Malachi had died the night he’d heard the roar from underground, but Kane still felt the need for revenge clawing at his insides. Almost all vampires are born from the darkness and maybe Syn had been wrong about him being so different from his evil siblings. Just maybe losing his mind for thirty torturous years had done enough damage to where now he was no exception. His mind was still in the dark place where Malachi had put him.
As far as Kane was concerned, it was the jaguars who had drawn first blood. Now he was back to pay his respects in kind… on the whole damned race of shifters, starting with Malachi’s children. Oh, but he wouldn’t stop there. Next would be the children of the shifter that had framed him… Nathaniel Wilder.
Creating followers to provide him with blood hadn’t been difficult. Kane was still amazed at the whole underground Goth scene in the inner city. Many of them only dreamed of being what he was… a true vampire instead of a Goth wanna-be.
All he’d had to do was turn one, and then leave his soulless underling to his own devices. He’d chosen the most dangerous of the group… the one that seemed to have lost his soul already to the darkness. Raven, a rogue, who had been a borderline psychopath as a human… a Goth outcast, who was hungry for blood long before ever having the true need for it.
Raven was the only person Kane had ever told about the backstabbing shifters framing him then burying him alive. He didn’t know why he’d told Raven… boredom maybe.
Kane had set the rogue free on the city. Raven had been angry at the world before being reborn as a child of the night and now Kane had given him an outlet for that anger. Raven had taken it upon himself to exact revenge in Kane’s name and the soulless vampire used his new abilities to their fullest extent.
He didn’t bother trying to talk Raven out of it because it fit in perfectly with his plans of setting up the rest of Malachi’s family for the fall. Why would he protect the shifters from Raven? The most he had offered was to tell the boy that he didn’t have to kill humans to feed, that he didn’t have to do any damage at all, if he didn’t want to. It wasn’t his fault that Raven had chosen to inflict death instead.
The first time Raven had killed had been the only time Kane had stepped in, catching the boy before he left the dead lying with the mark of the vampire within easy view of the humans. Keeping his kind secret was ingrained within his self-preservation and he had forgotten to share that secret with Raven. Kane then showed him how to slice through the fang marks and make it look more like a simple sadistic murder.
Raven had taken to planting his victims near Moon Dance for the authorities to find. It was the perfect arrangement. Most vampires were innately evil so Kane had spent most of his undead life within the reach of murderers. Seeing this boy kill seemed only natural for his kind.
Had Syn been awake to witness the killing spree, he would have put the world out of its misery by killing Raven or binding him to the grave. Now that Kane had experienced such a punishment, he would rather a quick death be the choice.
Before his banishment, he’d been friends with one other vampire… Michael. They’d been together longer than either of them could probably remember or even wanted to. They’d both been gifted with the bloodstones because they had retained their souls… they and Michael’s brother Damon.
Michael was a good man… still on the side of the angels as they say, though he’d heard through the grape vine that Damon had developed a dark side and was taking it out on his brother. Maybe he’d pay Damon a little visit after he was finished here and teach him some manners. Kane wondered about the sudden sibling rivalry because Michael had loved his brother… but things always had a way of changing.
Kane didn’t want Michael to know the evil that the grave had left crawling around inside him. He’d spent some of his time in the last couple of weeks watching Michael from a distance. He knew Michael and the oldest jaguar son, Warren, were now friends… just like he and Malachi had once been.
Shifters were traitors and Michael had yet to find that little fact out. By getting the shifters out of the way, he would be doing Michael one last favor… for old times’ sake.
Kane reached up, touching the earring that housed the bloodstone knowing it had always restricted him from killing humans. If his soul were truly evil, then the magic within the bloodstone would not work for him. He’d often wondered how Malachi could have overlooked that simple fact… the proof of his innocence had been right in front of him.
No matter… He’d spent thirty years in his prison for something he hadn’t done. “Payback will be hell my friends.”
*****
“Telemarketer?” Chad asked, as he tried to hide his smirk, while his little sister slammed the phone down hard enough to make it fall off the wall. It landed with a crash on the floor.
Envy kicked the phone down the hall pretending it was her boyfriend's head before turning on her brother. “Are you all dogs, or is it just the ones I date?”
Chad held his hands up in mock surrender, “In my opinion, girls are just as bad. Now calm down and tell big brother what happened.”
Envy laid her forehead against the coolness of the wall. She refused to let even one tear well up enough to escape. She didn’t like Trevor enough to cry over him and she was seriously getting tired of all guys lacking in one way or another. “Jason just called to ask me out. He thought I was single again because he just ran into Trevor at a new dance club. He was practically screwing another girl right there on the dance floor.”
Chad shook his head. He'd feel no pity for Trevor once his sister got her hands on him. “How about we go clubbing then?” he cocked an eyebrow, not wanting to miss this for the world.
Envy smiled, liking that idea, “Give me ten minutes to get ready.”
Chad nodded and sat down on the edge of the sofa and clicked on the remote to watch the news, though he wasn’t paying it any attention. He hadn’t wanted her dating Trevor anyway. He knew the guy acted like an all American, rich, college prep just to throw everyone off his scent, but that didn’t mean he liked him lying to Envy about who he really was. If Trevor was going to sleep with her, then she needed to at least know the truth about who she was screwing.
Starting a relationship out with a lie wasn’t the best way. If you were going to lie, then you shouldn’t get involved in the first place. He’d cornered Trevor the last time he’d seen him at the station and told the undercover agent to either tell Envy the truth about what he was doing or to stay the hell away from her. It wasn’t his fault Trevor didn’t listen to anyone but himself.
It angered him to think that Trevor might be using Envy while he did undercover work in the bar scene. With her being a bartender for a lot of the clubs, it gave Trevor a reason to follow her into the buildings before they opened and stay till after they closed. Being there without the crowds allowed Trevor to do a lot more snooping and Envy was none the wiser.
Chad refused to go undercover, even though the Special Forces team had been trying to drag him into it for a while now. The closest he’d come so far, was being their favorite guy to call when it was time to kick in doors and take people down. And that was fine with him. He would much rather kick the ass of a bad guy, then just sneak around chatting and shuffling papers, trying to find dirt on someone.
Now their friend Jason, on the other hand, would be much better boyfriend material for Envy. She’d gone to school with Jason, but therein lay the problem. Jason had crushed on her all
