“You are strong.”
“We are still recovering, brother.”
“The chains…”
“She broke them, she could return them.”
“Her twin has so far failed.”
My body jostled in Kaleth’s arms, the handkerchief pressed against the wound in my throat. “Her twin,” Kaleth said as he lifted me off the ground, “is an abomination. A creature that should not exist. Once Terrin has control of this one, the monster’s death will be swift.”
“You mean to honour our prince?” The fairy sounded disappointed.
“I mean to honour our family.”
“By giving up the opportunity to make us great again.”
Kaleth shook his head as he started walking. “You never could see the bigger picture, Andolain. There will be retaliation for this. War is upon us. The Dökkálfa amass their Hyrða armies. Their Earthbound alliances are strong. Soon Álfheimr will be defiled with the presence of the Iunctio. Vampyre will walk our lands.”
He stopped; the sensation of the cave’s ward blistering against my skin. Just there. One more step and I’d be free of it. One more step and I could call on my Light and blast these fairy fuckers to Kingdom Come.
Or Odin’s Landing. Try getting out of there, arseholes.
“Who do you think they will target, brother?” Kaleth asked.
Andolain smiled. It was stunning. I lifted a heavy hand, so eager to touch such magnificence. The fairy sneered at me. Then reached forward, muttered a few words in Fey, and wrapped a silver bracelet around my arm.
“Wise, as always, Kaleth,” Andolain murmured and crossed over the cave’s ward.
“I thought you’d agree, brother,” Kaleth said, following.
The ward snapped. Lights sparked. The ribbons inside twisted.
But when I reached for my Light, I found only shadows. And pain. So much pain that I cried out.
“Our time will come,” Kaleth said, throwing me over his shoulder, making the waves of agony threaten to explode inside my head.
“Our time will come,” Andolain agreed, reaching over to me and stroking a finger down my tear streaked cheek.
He lifted it to his lips, tongue flicking out like a lizard to lick it. Closing his eyes, he moaned loud and long. Then divine green stared down at me; a smile so dreadful and alluring I felt truly lost, and he said, “Even her tears are enchanted.”
14
Making My Scream Shatter Glass
“Hayatim, wake up.”
I’d had this dream before. It involved thousand thread count sheets, a soft, salty breeze, and the scent of Mediterranean spices. Not to mention hard limbs and fast fingers and heat that threatened to ignite me.
“Hayatim, wake up.”
“In a minute,” I slurred.
“Wake up!”
My eyes flicked open at the command. At the Sanguis Vitam that swatted me. Sensation and awareness slowly returned. The silk of the pillow beneath my cheek. The rich scent of roses. The metallic taint of blood. The ozone rich freshness of Fey air.
The lingering pain in my head.
My hand landed on the silver bracelet, the intricate pattern etched into the metal sliding beneath my fingertips. I pulled the flowing sleeve of the blouse I wore up my arm and stared at the colours of my Sigillum.
Peach. Such an unusual shade of colour. Such a sweet tasting fruit. Such an innocent evocation. Peach on my Sigillum, however, meant violation. Such a foul emotion represented by such a pretty colour.
I hated peach.
I pushed myself upright, the room momentarily spinning and looked down at the garment I wore. White and gauzy, tiny butterflies and daisies were embroidered in gold in strategic places over the fine material. Just as well, because I was nude underneath. The blouse reached my knees easily, my skin as bare as the day I was born beneath.
I huffed out a breath of air, aware my stakes and swords had been confiscated and then lifted my eyes to scan the room.
It took a split second to know I was not alone. But why the Ljósálfar had placed me here evaded for much longer.
“Are you well, hayatim?” Hakan asked, his voice low and melodic. Touching me in places he hadn’t yet had the chance to do so in reality.
I leant into that touch.
But my escalated breathing was not for the Mhachkay’s magical intonation. But more for the fact that he hung suspended in chains along one wall.
