by Mandy Rosko
Varinia sighed. “I am so sorry, my lord.”
Not as sorry as Silus was feeling.
A strong presence came to stand beside him and gave orders to Varinia and Cecil.
“Leave my master to mourn. This is not for you to see.”
Damon. Ever the loyal guard. Though Silus hardly understood the point. He was already greatly unmanning himself in front of his guests. It was not as though their company would make his spectacle any worse.
Still, the two obeyed and went.
Silus wanted nothing better than to be left alone. He held his lover tightly to his chest, as though Cedric were a small child he could protect.
Damon and the other young werewolf, Silus couldn’t even be bothered to recall his name, instead took him by his arms and helped him to his feet.
It was only when they attempted to take Cedric from him that he snapped at them, jerking away. “Leave me.”
They both looked dubiously at each other. Perhaps their hesitation to his command had more to do with his current state, rather than the brutal attack they’d just withstood.
Silus couldn’t give a damn. He walked with heavy feet to his bedchamber, taking Cedric with him. His right arm, the one attached to the wrist he’d bitten, shook under the strain of performing any sort of physical labor, no matter how insignificant to his vampire strength.
“My lord, that needs to be seen to,” Damon said. Both weres were still trailing behind him, and Silus wished they would go away.
Damon continued to trail him, along with that other younger alpha. They followed him all the way to his bedchamber until he stepped inside and nudged the door shut with his foot. They did not attempt to knock or disturb him. Likely because of the parting look he’d left them with.
Silus placed Cedric gently on the bed. His face had gone deathly white, the color vampires associated with death.
Even a vampire, a creature who experienced no sunlight, would still have color in their skin. So long as blood flowed in their veins, then there was always some small semblance of color. Not on Cedric. He had no color because he was dead from blood loss.
Silus took the spare bedsheets out of the closet and eventually worked up the nerve to wrap Cedric in them.
Too young. He was only thirty. Much too young to have been taken from him. He should not have been taken, period.
Silus knelt by the side of the bed, less than eager to leave his lover’s side, yet to stay was torture. In the year and a half they’d been together—had it really been so short a time?—Silus had come to forget Cedric’s mortal weakness. Not merely that he would eventually grow old and die, as he had been preparing himself as of late for that, but the fact that he could be murdered, Cedric’s life stolen from him before his time, had never even crossed Silus’s mind.
It seemed like he had only been inside his bedchamber for several minutes, but a soft knock sounded at his door, and Silus lifted his face from the bed with a sharp intake of breath.
The bedchamber was dark, and not merely because of the tinted windows. The sun had set, and night had come.
Silus wanted nothing better than to let his face crumple and fall into the sheets again to mourn his lover, who had seen his last rays of sunlight that morn.
Instead, he pulled himself to his feet and walked with stiff joints to the door.
Damon and Mitch were standing on the other side of it. Both did poor jobs of disguising their shock over Silus’s condition.
He made no effort to hide before the wooden door, and he met their stares with all the strength he could muster. Though he knew these men were not responsible for Cedric’s death, his murder was still at the hands—claws, rather—of a werewolf, and Silus had no desire to be in the company even of these werewolves, whom he trusted. “What do you want?”
Damon spoke. “My lord, I am deeply sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you for your condolences.”
As Silus moved to shut the door on their faces, Damon propped his foot in the way.
Silus glared at him for the offense. “Remove yourself. Now.”
Damon visibly shook under the command, as did the younger alpha behind him, but he stayed where he was. “My lord, I do not wish to disobey you any more than I wish to cause you any more harm after what you have suffered, but you must see to your guests downstairs. You must remove them immediately.”
“They can see their own way out if they wish to leave.”
“My lord.” Damon licked his lips then glanced briefly behind himself at Mitch, who looked more like a timid omega under the circumstances. He had the makings of yellow and orange bruises over his cheeks and eyes, already almost fully healed, but the cut at the center of his bottom lip still appeared swollen and painful. For the first time, Silus’s curiosity over their presence peaked.
“What happened?”
“My lord, Mitch witnessed the attack on Lord Cedric. He was not merely mauled by some wild werewolf.”
Silus looked behind him to the wrapped figure, still motionless on his bed. A splotch of blood had bloomed over the white sheets around Cedric’s neck, but it was drying now and spreading no more.
“What happened?”
“My lord,” Mitch said. “I came into the house when the wild werewolves broke in. I did my best to fight them, but there were too many for me, and several went past me to search for the omegas while I fought with the others.”
He took a breath. Silus didn’t dare interrupt him.
“I was still able to see down the main hall and into the kitchen where the door to the basement is. La—Varinia, that vampire woman, was holding Lord Cedric by his neck. She threw him into the path of the werewolf who was charging for them, and when he swiped Cedric out of his way, that was how he—”
Mitch didn’t finish, but his eyes did briefly rest on the still form of Cedric’s wrapped body.
Silus doubted he would have heard anymore even had the young alpha continued to speak. Deep-red rage clouded his vision. Damon and Mitch stepped back, as though they expected Silus to attack them.
