Inches from her face, I whispered, “I told you once, Lucrezzzia, to be wary of the powersss you chassse.”
She stared at me uncertainly, in a lack of recollection and recognition.
I drew back, still pinning her with my body so that she could not get a leg up between us to kick me off or cause me harm.
Against a Dracule, she couldn’t fight me off. I changed before her and felt the cruel smile that spread across my lips.
Lucrezia’s eyes flew open even wider and this time, she began to struggle. “You wretched little whore!” she spat.
“Ah, ah, ah,” I pushed against her and slid my mouth across her cheek. I nipped her skin, letting her feel the threat of my upper and lowers fangs. “He promised her to you, did he?” I asked. “You’ll never have her, Lucrezia. No matter how many bodies you find to call home, you will never, ever touch a hair on her head.”
She glowered at me, her eyes burning with the same mad power I had seen so many times at court. The same power I had seen her turn against Renata before Renata had killed her. The same power she had used on Dante and broken him with.
A growl built in my chest and beat against my ribcage. “I will take great pleasure in this.” In the space of a heartbeat, I released her right wrist and flexed my hand, driving my nails into the yielding flesh of her stomach.
Never, never in my life had I found pleasure in causing another pain. Never had I understood cruelty or the sweet rush of violence, the taste of vengeance. I had spent a great deal of my existence trying to avoid such things, trying simply to survive the cruelty and violent greed of others. In that instant, I relished her agony and screams.
She tried to fight me and I thrust my arm forward, pushing my fingers more deeply inside her. The meaty brush of her organs caressed my knuckles, the intimate glide of blood like a woman’s desire on my skin. I twisted my arm and pressed it higher, another scream, and another. Lucrezia’s body writhed helplessly, her eyes rolling back into her head as if she would faint. I felt her beating heart, the meat thumping rapidly against my hand. I curled my fingers around it and pulled. Veins and other things ripped and popped, fraying and tearing as she screamed so loud I feared my ears would burst with the sound.
I drew her heart out of her chest and stepped back as she fell to her knees.
Lucrezia’s hands rose to clutch at the wound. Her mouth opened as she gasped for air, as her body struggled to survive without its most vital organ.
Though I had pulled her heart free of her chest, the blood-slicked gob continued to beat in my hand. I went to Vasco and my queen and held Lucrezia’s heart up between us, ignoring the startled expression he wore.
“Wake her, Vasco. Wake her with the blood of Lucrezia’s heart.” Obligingly, he took the heart from me and I turned back to Lucrezia.
Cuinn sat some feet away from Lucrezia’s feebly struggling form. “You want me to gnaw off her head?” he asked, craning his neck and glaring at her. I hadn’t known the Fata had a taste for blood, but I had a feeling he’d enjoy chewing her head off.
“No,” I said. “No, I have better plans for her, but I will need your assistance.”
“Gladly, lass.”
I grabbed a handful of Lucrezia’s hair and jerked her away from the wall. She raised her hands in protest, but the blood and organ loss had made her too weak to defend herself.
I dragged her up the stairs and into the center of the room between the prison cells. I released the clutch of her hair, letting her head fall to the stone floor.
“Open them, Cuinn.”
One by one, he forced the barred doors open with his magic. The vampires gazed at me uncertainly, their hunger warring with their fear, as if they thought it was some sort of trap.
“Come, my lovelies.” I gestured to Lucrezia at my feet. She shook her head from side to side, her eyes pleading with me not to do what I was about to do. I held her gaze and said coldly, “Your dinner awaits you.”
I turned my back and heard the clink-clink of the vampires’ shackles as they emerged from the cells. Lucrezia somehow found breath to scream when they fell on her. I glanced back to see the mob of starved vampires moving like one beast on top of her.
One of the vampires, the female with straw-like hair, shuffled forward on her knees. When she knelt a few feet away from me, she bowed her head.
I nodded at Cuinn, who moved cautiously behind her and broke the hold of her shackles.
