you, they don’t know,” Victoria says in response to my question.

  “I’m not sure I believe that,�
� I murmur.

  Paolo and the others stiffen.

  I hold my hands out in a placating way.

  “Look,” I say. “There’s obvious power there. Victoria, Sylvia, both of you felt it when we walked in. You were drawn to it. Because you can do magic.”

  “It’s not the Elemental Forces I felt,” Victoria reminds me. “It was just a... draw.”

  “The door leads somewhere!” I say. “It’s not there by coincidence. This is your lair,” I tell the pack. “Your former leader chose this spot for a reason. Smithson—what do you think?”

  He gives a jerk and stares at me. “Nothing,” he snaps.

  “Your people were the ones who discovered Cierra and abducted her,” I say shortly. “Don’t tell me you have no suspicions, no curiosity.”

  “Didn’t say that,” he retorts. “Only that I’m not particularly fascinated by a random door carved into a random cave wall.”

  “Liar,” I accuse. “Nothing about this is random. You are always interested in ways of expanding your influence.”

  He barks a laugh. “You think I’m worried about that? The damn bitch burned my facility to the ground. I gave her everything I had. I sheltered her. Sylvia and I cared for her. How did she repay us?”

  “I hardly think Cierra sees it the same way,” I say.

  “Then what?” Smithson sneers. “I offered her the world. She spat in my face. I don’t care about her interests one way or the other anymore. All I want is for her to be destroyed.”

  “Vengeance,” Sylvia mutters.

  I turn on her. “What?”

  She gestures dismissively at Smithson. “Vengeance. That’s all he’s interested in.” She gives him a spiteful glare. “I cannot believe how far you’ve fallen.”

  Smithson scoffs.

  “What about you?” I direct my question at all the vampires of the pack. “If I’m to believe your story of being tasked with the protection of Cierra, you failed miserably. Why didn’t you look for her when she was taken by The Order?”

  “Chandler made it clear for us to—” Paolo begins.

  I give a warning growl at mention of the name.