He just might have had they not answered his next question in a timely manner.
“Where is she?”
He was nose to nose with Mitch, the younger alpha backed against the wall.
To his credit, Mitch’s voice came out clear as he responded with as much dignity as he could muster. “In the lounge, seeing to the wounded.”
Silus stormed off in search of his prey.
* * * *
“ Christ, should we go after him?” Mitch asked.
“No.” Damon shook his head. “He is lord of this house and has suffered the worst kind of offense.” He looked back into the bedroom where the body of Lord Cedric lay. He and the other servants were not allowed inside this room. Ever. It was the first time Damon had ever seen what was within. He reached inside, took hold of the brass door handle, and quietly shut the door to allow the dead some privacy.
Damon felt a mild pain in his chest as the door clicked shut. He’d rather liked his master’s mate. Death was one thing, but death through treachery was something else entirely, and Cedric had not deserved it. “Let him do what he wants to the bitch. We still have to make a tally of who is alive, who is still here, and who was taken.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter Eleven
Though she was currently on her knees, stitching a rather nastylooking wound on the leg of one of Silus’s guards, he did not wait for her to finish with her task before he stormed in, reached out his hands, grabbed that black hair of hers into both of his fists, and yanked her to her feet.
She screeched under the assault, not seeing her attacker at first, and her claws came out scratching at his hands.
The werewolf she’d been tending gave a pained and shocked yell as his stitches were pulled, and the other men in the room rushed to his aid, holding his leg down and pressing more bandages against the reopened wound, but no one dared to do anything other than stare at their master with openm
outhed shock.
Silus slammed Varinia’s face against the brick wall and then did it again until he put a dent in it that crumbled red dust.
Varinia managed to twist around in his hold, an act which caused Silus to rip out a good portion of her hair, but when she saw him, her face transformed from a snarling rage to disbelief.
“My lord—”
He wrapped his fingers around her throat, pushing her back against the wall and cutting off anything else she’d been about to say. “What was it you said to me that day? Make an experiment of my lover before I make one of yours?”
Her fingernails pulled against his hand, tearing at his skin and her own as she fought to pry him off.
A shuffle of movement and a shout sounded from behind him and then something snapped behind his head. In his stupor he released Varinia, who scrambled away from him, and turned to see that his guards were now holding Cecil by the arms. He struggled and glared with everything he had at Silus. “You fucking touch her again and I’ll kill you. I swear to God I will!”
He was in no position to be making threats to anyone. Silus looked down and noted the broken bits of wood on his floor. It seemed Cecil had attacked him with a chair from the dining room table.
He looked up at the man with calm indifference. Cecil had ceased his struggling, but the two alphas who held his arms did not loosen their grip.
“Bring him to me,” Silus said.
“No!” Varinia tried to rush forward to defend her mate, but by then two more of Silus’s alphas had rushed forth to take her.
His wolves might not know what had come over him, but they would still obey him.
Cecil was brought forward. He struggled and yanked and kicked as best he could, but the strength of a sun sprite was nothing against that of a werewolf.
The thought brought a new wave of sadness over Silus.
The two wolves kicked the backs of Cecil’s legs, and he fell to his knees in front of Silus.
“Don’t you touch him!” Varinia shrieked, flailing her arms around, attempting to throw off the weres containing her. More alphas heard the commotion and ran inside to help keep her still. Someone had the good grace to gag her with a pillow case, shutting her up almost entirely but for the muffled screams she continued to hurl at him.
“What are we to do with them, my lord?” one alpha asked.
Silus did not bother to look up at them or even give his answer. He honestly didn’t know what should be done. His father would have beheaded Cecil by now, but Silus was not his father.
Cecil continued to stare up at him, blue eyes wide and muscles tensed as he awaited his fate. A visible layer of beaded sweat broke out over his brow.
“Why are you doing this?” Cecil asked.
“An eye for an eye,” Silus answered, reaching down and pressing his claws into Cecil’s neck for the killing swipe.
Varinia flailed and shrieked like never before, but she could have been in another room entirely for all the difference it made.
“We didn’t do anything!” Cecil screamed. He reminded Silus of a mouse in a cat’s claws, and his heart pumped at more than three times the normal rate. He was going to make himself pass out before Silus could kill him.
“I’m sorry Cedric’s dead. I swear I am, but we didn’t bring those wolves here!”
That made Silus stop. He cocked his head, ever so slightly, but he did not remove his claws from Cecil’s neck.
His eyes flickered to Varinia. She stared at him with pleading eyes, tears streaking down her cheeks as she bit down on the pillowcase, attempting to shred it, or to speak.
Silus understood. Varinia, whether she’d brought those wolves here or simply capitalized on their arrival by attacking Cedric, had not let her husband in on her plan.
He should kill Cecil anyway. Teach the bitch a lesson for doing what she did, but Silus found himself removing his claws instead.
This was Cedric’s cousin, a good man, and innocent. Silus did not want to end his life, even if the chance existed that Cecil may have taken part in Varinia’s ploy had she told him of what she planned.