His body was covered in cuts and bruises. Blood had dried, but not before much of it had pooled on the floor in a sludgy dark puddle. His once tanned skin was almost white. His lush lips pressed into a thin line, blue colouring them most cruelly. His ribs stood out where only muscle had once been. His hair, such a glorious black, hung limply around hollow cheeks. Silver and ice-blue stared back at me.
“You can touch your Sanguis Vitam,” I said, knowing escape would not be that easy.
He had wasted away and was depleted of physical strength. Even a vampire’s blood life force couldn’t combat that if he was low on life-giving blood itself.
“The first time in weeks.”
He’d been here weeks, then. Which meant so had my brother. A whimper threatened to spill out between my clenched teeth.
“Silver chains?” I asked.
“Earth silver.” Not Fey silver, which could enchant humans as much as my supposed blood could enchant the Fey. I looked down at the silver bracelet circling my wrist.
“Yes,” Hakan said. “It is charmed. You are cut off from your Light.”
“But you have your Sanguis Vitam. Break the chains.”
Hakan smiled. He had a tooth missing. For some reason, that affected me more than the bruises or cuts. It was frighteningly close to his incisor. They’d almost defanged him. Possibly a threat and proof to their prisoner that they could.
“They play a cruel game, hayatim. I can reach it. I can use it. I can even strengthen it if I feed. But should I break my silver chains, they will break your precious neck.”
They’d returned his Sanguis Vitam to him when I’d arrived in Ljósálfar, at a guess. To be so close to freedom and have it denied you in such a fashion. I couldn’t imagine the anger he was containing.
“And I’m here,” I said, “because they want me to know we are trapped even when we have access to power.”
Trapped or not, he needed strengthening. I didn’t even pause.
Standing up, I walked toward the Mhachkay, his nostrils flared, the ice-blue of his eyes melted into almost pure silver. I rested my hand against his cheek, stroked across his whiskered beard, then pressed my wrist to his teeth.
Cyan and silver met my eyes, his lips peeled back in vampire threat. I didn't feel scared. I couldn’t be scared of Hakan. And it had nothing to do with the fact that he was currently beaten to a pulp and chained up against the wall.
His fangs elongated; the relief that they still worked was astounding. And then his teeth slipped into my wrist, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
Several long seconds later, his skin returning to the darkened hue I loved so much, his eyes snapped open, and his teeth retracted. Such strength to pull back when so on edge. Such a showing of controlled power.
The Fey watched from the shadows. So, he was putting on an act. Although I wasn’t entirely sure the control was fabricated. There was much more to the Mhachkay Prince than I was aware. I held Hakan’s steady gaze, playing along while he licked the wound in my wrist closed.
“Teşekkür ederim,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
I nodded my head and stepped back.
“Where’s my brother?” I said.
Shadows darkened Hakan’s eyes before he said, “He is nearby.” So much left unsaid in his level statement. If Hakan had been treated like this, then what had they done to Luc, the monster, the abomination that should not exist in their eyes?
“They plan to kill him,” I managed to say without showing emotion.
Hakan watched with a softness to his gaze that seemed i
ncongruous with the Mhachkay I thought I knew.
“Yes. But not without an audience.”
“I’m to be the audience,” I guessed.
“Perhaps. Who did you bring with you, hayatim?”
I let out a slow breath of air. I prayed to our goddess that they were still at large. But chances would be a fine thing. Ediz was dispensable, I thought. Although his death would wound Hakan and could prove a valuable tool in cowering the powerful vampire. Georgia was the Dökkálfa King’s Hundr; her head would be sent back as a warning. The Hyrða a mere guard; his fate was sealed. And Alain, the Champion’s Second. I felt sick to the stomach.
“Too many people,” I said.
“To be expected,” Hakan murmured.
I glared at him and snapped, “Stop being nice. I fucked up.”
“Yes, you did,” he replied without inflection. “And here we are.”
I let out a pent up breath of air. “Ediz was with me,” I offered quietly. “Alain Dupont, Georgia Deverell, and a Hyrða guard.”
