The pitiable look on his face told him enough, tightening every muscle in Mikhail’s body.
“He was not gentle with her, Captain,” he finally said quietly.
Mikhail vibrated with restrained violence, his voice low and lethal. “Yuri.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Lead the way. We need to find a way into that tower.”
A surge of fresh fire burned through his body, igniting his need for vengeance. To bludgeon. Claw. Maim. Until nothing was left of the infamous butcher king. It was time to wipe his kind from this world. Not just for the people of Varis, but for Mina. He would regret ever touching her.
Before Mikhail cleaved his skull in two, he’d make sure the bastard understood just that.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Moving robotically down the long crimson-carpeted hall and escorted by four militant Legionnaires, she focused on breathing, on calming herself. She’d been dressed in a red-velvet gown that dipped too low for her liking. Though she was unsure where it had come from, King Dominik possessed a large blood harem. One of his concubines was apparently her size.
She pretended the revealing garment didn’t unsettle her, even as fresh lust emanated from the Legionnaires marching her toward her destination. Especially the blond to her right whose eyes kept straying to her breasts.
She ignored him, glancing instead at the floor-to-ceiling paintings as they marched on. She’d never been to Izeling. And though she’d heard of King Dominik’s grotesque taste, she didn’t understand until now. Each painting depicted one more horrific scene than the next. An angelic woman in white clutching a tree in a storm. Her gown had slipped past her breasts and was drenched from the pouring rain while a godlike vampire laughed from the clifftop. His canines were sharp and ready.
Another painting depicted a nude woman racing bareback on a black horse across a snowy plain, a look of stricken fear upon her pretty face as she looked over her shoulder at whatever was chasing her. A third showed a feast of men laughing and clinking ale goblets, hovering around some unseen spectacle at their center. All that could be seen through a break of men was the painfully flexed arch of a pale, slender foot in the air. Terror and menace. That’s what this entire castle reeked of.
She swallowed the bile rising and kept her eyes forward. Soon enough, she heard low voices ahead. Dominik’s rumbling timbre she recognized as he said, “—how you did it, but it worked.”
Then the definite, melodious, and yet chilling voice of Queen Morgrid. “Easy feat, my son. For one adept at the dark arts as I am.”
The soldiers marched Mina up to the open double doors of a large parlor, ornamented in the same reds and blacks that covered the entire castle like a morbid, repetitive nightmare.
“Here she is, Mother. My blushing bride.”
Mina cringed and stepped inside, stopping before the gray wolf fur rug, her eyes on the queen not Dominik. She glanced for a second time at the wolf fur, for it was quite large. She sickened at the thought that it must be a hart wolf.
“Hello, Vilhelmina,” said the queen, draped across a red-velvet chaise, a glass of blood held aloft. The queen was the embodiment of beauty and evil in the flesh. Very similar to her son, the larger, masculine version of herself stretched out in a massive brown-leather armchair. The queen shifted her legs on the chaise, her silvery gown glittering like scales under the candlelight, her black hair coiled in tiny braids atop her head and gleaming like snakes.
Her man, Radomir, the hard-looking, square-shouldered one who never left her side, stood at ease next to the mantel, his gray eyes watching Mina, his hands clutching the shoulders of little Izzy in front of him.
“Izzy!” She started to run, but the two soldiers grabbed her arms on either side and kept her still.
Izzy’s wide blue eyes blinked furiously, her chin quivering, but she said not a word. The nightgown she’d been kidnapped in was smudged with dirt, her white slippers soiled as well. They hadn’t even given her a change of clothes.
Mina reined in her rage for Radomir, who’d imprisoned her in the tower at Briar Rose right after he’d murdered her dearest friend. Now, it burned brighter than ever at the wickedly gleeful expression he wore, holding a child prisoner as if he enjoyed it.
“Why have you taken her?”
Mina was easily controlled by Dominik’s elixir. They didn’t need the child to force her obedience. There was another sinister reason, she was sure. A strange tingling, almost a tickling of her empathic senses. It was the secret that kept itself hidden from her, wanting to spill out.
