I walk over to him and grab him firmly by his shoulders, commanding his full attention. “I promise you, Keegan, we will find your mate.”
A quick tug on our link gives me all the motivation I need to rush out of the room of death and follow my bond with Trinity as it spikes, guiding me through the crumbling castle. Blindly I run, not even looking where I’m going as her soul reaches out to mine, leading me like a guide dog leads its sightless owner. I don’t stop until I reach a long room lined with pillars where the link abruptly cuts off.
Footsteps rush in behind me as Lach and Ri finally catch up.
“Oh no, not this room again,” Orian groans, explaining his complaint at our questioning looks. “When we split up before, this is the area of the castle I explored. There’s nothing remarkable here, except for that creepy statue on the right.” He shines his flashlight in the direction of the statue, cautiously walking over to it. “It’s the same giant vampire depicted in the scenes from the circular room”.
Curious, I ignite my fire, further illuminating the figure. With a menacing sneer stretched across his vicious face, the vampire sits in a throne-like chair with his hand outstretched, palm up. Almost as if he is waiting for something to be placed in it.
Stepping closer, I notice something in his hand reflect the light of my fire. “What’s this?” I say as I lean down, peering into his waiting hand.
In the center of his palm is a small hole. “What the… Orian, come here. What do you make of this?”
He rushes over. His observant green eyes soak up all the information presented to him. He shines his light on the statue, and with a single finger, he traces around the metal hole before a knowing look brightens his face. “Keegan, can you light up these markings on the floor please?”
Following his line of sight, I notice the strange etchings on the floor. Kneeling down next to it for a better look, a burgundy line comes into view stretching from the vampire to the middle of the room. Standing, I follow the line to an emblem embedded in the center of the floor. At first glance it appears to be a simple design, a spiral-like image that reminds me of a propeller on a boat, mimicking blades swirling out from the centermost point.
Orian crouches next to me, his brows furrowed as he studies the image. Lowering my fire for a better look, I notice the same reflection as I did in in the palm of the vampires hand. Orian sees it too and stretches out his fingers to touch it.
“Look at this.” He runs his fingers up and down the line. “It’s like a tiny trough, leading from the spiral to the statue.” He sniffs. “Smells of blood. I wonder…” Standing back up, he makes his way back to the statue. He looks back and forth between the figure and the spiral, holding his chin in thought. “I think I know what we have to do. Fucking blood suckers. See this hole in the vampires palm?” He points to it, and Lachlan and I come over to look closer at his find. “I think this is a funnel of sorts, leading through the statue down to the trough embedded in the floor, which extends to the center of the spiral emblem in the center of the room. I know this sounds crazy, but I think we need to pour something into his hand, like a donation, a sacrifice.”
“Blood,” Lachlan supplies. “Of course. What else could it be? They are vampires, right? There’s nothing they covet more than blood. Blood sucking fucks…” He shakes his head as he takes in the situation, realizing what we must do.
“I’ll do it,” I volunteer. “Trinity is my mate, and I will sacrifice my blood and anything else I have for her.”
“No! It should be me,” Ri quickly interjects. He looks at us before speaking again. “Keegan, you have an invaluable weapon, your fire. The last thing we need is to weaken you from blood loss, possibly affecting your ability to conjure your flames.”
He looks to Lachlan. “And you are the fiercest, most capable fighter I know. We need you at the peak of your strength, ready and able to fight off whatever we find while looking for the Princess.”
He isn’t wrong, but his sacrifice should not go unrecognized. “Thank you, brother.” I clasp my hand on his shoulder. He just smiles back and makes his way over to the statue.
“Everybody ready? I have no idea if this is going to work but if it does…”
“We’re ready,” I interrupt. “Proceed.”
He nods and raises his arm over the vampires hand, pulling a silver dagger from the sheath on his belt. Holding the blade against the pulse in his wrist, he takes a deep breath and slices his skin with a grunt. His blood flows down into the vampires palm, which eagerly sucks the blood down the hole in the center. I move to the trough in the floor and a moment later hear a loud clunk followed by the raising of a tiny door in the base of the statue. The trickle of Orian’s blood travels through and down into the trough on the floor.
