"I'll claim him if he wants to belong to my house," she said. Knowing that Jack was after more than idle words, Chloe added, "I swear it."

He relaxed a little.

"Where were you going with all that?"

She looked down at the boxes in her arms. Heavy as they were, she hadn't noticed them for the last few minutes.

"Oh."

She blushed, ashamed to spell it out. No doubt Jack would think she was crazy.

"I…" She cleared her throat. "I owe someone."

Jack smiled. "Better settle that debt, then. In our world, debts are as dangerous as oaths and curses."

On her way up to Coscnoc, Chloe was annoyed at herself. She'd lied. No debt was leading her feet up the familiar hill and down the long dark path.

When she arrived at the door, she had to walk sideways to fit through it with the cardboard boxes. Finally, she reached the cave under the hill.

Eirikr was sitting on the ground. He looked thinner, far less lively. And surprised. Mostly surprised.

"You're back."

She dropped the three boxes.

"I hope you're handy with a screwdriver? The bed comes in pieces. I'll bring the mattress in a sec. Levi offered to carry it, but I figured you might eat him, so I made him stay behind."

His sharp eyes remained on her, calculating. Trying to see what she wanted from him, she guessed.

She sighed.

"All right, so I'm actually pretty short on family members, and you look cool. Plus, this place really needs decorating. Are you more of a purple or a green guy, by the way?"

Eirikr blinked.

"You are back," he repeated—just a quiet whisper.

Then she understood. He'd doubted her existence at first, suspecting she was an illusion. A fantasy.

She wondered how many times he'd dreamed of this. Not her, specifically, but someone, anyone, coming down here for a chat. There was nothing in this cave. Nothing at all. He’d been entirely forsaken for centuries.

Regardless of what he might have done, he didn't deserve that. No one did.

"If you could get out of here," she said, "what would you do?"

Eirikr had never lied to her, and although he might have then, he chose not to.

"Destroy the world as you know it. Probably. Although I definitely want to try Starbucks first."

She sighed.

"Fortunately, it's not a matter you'll need to concern yourself with anytime soon, little daughter. I cannot get out of here. Only the witch who cast me out in the first place can undo this spell, and she's long returned to dust."

Chloe nodded and opened the smallest and most important of her three boxes. She couldn't get him out of here, but she could make his life a little more comfortable. She pulled out a bag of synthesized vampire blood.

"I know. Not quite Starbucks."

Eirikr was speechless for a beat, but he wasn't one to remain so for long.

He smirked and reached out for the bag.

"It'll do."

She didn’t so much as turn to check who’d entered her room when she heard the door open behind her. As if she could mistake him. His presence. His scent.

Chloe’s eyes remained on her reflection. She looked the same, more or less. Except for the eyes. Sometimes they were dark brown, as they used to be.

Other times, when her throat tightened in hunger, and her fangs popped out…she was someone else entirely. Someone with bright blue eyes and a heart of stone.

“You’re sure you want to stay here?”

She giggled. The sound was utterly unfamiliar. Someone’s voice. A soprano, too suave and seductive.

“So, what, we date for a few weeks and you want me to move in?”

Levi chuckled, wrapped his arms around her waist. “Yes,” he whispered against her throat. “I very much want you in my house, chained to my bed twenty-four seven.”

His mouth touched her collarbone, and kiss their way up to her jaw. She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

“But I meant, you could move into your home. Skyhall.”

Her home. The black palace at the very top of the hill. She hadn’t stepped inside yet.

Chloe shook her head.

“We’ve made a statement already. The world knows what I am. They know the Eirikrson are back.”

And she didn’t mind that, strangely. She wanted the arrogant, heartless immortals who played with lives casually to be afraid.

“But I’m also Chloe Miller. Barely trained. With no understanding of my powers or my limits. And no control over my thirst.”

She drank from Levi’s throat, and from the countless bags of synthetic blood he made available to her everywhere. But she was hungry. Thirsty. Always.

“Moving onto to hill will say to the world that I’m ready. That I’ve claimed my house. And that they can come knocking if they want to challenge me. I don’t think I can do that yet.”

Levi pulled her in closer.

“Not yet,” he agreed. “But soon.”

* * *

The End

Next in After Darkness Falls: Blood of a Huntsman.

