It had been a while since Mikhail had been in a pub in a city the size of Izeling. Korinth was equally as large. A good place for strangers to get lost. Perfect for his group, tucked in the back-corner booth.
Mikhail guzzled the rest of his ale, still watching the door for signs of Yuri. He’d clenched his jaw so tight for so long, his teeth ached. His need to get to Mina made him want to crawl right out of his skin and barrel toward Izeling Tower, despite his head telling him to be smart and calculated. The king would have his tower well-guarded, so Mikhail was forced to sit here and glower at every man who laughed at a joke with comrades when he was dying a slow, torturous death inside.
Gregoravich sat next to him with Nikolai and Sienna across from him and Riker in the chair at the end of the booth. Dane had decided to remain in the woods behind Izeling Tower. Even in human form, his wolf scent would set off any Legionnaires they came across in the city. The rest of the Elite scattered and milled in pairs either in the pub or on the street. Though Izeling was the kind of place where people didn’t bother foreigners, they certainly might take note of a large group of lethal-looking vampires and inform the king at the tower sitting above the city.
“So how in the world did you get a guardsman who was born and raised in Izeling?” asked Nikolai, his blond hair falling forward and concealing his wary look around the room. Sienna leaned her head on his shoulder.
A serving wench bumped the next table over, where four rough-looking working men enjoyed their pints. The hardest of the bunch clapped a hand to her hip and pulled her in his lap with a bawdy remark.
“Git off, Dirk!” she slapped him but laughed when she jostled off him.
“Yuri had…family troubles with the crown. So he headed east, where he heard of a guard independent of the throne. He’s a resourceful man, so he found us.”
Gregoravich huffed. “Every one of the Bloodguard has had troubles with the crown.”
“Not just the Bloodguard. Every one of us at this table,” said Riker. A rare moment, since he hardly spoke at all. His troubles had done more than scar his body and give him a noticeable limp. They’d done serious damage to his psyche. But that’s exactly what had happened to them all.
“Aye,” agreed Mikhail. “It’s about time to even the scales.”
Sienna sat up. “As long as we have a well-conceived plan. The wild emotions humming off you men at this table are unsettling me more than I already am. And they’re bound to make you all do stupid things if you’re not careful.”
Nikolai quirked a smile at her.
“Don’t even give me that look. You’re the worst. No one is to go off half cocked.”
“I’ll be fully cocked when I do,” Nikolai whispered under his breath.
“Hush.” She jabbed him with her elbow, then swept her green gaze from one to the next. “We all know the depths to which the queen and her son will go to win. We must tread carefully.” She compressed her lips together in thought for a moment. “That being said…I need to get into that castle as soon as possible.”
“Bloody hell, woman.” Nikolai shed his cavalier demeanor. “The plan was to get Mina out and bring her to you. Not the other way around. You want me just to toss my woman into the devil’s den?”
She turned to him, intimately close. “Nikolai. You don’t understand. I must get to her as soon as possible. I can’t explain it.” She glanced at them all. “I can’t tell any of you how I know. Only that it’s dire. I can’t wait.” Her voice shook with brittle tension. “It must be soon.”
Her eyes flashed gold, then simmered to their cool shade of green again. Mikhail exchanged a glance with Gregory. Mikhail had expected another protest from Nikolai, who held her hand in her lap.
“If you go, then I go.”
“We’ll all go,” said Mikhail. “Whoever is willing. The rest can wait for the army.”
Gregory slung back his tankard of ale and pounded it on the table. “Captain, you’re a dumb son of a bitch sometimes.”
“What?” Mikhail was taken aback.
The big man smiled wide. “Who the fuck here is not going to be willing to go into hell with you if you ask?” Then he remembered Sienna. “Pardon, my lady.”
“No need.” She smiled.
Riker, ever somber, nodded to the door. “I believe it’s time to go to hell, gentlemen.”
Yuri stepped inside long enough to capture Mikhail’s eye and gesture toward the street.
“So it is.” Mikhail’s pulse pounded faster.
