Dark Redemption: Shadowsend Vampire Clan: 3, page 1
DARK REDEMPTION
SHADOWSEND VAMPIRE CLAN: 3
L.A. MCGINNIS
Copyright L.A. McGinnis 2023
All rights reserved
Editor: Emerald Edits
Copy Editor: Sue Hutchinson
Cover Design: Janus Designs
No part of this book may be reproduced, or distributed in any printed or electronic form or by any means, without express permission from the author or publisher. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, including businesses, companies, events or locales is purely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1-970112-74-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-970112-7507
Published in the United States of America by Fools Journey Press, 2023
If you love reverse harem with detailed plot, unforgettable characters and tons of steam,
you can join my readers group here:
www.lamcginnis.com
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Epilogue
Also by L.A. MCGINNIS
1
AISLING FORGE
Watching Dravin explore the expertly manicured grounds of Laith Castle was like standing in the middle of a minefield and waiting for the inevitable explosion.
The Elder possessed all the deadly power you’d expect from an ancient immortal, but once you glimpsed the darkness simmering in his eyes, you realized all that evil was one bad decision away from spilling out and staining the world around him.
Then I reminded myself…none of that was Dravin’s fault.
Spending a thousand years in an iron box buried underground with only your thoughts for company would ruin someone and Dravin was thoroughly wrecked.
He was a handsome male, now that he’d fed and was no longer the starved wraith we’d liberated from Caine’s prison two weeks ago. Since he couldn’t be coaxed into anything resembling twenty-first-century clothing, he had on black trousers, boots, and a loose white shirt. With the dusting of stubble on his strong jaw and long black hair, all he needed was an eye patch to complete his pirate ensemble.
According to Finn, at least.
“We could maroon him on an island in the middle of the ocean.” Finn suggested softly, lips pressed to my ear. “With a bottle of sunscreen. And a jug of rum.”
“Play nice.” I warned him.
“Not a fucking chance.”
I pushed my hair behind my ear. I hated taking drastic measures, but we were obligated to keep everyone safe, which was why we’d joined Nikolai for Dravin’s first official public outing, along with about fifty fully armed Knightsguard, placed strategically around the grounds.
I toyed with the thin diamond band on my finger, watching Dravin out of the corner of my eye as he leaned in and smelled a lush peony, the color of a good Riesling. One wrong move and I’d yank off my ring and flatten him to the ground before I’d allow him to harm a guard, or, gods forbid, an innocent bystander.
The ring nulled down my magic, helped keep my shadowy power under control, and the second I took it off, Dravin would discover my other side. The one that wasn’t so sweet and accommodating.
As if he heard my thoughts, the Elder turned and winked, dark eyes gleaming maliciously before he stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered toward the next manicured garden, the sweet smell of lilacs lingering in the air.
“He’s fine.” Finn muttered, picking up the pace to keep him in sight. “This is fine. Everything’s fine. What could possibly go wrong, letting the monster out of his cage?”
“We have to try.” I countered softly, well aware of how good Dravin’s hearing was, though he was still learning English and didn’t understand me. “He deserves a chance to prove he can control himself.”
“He ate five Headsmen and Lord Orpheus in under ten minutes.”
“He did us a favor and saved our asses.” I reminded Finn, taking his arm as we trailed a few meters behind Dravin, now peering at the bumblebees hovering like fuzzy little sausages above the phlox. “We wouldn’t be here today without him.”
From the other side of the garden, Darrow and Nikolai pretended they were deep in conversation, not monitoring Dravin’s every move. Or they were, until he plucked one of the bees out of midair and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
“See? This is fine.” Finn muttered. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“He survived a freaking millennium on a diet of worms and bugs, and little else. Don’t second guess what you’d do for food, Finn Forge, if circumstances demanded.”
“He ate two plates of eggs, potatoes, and sausages for breakfast. Oh, and six units of blood. I doubt that tiny little bee made much of a difference. Maybe it was his palate cleanser before he starts chomping his way through the rest of us.”
“Old habits die hard,” was the best I could come up with because, seriously, who ate bumblebees?
They were like the cutest, sweetest things ever.
“Where is Wolf lurking today?” Finn asked while his hand drifted down to cup my ass. I yanked it back up around my waist, earning me a dark chuckle and a fake-affronted look. “Okay, okay, I’ll behave. I didn’t peg you for a Puritan, Ash, especially not after last night.”
