Dark Embrace (Principatus) Read Online Free

the last time we spoke that I never wanted to see you again. In fact, I moved to the other side of the world to make sure that’s exactly what would happen.”
    The overlord straightened his spine, his eyes igniting with cold rage. The last time the two brothers had faced each other—over fifty years ago—the vampire lord had threatened to have Ezryn marked as a traitor to his kind. The last time they’d stood in the same room, Ezryn had come very, very close to destroying the vampire lord. Close enough for Harry to sweat blood. A lot of blood.
    “I am your lord ,” Haral snapped. The muscles in his face quivered and his yellow eyes dilated. “I can speak to you and call upon you whenever I wish.”
    Ezryn barked out a harsh laugh, the sound like cracking ice. “I have no lord.”
    Haral stamped his foot, his human face distorting into a demonic mask. “As the supreme ruler of our people, I hereby command you to a task.”
    Ezryn narrowed his eyes. “Go to hell, Harry.”
    “Not before you, Ezryn.”
    With a low growl, Ezryn sprang forward, crossing the distance to Haral in a blurring leap. Clamping one hand around his twin brother’s neck, he yanked Haral’s feet off the floor. “You destroyed any right you had to command me, brother , when you invoked the power of the blood trial.”
    Haral scratched at Ezryn’s hand, his eyes bulging. “And yet…” he rasped, “…the blood trial named me overlord. Not…” he bucked in Ezryn’s hold, “…you.”
    Ezryn tightened his grip, the mention of the ancient ritual filling him with cold contempt. Since birth, he’d been groomed to take over from his father as the next leader of the vampire race. For six hundred and fifty years, he’d known little except that as the first son of the First Family, born but a mere five minutes before his twin, he was destined to be the next overlord. He’d been educated to lead a race on the verge of imploding. Too many of their number had grown disillusioned with the old ways, the violent use of humans as a food source, an equal number disgusted with the progressive notion humans weren’t just cattle. He’d been ready to restore harmony where only conflict existed. Ready to take his place as overlord. And then his father had been killed, staked by an emo demon-slayer wannabe with acne on his cheeks.
    The day after the overlord’s death, the day before Ezryn was to ascend to the position of his birthright, Haral had invoked the blood trial, an ancient and barbaric ceremony designed to reveal the true overlord’s identity. And on the whispered words of the human virgin sacrificed for the trial—a young woman known as the oracle’s voice throughout the proceedings—the course of history had changed.
    Ezryn stared into his brother’s eyes. “Just what do you want me to do… lord ?”
    Haral flashed his fangs, his Adam’s apple jerking under Ezryn’s palm. “My wife’s cousin was slain by a Principatus. I want you to destroy her.”
    Ezryn clenched his jaw, a cold fist of disquiet in his chest. “A Principatus?”
    What Haral commanded was insanity. To destroy a divine assassin in self-defense was one thing—the Powers would not retaliate against such a death. If a Principatus could not survive a fair fight with their foe, than the Powers seemed to wipe Their divine, righteous hands of Their failed assassin. But to destroy one in an act of revenge? That was to start a war beyond all comprehension. A war that would bring about the mass destruction of vampire and Principatus alike.
    The Principatus were no easy kill. Once demons themselves, they were selected by the Highest of Powers for reasons unknown, granted a soul and reborn then and there as assassins of all things unholy and paranormal. Whether vampire, shifter or hell-spawn, if a being threatened the divine status quo, chances were the Powers would mark it for assassination and send a Principatus to carry out the kill. A Principatus’s rebirth gave them