Soon, Mina.
The streets teemed with people shuffling here and there on a late afternoon. What little sun was left was covered by wintry clouds. No snow in the air, but the biting wind of the north was ever constant. Mikhail followed Yuri up ahead, who turned down an alley off to the left behind a street vendor with a cart, his scraggly son yelling, “Meat pies! Hot ’n’ fresh!”
Not for the first time, Mikhail wondered why no one batted an eye at so many vampires who weren’t the king’s Legionnaires wandering these streets of a human tenement neighborhood. Then again, he’d forgotten about the many rogue vampires who roamed Korinth, dealing with all manner of men in the underground black markets.
Yuri strode not far in front of them, finally ducking into…a brothel? A run-down one at that. As Mikhail crossed the threshold, he caught the small, square placard hammered into the wall beside the doorframe—black with a red crown. The universal sign that they serviced vampires looking for blood as well as flesh. A slip of a young woman in her corset and an underskirt led a man up a narrow staircase. Yuri had stepped into a dark parlor on the right.
“Oh,” came the soft voice of Sienna as she entered behind him. Likely, she’d never been in a place like this before.
The parlor was finer than the appearance of the exterior of the building and the entry. Though the frayed furniture was draped in vibrantly colored satin and gossamer fabrics to disguise its age, the decor was more tasteful than one might expect. Leaning against a sideboard was a curvy prostitute with jet-black hair and an ample bosom on display.
“Vietka,” called Yuri to the woman.
She turned, her hand still on her hip, measuring the party filing into her small parlor. Though her mouth was soft, her eyes were flinty hard.
Yuri gestured to him. “Vietka, this is the man I spoke of. My captain.” Yuri had kept their specific identity hidden as he’d requested. Though he trusted Yuri to find the right kind of allies for this mission, Mikhail knew everyone could be bought by the crown.
“Pleasure,” said Mikhail with a polite bow.
Riker clicked the door closed as the last one into the room.
There was no need to go through introductions. It was understood that the least amount of information that was traded the better. Anonymity was sacred among those who dwelled in the underworld of these cities. But it didn’t keep the woman from casting a measuring glance to each and every one of them, stalling longer on Riker. Of their party, he appeared to be the most dangerous. Little did she know that behind Mikhail’s cool exterior, he was meticulously rehearsing the many ways he’d carve King Dominik into pieces once he was within distance. His beast crouched low, watching and waiting, savoring the moment when he could flay the man alive for daring to take his woman. That was the only thing that kept him calm and composed.
“Interesting crew you bring in here, Yuri. Seems you’ve been up to all manner of mysteries since you left Izeling.” Her voice was a sensual caress, practiced for her trade. Or perhaps it was the trade that matched her voice.
“Yes, Vietka,” said Yuri, grinning with pride. “I have.”
Vietka’s velvety gaze landed on Mikhail. “Yuri tells me you need a way into the castle. Unannounced.”
“That is correct.”
“There’s no way to get you all in.” She swept the room again with dark eyes, tilting her head as she glanced at Sienna. “She wants in?”
“Yes,” said Sienna. “It’s most important that I go.”
&
nbsp; Nikolai tensed at her side. “And me with her.”
Vietka’s brow rose. “What in the hell is goin’ on, Yuri?” Then she snapped a hand in the air. “Never you mind. Don’t want to know.”
“What’s your plan?” Yuri asked.
She poured herself a tumbler of amber liquor and took a lazy swallow. “The change o’ the guard is at midnight. That’s when I regularly send me girls to relieve the men as they come off duty. They’ll open the south gate to let them in.” She glanced at Gregoravich and Riker, then swiveled back to Mikhail. “Seems you men are equipped to handle the few guards at the south gate. They’ll be tired, with nothin’ but blood and sex on the brain.” She knocked back the rest of the liquor. “I do expect to be paid handsomely for such a risk.”
“What’s your price?” asked Mikhail.
