Vexation: League of Vampires, #9

By Rye Brewer

The ninth book in the League of Vampires series brings you more witches, vampires, fae, shades, and sexy characters in swoonworthy romances and nail-biting action.

Follow Carissa's battle to free Gage, Naomi, and Raze from her father.

Join Anton as he fights to find Genevieve before the shifters can bring harm to her.

Stark's love for Branwen is in conflict with the feelings he thought he had for Sara, who now wants nothing more than to destroy the Starkers.

Jonah needs the League of Vampires help its own kind by coming to the aid of the fae, but he faces obstacles within the League itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RBP
• Release date: Feb 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393257424

Book preview

1

Anton

Ihad to think clearly. Sanely, rationally.

My wolf was no good at that sort of thought, not when the end of the world was upon him. And losing Genevieve, the light of my life, certainly marked the end of everything.

My wolf lacked the ability to reason, moving purely on instinct and powered by needs and desires. If Genevieve’s scent was long gone and I had already combed the estate overnight in search of her, there was little reason to travel in his form.

Though he was still good for one thing, speed. I ran through the tall grass between Shifter’s Spire and my family’s castle, legs pumping, heart racing, with only one name in my mind. One name which pushed me forward, always forward, for she was the only thing in the world that truly mattered.

Genevieve. Only Genevieve.

I could still almost smell her, could almost feel her skin, taste its warmth. This was all illusion, of course, or wishful thinking. Unhelpful, too, for the illusion of her scent would do nothing to help me find her. The illusion was no use to me.

How could anyone be so cruel? My wolf did not possess the ability to understand the motivation, nuances, and foibles of mankind. He understood nothing but need, hunger, and power.

Then again, perhaps this nightmare had to do with little else. I could not grant my mother— Margaux—too much credit. She wished for power—grasping, greedy, clawing.

Reaching one of the old, rusted doors concealed by an overgrowth of withered, browning vines took little time, thanks to my wolf’s speed. Opening the door, however, was a matter for a man.

I shifted from my wolf, almost sorry to reenter my human form, as it was my human consciousness which felt most acutely the loss and pain and horror of that which spun out of control around me.

Little time to think on that, when I had the matter of reentering the castle without dozens of pairs of eyes following my every move.

One step at a time, I told myself. One step at a time.

I cleared away enough of the dead overgrowth—truly, someone needed to see to the upkeep of the grounds, or perhaps Margaux preferred to keep the long-forgotten doors concealed—that I could make out the shape of the rounded door fit into the stone arch. I might have made my entrance easier by revisiting the door I’d used to exit the castle, but there was too high a chance of being spotted.

If anyone in the guard tower had seen me slipping out, they would be more likely to keep watch on that same spot, hence my choosing a spot on the far side of the castle.

For I now understood that my movements might be of much greater interest to my mother than I’d ever considered. How could I have been so insolent as to believe she had no true power over me? How could I have placed Genevieve in such danger?

With my fingers wedged just far enough between the stone and the metal, I began to pull. Even in human form, my body possessed greater strength than the strongest man, yet I still exerted much effort to swing the door wide enough to pass through. The screaming hinges set my teeth on edge and left me glancing about.

I exhaled a sigh of relief as it appeared I was alone, and as yet unnoticed.

The stone floor was nearly icy cold beneath my bare feet. Bare because I had no shoes. Or even clothing. If only I hadn’t flown into a fit and burst into my wolf form—it meant making the trek to my chambers unclad. While the secret staircases built into the walls would conceal me, they couldn’t protect me from walking through centuries-old standing water, with nothing between it and my skin.

I turned my mind away from the myriad diseases I might be walking through and pressed on, dashing down empty corridors between cells I had only just visited in my search for Genevieve. Though now, with less hope than ever of Genevieve being safe and well, their presence only served to remind me of what she might be suffering.

Who was I kidding? She might well be dead already, her body floating in the waters beyond Bertrand lands. Black hair spreading in a fan around her head, pale skin now chalk-white. Ruby lips would be blue, and eyes capable of holding both steely resolve and searing heat would be blank. Sightless. Empty.

Charging up the stairs two and three at a time brought me to my office. Only with the heavy wooden door closed tight behind me and a glance at the door leading out to the hall confirming I’d locked it prior to leaving was I able to take a deep breath. There was at least a modicum of privacy here.

Another shower, this time to wash off anything I had picked up during my trek through the forest and the dungeons. Next, I dressed in a pair of dark slacks and a deep green shirt with the understanding that I might need to conceal myself or blend in with my surroundings.

If the Bertrands still had her and she was still alive, where on their lands would they hold her?

I’d so often heard of searching for a needle in a haystack but had never truly understood the meaning of that old expression until I gazed out one of the windows which looked to the west, where our land ended, and the Bertrand estate began.

