Dison: Immortal Forsaken Series #2 (Paranormal Romance Novella) Read online

  Dison

  Immortal Forsaken Series

  Verika Sloane

  Contents

  Dictionary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  The Centurias Newsletter

  Immortal Forsaken Series #3

  Fitz

  About the Author

  Dictionary

  Ascend: verb. The act of a vampire’s soul rising from the earthly plane to a higher spiritual place.

  Avow: verb. The act of a non-fated couple to seal their bond before the gods. A show of protection and commitment.

  Before the Light: a phrase vampires utter in respect to the time when creatures of the night ruled before the sun and humans.

  Depths: noun. A purgatory where vampires are sent to receive punishment for crimes they committed in the true life.

  Ecca: noun. A beautiful place of light & dark that vampires spiritually rise to after their earthly death.

  Entyre Law: noun. Ancient scrolls. A code a vampire is commanded to live by according to the gods.

  Fated: noun. A male or female vampire that is bound to another by blood.

  Fateblood: noun. A vampire born to a fated couple.

  Gods: The 9 gods & goddesses vampires worship. Vampires refer to them simply as the gods, for short.

  Nine Group: noun. The 9 original families. The wealthiest, most prestigious, powerful, and influential vampires in history.

  Oria: noun. A spiritual counselor.

  Pürblood: noun. A vampire born to a non-fated parents, but is natural born.

  Pürist: noun. A male or female pürblood vampire that has been avowed to another.

  Remnant: noun. The binding scent a male will imprint on a female during the avowing ritual. Cannot be removed without approval from the gods.

  Sensa: noun. The energy a person gives off demonstrating emotion and desire. Vampires feed on and exchange this with humans and other beings for sustenance.

  Shadow: noun. A person born as a human who is turned into a vampire.

  Shiya: noun. A female wolf shifter.

  Shief: noun. A male wolf shifter.

  Vesser: noun. The oldest vampires living. Once the age of one thousand years, a vampire is designated a Vesser.

  One

  The last time Dison was in a room this tense, someone got killed.

  John Jacoby, sitting behind his desk, his upper lip in a constant snarl, ran his tongue over his teeth. “Let me make a call to my accountant before we go further.”

  For an hour Dison had been negotiating with him, while the man with him, Kristof Miocic—nephew of his client, Ivan Miocic—mumbled insults in Croatian, ratcheting up the tension with every move of his freckled mouth. Jacoby’s office had no chairs save for his, an intimidation tactic to keep his guests uncomfortable on their feet, which only added to Kristof’s ire.

  Dison knew bringing him was unwise.

  Nevertheless, when your most important—and only—client tells you to do something, you do it, and Ivan had insisted Dison bring him. Against his gut instinct, Dison obeyed, despising that he had no choice. Kristof was a punk, had bullied people around his neighborhood for money, including beating up a handicapped teen who’d talked back to him, and allegedly sexually assaulted a human woman at a club.

  And yet, Ivan aimed to have him lead his empire one day?

  Dison had one singular goal, to bring together the Miocics and the Jacobys. A mission he was fairly confident he could accomplish by bringing up the magic word: money.

  Ivan owned a transportation company; Jacoby sold guns and ammunition. Win-win. Hell, if the families hadn’t been enemies since the Dark Ages, then they probably would be the best of mates; they had more in common than not. However, they were not mates, and other powerful families were sick to death of the rivalry that was so old, no one even knew exactly why they hated each other. Only that it was high time they got over it.

  Finally, after years of wearing him down, Dison talked Ivan into considering a mutually beneficial arrangement with John, if the terms were right.

  But Kristof just had to accompany him to this meeting. To “learn” the art of the deal.

  The second they’d walked into Jacoby’s office, and John set his sharp, icy blue gaze on Kristof, alarm bells had rung in Dison’s head. Jacoby had a zero tolerance policy for insolence, and Kristof had it coming off him in waves.

