Scorned

by Tyffani Clark Kemp

  “My bad,” I said, daring a look at Roman. He was smiling, unshed mirth swimming in his eyes, but he was concerned too.

  “Adelina and Calliope will take you upstairs to change back into your clothes. Tate, please come with me.” Roman ushered the albino girl through the main door as Adelina and Calliope dipped into small curtsies before helping me to my feet and leading me from the room through a door hidden in the wallpaper.

  The door opened into the long hall. A stained-glass window was to my right at the end with the stairs to the left. As I stood there, appreciating the craftsmanship that went into making something so grand, the window exploded raining multi-colored shards of glass down on top of us. The three of us screamed as one and I threw up my arms to shield my face.

  The roar of a great beast filled the hall and I turned to see where it had come from. It didn’t sound like the jaguar and no man could have made a sound like that, but the only thing in the hall was Lucretious.

  “If I cannot get to you through her mind and body, then I will simply kill her body.” His voice came as a low, guttural growl punctuated by that accent that was so completely Roman’s. He began stalking towards me and the girls and I froze. There was nothing I could do to stop him. I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t fast enough, and I wasn’t smart enough to out think a millennial vampire.

  “You will do no such thing.” Roman appeared from the hidden door we’d just come through and put himself between the three of us and the man that would kill me.

  “How touching. You care for this girl. I’m sure your other women are overjoyed to know this.”

  “We would protect that which the master deems important,” Calliope said. They didn’t like me, but they would protect me. Honorable.

  “What abilities has the master given you to protect her with?”

  Calliope didn’t have an answer for this and I realized she didn’t have any abilities, because she and Adelina weren’t vampires. They would die trying to protect me for ‘the master’ even though they cared nothing for me.

  “Calliope, Adelina, take LeKrista to your room and do not come out until I tell you.”

  “Very well. I will fight you, old man. And then, when I have satisfied myself with your death and blood, I will go after LeKrista. I will take all of your women for my own and drink them dry.”

  That vicious roar sounded again and I scrambled to my feet with Adelina and Calliope following suit.

  “Silence beast!” Roman roared right back and he flung his hand, sending the half naked, roaring Lucretious back through the shattered window. Perdita appeared in the hall from the banquet room as Adelina and Calliope grabbed me by the arms and pulled me toward the stairs.

  “We must go,” Adelina said, never taking her eyes off the woman vampire. “Now. Hurry.”

  They pulled me to my feet and Perdita lunged. I screamed, throwing up my arms as if this would save me, but there was no impact. I expected my arms to be bent and broken at unnatural angles and my head to be crushed. I expected a lot of pain to come my way, but there wasn’t any. When I finally opened my eyes and looked there was a blur of black and blue moving through the hall. Roman had saved me again.

  “Come on,” Adelina whispered. “While she’s busy.”

  When we got into the bedroom they weren’t satisfied to simply close and lock the door. They pushed me into the closet and locked that door as well.

  Adelina made us sit against the back wall of the closet and left to turn out the lights. I didn’t see her when she came back, but I felt the air shift and swirl around her as she sat on the other side of me so I was sandwiched between them.

  “Is turning out the lights really going to help?” I asked unbelieving.

  “No,” Adelina confirmed, “but it can’t hurt.”

  That was true, and if the bad guy was going to eat me I would rather not have to see it coming.

  “No more talking,” Adelina demanded and we sat in silence.

  I heard the fight downstairs, people being thrown through walls and slammed into floors. I felt every vibration through the rafters and beams of the old house and wondered if we would fall through the floor. That alone would take care of me. I wouldn’t have to wait for that crazy thing to come get me, because I’d be dead as soon as I hit the ground.

  Hopefully. I didn’t want to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. But I didn’t want to die a virgin either.

  Decisions, decisions.

  The girls shifted on either side of me and stiffened. “What?” I whispered as quietly as I knew how. A hand clapped over my mouth and held for only a second.

