Prologue
Julian and Reese crept towards Evangeline’s home. A warehouse in a remote part of the city, it was the perfect dwelling for a vampire—windowless and pitch black inside when lights were not on. No one would ever suspect it was occupied, but if they entered, it was at their own peril.
Julian reached for the door latch, turning it, careful not to make a sound. He winced and froze when it clicked. When there was no rustling from inside, he opened the door and stepped in. Both he and Reese were barefoot, mindful of the sounds of heels on concrete. The silver blades Reese always had on him were in sheaths strapped to his back, within easy reach.
Evangeline’s bedroom was at the back of the building. Passing his former place of anything but rest, Julian felt his last feeding rising in his throat and forced his system to calm. In the end, it was just as he had told Kate. His entire existence and experiences had led him to her. That didn’t mean his Maker wasn’t going to pay. It ensured it, because she had almost taken his only love more than once.
Light from a single candle shone on the opposite side of the warehouse, and a faint scratching echoed over to them. Julian looked back over his shoulder at Reese and shrugged. His companion covered his lips with his finger for quiet and then pointed forward. Julian nodded, and they snuck over to her door. As they did, the scratching became louder.
Hiding behind the wall at the room entrance, Julian risked a peek around the corner. Evangeline sat, scribbling, her pen flying over the page. Beside her was a stack of papers she’d already filled with writing. Julian estimated there were at least four hundred sheets, and she was rapidly adding to the pile, placing another on top of it every few seconds.
Her shoulders were trembling, and when she flipped over another page, he saw red drops marring and blurring the black ink.
“No one understands.” She wept, tossing her pen into the waste bin at the corner leg of the desk and clicking another one to write more. “I’ll make them understand me. I have to.”
Julian signaled for Reese to stay where he was, and then he flashed to Evangeline, seizing her around the waist. The wood chair broke into pieces and fell to the floor. Tiny slivers embedded into his flesh, and he recalled the silver chain that had burned him during his torture at her hands.
“Understand what, Evangeline?” he demanded. His hold on her was unyielding. “That you’re criminally insane and need to be executed for what you’ve done? Are you writing a confession?”
Reese entered the room and brought out his blades.
“What in Heaven possessed you to come back here, of all places?” Reese asked.
“I left you all alone after the last time! I’ve given up! I’ll never bother any of you again. I came back to my home to try to recover. Don’t you see? The writing is helping me release the past!”
Reese’s and Julian’s eyes met in understanding. Something had changed. That was clear. She wasn’t even fighting to be let go. Julian shook his head.
“Too little, too late,” Julian growled. “You should have started your diary long ago, but you failed to do it. I have made a vow to my wife, and it will not be broken.”
At his words, she kicked and screamed to be released, as Julian dragged her out of the building. She made a sudden upward surge, and he tightened his hold on her further, pressing her down. Reese trailed behind them, ready to act if needed.
“You will not escape this time.” Julian’s tone was nothing short of a venomous promise. “Shut your lying mouth, or I will take your tongue.”
Still she pleaded, struggling, as they reached a clearing in the copse of trees close to the warehouse.
“No!” she screamed, seeing the trappings prepared for her. “Please! Julian! Reese! I’m sorry! Mercy! Have mercy on me! Please!”
Two iron beams rose from the earth with silver chains hanging from them. Kate’s bullet-riddled door was attached to the posts, secured as backing. Wooden stakes protruded from the ground in front of it.
“You can’t do this, Julian!” she pleaded, with tears pouring down her face. “I’m your Maker! I love you! You said you loved me, too! Don’t do this! Please!”
“Take her,” Julian said to Reese. He passed her to him. He went to stand in front of their creation of her final death. “Do you remember making me burn for you, Evangeline? Do you? It’s your turn now. You will burn under the light of the sun until you are no more.”
“No!” She jerked her arm, trying to get free from the one hand Reese held her with. “Please! Reese! Help me!”
Without a word, he pulled her over to the chains, where Julian stood. Smoke rose from his hands, as he held the heavy silver cuffs.
“I remember this sensation,” he said, ignoring her unintelligible pleas for sympathy. Taking one of her hands from Reese, he shackled that wrist, and then the other, as the scent of her burning flesh rose into the air. She writhed, throwing her legs out, hitting Julian in the abdomen and chest. “John struck me the same way. It didn’t help him, and it will not help you.”