When I divorced personal concerns from the situation, I could even understand Margaux’s obsession with uniting the De Clerq and Bertrand names. With the lands combined in a single parcel, we would literally control everything as far as my eye could see.

This was enough to cause even my most mercenary tendencies to bubble to the surface, enough to make me imagine what it would mean to control that much property and that much wealth. Not mere money, not mere riches. True wealth. The Bertrands made the bulk of their fortune from importing and exporting valuable goods, the southern border of their property running alongside a major shipping route. It was enough to earn them a reputation both in the human world and in ours.

Perhaps this would have appealed to me at one time—prior to meeting Genevieve—the promise of so much power, so much absolute mind-boggling wealth at my disposal might have turned my head and convinced me that marriage to a beautiful, cultured, brilliant woman like Isolde was the best course of action.

I might very well have gone along with my mother’s scheming. I might have allowed myself to be used as a pawn in her game, like a horse following a carrot at the end of a stick.

Genevieve was responsible for my ability to see clearly what mattered and what simply did not. I owed it to her, then, to find her and bring her to safety. Not only for myself, that I might have her and claim her as my own, but for her sake. She deserved better if only because she’d opened my eyes to that which I’d never known before.

The Bertrand land was lush, green, thick with tree cover. To the south glistened a wide ribbon of river, part of which ended at the waterfall where I’d sent her in hopes of keeping her safe. The very thought sent a bitter laugh to my lips. I’d sent her away, into the hands of the enemy, all in the name of protecting her. What a fool I’d been. Too naïve to see the larger game at play, to know I was merely a piece being moved along a board.

I would not be so foolish again. Never again.

The verdant forest would provide plenty of cover as I searched the grounds, but it also hid a plethora of threats, foes, not to mention hiding the very spot where she might be hidden.

If she was still alive.

I gripped the window sill, my hands tightening until the very wood beneath them splintered. She had to be alive. I could accept no alternative. She would be alive. And waiting for me.

It hit me then that I might never see my bedroom again. My library, my office. If I was successful in freeing her, there was no way I could return to my family home. The Bertrands would know, naturally, and they would undoubtedly report to Margaux. All hell would break loose.

And if I’m unsuccessful, I’m never returning, I murmured, looking around.

Yes, it was clear. I could never come back. Not when every glance at my mother, every smile my supposed bride-to-be flashed my way would remind me of what they’d taken away. Not with the understanding that my father would have to know something of this, that he’d allowed it to happen out of either weakness or greed.

I would never step foot on the estate again.

With that in mind, I took it all in. The grandness of it, the luxury. I could have it all again, there was no doubt—I was hardly a newcomer to the business world and could make a fortune if I so chose to. Yet the knowledge that I would not be forced to live on the street was not what left me feeling rather detached and hollow as I soaked in my surroundings one final time.

It was the fact that it all meant nothing. I had no real attachment to it, which might have been why I normally traveled so widely. There was so little for me on the estate. I’d been raised as the younger son, and thus none of it was meant to be mine until Dietrich’s murder and my ascension to power.

I had never wanted it. I was not one of those greedy, jealous younger brothers, always wanting what could never be mine. I’d wanted something that was mine alone, not the cast-offs left behind by a dead heir. Genevieve had been the first step toward something real.

This was what propelled me from my office and down the dark, winding staircase. Through the dungeons, their silent screams echoing in my head nonetheless, then into one of the tunnels I knew cut to the south. To the Bertrands and their palatial estate which came second only to that of the De Clerqs.

There would be dozens of smaller buildings all over the property, I knew. Genevieve might be in any of them. I decided to start close to the river, where it was most likely the thugs who’d captured her would travel. Perhaps they’d smuggled her straight up the banks from the waterfall, where there would little chance of anyone spotting them. Even passing ships would be too far out for their crew to take notice of an unconscious woman being carried through the wooded shore.

There were docks sprinkled here and there along the shoreline, though only two of them were still in use, centuries after their creation. The use of cargo planes had somewhat lessened the need for ships, though the Bertrands had maintained relations with the companies through which they’d done business and had adapted to the new methods of transporting goods. They had not suffered—if anything, they’d grown wealthier. Everything Todor Bertrand’s ancestors had touched turned to gold.

I ran through the tunnel, heightened eyesight making it easier to see in the pitch blackness. It stank of rot and death, and brought to mind everything I was leaving behind. Rot. Death. Darkness. Secrets. I would have no more secrets in my life after this.

The tunnel ended in a rusted ladder, the door above my head locked. No surprise—just as it was no surprise that I was able to punch through the rotting wood in order to enter the tiny cottage which sat atop the door.

I cared little for my shabby, abandoned surroundings and much for the presence of darkness outside the uncurtained window. Excellent. All the better to search for a vampire in darkness, both to conceal me and to protect her once she was free.