“What will you when this is done?” she asked me, blood smeared in a half-mask across her lips and chin.
“Take her head,” I said whilst the others continued to feed in a frenzy to break their long fast.
The girl smiled fiercely before tilting her head in another measure of respect. “It will be done, Great Siren.”
I watched as she rose to her feet and peeled the vampires off Lucrezia to gain hold of her head. The vampires didn’t fight her; they simply shifted and moved like a pride of lions on a carcass and found another place to feed. One of them licked the blood from the stone floor and another raised her head, her nostrils flaring animalistically as she began to crawl toward the fallen Dracule. She dragged the Dracule’s body into the cell, leaving a trail of blood behind as she offered the blood left in his body to those in the cell too weak to stand.
The straw-haired woman twisted her arms and I heard the sick crack of Lucrezia’s spine as she ripped her head from her body.
I descended the steps to find Renata stirring in Vasco’s arms. He sat on the floor with her upper body cradled in his lap. Her lashes fluttered open as she reached up to grab a handful of his shirt.
“Epiphany,” she whispered my name and I sank to my knees beside them.
“I’m here,” I said, touching a lock of her wavy hair with bloody fingers. “I’m here, my queen.”
I took the heart from Vasco and asked Cuinn, “Can you do something with this?”
“Aye, I can.”
I set the heart in front of him. Renata’s hand curled around my arm and Vasco and I helped her to her feet.
Cuinn’s eyes narrowed and a plume of smoke rose from Lucrezia’s heart. A small flame ignited before it consumed and scorched the heart, leaving nothing but ashes behind. The smell of cooked meat permeated my senses.
It was done.
Renata took my hand in hers and turned me to her. She placed her palm flat against my cheek and I nuzzled my face against her skin.
“It seems you’ve much to tell me, cara mia.” Her thumb grazed my lower lip as she drew it down to glimpse my fangs.
“Yes, yes, I do.”
“We need to retreat.” Iliaria stumbled down the steps, and fear lodged into my throat at the way she limped. I went to her, helping her down the last set of stairs. “Queen Helamina and Augusten have announced a retreat. We have to go,” she said, “now.”
“Can you travel?” I asked. “How badly are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she said, though she winced as if something pained her. Anatharic was suddenly by her side, helping me to hold her upright.
“We can travel, but not far,” he said. “Iliaria,” it was the first time I had ever heard him use her name, “Printessa, we must go to your mother.”
Iliaria looked as though she was about to argue when Morina and Emilio descended the steps.
“So we will,” Morina said. She shot Iliaria a stubborn glance. “Don’t argue.”
“What about the other vampires?”
The straw-haired vampire appeared at the top of the stairs. “We will tend our own,” she said, descending. “You’ve done what you could. Let us tend to our lords and ladies. We are not without means of escape.”
Renata’s arm slid about my waist. “Cara mia,” she said and I nodded.
Morina and Anatharic guided us into a group and with Iliaria, they combined their power. Cuinn leaned against my leg as the dungeon vanished and my insides lurched with the rush of magic and, as a group, we headed for safety.
Chapter Twenty
/> Queen Basmathe, Iliaria’s mother, offered us sanctuary. We arrived in the midst of the throne room, interrupting whatever politics had been taking place before our arrival. Basmathe descended the dais, the silver chain marking her status swinging brightly in the light. She caught sight of Iliaria in our party and summoned a healer without hesitation.
I stood outside the infirmary, waiting with Vasco and the others to hear word on Iliaria’s condition. Dominique, Nirena, Vito, Vittoria, and even Gaspare waited with me. Renata, Queen Helamina, and Augusten had gone to meet privately with Iliaria’s mother.
Renata knew as well as I what Damokles had been planning, and no doubt, she told the king and queens of how he was gathering an army to try to take the Draculian throne.
We had not overtaken his keep, though we had, with the vampires’ help, forced his numbers to dwindle. I hoped silently that the vampires we had freed made it out alive. Without their aid, Damokles’s numbers were too small to overthrow Basmathe.
