But now she was asleep, I tried to look down at her to see her face but was only granted with the top of her head, as it was resting against my stomach. Her arm was draped across my waist and her fist was gripping onto my T-shirt. This was when I knew that the last few days had definitely started to catch up on her, along with her body now adapting to consuming my blood.
This was something I was hoping to increase as this, combined with my seed, would both start to repair any damaged cells in her body, along with create new, stronger ones that wouldn’t degenerate like they did in mortals. It was how I intended on making her immortal. The other perks would be faster healing time, increased speed and strength, but not to the extreme where she would be like one of my own kind. No, this was more like an Olympic mortal athlete.
But all of this would take time before it started to fully take root and the more exchanges we made, the stronger the bond would become. I was simply fortunate enough that there had been only one other who had been gifted my blood and absorbed the Venom of God and that had been her mother.
Now the reasons for this had been fated for she needed this part of me inside her for the prophecy to be fulfilled. For her to be strong enough to survive what she had. But as a rule, and something I had been forced to experience firsthand, was the Venom of God that now lived inside my veins was fused with the soul of the bearer who made the sacrifice. It wasn’t ever intended to be passed on, and other than attaching itself to Keira that one time, then it had only ever taken, never given.
Hence the glove I wore.
I felt my left hand, the one in question fisted at my side, whilst with my other arm I held Amelia tighter to me. This was my life now, and this was the hand I had been dealt with…literally.
Now all that was left for me to do was spend every day I had with her, protecting her from not only what could happen, but also…
From what already had.
The movie ended shortly after she had fallen asleep and after a death defying moment on a broken rope bridge over a river of crocodiles, all was well in Amelia’s ‘make believe land’ once more. But as far as movies went, it wasn’t bad but I did have a feeling this was mainly down to the sleeping form now in my lap. A little sleeping beauty who had unknowingly been turning me on most of the evening.
But for now, well I lifted my slumbering princess in my arms and carried her off to my bed, only realising just how out of it she was when she never made even a murmur. I decided that, although against my wishes, I would keep her in her cute but funny pyjamas so as not to disturb her. I also knew that tonight wasn’t the night that I would get to sleep with my cock inside her like I had planned.
But at the very least and for my piece of mind, I located the strip of silk I had used earlier and like then, tied one end around her wrist. The other end however was for me and I wrapped it around my fist a few times.
After this, I shifted her so she was cradled to my body, with her back to my chest and our tied hands closer together. I heard her release a sweet sigh before whispering her own good night to me and I had to say, it was something that made the sweet night even sweeter,
“Now that was a date...best ever.”
I tugged her close and whispered back in her ear,
“Most definitely.”
I didn’t know how long we had been asleep for but when I awoke it took me a moment to realise what it was that had dragged me from my sleep.
The room was like ice.
I frowned in annoyance as I tried to shake off the last spiderwebs of sleep clinging to my mind. But then I thought back to that feeling I had. That niggling in the back of my mind that something wasn’t right. This was the first level of dread I felt start to seep into my conscious thoughts and as I reached out for the covers, I knew I was right to feel this way. Especially when my first concern was focused on Amelia’s comfort, making me start to pull the covers up, intent on covering her. This was then when the second level of dread hit and hit me fucking hard as I realised there wasn’t another body in the bed with me.
I was now alone.
I bolted upright the moment the third and final level hit me. As I had tugged hard, knowing I should have felt resistance, only when I hadn’t, it made me look down in utter blind rage.
A rage that now saw a length of silk that should have kept her shackled to me.
I roared in anger, for it was clear to see…
Our ties had been cut.
Amelia
Chapter 24
Blood and Snow
Burning sand.
That’s all I felt scorching at my feet.
Each step an agonizing feat of strength to continue on. I don’t know how long they had made me walk, or what torture they intended to inflict once we got there. Once we arrived at an unknown destination. Just how far into the desert were we to walk? Those of which I once called friends, my brothers on horseback with water at their saddles. I had long ago given up my pleas, trying to get them to understand the truth.
Trying to tell them that nothing was as it seemed.
It was all a lie.
But he would save me, wouldn’t he? There was still time yet, wasn’t there? Surely, he would not let me die in vain, not after all I had sacrificed for him, only now to join him in his own. For death was only the beginning, that was what he had told me when he set this plan into motion. But nothing was spoken of my brothers turning on me, calling me traitor. Was this to be my end also?
Why, God? Why this burning sand, sand that had long ago stripped the skin from my feet. I had fallen, many times, but miles ago discovered the pain of doing so far worse than that of walking. Maybe this was simply my test. A test of will, of God’s mighty plan that I must still find trust in. Maybe my second life was waiting for me out there, in the haze of baked earth rising from the ground like Hell was merely on the horizon taunting me.
A test between good and evil.
But the biggest question of all, if his Lord didn’t save me, like he promised, then…
Which one would I choose as they spilled my blood?
