Captive of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 2)

by Bella Klaus

  His violet eyes softened. “Morata, everything I do is for your safety.”

  “Well, I feel more like your captive than your queen, especially when you act like a tyrant and make decisions about my freedom.”

  The corner of his lips curled into a smile. “I am intrigued by your response to my tyranny.”

  Heat surged between my legs, and I tried pulling my hand out of his grip, but his other arm tightened around my back. “Inamorata.”

  His deep voice made my every nerve ending tingle. I was about to tell him what he could do with his tyranny when a man-shaped shadow emerged from the bookshelf and reached out toward Valentine’s neck.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A tight fist of panic gripped my heart, squeezing out a shocked gasp. I stepped back, my eyes bulging at the shadow creeping over the bookshelves and toward Valentine’s back. My nostrils filled with the faint scent of brimstone. Without meaning to, my magic surged into my hands as though it was attracted to the shadows. I raised my arms, pointing my palms out, trying to ward off the encroaching darkness.

  Valentine glanced over his shoulder. A heartbeat later, he scooped me into his arms, balanced Macavity on my lap, and flew us out of the library.

  Damp and rot and mildew hung in the air like a wet washcloth, mingling with the brimstone coming from the library and the other wing of the derelict. The last vestiges of sunlight shone through the hallway’s tall windows, its amber light reflecting on the vegetation crawling across the damp walls.

  “Valentine,” I hissed. “The sun.”

  “I know,” he growled and launched himself into a darkened stairwell.

  We flew up to the penthouse, and he opened the door and set me on the wood floor with Macavity cradled in my arms. I spun around and stared at the entrance, waiting for the shadow to slip through the door and finish the job it started.

  A heartbeat later, Valentine emerged wearing a long, hooded cloak that looked like it might have once belonged to a reaper—a low-level angel that occasionally ferried difficult souls into Heaven or Hell. He held another garment over his arm, similar to the quilted coat he had stolen for me the day before.

  “Is that going to protect you from the sun?” I tilted my head to the side, trying to peer into the shadows formed by his hood, but I couldn’t see his features.

  “That’s the plan.” After helping me into the warm coat, he scooped me up into his arms again, flew out of the penthouse, and back into the hallway.

  As we flew down the atrium, Macavity’s warm body shifted on my lap, and he dug his nails into the fabric of Valentine’s black shirt for balance. I clung to Valentine’s neck and peered over his shoulder to find the shadow crawling through the hallway. A shudder ran down my spine. This was just like the thing that had wrapped around my ankle, cursed my blood, and then tried to access the Notting Hill safe house.

  My throat spasmed. How had such a thing managed to track us all the way out of London?

  “What’s going on?” I asked and he flew us over the collapsed grand staircase. “Isn’t this place supposed to be warded?”

  “Against human interlopers,” Valentine growled. “The wards that protect this place from supernaturals were supposed to confuse them into believing it wasn’t worth investigating.”

  “Somehow, I think that shadow has a life of its own.”

  “I concur.” Valentine flew out of the window into the cold afternoon.

  He continued over the moss-covered courtyard and along the overgrown garden, which looked even wilder from thirty feet above. It was a battleground where ivy swallowed up ancient apple trees, wooden structures on the verge of collapse and an entire spired roof of a greenhouse.

  My gaze darted back to the house, but it was so vast, the shadow could be pouring out from anywhere. It could take on any shape from several feet wide to as thin as a piece of string and I might not notice until it wound around my body.

  Valentine turned to me, his brow furrowed. “Did your senses pick up anything?”

  “Not in the library.” I closed my eyes and concentrated. Concentrated beyond the cold breeze, the sunlight shining through my eyelids, and the scent of brimstone. If I had to describe the energy it would be that of a mage. Most mages usually had a cool magic to match the elements they governed. Air, water, metal, and shadow were cold in nature.

