by Cege Smith
Then he was lost again. He closed his eyes and drank deeply. The taint was still there. In the back of his mind he knew that he had run out of time. The moment of truth had arrived, and he thought that letting her die might be a merciful gesture. At that moment, Angeline started to moan and thrash, as if she had read his thoughts and was wholeheartedly disagreeing with his logic. He had to pull her down tight into his arms to keep her still, but his mouth never left her hand, which had begun to quiver. Between the poison and the heady rush of warm blood in his mouth and stomach, he felt drunk and hungover at the same time.
He felt Angeline’s heart starting to slow. It wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t drink much more and still hope that she would live without some kind of blood transfusion. The poison was still there. Just as he felt her body shudder one final time and he started to unlatch his teeth from her delicate flesh, he realized that in that very last moment, the noxious taste was gone. Her body slid from his lap to the trampled grass and he stared at her in shock at what was about to come next.
His shaking fingers felt for her pulse. There was nothing there. He fell back away from her body and grasped his head in his hands, trying to make the pounding inside go away. He heard it before he saw it and he looked over at Angeline’s still form. It had been two quick thuds against her ribcage. He crawled back to her and put his fingers on her throat again. This time, there was a thready, weak response. He had done it. He had saved her, but he had damned her as well.
As his senses finally started to clear, guilt came rushing in. Not only had he broken his vow to never drink human blood again, but he had shattered a law that had existed since before the vampires and humans began their warring ways. If Monroe caught him now—he shuddered to think of the possibilities or what Monroe would do to him. But it wasn’t just Monroe he had to worry about. He looked down at Angeline and smoothed her hair away from her face. Her body was cooling as the night air chilled around them, and he wrapped her close to him inside his cloak. Although he couldn’t see any indication of it yet, he knew that daybreak would come far too soon. He needed to get both of them to safety.
Cautiously he cast his mind out to see if Searon lurked nearby. There was nothing. He got to his feet with Angeline in his arms and wobbled. He would have rested longer, but there was no time to waste. The Amaron Forest was only a few kilometers away, and they would be safe in its dark, leafy embrace, at least until he figured out what to do next.
It took him longer than usual to find his speed, but he managed it without stumbling. As he ran, Angeline started to moan against him.
“Malin,” she murmured.
Connor frowned. When he had asked her about the Chief Advisor, Angeline had seemed indifferent. He would have expected her to say her mother or father’s name, not that one. A small shot of jealousy tightened his chest. Did she love Malin? Were her affections already spoken for? His contact in the convent said that the princess looked on Malin as an older brother and that when she did marry him it would be a marriage of strict convenience. Malin had a reputation at court that he was sure Angeline would not approve of once she was queen. But as Angeline continued to say the other man’s name, Connor had to wonder what his spies had missed.
It seemed to take an eternity before they were approaching the tree line of the Amaron Forest. Connor stepped under the heavy canopy moments later and leaned back heavily against the trunk of one of the ancient trees that was at least several of his arm spans in diameter. The Amaron Forest had been there since time began, but it was a place of dark and shadow. Very few creatures chose to call it home, only those that craved darkness and secrecy. Creatures like Connor.
He quickly made his way deeper into the forest to a small rock outcropping that he had used several times as a camp. He carefully ducked underneath the rough ledge and then laid Angeline down as far back under the overhang as he could. He swept his cloak off his shoulders and balled it up, slipping it under her head.
Her face was flushed now and her skin glistened with sweat. She was deep within the change. But it wasn’t an immortal she was changing into. He felt sick knowing that Angeline was going to wake up as a being forced to straddle two worlds. He should have killed her when he realized that her heart was taking its last beats and removed any possible risk of her coming back to life. But he couldn’t have done it; he knew that.
While Connor had not given her any of his blood, some of his vampire-tainted saliva would have entered her wounds. In a body giving up its life, his venom could have the exact opposite effect and bring it back. If he had been able to get the spider’s venom out before her body had died, her immune system would have been able to fight it off, like a cold. Instead, he had created something that wasn’t supposed to exist. He had been stupid to even attempt to save her; in the end she wouldn’t thank him.
As he watched her begin to thrash, he cursed himself. He had known that other predators roamed this barren wasteland, and given that humans had not been seen here in centuries, the creatures were bolder and more dangerous. Angeline’s warm scent would have been intoxicating to the spider. While he had been distracted by Searon’s presence, another monster had snuck up under his nose.
Angeline had been starting to trust him. Although once they reached the Master he lost any control over her fate, at least until that time he had told her no harm would befall her. He had broken that promise as well. He sighed heavily as he watched her. Connor had never been especially good at keeping promises.
Angeline cried out into the darkness and he pulled her back into his arms. He sat with his back against the craggy wall and gently rearranged his cloak around her. She was extremely vulnerable, and although the forest was beginning its daytime slumber, he didn’t trust taking his eyes off of her for a second. Not after what had just happened. She was his responsibility, regardless of what she was becoming.
