by Eva Brandt
“Uncomfortable isn’t exactly the word I would use, Your Majesty,” I replied with a shrug. “But it doesn’t really matter.”
Queen Eiar tilted her head and a small frown creased her brow. “Is everything all right?”
I didn’t answer, too busy wondering how her frowns could be just as beautiful as her smiles. Was it a different kind of magic we had yet to encounter or was it simply a part of who Queen Eiar was?
Cezar kept us from falling into awkward silence. He shifted back into his humanoid form and answered the queen’s question himself. “For the most part, he’s fine. It’s just that Baltasar... Because of his heritage, his undead nature sometimes wakes up faster than the part of him that is still alive. His lamia side reacts weirdly to hibernation of any kind. He’ll shake it off. It’s temporary.”
A long pause followed as Cezar and Queen Eiar stared at one another. Color rose to her cheeks in a soft blush that made her even more alluring than before. As she quickly glanced away from Cezar, Cezar looked down at himself, realizing for the first time that he was naked.
“M-My apologies,” he stammered in a way that wasn’t all that suited to a member of the emperor’s house. “I forgot that—”
“It’s all right,” Queen Eiar answered, still not looking at him. “I believe I’ve already made it clear that there’s nothing wrong with nudity. It’s just that... As much as I hate to admit it, this might be one of those moments when clothes are preferable.”
“Right,” Cezar answered. His look of utter bafflement was a little amusing to see. “Should I... I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get dressed.”
“Not to worry. I’ll take care of that. But first, I believe your friend’s condition is more important. Is it an illness? How can it be cured?”
“It’s not an illness,” I answered calmly. “It’s just a side-effect of my nature, although I suppose that your sleep-inducing enchantment did play a part. In any case, we can either wait for it to go away on his own, or feed me some blood. Both options are equally valid, but the latter is faster.”
Queen Eiar turned toward me once again. “Oh. I see. Well, then, that should be easy enough to deal with. Would my blood provide sufficient nutrients?”
My mind went blank at the offer. I had not expected her to say that, especially not after the exchanges we’d had so far.
I stared at the white column of her pale neck and my mouth started to water. The ravenous beast inside me stirred, insistently clawing at the back of my mind. Her blood. Dear gods, I wanted it. I wanted it so badly I could almost taste it.
Female lamia almost exclusively fed on children, but male lamia didn’t have such preferences. We were a fairly rare breed, but we tended to adapt our feeding habits to the blood type used in whatever coven took us in after our mothers turned us away. I’d grown up with my father, in a common vampire household, so in that respect, my diet was very similar to that of a pure-blood. On occasion, though, I could be a little more savage about it than people like Cezar.
An insistent voice at the back of my mind intervened to point out how things had gone the last time I’d put my faith in one of Queen Eiar’s offers. The most beautiful flowers are also the most dangerous ones, remember? This is a little too good to be true.
Regardless of that knowledge, I couldn’t suppress my thirst, the overwhelming desire I felt for her. If she really wanted to hurt me, she had no reason to offer me her blood. And even if it turned out that she had ulterior motives, I couldn’t be bothered to care.
“Your blood will do fine,” I somehow managed to answer. On some level, I marveled at the fact that I could still make my voice sound level, despite the desperate need bubbling inside me.
“Wonderful. Let’s get you out of those bindings first, and then I’ll help you with the feeding.”
No sooner had she finished the sentence than the enchantment that had kept me bound to the bed collapsed. I got up on my haunches, my mind whirling with a mix of confusion and lust. I could not understand why she’d free me now, when she should at least be showing some degree of apprehension at the prospect of offering me her blood.
Then again, perhaps she did not think we were that dangerous. I could not blame her for it, considering our earlier display. Granted, we would not be so easily hoodwinked now that we knew she was more than she appeared, but by the same token, she had probably yet to display the full extent of her abilities.