* * *

May Sage juggles multiple series and prioritizes those which are well reviewed. If you want to speed up the releases in the After Darkness Falls series, don’t forget to leave a review!

Two thousand years ago

* * *

The creature observed the witch from the darkness without a single word, its penetrating gaze as bright as a star in the darkness. A weaker witch might have fallen for it.

"I'm not afraid of you," Aurora lied. "You cannot reach me." This was said with a little more conviction. "I may not be able to kill you, but these walls will be your tomb."

"How poetic. And these markings…" His hands touched the stone on either side of the open doorway she'd spelled. "They're positively artful. Tatiana evidently didn't waste her aureus when she sent you to study the ways of the great wizards of Alexandria. But you're smarter than this, Rora."

"Don't call me that," she spat.

She'd fallen for it once. His beauty, his harsh and melodious voice. His spells.

He was dangerous, to her and to the rest of her kind. To all humanity. She was doing the right thing. For once in her life, she'd made the right decision.

"Fine. Aurora, then. You don't want to do this. These walls will never keep me. We both know it. You're doing nothing except delaying the inevitable."

"I am protecting my race from a monster," Aurora yelled.

She'd seen what he'd done. The hundreds of bodies, defiled, drained. Finally, she saw him for what he was.

"You're doing a coward's dirty work and turning your back on the only person who's ever been on your side," said Eirikr Primus, bastard of Markus Aurelius.

The first of his name, the first of his kind.

Not the last.

Hundreds of vampires now roamed the lands. She'd find them, too. This wouldn't end until they were all ashes.

"I don't want to see you waste your life on a fruitless endeavor. Let me go. I won't hurt you. I will never hurt you or let any of mine lay a finger on you. You know this."

She'd never doubted it. Even now, she was certain that the monster wouldn't harm her.

But his gentleness wasn’t about her. Aurora looked remarkably like her grandmother, which she knew was the only reason she hadn't been drained of blood the moment they'd met.

“Trust me, Rora.”

Aurora straightened her spine.

"You will remain here, in the company of the only thing you’ve ever loved—yourself. Rot in hell.”

She turned her heels, heading up the stairs that led out into the sunlight.

Three months ago

* * *

Eirikr remembered the smell overhead. Not the stench as it was now, full of toxic fumes and rotting flesh. Even in his prison, so dark and deep he couldn't see the light of day, he smelled the new air. The last two thousand years had not suited their dear Earth.

But he remembered still. Watching the flocks of sheep from a mountaintop, and breathing so deeply, taking it for granted.

They hadn't been his sheep. Nothing, by rights, had ever been his.

Eirikr was a bastard, born of a Roman scum based in Raetia, meaning he owned none of his mother's property and certainly none of the man who'd fathered him. He'd believed his fate had been watching over his little brother's folks. It could have been worse. They weren't poor, and there was food on the table every night.

Then, one day, the Roman came; the one who looked like him.

"Are you the one they call bastard, boy?"

He understood enough of their foreign tongue to nod.

"We're to return to Rome. You look well enough. Come with me if you wish."

Until then, no one had asked about his wishes. Eirikr followed, and was named Primerius, the first natural son of Markus Aurelius, a famed general.

The man did not value weakness, so Eirikr trained every morning, every evening, often through the night, until he was known as one of the best soldiers in his regiment. He learned to desire many things, though none as much as the beautiful Tatiana, priestess of Pompeii. They said she was a daughter of Zeus, and no one who looked upon her doubted it. But she gave her favor to him, a bastard, against all odds.

When she was called to banish the monster who'd taken residence in Pompeii and dismembered so many souls, drinking the blood of her victims, Eirikr volunteered to protect her.

Tatiana was so beautiful, and nature seemed to bend to her will. Eirikr never doubted she'd win. She could win against any enemy, any monster, any demon sent from the belly of the Earth.

But the moment they entered the creature’s lair, he knew how mistaken he was.

The enemy was fast as a shadow, brutal as the waves crashing against the cliffs, and so striking she outshone even Tatiana, when she stopped long enough for them to see more than a blur.

She killed two dozen guards in mere instants and then moved against Tatiana herself. Eirikr didn't know what made him move, his broken body so weak, writhing on the floor, but he caught her shapely shin and bit, deep, desperate to hurt her, to distract her long enough to give his love time to run.