by Emma Glass
“It’s a gamble,” I admitted hesitantly. “But time isn’t a luxury I have right now. My goal is to simply get a trained spell-caster here on the Isle of Obsidian before my rivals make their moves.”
“We’ll see if it pays off,” Lorelei noted calmly as she took her leave. “After all, it would be such a shame to lose the little human so quickly.”
I lifted a brow. “That almost sounds sincere.”
“Of course I’m being sincere on the matter, Elliott,” she chuckled apathetically as she turned back. “Well… at least, mostly.”
“Mostly?” I retort.
“Why yes,” Lorelei noted with a distant smile before walking away to leave me to my thoughts. “I do still seem to find the girl rather endearing…”
24
Clara
A few hours after my confusing garden stroll with Lorelei, I was seated at dinner with her children.
Perhaps my progeny can fight…
“You’re rather quiet tonight,” Elliott noted as he cut himself a juicy slice of steak. He kept an eye on me, studying my expression. “Is something the matter, Clara?”
Lorelei hadn’t explicitly forbidden me from discussing what we talked about – well, besides the dream – but I got the distinct feeling in my gut that I shouldn’t bring up her strange warning.
Instead, I innocently smiled to throw him off the trail. “Not that the keep isn’t amazing, Elliott, but when do you think I’ll get to finally see more of your castle?” I dared to push my luck. “Or even the rest of the kingdom?”
He didn’t even move his attention away from his food. “You aren’t leaving Craven Keep without my company; stepping outside Stonehold Castle is out of the question.”
“But don’t you think that maybe–”
“No,” he insisted firmly. “It’s not safe.”
Across the table, Nikki seemed to take interest in this. Her eyes shiftily moved from Elliott to me, and a small smile crossed her lips as she reached for her glass of blood.
I held back on my indignation. “Do you plan on keeping me locked way here forever?”
“Until I have a better plan, yes.”
“But it’s claustrophobic in your keep.”
“Is that so?” Elliott finally looked at me, and his challenging eyes were bitterly cold; suddenly, I really wished that I hadn’t pushed him.
“Tell me, Clara, because I’m curious: which of these two options would you rather? Cooped up in a regal lair with ample books, delicious food, and your own personal bodyguards? Or being bled dry on the streets?”
Indignantly, I scraped my silverware against the plate as I cut up the vegetables.
“She sounds annoyed,” Nikki noted casually.
“I don’t care,” he muttered. “She must learn to listen to me. I only do what’s best for her safety.”
My silverware trembled in my hands as I held back righteous fury. ‘I don’t care?’ ‘She must learn to listen to me’? How he felt he could talk about me like that, especially right in front of my face, I had no earthly idea. I was more snide comment away from shoving off from the table and abandoning dinner with him altogether.
I realized that Nikki was quietly watching me with her usual predatory curiosity. Her beautiful, radiant eyes sinisterly gleamed with a certain sadistic charm as she made no effort to hide her piqued interest.
“Leave her alone,” Elliott ordered.
His sister feigned indifference, but I could tell that she was still giving me her attention. She was like a cat at the table, sitting across from a delicate little bird, eager to play…
But I was the bird.
Still irritated, I looked up from my plate at Elliott. He stared at her with vanishing patience. Clearly, he wasn’t fooled by her aloof act either.
“Nikki, leave.”
The vampire gave him an inquisitive glance. When she saw no obvious joke or sympathy in his eyes, she merely shrugged and moved to take her glass of blood with her.
“No,” Elliott grunted. “Leave the glass. I won’t have you drinking fine blood when you’re willing to openly disobey me.”
“But I need this,” she whined. “I’m thirsty.”
“No blood. No food. Leave us.”
I pushed back in my chair. “No, Elliott. Nikki should stay here and eat. I’ll go instead.”
