by Callie Rose
“Althea.” She glances at the brunette and makes a sharp summoning gesture.
The brunette vampire moves to her side, and for the first time, I see Althea as she really is. Not a petty, soft sex kitten, but a vicious, brutal predator. It’s in the way she moves, the anticipation in her eyes, the way she dismisses the whole room to focus solely on her prey. Nathan.
“Bring the tribute forward,” Lizbeth orders.
“No!” I shout. I don’t expect the vampires to care, but I need Nathan to. I need him to move. To fight.
My voice breaks whatever spell he’s been under, and he starts to resist, struggling against the vampires, flinging his head back and trying to break his captor’s nose. I fight too, more to pull manpower—vampire power—from his struggle than out of any real effort to escape. I know they won’t let me go, but if Nathan’s too much trouble, maybe they’ll focus on me.
I’m pinned in moments. Someone punches my head hard enough to screw up my equilibrium, and for a few seconds, there seem to be twice as many vampires in the room.
“Make her watch,” Lizbeth’s voice cuts through the fog in my head, her icy tone freezing me from the inside out.
Two vamps drag me back to my feet, and I see with a pang of disappointment that it was all for nothing. They have Nathan on his knees in front of the big table, his arms held uselessly behind him, his head tilted back. Althea stands before him, her expression solemn and pleased, though her eyes blaze with hunger. Lizbeth stands behind and between them, holding the chalice.
Nathan is struggling for his life, making his captors curse and growl with the effort to keep him still. Lizbeth raises the chalice, then frowns and lowers it again. She casts an apologetic smile around, then focuses her attention on me.
“There’s a verse that usually accompanies this,” she says as if she’s gossiping to a girlfriend. “But it isn’t necessary. Hold him still.”
That last part is an order to the vampire guards, who have been trying to do just that. Two more join their efforts, and between the four of them, they get Nathan into place. He clenches his jaw, sealing his lips closed, glaring defiantly up at Lizbeth. I’ve never been prouder of him.
But his defiance isn’t enough to stop what’s coming. In a move almost too quick for me to see, she seizes his face in her hands and forces his mouth open.
“Tribute—by the magic of the Cruor Chalice and the traditions of the Vampire Court, I hereby bind you to Althea Antoinette Andreanakis, your mistress and one love from this moment until your last mortal breath.”
As she speaks, Lizbeth pours the liquid into his mouth. He’s fighting, not swallowing, but nothing splashes out of his mouth. She empties the chalice into him, every last drop. I can see it moving down his throat even though he’s doing nothing to help it along.
When the chalice is empty, Lizbeth steps back. Althea takes her place and kneels in front of Nathan, a posture that would almost seem lovingly submissive if it weren’t for the killer gleam in her eye. She bares her teeth, tilting her head dramatically back, then sinks her fangs into him.
She isn’t gentle. Not even close. She gnaws on him, letting blood spill messily down his neck to his shoulder, making disgusting animal grunts the whole time.
I can’t breathe. My chest has locked up so tight that my lungs will no longer accept air. I don’t even know if my heart is beating.
Nathan isn’t fighting anymore. There’s a blissful haze over his features, and all the fight is gone from his eyes.
She has him.
She’s won.
Now there’s no one to stop her from killing him or torturing him as she pleases. I expect her to do it here and now, right in front of me, but she doesn’t. Instead, she closes him up—though not with the same care or compassion that I’ve felt and seen from others, just a swipe of her tongue—then leans away from him.
“Who do you serve, Nathan?”
“Althea,” he breathes.
My blood runs like ice. I’ve heard him sound like that before, when he’s in the middle of a bad spell and he finally gets his hands on a fix.
“Who do you love?” Althea asks, narrowing her eyes at me before shooting a hostile glance at the doorway. Maureen must still be watching.
“Only Althea,” Nathan murmurs. “Althea, my mistress.”
She grins. “Good boy,” she purrs, patting him on the head. “Come along now, there’s nothing interesting left to do—in here.”
