Demetrius

Chapter 1

Callista Augustus huddled in the corner of her dark room.

Why do Mother and Father always have to fight?

She flinched at the sound of her father’s voice booming louder than before. I can’t believe you did this Josephine! You’re despicable!

Her mother’s rich voice rose to match her father’s. I wouldn’t have had to if you were a worthy male!

Hot tears seared Calli’s cheeks. She was only eight and didn’t understand what some of the words meant, but she knew they weren’t good.

"You had no right, no right, Josephine, to do that to her. She’s not a tool, she’s our child!"

Calli squeezed her eyes shut. Daddy had never been this mad before.

"Why would I put my body through that, through you, if I couldn’t get some use out of her? It didn’t take me long to figure out how worthless you were. I knew I needed some sort of insurance when I saw that our weak-willed council was floundering."

How could you, Josephine? I can’t believe a mother would do that to her child.

Calli frowned. Mother didn’t do anything to me. Her father’s voice was so much quieter than before. It was like when he found her playing on the house’s upper levels before the sun had set—for the fourth time. Father didn’t like to repeat himself, but he was always so patient with her.

She should consider it a gift, her mother hissed. It’s done and going to the council won’t help because you know what they’d do to her.

Her mother laughed, and it was…disturbing. Calli hated when her mother laughed like that. It usually meant one of the servants was getting punished.

The laughter died off. Edgar, what are—

Calli raised her head, waiting for more arguing. She couldn’t hear talking, nothing. Silence clogged the air.

Slowly, she uncurled her body and crawled to the heavy oak door of her room. Little light from the main area made it under her door, but it didn’t matter. Her eyesight was better than good. Good bloodlines, her father always said.

Prime bloodlines, her mother always countered.

Calli didn’t know why it mattered how her blood lined up.

Finally, she heard movement, like scuffling and scraping.

Her parent’s quarters were on the other side of the mansion, but they’d been arguing in the room Calli called the fireplace room. It was closer than her parent’s room, so Calli was surprised they’d been arguing there in the first place. Usually she could hear her mother screaming from the master bedroom.

Once she’d snuck out to see what was going on.

Only once.

The memory of her mother’s terrifying expression prompted Calli to scurry back to her bed to avoid getting caught. Climbing into her pink princess canopy bed, Calli burrowed under the covers. Recalling her mother’s blazing red eyes and bared fangs, she pulled the blankets over her head.

She strained to listen, trying to hear what her parents were doing. Warily, she pulled the covers back down so her ears were no longer covered. Soft thumps and doors shutting were all she heard. Calli hoped her parents weren’t going outside. The sun was already up and even though they were powerful vampires and their house was surrounded by trees, Calli worried. Her parents always lost their tempers when she meandered too close to the outer door during the day.

She heard the same sounds again, like someone was coming back down to the underground level they lived in.

Footsteps approached her door and Calli huddled further into her blankets.

When the door opened, she sensed her father approaching the bed. The scent of her mother was so strong, Calli was surprised she wasn’t with him.

Callista?

Of course he knew she wasn’t asleep. She could never fool him. Father?

You heard the fight.

He wasn’t asking, but she nodded.

Father looked…haggard. I’m sorry you had to hear that. Listen, your mother is…gone.

Calli waited for him to continue, she didn’t understand.

She was unhappy and she left.

Calli sat up, shoving her long blonde hair out of her face. When’s she coming back?

He hesitated, his face paler than she’d ever seen it. I don’t know that she will.

For the second time that night, tears welled, only this time they spilled. Her father sat on the bed and gathered her up into his arms.

She wept until she fell asleep.

Chapter 2

Seventeen years later…

Calli pulled into the circular drive and angled her car toward the row of garages. She hit the button on her dash and one of the large doors moved up, opening a yawning black hole of nothingness.

Well, almost nothing. Calli pulled in next to the Rolls Royce her father refused to sell. They’d gotten rid of so much stuff since the Vampire Council dissolved. Not that they’d had much, but enough to put on a good show pretending they weren’t nearly destitute. Jewelry, fancy cars, anything that could sell went. Thank you eBay. They could hardly afford to keep the mansion heated.

It’d been less than a year since life as she knew it had changed.

And what a relief. Faced with desolation, her father finally let her—gasp—get a job.

Twenty-four damn years old, she muttered, killing the engine.

I must insist on a stipulation Callista, her father had said almost a year ago. Please work with the very young or very old. I cannot have you exposed to the hazards of youth.