“What are you talking about?” He demanded. “My sister is ravenously studying you like you’re on the bloody dessert menu!” Nikki gave a guilty little giggle, but he ignored her. “Clara, why on earth are you insisting you take her place?”
“Lost my appetite, Elliott. Especially if you feel like you can talk to me like that. That’s not even counting how I’m going to just be trapped in here for the foreseeable future…”
Bitterly, I pushed that thought away for the other important point on my mind. “Besides, it isn’t fair that I should be treated better than your own family. This is her home, not mine. I’m just a guest, after all... if anything, I should be the one banished from your dinner table, not her.”
When I looked back up at the vampires, they were both visibly taken aback. I didn’t grasp why they would be; it simply made a lot of plain sense. But Elliott held me in a searching gaze, and Nikki looked at me like this was the first she’d noticed I was even in the room.
“Huh…” She tilted her head.
“Huh indeed.” He lifted a bewildered eyebrow. “Clara, you only continue to surprise me…”
I shrugged. “Don’t see how.”
Nikki turned to him with a wide, wicked grin. “Such a strange one you’ve found here. You know, brother, I think I’ve just decided I’m not gonna eat her after all…”
“Is that so?” He wryly asked her.
“Nah. She’s fun. It’d be a shame to waste it.”
When he turned back, he looked exasperated. “My insane sister’s openly out to drink your blood, and it doesn’t even begin to phase you.” He sighed and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Lunatics. I’m surrounded by bloody lunatics.”
We both laughed at his frustration, catching each other’s eye across the table. The tension in the room, and my annoyance with him, started to die. Even the devilish glint in her eyes was less wicked now, leaning towards mischievousness.
Some part of me wondered if I could trust her, but only a tiny, quiet voice in the back of my head. Because no matter how deranged he seemed to think she was, the simple truth was that I felt completely comfortable around Nikki Craven. She very nearly reminded me of the older sister I’d never had, no matter her curious quirks.
“Fine,” Elliott shook his head. “If you have no issue with her staring at you like a chunk of meat, then I guess she can stay…”
Nikki sat up straight in her chair and dangled one leg over the other, scooping up her wine glass. “Such an curious creature, this human,” she noted with a sip. “But I wonder what interests me more: herself, or the effect that she has over you?”
As Elliott ignored her words with another bite of steak, I found myself wondering the same. What kind of effect am I having on him? He seems so distant at times, but I catch the way that he looks at me… how much of it is just his mere curiosity at having a human being in his world?
Is there anything more to it than that?
...Could there ever be?
The fact that I even wondered about that, and that I’d just realized what I wanted his answer to be, sent a small shiver down my body.
Elliott noticed.
A small smile crossed his lips as he chewed on the bite in his mouth. I found myself suddenly eager to hear what he might say next…
But he didn’t get the chance. As he swallowed his bite and opened his mouth, the doors opened and a stewardess entered the room.
“Master Craven! Forgive the intrusion.”
He paused, meeting the servant’s eyes with a dissatisfied glance. “As you may have noticed, I’m still in the middle of dinner. What’s the problem?”
She bowed in comp
lete humility. “I am so sorry. I was sent to tell you of your latest guest.”
“Another one?” Elliott laughed. “By next week, I’m going to be swarming in visitors to the castle.” He frowned at her, waving her away. “Unless it’s some sort of emergency, tell whoever it is that I’ll see them in the throne room in an hour.”
The stewardess nervously shifted in place.
Elliott paused with a strange look on his face. He glanced back up at her with a stare of dawning comprehension. “I can sense your trembling. Why are you so afraid?”
With an uncertain look, she turned away. “It’s just that, well... he didn’t come to the front gates, Master Craven. The latest visitor to the castle arrived through the portal network.”
Elliott was out of his chair in a heartbeat. “Who?” He demanded loudly, his eyes wild with a terror I’d never seen before. “Who is here?”