With blood still coating her lips and chin, she gives him a hooded look that sends shivers down my spine. I squeeze my eyes shut against the unwelcome imagery of what she could do to him in private, but open them again as she starts to drag him from the room. He’s not even looking at me, too focused on his new mistress, but I force myself to watch him go. To witness the full brunt of my failure.
Once Nathan and Althea are gone, the atmosphere of the entire room seems to shift as, one by one, all eyes turn to me. Now I’m the center of attention, and it makes my blood feel like ice water.
“A hunter,” the old man growls between his teeth, leaning toward me. “The same punishment cannot be meted out to her. Hunters cannot be permitted to live.”
Lizbeth nods grimly. “On this we agree, Tyresius.”
The rest of the Elders at the table, the ones who haven’t yet spoken, voice their own agreements. It’s unanimous—except for Bastian, who still hasn’t said a word.
I search for his eyes, and he finally allows me to see them, meeting my gaze. His face is hard. Impassive. That’s all it takes for me to realize he won’t go against the Elders in this. Even if he could, he wouldn’t. I can see the pain in his eyes, the resolve in his spine when his gaze brushes over my weapons.
His parents were slaughtered in front of him by the likes of me. I wonder if the weapons they used were the same.
I breathe, calling on my hunter zen. I’m not planning to hunt, but I’ve seen enough death to know that I don’t want to die panicking. I straighten, battered and bruised, and meet Bastian’s gaze defiantly. The least I can do is make sure this memory sticks with him for the next couple hundred years.
“Did you not hear, tribute?” Tyresius demands. “You are to be put to death for your crimes.”
“To me and mine, I have committed no crimes,” I shoot back, letting the truth of it ring through my voice. “I took my life in my hands the moment I chose to defend humanity from the likes of you.”
He snarls at me and makes a sharp gesture in the air. Vampires move in from all sides, jockeying for position around me. My stomach drops as I realize they’re going to tear me apart. I’ve seen the aftermath of that, once. There wasn’t much left but a zipper, some hair, and a couple fingernails. Everything else had either been eaten or torn small and spread thin. The gore covered an alley from one end of the block to the other, up both sides to the rooftops. A rat ran over my foot with an eyeball in its mouth.
Bile rises in my throat at the memory, but I swallow it down and keep my eyes steady on Bastian’s.
The feral, animalistic growls all around me grow louder as the vamps creep closer. They’re breathing on me, licking my skin at my pulse, teasing me. They want me broken with terror before they get rid of me. They won’t get the satisfaction. I swear to god, they won’t.
“What? No begging? No remorse?” Lizbeth sounds offended.
At some unseen signal, the vampires fall back half a step. I turn my gaze from Bastian to the too-young looking vampire and smile at her. She doesn’t like that, which makes me smile wider.
“Beg? For what? A chance to be somebody’s helpless pet?” I spit the last word, and she wrinkles her nose. I won’t even bother addressing her “remorse” comment. I have nothing to feel guilty about except my failure to protect Nathan.
Lizbeth’s gaze darts from my face to the faces of the tributes standing unobtrusively against one wall, and then to the vampires gathered around me. I can feel their fierce attention, their hunger, held back only by the command of the vamp
ire court stationed at the table.
She scowls and raises her hand. She’s going to signal them to attack. Bastian won’t stop them, I know he won’t. I don’t see Rome or Connor in the crowd, and I can’t decide if I’m glad or sad about that. I think it might break my heart to see them turn their backs on me too.
“Stop,” Tyresius says suddenly.
I blink at the ancient looking vampire, shocked out of my fear for a moment. Lizbeth turns to face him, looking as surprised as I feel.
“I beg your pardon?” she hisses.
“I don’t like beggars.” Tyresius scowls at me. “But I prefer them to martyrs.”