For she would be. She had to be. I would accept nothing less.

2

Genevieve

Wake up, little bloodsucker…

I heard the voice, or thought I heard it, but the sound came from so far away. Miles and miles, or so it seemed, and I could not find the source. For I was alone, and wrapped in a fog. No matter where I turned, no matter how I flailed about, there was no breaking through. No way of seeing where to go or how to get there, no way of moving without falling into unseen danger. Who would dare venture ahead without the benefit of seeing the ground beneath their feet?

Help me! I cried out, but the sound fell dead at my feet.

I could hardly hear it myself, as if watching a television set with the sound turned nearly all the way down. No matter how I raised my voice, to the point where I was certain my throat would bleed, little more than a whisper came out.

Where was I? How had I come to be here? One thing I heard loud and clear, the increasingly frantic rhythm of my heart, pumping away in my ears. Like the sound of a speeding train. I clamped my hands over them—naturally, this was no use. The sound was coming from inside me, and it was growing louder, threatening to split my head in two.

This was it. The end. I would lose my sanity, become nothing more than a screeching, grasping, clawing thing trapped in her own ruined psyche. This would be my end, after such a dazzling and auspicious existence.

Only when my eyes fluttered open, and I found myself in actual, true darkness with faint moonlight filtering through a cracked and filthy window, did I understand I’d been unconscious. Elsewhere.

When I turned my head, and a flare went off at the base of my skull, I understood why I’d been unconscious at all. That was when I remembered. Sharp pain, dazzling fireworks shooting off behind my eyes. And then, nothing—until the fog I’d experienced when trying to claw my way back to consciousness.

Someone had done this to me. Was still doing this to me, in fact, as my arms were raised above my head and my wrists bound together in iron. Someone had placed me on this floor—this filthy, dust-covered floor which many industrious rodents had littered with droppings—and bound my wrists above me. Every muscle ached horribly, but it was nothing when compared to my head.

The scent of blood lingered in my nostrils. My blood. Someone had dared draw my blood when they’d struck.

Yet I had not the strength nor the clarity to summon up the correct amount of rage. Had I been more myself, I would have made the perpetrator suffer. Oh, they would have suffered unimaginable pain, the sort that crushed sanity to a fine powder and blew it away in the wind.

I’d done it before, after all. I’d watched my foes slide into madness thanks to my ministrations. The memory of my victories normally brought a smile to my lips.

Now? I could barely muster enough interest in the past, for the present was what mattered. The here and now.

Where was here? When was now? How much time, how many miles had passed since I’d last looked upon the face of my beloved?

Anton, I whispered, and now my whisper carried.

No more false fog. I knew this was real.

Yet it mattered not, for there was no one to hear my whisper. No one to know I had woken from my dreamless state. It was better that way, this much I knew. For whoever had placed me on this floor, shackled me, left me bleeding and unconscious, would not take kindly to my wakefulness. They’d hardly pull up a chair and share a cup of tea.

My gaze darted about, taking in the rest of my rather grim surroundings. Once I adjusted to the near total lack of light thanks to that single, grime-coated window, I was ever so thankful for my vampire vision, it became clear this was one a fisherman’s cabin. Poles sat against one wall, with hooks and lures in boxes on the floor. A pile of nets lay in one corner, tangled and rotting.

How long had it been abandoned? From the looks of it, decades had passed since it was used—upon closer inspection, a calendar which hung on the wall near my head declared the date on it to be December of 1955, and in the accompanying illustration a buxom young woman in a fur-trimmed negligee was just about to open her Christmas gift.

I wondered absently what was in the box she was going to open before turning my attention away.

If I knew where I was, it might be easier to plan a means of escape. Even if I could free myself from the shackles—a few tugs of my arms told me this would be a difficult prospect, if not impossible—where would I go? There was no telling.

Could I still be on Anton’s estate? If I were, would I be shackled? Surely, he would come for me.

If he knew I’d been taken away.

If he were even free to do so.

My heart began that building, increasingly frantic rhythm once again as I considered the stark possibility that he had somehow been incapacitated. Perhaps whoever had attacked me turned on him next. Perhaps they intended to hold him in place while they dispatched with me.

Perhaps he was already dead, for shifters and vampires who’d dared mingle had faced no less than death over the centuries.

Was it possible? I would know it, would I not? I would feel his loss.

That was a fantasy, and I knew it. Merely the act of grasping at straws, soothing myself in any way I could while the world fell to pieces about me. As if I would be able to feel him if he were gone. As if that sort of thing ever happened.

If he was no longer alive, there would be no one to come for me. No one would care if I disappeared and never returned.

The truth of this rocked me to my very core. It was a truth I’d grown accustomed to ignoring in favor of more attractive thoughts. I’d gone through life with my head in the sand, or virtually, always doing what I could to convince myself of my invincibility. None could touch me, for I was untouchable.