Silence was my only answer.
“How did you get caught?” I asked, wanting the spotlight to be on his failures and off mine. I would have cringed at the cowardice, but Hakan was already speaking again.
“It took them almost two weeks.” I shook my head. Less than a week had passed on Earth. “They caught your brother immediately. In his current state, he is not aware of the threats.”
“You’ve seen him?” I asked eagerly.
Hakan’s face stilled, his body regenerating at vampire healing speed, the silver of the chains the only battle to full recovery. My blood was, after all, enchanted.
But the look on his face had nothing to do with his body’s fight for survival. And everything to do with my brother.
“I have seen him,” he said, his voice a thousand Kilij’s striking.
I didn't need to ask to know it was bad. But part of me wanted to anyway. Some vain hope my instincts were faulty, I supposed. Lucien was a kind soul. A gentle being. He didn’t deserve harm.
“He is Dark, hayatim,” Hakan whispered. “He is no longer the Lucien you love.”
Reading my mind again? Or reading the emotions too freely shown on my face? I had to do better than this.
“I will love him regardless,” I said, beginning to turn away.
Hakan nodded. The chains shifted, rattling throughout the room. A chill washed down my spine stilling me.
“They will take you to him,” Hakan said. “You must prepare for what you will see.”
“And then what?” I asked, feeling lost and alone and so out of my depth it was crushing.
“Then you stand tall. You show no fear. You are a Durand.”
“I thought you hated my father,” I murmured.
Hakan laughed. It was subdued, but even then it was stunning.
“It is not your father I hate, Ellie. It is the vampyre as a whole who have harmed my kind.”
There was a story there. A good one. Involving battles fought when an Ottoman ruled an empire. I wanted so much to have the time to ask Hakan questions. To ease my curiosity.
But the door to the room unlocked with an ominous click and a fairy walked in surrounded by guards in thick armour.
“The Enchanted,” Prince Terrin announced. “Such an honour.”
I was Nosferatin spinning across the room before I could stop myself. Hakan strained against his chains, the links stretching, the sound of them rattling accompanying the collective gasps on the air. Silver glinted. My hands became claws.
My body connected with the ruler of Ljósálfar.
And his Light engulfed me. Making my scream shatter glass.
15
Choose Well
“Not your best move,” the ribbons told me.
Shut up.
“Entertaining but not wise.”
Shut up!
“It’s brought you time,” they said inside my head. “But time for what?”
Oh, for the love of the goddess, shut up.
“Your vampire bleeds. Your brother dies slowly. Your companions are being rounded up.”
Fucking hell, what was with internal monologues? Sentient fucking ribbons from hell inside my stomach.
“Wake up.” Not Hakan’s voice. “Wake up!” Not Luc’s either. “Wake the fuck up, now!” Not Georgia’s or Alain’s or Ediz's or Goran’s.
Not even the ribbons’ either.
My eyes flicked open and stared into the too vivid green of Prince Terrin’s.
“Oh, there you are. We can begin.”
The room coalesced, and all I could see were Ljósálfar. Sneering, grinning, licking their lips with too long, flickering tongues. I spotted Kaleth and Andolain in amongst them. Their eyes watching steadily, their hunger banked, an anticipatory gleam to their smiles.
Oh, fuck.
My gaze landed back on the Prince. He sneered. Even that was pretty. He was completely unglamoured, too. Making my eyes weep tears and my heart beat too swiftly. I took a step toward him, my mind screaming at me to run, to hide. My heart lurched painfully when my progress was halted. I looked down at my wrists, noting the silver cuff that contained them, bound by a chain which was bolted to the marble floor.
From my quick assessment, it was strong, and slap bang in the centre of the throne room.
The Fey laughed at my confused expression, at my pitiful attempts to tug the chain free. Delicate chiming bells rang out inside my head, growing louder and sharper and slicing through my inner ear. Blood began to trickle down my neck, sounds distorted, but for that haunting Fey chime. Prince Terrin lifted a hand, and the chiming stopped.
