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  Dedicated to:

  The both of you.

  Travelers, finally where they belong.

  Welcome home.

  GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND PROPER NOUNS

  ahstrux nohtrum (n.)

  Private guard with license to kill who is granted his or her position by the King.

  ahvenge (v.)

  Act of mortal retribution, carried out typically by a male loved one.

  Black Dagger Brotherhood (pr. n.)

  Highly trained vampire warriors who protect their species against all harm. As a result of selective breeding within the race, Brothers possess immense physical and mental strength, as well as rapid healing capabilities. They are not siblings for the most part, and are inducted into the Brotherhood upon nomination by the Brothers. Aggressive, self-reliant, and secretive by nature, they are the subjects of legend and objects of reverence within the vampire world. They may be killed only by the most serious of wounds, e.g., a gunshot or stab to the heart, etc.

  blood slave (n.)

  Male or female vampire who has been subjugated to serve the blood needs of another. The practice of keeping blood slaves has been outlawed.

  the Chosen (pr. n.)

  Female vampires who had been bred to serve the Scribe Virgin. In the past, they were spiritually rather than temporally focused, but that changed with the ascendance of the final Primale, who freed them from the Sanctuary. With the Scribe Virgin removing herself from her role, they are completely autonomous and learning to live on earth. They do continue to meet the blood needs of unmated members of the Brotherhood, as well as Brothers who cannot feed from their shellans or injured fighters.

  chrih (n.)

  Symbol of honorable death in the Old Language.

  cohntehst (n.)

  Conflict between two males competing for the right to be a female’s mate.

  Dhunhd (pr. n.)

  Hell.

  doggen (n.)

  Member of the servant class within the vampire world. Doggen have old, conservative traditions in service to their superiors, following a formal code of dress and behavior. They are able to go out during the day.

  ehros (n.)

  A Chosen trained in the matter of sexual arts.

  exhile dhoble (n.)

  The evil or cursed twin, the one born second.

  the Fade (pr. n.)

  Non-temporal realm where the dead reunite with their loved ones and pass eternity.

  First Family (pr. n.)

  The King and Queen of the vampires, and any children they may have.

  ghardian (n.)

  Custodian of an individual. There are varying degrees of ghardians, with the most powerful being that of a sehcluded female.

  glymera (n.)

  The social core of the aristocracy, roughly equivalent to Regency England’s ton.

  hellren (n.)

  Male vampire who has been mated to a female. Males may take more than one female as mate.

  hyslop (n. or v.)

  Term referring to a lapse in judgment, typically resulting in the compromise of the mechanical operations of a vehicle or otherwise motorized conveyance of some kind. For example, leaving one’s keys in one’s car as it is parked outside the family home overnight, whereupon said vehicle is stolen.

  leahdyre (n.)

  A person of power and influence.

  leelan (adj. or n.)

  A term of endearment loosely translated as “dearest one.”

  Lessening Society (pr. n.)

  Order of slayers convened by the Omega for the purpose of eradicating the vampire species. Past enemy.

  lesser (n.)

  De-souled human who targets vampires for extermination as a member of the Lessening Society. Lessers must be stabbed through the chest in order to be killed; otherwise they are ageless. They do not eat or drink and are impotent. Over time, their hair, skin, and irises lose pigmentation until they are blond, blushless, and pale-eyed. They smell like baby powder. Inducted into the society by the Omega, they retained a ceramic jar thereafter into which their heart was placed after it was removed.

  lewlhen (n.)

  Gift.

  lheage (n.)

  A term of respect used by a sexual submissive to refer to their dominant.

  Lhenihan (pr. n.)

  A mythic beast renowned for its sexual prowess. In modern slang, refers to a male of preternatural size and sexual stamina.

  lys (n.)

  Torture tool used to remove the eyes.

  mahmen (n.)

  Mother. Used both as an identifier and a term of affection.

  mhis (n.)

  The masking of a given physical environment; the creation of a field of illusion.

  nalla (n., f.) or nallum (n., m.)

  Beloved.

  needing period (n.)

  Female vampire’s time of fertility, generally lasting for two days and accompanied by intense sexual cravings. Occurs approximately five years after a female’s transition and then once a decade thereafter. All males respond to some degree if they are around a female in her need. It can be a dangerous time, with conflicts and fights breaking out between competing males, particularly if the female is not mated.

  newling (n.)

  A virgin.

  the Omega (pr. n.)

  Malevolent, mystical figure who has targeted the vampires for extinction out of resentment directed toward the Scribe Virgin. Exists in a non-temporal realm and has extensive powers, though not the power of creation. Eradicated.

  phearsom (adj.)

  Term referring to the potency of a male’s sexual organs. Literal translation something close to “worthy of entering a female.”

  Princeps (pr. n.)

  Highest level of the vampire aristocracy, second only to members of the First Family or the Scribe Virgin’s Chosen. Must be born to the title; it may not be conferred.

  pyrocant (n.)