And those I’d hurt. Those I’d killed. Those I had swept aside when they no longer served me. I’d killed Marcus, after all, without thinking twice of it—and that was after I’d used him, led him to believe there could ever be anything between us.

I’d used that shade. Allonic. I hadn’t experienced the slightest bit of remorse, either.

On and on. So many before them. Dozens, hundreds. All of it in service of one and only one person: myself. All for me.

Look where it left me. I could nearly have laughed as I looked about the decrepit, old cabin. What a fitting place for one with my past. The rodent droppings were a nice touch.

I’d never been one to believe in karma, and I had seen nearly everything life had to offer. Every set of beliefs, every form of madness. It all stemmed from the same place, really, every last bit of it. Humans enjoyed twisting one central truth to fit their needs, adding and subtracting, vilifying at will. Karma and the beliefs surrounding it had to me only ever been one more spoke jutting from the center axle.

Yet there I was, suffering. Truly suffering, as I had in the dungeons beneath League headquarters, only now there was no telling where I was. At least there I’d known, and I’d known where to go once I escaped.

There, I’d had a chance to escape at all, for I’d been able to use Jonah Bourke. Yet another of my victims. I’d talked myself into his good graces.

Who was there to talk to now?

For the first time in as long as I could recall, a tear rolled down my cheek. One tear, but it held a million tears within it. Those tears were inside, bottled up. I did not dare release them, for they might never stop. I might drown in them.

Anton was the only one who loved me, and he might have been dead. There would be nothing left for me if this was the case. I would have nothing, no one.

I would die at the hands of my captors with no one to stop them.

And the world would go on without me. My clan would continue. The earth would spin. I would no longer be part of it.

It might very well have been what I deserved, at that. Never one to succumb to self-pity, I was uncertain how to manage the hopelessness which threatened to consume me—or if I should bother trying to manage it at all.

This was all so new. There was nothing I could use to block it out, to make it seem less overwhelming. I could not distract myself by taking a shopping spree or visiting a museum—one of my favorite pastimes while living in Paris, and even while visiting New York. No symphony, no theatre. No hunting for prey against League orders.

I had nowhere to go, nothing to turn my mind to.

I could only stew in my own misery, guilt, and grief.

I was not built for this. I had lost, yes, I had lost so many things during my long and illustrious life. My beloved father. All of my family. They’d died to me long before their physical death, as they would hardly have accepted a vampire in the family. I’d shed them like a snake sheds its skin, though mine had been a painful and tear-filled process.

I’d been near enough my humanity then, to truly grieve. I had still remembered love, warmth, companionship, loyalty, and all of it had served to crush my heart when I could no longer be part of those who’d been my entire world until the fateful night I was turned.

Perhaps knowing they believed me dead hurt worst of all—no, it was knowing they would continue without me and in time forget I’d ever lived. It had been the knowledge that my grave would fall into ruin, overgrown and moss-covered. That had been the most grinding pain, the heaviest of the burdens my status as a vampire had afforded.

I hadn’t known at the time, or in the years which had passed since, just how heavy the burden would become once clarity returned and I realized how useless my life had been. Interesting, most certainly. Pleasurable, no doubt. But meaningless.

There would still be no one to remember me.

Jonah Bourke returned to my thoughts, and with him came his family. I’d always sneered at them, had I not? Why was there any call for family ties once one had been turned? Why this farce of being parents, brothers, and sisters? Why live and work together?

Why not let go of human ties and live free, unbound by responsibilities and loyalties? Why not live for oneself?

Shackled in that abandoned, rotting cabin, I thought I might finally understand. Vampires such as the Bourkes banded together even after they’d shed their mortal lives for the same reason humans lived and loved and worked alongside each other.

It was all in the hope that when their time came, they would not be alone. They would not feel utter hopelessness, the sort that left a person ice-cold in their very core. That once everything else had been stripped—health, vitality, wealth, hope—there would still be one last flicker of hope.

There would still be someone out in the world who loved them and cared whether they lived or died.

Strange how such revelations only occurred to a person at the end of their life, when there was little to be done and not even any way to share this newfound wisdom with anyone else.

The damned futility of it all.

The uselessness.

The—

The footsteps outside.

My head snapped up, my heart seizing for a moment before taking off once again in a flurry of erratic beats. Who was I? Who had this experience and the one at headquarters turned me into? Some cowering, frightened hare caught in a snare?

I let my shoulders drop—no, forced them to drop when they would not do so on their own, and fixed my expression into one of cool detachment. I’d worn it like armor through my entire vampire existence. It seemed only fitting to wear it at the end.

Within moments, the door opened. It did not swing, instead, dragging over the floor and moving aside what appeared