As if to confirm my thoughts, the queen sat by my side on the bed and extended her pale arm. A thorny vine swept down from her flower crown and slashed her flesh open, right over her wrist. She wordlessly gestured for me to come closer. Like a man in a dream, I took hold of her hand and brought her wound to my lips.
As soon as the flavor of her sweet blood exploded on my taste buds, the chill that had settled in my bones vanished as if it had never been there. My body regained its balance, my undead side aligning with my shape-shifter self once again. I was so caught up in the moment that I barely registered the sensation.
Never had I drunk blood that held so much magic, so much intensity, so much purity, and desire. As I took greedy gulps of her life essence, every single inch of me flared to life in a way that should’ve been impossible for an undead being. My cock hardened, and I groaned around her bleeding flesh, my hold on her wrist tightening so much it was undoubtedly painful.
She didn’t protest. Instead, she bit her lower lip and leaned a little closer to me. Her eyes drifted shut and her alluring scent grew deeper, even more seductive than before. The taste of lust exploded in her blood, so potent and addictive I almost came on the spot.
If I didn’t, it must’ve only been because I wanted to fuck her so badly that simple blood drinking could not satisfy my need. I wanted to bury my cock and my fangs inside her at the same time, to feel the heat of her heartbeat and her pussy enveloping me.
Cezar wasn’t doing much better. He might not have tasted her yet, but the scent that permeated the air would have been enough to drive any vampire wild. Over Queen Eiar’s shoulder, I caught sight of him staring at us, his eyes glowing red with blood lust. His nostrils flared and he clenched and unclenched his fists as he tried to control himself. He must have dug his claws into his palms because the scent of his blood filled the air, mingling with hers.
Queen Eiar let out a low, muffled gasp, and just like that, Cezar snapped. He joined us on the bed, kneeling behind her and wrapping his arm around her slender waist. When he buried his nose in her hair and inhaled, she instinctively tilted her head, granting him access to her neck.
Cezar literally stopped breathing. Even so, he didn’t immediately bury his fangs in her tantalizing flesh. Instead, he licked her neck, tracing the thickest vein with his tongue. His hand traveled upwards over her torso, cupping her breast through the sheer fabric of her gown. As Cezar’s fingers unerringly found her nipple and rubbed, Queen Eiar moaned, well and truly lost in the moment.
She was so beautiful in her effortless submission that feeding from her wrist no longer sufficed. I released my hold on her arm and licked the wound, leaving her pale skin unmarred. I then slid my hands under her gown, caressing her long, slender legs.
As I reveled in the feeling of her warm skin under my fingertips, an unexpected image popped into my head. Well, no, that wasn’t completely accurate. It wasn’t just one image, but a sequence of multiple flashes that seamlessly blended together in a form of non-verbal communication only certain vampires ever learned how to use. I hid a smirk. Cezar could be so bossy, and three-quarters of the time, it got on my nerves. Today, I didn’t mind it, since he always came up with the best ideas when he stopped trying to be stuck up and stoic, and I was vampire enough to admit when his plans were better than mine.
I couldn’t communicate telepathically like he did, but I didn’t need to. We were perfectly attuned to each other’s bodies and our goal was the same. Following Cezar’s lead, I pulled Eiar into my lap, with him guiding her along from behind. She easily complied, not se
eming completely aware of what we were doing, too absorbed in the sensations our touch had awakened inside her. Apparently, the euphoria caused by vampire bites could affect avatars of the seasons as well. Who knew?
Well, I certainly didn’t mind it, although I did make a mental note to not take things too far. She had clearly not been aware of what the bite could do to her and no matter what our circumstances might be, I would never take advantage of her.
It was with that decision in mind that I brushed my lips over hers in a tentative kiss. As Cezar nibbled on her neck one last time, careful not to break the skin, I asked, “Is this all right? Do you want us to stop?”
Eiar’s eyes shot open at the question. She blinked owlishly, and I couldn’t help but think that nobody so beautiful should have been so cute at the same time. “Not really, no,” she replied, her face flushed, her eyes glazed, but her voice strikingly steady. “Why? Do you?”