Reese took hold of her left leg, and Julian, her right. They removed her boots and chained her ankles.
She beat the back of her head against the wood door, pulling and jerking the constraints, unable to make them budge. Screaming for her life, she begged and pleaded with Julian, as he sat on the ground in front of her, watching her struggles stone-faced.
“Evangeline!” Reese shouted. She lifted her head to him. “Pray to whatever god you believe in for forgiveness and mercy! There is none here for you. Daylight is coming!”
Racking sobs tore through her, but she did as Reese directed.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”
“Julian, come on.” Reese stood in front of him, blocking his view and holding his hand out. “We have to go. This isn’t something you want to see. Trust me.”
Julian clasped the outstretched hand and allowed his friend to pull him to his feet.
“You can’t leave me to die here by myself! Not alone! Please! Don’t leave me!”
“Continue your prayers, Evangeline,” Julian murmured. They turned, sprinting away, her screams following as the sun broke on the horizon.
*
A form clad in black from head to toe, with fabric wrapped around his face, raced to the burning body between the poles. Throwing a blanket over her to douse the flames and breaking the links holding her up, he quickly bundled her into his arms.
He had watched as the other vampires entered the building and dragged her out, placing her in the chains, as she begged for her life. Biding his time, he had waited as they sentenced her, his progeny, to a certain death, left to be set aflame by the rays of the sun.
After the vampires left, he had dashed to his car to get the blanket from the trunk. Her screams of agony as she burned spurred him to speed faster, but by the time he reached her, she had long ceased crying for help. The sunlight was a direct beam upon her in the midst of the woods. In the chains, her scorched remains involuntarily jerked, automatic movements of the body, still trying to survive.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said. “All these years, searching for you. I will not lose you now. I have to right the wrong I did to you so long ago.”
The stench of charred flesh went into his nostrils as he ran through the trees, holding her firm and tight. Spying a dilapidated building in the distance, he headed towards it, traveling in the open glare of the sun. The dark fabric tied around his face fell, revealing the beginnings of an ugly scar. The bit of exposed flesh sparked, lighting aflame.
Shattering a window as he burst through it, he got both of them inside. Scanning the space, he saw a stairwell. He darted over to it, almost flying down the stairs, and he didn’t stop until they were engulfed in darkness. He laid her on a broken-down couch in an office on the lowest floor of the abandoned building and slapped away the flames on his face. After closing the door, he unwrapped her with a delicate touch. Despite his care at unraveling her, long strips of her burnt skin came away with the covering.
With her body fully revealed, he assessed the damage done to her. Her thick, lovely blonde hair was gone, her eyelids were burnt and sealed shut, and the bits of her clothing that had not been destroyed stuck to her exposed bones.
“Why did they do this to you?” he asked, mulling over the attempted murder of a vampire. It was not something done lightly, or without sound and valid reasons. The one who had chained her, he thought he recognized, but could not name, although he knew enough about him to fear him as one of the eldest and strongest walking the earth. For a vampire of that stature to be party to murder, she must have been involved in reckless or wicked dealings. Perhaps both.
Biting into his wrist and ripping it open, he put it to her mouth, allowing his healing essence to flow down her throat. Still holding it there, he slit his other and dripped scarlet down over her body, coating the open wounds. Slowly, the smoke settled and ceased.
“Drink, Evangeline,” he commanded.
He would decide, once she confessed her doings to him, whether she should meet the fate they had planned. If he judged her to be guilty, he would remove her from the world, just as he had brought her into it.
“I am not the man I once was.”
Chapter 1
“Our Father.”
In horror, Evangeline watched the scene unfolding in front of her. Secured to the metal poles, she could do nothing to escape. Her pleas to be released fell on the deaf ears of the men who had placed her there. The door at her back scraped against her skin, which had been bared during her struggle to get away from Julian. His overwhelming strength had shocked her, as he handled her, subduing her easily, and shackled her in the chains that were burning into her opened skin. As she trembled, slivers broke off and pierced her flesh, starting a low, simmering burn, a harbinger of what was to come.
“Who art in Heaven.”
Her voice shook, and her eyes fell to Julian, sitting on the ground at her feet. His face was blank, eyes hard and unforgiving, as he watched the tendrils of smoke rising from her body, while ignoring the same effect on his own. Cold tears poured from her eyes, as the realization she was going to die sank into her. The man she made immortal, bringing about her end.
