Sex. Blood. Death.
But Ryder had finally found his control. Finally pulled back.
Malcolm hadn’t. “My brother was older than me.” By a year. “He’d always been the leader, the one who would rule after my father, but . . . with the change, he was weaker—”
“Weaker than you?” she finished, head tilting back.
He couldn’t read the emotions in her eyes, and he wanted to know what she was thinking.
“My blood made him, but though he was strong, I was stronger.”
“Because you were the first.” Her whisper. And she seemed to finally understand.
I was the first vampire.
Long before the legend of Vlad the Impaler, Ryder had been roaming the earth. Ryder didn’t know of another who’d been cursed by the bloodlust . . . until he awoke with the hunger.
Hell, it had been at least a few centuries later before he’d met Vlad on a blood-filled night.
“My brother didn’t want someone else to be stronger than him. Malcolm wanted to rule. He wanted the humans at his feet.” Malcolm had wanted to change the world. To show the humans just what they should fear.
And the stories had started to spread then. Stories about men who hunted during the night. Who drank blood. Who killed. Who terrified.
“I saw what happened.” He turned his back to her. Paced across the room. His gaze fell on a picture of Sabine. She looked about sixteen. Smiling from ear to ear as she stood on a sun-soaked deck. “The humans turned on each other. They killed, each other, because they thought the monsters were among them.” And they were. Only the fools were killing the wrong ones. “They tortured innocents. Slaughtered. And my brother was there, laughing at it all. Even holding court over some of the proceedings.”
Malcolm had enjoyed it all. Enjoyed having those he knew to be just humans brought before him. Malcolm had ordered their blood drained. Ordered them sliced open. Ordered so many atrocities.
His shoulders stiffened as the memories flooded through him. “Malcolm could have taught Wyatt a great deal about torture.”
He remembered the screams. Bones—broken. Bodies-slowly cut in half. The Middle Ages had been the worst time. So many ways to torture, ways that made the victims take so long to die.
The screams stay with me.
“I knew I had to stop him.” Malcolm’s madness had infected the humans, not just because he was controlling their minds, but because the hysteria spread so widely and quickly. “I wanted to stop the death.” It had sickened him, and the knowledge that pained him the most . . .
I started it. His blood had transformed Malcolm. If he’d just let his brother die, then so many other lives would have been spared.
“I went to him. Got him away from the followers he kept so close.” Malcolm had always been eager to make more vampires, though they hadn’t actually been called vampires, not back then. No one had called them vampires until centuries later.
Back then, they’d just been blood drinkers. Monsters.
Later, his kind had become vykolakas or strigoi. And, finally, vampire.
“You killed him,” she said, her voice without emotion.
He glanced back at her. “Actually, he tried to kill me first.” A perfect setup. “I was still trying to save him. Trying to stop his madness, when he drove a sword into my heart.”
The blade had been silver. Silver didn’t kill me, brother. But the blow had weakened him. “During his tortures, my brother had been experimenting.”
Just like Wyatt. His jaw locked. Ryder hated experiments. And the monsters who enjoyed them. “He killed humans, but he also made vampires . . . made them, then killed them, just so he could learn our weaknesses.”
You don’t understand. You’ve changed. Malcolm’s charge to him. We can have everything. We can drink this world dry.
Ryder hadn’t been thirsty any longer. He’d controlled his cravings. Been able to think past the bloodlust.
“He used the sword to maximize my blood loss, to weaken me.” If Ryder had been a normal “transformed” vampire, the attack would have worked. But Malcolm’s “experiments” had been off. Because Ryder wasn’t like the others. “While I was on the ground, bleeding out, he went for my head.” His brother hadn’t wanted to take any chances. He’d attacked quickly, going for a brutal kill. Ryder rubbed his neck, remembering that long-ago day. Time couldn’t erase some memories. Not the darkest ones.
Sabine rose and came toward him with slow steps. Her hand lifted and touched the skin of his throat. Her fingers felt like they were wrapped in silk. “But you stopped him.”
He offered her a small smile. “No, love, Malcolm drove that sword’s blade into my throat, and I choked on my own blood.”
Her lips parted in shock.
“But the first blow of the sword didn’t completely sever my head. My brother should have used a sharper blade.” His mistake. “So I fought back. Not with my body, because it was all but useless. I used my mind.” He’d made a shocking discovery then. “I could control the others. Every vampire he’d made. Every vampire I’d made.” His control hadn’t been limited to humans. “In those desperate moments, I reached out, and I could feel them all.”
Every single one.
He’d felt a rush of power so intense then that his body had shuddered.
“I sent out one order to the vampires. Just one . . . kill Malcolm.”
Her fingers trembled against his throat.
“And my brother stared into my eyes. He took the sword, and he plunged it into his own chest even as he screamed at me.”
“Ryder . . .”
“The others came. He wasn’t dead. They attacked him. Hitting. Punching. Clawing. Tearing into him. He kept screaming, but he wasn’t fighting them. He could scream, but he couldn’t fight.”
She didn’t stop touching him. Why? He was telling her everything. She knew his darkness. But she was leaning closer to him. “How did you get away?” Sabine asked.
“I made them give me blood.” He’d taken and taken. “They dragged my brother’s body away. Buried him.” What had been left of him.
“Then what did you do?”
“I tried to stop the monsters I’d made. Tried to pull them back, but by that point, there were too many of us.” He expelled a rough breath. “I hunted the worst of the vampires. Killed them. Staked those who slaughtered innocents and enjoyed the bloodbath.” Confess. “Though I was little better than they were. But I tried to be. I swear, I tried to be.”
Her fingertips rested over his pounding pulse. “How long did you hunt?”
“I’m still hunting.” A dark truth. “I’m the one who created the vampires, so it’s my job to take out the monsters who live to torture and destroy.” His job—his penance.
“I know the rage you carry,” he said, and Ryder was careful not to touch her. “You feel betrayed. You trusted your family.” This she had to understand. “But family can and will turn on you. Especially if . . .”
“If you’re a monster?”
“If they are the monsters. And humans can be just as evil and twisted as any beast stalking in the night.”
“Yes,” she agreed with her steady gaze, “they can be.” Then her fingers slid over his neck, lightly caressing his skin once more. “How close did you come to death that day?”
“Too close.” Close enough to know that he didn’t want to see whatever hell waited for him on the other side.
She leaned up on her toes, and her lips brushed over his throat. Over the phantom wound that had long since faded. “I’m sorry.”