  I hadn’t met enough light mages to form an opinion on their energy signatures, but it was too smooth to be a demon, too solid to be a vampire, and too settled to belong to a shifter. Faeries and angels had their own form of magic that was lighter and I would never mistake that thing for a witch.

  Opening my eyes, I met his concerned gaze. “It’s like the shadow assassin but maybe deader?”

  “Deader?” Valentine asked in a deadpan.

  Macavity shifted on my lap, and I placed a steadying hand on his warm back. “It reminds me a little of how you felt when you first rose.”

  Valentine blew out a long, frustrated breath. “It can’t be.”

  “What?”

  He glanced at the house. “Do you remember I told you my father bought the land centuries ago?”

  “For a fire mage who got dragged into Hell?” I asked.

  He flew over the path that led to the driveway, sparing a glance over his shoulder toward the derelict mansion. “This is the location where enforcers captured the mage, and it’s also where they tore an opening into Hell. I suspect that the mage is now trying to claw his way out.”

  “You can smell the brimstone, too?”

  Valentine turned to me and frowned. “Faint traces. Are you sensing a lot of it?”

  “It’s stronger than before.” I placed a hand on his chest. “Does that mean he's escaped?”

  “Or the enforcers did a shoddy job and only dragged part of the mage into Hell,” Valentine snarled. “Some practitioners can separate their shadows. If he did that before the enforcers caught up with him, it would explain how that shadow attacked you in Notting Hill but not why.” He flew over the path and toward the driveway where I had once tried to escape.

  Questions jumbled through my mind. Why would a centuries-old mage, whose shadow or spirit or whatever that was, travel to London to curse me? Why had it chosen to show itself now? The part of me that had watched too many horror movies pictured the thing trying to take over my body so it could get a second chance at life, but there were better people to body snatch. Jonathan had been a sitting target, the right gender, and with a magic more diabolical and better controlled than mine. He also didn’t have a quantity of firestone in his blood holding him back. Why did that thing chase me?

  I peered over his shoulder, trying to find a sign that the dead mage had tried to follow us out of the house. “Where are we going?”

  “I won’t allow that thing to hurt you again,” he said, his voice tight with determination. “I won’t let him use me against you.”

  My chest tightened as my mind dredged up the memory of Valentine lying dead with a poisoned dagger in his hand. I met his dark eyes and tried to keep the emotion out of my voice. “Do you have another safe house?”

  His features tightened. “My brothers know of all my properties in London, but there’s a place I could get ready in a few hours. I’ll have to put you somewhere it won’t follow until it’s safe.”

  I kept my gaze on the ground, guessing that the shadow would need to rise up if it wanted to get at either of us. If Valentine hadn’t been holding me, I would have worried that we would cast a combined shadow for the creature to ensnare. For once, I was glad he was preternatural and able to keep out of its reach.

  The sound of traffic grew closer, indicating we were close to the property’s threshold. Anxiety rippled through my insides at the prospect of leaving the wards with this curse still affecting my blood. Even with Valentine here to protect me from hungry vampires, I still didn’t relish the prospect of another confrontation.

  As we reached the driveway, an invisible barrier pressed against my arm. Valenti
ne flew higher, until the air grew frigid, but each time I reached out to see if we’d flown over the barrier, it was still there.

  “Damn it,” he hissed.

  I glanced in the direction of the house. The setting sun cast a warm glow over its grimy exterior, making it look all the more creepy. A dark shadow formed at its base, but I couldn’t tell if it was the dead mage or the angle of the sun. Whatever was after us had now confined us to the property’s boundaries just as it had locked us in the villa after infecting my blood.

  “What does it want?” I muttered under my breath.

  “Let’s not stay around to find out.” Valentine swooped down to the ground but still cradled me in his arms. “Macavity, can you leave the wards?”

  The cat jumped off my lap, stepped out into the driveway and nodded. I pushed out my hand but still met the barrier. Macavity stepped forward, bumped his nose on the invisible ward, and winced.

  “Meow?” he asked.

