Table of Contents
Prologue * Frank
Chapter 1 * Nik
Chapter 2 * Shay
Chapter 3 * Nik
Chapter 4 * Mirren
Chapter 5 * Shay
Chapter 6 * Nik
Chapter 7 * Aidan
Chapter 8 * Shay
Chapter 9 * Mirren
Chapter 10 * Nik
Chapter 11 * Nik
Chapter 12 * Shay
Chapter 13 * Aidan
Chapter 14 * Nik
Chapter 15 * Shay
Chapter 16 * Robin
Chapter 17 * Shay
Chapter 18 * Nik
Chapter 19 * Will
Chapter 20 * Cage
Chapter 21 * Shay
Chapter 22 * Nik
Chapter 23 * Mirren
Chapter 24 * Shay
Chapter 25 * Nik
Chapter 26 * Aidan
Chapter 27 * Shay
Chapter 28 * Nik
Chapter 29 * Mirren
Chapter 30 * Nik
Chapter 31 * Shay
Chapter 32 * Robin
Chapter 33 * Shay
Chapter 34 * Nik
Chapter 35 * Shay
Chapter 36 * Mirren
Chapter 37 * Shay
Chapter 38 * Nik
Chapter 39 * Aidan
Chapter 40 * Nik
Chapter 41 * Shay
Chapter 42 * Glory
Chapter 43 * Nik
Chapter 44 * Shay
Epilogue * Mirren
ILLUMINATION
The Penton Vampire Legacy
Susannah Sandlin
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2017 by Suzanne Johnson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9968220-3-9
Cover design by Kim Killion, The Killion Group.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Prologue * Frank
2. Chapter 1 * Nik
3. Chapter 2 * Shay
4. Chapter 3 * Nik
5. Chapter 4 * Mirren
6. Chapter 5 * Shay
7. Chapter 6 * Nik
8. Chapter 7 * Aidan
9. Chapter 8 * Shay
10. Chapter 9 * Mirren
11. Chapter 10 * Nik
12. Chapter 11 * Nik
13. Chapter 12 * Shay
14. Chapter 13 * Aidan
15. Chapter 14 * Nik
16. Chapter 15 * Shay
17. Chapter 16 * Robin
18. Chapter 17 * Shay
19. Chapter 18 * Nik
20. Chapter 19 * Will
21. Chapter 20 * Cage
22. Chapter 21 * Shay
23. Chapter 22 * Nik
24. Chapter 23 * Mirren
25. Chapter 24 * Shay
26. Chapter 25 * Nik
27. Chapter 26 * Aidan
28. Chapter 27 * Shay
29. Chapter 28 * Nik
30. Chapter 29 * Mirren
31. Chapter 30 * Nik
32. Chapter 31 * Shay
33. Chapter 32 * Robin
34. Chapter 33 * Shay
35. Chapter 34 * Nik
36. Chapter 35 * Shay
37. Chapter 36 * Mirren
38. Chapter 37 * Shay
39. Chapter 38 * Nik
40. Chapter 39 * Aidan
41. Chapter 40 * Nik
42. Chapter 41 * Shay
43. Chapter 42 * Glory
44. Chapter 43 * Nik
45. Chapter 44 * Shay
46. Epilogue * Mirren
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Susannah Sandlin
Prologue * Frank
Frank Greisser might be director of the world Vampire Tribunal, but what good was that when he was forever hungry, his clothes billowed around his frame, and he’d had most of his own Tribunal members murdered?
He yearned to bleed dry the human feeder in the adjoining room, but the days when vampires drank their fill had passed.
Maybe the nightmare would end soon. Finally, hope had risen for the starving vampire population, or at least for the vampire population who supported him. Rebels would die, slowly and with maximum pain. First to die? The criminals who lived in that hellhole known as Penton, Alabama.
Frank longed for his family home in Vienna, with its view of the majestic Danube and the ancient city center. Instead, he stared out the window of his host’s home at the gaudy lights of New Orleans’s French Quarter. It was an ancient city by American standards but a cheap counterfeit of the European capitals he loved.
Oh well, his stay here would be short. He’d found the ideal partner to lead the new operation designed to help the vampires solve the crisis that had propelled them to the bottom of the food chain. A simple vaccine for a human pandemic had changed the vampire world, altering the blood chemistry of the vaccinated humans. Now, they poisoned any vampire who fed from them. Arrogant vampires who thought a solution would be quick and easy had drained the easy pickings among the unvaccinated.
Frank made a bitter acknowledgment: he’d been one of the most arrogant.
Times grew more desperate, with bad news arriving daily of uprisings and failed attempts at trafficking. Europe and North America were running out of unvaccinated humans from which to feed, even in the rural areas. Few vampires possessed the psychological makeup to live in places where modern civilization had yet to reach. Human governments and their damned immigration laws and border security made it risky to bring in sufficient feeders from third world countries.
And even a vampire could die from a well-placed terrorist bomb.