Following the flow, it continues until it reaches the center of the spiral. A noise, like a drain sucking down water, reaches my ears.
Where the hell is it going?
We all stand silent as we anxiously wait for something, anything, to happen. “Orian, you doing okay over there?” I ask him.
“It will take a lot more than this to bring me down.”
I nod in understanding. The gurgling noise persists as Orian's blood makes its way down the drain-like tube when I hear a new sound. Grinding, like metal gears scraping against each other. I almost lose my balance when the ground beneath my feet begins to move.
I jump back as the floor drops, the spiral pinwheel slowly rotating and creaking as descending steps reform out of the spiral, lowering themselves into the floor.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Lachlan exclaims as we watch this secret staircase reveal itself.
When all noises cease, Orian rips a piece of his shirt off and ties it around his wrist like a tourniquet to stop the flow of his blood. He walks over to us with a dumbfounded look on his face.
“If this wasn’t a life or death situation, I would be geeking out at the ingenuity of these vampires.” He peers down the darkened staircase. “It’s remarkable.”
Suddenly a ripping sensation sears through my chest, and I fall to the floor, frantically patting my skin to make sure it’s still intact. The feeling is over as quickly as it began but serves as a stark reminder of the imminent danger Trinity is in. “We’ve lingered here too long,” I gasp, scrambling off the floor and taking the first steps down into the spiral of doom.
The light from my fire illuminates the dark hole, casting dancing shadows along the walls. Lach follows behind me, and Ri brings up the rear. Several minutes pass as we make our descent, the chilly air becoming more stagnant as we go.
Countless steps later we finally reach the bottom. I glance back at the guys. “Get your daggers out, and be ready for anything.”
“How much farth-”
“Shh!” I cut off Lach, putting a finger to my lips indicating he should be quiet. “Listen,” I whisper, cautiously peeking my head around the wall at the base of the stairs. A massive door greets me, wooden with metal filigree decorating it. Words from the same ancient language we found in the death room are carved into the door, behind which an eerie sound emanates.
Chanting.
I press my face against the door, and an icy chill snakes through me as I listen to the repetitive incantations. There are many voices, reciting the same unnerving chorus over and over again.
A shift in the air brings an awful smell to us from under the door. It ripe with death and decay. But there’s something else too. A sweet fragrance, like fresh strawberries picked from the garden.
I drift off into a pleasant memory of my time with the Princess, but the rattle of chains and a wet scream soon pulls me out of my daydream.
Eyes wide, with anger and fear coursing through my body, I turn my head back and look at my team. “She’s in there. I can smell her blo-” I’m cut off by a violent pain in my chest. I struggle to breath as a vice grips my heart, squeezing the still beating muscle and pulling a labored gasp from my lips as I crash to the floor.
I loo
k up at the guys as they crouch around me, fear and anxiety oozing off them in waves. I’m sure I’ve figured out what’s happening now.
Trinity is the sacrifice.
The pain coursing through me is hers. That fucking vamp is trying to rip her heart right out of her chest.
“No,” I growl out, my vision blinded by rage. Anger pulses through me, the likes of which I have never felt before, swirling inside me like a violent storm. Thunder and lightning crash inside me as fury builds, inciting a wrath that I didn’t know I possessed. All rational thought disappears as I push through the pain. Throwing open the door, I roar out a ferocious battle cry and charge into the adjacent room.
Twenty cloaked vampires turn in unison, the movement unnatural, and look at the intruders who just interrupted their gory ceremony. Restraining myself from attacking them alone, I stop amidst the eerie silence in the center of the rectangular chamber.