Still, in his arrogance, I knew it would not stop him from trying to reassemble his army. There was still the matter of the clan he had prepared to strike and take. I feared we had only accomplished slowing his progression.
The healer emerged, a cloth of white silk around her gray hips. “Ssshe will sssurvive, though the barb grazed her lung. Let her ressst for a while.”
Morina emerged from the ornately carved double doors at the end of the hall. Renata stood beside her and turned to meet my gaze as Basmathe escorted them from her chambers.
The Draculian queen towered above Renata, which said something of her height.
“Isss that her?” she asked, her obsidian gaze coming to rest on me.
“Yes,” Renata said.
Basmathe moved past Augusten and Helamina and came to stand before me. Morina followed at her heels quietly, her cheeks and hands still stained with blood.
Basmathe reached out to touch me and I forced myself not to draw away. Instead, I sank to my knees on the marble floor. “Great Siren,” I whispered and bowed my head.
Basmathe made a sound low in her throat and said, “Get up.”
I did.
“Ssso, you are the one Azrael has blesssed?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“The one who bringsss the whissspersss of treachery and war?” Her ears turned outward, the black fur of her head glossy in the firelight.
“Yes, my lady.”
“And you are my daughter’sss lover?”
At that, I tensed, unsure how to respond.
Basmathe gave a purring laugh and said, “It isss jussst a quessstion, girl. Answer me.”
“Yes.”
She touched my cheek. “Sssee, that wasssn’t ssso hard, wasss it?”
“No, my lady.”
“Thank you,” she said and I found myself at a complete loss.
I raised my brows. “For what, lady?”
“Not only have you brought word of Damoklesss’s treachery, but you have brought her back to me.” Her gaze slid to the door of the infirmary. “I had hoped one day ssshe would return, even if againssst my command.”
A flicker of fear rose within me and Basmathe caught it. “You are sssafe,” she said, “as isss my daughter.” She tilted her head sharply to the side, as if inspecting me. “I learned long ago why ssshe lied.” She turned and fixed her attention on Morina. “Ssshe did sssoo to protect you, Morina.”
Morina bowed her head. “And you cast her out for it.”
“Yesss,” Basmathe said, her voice crawling like a chill through the hall, though her eyelids shuddered closed in what I thought was regret. Her shoulders rounded as she straightened and said, “It hasss been decided. Your clansss will ressside here under my protection until we eliminate Damoklesss’s threat entirely. There isss plenty of room to keep you all asss we prepare to march to war to defend both our sssidesss.”
With that, Queen Basmathe folded her leathery wings around her tall frame and entered the infirmary to speak with her daughter.
Clearly dismissed, I went to Renata’s side.
Well played, cara mia. She offered her arm and I took it whilst Basmathe’s guards led us to our quarters for the night. When I realized Morina was not with us, I came to a halt and Renata stopped with me.
Morina stood alone by the infirmary, the patch in place over her eye and her hands buried in the pockets of her coat. I met Renata’s beautiful gaze and watched as her brows arched high in question.
“She helped me,” I said. “If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know that we’d be here right now.”
It was true, though Iliaria had gone off on her own plan. Morina had been the one to sneak me in under Damokles’s nose. She had been the one who had distracted Damokles while I asked the vampire he had abused to gather those he could to rise against their captors. Vasco had explained to me that Iliaria had presented herself to them and swayed them by informing them she worked with me. Helamina’s and Augusten’s men and the rest of those Elders and vampires with us had begun the fight with Damokles’s Dracule. But Iliaria had thrown it into motion from the foundation of my plan.
Without Morina’s help, I might not have survived finding a way in for any of our plans to be executed. The vampires might have still joined Iliaria in our fight, but they would have been unprepared for the coup.
Renata assessed Morina and finally asked. “Will you join us, Dracule?”
Morina glanced uncertainly at me and I shrugged. It was not my decision to make.