Even relaxed, mischievous Nikki looked dead serious. Quietly, she shifted her deeply attentive gaze between the two of them. Her body was stiff, but I could see how she was wound tightly on the inside like a coiled, watching snake…
“Akachi Azuzi,” the servant replied fearfully. “The vampire lord of the Falvian Badlands.”
25
Elliott
Without a moment’s hesitation, I quickly clicked my fingers to the three guards I’d assigned to keep the girl safe. “Take Clara to safety. Now.”
Wilhelm, Viktor, and Asarra were quickly at her side and politely coercing her out of her chair. “Elliott!” Clara grumbled bitterly. “What’s going on? Why do I have to leave?”
“Listen to him,” Nikki told her sharply.
Clara, surprised at the intensity of her words, merely nodded and accepted the guards’ help. She gave me one quick, longing look over her shoulder as they removed her from the room and took her back towards my private chambers.
Once she was gone, Nikki rose from her seat. “What do you want me to do?”
“I need time to prepare. On my behalf, meet Lord Azuzi at the chrysm portal gates. Escort him towards the throne room so I might see what he wants…” I smiled craftily. “And please, feel free to take the long way there.”
Nikki’s deranged nature had evaporated in a rare moment of total clarity. “Of course, Elliott. Do you need me there? I can stay by your side as soon as I deliver him, or even find our mother…”
Nikki’s newfound assertiveness came as a welcome surprise. I even considered it for a few seconds, but shook my head in resignation. “This is something I need to face alone. That’s the only way to show them who’s in charge in this hold.”
She smirked evilly. “So it begins, then.”
I didn’t give her a response.
As she left, I quickly gathered the remaining royal guards in the room and addressed their senior officer, a fierce older woman with a dozen confirmed kills to her name.
“Yes, my Lord?”
“Nikki was onto something,” I replied hastily. “Lorelei must be alerted, though it wouldn’t shock me if she’s already felt Akachi’s presence by now. Either way, she should be made well aware that we have a foreign vampire lord in the castle… and I’ll need a stationed group in the throne room.”
“Of course, Lord Craven.”
She divided up her troupe in three search parties and sent them to vast corners of the castle, then departed to summon up available bodies to stand vigilant for the impending meeting.
Satisfied, I followed after Clara’s guardians to my private quarters. After a few quick chrysm node jumps and a flurry up the stairs, I came to them standing guard outside my door.
“How is she?” I asked them.
“Confused but safe,” Viktor replied.
“Good enough.” The guards stepped aside as I let myself in. As I moved towards the closet room, I spotted Clara tucked up under the covers.
“What’s going on?” She asked fearfully.
“One of the other hold rulers has come here to see if the rumors are true.” I kept my voice even and calm, as to not frighten her. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to be ready for this…”
“Are you in danger?”
She showed no mercy. Truthfully answering that question would either terrify her or make me a liar. “You have nothing to fear here,” I reassured her, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Wishing to comfort her, I brushed along her cheek lightly with the backs of my knuckles. Clara took my hand in hers and held it there.
“Elliott… you’d tell me if you were in trouble, wouldn’t you?”
Unhappily, I thought to myself: A liar, then.
“Yes,” I replied rigidly. “But I’m here to make sure that you’re alright. In a moment, I’ll have to change into attire a little more fitting of greeting another vampire lord…”
Clara looked pensive. “You’ve mentioned the Falvian Badlands before,” she noted. “I read about them. You’ve made it sound like I wouldn’t have wanted to arrive there. This is their ruler?”
“Akachi Azuzi, yes. He is the eldest among all the vampire lords,” I told her. “Akachi’s pride is matched only by his fierce cunning. For nearly a thousand years, he has ruled the Badlands with an iron fist.”
“In my world, the Falvian Badlands aren’t one kingdom,” she reminded me. “The landmass is over fifty separate countries, with different climates and cultures, and all with very separate peoples and leaders.”
“Africa, right?”
She smiled at me. “You paid attention.”