The room almost feels like a fucking church in here, with rows of benches lining either side of the space and lit sconces along the walls. A walkway runs down the center that leads to a raised dais upon which lies my mate. She’s naked and shackled, surrounded by a mass of vampires who are catching her blood in their gaping mouths as it drips off the table. Covered in blood, the Princess is unmoving, and the large, menacing vampire depicted in the statues has his grimy fucking hand wrist deep in her chest.
Stunned, I watch as he removes his hand from Trinity and looks me dead in the face. Slowly, he brings his crimson fingers to his lips and licks her blood off. Pulling the last blood-covered digit out of his mouth with a loud ‘pop’, he glares at his coven with an accusatory look.
“Don’t just fucking stand there! Get them!” he shouts, with his red eyes blazing. Murmurs of ‘yes Lord Daemon’ echo off the walls while his blood sucking minions advance towards us. Lachlan and Orian spread out on either side of me, daggers drawn, battle stance ready. Looking around, the ceiling in here won’t allow us to use our Phoenix forms to our advantage. We will have to take these dead fucks on in human form.
A smile stretches across my face, because I know something that they don’t; I have fire. “Wait,” I murmur to my team, wanting the vamps to get as close as possible before I unleash my flames on them.
Snarling and exposing their bloody fangs, they make their way forward, slinking down the aisle like a cat hunting its prey.
“On the count of three,” I tell them when the vamps are about ten feet away. “One.” They inch closer, spreading out around the room to surround us. “Two.” I can smell her blood on their dead fucking faces as they get within arms reach. “Three!”
Flinging out my arms, I call my fire, and it erupts from my hands, burning through the vampires in front of us. Lach and Ri fight beside me as I turn my body, aiming the flames into the mass of vampires. Their high pitched shrieks of pain pierce my sensitive ears as their bodies ignite.
A kick from behind lands in the center of my back, causing me to lose concentration and extinguish my fire as I stumble. I turn to face my attacker, who snarls at me. Blood drips from his elongated fangs. Her blood. He slashes at me with his claws out, skimming the front of my shirt. Feverish anger surges inside me. Gripping my dagger, I swing it at him, a freakish contortion of his body allows him to narrowly miss his neck meeting the tip of my blade.
He swipes at me again, and I duck under his arm but immediately pop back up while his back is still facing me from the momentum of his swing. I grab his fucking head in my hands and call on my fire. His head turns to ash within seconds, and his body drops to the floor.
Cool.
Turning back to face the room, I glance up at Trinity only to see the giant vampire in my way. He stands in front of her body with his arms crossed over his broad chest. His red eyes calmly observe the fight as it plays out before him, like some nightmare maestro conducting a symphony of terror.
I bare my teeth and charge at him only to be thwarted by two members of his coven. They face me with their claws out, ready to cut through me. Grinning at them, I thrust out my palms and blast them with an onslaught of flames. I’m already looking for my next victim as they disintegrate into smoldering piles of ash.
Lachlan holds his own, mercilessly fighting three vamps at once, but Orian is starting to lose ground. The effects of his blood loss are catching up with him.
I sprint to his side, cutting down two more vampires as I go. I blast the bloodsucker that he’s fighting, quickly turning it into a pile of dust. “Follow my lead, and stay behind me!” I shout to him, hoping he hears me over the surrounding chaos. With a quick nod from Ri, we stand back to back and start to turn. I stretch my arms in front of me and call my fire. Like a flaming tornado, we spin, my flames engulfing any blood sucker that crosses my path.
Risking a glance around, hope builds in my chest. We are winning this fight. The vampires are easy prey for me since they can’t block my fire and are quick to fall victim to the wrath of my blazing assault.
At some point in the chaos of battle, I lost track of the giant vamp and only notice now that he has disappeared from this chamber of horrors. I can only hope that he succumbed to the wrath of my fire or met the pointed end of a silver dagger. Fire engulfs the wooden benches, and smoke fills the room. The combined scents of burnt wood and seared flesh make the air thick and difficult to breathe. A sense of urgency spikes in me. We need to get Trinity out of here... Now!
“Orian, go help Trinity. Lach and I can take care of the vamps.”