  “It’s locked him out now,” I muttered.

  “Typical,” Valentine hissed. He crouched low and looked the cat in the eyes. “Stay safe. Once we’ve defeated this thing, we’ll need you to test the barriers again.”

  The cat stood on his hind legs, pressing his paws against the invisible ward. His right ear twitched, indicating that he was listening and understood.

  “For now, you need to find somewhere to stay until I come for you,” said Valentine.

  Macavity glared up at us with hurt green eyes and shook his head from side to side with a pained yowl.

  I bit down on my lip, trying to find the words to convince him to leave. It was great that he was loyal, but what if he got hurt again trying to protect us? “You might be our only chance of rescue later on,” I said. “If we don’t come to find you by tomorrow, come back and try the wards again, okay?”

  The cat gave me a reluctant nod and trotted away, glancing over his shoulder every few steps to check on us. My heart ached. He was just as loyal as a dog.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “I can outrun it forever, but we need to destroy that thing,” said Valentine, his voice grim. “With your power, you might end up restoring the mage if you attacked it. Do you have enough magic to melt a hole through the wards?”

  Dread rolled through my belly. Yesterday, before Jonathan forced me into the jeep with a threat over Macavity’s life, I would have said yes. Today, only the most desperate of situations might bring out my magic. “Maybe—”

  The scent of burning carried in the breeze, and Valentine launched himself into the air and spun us toward the house. Seven figures stood in the courtyard, holding what looked like flaming torches.

  “Who are they?” I whispered.

  “Yesterday’s fire mages,” Valentine said with a sigh. “That Jonathan fellow must have found his way back.”

  My stomach tightened. I wasn’t sure if it was disgust or dread or annoyance at yet another complication. “I thought you said the wards would confuse a supernatural?”

  His lips tightened. “Apparently not fire users. Your magic is… somewhat unique.”

  All seven figures raised their arms and set the vegetation alight with a blanket of flames that spread across the garden within seconds.

  “Release our sister,” a deep voice boomed across the expanse of burning land. “We know your weaknesses: fire, decapitation, and sunlight.”

  I gulped and stared up into Valentine’s hood, hoping the reaper’s cloak he had placed over himself would stand against the mage’s fire.

  “Hey, Jonathan,” I yelled.

  “Mera?” his magically enhanced voice shouted back. “Has he hurt you?”

  I cupped my hands around my mouth. “There’s a shadow monster lurking in the house, do you know anything about it?”

  Jonathan didn’t reply and instead, turned to his six companions. They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying, but Valentine tilted his head to the side and frowned at whatever they were saying. Since he didn’t relay their conversation to me, I assumed it wasn’t anything important.

  Valentine turned back to me and asked, “His companions don’t seem to know what you’re talking about. Do you think that man is capable of producing such a creature?”

  “Until yesterday, I thought he was a socially awkward nobody,” I said. “Now, Jonathan might be the reincarnation of Kresnik.”

  Valentine growled. I couldn’t tell if he agreed with me or was offended that I’d suggested his father could fall prey to a guy like Jonathan. It was a terrifying prospect, but I had to admit that beneath Jonathan’s bowl haircut and Paddington Bear coat was something terribly sinister.

  Plumes of white smoke billowed up from the fire burning beneath us, and the snap, crackle, and pop of vegetation and splintering wood. I glanced down through the smoke to find tall, orange flames reaching high, even though the mages were no longer applying their magic to the overgrown plants.

  “Mera,” Jonathan shouted across the garden. “Your mother ordered us to fetch you.”

  I caught a mouthful of smoke and spluttered. “Why?”

  Valentine rose higher, and a cool wind blew around us and cleared my sinuses.

  “Preternatural vampires can’t control their appetites. He’ll kill you and then turn you into a bloodsucker like him,” shouted another voice. “Don’t you want to meet your mother?”