As interested as I was to find out more about her alternate Earth and its bizarre geographical differences, there was not enough time to stall my unexpected guest.
“You’ll have to tell me more about all this another time, Clara…” She glanced up at me sadly, but I still had to change before meeting with the dangerous foe in my castle. Reluctantly, I pulled away from her.
“Good luck,” she whispered after me.
A small smile crossed my lips as I left her side. No matter how this mysterious human arrived or what she really was, it was no small comfort to have her in my corner.
I was seated on the Stonehold throne when the royal guards finally brought in my guest.
Akachi Azuzi was just how I remembered him from my mother’s reign: old, regal, and ominous. His ancient, ebony skin was as dark as the night’s depths, with a long, trailing beard hanging from his creased face. Supporting his elderly, hunched back, the crafty vampire lord hobbled forwards on a cane fashioned from a gnarled branch.
“Lord Craven!” He grunted with a sly grin as he paused at the foot of my throne’s steps. “Such a joy to finally see you on the throne for myself.”
If the vampire lord thought he could win me over so effortlessly with basic flattery, he’d find himself sorely mistaken. My tone remained flat as I addressed him. “Lord Azuzi. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“Seeing as your runaway sister took her sweet time leading me here, and I find myself a rather busy man...” The Badlands ruler smiled toothily. “Perhaps we can dispense of the formalities?”
“Straight to the point. I respect that.”
With one glance at his widening, triumphant grin, I felt a strong pit forming in my stomach. Perhaps I could have done with a few more of the formalities after all…
“There’s no use arguing it,” Akachi chuckled. “You and I are both well aware that a human has come to Earth.”
And there it is.
The deceptive old man eagerly peered around as he continued on. “I can sense her here, deep in the castle somewhere. Bring her to me, would you kindly… I wish to look upon her for myself.”
Steeling myself for what would come next, I looked him in the eyes and replied calmly: “I’m afraid that I can’t do that.”
Akachi’s grin faltered briefly; he narrowed his eyes with faint accusation, carefully watching me for any reaction. “Perhaps I’ve come at something of an inopportune time. If that’s the case, then you have my humbl
est apologies. Is she asleep?”
“She is in bed, yes,” I responded. It was like he said – there was no point in arguing the truth, as he already knew. “You would be surprised at what inter-dimensional travel does for your fatigue.”
“Ah yes,” the vampire lord scratched at his dangling beard. “I don’t envy her the trip. There’s no telling how rough it must have been…”
My eyes trailed to the royal guards. They had all taken defensive positions within perimeter, but it was almost a waste of time. Akachi might be old and walking with cane, but he was neither truly feeble of mind or body. The mighty warlord had kept his throne through untold centuries of vicious mutinies and uprisings. He was arguably one of the most powerful vampires in the world, and not just in political strength…
They wouldn’t stand a chance against him.
“However,” Akachi continued with a growing smile, “I’m afraid that I must insist, Lord Craven. Wake the girl up and bring her here.”
“Maybe I’m not understanding,” I replied with an air of tranquility. “It sounds as if you think you can give me orders within my own castle. Surely, you haven’t already gone senile with old age…”
“My, that’s a rather bold insult,” Akachi spoke as his expression darkened. “But it’s one that I’ll find rather easy to forgive with your obedience. Suffice to say, this foolish defiance of yours only makes me further curious…” His eyes flared with rising impatience. “But I am no longer asking, boy: bring the human here, now, or else I’ll personally ensure that you come to regret it.”
Rising from the throne, I furiously stared him down. “Allow me to make myself perfectly clear, because I’m only going to tell you once…”
The vampire lord narrowed his eyes, grinning with mild amusement. It was clear to me that he was unfailingly confident that I couldn’t hold him back if he honestly tried.
Maybe he was even right. But I refused to validate the thought. With an authoritative voice, I continued: “I will never let you have her, Akachi.”