“Last night was an…experiment.” I muttered, my face burning hotly while I studiously avoided his gaze. “One you thoroughly enjoyed, so don’t give me shit about it.”
“Giving you shit is my new favorite thing to do, sweet girl.” Finn teased and I couldn’t stop my smile, though it faltered slightly when Dravin snatched another bumblebee out of the air, like a hors d’oeuvre off a waiter’s tray.
“Don’t you dare put that in your mouth.” I yelled, forgetting that Dravin not only didn’t speak English, he was also probably the most dangerous, unpredictable vampire on the face of the earth. His eyebrows went up but he opened his hand and the little guy buzzed off, completely unaware of his near-brush with death.
“There, crisis averted.” I gave Dravin a reassuring nod since I was a firm believer in positive reinforcement. “One life saved today, at least.”
Dravin changed direction and headed our way, Finn tensing up beside me. “Spoke too soon, Ash, I swear to fucking Christ, if he looks at you wrong, I’m decapitating him.”
“Be nice. It’s too beautiful a day to spend cleaning up blood.” I warned, pasting a big, welcoming smile on my face as both Darrow and Nikolai raced in our direction, still a good fifty meters behind Dravin.
If I wasn’t calming my own fear, I might have made a super snarky joke about Finn’s enormous guards tripping all over themselves to intercept Dravin, but I was too busy trying to remember to breathe.
“Aisling.” Dravin’s fiendish grin widened while he sized up Finn with open aggression. “Finn.”
“Hello, Dravin. How are you today?” I said brightly, sizing up the chances of us getting our throats ripped out. I gave us fifty-fifty odds, at best—thirty-seventy, at worst. We’d been practicing learning each other’s names, albeit through the iron prison bars on Dravin’s impenetrable cage, so today was an experiment on several fronts.
“I. Am. Finn.” He bowed. Not a half-assed bow, but a full on, folded in half bow that only proved how wide his impressive shoulders were. Finn’s derisive snort had Dravin’s head snapping up, his dark gaze turning malevolent, aggression shimmering all around him.
“You are fucking Dravin and you are a lunatic.” Finn growled, a savage smile on his face, practically daring Dravin to attack.
“Giving off mixed signals will only provoke him.” My lips were going numb from keeping my own serene smile firmly in place since the closest reinforcements were still a good twenty meters away.
“Dravin?” He tilted his head, and I sighed, then pointed to his chest.
“You’re Dravin.” I pointed to myself. “I’m Aisling.” Then to the arsehole trying to get us both killed. “He’s Finn.”
He grinned. “Finn.”
“Aw, I think he likes you, Finn.” I chuckled.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Finn rolled his eyes. “How many times are we going to do this?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Nikolai stopped beside me. “Did you just teach Dravin to curse, Forge?”
“He can’t fucking learn anything else. At least that’s something useful.” Finn shrugged. “Jesus fucking Christ, it’s hot today. Jesus fucking Christ, why is there a psychopath in our midst whilst we pretend everything’s perfectly normal? See? Covers all the bases.”
I sunk my elbow into Finn’s side. “You are such an arsehole.”
Dravin tipped his head to the side and I swore there was a hint of mischief in his brown eyes while he repeated, “Arsehole?”
“Aisling. Are you serious?” Nikolai glared daggers at me while Darrow turned away, shoulders shaking.
“That’s a bad word, Dravin.” I scolded, trying to keep my lips in a straight line. “You shouldn’t say bad words They aren’t nice.”
“Bad word?” His face brightened. “Arsehole? Jesus fucking Christ?” Nikolai muttered something in that ancient language, and Dravin replied, then nodded sagely. “Jesus fucking Christ, bad word.” He looked over at Finn. “Arsehole.”
“Well, he got one thing right, at least.” I could barely keep myself contained. Nor could Darrow, forced to hang onto a nearby statue for support.
“And he’s not eating bees.”
“Or us.” Dar managed to choke out. “A win-win all around. Go team.”
“Fuck the both of you.” Finn growled, and when Dravin opened his mouth, Finn pointed his finger in the Elder’s face. “Not a fucking word.”
2
NIKOLAI ISENBURG
I’d left Wolf locked in our room in order to supervise Dravin’s first official outing.
Physically, my brother had barely recovered, though his grasp of the English language was far better than Dravin’s.
Of course, the cagey bastard understood more than he let on, and was only using today’s situation to antagonize Finn and win over Aisling. When Dravin bent over her hand and pressed his lips to her skin, my skin prickled with aggression.
