Chapter 6

"Father," Luther's voice pulled my attention from the air-coach's window. I'd been lost in thought the last couple of hours since we left Scotland. We were now flying through the heavens inside a metal tube toward the Americas.

A vampire could appreciate such an impossibility, even if it rattled me.

Luther sat across from me on one of the plush seats of the private jet as he called it. Pivoting to look at him, I said, "This new world. I struggle to make sense of it. How is this possible?" Although revived, my body wasn't fully restored and talking after being silent for half a millennium felt like nails were lodged in my throat. "Flying without magic?"

"In time, Father, you will understand," he said, crossing a leg over a knee and taking a sip of the wine in his glass. He'd changed from his peculiar black armor to a bland, black ensemble unfit for a man of our status.

If he could afford a flying transport, could he not afford a proper doublet and breeches? Looking down at the peasant robe covering my marred body, I wondered if I would blend in with this new world once I was dressed like him.

With his black hair cropped short and beardless face, he was almost unrecognizable. But I could never forget the sharp cunning behind his green eyes. Despite his novel appearance, he was still my son, and that brought me comfort in this time of uncertainty.

"You've been catapulted through time, is all," he said. That would suggest I'd not felt the last five hundred years. That I'd been asleep, unaware I languished in the bowels of my family's castle for centuries before waking up in this alien world—the punishment for my sins.

Well, if love is a sin, then I deserved every day of misery and every ounce of deprivation inflicted upon my body for the last five hundred years.

Love for my people, my species. Everything was torn from me because I wouldn't cower from the sun. Because I refused to hide in the shadows like some cockroach. Because I wanted to lead my people to freedom.

But greatness is not for the feeble-minded. It's why my enemies sought to defeat me. They couldn't stomach my potential.

Death was supposed to be my sentence, but to my brother's demise, his strength was always his greatest weakness. He called it mercy; I called it stupidity. He chose to bury me alive in eternal confinement inside an iron coffin.

But there was no real mercy in his heart, only cowardliness. Kane couldn't kill his own brother, so he gave me something worse than death—eternal pain.

He should have killed me.

Leaning forward, I arrowed my gaze into Luther's, and gritted, "I lived every second of every hour buried in that bloody coffin. Starving. Thirsting." I looked away from him to stare out into the night sky through the small oval window. All I saw was my reflection.

The evidence of what my brother had done to me was cruel and unyielding. Clenching my fists, I struggled to remain calm.

What stared back at me was revolting. Ashen, dehydrated-looking skin. My long, black mane was reduced to thin strands of white hair. Eyes, dull and milky, rested inside a sunken, skeletal looking face.

"You will be restored, Father. And you will have your revenge."

My son thought I lamented the loss of my youth and beauty. As much as I hated looking at my reflection, I knew in time my body would once again be full of vitality. What made my insides boil was the thought of my brother sitting proudly on our castle's throne while I rotted in the dungeons.

"He will wish he'd killed me," I murmured to myself, staring at my reflection. Five hundred years was a long time to plan revenge, and mine would not be short and swift.

"You will need your strength, Father. The windows will shutter closed for the remainder of the trip. You can rest in my cabin."

As I stared beyond my reflection into the platinum-kissed night sky, a burning sensation bit at my skin, anger bubbling inside me. This injustice would not go unpunished. "Bring me another host," I ordered. "The time for rest is over."