“We are here.” This was the voice of two, both man and woman speaking over the other until each became an echo of the truth. I looked up in that moment to see where ‘here’ was and found myself looking at a dead and twisted tree in the distance. It was the only one in a sea of nothingness and there hanging from one of its thickest branches was a body swaying on a rope.
No, not swaying.
Thrashing.
“Oh, Gods no!” The second I heard my own voice, one belonging now to the panic I felt, was when I finally started to come out of this nightmare. I then started running, despite the pain, I ran and ran for I knew who it was fighting for their life at the end of that rope. But the further and faster I ran, the further away the image of the tree was being dragged back. As if the whole scene was being plucked from existence, pulled back into the oblivion waiting to consume it whole. That was when suddenly the earth around it started to crack.
“NO!” I screamed, this time seeing the ground opening up like a giant mouth of Hell and with it the tree tilted, its roots not strong enough to keep as part of this world any longer. The desperate cries of a man as he faced the mouth of Hell was the most chilling and haunting sound I had ever heard, for it was one I knew.
It was one I loved.
Because I knew now what it was that I was laying witness to.
This was the death of Judas. The death of a mortal man who Christ forgot to save. A sacrifice chosen in the name of God only to end in renouncing a faith, making that sacrifice in vain. For nothing could save him from his fate now…
Not now the Devil had claimed him.
I screamed as the earth swallowed him up and the tree with him, before nothing more than a mound of dead earth offered up one single root remaining. A branch in the desert like the twisted hand of life desperate to survive, reaching up at the Heavens and asking it why.
Why had God forsaken one of His loyal children?
“No, no,
no…Lucius…my heart,” I whispered as I lowered my head, for it was done and there was nothing I could do left to save him. But then as I looked down and saw the bloody footprints in the sand they began to change. First my burnt feet became smaller, starting off as that of a man before morphing into the smaller feet of a woman.
My feet.
Then the very burning began to fade, and an icy chill stabbed at them as if suddenly they had been plunged into a bucket of snow, being forced to stay there until barely any feeling was left.
Nothing but the cold.
This was when the sand began to be swept away by a wind that started at my feet before the sands of time began to disappear into the snowy dust that now whipped at my face. This was when I finally saw the truth. For I opened my eyes again and lost the image of the past altogether. Lost the image of death that seemed to cling to me.
The death of the man I loved.
But then that wasn’t right, for he hadn’t yet become that man and I wasn’t meant to witness his rebirth.
No one was.
I knew in that moment I hadn’t really been there, not at all, but the pain I felt was real. For the second I had woken from my dream I was to realise the horror of what I was doing. I knew this when I realised my hands weren’t empty as they should have been. And instead of sheets at my feet, there was nothing but blood and snow. I looked up in my panic and now what replaced the flickering image of where the tree had once been was a cloaked figure in the distance. A crimson silhouette luring me to my own death and in doing so, making me the bearer of destruction, for down in my hands was none other than…
The box.
But I had woken up too soon. I knew this when I heard the growl of anger start to shake the trees around me. It was the dead of night with only the moon beaming against the snow, lighting the way. A path that was clear of all life as if waiting for me all this time to set a foolish foot down on it. A pathway framed by the dense forest, one dark and ominous. One where glowing eyes of blood could be seen watching me from low and crouched positions to the ground. A growl, a snarl and rumble as I continued on before forcing myself to stop.
“Come to me!” A voice I knew demanded and I looked up to see the cloaked figure too far a distance away to have been the one to say it. So, I turned around and looked back, a line of bloody footprints in the snow leading the way, and a single hissed curse ahead of me was all I heard before I suddenly started running.
Running back to where I knew Lucius was searching for me.
“No!” was my only warning, from the figure in the trees and then a forceful order issued.
“Go get her!” This was when I knew that the chase was on and it was one from both ends, for I now had a pack of wild demonic wolves at my back and a Vampire King at my front. The question was,
Which would get to me first?
I held the box as tight as I could and ignored the searing pain in my feet, pushing myself despite my agony, using my fear as a weapon to drive me forward. I could now feel them closing in on me but instead of taking me down they meant to cut me off. But I could see it now, the clearing up ahead. The vast white space beyond it, like a desert of snow. It was the garden, the silent garden where no one can hear you scream. It was right up ahead, my own blood leading me back there. If I could only just make it, then maybe I had a chance.
Yes, yes, I was going to make it, despite the blur of black I could see at my sides, overtaking me. I just needed a little bit more in me, to give it everything I had!
I just made the edge, even if now I was seeing the snarling shadows surrounding me, the wolves starting to cut off my escape.
‘No!’ I opened my mouth, trying to force the scream out but having the garden steal it from me. This was the second I felt both my ankles being grabbed, tipping my world as I went down hard, landing on the box and hurting my chest. I reached out, now scrambling in the snow that merely crumbled in my freezing fingers for I wore nothing but what Lucius had laid me down in to sleep last night. But then that’s when I saw it, that single piece of silk tied around my wrist, one knotted there. Its length, and one that had only hours before connected me to Lucius, now cut.
