Brenna’s voice cracked as she tried to comfort her daughter with words that could never alleviate the pain of this innocent’s untimely death.
“Where’s Friedrich?” Mikhail asked Gregory.
The somber giant nodded toward the crashed-open window. “Went after you and Grant after he gave Denny his elixir.”
Mikhail knelt beside Brenna, noting Friedrich’s elixir wasn’t strong enough. Without even thinking, he gently pried Helena back and eased his arms around Denny.
“Let me have him, Brennalyn.”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I need another moment with him.”
“I may still be able to save him. Let me have him.”
Brenna’s night-dark eyes, glassy with tears, fixed on him. Shaking her head softly, she whispered, “You can’t. Friedrich tried. His heart has already stopped.”
Mikhail slipped his hand beneath the boy’s slim nape, then firmed his voice. “His blood is still warm. Give him to me, Brennalyn.”
She let go at once. With the frail child across his lap, the lifeblood staining his chest, Mikhail ignored the tense silence as everyone watched him. Tearing open Denny’s shirt, he bent and sank sharpened fangs into his jugular, releasing the potent elixir that poured through his veins. A powerful potion he carried from his family’s secreted lineage—more powerful than Friedrich’s, a grandson of the original Varis vampire.
After a breathless moment, he heard and felt against his lips the soft murmur of a birdlike pulse, then another. He pulled out his fangs, sealing the wound with a swift lick, then pressed his fingers to his throat. There again, the soft flutter of a heartbeat. Raising his head, heaving from the intensity of the moment, his gaze swept the room, everyone watching in awe.
Mikhail avoided Mina’s questioning gaze and landed on Brenna. “He is alive.”
She gasped and cried, pulling Denny into her arms gently. “Oh, Captain. How? How did you—?”
“Best get him to another room, keep him warm. I’ll see to Beatrice.”
Brenna was on her feet, carrying the boy to her own bedroom with Helena on her heels.
“Let me help,” said Mina, hurrying with them.
Mikhail scooped Beatrice into his arms to take her into her bedchamber next door.
“Oh, Helena. What about the boys?” Brenna asked from the next bedchamber, panic gripping her again.
“They’re fine. They’re all okay. They were with me and Dmitri. And Marius and Arabelle, too.”
“Marius, Arabelle, and some of the Black Lily are with the boys at our cabin,” added Nikolai, now standing in their doorway.
“Where’s Dmitri now?” asked Mikhail, stopping beside Nikolai and peering into the room.
“He went looking for you,” Helena answered, sitting on the edge of the bed where Brenna brushed Denny’s hair away from his face and Mina pulled the quilt up tight.
Gregoravich cleared his throat behind him. “Captain, he came here with Yuri and Gavril. I told him you and Grant, then Friedrich went after Radomir. And…the girl.”
Mikhail noted that his bear-size friend couldn’t even say her name. He was fond of Izzy. Everyone was. The girl had wrapped every member of the Bloodguard around her sweet, pudgy finger. Why in heaven’s name did the queen kidnap her?
Helena gasped. “Girl? Where’s Izzy?”
Brenna just shook her head, unable to speak it aloud for a moment. “They took her.”
“No. No. No.” Helena shook her head, as if she could change reality if she denied it enough. Brenna pulled her back into her arms.
Everyone knew what Helena had suffered at the hands of King Dominik’s men when she was imprisoned at Dragon’s Eye. The constant abuse as their bleeder, the neglect, the terror. But a little girl couldn’t be used as a bleeder for long before she died. They would’ve taken Beatrice if that were their goal. She’d last longer as their blood slave. No, it was some other reason.
Mina had remained silent all this time, until now when she sucked in a sharp breath. The pain emanating in this room was palpable, a raw scraping against the skin. Mina stood beside Helena and Brenna, placing her hands on their shoulders. He couldn’t see or smell anything different, but the air changed all the same. A wave of numbing peace radiated from her, spreading like morning mist. He’d heard of some empaths with the gift to impart a healing kind of serenity. Brenna and Helena continued to weep, but the grief seemed to subside to a bearable pain as Mina wrapped them both in her arms. She murmured low, soft words of compassion to ease this ungodly weight.