  Dison could tell Jacoby hated the heir apparent, who’d dressed inappropriately for a formal meeting, showing up in crocodile shoes with sharp tips, a tight dress shirt with the buttons halfway done, a giant silver cross necklace, his blonde hair slicked back with a fine brush.

  Dison, on the other hand, wore his usual business attire, a white shirt under a bespoke sport coat, his neatly trimmed hair finger-combed.

  They couldn’t look more opposite.

  Ivan insisted his nephew go because he desperately wanted Kristof to be respected, as he was, when he had to be aware his nephew just didn’t have it in him to be a leader of jack shit. Miocic also had two daughters, but was too much of a misogynist to let either one of them take over outright. Marina, beautiful, but aloof and introverted, preferred working on motherboards and hacking into highly secured databases for amusement.

  Her older sister Sesila was clever, ambitious, and fully capable of taking the reins, but was headstrong, and lacked sophistication. Perhaps if Ivan had spent any time cultivating their strengths, they would be more than capable of standing at the helm, but Ivan wouldn’t consider it, desperately hoping his nephew was the prodigy he longed for.

  Ever since he hit his maturation age at thirty, Kristof had been bulldozing his way into the business of things instead of earning it, which most entitled assholes tended to do.

  Jacoby finally hung up the phone. “So do we have an accord, Mr. Huxford? Five percent?” he asked Dison.

  Kristof spit on the expensive Peruvian carpet. “You call what you just offered a fucking accord? I call that piss.”

  Jacoby stiffened. “I don’t give a fuck what you think.”

  “Fuck you,” Kristof shot back, then glanced at Dison. “Tell him, Huxford.”

  Dison’s jaw clenched. Miocic emphasized he wouldn’t take anything less than ten percent of the cut for transporting the guns, and Jacoby had offered five. Getting them to split to eight shouldn’t be a problem. The spoiled idiot obviously didn’t know the game of negotiation. The first offer was always the lowest, then a counteroffer was made, and finally, the number between the two was agreed upon. A kindergarten could grasp the concept.

  Dison nodded. “I’ll relay the offer and get back to you.”

  “You’re standing next to a Miocic and I say no!” Kristof snarled in his Croatian accent. “Twenty percent or shit.”

  Dison clenched a fist, but remained cool, turning his gaze on Kristof. “We’re just starting to negotiate. We’ll see what your uncle says.”

  “My uncle sent me in his place. I make the decisions. I speak on his behalf.”

  “Is this true?” Jacoby asked, fury in his puffy eyes.

  Dison’s blood started to simmer as tension thickened the air. “No, he doesn’t speak on his uncle’s behalf. Expect my call tonight,” he said, praying Kristof would drop it, and headed for the door.

  Kristof gaped at him, and followed, a hand slapped to Dison’s chest. “What the fuck? Ask
ing my uncle is a waste of time. Five percent is a laugh!”

  Dison pushed off his palm. “And twenty percent is unreasonable, double what your uncle asked for,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Kristof leaned in with his psychotic eyes piercing into Dison’s profile. “Oh? My balls too big for you? What do you know about taking risk and making real money? Huh? Nothing. And you’re nothing but a fucking numbers geek. An errand man at best. I’m not walking away.” Before Dison could stop him, Kristof turned, yelling, “Twenty percent! We cutting you a favor! Our trucks are fastest. Employees? Loyal! Police? Paid for! Twenty percent is a gift for what we provide! Do you think we are morons?”

  Jacoby pushed up from his desk slowly. “If you don’t get the hell out of my house, you will regret it.” He set his hard gaze on Dison and pointed. “I took this meeting out of respect for you, Dison. Then you turn around and bring this turd to my house so he can mock me and spit on my floor?”

  Fuck. The last thing he needed was to get on Jacoby’s bad side because of a punk like Kristof. “Mr. Miocic insisted on it—”

  “Dison doesn’t fucking speak for my uncle,” Kristof drawled, lifting his hand, tattooed to his knuckles. “Listen, you piece of shit, Ivan doesn’t need your respect or your money. We are the Miocics! Of royal blood!” He thumped his chest once with a fist. “When your balls is big enough to play with the real men, you give us a call, huh?”

