Page 2 of Prince with a Chance of Darkness

The line fromThe Tempesthad never been truer than when Vlad had been forced to work alongside those who had come to destroy him. While the others had formed a group with the sole purpose of killing him, they’d had a change of heart when they’d seen true evil. When they’d met Dragos face-to-face.

The man’s name was like acid upon the tongue. The threat of him being freed from the mystical prison Vlad and his accomplices had sealed him in would have been enough to assure a quick response.

Help them.

The raw emotion behind the mental plea from Jonathan Harker had been gut wrenching. At first, Vlad assumed his response to the request was merely a byproduct of his connection to Harker. After all, he’d given Harker his blood to aid in healing the man’s mortal wounds. In doing so, he gave him the gift of a rebirth. A second chance at living. Yes, it came with consequences. Everything worth having always did.

Had Harker thanked him?

No.

Harker had spent nearly one hundred and fifty years holding a grudge.

It was hard for Vlad not to take it personally. The former solicitor had begun calling him Prince Dick-u-la rather than hisname. Harker told anyone who would listen of his disdain for Vlad. He had even gone on to dedicate his life to hunting his own kind—aligning himself with Bram Van Helsing and the Van Helsing line of slayers.

Harker was basically an honorary Van Helsing—one of Bram’s nearest and dearest friends. He was second only to Bram in the Van Helsing organization. Frankly, it was a slap in the face to Vlad. Another way for Harker and Bram to give Vlad the proverbial middle finger.

Yet, when Harker had needed help the most, he’d not reached out to the others like him—the ones who thumbed their noses at the gift Vlad had given them.

No.

Harker had connected with Vlad.

Help them.

The plea had fueled Vlad’s journey from the Carfax estate in Essex to Romania. Something that by plane would have taken two hours, but by way of mist, it had taken Vlad roughly thirty minutes.

He knew he was pushing too hard, burning through too much power—too much of his energy. That didn’t matter. His concern wasn’t for himself or for Harker even. It was for the young women Harker had shown Vlad in his mind.

A matching pair.

Twins. In their late teens or early twenties. Too young for Vlad’s tastes when it came to bed partners, but beautiful all the same. They had long dark hair—one wore hers down, the other wore hers in a tight ponytail, showing off her classic cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. That twin’s image was frozen in his mind—locked there like a snapshot. Of the two, the one with the ponytail had caused a visceral reaction in him. It had felt as if Vlad had been kicked in the gut when he’d seen her image in his mind and felt the raw emotion behind Harker’s plea.

It had been the sight of her in Harker’s visions that had left Vlad holding back the sarcastic quips he was so known for. Her who had made him shut his mouth and mind to listen to Harker’s pleas—to share in what Harker was being shown. Her who had left Vlad reaching frantically out for his second-in-command—his most trusted of friends—on their shared mental pathway, desperate for Lucian to assist, only to find he had been part of whatever was harming the young women—whatever nefarious plot had left the women in the devil’s den. In the very cave that Vlad and the others had locked Dragos in all those years ago.

Lucian had tried to argue, tried to take a stand, saying he could not serve two masters any longer.

Vlad had always thought the wolf-shifter was happy to be with him rather than Dragos. What Dragos had done to Lucian when he’d been the wolf’s master had been horrific. Vlad had witnessed some of it firsthand and had been present when Dragos had commanded Lucian to commit unspeakable acts. Acts that haunted the shifter to this very day.

It was part of why Vlad had risen against Dragos, despite the man being his maker. Vlad had reached a breaking point. A point when he could not and would not carry out another of the madman’s tasks. He’d taken a stand. Drawn a line in the sand centuries before needing to align with Van Helsing and the others.

He’d faced off against the master vampire and had won, something no one—Vlad included—saw coming. He’d beaten the master vampire at his own game, leaving him no choice but to tuck tail and run. Vlad had taken over Dragos’s affairs, bringing them under his own, merging interests. That included bringing Lucian under his control.

Lucian, the Dark One, as so many called him, was not a wolf-shifter who could be left to rule himself. For one, he wasnot merely a wolf. He, like Harker, was a blending of both vampire and wolf-shifter. Something against the natural order, even for supernaturals. The bloodlust was in Lucian and Harker, rooted in their very core, and they, like every vampire, required a strong master. Someone able to lead them through the haze the bloodlust could bring on. Someone to keep them from slaughtering the world.

Harker had thrown his allegiance behind Bram, siding with him, leaning on Bram to help him through the darkness and the blood haze whenever it struck. Bram was to Harker as Vlad was to Lucian. Lucian had trusted Vlad to see him through it all, to help him stay the course and prevent him from harming those he did not wish to harm.

They had been friends for centuries.

Yes, Lucian’s wolf rebelled often, wanting to be its own boss. Its own master. Vlad understood more than most. Vlad could not only shift into mist, but he could become a wolf as well as a number of other animals. Something said to have come from his questionable birth—his spawning from Satan.

Dark magik eased around him that was not of his doing. It was a power he’d sensed more than once in his long life. While Vlad had yet to ever meet its owner, she was legendary. Mythology books spoke of her with caution, calling her the mother of the forest. She was friend or foe depending on one’s motives when it came to the forest and nature itself.

Vlad had co-existed in the Romanian forests for centuries with the old hag, sensing her presence from time to time but never meeting her outright. If the legends were to be believed, she was powerful and deadly. She wasn’t known for concerning herself with matters unrelated to her. It made Vlad wonder, at least momentarily, if she had a stake in what was happening.

Chapter Two

Vlad

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