Mikhail had to get out of there and find Dmitri. He glanced at Gregory. “You’ll stay here.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“I will, too,” added Nikolai.
“I’ll help you,” said Sienna, following Mikhail to the next room.
Sienna pulled back the rose quilt so Mikhail could lay Beatrice down.
“Are Marius and Arabelle all right?”
“Yes.” Sienna’s brow furrowed as she felt the lump on the side of Beatrice’s head. “Arabelle was badly injured. They’d broken her arm, the bones sticking out and cracked her rib cage. She couldn’t breathe, one of the bones must’ve punctured her lung. Marius gave her his elixir, but it wasn’t enough. Blood was coming out of her mouth, and we knew”—she choked up, glancing at him—“we knew she’d die if he didn’t take action quickly.”
Mikhail didn’t need to hear the rest to know what happened next. “He made her a vampire.”
Sienna nodded, brushing Beatrice’s hair away from her face.
“Then she will be fine.”
“Will Beatrice truly recover?”
“Yes.” He sat on the edge of the bed beside Sienna and lifted the girl’s arm, rolling up the sleeve of her blue dress. “After I give her my elixir.”
“How, Captain? How is your elixir more powerful than Friedrich’s? He is a Varis.”
The most potent elixir of healing pumped through the veins of a pure-blood Varis. The closer one was to the original source, Queen Morgrid, the more potent the power of healing.
He caught Sienna’s curious expression. “I saw what you did for Denny. You brought him back from the dead.”
“His blood was warm and his spirit still close. It would’ve been too late had we waited another second.”
“But it wasn’t too late. How, Captain?”
“A tale for another time.”
He leaned his head and bit into the girl’s thin forearm. He didn’t suction her blood but allowed his potent serum to be released from the needle-thin glands in his fangs. He counted to ten, then pulled away, hearing her faint pulse thrum faster into a healthy, strong beat. She turned her head to the other side of the pillow, the first sign of consciousness.
Sienna stared at Mikhail questioningly. But he wouldn’t tell her what she longed to know. How and why his elixir was as powerful as that of a Varis prince.
“I must find my brother and Friedrich.”
He blurred from the room and away into the woods in the direction he’d gone after Radomir. The night was lit with the orange glow of an inferno beyond Silvane Forest to the west. Anxiety rode him when he smelled the familiar scent of his brother, Friedrich, and hart wolves. He sped past the body of Denny’s would-be killer toward the sights and sounds of those he knew.
Dane—naked in human form from a recent shift—had Friedrich’s arm wrapped around his shoulder as he helped him walk. Allora and her mate, Bron, in wolf form, flanked them, as well as Dmitri, Yuri, and Gavril. Allora’s white coat glistened by moonlight. Bron’s sleek black fur helped him meld with the trees. Their gold wolf eyes glinting in the dark.
Dmitri’s eyes widened in relief when they landed on Mikhail. The two jogged to each other. Dmitri gripped his shoulder, squeezing hard.
“I didn’t know where you were.” Which was the closest he could come to saying, I thought you might’ve died.
Mikhail grabbed his brother’s nape and tightened his hold, thankful to the heavens for sparing h
im. For he was sure there would be a high count of the dead from this night.
“I’m hard to kill, Brother. You know that.”
“You mean you’re too damn stubborn to die.”
“Aye. There’s that.”
They shared a knowing but brief smile. No need to say what was surely on both their hearts—sheer relief. The others caught up to them.
Mikhail broke away to walk on Friedrich’s opposite side. “Are you badly injured?”
“Hell no. The bloody bastards nearly cut my leg off, but it’s healing.” He gripped his thigh, the blood-soaked trousers sliced open from a blade where a deep gash slowly mended. “But I couldn’t follow them,” he added bitterly. “I’m worried for Grant. He went after them alone.”
“Gavril, Yuri,” snapped Mikhail. “Follow Grant’s trail. If I’m right, they were prepared to be followed. He will need help.”
Gavril and Yuri chorused together, “Aye, Captain.”
They blurred away. Bron and Allora sped after them, a streak of black and white disappearing in the gloom of the wintry forest.
“Get home, Your Grace,” said Mikhail. There was time to plan strategy to get Izzy back later. But for now, they must end this unhallowed night and mourn their dead and pray for the dying. “Denny is alive.”