And that means what, father? Sex. She knew her father meant sex. To say he was extremely protective would be like saying the Facebook guy was sort of rich and famous. But he hadn’t been the same since the night her mother had left them. So yeah, she could take pity on the old guy and keep her panties on.

Everything else was up for grabs. She’d been sneaking out for years. To avoid her own kind and the tales that would work their way back to her father, she stuck to places prime families didn’t often frequent, like human clubs, and even the library.

She climbed out of the used car she’d gotten an excellent deal on and slammed the door. Thank whatever being out there who’s watching over vampires for technology. The internet made her teenage years bearable and helped her attain something akin to autonomy as a cloistered adult. After her mother had taken off with all their money, they only kept one butler around. The rest of the upkeep around the home fell to her. Callie relied on YouTube while her father could barely power on a computer. He preferred the old tomes that cluttered their library.

She hit the button to lower the door. It made a loud noise and the annoying light on the roof flashed.

Of course. Why wouldn’t that be broken, too?

A year without money, and even more without the butler, and the place looked like it’d been abandoned for decades. The wet winter had encouraged lush growth, and now that they were headed into fall, the greenery lost its luster. Brown, withered foliage covered the mansion from vines left untrimmed. Bushes looked like a haircut gone awry and the grass was brittle with little green left in the blades.

Again, what a relief. No more lawn mowing at five a.m. trying to get it done before sunrise. It had often taken more than one early evening to cover the acreage their mansion sat on. She missed having the butler’s extra help, and his mechanical knowledge. The lawn mower clogged up so badly that she couldn’t get it running again. Or that’s what she’d thought at first. Turned out the black stuff leaking out of the loose cap had been really important to the engine, and the machine wasn’t supposed to have white smoke billowing out from it. According to YouTube, she’d trashed the engine.

Jumping up, she unlatched the lever to make the garage door manual. Pulling the door down, she flipped the latch back hoping it’d work the next day.

Dusting her hands off on her bright pink scrubs, she wrinkled her nose remembering why the scrubs needed to go right into the wash.

The scent of aged urine clung to her. Calli loved her job, but it had a downside and that was body fluids. Tonight, she hadn’t gotten any on her, but as a certified nursing assistant for a local nursing home, she often spent enough time in a patient’s room to absorb the smells permeating the air. And little old Thelma liked to take her adult diaper off at night before she went to sleep.

So worth it.

Calli didn’t care what the patients smelled like or if those with severe dementia tried to hit or bite her, she loved every minute. Her supernatural strength was a huge asset on the job and she learned so much.

Not to mention, night shifts were plentiful in the CNA field. The weak sunlight of daybreak she drove home in wasn’t enough to severely burn her with her powerful bloodlines.

Heading to the laundry room, she stripped off her scrubs and grabbed a fresh pair of sweats. It was easier on her anxiety-ridden father not to let him see her in scrubs. The sight caused him to become morose and the smells that clung to her…well, vampire senses were extremely sensitive. She was used to it, he most definitely would never be.

The ponytail holder was the next to go. She tipped her head down and shook her hair out. California Girl, one of her patients called her because of her blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She always joked maybe one day, knowing it would be a big never. All that sunshine and vampires don’t mix.

Father, she called, heading down the stairs to their lair.

The lair was home. The upper levels were fun and she liked hanging out up there when the sun set, but she wallowed in the coziness of the sanctuary her father had built generations ago.

A groaning sound echoed through the hall. Calli slowed, cocking her head to listen better. Was that her father?

No, it sounded like no noise a living being would make.

Swiftly, Calli trotted down to the landing. She stopped to listen again. Was it coming from his bedroom? The living area was depressed and centered in the middle of the lower level. A few steps up in each direction led to the bedrooms, bath, or offices.

There, she heard it again. It wasn’t coming from the bedrooms, but in the direction of the office. If the sound had anything to do with her father, it probably originated from the library.

Trying to stay as quiet as possible, she crept down the hall, past the office, to the library. The sound got stronger, and stranger. What would make a deep moaning sound like that?

Her father’s words drifted down the corridor. I swear, I will trade myself for her. He sounded desperate, angry.

The sound cleared, like a radio station coming into tune, and it…laughed?

You think you would be more valuable?

My blood is strong. I have standing within our species.

The laugh came again. Shivers whispered down Calli’s spine. Whatever was happening in the library was not good.

You are not wrong son of Augustus, you and your blood will prove quite useful.

Hunching down to remain unseen, Calli snuck into the library and darted behind a ten-foot-tall ornate oak bookcase. She peeked around to find her father and when she did, she yearned to sprint back to her car and speed far away.

