The tingling in his fangs increased as he met David's persistent stare. It would piss his father off, and ruin everything he'd worked for over the past couple of years, but he was extremely tempted to give into the urge to rip this man's throat out.
Then the man leaned forward and thrust out his hand. "I'm David and this is my son, Daniel."
Jericho glanced at the blond beside him who flashed him another arrogant grin. Jericho's fingers tingled as he resisted the rising desire to take down father and son, which would rather effectively cripple the rebellion. But that would be like cutting off the head of the hydra wouldn't it? He would take two down only to have more grow back.
"And you are?" David prompted as Jericho leaned forward and took hold of the hand extended toward him. As he returned the firm handshake, he could feel the large calluses on the man's palm and the numerous cuts that marred his skin.
"Jack," he answered without thought. He didn't know where the name had originally come from, but it had slipped easily from his tongue the first time he'd encountered a rebel two years ago. He didn't think the rebels had much knowledge of the royal family, and even if they did, he wasn't the only man in the world named Jericho, but it wasn't a name he wanted to use. Not here, not amongst these people.
David smiled at him and brusquely shook his hand. "Well then Jack, are you ready for your life to change?"
He'd been ready for over nine hundred years for his life to change, but he never could have expected the amount of change that David and his family would bring to his life.
CHAPTER 1
The chair he had been leaning against the wall in crashed down with a loud thud that jarred the teeth in his head. Jack had to grab hold of the table to keep from toppling out of it. "What the..."
Torn from the memory of that distant time and place, he was briefly confused as he looked around the barroom he was sitting in now. William shot him a sly grin as he placed a tankard of dark ale before him, plopped into the chair on the other side of the table, and leaned forward so he could rest his arms on the table top. Jack blinked as he strained to clear his mind of the haunting past and focus on the man now sitting across from him.
"What were you thinking about?" William inquired. "You looked like you were in a completely different world."
"Nothing," he muttered as he drew his mug closer.
It had been almost a year since the war that had cost David his life and ended the brutality of his father's vampire domain. David was still a touchy subject with William, one that he didn't like to discuss as he still grappled to come to terms with his grief over losing his father. Truth be told, Jack didn't like to discuss it either.
Neither William nor Jack really had any interest in returning to the palace anytime soon. William's twin sister Aria lived within the palace with her husband Braith, who was now the new king. Jack's younger sister Melinda and her husband Ashby also resided within the palace. Though he knew that things were far different under Braith and Aria's regime than they had been under his father's, he was still in no rush to return to the place that held so many bad memories for him.
There had been a time, before the war when he'd returned to the palace in search of Aria, when he'd told his father he'd first met David in the woods. The lie had been uttered with an ease that his father actually would have been proud of if it had benefited him. Instead, Jack had told the lie because he hadn't wanted his father to know that the rebels actually moved in and out of some of the border towns with ease.
Jack glanced around the smoky tavern, so similar to the one he'd been in when he'd met David five years ago. It was easy to see how he had been drawn into the memories of that long ago day, and the man that had changed his life for the better. In David, Jack had discovered a man that though he was mortal, was far stronger than the powerful vampire king who had created him.
David was gone though, and now he was traveling with David's youngest son. The two of them had left the palace with the objective of bringing the outer villages into the fold, of bringing peace to the lawless lands that had tried to skirt around his father's rule for nearly a century, and so far, they had succeeded in many ways.
The outer lands they'd encountered had all given up the practice of blood slaves and were trying the donation centers, but there were more problems than just blood slaves amongst them. There were far more vampires and humans out here that preferred to fly under the radar and mainly live by their own rules. Jack found that he could lose himself amongst these towns, no one cared that he was the youngest prince, and no one cared that William was a son of the fallen rebel leader.
Though they both worked diligently with the leaders of the outer towns to establish a friendlier environment for humans and vampires to co-exist, for the most part they had engrossed themselves in the society of these distant lands. William often sent word back to the palace with a passing traveler, or one of Braith's soldiers, but he never gave a time when they might return and often avoided the topic if Jack brought it up.
William tilted back in his chair to survey the room. They'd entered this calm town in the lower part of what used to be Maine just last week. Tomorrow they would be moving farther north in search of other areas where they might be needed more. Outside the sliding doors at the end of the building, the ocean ceaselessly rolled in and out in a soothing rhythm that helped lull the lingering ache his memories had created. During the years he'd spent away from the sea, hiding out in the forest and caves, he'd forgotten what a calming effect the waves could have on his spirit.
"I like this place," William commented as his gaze moved over the hazy tavern.