“We’ve much to discuss,” Renata added and then glanced at me in bemusement. “More than I had initially anticipated, apparently.”
We made it to our room with Morina following silently at our heels and settled ourselves in. Renata kept touching me with an expression of soft wonder and amusement. She traced the curve of the wings arched from my back. “Is it permanent?” she asked.
“No, my lady. Azrael merely loaned it to me.”
She seemed to find that highly amusing and laughed. The sound made my heart light and I curled into her, burying my face in the bend of her neck.
I felt her attention slide to Morina. “And her?” Renata asked. “Is she on loan as well?” Her voice was light with amusement.
“I cannot withdraw my binding on her,” Morina said. “When Azrael grants her true form back to her, she will still bear my mark.”
Renata buried a hand in my hair, running her fingers through it. “Hmm,” she mused. “Have you taken her to your bed, Epiphany?”
“Partly.”
“Partly?” Renata’s brows arched exquisitely again.
“Wait,” Morina said. “I have a bargain for you.”
Renata seemed more interested than I to hear it. “Yes, Dracule?”
Morina kept her eye on me as she spoke. “I will release you of your oath to me…”
“On what condition?” I asked.
“On the condition that you do not cast me aside,” she said, and her voice was strained.
“You’d sacrifice your opportunity to see Andrella one last time to stay with me?” I asked, disbelief making my blood hum dizzily.
“Yes,” she said and sank to her knees. She bowed her head, the curtain of her tri-color hair shielding her face from our view.
Andrella’s words flowed through my memory: You can save her from herself.
I met Renata’s steady gaze and she sighed. “Far be it from me to complain about a harem in my bed.”
Morina raised her face at that and Renata gave her honeyed laugh.
“Mmm, you bed her, Dracule, you bed me. Still interested?”
“And Iliaria,” I said.
“And Iliaria,” Renata echoed. “If she agrees.”
“Yes, if she agrees,” I said.
Morina’s eyelid flickered. “Yes,” she said, only a bit uncertainly after hearing our stipulations.
Perhaps, it wasn’t just me who could save Morina from herself.
*
Some hours later, I stood with Morina out
side Iliaria’s room. Renata had gone to see her and requested that we remain out in the hallway. Morina was quiet, as usual. Renata emerged and nodded to me, indicating that I enter.
I slipped into the room with Renata behind me and found Iliaria resting against a mound of pillows. Her upper body was bare save for the material wrapped around her torso. She held her hand out to me and I went to her, crawling carefully atop her and pressing my lips against hers.
Iliaria smiled softly and winced as she tried to adjust the pillows behind her.
“Here,” I said, “let me.” I propped the pillow more solidly behind her back and helped to guide her against it.
“Renata has told me of Morina’s request.”
I sat back on my heels beside her. “And?”
“I have some conditions of my own.”
Renata went to the door to admit Morina as if the two had planned it. Morina appeared highly uncomfortable and crossed her arms over her chest.
“What are your conditions?” she asked Iliaria.
“Be my friend again,” Iliaria said. “We’ve wasted all of these years fighting over nothing.”
The request took Morina by surprise. Her crossed arms relaxed to her sides. After a moment, Morina pushed the patch covering her scar back into her hair. “You did this, Iliaria.”
“In defense,” Iliaria said as a sly smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. “Besides, it makes you look more dangerous, in a bad-girl sort of way.”
Morina scowled. “I didn’t come here so you could ridicule me.”
“I don’t think she is,” I said and motioned at her face with a hand. “It kind of does have a certain appeal.”
“If we are to make this foursome work,” Iliaria said, “all of us must find some common ground. Renata and I have already established ours with each other, but you and I, Morina, we haven’t been friends in a very long time. I’d like to be again.”
“I will try,” Morina said.
“I don’t expect it to happen overnight,” Iliaria said. “We had something good once.”
A flush rose to Morina’s pale cheeks and Iliaria grinned.
Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel Page 34