  Point taken.

  Through the rumbling and the banging from downstairs, I heard something that sounded like a muffled cry from the other side of the wall behind me. I thumped Adelina with my elbow.

  Are there other women in this house?

  “You did not think that two of us were enough to slake his hunger for all time, did you?” she asked condemningly.

  “No, I guess not, but I hadn’t really thought about it either.” My tone was more harsh than I wanted.

  “Silence, please. We will be heard. They are vampires, remember?”

  How could I forget with the noises rising from below? A good hard tremor shook the entire house. The shoe tower threw most of its occupants to the floor. A few stiletto heels gouged at my arms and one caught me in the knee through the thick skirts of the dress. It still hurt, even with the padding.

  As things began to settle, I heard the latch on the door rattle and I stopped breathing.

  Please let it be Roman. Please let it be Roman. Please let it be Roman.

  I held my breath as the door swung open. Air swept into the room, cool against my exposed skin, and I drank it in. There was no way to tell who it was with the lights out, but I knew it wasn’t Roman. He would have given me some kind of sign to know I was safe.

  “I know you’re in there,” a sultry, female voice with an Italian accent crooned. “Not only can I smell you and your fear, but I can see you. I can feel your hearts beating so fast...” Her voice dropped away, but the last tones held a hunger so deep and infinite that I knew we were doomed. “I was promised a meal,” she continued, “for the inconvenience of coming here to meet you, so I think that you will just have to do.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. What are the right words when trying to reason with a vampire? So, I kept quiet. I’d lost the need to breathe somehow.

  I couldn’t see the vampire in the darkness, couldn’t see her advancing into the room, but I could feel her. Her presence pressed into the room with the weight of a freight train.

  “I can feel your fear, little human. I can taste it on my tongue. It fills my mouth and makes it water.” Perdita took a deep breath as if trying to pull me in through her nostrils, and then she fell quiet. She stalked slowly forward and I tried to press myself into the wall and disappear.

  She chuckled, low and seductive. “I am so hungry.”

  I could hear the hunger in her voice and there was no doubt she was going to kill me.

  Pierce will never know what happened to me.

  “I don’t suppose it would help to know that this wasn’t my idea?” I decided to try my hand at reasoning, but it had never been my strong suit.

  The vampire laughed, a rich, tinkling sound that filled the room to a volume and capacity of which it had no business. Her laughter shouldn’t have been cool and sweet like ice cream. It shouldn’t have been thick and enticing like honey. It shouldn’t have made me want to go to her and wrap myself in its velvety softness, but it did all of those things. The urge to go to her was so strong I actually stood to my feet. Only Adelina and Calliope’s grip on my ankles kept me from turning myself over.

  Within the next few seconds, two things happened. First, the lights in the room flared, momentarily blinding me, giving Perdita ample time to close the space between us and wrap her arms around me like a vice. Her arms cut into my ribs t
o the point that the last thing I expected to hear before I died was the snap of broken bones. I would have bruises on top of my bruises from the car accident if I lived. There was no getting away.

  Second, I screamed. I didn’t scream from fear or pain or the hopelessness of my situation. There was only one logical thing for me to do and that was to scream for help and only one word left my lips.

  “Roman!”

  The vampire hissed in my face, her breath warm and stale. She tightened her arms around me cutting off my air supply and the scream. “I really wish you hadn’t done that.” Her fangs were less than an inch from my face, her eyes a blazing blue. I couldn’t help but look into them. Our noses almost touched, and there was nowhere else to look.

  “Perdita mia.” Roman’s voice came like a soothing wind.

  “Stay out of this, Centurion.”

  “Perdita, my dear, you know I cannot let you have her. She is mine.”

  “She is no such thing and you know it.”

  “I have claimed her as my own, given her my protection.”

  “Like you gave to Vivian?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Fine. I will take one of these, then.”