He nods toward the tributes in the audience, then shakes his head. I follow his gaze, my heart constricting. Fuck, I didn’t realize any humans had entered the room. It’s definitely not all of the tributes, just some, and they’re cowering in a tight group watching everything play out before them. I don’t see Jessica, thank fuck, but I do see Winona. She’s white as a damn sheet.
“So? What do you suggest?” one of the other Elders asks.
Tyresius is quiet for a long moment, then he smiles. It’s not a pleasant smile.
“The hunter will become the hunted,” he says softly, like he’s quoting from somewhere. “There is only one fate worse than death for a vampire hunter, and that is to become the thing they hunt. If we turn her, she will be forced to become the thing she despises. What she won’t do is become a figurehead for the slaves, a martyr for them to rally around.”
“We don’t call them slaves anymore,” the man beside Tyresius murmurs to him.
“Perhaps that’s the problem,” Tyresius grumbles. “No sense of propriety anymore. I won’t argue any longer. Turn her.”
“No!” A harsh, panicked voice rises up from the back of the room, and I whip my head around in time to see Connor run into the council chambers.
My heart feels like it might collapse in on itself as joy and anguish mix within me at the sight of him. Connor. Sweet, sweet, too-human Connor.
“That’s not fair.” He shakes his head, his face stricken. “You can't do that to her!”
“Silence!” Tyresius barks.
It’s not a request, it’s an order—one that’s carried out by the guards who pull Connor back through the crowd and out of my sight, muffling his cries for justice as they drag him from the room. The fact that he still believes in justice in these vampire-infested halls hurts my heart, and I swallow hard.
He stood up for me, even though he must know by now that I’m a vampire hunter. Even though I betrayed him too, he tried to help me. But he failed, and as I’m dragged toward the Elders’ table, I pray to god they won’t kill him for trying.
I don’t think Rome is even here. Maybe he snuck off somewhere deep into the palace to be alone after he left my room. He probably won’t even hear about this until it’s already too late.
Until it’s done.
True panic builds inside me like a fucking tidal wave as I fight against the vampires holding me. I was ready for the death. I made my peace with my mortality a very long time ago. But I won’t be made a vampire. I won’t. To live on the blood of humans, to become everything I despise in the world…
No. I won’t let them.
“Get your hands off me!” I growl, kicking out with my shackled feet and flailing with my head. I knock a few of my captors off-balance, but they compensate too quickly. More vampire guards join the ones holding my arms. It takes five of them to carry me to the table. I would be smug about that if there was room for anything in my head except panic and despair.
They slam me onto the table and jerk my head to one side. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Bastian.
He’s looking away, gazing out over the crowd that has gathered, his eyes fixed on a spot on the far wall. Tyresius the ancient grins down at me, his eyes taking on a predatory glow. He slaps one cold, bony hand over my temple and presses the other into my collar bone hard enough to break it. I hear it pop and feel it give, but panic overrides the burst of pain.
His teeth sink into me. I barely feel them, sharp as they are. I barely feel anything.
Apparently dissatisfied with that, Tyresius shakes his head like a dog, ripping the veins and muscles in my neck until I cry out in pain and terror. He caught my jugular. I can feel the blood spurt out with every rapid beat of my heart, faster than he can swallow it. It spreads, warm and distant, under my head.
My face is cold.
My eyes won’t focus.
I’m pretty sure I lost my feet somewhere, and I can’t remember the last time I had them with me.
My brain is trying to find me. The room spins, first this way, then that. I want to grab hold of something, but my fingers have gone missing too.
There’s a heavy black smell between my nose and my head, and it’s spreading, spreading, taking me with it into the dark. I don’t feel anything anymore, not even panic, not even my own heartbeat.
The last murmurs of sound fade from my ears, and I drift. I should be afraid, but I don’t remember how to be.
And then…
There’s an unexpected something in the dark, a bitter flavor, stale and cold—the way a thirty-year-old refrigerator smells in the middle of summer, but in a thick syrup that slides over my tongue. I can feel my tongue. I swallow to get the taste out, and sensation returns from my throat to my belly.