Cecil heaved a long sigh of relief, eyes sliding shut as his heart returned to its normal rate.
Then Silus backhanded him. The force of his strike was so powerful that Cecil flew up and out of the hold the alphas had on him. He traveled at least five feet into the air before he came down with a hard thud on the rug. At least there was that to soften the blow to his head. He was not dead, but he did not get back to his feet or even move. Exactly what Silus wanted.
He turned his attention back to Varinia. Her eyes remained glued to her husband’s still form as he approached her. Only when he stood directly in front of her did she give him the proper respect of at least looking at him.
Her eyes were wide, pleading. “I should kill you both,” he said and then snatched the pillowcase out of her mouth.
“What have you to say for yourself? We welcomed you into our home, we spoke of creating a nest together, and then you murder my mate? What have you to say?”
He could not help that the last part came out in an enraged roar, nor the weakness within himself as he lost his voice immediately after to the soreness in his throat and the tears in his eyes.
Varinia took in a long breath, the alphas still held her by her arms, yet she had ceased her attempts to escape.
“I cannot properly explain my actions, as there is no explanation to give you that would suffice. I would ask that you punish me and not Cecil. He is an innocent party and knew nothing of my actions.”
“Did you plan it? Did you come here with the intention of forcing me to attempt a transformation on Cedric?”
Every head in the room turned to stare at Varinia, including the injured alpha, who had by now hoisted himself onto the leather sofa. Silus could sense the shock and anger within the weres. One of their masters had been murdered by this woman. Varinia was the enemy in their eyes now. All he had to do was command them, and they would rip her to pieces.
She shook her head. “No, my lord. Not entirely.”
“What does that mean?”
His hands clenched. How he longed to wrap them around her neck once more.
She licked her lips, her eyes again darting down to the prone form of her husband. “I could sense the werewolves when we came to this land. Not on our first day, but during one of our earlier visits. After watching your pack interact on the land, I knew the strangers for who they were and what they wanted. I meant nothing to come of it, but after our conversation, I thought it would be convenient if you would test the theory of transforming a sun sprite into a vampire.”
“Convenient? Convenient!”
“Had the wolves not attacked, I would have done nothing. Several times I told myself of the follies of not warning you of their approach, yet I could not. I had hoped for an accident but made no plans of creating one.”
Silus’s mind worked quickly, putting together what she was saying with what she was not. She had no plans of forcing an accident, until she was presented with the opportunity to do just that, whilst passing the blame onto the wild werewolves who attacked.
It would have been the most perfect cover for her crime. She had been there tending to Cedric’s wounds, for God’s sake! What had Cedric been thinking, having the woman who had caused him his injuries, sitting next to him, murmuring words of comfort whilst he lay dying?
Silus reached out and took her by the ears, gripping tightly, even as she squeaked in pain. He had to grab something, destroy something. He shook her about, contemplating tearing her ears out, but even he was not quite so bloodthirsty as that.
“You...pathetic...whore,” he said, speaking each word on a shake of her head.
She just kept right on looking at him. Her words were apologetic, but her eyes were defiant.
“Do you have no regrets at all for what you have done to me?”
She flinched at that, and Silus was stunned to see it. “I liked your mate, my lord. I am so
rry he died, but not for my actions. They have answered a question I have been carrying with me for many years, and now it is answered.”
He pushed himself away from her, disgusted.
“My lord, what should we do with her?” one of the alphas asked.
Silus did not wish to bother anymore. The blanket of misery and despair he’d wrapped himself in earlier had returned. Truly he was very tired and uncaring and wanted nothing better than to return to his bedchambers and keep watch over his lover until such a time when he could work up the nerve to prepare his funeral.
“Get them out of here. The both of them,” he commanded, stepping over Cecil’s unconscious body and heading for the door.
“My lord!”
“Do as I say,” he said. Even Silus could recognize the monotone in his voice, and he did not care.
He did, however, pause at the entry to the lounge. “Varinia?” He did not need to look over his shoulder to know he had her at attention.
“If I ever spy your face on my land, or in the town of Veturious ever again, I will kill your mate.”
With that, he left, returning to his bedchamber. His dark, peaceful bedchamber.
The scent of death, which had taken its vile, putrid hold of their chamber long before Silus left it, had by now gone stale.
That was hardly anything he needed concern himself about.
Someone had moved his lover’s corpse.
Silus rushed to the bed, placing his hands down on the bloody, empty sheets he’d wrapped Cedric in, as though his lover would magically materialize within them at his touch. Even Cedric’s clothing, soiled and caked with dried blood and other bodily fluids, laid empty and rotting on the floor.
Was he going mad? Did the werewolves return for their prize? Or had someone on Silus’s staff come to wash off the body?
He calmed his rapidly beating heart with that rational thought.
Yes, of course. This room was forbidden to his staff, but that didn’t mean some young omega hadn’t smelled the stench of a dead body within these walls and taken it upon himself to prepare it for burial. Silus sure as hell hadn’t done that.