  The Jacobys were royals too, so his declaration was shit. Gods. Dison was maddeningly close to punching him in the face until he had no face. “Kristof, your uncle needs Jacoby’s business, and we all know it. We’re not leaving here with nothing but our cocks in our hands.”

  Because Kristof had half a brain and knew he was right, he said nothing, glaring at Dison from lowered lids.

  Mr. Jacoby’s mouth twitched, his ego partially soothed it seemed. “I’m changing the offer to three percent.”

  Dison suppressed a loud sigh. Now Jacoby was just playing games. “No lower than five. The liability doesn’t calculate for three. The extra weight of the cargo, the security, the documentation, the payoffs…”

  “Fine,” Jacoby sniffed. “We’re back to five.”

  Could this bloody meeting please end? Next time, he wouldn’t bring Kristof, no matter what Miocic said. “Good.” Dison tucked his hand in his pocket to hide the fist it was forming. “Kristof, let’s go.”

  Kristof shook his head. “No. The minimum is twenty.”

  Ignoring him, Jacoby flipped a fat hand, dismissing them. “We’re done here.”

  “Oh, we’re done?” Kristof marched across the office, but Jacoby—proud and fearless—remained composed, almost daring the nephew of his biggest rival to try something.

  He muttered something to Kristof that Dison couldn’t hear.

  Kristof spit in the man’s face, grabbed a letter opener, and stabbed Jacoby’s hand to the desk.

  It happened so fast Dison blinked to make sure he’d seen it correctly.

  Jacoby roared in pain, his eyes flashing, his teething sharpening.

  Kristof laughed as he stumbled back, heading for the door, pushing past Dison.

  “Stop him!” Jacoby shouted.

  Did Kristof have a death wish or was he literally crazy?

  Dison didn’t know whether to stay and beg for Jacoby’s forgiveness, or flee with the coward. The stab to Jacoby’s hand wasn’t a serious physical wound, but it definitely had to hurt like hell. Jacoby pulled the opener out of his hand with yell, and Dison watched the wound seal, but the look in the man’s eyes was lethal.

  Dison glanced back and put his hands up. “By the gods, Jacoby, I’m sorry. I had no idea Miocic’s nephew was so unhinged.”

  Jacoby grabbed a handkerchief from a drawer and wiped the blood from his palm. “I’ve known you a long time, Dison, and you’ve always been straight with me. I know what you’re trying to do between me and Miocic, but the fact remains if he was serious about doing business, he would’ve come here himself.” His gaze moved over Dison’s shoulder to the guards at the door. “Bring him in here.”

  Jacoby’s strongmen dragged Kristof in, gagged, the tips of his shoes scraping the floor. He wretched his shoulders, making incoherent words through the tightly bound rag between his lips, eyes blazing with scorn.

  Did he really think he was going to get away?

  “Funny,” Jacoby began. “Not that long ago, I would’ve let something like this go. A stab in the hand?” He shrugged. “Nothing compared to what others have done. But now? I’m old. Tired, even. I see the youth and hope in my son’s and daughter’s eyes and wish I could bottle it, sip on it, and see the world differently. The longer in the tooth I become…” Jacoby sauntered to a wide cabinet above his bar and carefully took down a sheathed sword. “The less I’m supposed to care. That’s what my human friends say. The older they become, the less concerned about appearances, money, status, offenses. Much less concern.”

  His blunt fingers traced along the length of the sheath. “For us, it’s not the same. We grow old only when we become parents, and even then, we live many years before we even see a wrinkle. I know I have time, a lot of time, before the gods take me. And guess what. I do care. I am concerned. That the underworld we so desperately try to protect will be left in the hands of psychopaths like this one.”

  Heart hammering, Dison remained silent, watching Jacoby trace his fingertips along the blade like it was a pet. Jacoby kept his disturbingly calm stare on Kristof, who continued to whine and wrestle like a bounded animal.