Dominik stood and strode toward her with ominous steps. His ice-blue gaze lingered on her before flicking to the blond holding her right arm. “She looks good in that dress, doesn’t she, soldier?”
The Legionnaire stiffened, realizing his mistake too late.
With a lethal swipe of his claws, Dominik opened the soldier’s throat, his tight grip on Mina’s arm knocking her sideways. The other soldier caught her before she fell; the warm spray of blood splattered her face and chest. She watched in shock as Dominik put a boot on his chest, reaching down to grip his head, “No one looks at what is mine.”
The soldier only gurgled in response before Dominik twisted with his powerful hands, the snapping of bone and sinew as he wrenched and tore the soldier’s head free with a final grunt. Bile rose up Mina’s throat as she turned to Izzy.
“Close your eyes, Izzy,” she commanded. The girl obeyed at once, squeezing them tight.
Dominik stood, wiping his hands on his pants legs, “Dispose of this mess,” he commanded the other Legionnaires, who quickly obeyed him. He then took his place, sinking back into his leather chair.
The queen didn’t bat an eye or seem surprised at this display of murderous violence for something so small as a lustful glance. Mina was truly in the hands of monsters.
Morgrid sipped her glass of blood, ignoring the men dragging the bloody corpse from the room, her gaze on Mina. “Oh. I almost forgot.” She stood, setting her glass on a scalloped, black-lacquered table, and glided forward. “I believe I owe you a curtsy,” she said, mockingly. She dipped her knees but not her head or her eyes, her lips tipped in a slash of mockery. “Your Majesty.”
Rather than cower or wither under the queen’s ire, she remembered who she was. And who she’d become since she’d come awake at Briar Rose. “I am the rightful heir of the Arkadian throne, Your Majesty. I hardly see how it is a surprise that I should claim it.”
Morgrid studied her, fingering a string of black pearls at her throat. “I will admit it was quite a shock. Not that you claimed what was rightfully yours but that it was you who did so, my dear.” She examined Mina, presumably expecting a break in her composure at the insult. When Mina didn’t even flinch, she went on. “It matters not anyway. You’ll take my son as your husband.”
“No. I will not—”
“Yes, you will,” Dominik said.
A lightning rod of pain bowed her spine. She crumbled to her knees with a sharp gasp.
“Pwinthess,” Izzy cried on a tiny sob.
Mina shook her head at her.
“Say yes,” he commanded.
“Yes,” she grated through clenched teeth, the pain subsiding at once. Catching her breath, she finally looked up at the queen with burning anger thrumming through her body. The queen quirked a brow.
“Well, well. It seems someone has grown more defiant since her bloodless sleep, rather than more obedient, my son.”
“Yes. She has,” he noted from his lounging posture, a predator at rest but still watching its prey with interest, picking all the places he wanted to gouge his teeth and claws.
“You’ll have to tame her, darling,” the wicked queen crooned. “If you’re going to get a child in her.”
Acid churned in Mina’s belly at the thought.
“Unless she has one in her belly already,” he said with menace.
The queen hissed. “What?”
“She’s lain with another ma
n.”
“Who?”
“The Captain of the Bloodguard that Friedrich hired to replace his Legionnaires.”
“Stand up,” commanded the queen.
Mina didn’t try to refuse, especially when Dominik stood and circled behind her. The queen moved close and pressed her palm hard against her abdomen, closing her eyes in concentration. She smiled, a triumphant smile creasing her eerily beautiful face. Dominik was at her back. The heat of him too near, but she didn’t dare try to inch away.
“Good.” Morgrid glanced to her son over Mina’s shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. She’s not with child.” The queen exhaled a ragged breath as if she’d actually been scared for a moment. “All is well, though she nearly ruined it. We would’ve kidnapped the whelp there for nothing.”
“What are you talking about? Tell me why you’ve taken her!”
The queen’s icy eyes glowed white hot, then she cocked back a hand a slapped Mina so hard she stumbled. Dominik grabbed her by her upper arms from behind, straightening her.
