And, in a way, it had.
“That’s how you learned how to create other vampires,” Sabine said softly. “When you saved your brother.”
“Malcolm didn’t exactly think of it as a saving.” But Ryder nodded. “But it was after that moment, when I took his blood and gave him back my own . . . it was then that he changed.” Already so close to death, Ryder had thought that he’d lost his brother.
But Malcolm’s pallor had changed. The stiffness had faded away from his body. His eyes had opened. He’d . . .
Had the same consuming hunger that Ryder felt.
And the same loss of control.
How many had they killed in those first months? How much blood had they taken? There had been screams. Death.
Then they’d realized that there was more they could do. Not just drinking and killing.
Control.
“We learned that if we fed on humans and let them live, we could slip into their minds. We could control them completely, with just a thought.” A heady power. One he’d abused. One he’d abuse again.
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. Bit it lightly. Then asked, “Can you control me?”
He stared back at her.
“Have you?”
He wouldn’t lie to her. Others, sure, without a qualm. But not to her. “I tried.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“But you weren’t human. Your mind didn’t work like theirs. Every time I tried to reach you, I just saw a wall of fire.” He hadn’t been lying when he told her that before.
She rubbed her hands over the couch cushions. “And now? Since I’m like you? Do you still see the fire?”
“You’re not like me,” he muttered. He was still working that part out. “And I haven’t tried to control you since we left Genesis.” Not even when she’d left him. It had felt wrong.
“Try now.”
He shook his head.
Her brows rose. “Why not?”
“I don’t want to control you.” Control . . . that had been Malcolm’s thing. The more blood he’d taken, the more control he’d wanted. Ryder knew that he and Malcolm had both changed. All of a sudden, it had seemed that they’d had the power of gods, while they were surrounded by mere men.
Sex. Blood. Death.
But Ryder had finally found his control. Finally pulled back.
Malcolm hadn’t. “My brother was older than me.” By a year. “He’d always been the leader, the one who would rule after my father, but . . . with the change, he was weaker—”
“Weaker than you?” she finished, head tilting back.
He couldn’t read the emotions in her eyes, and he wanted to know what she was thinking.
“My blood made him, but though he was strong, I was stronger.”
“Because you were the first.” Her whisper. And she seemed to finally understand.
I was the first vampire.
Long before the legend of Vlad the Impaler, Ryder had been roaming the earth. Ryder didn’t know of another who’d been cursed by the bloodlust . . . until he awoke with the hunger.
Hell, it had been at least a few centuries later before he’d met Vlad on a blood-filled night.
“My brother didn’t want someone else to be stronger than him. Malcolm wanted to rule. He wanted the humans at his feet.” Malcolm had wanted to change the world. To show the humans just what they should fear.
And the stories had started to spread then. Stories about men who hunted during the night. Who drank blood. Who killed. Who terrified.
“I saw what happened.” He turned his back to her. Paced across the room. His gaze fell on a picture of Sabine. She looked about sixteen. Smiling from ear to ear as she stood on a sun-soaked deck. “The humans turned on each other. They killed, each other, because they thought the monsters were among them.” And they were. Only the fools were killing the wrong ones. “They tortured innocents. Slaughtered. And my brother was there, laughing at it all. Even holding court over some of the proceedings.”
Malcolm had enjoyed it all. Enjoyed having those he knew to be just humans brought before him. Malcolm had ordered their blood drained. Ordered them sliced open. Ordered so many atrocities.
His shoulders stiffened as the memories flooded through him. “Malcolm could have taught Wyatt a great deal about torture.”
He remembered the screams. Bones—broken. Bodies-slowly cut in half. The Middle Ages had been the worst time. So many ways to torture, ways that made the victims take so long to die.
The screams stay with me.
“I knew I had to stop him.” Malcolm’s madness had infected the humans, not just because he was controlling their minds, but because the hysteria spread so widely and quickly. “I wanted to stop the death.” It had sickened him, and the knowledge that pained him the most . . .