The beast her father spoke to must have been seven feet tall. Calli had cleaned enough elderly genitals to deduce the gender was male. He towered over her father, dwarfing him even from across the narrow table that stood between them.

Demon.

It could be nothing else with fangs five times longer than hers, fingers that ended in claws, and blood-red horns sprouting from his temples. She’d heard talk of demons during their social gatherings with other prime families, the powerful families who used to rule their race. Empty threats, mostly, like stories of the boogeyman to get children to behave.

Father, what’d you do?

The stench of sulfur was so strong, it overrode any other scent. Her father wouldn’t be able to sense her. Would the demon? She crouched down even farther and leaned back so less of her head was poking out.

Her father stood over a large, weathered book. Malachim, I command you—

The demon threw his head back and roared in laughter. You think you have the power to throw me back into the underworld?

Her father chanted in a language she’d never heard. Malachim’s hand snaked out to grab his neck. Callie wanted to jump out, distract the demon, something. The strangled sounds her father made terrified her.

You fool, the demon sneered, saliva dripping off his fangs. Never summon me unless you’re absolutely certain your wards are correct.

Malachim disappeared. Calli’s eyes widened, not wanting to believe what she saw, for disappeared wasn’t an accurate description. He became incorporeal and flowed into her father.

He stood like Malachim still had his throat. Then he arched his back and rotated his head, stretching his neck. He chuckled. It was her father’s voice, but she recognized the sinister laugh from moments ago.

His head jerked sideways like he heard a sound. Calli darted out of the library before he spotted her.

Ohshitohshitohshit.

Was he still Father, still Edgar Augustus? Or was he—

Calli ran as stealthily as she could back to the laundry room. Heart racing, she looked around. Think of something! If she wasn’t losing her mind, and she really saw something sinister happening in her own home, the last thing she wanted was for that thing to know she’d witnessed it all.

Either she still reeked like a lava pool, or the sulfur smell was stuck in her nose.

Her scrubs! She grabbed them off the floor and rubbed them all over. The mingling smells of several humans and stale urine from changing bedding helped mask the smell.

Dumping the scrubs into the washing machine, she poured in detergent without measuring. She was pushing buttons when she sensed a presence.

Looking over, she jumped when she saw her father standing in the doorway watching her. Father! You scared me.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His eyes were—Calli suppressed a shudder—dark. Her father’s normally stormy sky eyes were fathomless orbs of pure evil.

Callista. Did you just get home?

Yes. My clothes got dirty at work so I thought I’d better change and wash them.

Those dark eyes glanced at the machine, then narrowed back on her. She struggled to remain casual.

Is everything okay?

He smiled again, and it was more disturbing than before. Your birthday is soon.

Yes.

Have you plans?

Twenty-five doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I asked for the night off so we could celebrate.

Perfect. We will indeed celebrate. His smile spread even farther.

Creepy. Her father was now really creepy.

Okay. Well, I’d better turn in for the day. I have a ten-hour shift again tonight.

Good night, dear.

Her father left and Calli sagged against the machine. What was going on?

When she could no longer hear him, she hurried to her room. Locking the door made her feel better even though it wouldn’t stand a chance against that thing she saw in the library.

She paced her room. Her father was always buried in those ancient texts in the library. One was open on the table when he’d addressed the monster. The library held answers, she would bet her father’s Rolls on it.

For darkness sakes, she didn’t want to go near the library. Her eyes landed on her laptop.

Logging into the special network a group of vampire super-geeks created, Calli searched everything demon for the next two hours. The pull of the sun and her impending ten-hour shift wasn’t enough to settle her down.

Malachim’s name brought up all kinds of disturbing info. Calli skimmed articles and blogs on the demons vampires were legendary for associating with centuries ago. Growing up, there were so many tales of how their kind descended from the most powerful demons. She’d never given them much thought. She’d heard just as many stories about how shifters and vampires originated together, only shifters served Mother Earth and vampires…served themselves. She thought the stories were just that—the vampire equivalent of fables.

Everything pointed to Malachim being a demon. One of the thirteen demons in power in the underworld. So, one question answered in an unsettling way. What about his sudden disappearance?

Calli typed in possession and her heart slammed down to her bare feet.

The bloggers whose sites she cruised might not be heralded as the most mentally stable, but damn if they didn’t describe exactly what she’d seen in the library and what she’d felt when her father chatted with her.

Malachim possessed her father.

All questions of what he was doing and why took a back seat to how the hell was she going to help her father?

She knew nothing about the dark arts. None of her vampire friends did, either, not that she had many friends. Any vampires she knew