Then Simon Landry, an ambitious scathe leader from New Orleans, had come to Frank with a scheme brilliant in its simplicity. A plan that could be scaled up as needed, put in place anywhere in the world, and offer a means of survival for vampires willing to swear an oath of loyalty. All it required was sex.
A quiet knock interrupted his thoughts. As Frank approached the door, his movements silent on the plush carpet, he sensed his visitor was both vampire and blood-bonded to him, even before the man spoke.
“Frank, it’s Simon. I have the items you requested.”
He opened the door to his host and newest acolyte. Simon Landry had been turned vampire at a young, handsome thirty-five, five human years older than Frank himself. Vampire years? Frank had at least two centuries on him. Where Frank had been an Austrian of the Habsburg era, the son of a shopkeeper, Simon had grown up here in New Orleans in the 1700s, the son of a wealthy plantation owner. He wore his black hair to his shoulders, where Frank’s blond hair curled around his head like a schoolboy’s. Simon’s blue eyes and fair skin spoke to his French ancestry, but he had the brash, money-focused sensibilities that were purely American.
Best of all, he didn’t allow himself the luxury of sentimentality.
Frank eyed the briefcase Simon had brought with him and set on the suite’s dresser. “These are the dossiers?”
“I already have identified twenty unvaccinated women who are on the young side of childbearing age, so we should be able to use them many times. There is one exception, a woman who’s older. She’ll be an experimental case, but she has other value for us—plus she kind of fell in
to our laps by hooking up with my familiar while on holiday.”
With the click of a lock, Simon opened the briefcase and handed Frank a pile of manila folders. “I suggest we begin with three or four women—three of the younger women, plus the older one so she can provide care for the others. Once we are sure our warehouse provides a secure holding area, we can expand the project.”
Frank frowned. “Why not get them all pregnant now? I don’t have to remind you how dire the need has gotten. The blood of their offspring is how we’ll survive.”
“Do I look as if I need reminding?” Simon held out his arms to show off his gaunt physique. “But we mustn’t attract attention from the human authorities. Too many young women can’t go missing at once, even if they are loners. Otherwise, the police will stop treating their disappearances as isolated cases and will throw more resources into finding them.”
Simon took a deep breath and leveled his voice. Good decision on his part; Frank would not tolerate insolence.
“Whether we wait nine months or twelve makes little difference in the grand scheme,” Simon said. “Don’t forget who is taking all the risk here—finding and procuring the women, making sure they’re pregnant, prenatal care, warehousing, round-the-clock security. It’s not a simple operation.”
He paused. “Or a cheap one.”
Frank glanced up from the project summary page he’d been scanning. “I’ll reward your ingenuity and hard work on this program. Don’t forget that North America will need a new representative on the Vampire Tribunal.”
The previous representative had been the first Tribunal member he’d killed, which still hadn’t prevented the rebel stronghold in Penton from declaring itself a hostile sovereign state. That would change, however.
“Have you given up on the shifter breeding program?” Simon pulled two more folders from the case and sat in the armchair on the opposite side of the small window table from Frank. He reached for the empty glass next to Frank’s half-filled one and poured himself two fingers of Scotch from the bottle on the table. “I haven’t heard of a single success.”
“It was an utter disaster.” Frank reached for his own glass, stifling a shudder. Disaster was an understatement. They had turned shifters into vampires, and vice-versa, hoping to create day-walking vampires who would eat regular food and, in turn, feed other vampires. “All we got were new vampires who were hungry for human food but couldn’t digest it, and monstrous hybrid shifters who had to drink blood to survive but never quelled their appetites.”
Simon’s plan was foolproof, as long as they were careful. Frank opened the top folder to a photo of a young blonde with shoulder-length hair, dark-rimmed glasses, and a serious expression. “Do all the breeders have such unpleasant demeanors?”
“Attractiveness and personality were not among my criteria. I only care if they are of fertile age, unvaccinated, and lack close friends and family ties.” Simon leaned over to see which photo Frank held. “Ah yes, our experimental case. She’s 31 years old and vaccinated. But why not try to breed a vaccinated female with an unvaccinated male and see if we can feed from the offspring? If that works, it greatly expands our options. The key reasons I chose her were her lack of local ties and her training as a physician. She can keep our stable healthy even if she doesn’t work as a breeder.”
Frank laughed. “Our stable of brood mares.” This plan really would offer a solution. If the children of Simon’s stable proved able to feed vampires, they would be sold for future breeding if female—or sold for stud or food if male. When the women passed childbearing age or became uncooperative, they’d be sold as blood whores or drained. Win-win-win.
“This is a pilot program for every city around the world.” Frank leaned forward and gave Simon a piercing look. “It is a brilliant idea, so don’t screw it up.”
Simon grinned wide enough to show the tips of his fangs. “I don’t intend to. This will bring the Tribunal back to power, and I want to be part of it.”