Now that was a challenge if I’d ever heard one. “The last thing we want is to stop,” Cezar murmured huskily, “but I think you already know that.” His fangs dropped and he gently raked them over her pale flesh. One single drop of blood bloomed from the newly formed scratch and Eiar let out a low hiss. Cezar licked the blood and groaned as he tasted her for the first time. When he spoke again, the words came out barely understandable, and I knew he was seconds away from losing control. He might not be a lamia, but he had his limits too. “No more games, Queen Eiar. Just the truth, please.”
Several things happened at the same time. For some reason I could not discern, Queen Eiar tensed. Perhaps she had changed her mind when faced with Cezar’s words. She opened her mouth to speak. The words never came out. At that exact moment, the door burst open, and the most unlikely procession burst into the room.
Several tiny creatures—leprechauns, most likely—stumbled inside, screaming and flailing, tripping over their own feet in an uncoordinated and counterproductive attempt to run faster. Adrian rushed in after them, looking uncharacteristically ruffled. The reason for this strange panic became obvious when a lamb with plant-like wool followed them, its eyes glowing blood-red. As soon as it saw its prey, it let out an insanely loud roar that didn’t sound like something that could’ve come out of the mouth of any sheep-like creature. “The Vegetable Lamb... will send you all to Tartarus!”
Err... What?
* * *
Adrian
It was the headache that woke me up. When I stirred from my slumber, I felt like someone had taken a silver spike and buried it in my skull. My temples were throbbing and I could not even open my eyes for fear of seeing any kind of light. I had the irrational notion that if I spotted the sun, even slightly, my head would explode in a mess of bone, blood and brain matter.
It was, naturally, a stupid fear, but it could not be helped. There were certain side-effects with being only part undead, and this was mine. My magic could turn on me if I wasn’t careful, or if some attacker caught me by surprise and knocked me out.
Fortunately, I had plenty of experience with handling the issue. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the air I didn’t always need. When I let it out, my migraine started to subside and my magic began to settle. I repeated the process a few more times, and within less than a minute, I was in control once again. By then, I had also remembered what had gotten me in this position, to begin with. Meeting Queen Eiar. Her invitation. Our conversation in her private garden, then her sudden attack and interrogation.
“Well, this is unfortunate,” I muttered as I finally opened my eyes. “I really shouldn’t have lowered my guard.”
It was pointless to chastise myself because of it now. Instead of dwelling too much on my mistake, I looked around, taking note of my present location. I blinked as I realized that I wasn’t in a cell, but in an actual guest room, like Queen Eiar had promised. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but I was actually lying on a comfortable, fluffy bed. Also, I might not have been underground, but someone had taken the trouble to cover the windows with curtains so thick they would’ve kept me safe even if I’d been in a more vulnerable state.
My surprise and confusion faded when I sensed the binding enchantment vibrating against my skin. It was powerful, its hold on me relentless, almost hostile. I suspected its caster didn’t like me very much, but that was all right with me. I was grateful for it because the spell shed some light on my true situation.
I couldn’t see any guards and this might not have been a cell, but that didn’t mean I was not a captive. The apparent consideration I’d been shown wasn’t unlike Queen Eiar’s sweet and deceptive smiles. I would not fall for the same trick again, and I had no intention of allowing this state of affairs to continue.
My magic responded to my anger, bending to my will with ease as I attacked the spell keeping me immobilized. It fought back, almost as if it had a life of its own. Considering its nature, that might have been an actual possibility. The harder I pushed, the tighter its hold on me became. The enchantment was like a carnivorous plant that sensed all of my motions and reacted to them accordingly.
It was a battle between life and death, but in the end, death won out. After what seemed like forever, the non-existent plant withered away under the force of the dark energies I commanded. Honestly, I didn’t know if I would have been as successful had I been forced to face the person who’d actually cast the spell in battle, but for the moment, it didn’t matter. I was free, and it was time to find my friends.