  My lips tightened. Why would these people put their children in Logris for not being born with fire magic? Why not create fire-free zones? My mother hadn’t been interested in taking care of me and dumped me on Aunt Arianna’s doorstep. Now, the only mother I’d ever known was in prison awaiting death because she had done everything in her power to keep me alive.

  Before I could tell Jonathan where to stick his offer of help, a dark shadow rose against the front of the house, forming the shape of a two-story giant.

  “Behind you,” I yelled.

  The mages turned around, and the shadowed figure spread out his arms, stretching out tentacles of darkness toward them. I clapped a hand over my mouth, suppressing a gasp.

  Jonathan threw a ball of black flames at its leg that melted through the shadow, creating a foot-wide hole. A burst of brimstone burned the back of my throat. Valentine surged upward, bringing down a wind to clear the air, but the demonic scent lingered in my sinuses.

  “Thanks,” I rasped. “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  “Once every century or so, some idiot finds a way to separate themselves from their shadow and lets it cause mayhem throughout the human world,” Valentine said, his voice mild.

  “Can a person’s shadow have its own personality?” I gaped down at the group of mages fighting the shadow, wondering how it could be both so powerful and so large.

  “Only if they’re a hybrid.” Valentine tightened his arms around my middle. “Are you cold?”

  “The fire’s keeping me warm enough,” I said with a shaky laugh, because this situation was ridiculous. “How are you coping in the sun?”

  He turned in the direction of the thick clouds obscuring the sun’s fading light. “Better than before.”

  The mages’ shouting became more frantic, and I glanced down to find the smallest of them stumbling forward, seeming to be caught within the shadow’s grip. His companions threw larger fireballs at the monster, but it wouldn’t release their friend. My stomach plummeted, and I leaned forward, my hands glowing with the urge to help the person being dragged further into the shadow.

  “What does it want?”

  Valentine sighed. “Perhaps I’d better give them a hand, otherwise they’ll be fighting that thing all day.”

  The shadow engulfed the smaller mage, and Valentine extended a robed arm, blowing a stream of air toward where the mage had stood. A ringing sound filled my ears, and the shadows parted to reveal that the smaller mage’s entire body had burst into flames.

  “Ifrit,” Valentine whispered.

  My mouth fell open. I had only read about such bein
gs. They were spirits made of fire and pure magic, and they were supposed to be extinct. Somehow, this smaller mage was a shifter, too. The shadow receded back toward the wall, but the ifrit charged after it with its arms outspread. Jonathan threw a stream of black flames at the wall, making the shadow shrink further.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “Circling it.” Valentine swooped down. “This might be our only chance to send it back to Hell.”

  I gulped, hoping that the shadow wasn’t pretending to retreat to lure us closer. “Are you sure it’s wise to get within reaching distance?”

  “We’ll keep our distance, but I need to get close enough to tell them an incantation to open up a portal.”

  “Alright,” I murmured.

  Beneath us, Jonathan and his friends continued throwing fireballs at the shadow, which shrank to the size of a ball and tried rolling away. All seven of them surrounded it and attacked it with their flames until I could barely see it within the brightness of their fire.

  “Form a pentagram with your flames,” Valentine shouted, adding a bite of power to his voice. “Jonathan and the ifrit, step back and form two circles of fire behind the others.”

  The mages obeyed him, with Jonathan at the outer edge, laying his flames on the courtyard, and the much smaller ifrit standing in front of him, creating a tighter circle. Once the other five trapped the shadow within the fiery pentagram, Valentine made them repeat an incantation after him. It wasn’t Latin or Ancient Greek or any of the classical languages we had learned in the academy. I guessed it was Sumerian, a language that came from the original Mesopotamia.

  At the end of the incantation, an explosion of magic roiled through the air, making the mages fall back. I turned to Valentine, whose features hardened.

  “Did it work?” I said through the ringing in my ears.

  “You didn’t hear its screams?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “The shadow pleaded for mercy as I sent it to Hell.” There was a note of regret in Valentine’s voice I didn’t understand.