“Has your human familiar agreed to sire the children? Do you trust him to stay detached?”
Laughing, Simon poured another Scotch. “Jonathan has been with me for a decade and he’s delighted. He’ll get his rocks off when I feed from him and get to bang a bunch of women to use up all that testosterone. He says they’re all alike with the lights out—he’s already spent a long weekend with the vaccinated doctor, about six weeks ago. We’ll check soon to see if she’s pregnant.”
Frank smiled. “Just see that he also knows how to keep his mouth shut about his new garden of earthly delights. Have you found the right property for housing?”
Simon opened his remaining file, passed Frank a photo, and got up to spread a map on the floor in front of the table. He pointed to the ribbon of blue that snaked through the middle of the city. “Here’s the Mississippi River, and all along here”—he ran his fingers along the edges of the river—“are warehouses. Quite a few, even inside the city, are empty. I was able to buy two here.” He slid his finger a couple of miles west of downtown. “Railroads and heavy freight traffic separate the warehouses from the area neighborhoods. Most of the nearby warehouses are owned by oil companies or shipping concerns.”
Frank studied the map. “You don’t think it would be better to get outside New Orleans altogether? Aidan Murphy and his crew know this city. Mirren Kincaid almost destroyed half of it last year when his mate was kidnapped. I’m surprised there aren’t still bloodstains on the sidewalks. If the Penton scathe suspects we’re up to anything here in the States, New Orleans is one of the first places Murphy will look.”
“I disagree.” Simon retrieved the map and rolled it up again. “There’s nothing to tie me or Jonathan to the Tribunal without a hell of a lot of legwork, and even then, everything Jon owns is in his mother’s name, even his house. She’s in a facility for dementia patients, poor soul. It’s like hiding in plain sight.”
Not too much in plain sight, Frank hoped.
“Plain Jane will be the first one you’ll take?”
Simon nodded. “Makes sense to have her in place first since she might already be pregnant—Jon met her last month, spiked her drinks, and had a long, happy weekend without her suspecting she had an important role to play in the salvation of the vampires. I figured we might as well take her as soon as possible since she’s older and the opportunity presented itself. We’re watching, and I’ll take her as soon as I know she’s pregnant.”
Frank handed back the stack of files.
“Good work. Tell your human stud to get to work, close his eyes, and think of vampires.”
And clean blood.
Chapter 1 * Nik
Nikolas Dimitrou scanned the back room of the Buckhead Free Clinic in suburban Atlanta. One door, no windows. He didn’t like what he saw.
Institutional cinderblock walls sported a heavy coat of pale mint-green paint, probably intended to provide a sense of calm to the clients of a place that catered to those most vulnerable. But the lack of a window meant he was blind to whatever might be lurking on the city streets outside. The single door led into the narrow clinic hallway. To the left, one would have to traverse at least twelve feet of cheap industrial gray carpeting to reach the back exit, which led into an alley with one way out. Six feet to the right, one would risk exposure to the glass-fronted lobby and the street.
Plus, Aidan had used this place to recruit citizens for Penton in the past, before all the trouble with the Tribunal.
Meeting here again was dangerous. Careless. Sloppy.
But Aidan had chosen it, and Aidan Murphy was the leader of Penton—not just for the vampires, but for humans like Nik who’d joined their cause. Everyone trusted Aidan to make the right choices, and he’d always delivered.
Nik took a deep breath of the antiseptic-tinged air that seemed to fill every medical clinic he’d ever visited, and settled his nerves.
“Take Mr. Brach’s hand, Nik.” Aidan’s calm voice carried a trace of his native Irish accent, even after four cen
turies. He gestured to the pale, sweaty man who fidgeted in a folding chair behind a small wooden table. “Tell us what you see from our new friend’s past.”
Nik squared his shoulders and sat in the empty chair facing Terry Brach, a human familiar who was anything but a new friend. The petite blond vampire for whom he claimed to be the regular feeder had been asked to wait outside while Aidan judged whether they could be trusted to move a hundred miles southwest to a wide spot in a county road. Penton, Alabama, was the unlikely base of the vampires’ rebel stronghold.
“What do you mean in my past?” Brach withdrew both hands into his lap, out of Nik’s reach. “Marianne told you everything. I’ve been her familiar for years. She feeds only from me. We’re not mated, but we’re lovers. We want to live in peace, away from the war.”
“Then you have nothing to hide, although Penton is hardly away from the war these days. If you come to Penton you’ll be expected to fight.” Aidan leaned against the wall next to the table, his arms crossed. “Let Nik take your hand.”
Nik didn’t like it. Despite the pain it caused, he had agreed to use his psychometric abilities on Aidan’s side of the vampire civil war—Penton’s side. But Aidan was damaged now. Before he and his mate had been gravely injured, the master vampire and head of the rebellion would never have returned to a location where he’d recruited before wartime—when Penton really had been a haven for peace-loving vampires and their bonded, unvaccinated human familiars.