By now, Baltasar and Cezar should have already woken up. Their abilities would’ve allowed them to shake off the sleep spell faster than I had. If they hadn’t come after me yet, it meant that they had either been unable to break the enchantment, or they had been captured again. This was not encouraging, since Cezar, at least, should have managed to escape.
I needed to be very careful. This whole place was like that endless field of flowers we’d almost gotten lost in for eternity. Everything here was far more dangerous than it seemed, and one single mistake could have dire consequences.
Bracing myself for an unavoidable battle, I made my way to the door and cracked it open. I didn’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t what I got. The corridor was completely empty, no signs of any guards nearby.
This was getting ridiculous. Sure, I’d gotten captured easier than a fledgling on his first hunt, but that didn’t mean Queen Eiar should have underestimated me so much. I didn’t know if I found it irritating, confusing, worrisome, or a combination of the three.
I didn’t get the chance to figure out which emotion I was supposed to focus on. The sound of panicked voices reached my ears and before I could find a way to hide, a small group of leprechauns burst into the corridor.
“He’s coming!” one of them exclaimed, his voice shaking. “He’s coming! Oh, gods... He’s going to eat us.”
“Stop freaking out and run faster!” another leprechaun replied, panting.
I was just standing there, but they didn’t seem to notice me at all. They rushed right past me, the scent of their desperation and fear clinging to them like a malevolent enchantment.
Um. Okay, then.
It was pretty strange that the leprechauns would even run at all. I wasn’t very familiar with them, but my studies from my pre-strigoi days indicated that they could move from place to place in a flash using their magic. Why had they taken a different approach?
The question promptly vanished from my head when the creature that had frightened the leprechauns appeared in the corridor. I’d expected some kind of terrifying demon, or perhaps a wild animal considering the whole “he’s going to eat us” thing. Instead, what I got was a weird, green lamb that seemed like a combination between an animal and a plant.
I squinted at the strange creature, intrigued by its nature. I might have become part-undead, but that didn’t change my fascination with certain types of magic. Zoophytes were pretty rare, and interestingly, a lot of the time, the magic that animated them was very similar to necromancy.
The lamb did not act like any revenant I’d met, or like the leprechauns it had been pursuing. When it saw me, it stopped, its gaze zeroing in on me with almost feral intensity. “Oh... Do we have new grazing land? Yay!”
That latter one-syllable word was delivered like a battle cry, and it also signaled the initiation of an unlikely, unexpected attack. The lamb’s wool came alive and sort of slithered to the floor. The clumps of wool all turned into separate, smaller copies of the original creature. Within seconds, a huge flock of sheep had appeared in the same spot where only one lamb had been before.
“Eek!” I heard one of the leprechauns cry out, poking me in the leg. “This is bad. We need to run.”
I’d actually expected them to have taken advantage of my presence and to have bid a hasty retreat while I distracted the odd lamb. They hadn’t. Instead, inexplicably, they had chosen to stay behind. Two of them were barely visible from their hiding spot, a massive unidentifiable plant that swayed back and forth even if there was no wind in the corridor. The others were staring expectantly at me. “We need to run,” they repeated. “It’s not safe here.”
I refrained from pointing out that this place hadn’t been all that safe for me even before I’d run into an apparently rabid ruminant mammal. It would’ve been unnecessarily unkind, more so since the little creatures had stopped running just so that they could warn me. I didn’t understand their strange behavior and I knew better than to trust it, but I could at least give them a dose of courtesy in exchange.
I also had no intention of taking their advice. Between the whole business with the eternal field of flowers, my sudden bout of Eiar-induced idiocy, my earlier migraine, and the almost insulting lack of guards, I was on the edge. I looked forward to exorcizing my frustrations on someone who could give me a challenge. The lamb seemed an appropriate option.
“I’m not too worried,” I told the leprechauns. “Stay behind me. We’ll be fine.”