He wiped the sweat from her brow and tried to soothe her by softly stroking her hair. There was nothing to do but wait, and nothing to keep him company but his memories.
He had been almost thirty when he began his afterlife of misery. His childhood was a happy one, but with a few minor flaws. As Connor was the eldest son, his father tried to groom him to one day take over the family merchant business. But Connor had been far more interested in drinking and finding the company of young, friendly ladies. After bailing him out of the town drunk tank for what was likely the thousandth time, Connor’s father declared enough was enough. Connor got an ultimatum: stop drinking or his father would cut off his inheritance.
Looking back now, Connor understood why his father had done what he had done. Given as many times as they had almost come to blows after one of Conner’s escapades, he thought that his father should have known better, though, than to try to broach the subject before Connor was sober. On that fateful day his father did, and after he uttered the threat, Connor had thrown back his head and laughed. He laughed for minutes on end, alternating between mimicking his father’s words in a high-pitched rendition of a woman’s voice, and then laughing some more.
He remembered watching his father’s face grow redder and redder, and then his father had done the unthinkable. He punched Connor in the face. Connor still wasn’t sure what happened in those next few minutes. He knew he had finally stopped laughing, and his mirth was replaced by white-hot anger. His memory was hazy, but he knew that at the moment things went horribly wrong, he wasn’t thinking. He was reacting. It was just like at the local pub; no one punched Connor Radwin in the face and got away with it.
The heavy bronze candlestick from atop the mantel seemed to magically appear in his hands and Connor struck his father as hard as he could in the head. The heavy thud as the candlestick connected with the side of his father’s skull, and the shocked expression on his father’s face, Conner would remember forever.
“You dare,” his father had croaked as a torrent of blood spewed down his face. He grabbed his head and his hands instantly turned bright red as they filled with
blood. Then his father crumbled in on himself and fell to the floor.
It was that moment that his mother walked into the room. Right behind her were the twins, Maddie and Luke, and his youngest sister, Callie. Conner was instantly sober as the enormity of his actions hit him full force. He stood there gaping at first them and then his father, who had gone completely still. His mother started to wail and ran to his father’s side.
“How could you? How could you? How could you?” she shrieked at him. Her hair came loose from the tight bun at the base of her neck and she was looking at him with wild eyes. “Your father was right about you! I curse the day you were born. You are evil. GET OUT!”
He wanted to explain. But then his brother and sisters started to cry as well and it seemed like everyone was shouting all at once. But one thing he knew for certain: he had to get away. He needed to think. He needed to fix this. His mother looked at him with such hatred that he wondered if she truly did believe he was evil.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. The candlestick fell from his limp hand on the floor. His mother continued to wail as she pulled his father’s head into her lap. There was blood all over the floor and he could smell its heavy, rust scent and it made him gag.
He backed away. The door to the courtyard was right behind him. He whirled around and was out the door gasping for fresh air, and he heard his mother screaming for help. He could hear shouts coming from neighboring houses. Connor did the only thing he could: he ran.
Three days later, exhausted, dirty, and starving, he found himself in a rundown pub on the long road that led east out of Brebackerin, begging for food and a place to stay in exchange for hard labor. His abrupt departure meant that he had not planned ahead for traveling, and he had nowhere to go. The few coins in his pocket that he had started with were already almost gone.
He had considered himself fortunate to secure a place to rest in the stable with the horses. How quickly the mighty fell, but he knew that he would never forgive himself for what he had done to his father. He was lying in the hay feeling sorry for himself when he heard the door to the stable open. It was very dark in the barn with the lanterns extinguished, and whoever was entering was not carrying one.
Connor would not have thought much of it, except he didn’t hear the usual sounds of someone stabling a horse. In fact, the only way he knew that anyone was even in the barn was that the door was still standing half open, letting light from the moon stream into the barn entrance. He didn’t move. His heartbeat was the only thing that he could hear. Then through the slats of the stall door, Connor could see the outline of a pair of boots appear. Men’s boots, but they made no sound.
He watched as the boots turned to face the stall where he was resting and Connor froze. He could handle himself in a fight if it came to that, but there was something about the man’s approach that was unsettling. He decided to go on the offensive.
“Already taken,” he called out. He was frustrated to hear the wobble in his voice. “Go find another one.”
There was a slight shift and the boots disappeared. They were there and then they weren’t. Connor shifted closer to the slats and tried to use the light of the moon to locate where the man had gone. And then an arm circled his throat and it was like being held in the grip of a big snake.