“Hallowed be Thy name.”
Her eyes rose to the horizon, as the pinpricks of daylight filtered through the trees of the small forest. A breeze blew, and the leaves and branches seemed to sway or bend to allow the bright yellow and white rays to reach her.
“Thy kingdom come.”
“Julian! Get up! We have to go. Now!” Reese yelled, as he stepped in front of her. His clothes were smoking, and he slapped the flames, putting them out, as they flared. “Take my hand! Think of Kate!”
“A moment more,” her former lover said.
He bent sideways to pierce her with a cold stare once again, placing a hand on the ground for support. A small beam of light landed on his exposed fingers, and he pulled it back to his lap with a hiss.
“Thy will be done.”
She shuddered uncontrollably, as the light that had touched Julian continued to stretch forward, creeping inch by terrifying inch, towards her bare toes. Scrunching them under, as much as she could, she tried to shield them from the inevitable.
“Now, Julian!” Reese screamed, holding his hand out. “We can’t stay here any longer! She’s about to go up! You don’t want to see this! Trust me!”
Julian shook his head, as if coming out of a dream, and clasped the hand in front of him. Reese hauled him to his feet and pushed him in the direction from which they had come, prodding him to leave.
“Julian! Please! Don’t do this!” she wailed, jerking the chains that held her securely and forcing the metal down into her wrists. “You can’t leave me here to die alone! Anything but alone! Take the stakes and kill me! Just don’t leave me to die by myself! Not like this!”
“Let’s go!”
Reese shoved him again, harder that time, as the roundness of the sun began to take shape over the tops of the trees.
Julian looked back over his shoulder at her and murmured, “You know this isn’t my fault. Your death is at your own hands. I tried to end your obsession with me. What you did to Kate cannot be forgotten or forgiven. Continue your prayers, Evangeline. May the gods have mercy on you when I could not.”
With the sun continuing its ascent, they turned and ran away from her, as she cried, desperately begging for them to return, knowing it was in vain. Seeing the blazing light, as the soft warmth she hadn’t known in centuries passed onto her skin, she fought with all the strength she had, jerking and pulling at her restraints, as strands of her hair started to burn.
It was the end.
The final death was upon her.
Julian and Reese crept towards Evangeline’s home. A warehouse in a remote part of the city, it was the perfect dwelling for a vampire—windowless and pitch black inside when lights were not on. No one would ever suspect it was occupied, but if they entered, it was at their own peril.
Julian reached for the door latch, turning it, careful not to make a sound. He winced and froze when it clicked. When there was no rustling from inside, he opened the door and stepped in. Both he and Reese were barefoot, mindful of the sounds of heels on concrete. The silver blades Reese always had on him were in sheaths strapped to his back, within easy reach.
Evangeline’s bedroom was at the back of the building. Passing his former place of anything but rest, Julian felt his last feeding rising in his throat and forced his system to calm. In the end, it was just as he had told Kate. His entire existence and experiences had led him to her. That didn’t mean his Maker wasn’t going to pay. It ensured it, because she had almost taken his only love more than once.
Light from a single candle shone on the opposite side of the warehouse, and a faint scratching echoed over to them. Julian looked back over his shoulder at Reese and shrugged. His companion covered his lips with his finger for quiet and then pointed forward. Julian nodded, and they snuck over to her door. As they did, the scratching became louder.
Hiding behind the wall at the room entrance, Julian risked a peek around the corner. Evangeline sat, scribbling, her pen flying over the page. Beside her was a stack of papers she’d already filled with writing. Julian estimated there were at least four hundred sheets, and she was rapidly adding to the pile, placing another on top of it every few seconds.
Her shoulders were trembling, and when she flipped over another page, he saw red drops marring and blurring the black ink.
“No one understands.” She wept, tossing her pen into the waste bin at the corner leg of the desk and clicking another one to write more. “I’ll make them understand me. I have to.”
Julian signaled for Reese to stay where he was, and then he flashed to Evangeline, seizing her around the waist. The wood chair broke into pieces and fell to the floor. Tiny slivers embedded into his flesh, and he recalled the silver chain that had burned him during his torture at her hands.
“Understand what, Evangeline?” he demanded. His hold on her was unyielding. “That you’re criminally insane and need to be executed for what you’ve done? Are you writing a confession?”
Reese entered the room and brought out his blades.