  “Jacoby,” Dison warned softly. “Don’t.”

  The gun dealer ignored him. He brought the tip of the sword under Kristof’s chin and jerked it up, eyes dark and cold like black ice, while Kristof’s widened.

  A series of the ramifications flashed through Dison’s mind of what would happen, should Jacoby actually execute his enemy’s nephew. Despite the fact Dison didn’t know what his own fate was, he knew he had to be the voice of reason, whether or not it was futile.

  “You’ll be declaring war with Miocic,” Dison stated the obvious, looking from the terrified Kristof to the terrifyingly composed Jacoby. “A very serious war all because of him?” The thought of the bloodshed and violence that would follow the death of such a prick sickened him.

  Kristof whipped a furious gaze on Dison, telling him if he managed to get out of this alive, Dison’s future was doomed. Whether or not Miocic gave his nephew permission, Kristof would hunt him down and punish him for the insult, even if it saved his life.

  “A lot of wars have been activated over bullshit,” Jacoby murmured.

  Kristof yelled through his gag, though nothing of what he said could be understood, the viciousness of his tone and the vein popping out of his temple proved he wasn’t begging for his life, just spewing out more insults, trying to act tough to the bitter end.

  But to be executed with his hands tied behind his back, with no way to defend himself, wasn’t fair, regardless of the fact that he’d wounded Jacoby first. It hadn’t been a mortal wound, so in vampire eyes, death without defense was unseemly.

  “At least give the man a fighting chance,” Dison advised.

  Jacoby’s gaze roved to Dison and back to Kristof. “You’re right. The only time he should be on his knees is when he’s begging for my forgiveness. Is that what you’re doing, Kristof?” he taunted, tapping the sword on Kristof’s cheek. The young vampire jerked away from the blade, eyes narrowing. “No, I didn’t think so. Bring him up. Remove the gag.”

  The guards pulled Kristof to his feet and untied the rag, but kept his hands bound behind him.

  “You motherfucker,” Kristof snarled. “I will kill you.”

  Jacoby laughed. “Ha! If my fate is to be ended by the likes of you, then so be it. The gods might be bored enough to let it happen. You want to fight me, boy? You’ll get one shot. If you win, well fuck off, my legacy goes down the shitter and you’ll be notorious! If I win, well, I guess the only benefit I’ll ob
tain is never seeing your face again.” He appeared almost in a delightfully dark mood as he brushed past Kristof, sword in hand. “To the courtyard. You too, Huxford.”

  One of the guards pushed at Kristof to follow, who called after him. “There will be no mercy on my end, old man. Either you die or you die quickly. I won’t give you the choice to beg on your knees.”

  Jacoby gave no retort.

  Dison lowered his hands, feeling as though time was moving excruciatingly slow, and wishing he’d never even considered this meeting in the first place. Now he was either about to witness the death of a royal’s nephew or the death of a royal. Either would kick off a domino effect of retaliation that could take decades to settle.

  Nevertheless, there was nothing he could do to stop this runaway train. If Kristof wanted to fight Jacoby—who was over three hundred years old and a weapons expert—and Jacoby wanted to fight the young relative of someone he despised, then he wouldn’t stand in their way. He was a financial consultant and negotiator, and neither man was worth dying for. No way was he going to stand up for Kristof, no matter who he was related to.

  Regardless of who won, his world was about to change.

  The courtyard was in the middle of Jacoby’s estate, an open air square with nothing but grass, used for training and weapons testing.

  And apparently, fights to the death. Dison had no doubt Jacoby would win, and when the guard cut the ties from Kristof’s wrists, and the man’s shoulders bunched, his head down, he had a sense Kristof realized he was out of his depth.

  Of course, pride would never let him back down at this point.

  “Choose.” Jacoby pointed to the side table where a selection of weapons was available. He sauntered to one side of the courtyard, turning his wrist in circles.