“I think you’re lost. Lucky for me I’m very good at finding lost things,” the voice whispered in his ear. Then Connor felt the sharp pricks into the soft flesh at the crook of his neck and shoulder, and he started to scream.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As Angeline opened her eyes, she felt like her whole body was on fire. The light burned her eyes. It seemed like all the colors she had ever known exploded in a kaleidoscope and she didn’t know where to look. She tried to raise her hand to block it out, but she could only lift it a few inches before it flopped back to her side. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.
Where was she? The last thing that she remembered was feeling like she was flying in the wind. Slowly images started to come back. She saw the huge spring moon floating just above the horizon of the tall grass. She could still feel the grass brushing her face as she moved through it, away from a circular clearing. And then it was there looking in her memory: a spider the size of a cat glaring at her with beady red eyes.
Her eyes flew open and this time the light hurt less. She tested her fingers, and they seemed to be more cooperative than her arms. Her head was vertical but on its side, so her check was resting against something. It wasn’t hard. In fact, it was moving. Her fingers brushed buttons and soft fabric. She was lying against someone. Connor.
Then her fingers were swept up into a soft grasp and pulled to rest against his chest. She could feel the beat of his heart. Her other senses were awakening as well, and that familiar musky smell filled her nostrils. She was lying against Connor, and now she could sense his arms encircling her body.
The intimacy of the embrace unsettled her. But it wasn’t the fact that she was lying in a vampire’s embrace that was upsetting her; it was the realization that it felt so normal and natural that had her thoughts flying around in her mind. She knew that she should be trying to escape. She knew that she should at the very least be struggling against her captor and demanding that she be set free. But for some reason these thoughts melted away as soon as she thought of them. It was like there was another person inside her skin now who didn’t care anymore.
“Princess?” Connor’s voice was soft but heavy with concern.
She felt her body being shifted. Connor turned her so that she was sitting up, but he seemed to know that she was unsure that she could hold herself up. She felt a solid surface at her back, although it was hard and there were several sharp points that dug into her skin.
Her eyes continued to adjust, and she finally started to see where they were. It looked like a place that resembled a cave, but it wasn’t. She looked up. She could see twinkling lights that gave the surface of the stone the appearance of the night sky. Then it was like the stone moved out several feel to form to a point that jutted out into a vast span of trees. For the first time since waking Angeline felt a shot of fear. Her mind was putting all the pieces together and she was afraid of the answer to the puzzle.
“Are we in the Amaron?” she whispered.
She saw the surprise in Connor’s eyes.
He nodded. “Given your condition and the fact that I have been unable to ascertain if we are still being followed, I needed to make a quick decision of where to hide before the sun came up. I’ve camped here before.”
“They say that Amaron is haunted by the souls that were killed by the vampires at the beginning of time. That the vampire king trapped their souls here to be a continual source of energy and life for the vampires and that anyone who dares enter risks the wrath of those trapped and tortured souls,” Angeline said.
“Where did you hear that?” Connor’s eyes narrowed.
“What?” Angeline felt like she had cobwebs in her head. Then her eyes found the sparkles in the stone above her again and for some reason she found them fascinating. “What are those stones?” she asked. “I know the appearance and composition of every rock and sediment in Altera and I have never seen anything like it.”
“Where did you hear that myth about the Amaron Forest?” Connor asked.
Angeline dragged her eyes away from the sparkles and found Connor’s eyes. “Your eyes are lovely. They look just like emeralds,” she giggled.
In her head it was like there was a war going on; there was the Angeline she had always been; shy, reserved, studious, and then this loose, drunken, mysterious Angeline who seemed unconcerned about anything.
She watched Connor move closer and he gripped her shoulders. “Angeline, you’ve just been through something very traumatic. We need to talk about what happened.”
Angeline rolled her eyes. “A poisonous spider bit me. An Arythmatonian Pillora, in fact. Just like your species, I didn’t know that those still existed. There are all sorts o
f surprises out here in the Forgotten Lands. Watch. Next thing we know we’ll run into a wolf brother.”
“I think you should try to focus on what I’m going to tell you, Angeline. I know it’s difficult right now and that you are probably feeling very strange.”
“I feel fine.” Angeline’s eyes caught sight of something in one of the trees across from the opening of the outcropping. If she squinted, she even thought that she could see it scurrying up the trunk of the tree. “Better than fine actually. I can’t believe it worked, but it did. I guess I should be saying thank you.”
“You are feverish and bordering on delirium,” Connor said slowly. “That’s not uncommon at this stage.”
Angeline frowned and she looked back at Connor. “What are you talking about? Stage of what?”
Connor sighed heavily and his eyes slid to the ground. “I didn’t have time to tell you what the ramifications were of what you asked me to do if something went wrong. That’s why I don’t want your thanks. I’m sorry. The only consolation I can offer you is that you are alive.”
“Stage of what?” Angeline asked again. Her voice sounded thin and shrill to her ears as it bounced off the walls of their small enclosure, and she winced.
“Your change.” Connor looked her squarely in the eye now. “You are becoming a wraith.”