  For the second time in less than half an hour, my body was lobbed toward Roman at such a speed that I knew I would be dead when I hit, but Roman knew better than that. He caught me and spun with my momentum. I slumped in his arms, all of the courage gone out of me, and he pulled me in against his chest, his arms wrapped around me, holding me close so I wouldn’t fall.

  On the other side of the room, Perdita had Adelina in her arms, rubbing her nose against the vein in the woman’s neck, smelling her flesh and blood and the beat of her heart. Adelina didn’t look afraid, but I didn’t know if I could stand there and watch her be fed from like some animal. Perdita opened her mouth, fangs bared, poised just over the large vein.

  I tried, I really did. I knew this was no business of mine to be getting involved, but I couldn’t live with the fact that Adelina as taking my place.

  “No.” The protest squeaked out before I could stop it. Perdita’s fangs stopped in mid-strike and she turned her fiery blue eyes on me.

  “You would take her place?” she hissed.

  “Yes.”

  “No. I won’t allow it.” Roman’s voice rumbled in his chest against my back. The look in Adelina’s eyes at his betrayal was too much. I looked away.

  “It is considered impolite to turn away, LeKrista,” Roman whispered in my head and I turned back as Perdita’s fangs sank into Adelina’s flesh. I forced my eyes to stay open as Perdita fed. Perdita stared into my eyes, driving home the reality of the situation. I was helpless to protect myself or anyone else against her.

  “She won’t kill her?” I asked. My voice had gone pitifully soft with fear and despair.

  “No, my dear. She will not kill her. Calliope, come here to me.”

  Calliope didn’t need to be told twice. She climbed to her feet and scrambled across the floor of the closet toward us, her feet getting tangled in her long skirt. As she passed, Calliope brushed my arm with her fingers. I think it was a touch of acceptance or trust. Either way, I knew she no longer disliked me.

  The floor to my left exploded and a body flew through the hole to cling to the ceiling.

  “Hello, father.” It was Lucretious. “What have we here? Three for the price of one? Do you mind if I join the party?”

  Perdita looked up with lust in her eyes. “Never, my love,” she answered and I was relieved to see that her mouth wasn’t coated in blood as I expected it to be. Instead, her brilliant white fangs shone in the light. “Please, join me for dinner.”

  “My pleasure.” Lucretious dropped behind Adelina and Perdita and helped prop her up by slipping an arm around her waist almost lovingly. He stroked the other side of Adelina’s neck before plunging his fangs in to feed.

  For a moment, watching the two of them watch me as they fed, I was both terrified and disgusted. Not disgusted in the “I think ima be sick” way, but disgusted with Roman. How could he let this happen? Then, I felt that connection to Lucretious pinch at the back of my mind and the taste of blood filled my mouth and I liked it. My anger toward Roman turned inward then pushed out to Lucretious, and I felt it like a living breathing thing. I stared into Lucretious eyes and I let my anger grow. I watched as he realized what was happening. The dark place rose up inside me and grew until it was sitting there in my throat, choking the life out of me, feeding off of me. I struggled in Roman’s arms, unable to keep still, and yet it grew.

  “It should have been me!” I screamed it in my head like I was going crazy. Roman heard it, Lucretious heard it, Perdita and Calliope were oblivious.

  “LeKrista?” Roman called my name, but I couldn’t answer. All I could do was let out the most anguished, angry, hateful scream I’d never known I had within me. I felt it. All the way down in my toes I felt it build until I couldn’t hold it in any longer and it ripped through me. I felt it tear at the tender flesh in my throat until no more sound came out and I tasted real blood this time.

  Everyone was looking at me. Good, because I wanted their attention. Calliope had disappeared. That was just as well. If I lost it, I didn’t want to take it out on her.

  Lucretious was looking at me strangely. I couldn’t place it. Perdita was staring, confused and afraid.

  Good!

  I wasn’t close enough.