  Refers to a critical weakness in an individual. The weakness can be internal, such as an addiction, or external, such as a lover.

  rahlman (n.)

  Savior.

  rythe (n.)

  Ritual manner of asserting honor granted by one who has offended another. If accepted, the offended chooses a weapon and strikes the offender, who presents him- or herself without defenses.

  the Scribe Virgin (pr. n.)

  Mystical force who previously was counselor to the King as well as the keeper of vampire archives and the dispenser of privileges. Existed in a non-temporal realm and had extensive powers, but has recently stepped down and given her station to another. Capable of a single act of creation, which she expended to bring the vampires into existence.

  sehclusion (n.)

  Status conferred by the King upon a female of the aristocracy as a result of a petition by the female’s family. Places the female under the sole direction of her ghardian, typically the eldest male in her household. Her ghardian then has the legal right to determine all manner of her life, restricting at will any and all interactions she has with the world.

  shellan (n.)

  Female vampire who has been mated to a male. Females generally do not take more than one mate due to the highly territorial nature of bonded males.

  symphath (n.)

  Subspecies within the vampire race characterized b
y the ability and desire to manipulate emotions in others (for the purposes of an energy exchange), among other traits. Historically, they have been discriminated against and, during certain eras, hunted by vampires. They are near extinction.

  talhman (n.)

  The evil side of an individual. A dark stain on the soul that requires expression if it is not properly expunged.

  the Tomb (pr. n.)

  Sacred vault of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Used as a ceremonial site as well as a storage facility for the jars of lessers. Ceremonies performed there include inductions, funerals, and disciplinary actions against Brothers. No one may enter except for members of the Brotherhood, the Scribe Virgin or her successor, or candidates for induction.

  trahyner (n.)

  Word used between males of mutual respect and affection. Translated loosely as “beloved friend.”

  transition (n.)

  Critical moment in a vampire’s life when he or she transforms into an adult. Thereafter, he or she must drink the blood of the opposite sex to survive and is unable to withstand sunlight. Occurs generally in the mid-twenties. Some vampires do not survive their transitions, males in particular. Prior to their transitions, vampires are physically weak, sexually unaware and unresponsive, and unable to dematerialize.

  vampire (n.)

  Member of a species separate from that of Homo sapiens. Vampires must drink the blood of the opposite sex to survive. Human blood will keep them alive, though the strength does not last long. Following their transitions, which occur in their mid-twenties, they are unable to go out into sunlight and must feed from the vein regularly. Vampires cannot “convert” humans through a bite or transfer of blood, though they are in rare cases able to breed with the other species. Vampires can dematerialize at will, though they must be able to calm themselves and concentrate to do so and may not carry anything heavy with them. They are able to strip the memories of humans, provided such memories are short-term. Some vampires are able to read minds. Life expectancy is upward of a thousand years, or in some cases even longer.

  wahlker (n.)

  An individual who has died and returned to the living from the Fade. They are accorded great respect and are revered for their travails.

  whard (n.)

  Equivalent of a godfather or godmother to an individual.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Trade Street and 30th Avenue

  Downtown Caldwell, New York

  Forty-eight minutes before Ralphie DeMellio got murdered, he was living the life.

  “You got this,” his buddy was saying as he rubbed Ralphie’s bare shoulders. “You fucking got this, you’re a monster, you’re a motherfucking monster!”

  Ralphie and his crew were on the sixth level of a parking garage that was all about the oil stains and litter, rather than any Oldsmobiles and Lincolns. The abandoned facility was just a fucking concrete bureau with nothing in its drawers, and in this part of Caldie, any kind of structural on-its-lonesome didn’t last long. Hello, BKC. Bare Knuckle Conquests was the only legit underground fighting circuit in the southern part of New York State, and the bout held tonight was the reason why he, his bros, and five hundred clout-chasing Insta-famers were here.

  Any more selfies and it’d be the driver’s license lane at the DMV.

  BKC was big-ass business, and Ralphie, as the reigning champ, was making big-ass fucking bank—provided none of these dumbasses with the camera phones gave their location away. And like, what were the chances of that.

  “Where’s the coke.”

  He put his hand out, and when the brown vial was slapped into his palm like a surgical instrument, he went to town. As he honked two kilos of powder deep into his sinuses, his eyes went jumping bean over the crowd. Down at the other end of the level, they were antsy, drugging, and putting their bets in with the organizer’s bookies. Nothing but three rounds of bare-knuckle minutes between them and the killing they expected to make.

  Ralphie was a very good bet.

  He hadn’t lost a fight yet, even though he had Slim Jim muscles and smoked a lot of weed. But here was the fucking thing. The bouncer-types with the boulder biceps and the jelly bellies were only impressive when they were standing still. Get them moving and they had no balance, no speed, and follow-throughs like they had double vision. Long as Ralphie kept buzzing around like a fly on shit, he was unhittable as his right hook went to work.

  “You good, Ralphie. You fucking good!”

  “Yeah, that’s right, Ralphie, you the best!”

