Mencheres listened to Kira seal her fate as if he were trapped inside a terrible dream.
For several frozen moments, he could almost see her death happening before him; Radje snapping her neck with a careless flick of his wrist. Or opening her jugular to leave Kira choking on her own blood as it streamed from her throat. What it would feel like to watch her die? Would it bring back the antipathy he'd had about living before he met her, making him once again view the impending darkness in his future as something to be welcomed?
If Radje were anyone else, Mencheres could kill him. He could slaughter every vampire in the room and hide all traces of their remains. He could raze this entire building so that even if his actions were recorded, they would never come back to harm him or Kira. All of these things he could do, were it not for the smirking Law Guardian across from him.
"Ah, my old friend, I do believe I've finally cracked that impenetrable sarcophagus of yours," Radje said with satisfaction. "This one did mean something to you, didn't she?
How amusing."
A slow-building rage began to snake through him, throbbing beneath his skin, seeking to be released to wreak its will. You could still kill them all, it whispered. Suspicion would fall on him, but with no bodies as proof, Mencheres might yet avoid the punishment of the remaining Guardians raining down on him and Bones. Let me free, that rage urged in a tantalizing murmur. You have kept me chained for far too long . . .
"Hey, man, I didn't mean for it to come to this," Flare said, giving a nervous glance between Radje and Mencheres. "If he says he'll keep the human away from me and my property in the future, that's good enough for me - "
"But it is not sufficient for me," Radje snapped. "You lodged a formal complaint of attempted property theft against Mencheres by informing me of what his human did here tonight. If you had no wish to do so, then you should have stayed silent."
"I didn't know telling you was like filing a complaint," Flare muttered.
Radje smiled coldly. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Humans and vampires have that one thing in common. However, vampires are not permitted to steal from each other as freely as humans do, and most especially will I not be merciful to a human for stealing from a vampire. Death is my sentence, so Menkaure, I ask you again, will you punish this mortal, or will I?"
"He kidnaps a teenager and forces her to strip for him." Kira's voice was calm even though her face was eerily white. "That's not considered a crime to you, but me trying to free the same girl merits a death sentence? You should be ashamed to call yourself the guardian of any law."
Radjedef did not even deign to look at Kira. "Kidnapping an unclaimed human is not a crime. Humans are our food; they don't have the same rights vampires do. Menkaure, your time to decide who carries out this punishment grows short."
Kira didn't reply to that. She didn't attempt to run, either, though the bald vampire grasped her shoulders as if he expected her to. Mencheres met her gaze, seeing horror and resignation swimming in those pale green depths, but no hope or pleading. She didn't expect him to help her. She expected to die at the whim of a man who had no real interest in her at all.
His rage began whipping around more urgently inside him, sensing Mencheres was close to letting it free. Kira's bleak acceptance of her fate was more than he could bear.
No matter if it finished all of them, he could not let Radje condemn her to the same darkness that waited for him.
But he would not let the malicious power inside him free. It had ruined his life once. He would not give it another chance to destroy Bones or his people again.
"I shal carry out your sentence of death myself, Guardian," Mencheres said, watching as Radje's smirk deepened. "Yet afterward, I believe I shal bring her back from it." Radje's smile fell. "Her sentence is meant to be a punishment, not a reward that improves her meager existence," he hissed.
"Her sentence is death, which shal be carried out for her crime. But as she is human, nowhere is it written that I cannot bring her back as a vampire after this sentence is completed. That boy might not know our laws, Guardian" - Mencheres gave Radje a cold smile as he emphasized the word - "but I am well versed in them."
"You haven't changed a human in almost a hundred years," Radje said, switching to the ancient Egyptian dialect that had been their first language.
Mencheres allowed a bemused expression to cross his face before he answered in the same language. "Has it truly been a century? Even more reason to change her. It has been too long since I refreshed my line with new blood."
"Your little mortal might not want to be your new blood," Radje taunted.
He turned toward Kira. Her breathing was jagged, and her pulse strummed loud enough to be heard even with the club's blaring music; but still, she did not beg for her life. Kira wouldn't have understood his recent exchange with Radjedef. She knew her sentence was death; what she wouldn't know was if she was to be brought back after that. Her green eyes seemed even paler with the overhead light reflecting in them as she stared up at him, powerless to control whatever fate Mencheres chose for her.
The bald vampire behind her released her with a little push toward Mencheres. Kira almost stumbled but regained her balance, casting a grim glance around at the other faces in the room before meeting his gaze again.
He didn't need to hear her thoughts to know what they would have been as she looked at the vampires surrounding her. No hope, no reprieve, nowhere to run. And she was right.
That blistering rage cascaded through Mencheres again, demanding another solution aside from violating Kira's mortality. But he knew what the only other solution was, and it could condemn his co-ruler for a crime he had no part in.