“What in Heaven possessed you to come back here, of all places?” Reese asked.
“I left you all alone after the last time! I’ve given up! I’ll never bother any of you again. I came back to my home to try to recover. Don’t you see? The writing is helping me release the past!”
Reese’s and Julian’s eyes met in understanding. Something had changed. That was clear. She wasn’t even fighting to be let go. Julian shook his head.
“Too little, too late,” Julian growled. “You should have started your diary long ago, but you failed to do it. I have made a vow to my wife, and it will not be broken.”
At his words, she kicked and screamed to be released, as Julian dragged her out of the building. She made a sudden upward surge, and he tightened his hold on her further, pressing her down. Reese trailed behind them, ready to act if needed.
“You will not escape this time.” Julian’s tone was nothing short of a venomous promise. “Shut your lying mouth, or I will take your tongue.”
Still she pleaded, struggling, as they reached a clearing in the copse of trees close to the warehouse.
“No!” she screamed, seeing the trappings prepared for her. “Please! Julian! Reese! I’m sorry! Mercy! Have mercy on me! Please!”
Two iron beams rose from the earth with silver chains hanging from them. Kate’s bullet-riddled door was attached to the posts, secured as backing. Wooden stakes protruded from the ground in front of it.
“You can’t do this, Julian!” she pleaded, with tears pouring down her face. “I’m your Maker! I love you! You said you loved me, too! Don’t do this! Please!”
“Take her,” Julian said to Reese. He passed her to him. He went to stand in front of their creation of her final death. “Do you remember making me burn for you, Evangeline? Do you? It’s your turn now. You will burn under the light of the sun until you are no more.”
“No!” She jerked her arm, trying to get free from the one hand Reese held her with. “Please! Reese! Help me!”
Without a word, he pulled her over to the chains, where Julian stood. Smoke rose from his hands, as he held the heavy silver cuffs.
“I remember this sensation,” he said, ignoring her unintelligible pleas for sympathy. Taking one of her hands from Reese, he shackled that wrist, and then the other, as the scent of her burning flesh rose into the air. She writhed, throwing her legs out, hitting Julian in the abdomen and chest. “John struck me the same way. It didn’t help him, and it will not help you.”
Reese took hold of her left leg, and Julian, her right. They removed her boots and chained her ankles.
She beat the back of her head against the wood door, pulling and jerking the constraints, unable to make them budge. Screaming for her life, she begged and pleaded with Julian, as he sat on the ground in front of her, watching her struggles stone-faced.
“Evangeline!” Reese shouted. She lifted her head to him. “Pray to whatever god you believe in for forgiveness and mercy! There is none here for you. Daylight is coming!”
Racking sobs tore through her, but she did as Reese directed.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”
“Julian, come on.” Reese stood in front of him, blocking his view and holding his hand out. “We have to go. This isn’t something you want to see. Trust me.”
Julian clasped the outstretched hand and allowed his friend to pull him to his feet.
“You can’t leave me to die here by myself! Not alone! Please! Don’t leave me!”
“Continue your prayers, Evangeline,” Julian murmured. They turned, sprinting away, her screams following as the sun broke on the horizon.
*
A form clad in black from head to toe, with fabric wrapped around his face, raced to the burning body between the poles. Throwing a blanket over her to douse the flames and breaking the links holding her up, he quickly bundled her into his arms.
He had watched as the other vampires entered the building and dragged her out, placing her in the chains, as she begged for her life. Biding his time, he had waited as they sentenced her, his progeny, to a certain death, left to be set aflame by the rays of the sun.
After the vampires left, he had dashed to his car to get the blanket from the trunk. Her screams of agony as she burned spurred him to speed faster, but by the time he reached her, she had long ceased crying for help. The sunlight was a direct beam upon her in the midst of the woods. In the chains, her scorched remains involuntarily jerked, automatic movements of the body, still trying to survive.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said. “All these years, searching for you. I will not lose you now. I have to right the wrong I did to you so long ago.”
The stench of charred flesh went into his nostrils as he ran through the trees, holding her firm and tight. Spying a dilapidated building in the distance, he headed towards it, traveling in the open glare of the sun. The dark fabric tied around his face fell, revealing the beginnings of an ugly scar. The bit of exposed flesh sparked, lighting aflame.