Her brow pinched pensively, her lips tightening into a line, seeming to consider as she took in their quality of clothes and weapons. “One hundred sovereigns. And you do exactly as I say. Otherwise the deal is off. I won’t risk me girls or me own life for any amount of money.” She glanced at Yuri. “Or whatever ‘noble cause’ you be chasin’ these days, Yuri.”
Mikhail withdrew a satchel of sovereigns and tossed them on the sideboard next to her decanter of liquor. The jingling of coin caught her attention.
“There’s five hundred sovereigns. You get a handful of us in the door with no questions asked. We’ll do the rest.”
Her dark eyes widened as she lifted the satchel, opened the drawstring, and peeked inside. She looked up from beneath dark lashes. Her tilted smile showed Mikhail how she’d seduced many a man.
“Well, then. I’d say we have a bargain.”
Chapter Thirty
Once more, Mina was being escorted by guards down the long corridor. Dominik had awoken from his blood and sex-coated bed two hours earlier and released her from being confined in the chair where she’d watched the horror of her future husband’s conquests.
The memory of what she’d been forced to watch all night flickered anew. Three of his concubines writhing in his bed, all of them roped and bound in different postures. He favored the blonde, who was fair, her hair braided in a long rope. He bound her hands and ankles with her bottom straight up in the air so he could beat her with a black riding crop. Mina had heard of such sex games, of course, but these weren’t mere tantalizing games. Dominik took each of them beyond pain to the edge of death before he was done with them.
He placed the one he bound with her bottom in the air facing Mina. “Look at my future queen, Melinda. Isn’t she beautiful?” He’d whack her with the crop as she cried out, “Yes!” Then he took her from behind, and when Mina tried to look away, he wouldn’t have it. “Look in my eyes, little dove.” And Mina did. “Watch what I’m going to do to you tonight.” Then he wrapped Melinda’s braid around his wrist, gripping it near the scalp, and yanked her head back till she screamed as he pounded into her body and lashed her back with the riding crop, leaving red welts crisscrossing her porcelain skin. The woman whimpered, tears streaming down her face as she stared at Mina, humiliation and pain written on her face. The whole time, Dominik forced Mina to gaze into his eyes, grinning with unnatural delight.
“Tonight, little dove,” he kept saying, reminding her over and over that this fate would soon be hers. Then he’d beat the girl with the crop again, just to hear her pain-filled cries.
The nightmare ran on for hours, till he finally tired and released her from her chair, dragging her by the wrist to an adjacent chamber, where two lady’s maids awaited next to a steaming bath.
He commanded her to drink the blood they brought in a carafe, then to bathe and prepare for the midnight ceremony. She shuddered at being forced to marry him, her heart sinking at what tonight would behold. “Be sure you put her hair in one long braid,” he’d said as he clenched his fist.
Mina shivered with dread, remembering the concubine he’d abused all night, pretending she was Mina. Then he’d left with little more than a gloating smirk at her as she stood there, frozen in fear at the thought of bedding him. Of becoming his slave to brutalize and humiliate.
He’d given her a dress of red lace overlaying black silk, scalloped at her neckline and dropping to a sharp vee down to her sternum in the front and to the small of her back. He’d also instructed she not wear a chemise, a corset, or underskirts. In a mockery of modesty, the lace sleeves extended to her wrists. She wanted to refuse to wear such a monstrosity, but what use was it? He’d only command her, and through pain or a beating, he’d make her submit to his will.
As the guards led her down a long corridor, unadorned with a rug to soften their steps, rather than down the grand staircase as she’d expected, her mind wandered again to Mikhail. Where was he at that very moment? Would he have been able to follow their trail in the blizzard? Her spirit darkened, remembering how they’d tossed Gavril off the cliff as if he were an animal carcass to be discarded. The cruelty of these men, of Dominik, of the queen, set her emotions aflame once more.
She glanced down every corridor and through every open door, hoping to get a glance at Izzy, praying she was still unharmed. Though fear lit in her eyes, Izzy was still unhurt. Mina had to find a way to save her after this blasphemy of a wedding ceremony.