  “Let me go,” I shouted at Roman so forcefully that he did exactly that before he thought about it. I ran as fast as I could, hoping to get there, before Roman realized his mistake. He got his arms back around me more quickly than I wanted, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight, and chances were, if I went down I was going all the way down.

  “Where did you find this one, Centurion? I think she’s a bit touched, yes?”

  Roman shrugged with me still struggling violently in his arms. “You found her, my child. I just followed you.”

  “Ugly bitch.” I whispered it, because I had no voice left, but Perdita heard anyway.

  “What did you just say?” I didn’t answer. “Why don’t you say it out loud, or are you too afraid.”

  I shook my head and let my hatred for her show in my eyes. “I’m not afraid of you, ya little parasite.”

  Perdita stepped closer to me and laughed. “I like her. I might just have to play with her before we kill her, Lucretious.”

  She was almost close enough. I grinned. “Why wait?” I whispered, and it hurt.

  Two more steps. All I needed was two more steps and she gave them to me, stepping a little closer. My grin broadened.

  “Die bitch,” I whispered, and using Roman’s solid weight as an anchor, I kicked out with my feet, sending the heels of both my stilettoes deep into the flawless vampire’s chest. The world froze around me. Lucretious looked from me to his love, skewered at the ends of my diamond-tipped stilettos. I kicked the shoes off and dropped my bare feet to the floor. Roman’s arms dropped to his sides and I could feel his surprise like a wave of cool air. It sent a shiver down my spine and goose bumps popped up on my arms.

  I don’t think Perdita was dead, due to her age and that I’d staked her with two diamond tipped heels and not wood or silver. She held a hand to her chest, the tips of her fingers barely touching the blood that trickled from the wound. When she looked up, the look on her face said she couldn’t believe she’d just been stabbed in the heart by stilettoes.

  I looked up at Lucretious, who seemed to be having trouble figuring out what had just happened. “You’re next, bastard!” I lunged, yanking the cross necklace over my head and slipping it around his neck before he could connect the dots. His screams started before he knew what I’d done. He didn’t burn from the cross out as I assumed. He didn’t even go up in flames or begin to smoke. I don’t know what happened to him, because as he screamed he pulled me down with him. I dropped to the floor in a lifeless heap as fiery pain consumed my body long befo
re I lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When I first woke up, I thought someone was on top of me. There was so much pain in my ribs and a pressure on my lungs and I could hardly breathe. I came awake with a vengeance, trying to fight off an unseen enemy before I realized how much it hurt to move and that there was no one on top of me. But it was too late. Something in my chest broke and I screamed.

  “LeKrista!” Roman shouted. “LeKrista I can try to heal you, but I’m afraid after what happened the last time...”

  “Do it!” I screamed and coughed, twisting on my side to catch my breath. Dark splotches landed on the sheets and I tasted that now familiar metallic taste of blood on my tongue. “Oh, god,” I gasped. “Roman!” He was there in an instant and his alarm matched my own.

  “Calliope, there’s internal bleeding. I’m going to have to do something. If it goes wrong-”

  “Wrong?” she asked, not understanding.

  Roman nodded, but didn’t take time to explain. “If it goes wrong, we may need to start her heart.”

  Calliope nodded and disappeared.

  “What happened?” I asked. “What did he do to me?”

  “He tried to kill you.”

  I looked into Roman’s eyes and I knew it was true. I had a moment of shock before a sharp pain stabbed me from the inside. I screamed again.

  “Hold on, LeKrista. Just hold on a few more seconds. She’ll be back with the-“

  ”Just do it!” I yelled and doubled up in pain. “One way or the other I’m dead!”

  “No, LeKrista. I won’t let you die.”

  There are some things that are just supposed to happen, Roman.

  I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t even mean to think it at him, but he caught it anyway.

  “There are those of us who can change things like that,” he said to me softly. He pressed his hands to my bare stomach and the fire began. It spread through my body until it hit my brain and I began to seize immediately, but I didn’t lose consciousness.