Shattering a window as he burst through it, he got both of them inside. Scanning the space, he saw a stairwell. He darted over to it, almost flying down the stairs, and he didn’t stop until they were engulfed in darkness. He laid her on a broken-down couch in an office on the lowest floor of the abandoned building and slapped away the flames on his face. After closing the door, he unwrapped her with a delicate touch. Despite his care at unraveling her, long strips of her burnt skin came away with the covering.
With her body fully revealed, he assessed the damage done to her. Her thick, lovely blonde hair was gone, her eyelids were burnt and sealed shut, and the bits of her clothing that had not been destroyed stuck to her exposed bones.
“Why did they do this to you?” he asked, mulling over the attempted murder of a vampire. It was not something done lightly, or without sound and valid reasons. The one who had chained her, he thought he recognized, but could not name, although he knew enough about him to fear him as one of the eldest and strongest walking the earth. For a vampire of that stature to be party to murder, she must have been involved in reckless or wicked dealings. Perhaps both.
Biting into his wrist and ripping it open, he put it to her mouth, allowing his healing essence to flow down her throat. Still holding it there, he slit his other and dripped scarlet down over her body, coating the open wounds. Slowly, the smoke settled and ceased.
“Drink, Evangeline,” he commanded.
He would decide, once she confessed her doings to him, whether she should meet the fate they had planned. If he judged her to be guilty, he would remove her from the world, just as he had brought her into it.
“I am not the man I once was.”
Chapter 1
“Our Father.”
In horror, Evangeline watched the scene unfolding in front of her. Secured to the metal poles, she could do nothing to escape. Her pleas to be released fell on the deaf ears of the men who had placed her there. The door at her back scraped against her skin, which had been bared during her struggle to get away from Julian. His overwhelming strength had shocked her, as he handled her, subduing her easily, and shackled her in the chains that were burning into her opened skin. As she trembled, slivers broke off and pierced her flesh, starting a low, simmering burn, a harbinger of what was to come.
“Who art in Heaven.”
Her voice shook, and her eyes fell to Julian, sitting on the ground at her feet. His face was blank, eyes hard and unforgiving, as he watched the tendrils of smoke rising from her body, while ignoring the same effect on his own. Cold tears poured from her eyes, as the realization she was going to die sank into her. The man she made immortal, bringing about her end.
“Hallowed be Thy name.”
Her eyes rose to the horizon, as the pinpricks of daylight filtered through the trees of the small forest. A breeze blew, and the leaves and branches seemed to sway or bend to allow the bright yellow and white rays to reach her.
“Thy kingdom come.”
“Julian! Get up! We have to go. Now!” Reese yelled, as he stepped in front of her. His clothes were smoking, and he slapped the flames, putting them out, as they flared. “Take my hand! Think of Kate!”
“A moment more,” her former lover said.
He bent sideways to pierce her with a cold stare once again, placing a hand on the ground for support. A small beam of light landed on his exposed fingers, and he pulled it back to his lap with a hiss.
“Thy will be done.”
She shuddered uncontrollably, as the light that had touched Julian continued to stretch forward, creeping inch by terrifying inch, towards her bare toes. Scrunching them under, as much as she could, she tried to shield them from the inevitable.
“Now, Julian!” Reese screamed, holding his hand out. “We can’t stay here any longer! She’s about to go up! You don’t want to see this! Trust me!”
Julian shook his head, as if coming out of a dream, and clasped the hand in front of him. Reese hauled him to his feet and pushed him in the direction from which they had come, prodding him to leave.
“Julian! Please! Don’t do this!” she wailed, jerking the chains that held her securely and forcing the metal down into her wrists. “You can’t leave me here to die alone! Anything but alone! Take the stakes and kill me! Just don’t leave me to die by myself! Not like this!”
“Let’s go!”
Reese shoved him again, harder that time, as the roundness of the sun began to take shape over the tops of the trees.
Julian looked back over his shoulder at her and murmured, “You know this isn’t my fault. Your death is at your own hands. I tried to end your obsession with me. What you did to Kate cannot be forgotten or forgiven. Continue your prayers, Evangeline. May the gods have mercy on you when I could not.”
With the sun continuing its ascent, they turned and ran away from her, as she cried, desperately begging for them to return, knowing it was in vain. Seeing the blazing light, as the soft warmth she hadn’t known in centuries passed onto her skin, she fought with all the strength she had, jerking and pulling at her restraints, as strands of her hair started to burn.
It was the end.
The final death was upon her.