No, Dravin didn’t bear any resemblance to the steady, principled soldier I’d once known. Centuries serving under Caine and Acheron had stripped away his honor.
Prison had stripped away everything else.
Dravin was now what the commander called a “loose cannon”, as apt a description as I’d ever heard. He was also too close to Aisling for my liking.
Aisling didn’t see Dravin as a threat, but Finn did and from his frank assessment, was debating whether or not to plunge his dagger into the Elder’s heart.
“Aisling.” Dravin made a show of pressing a kiss to her palm, lingering for just a shade too long. In my head, I envisioned crushing him to the ground and ripping out his throat.
“That’s enough.” I told him in Old High German. “She is not yours.”
“She’s yours, I suppose.” His dark eyes never left Aisling’s beautiful face. The bastard didn’t let go of her, either, while Finn’s hand hovered over his knife hilt. “You always did take whatever you wanted, Nikolai."
Aisling’s face pinkened and her gaze swung to mine, those gorgeous gray eyes widening, her scent perfuming the air around us. My cock went instantly hard, my instinct demanding I tear her away from these people and finally make her mine.
And better she be mine than face the grim fate I’d been commanded to deliver. The fate I could never carry out, no matter who commanded it.
“This has been explained, Dravin, but perhaps you are too dense to understand. Aisling belongs to the king, the commander, and the assassin.” I corrected him evenly. “Not you and certainly not me.”
“Ah, but you want her.” Dravin dropped her hand, his eyes fixed on me with renewed intensity. “That much is clear.”
Normally I’d lie, but we needed Dravin right now and the bastard was wildly unpredictable. Enough that he might even run back to Acheron and sell us out.
Dravin could become our greatest weapon, or our biggest nightmare, and I didn’t trust him one bit.
“What I want doesn’t matter.” I told him tersely, before turning to Aisling and the commander. “I will accompany my old friend for the rest of the day.” I told them, Aisling relaxing slightly at my dismissal, rubbing the back of her hand—where Dravin had kissed it—on her trousers.
“I’ll fucking gut him if he steps out of line.” Finn growled in passing. “Keep a close eye on him, Nikolai.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Finn he could threaten all he wanted; Dravin was a force of nature I doubted anything but time itself could kill. He’d been gutted before he’d been locked in that iron box and I shuddered to think what he was capable of once he regained his former strength.
“They will try to kill me.” Dravin observed coldly after Finn and Aisling left us, his eyes glued to her curves as she sauntered away, Darrow in tow.
“You’re acting like an animal; can you blame them?”
“Not at all, I’m looking forward to taking on the big one. He’ll put up a good fight.”
“This place, these people…” I rubbed my temple. “This is not how our lives used to be.” I cautioned, his vulgar grin growing wider. “We don’t squabble amongst ourselves, like we once did under Caine. These are decent vampires, Dravin. They risked their lives to rescue us when they could have let us rot.”
When he licked his lips, I dipped into my power and fire heated the air around us. Dravin growled, struggling beneath my fiery ropes. This bastard would not ruin everything I worked toward.
I was trying to save Ash.
Save her males, this clan, our entire fucking way of life, and all he could think about was his own territorial rage.
Not for the first time, I wondered if I’d made a mistake in releasing him. There was a fine line between being an asset and a liability and I wasn’t sure where Dravin would end up.
Back in that fucking iron box, if he wasn’t careful.
“If you harm any of these vampires, if you so much as look at them the wrong way, I will end you. You are alive only because of Aisling’s kindness. You breathe free air because of that female’s kind heart. Never, ever forget that. Harm one hair on her head and I will kill you slowly. Do you understand?”
He chuckled. “You’ve made yourself abundantly clear, prince.”
“And stop acting the fool. Speak the language and stop provoking Finn. You’ll find he’s more formidable than you think, especially if you threaten Aisling. He’s perfectly willing to die for her and we need every last capable soldier fighting on our side, if we’re going up against Acheron.”
That put a spark of life into his cold, dead eyes.
“That’s right, Dravin.” I leaned closer. “Acheron will die. I’ll even give you first go at him when the time is right.” Fanning his hatred took his mind off fighting Finn. “Remember who put you in that box. Remember who forced you to suffer all those years. You want revenge? I will give it to you.”
I spooled in my power. “When the time is right.” Dravin relaxed as the fiery ropes retracted, leaving scorch marks on his ridiculous white shirt.