Excitement and adrenaline flood my veins with his command. Feeling stronger now with the burst of energy, I hasten my steps and rush to follow his orders. Eager to get to the Princess, I weave through the last of the burning vamps and flaming benches, stabbing a few vamps with my silver dagger along the way.
Finally, I reach the end of the aisle when a cloaked arm wraps around my waist and throws me to the ground. Sliding across the hard floor, I crash into a burning bench.
Mother fucker!!
Now I’m fucking pissed! My need to save the Princess is overwhelming, and this blood bag thinks he can stop me. No fucking way. Seething, I crouch, daggers at the ready, and launch myself at him. Using momentum to my advantage since I’m not at full strength, I spin just before I reach him and thrust my dagger into the side of his head. He doesn’t even know what hit him, his face still snarling as it explodes, and his body collapsing to the floor.
Grinning, I jump over his body and make my way up to the dais. I stiffen as I stand over her, evaluating her condition. To say she’s in a dire state would be a severe understatement. She’s shackled by her wrists and legs and stretched out on the table. Oozing bites litter her entire body, and a deep, gaping wound runs from her petite collar bones to her stomach. That damned vamp cut her so deep, I can see her skeletal structure beneath the laceration. The bright white bones of her sternum stick out in stark contrast to the dark red blood covering her body.
Anger, fear, and anxiety run through me faced with the visible proof of all she’s endured. How could someone do this to another being? It’s baffling.
Taking a deep breath, I let my knowledge guide me and get to work, checking her faint pulse and counting her respirations before removing the shackles that bind her limbs. I ignore the sounds of battle behind us as her pale arms fall limply off the dais.
Normally, someone with a severe wound like this in combination with extreme blood loss could not survive. Even if she survives the blood loss, we still have sepsis to contend with. She needs to be moved, now.
Under normal circumstances, if I came across someone in this condition, I wouldn't move them until they were stabilized, but the Princess is out of time. Forgoing all appropriate protocols, I tear off my shirt and slide it under her upper body, tying it together tightly in hopes of keeping her vital organs secure and protected during transport.
Glancing behind me, I see that my team has taken down most of the vampires. The few that remain are burning in Keegan’s flames. The fire consumes ever
ything in its path, crawling up the walls and licking the ceiling. We don’t have much time left before the chamber collapses, burying us in a coffin filled with dead vampires. The thought of my soul spending an eternity trapped in here makes me shiver.
Not wasting another second as the chamber burns around us, I slide my arms under her bloody, broken body, supporting her behind her knees and shoulder blades. She feels so small in my arms, feather light and slick with blood coating her frail body. Turning with the Princess held against my chest, I make my way through the caustic inferno. Avoiding the dead bodies and burning benches, I squint, trying to see through the smoke stinging my eyes.
The guys are waiting for me at the door as I come barreling down the aisle. Behind me, the ceiling collapses, and a wave of hot embers sear my back while I run. The pain only fuels me, urging me to continue, heightening my senses as I dash for the exit holding the most precious thing I have ever laid my eyes on.
“Come on, Ri!” Keegan shouts, waving me over. “We need to get out of here, now!” A look of urgency flashes in his eyes as he stares past me at the blazing chamber behind me.
I reach the door not a second too soon as a loud whoosh erupts from behind me. Spinning around, I see the remainder of the ceiling has fallen, and I watch as the flames work their way towards the door where we stand. Not needing any more encouragement, I squeeze the Princess tighter against my body and follow Lachlan as he sprints up the spiral stairs, Keegan hot on my heels.
Taking the stairs two and three at a time, we make quick work of our ascent. Once we’re all safe in the pillard room, my adrenaline rush plummets, leaving me exhausted. Barely able to hold just myself up, I pass the Princess to a worried Lachlan. With a gleam in his arctic eyes that I haven't seen before, he smiles as he takes in her angelic face for the first time. Even covered in gore, there’s no denying the beauty of the Princess.
Bound For Blood (Feathers & Fire Book 1) Page 14