“That’s for giving yourself to someone other than your husband. A royal should know better.”
Izzy whimpered and cried behind them. The queen glanced over her shoulder. “That little girl is going to ensure my success.”
“How?”
“Didn’t that schoolteacher ever want to know who she belonged to back in Korinth?” The queen shrugged. “I guess not. The wench took in whatever peasant fell on her doorstep. It took me entirely too long to find Stephanus’s bastard he beget with his favorite mistress.”
“What?” Confused, Mina’s heartbeat pounded faster with new dread. “Why do you need your son’s child to ensure your success?”
The queen leaned forward, narrowing her eyes to serpentine slits. “Varis blood is potent, my dear. The perfect sacrifice to get a child in that belly of yours.”
“No!” The horror of what she spoke turned her blood to ice.
Mina could take the stranglehold of their horror and disdain no longer, rage making her voice tremble. “No matter what you do, whatever black magic you use, I will never be yours to rule.”
Dominik laughed at her back, still clutching her arms. The queen smiled.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head, my dear. We need you alive.” She turned and lifted her glass of blood. “For now. Your husband can decide what to do you with you after your first child is born.”
Mina’s stomach churned with acid. “The one you plan to murder in a blood rite the hour he’s born.”
She froze, her cutting gaze knifing through Mina like the sharpest blade. “How did you know?” Morgrid’s scowl darkened. “Do you have the sight?”
Dominik shook her from behind. “Answer the queen.”
“I do not,” Mina replied just as the edge of an icy sting pricked at the base of her spine. “But a friend of mine does.”
Morgrid sipped from her goblet, casting a look past Mina to Dominik behind her. “It’s that Red Witch in Silvane Forest, no doubt.” The queen laughed. “Yet again, it matters not. You’ll do your part and give me what I want, even if we have to chain you to the bed for the rest of your life.”
“Not a bad idea.” Dominik pulled her back against him, the hard press of his body against her bottom and back a frightening presence. “But there will be no need. She’ll know her master soon enough.”
“See that she does.”
“And what about King Grindal?” asked Mina. “What does he think about your plans to spread sanguine furorem and cast the world in an eternal black magic veil?”
Mina had known King Grindal to be a cold, calculating vampire, but he was the one who’d always enforced the laws so that humans wouldn’t want to revolt. Though it had happened anyway once the queen started spreading her blood-maddening disease, which flowed in her own blood.
“He doesn’t think of anything…anymore.”
“You killed your own king?” Mina didn’t understand why she was so shocked. Morgrid was maniacal beyond imagining.
Morgrid turned away. “Put her in her room till tonight, my son.” She sashayed toward Radomir, whose worshipful yet cold gaze was fixed on his queen. “And, Dominik?”
He tugged Mina by one arm toward the door.
“Yes, Mother?”
“No bedding her till after the midnight ceremony. The child we need must be legitimate from conception.”
He said nothing. Mina didn’t dare look at him.
With a hand resting upon Radomir’s chest, the queen looked over her shoulder, still holding her glass of blood. “Son, I only need the firstborn. Then you can beget as many as you like on her.”
“Of course, Mother.”
Mina locked on Izzy’s gaze and mouthed, Be brave. It will be all right. Izzy nodded, her springy curls limp on her shoulders, but she swallowed hard and lifted her chin as Radomir pushed her toward another exit from the parlor.
Dominik marched Mina back out, not bothering to slow his strides for her. Though she was tall, she wasn’t nearly as tall as him. He didn’t speak to her the entire walk back to the bedchamber, a place of dread. Turning into his bedchamber, he strode through the door, opening and slamming it closed.
Without warning, he pushed her back to the door, opened his mouth with fangs sharp and thick. Her fight instinct took over in a flash, her vampire claws extending as she swiped at his face. When she reached for his eyes, he jerked up just in time. She raked his cheek and gouged hard.
A fierce growl rumbled from his chest.
“Fucking bitch,” he snarled. Hauling back, he backhanded her to the floor, the sharp pain radiating across her face so hard her vision blurred.