One of the guards stopped before a door with a rounded wall. When he unlocked and open the door, revealing a winding staircase within, she realized it was one of the turrets leading to the battlements. Holding the door open, he gestured for her to go ahead. She walked up the narrow, spiral staircase, catching a whiff of the cold night air above.
So she’d be married on the battlements of Izeling Tower? So be it. A strength she’d never experienced welled up inside of her, a tingling along her skin. She could do this. If she could survive a lifetime of loneliness and neglect at Briar Rose and the pain and agony of the bloodless sleep, then she could survive King Dominik.
She stepped out onto the battlement and saw the hulking figure of the man himself. He stood on a square of red fabric—the matrimonial cloth in his royal colors—at the far end of the battlement, overlooking the northern road winding down into the city. The lights of Izeling glittered like the stars above them, the night unusually clear. Queen Morgrid stood beside Dominik in a shimmering black gown. Two dozen Legionnaires made up the square of the battlement, which happened to be the tallest.
As she walked toward them, the only sound was the sigil banner rippling in the wind. And her heart beat in her throat. She approached like the queen she was, shedding whatever fears had made her cower within a shell her whole life.
The gaunt priest in black stood on the other side of the matrimonial cloth, his back to the parapet wall, his head bowed in prayer and cowl billowing in a gentle breeze.
Yes, the night was gentle. Even the moon—full and bright—cast an air of serenity on those below. An ironic twist of fate as a war waged within her.
“Welcome, my bride.” Dominik appeared tense and eager, not quite the relaxed beast that was his usual demeanor.
Morgrid appeared equally tense. “Let’s get on with it.” If not more so.
Something shining behind the queen caught Mina’s eye. It was a swath of black silk draped over a waist-high table, oddly shaped—narrow and not especially long. Then Mina noted the cross-like extensions with iron restraint cuffs at the end, her gaze dropping to the cuffs on short chains and the pillow at the head above the cross restraints.
“No.” Mina shook her head in horror. “A consummation altar?” Savagery.
She’d read about them, used by kings long ago. Public consummation so there was no argument whether the marriage was legal. It was a barbaric ritual for the king to display his husbandly rights the moment the vows were said. To force his bride’s submission in front of witnesses only exhibited his strength and power. And brutality.
Dominik laughed. The queen didn’t, her piercing gaze twinkling under the moonlight.
“You will beget the infant I need tonight
.”
Radomir appeared, dragging Izzy by the wrist. Three of the Legionnaires stepped out of line, revealing another horrific surprise, a stone altar with dark stains upon its flat surface. Radomir lay Izzy roughly on her back. She whimpered. With assistance, the Legionnaires cuffed her tiny wrists and ankles, the wind billowing her frayed nightgown at her knees.
“You can’t!” she screamed. She turned to Dominik. “I’ll do anything. Anything. Just don’t hurt the girl. Please, I beg you.” She looked up at him, thinking herself insane if she would find any sympathy or mercy there.
“I can.” Dominik gripped her arm and jerked her next to him. “And I will.”
Facing the priest, whose eyes swam with compassion, Mina couldn’t find the answer to escape this nightmare, even while that whispering voice inside told her to be calm. That help was coming.
“Get on with it, priest.” Dominik squeezed her arm in a viselike grip. “And make it quick.”
…
Mikhail was on edge, crouching from the line of trees near the south-gate entrance while Vietka and her girls sauntered up the winding drive, cackling and carrying on like it was any other night. They had to be especially cautious with the sudden clearing of the night sky, making every movement visible from Izeling Tower. The tall brick wall that surrounded his estate was manned by guards. But their first target was the battlements. If they attacked the guards at the walls first, those on the battlements would send out the alarm. The best strategy was to get in covertly, then silence the men on the battlements.
Dane growled right behind him, his fire-gold eyes narrowed on the gate as a dozen Legionnaires loitered, obviously those who’d just come off duty, awaiting the women. He’d shifted back into human form, but his beast simmered on the surface.
The Emerald Lily Page 26