Mencheres cast a single glare at Radjedef. "Before this, you might have won our war without a battle from me," he said, again in their long-dead dialect. "But now, I will not go quietly into my grave. Instead, by the blood of Cain, I will drag you down to yours." Radjedef gave him a measuring look. "I never wanted you to seek your own end. Why do you think I've been following you? After our last conversation, I feared you might kill yourself before you gave me what I wanted. And you will give it to me, Menkaure. Soon." Mencheres knew what Radje wanted from him. The Law Guardian's slip at his house the other week was enough to betray his motivation, yet Mencheres had no intention of allowing him to obtain his goal. He thought of the dark void ahead of him. He had no idea how long he had until it enveloped him, but in that remaining time, he'd discover the means to finish Radjedef. Kira's mortality would be avenged. Both of them knew this wasn't a matter of law. The only reason Radjedef had demanded Kira's death was because he'd sensed it would hurt him.
It had, and Mencheres intended to make sure Radjedef felt the full measure of his pain, and Kira's, before he was finished. His eyes glowed green, and he pushed his rage back but allowed his power to uncurl. It filled the room, wrapping around each person in it, causing the other vampires to flinch and Radjedef to narrow his gaze. With his power spilling out until it enveloped the entire club, Mencheres was reminding him of the one thing the Law Guardian had always wanted but could never have.
Then he turned away from the sight of his enemy back to Kira. She didn't speak, didn't plead, but a single tear rolled down her cheek. Mencheres reached out, catching it before it fell from her proud, strong jawline. As soon as he touched her, Kira's whole body began to tremble.
"Make . . . make it quick."
Her voice was no more than a whisper, and she didn't look at him, but her spine was unbowed. Once again, her courage struck a chord in him. Kira had a warrior's spirit inside her sleek, feminine frame, for true valor was best revealed when defeat was inevitable.
His hand caressed her cheek, feeling her warmth soak into his fingers. Then he pulled her into his arms, hearing her heart rate triple as his head dipped to her throat.
"Mencheres - "
"Don't," he whispered, resting a finger against her lips as he held her in an unbreakable grip. "Don't tell me if you would prefer to stay in the grave, Kira, for no matter what you say - I am bringing you back." Then he buried his fangs in her throat, right into the pulsating large vein that thrummed in unison with her heartbeat. Kira gave a gasping moan, her hands convulsively grasping his shoulders. Mencheres drew his teeth out, allowing a wealth of hot, sweet blood to fill his mouth through those twin punctures.
He swallowed that richness, his fingers moving from Kira's lips into the thickness of her hair. Then he slid his fangs into her jugular again, deeper this time, sinking them to the hilt. Kira shuddered against him, the toxins from his fangs combined with blood loss making her sway on her feet. His arms tightened around her, holding her body and her tender throat closer to him as he bit her a third time, the three sets of twin punctures sending Kira's blood shooting into his mouth as fast as he could swallow it.
His entire body began to feel heated, heavier, and humming with the energy he absorbed with every crimson swallow. Despite hating the circumstances, feeling Kira's blood pour into him, merging them together more thoroughly than any sexual act, caused a heady exhilaration to flare through Mencheres. She would never be closer to anyone than she was to him in this moment, overflowing him with the life force that drained out of her, stitching them together with a bond that could never be undone.
When Kira hung limply in his arms, her heartbeat silent except for a few stubborn, intermittent flutters, Mencheres pulled away from her throat at last. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open, those full red lips now palest pink without any breath stirring them.
Her penalty of death, paid. Now, to usher her into a new life.
Mencheres tugged Kira's silver necklace off, wrapping its thin chain around his fingers. Then he dug the long end of the cross into his neck, ripping it open. Held Kira's slack head to the wound and willed his blood out of him and into her. The silver burned his flesh, healing slower than a wound from any other material, as Kira's mouth filled with his - their - blood.
He could feel her body react to the blood even though not a muscle moved at first.
Mencheres tilted her head back, sending that blood down her throat and deeper into her body. He dug her cross into his neck again, ripping another hole, willing more of their conjoined blood along with his power into her. This time, he didn't need to assist Kira to swallow his blood; her throat worked even as her heart fell silent for the last time.
Mencheres cradled her next to his neck, stroking her hair as he felt Kira's teeth bite down into the same spot he'd torn open with her cross. A sharp sting later, and she'd broken his skin, the life and power in his blood instinctively calling to her. She fastened her teeth harder into him and began to suck while great, wracking shudders enveloped her body.
He let his necklace-wrapped hand fall from his throat, using it to support Kira as he lowered both of them to the floor. None of the other vampires spoke as Mencheres sat with her in his arms, willing more of his blood into her while she tore and chewed at his throat with an ever-increasing hunger. The slight pain felt wonderful, because in each desperate swallow, Kira absorbed life from him just as he had from her. It was a darker way of life, yes, but a stronger one than the mortality that had slipped away with the fading of her heartbeat.
Live, Kira. Live.
When she swallowed more than the blood Mencheres had drained from her, he pulled her away, flexing his power to hold her when she would have fought to return to his throat.
Her eyes were open but sightless, flashing with a darker, brighter shade of green, and two fangs curved out from Kira's previously flat upper teeth.
"Rest now," Mencheres whispered, holding her still.
A last shudder tore through her, then her eyes rolled back, and she slumped against him, her humanity murdered, her new vampire body unconscious but soon to rise.