I wish it hadn’t. I feel like I swallowed a car. My throat burns. I swallow again, not realizing until too late that my mouth is full of something other than spit.
The flavor changes. The old refrigerator smell dissolves into something hotter, more metallic. A desperate thirst presses hard against my chest, and I drink deeply, desperate to quench the fire, but it only serves to spread it.
I have fingers. They’re wrapped tightly around something that feels like paper-wrapped steak. My toes are back too, and there’s a drumming in my head, slow and steady and utterly maddening.
Thud, thud-thud, thud, thud-thud.
A heartbeat.
I can’t tell if it’s mine.
My eyes fly open to meet Tyresius’s. His open wrist is in my mouth, filling me with his toxic blood. I break away, coughing and sputtering, trying to throw up. My throat hurts, my neck hurts, my belly hurts, and that godforsaken throbbing in my head just won’t stop.
Tyresius fades away out of sight, but not before I catch the smug grin on his face.
I don’t have time to be upset about what just happened. There’s no room for emotions left in my body. There’s only room for pain.
The fire in my belly is spreading, consuming me cell by cell. If the pain came in waves, maybe I could deal with that, but it doesn’t. It’s slow, constant, and building. I can’t see through the tears, and I can’t hear over the sound of my own screams, but I can tell when I’m picked up and moved.
Every touch is agony.
Every jostling step makes me wish for death.
I’ve never been more relieved to be dumped on a cold, damp cement floor before. A heavy door locks behind me, and then I’m alone—just me and the endless, ceaseless pain.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I don’t know how much time passes.
The change sweeps through me like cold hunger, like a feverish glacier. Sweat freezes on my skin only to melt away again as a fresh wave consumes me. I hear things, but the sounds are all either indistinct or too sharp, and I can’t make sense of any of them.
I smell food.
No, not food—people.
No, water.
Or steak.
It all seems to be one scent, but I don’t know what it means anymore. Then my own sweaty stench overwhelms everything else and I’m alone again, deaf, blind, and helpless, isolated in my pain.
I’ve heard that childbirth and broken femurs are the most painful things humans can experience, because everything worse kills the nerve endings or the person before the brain can register anything else. I’ve never given birth, but I broke my fem
ur once getting thrown from a horse.
It hurt, but it was nothing compared to this.
The walls seem to expand and then close in, pulsing in time to my agony. They’re plain, earth-stained stone walls, black from three feet up to the floor. Sometimes the black part smells like blood and pain and terror. Sometimes it smells like shit.
Right now, all I can smell is a man—a clean man.
Part of me recognizes him, but not the part that’s on speaking terms with my brain at the moment.
He’s coming closer, and I have the sudden urge to find a long wooden stick. A sharp one. Fury explodes in my head that I can’t find a stick and couldn’t move to look for one even if I wanted to. The anger is followed by a wave of confused frustration as my free-wheeling mind struggles to latch on to anything that makes sense.
What do I need a stick for? Why am I even here?
The wall in front of me moves, but this is different than the strange pulsing movements I’m used to. After a few seconds, my addled mind pieces together that it’s not the wall that’s moving. It’s the door, and it’s opening.
Blinking hard, I force the small room I’m locked in to come into better focus. One of the walls, the one with the door in it, is made of thick metal bars. The other three are stone. I’m sprawled out on the floor, and from this vantage point, I can see two feet approaching me.
Someone is here to see me. But why?
What else could the vampires possibly do to me?
I struggle to stand up, but the room tilts before I even reach my knees. I pitch sideways, landing hard on one hip.
Bracing my upper body on my hands, I press against a floor that seems to want to run from my touch. I suck in a few deep breaths, wondering why the person who opened the door hasn’t said anything yet. I can smell him, but like everything else, the scent doesn’t make any sense to me at first. It isn’t until I raise my eyes to look at him that it all clicks into place.