“What!” Friedrich’s eyes snapped wide. “Alive?”
Mikhail nodded, not ready to explain that it was he who’d brought him back. “Brenna needs you now.”
Friedrich’s gaze peered in the direction of his cottage as if he could see his wife and children in pain, in need of him. “Faster, Dane.” He quickened his pace with Dane’s help.
“Dmitri,” said Mikhail. “The encampment.”
“Aye. Let’s go.”
They spirited away, the icy wind turning colder by the second, as if winter deepened with the loss of so many souls to keep the forest warm. The forest full of magic that had sheltered humans and vampires alike, brothers in arms, against a dark evil. Their loss slowed her pulse, as if she wept with them.
The stench of burning flesh grew stronger when they wound out of the forest’s edge to Harrison’s farm—the center for the soldier’s tents and weapons armory. They stood on the hillside near the archery training site.
The farmhouse was ablaze as well as the barn and every tent along the forest’s border. The field was littered with bodies, both their own and Legionnaires’, their uniforms setting them apart. The soldiers still standing had a chain of buckets from the well to the barn. Some of the Bloodguard flashed in vampire speed to and from, dousing the flames as fast as they could.
The brawny form of Harrison was at the helm. His wife and children stood to one side near the boy Nate, holding the reins of Friedrich’s Arkadian horses. Nate stared at the burning barn, where his father worked and they both slept each night. Mikhail didn’t see the silhouette of Nate’s father, the blacksmith who’d forged many weapons for their army. As horrific as the sight was, it wasn’t their dead men burning that wafted that unholy smell up into the night.
“Dear God,” muttered Dmitri at his side.
In the distance, a hellish haze glowed up into the wintry sky as if the netherworld had opened up right where the town of Hiddleston stood. Amid the roar of flames came the quieter sounds of stifled cries and screams of women and children.
“They burned the whole fucking village.”
Hiddleston had been a friend to the Black Lily. And so was an enemy to Queen Morgrid.
Dmitri sped off toward the cries for help. Mikhail was right behind him. He stared up, watching his hope that they’d ever escape the queen’s evil rising with the smoke and ashes of Hiddleston.
Chapter Seventeen
The black oak grove stood quiet but for the faint whisper of wind. Sable-silver leaves tumbled over the snow-dusted ground. A pile had delicately fallen on the six-by-two-foot dirt mound where Nate’s father lay since they’d buried him yesterday. The silvery leaves blanketed his grave, as if the forest longed to keep the man warm. But he was no longer here.
Mina stepped silently, not wanting to disturb Brenna and Nate. Brenna stood beside the boy, a slender arm draped around his shoulders. The cut of death dug deep for everyone, including the villagers of Hiddleston. But nothing hurt more to a young boy than the loss of his father.
Brenna spoke gentle words to the boy at her side.
“They’re walking together, Ivan and your father,” she was saying, just like she was telling a bedtime story. “Remember how Ivan would admire your father’s forge work. No one could craft a sword or dagger as strong or as beautiful as your father.”
“Papa loved these woods.” Nate’s voice was rusty but proud.
“I know.” She squeezed him closer. “That’s why the hart wolves thought it best he be laid to rest here. I think he’d be proud of that. Don’t you?”
“Aye. ’e would.” He wiped his sleeve across his nose and heaved out a big breath. “Best get back to camp. Still cleaning what weapons we still got.”
“Yes. You’d better get busy.”
Nate tore away, running toward the Harrison farm—what was left of it. Brenna didn’t look surprised to find Mina behind her. She would’ve heard her regardless, or smelled her, being a vampire herself.
“Is Friedrich asking for me?” Her eyes were rimmed red, though no tears stood out on her cheeks. She must’ve wept all that she possibly could by now. For the dead, for her injured children, for Izzy now gone.
Brenna met her on the trail, and they fell in line together.
“Actually, we’ve been invited to the burial rite of the Bloodguard men. Everyone is there already.”
Brenna paused mid-step and met her gaze. A sad smile quirked her lips. “That is an honor, as I know they are such a private lot. I still don’t even know where any of them came from. Where they were born, if they have parents, siblings, anyone we should write.”