Rolling to her back, she saw him coming, reaching for her. She kicked hard, barely missing his groin, hearing the satisfying whoosh of air leave his lungs as her foot landed in his gut. Then his body crushed her to the floor. Clawing out again, she drew blood at his throat, wincing at the bitter tang of his scent in the air.
He manacled her wrists and pressed them above her head, his other hand at her throat.
“Settle down,” he growled, bearing his teeth like a wolf to its prey. “I could kill you so easily.”
His fingers squeezed till she couldn’t breathe, and she saw her own death in his eyes. He wanted to kill her. And would have.
Then his clutch loosened. She sucked in air in gasping breaths. His gaze shifted from raging fury to dark lust. His great paw roamed to her breast, where it squeezed hard. Even corseted, it was more sensation than she cared to feel from him.
“I hate waiting.”
Self-preservation took root, keeping her wits about her. “Queen Morgrid said you must. You can’t go against her.”
He chuckled, squeezing her breast to a painful point. “Like you care what the queen wants.”
He lifted up, hauling her by the wrists from the floor, then swiftly flung her facedown onto a midnight-black counterpane. Before she could push up, he was on her again, pressing her into the mattress, his erect shaft at the cleft of her bottom. Pinning her wrists again to the mattress with one hand, he gripped a fistful of hair and yanked her head, arching her neck back.
She screamed, unable to keep from crying out in pain though she refused to beg him to stop this time. That didn’t work with Dominik.
He ground his pelvis into her bottom with a rumbling growl at her ear. “I can wait till tonight.” He licked along the crook where her neck met shoulder. “But I’ll give you something to remember me by.”
His fangs sank deep, spearing pain into her shoulder. She wept silently, furious at her helplessness, at this malicious, sad, horrific twist of fate. He groaned and sucked her blood, injecting more elixir into her bloodstream. The wave of violent power flooding her veins and rippling through her frame wasn’t a shock this time. It hurt, nevertheless.
When he extricated his canines, he was breathing heavily. He didn’t lick the wound to help it heal. Her body could self-heal if she’d fed recently, which she hadn’t. He rem
ained with his heavy body pressing her into the mattress, almost suffocating her.
When she started gasping for air, he eased up a fraction. Suddenly, he jerked her off the bed and planted her in a silver-brocade chair facing the bed.
“You will not leave this chair, do you understand?”
She nodded.
“You will sit here in this chair all day and night. You won’t sleep. You’ll think about me and watch me and listen to me fucking and drinking from my concubines until it’s time for our wedding rites.” He bit her again, higher on the neck.
She cried out as he punctured but didn’t suckle, giving her the pain of his bite for no other reason to show her he could. For his own sadistic pleasure.
“Then I’m going to teach you about pain. And who your master is.”
He wrenched her hair till she felt some of it pull loose, her scalp stinging till her eyes pricked with tears. Her head arched back, though she could see his dark gaze looking down over her.
“Say yes, master.”
“Yes, master.” She didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t loosen his hold as he bent low and suckled her bottom lip gently into his mouth, as if he were a true lover.
“Mmm.” He licked her lips, but she didn’t move. “Don’t look so scared, little dove. You’ll be begging me for more by the time I’m done with you.”
He released her and was out the door in a flash. Mina lifted her legs and curled into a ball, the tears flowing hot and steady now. Ignoring the pain of her body, she coiled around that hope still cradled to her chest. A hope that felt small and crushed and barely breathing. But it was there all the same. Just like the tiniest of whispers telling her to hold on, for Izzy, for herself, for Mikhail.
So she did.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The afternoon crowd at Boar’s Head was a raucous one. The place looked as if it had seen its fair share of brawls that had ended in bloodshed. The bartender was built like a bull, his nose broken one too many times. The tabletops were nicked and stained from years of use, the chairs and stools mismatched and well-worn. Yuri had said this was the place where no one would care who they were or why they were there. He seemed to be right. Their serving wench had asked for their order without casting them a second glance. Except for Riker, whose fierce disposition radiated danger even more than the gruesome scar running beyond his patched eye.
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