I gulped in air as if I hadn’t been breathing. And for all I know, I probably had been holding my breath.
Terrin tilted his head to the side, like a bird watching a worm wriggle on the ground. Aliath sometimes did that, but he’d spent too long in our realm to have that strange and disquieting tick much anymore. The reminder that the Ljósálfar were a foreign species, as far removed from humanity as you can get, was not entirely welcome.
But my mother’s words of wisdom ran through my bruised and battered head. Never show fear. Never give an inch. Always stay on guard.
I couldn’t break the chains. I couldn’t reach my Light. But I lifted my chin and glared at the fairies around me, flashing blunt teeth as if they were scythes.
The Fey parted. As if choreographed by Terrin himself. Down one end of the very long hall hung Hakan. More bruises across his broad chest. More slices into once again pale flesh. More blood, this time having fallen from his mouth. His head hung limp, his shoulders stretched as his manacled arms held his weight aloft. If he was conscious, he was playing dead.
I checked his chest; it rose and fell softly. But no other movement indicated life.
I turned slowly, somehow already knowing what I would find. This was a stage, and I was the star. My reaction the final act.
I willed myself to be strong. To show no emotion. But the billowing blouse I wore had been rolled up my arm, displaying my Sigillum. I could only assume the fairies here knew what the colours meant.
My gaze landed on a twisted figure. It wasn’t chained up against the wall, but it did have a collar around its filthy neck, attached to a ring in the floor. Matted hair hung over its face, hiding its features. Dirt smeared its naked body. Blood coated its sunken chest. Hip bones stood out. No material offered modesty.
It was male.
I knew it was Luc. Even though I didn't recognise him. I knew it was my twin brother, but because he looked so alien to me, I held onto the small part of my brain which refused to acknowledge what it what seeing.
I turned toward the Prince.
“You have been busy,” I said. A small tittering of laughter resounded around the room.
I was going to kill them.
Hakan’s chains rattled at the sound of my words. His head lifting up; the movement laboured. Ice-blue and silver met my gaze. Rage simmered in the depths of his eyes.
<
br /> I kept the Prince in my peripheral vision, my eyes meeting Hakan’s and offering what little strength I could. His head nodded slightly, as if in thanks.
As if he thanked me for simply being here and holding his gaze for a few seconds.
I felt so impotent. I felt so much rage. My Sigillum swirled a mix of colours: scarlet and lime and cobalt and crimson. So vibrant. So vivid. It challenged the brightness of the Prince’s green gaze.
“It has been an entertaining two weeks,” Prince Terrin said, slowly walking toward me. “Your brother wandered into our lands uninvited. Demanded we share our Light with him. An honour we save for our mœðr. For those we consider elska. Not for an… abomination.”
“He is not an abomination,” I growled.
“Of course,” he went on, ignoring my interruption, “the sharing of Light was only part of his transgression. The fact he thought he could demand was entirely unacceptable, as well. For that, he was beaten. Beaten until he could not talk back.”
Luc never talked back. If he did say anything, it was always in a way that lowered his opponent’s guard. He’d tease, sure, but he’d also flirt. Hell, Luc could flirt with the Ambrosia if he thought the old vampire needed a laugh.
Luc was a lover, not a fighter. He had a string of women who followed him everywhere. And he never once mistreated any of them. Every woman, he’d often said, has a beauty within that must be worshipped. I make sure I worship every single one.
Fun loving, carefree, impish, that was Luc.
But what had Hakan said? “He is no longer the Lucien you love.”
I refused to believe that.
“For the crime of suggesting he share our Light,” the Prince went on, “he was.. disabused of that notion.”
Disabused? How?
“What did you do?” I demanded. To hell with asking questions of a fairy. Debt? Fuck any debt I incurred. He could kiss my enchanted arse.
Blood Entwined (Blood Enchanted, Book 2): A Vampire Hunter Paranormal Romance Series Page 8