Dark Exodus (The Order of Vampires 2)

Someone was going to die.

Eleazar’s fangs punched through his gums. He pushed himself up from the plastic cushion and sniffed the putrid air. Garbage. He was lying in a pit of garbage.

Shocked by how weak his limbs were and dizzy from what could only have been a blow to the head, he fought back a woozy sensation and the urge to empty his stomach. He hadn’t suffered such a sense of illness since he was a young boy.

She did this to him.

His jaw locked as he clamored his way out of the dumpster. He grunted as he pulled his body fully upright and his spine popped into alignment. His tongue tasted blood.

Reeking of human refuse, he marched around her building and found the front entrance. Adjusting his soiled clothing, he twisted and cracked his neck, shaking off the lingering aches and pain. The brat was going to pay.

His dirty hand closed over the knob, and he stilled. Someone was in his mind. He immediately threw up a wall and guarded his thoughts.

He mentally shoved back at the intruder, and they surrendered under the pressure of his compulsion. He followed the cognitive bond, probing the intruder’s mind until they revealed their identity.

Adriel. He relaxed, recognizing the familiar presence of his friend.

Eleazar? You seem…off. Is everything all right?

I’m fine. He allowed his friend to enter the surface of his mind, just enough to communicate over such distance but never granting her full access to his thoughts. Do you need something?

Rarely could any immortal cross his mental guard, but Adriel had been his friend for four hundred years. She was only a few decades his minor, so she possessed a great deal of her own power.

A strong tonic might help. I’ll have a headache for the next hour, thanks to the jab you just drilled into my mind. Why are you so guarded? You feel … hostile.

I’m out of my element. To say the least. He flicked what looked like lettuce off his cuff. I’m in the middle of something and I only have a moment to spare. He glared up at Larissa’s window. I’ll be out of reach soon, so share whatever news you have.

I thought you would be interested to know that there’s been talk of Isaiah Hartzler.

Isaiah Hartzler might have disappeared long ago, but his reputation remained. If anything, rumors of his extinction helped to enforce the younger generation’s obedience.

Why would that interest me?

Because Isaiah’s kin, the young Hartzler twin, has just returned to the farm with suspicions that his great-uncle is still alive.

She had his full attention now. Impossible, he thought back to her. The male turned rogue over eighty years ago. He would not have survived this long without a mate.

The boy, Cain, disagrees. He approached Ezekiel upon his return. The elder called a council meeting directly after he received the news.

Eleazar was not convinced.

Isaiah was Ezekiel’s brother. It’s natural for him to believe the rumors. His heart wants to find hope where there is none.

In the early 1900s, Isaiah Hartzler, patriarch and council elder of the Hartzler line, had been called. He displayed the common symptoms: sensitivity to the sun, lack of appetite, vertigo, increased hunger for the blood of his specific mate, and, eventually, a loss of humanity.

Left unanswered, Isaiah Hartzler became more animal than a rational-thinking man. His mind quickly fragmented from bloodlust, but the blood of other creatures could no longer sustain him. He was lost without the blood of his true mate.

Once he turned feeish, a nocturnal beast awoke from within, bearing fangs and claws and randomly selecting victims. When a feeish immortal drank the blood of anyone but their true mate, they fell into a rage and sometimes went on a killing spree.

Having realized his own calling shortly after agreeing to Silus’s marriage, Eleazar questioned his fate. But Silus had kept his wife so secluded, the bishop hardly suffered any symptoms at all. That all changed the night he saw Silus strike Larissa.

Eleazar did not want to turn feeish, nor did he want to reveal his situation until he had matters under his control. But when he saw Silus strike Larissa, a murderous rage woke within him and he knew he was out of time. Then she ran.

He did not want to lose her in the wide-open English world. He had no choice but to hunt and claim his mate or risk eternally damning his soul.

The carnage and loss of innocent lives over the centuries bred legends of monsters. One lost soul was a burden for all to bear. Once words like vampire surfaced within communities, there was no choice but to act and end the life of one of their own.

Years ago, they hunted Isaiah and found him in a bloody rage. After weeks of feeding from mortals, his strength had multiplied. Ezekiel delivered what should have been a final death blow, but he hesitated a moment too long, and Isaiah slit his brother’s throat so deep it almost severed Ezekiel’s head.