  His crew was five guys from the neighborhood. They’d grown up together and were all related, their families having come over on the boat to Ellis Island a couple generations ago and gotten out of Hell’s Kitchen soon as they could afford it. Little Italy in Caldie was little different than the one in Manhattan, and as his father always said, don’t trust someone you don’t know and don’t know someone if you can’t walk to their house.

  And there was one other person on Ralphie’s team.

  “Where is she.” Ralphie looked around. “Where is—”

  Chelle was back by the G Wagon, posed like a Pirelli girl, her elbows on the hood, one heel stabbed into a tire rim. Her head was back, the purple ends of her black hair licking the metallic paint, her pink lips parted as she stared up at nothing. The night was chilly because April was still a bitch in this zip code, but she didn’t give a fuck. Her bustier was all she had on up top, and the bottom half of her wasn’t covered much better.

  Fuuuuuuck. Those tattoos on her upper thighs were showing. And the ones on the swells of her breasts. And the sleeve on her left arm.

  She’d always refused to get one of his initials.

  She was like that.

  As if she caught his drift, Chelle slowly turned her head. Then she licked her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  Ralphie’s hand went to the front of his jeans. She was not the kind of woman you brought home to mother, and at first, that was the reason he’d fucked her. But she was smart and she had her own hair salon. She didn’t check his phone. She didn’t care if he went out with the boys. She had her own money, she never asked him for a goddamn thing, and she had options, lotta options.

  Men wanted her.

  She was with him, though. And no matter what she looked like, she didn’t come on to his crew. She was not a pass-around, and anybody rubbed up on her? She was one slap away from knocking their fucking teeth out.

  So yeah, after a year, Ralphie was way into her.

  To the point where he didn’t care about what anyone else thought, including his traditional Italian mother. As far as he was concerned, Chelle was wifey material and that was all that fucking mattered.

  “—got this, Ralphie—”

  To kill the ass-kissing all up in his face, Ralphie put his hand on the center of his boy’s chest and pushed the guy back. “Gimme a minute.”

  His crew knew what was up, and they turned around and faced the crowd, closing shoulder to shoulder.

  And Chelle was well damn aware of what he was after.

  The G Wagon was parked ass in, with a couple of feet of space between the rear bumper and the garage’s nasty concrete wall. Chelle went around and assumed the position, leaning back on the Benz’s boxy rear door and arching her shit. In her heels, she was as tall as Ralphie, and as her lids lowered and her breasts strained against the lace trim of the bustier, she met him right in the eye.

  Ralphie’s heart was going fast, but his smile was slow as he put his hands on her little waist. “You want it?”

  “Yeah. Gimme it.”

  Ralphie unzipped his jeans and stroked himself as he kissed her throat. ’Cuz she wouldn’t want him to mess up her lipstick. That kinda shit would come later, after he beat the ass of whoever was going to try him tonight. But he wasn’t about to drive his truck through mud, and he wasn’t about to mess up his female in public.

  Chelle moved her thong aside, and as she put a stiletto against the concrete, he pumped into her while she grabbe
d onto his bare shoulders.

  The sex was hot as fuck. Because it turned out that if he respected the female? It made everything hotter.

  As Ralphie lifted her up so she could put both her legs around his hips, he closed his eyes. The pre-fight rush, the coke, Chelle, the new G Wagon from the cake he was earning at BKC, it was all power in his veins. He was the man. He was the monster. He was—

  Ralphie started to come, and he would have yelled out, but he didn’t want people catching his girl like this. Instead he gritted his teeth and held on tight, dropping his head into Chelle’s perfumed neck and squeezing out curses through his locked jaw.

  And then he had to say it.

  “I love you, I fucking love you,” he grunted.

  He was so into his girl, so into the coming, so into the feel of her coming with him… that he didn’t notice who was watching them from the shadows about twenty feet away.

  If he had, he would have packed up his true love and his crew, and left rubber on the road as he got the fuck out of the parking garage.

  Most of destiny was on a need-to-know basis, however.

  And sometimes, it was best that you didn’t get a heads-up on the inevitable that had your name on it.

  Way too fucking horrifying.

  CHAPTER TWO

  2464 Crandall Avenue

  Eleven Miles from Downtown

  Mae, blooded daughter of Sturt, blooded sister of Rhoger, pulled on her coat and couldn’t find her purse. The little ranch didn’t offer a lot of hidey-holes, and she found the thing—with her keys, bonus—on the washer by the door out into the garage. Oh, right. She’d brought in her necessaries the night before and had lost control of so many bags. Her purse had thrown up on the tile floor, and she’d only had the energy to put the Humpty back in her Dumpty. Carrying the Michael Kors knockoff into the kitchen had just been too much.

  The lid of the Maytag was as far as she’d gotten.

  Grabbing the thing, she checked that the broken strap was still hanging on by the safety pin jury-rig she’d managed. Yup. Good to go. She supposed she could head to T.J. Maxx and buy a replacement, but who had time for that. Besides, “Waste not, want not” had always been the mantra in her family’s household.