Mina linked her arm with Brenna and led her deeper into the forest where she knew the ceremony was taking place. The exact place where the forty guardsmen pledged their fealty to her, now only thirty-four.
“Aleksei has a mother and a sister,” Mina mused, a pang striking her at the core for how painful this loss would be for them. “Irena is a lovely mirror of her brother. I fear they will take this very hard.”
Brenna lifted her chin. “I must pay them a visit and thank them personally for his service.”
“I feel that I should be the one. After all, Aleksei was killed while—”
The rest stuck in her throat. Mina couldn’t admit the guilt she felt because men had died to protect her.
Brenna squeezed closer as they walked along, hooked arm in arm. “And do you think if Aleksei had lived that he would regret having risked himself to protect you?”
Mina shook her head, knowing he wouldn’t.
“Of course not.”
Brenna’s gaze fell forward as Mina guided her around a thick bramble of brush she recognized. They were edging closer.
“Aleksei was the one who carried Izzy to safety from Winter Hill.” Brenna’s voice sounded distant as she stumbled back to that memory. Then she laughed. “I remember her remarking they had the same color hair.”
It was Mina’s turn to squeeze her friend closer. “We’ll get her back.”
Brenna’s lips drew tight, but she tried to smile anyway, then they were rounding the bend up to the meadow Mina remembered.
The black-clad and hooded Bloodguard stood in a perfect circle around the six bodies on pyres. Their dead brethren dressed exactly like them, as if they were headed into battle, each holding their weapon of choice across their chest, ready for combat.
Vampires typically had family tombs where they would be buried, but the Bloodguard followed an ancient ritual. One where the warrior went up in flames.
Arabelle and Marius stood side by side at the head, Marius with his arm around her waist, holding her up. Arabelle’s injuries had been extensive. The dark circles under her eyes, whi
ch now shone bright with her new vampirism, revealed the wounds and the new change were taking their toll. New-borns needed rest for the body to make the change. But of course she would never lie in bed for this.
Mina walked ahead of Brenna toward where Friedrich, Helena, and the boys stood on the other side of Nikolai and Sienna. All in one line at the head of the pyres where Aleksei lay. Grant stood next to Caden, an arm around the gangly teen’s shoulder. Grant had been subdued in his pursuit of Radomir and Izzy by a dozen Legionnaires. And though not drastically injured, he lost his chance at catching them before they crossed into the border of the Glass Tower where hundreds of new-borns with the blood madness guarded the grounds. His forehead bore a deep cut and his jaw and eye nasty bruises, yet he seemed unaffected, his focus intent on the men on the pyres.
Mina’s breath caught at Mikhail standing apart with torch in hand. He didn’t look at her as he approached, staring down at his men from a grim mask of calm.
The only sound was the crackling of the torch and their quiet footfalls across the meadow. Friedrich pulled Brenna close to his side when they reached them, brushing a kiss atop her head. He’d left Olog, his chef from Winter Hill, behind with Beatrice and Denny. Mina should’ve been surprised by the oafish man’s soft heart for young Beatrice and the duke’s children, but nothing surprised her about these people anymore. They cared for one another the way people ought to, especially in a cold world where evil washed the land in blood and ash.
“Brethren!” Mikhail’s booming voice snapped everyone’s attention to him. “The creed.”
In unison, they fisted right hands over their hearts and recited with vigor.
“We are the Bloodguard. Noble by birth, brothers by choice. We smite the evil ones. We avenge the innocents. We right all wrongs. We are the cold blade in the dark night. We give our swords, our bodies, our strength, and our blood. We bleed as one. We die as one.”
Tears pricked Mina’s eyes, having heard these words from all of them, from the six men lying atop their pyres who would speak no more. She knew the other five men’s names now, wanting to know who had given all they had for the cause, promising to never forget them. The Black Lily had begun as a human cause for equality. Vampires could simply sit back impassively and let Queen Morgrid and King Dominik rule the land if they so chose, especially children of noble birth like these men. But they didn’t. They took up arms in their own way among their brethren. They went into this quest against evil, against the crown, knowing death might be their likely end. And yet, they did it anyway. Bravery took on new meaning as she stared at the still warriors.
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