This is what gave me the strength needed to suddenly scream at the top of my lungs, claiming my fear back from the garden.
“LUCIUS!”
A mighty roar was my only reply, but it seemed too far away. Was it him, or would he fail to save me just as I had failed to save him in my dream?
After this I felt myself being dragged backwards, and I twisted my body around, trying to kick out at what it was, or should I say who, for the cloaked figure was now walking back into the forest dragging me behind them. So, rather than let this happen, I kicked out again, this time making contact, and I wasn’t the only one crying out in pain from my torn feet.
The cloaked figure grunted at the kick and momentarily let go of me. So, I quickly started to scramble away in the snow with one hand desperately trying to gain momentum in order to get to my feet. The box tightly held with the other arm, cradling it to my chest, knowing that I would die protecting it!
However, the one who brought me here wasn’t done with me yet, as I felt a body start crawling over me, trying to drag me under it. It grabbed at my clothes, my skin, pulling at me and climbing up over me trying to pry the box from underneath me.
“No!” I shouted on a grunt when the person above started to gain enough of a grasp on me that I was suddenly flipped onto my back. Now straddling my waist was the cloaked figure, glowing eyes looming down at me in the darkness of the hood. I didn’t know what else to do so I reached out, grabbed a fist full of snow and then bolted up quickly and slapped a hand in the center of that darkness. Now stuffing the face full of snow. The figure, who I knew now to be a woman, started screaming, falling backwards off me before scrambling to her feet, crying out like acid had touched her face.
I frowned in confusion at the reaction and it was only when I looked down at my hand did I open my fingers to reveal the bloody snow. I looked back and saw the handful I had grasped had been from one of my bloody footprints.
“The blood of Kings is in you!” the cloaked figure hissed as one slim hand started to cradle her face, now flashing in between one of beauty and youth and the one of death. The same one I had seen in my first dream the night before. That was when I realised,
“You’re the witch!” She hissed at me but suddenly I was assaulted by reason. It must have been the connection she had used to get me to come here. One, that to achieve it, had to be open both ways, telling me now something important about her.
“You’re a witch caught between life and death. That’s why you want the box, because the soul you sold will be paid if you don’t,” I said not fully understanding how I knew all this but like I said, feeling the connection. She snarled at me again and told me,
“Blood must be paid…to us all.” Then she looked up at the sky quickly and the second she saw something she obviously feared, she shouted out an order in another language and ran into the forest, her red cloak quickly disappearing into the darkness.
But I couldn’t think about her now, as I had something else to fear. I turned in time to see a rush of about twenty or so demonic wolves all running at me. She had given them the order to kill me and I knew there was no use in trying to outrun them, I would never survive.
Never survive the hungry beasts snarling at the thought of me. Drool dripping down, overflowing jaws full of oversized fangs and multiple rows of teeth, watering with just the thought of tearing into my flesh and ripping me limb from limb.
In that moment, instead of facing death, I looked down at the reason for it, cradled in my arms. It was a noble cause and my only hope was that Lucius was proud of me for trying to save his people. Trying to save my mother.
Trying to save him.
“Goodbye, Lu…what the Hell?” I uttered in disbelief as the second I placed both my hands on the box it started to vibrate in my hold, shaking as if trying to get at s
omething. But then my mind was ripped from the box and back to the danger racing my way. Because this time it was no longer just the sound of beasts growling and snarling my way. No, now it was the sound of the sky splitting open as a roar so loud tore through the night, creating it from only one place of origin…
Hell.
This was when a demonic figure suddenly dropped from the sky just as the first wolf leapt and lunged for me. This turned out to be a mistake, its last in fact. As the second it did, it quickly found itself caught in the grasp of a Devil on Earth!
Mighty wings spread out, and it truly was a demonic sight to be seen. Leathery skin hung from two enormous horns like some Asian water buffalo, as each was over a metre in length. Long skeletal fingers looked hooked on to each section of the horn and ran down the length of the wing, bending at the many knuckle joints, creating a shape similar to a bat’s wing. The end of each of these bone fingers was a razor curled talon that looked the size of my hand, as though they could do serious damage.
The rest of his body seemed bigger somehow with what bare muscle I could see tensed and ready for the fight ahead. But his entire being seemed to have a demonic presence surrounding him, like a pulsating power just waiting to be absorbed and used with the promise of blood as its payment.
He stretched out his wings as far as they would go the second I saw the other wolves now trying to get around him. To try and get to me. But he had just blocked off the sight, creating a barrier between him and me. After this I heard the deep whine of an animal in pain and watched as Lucius raised up the wolf in his demonic hand, before snapping its neck in one sickening crunch of bone.
Lucius looked as though he had brought with him the wrath of the Gods, for the second the wolves all thought to dive onto him as one force, I screamed in panic,
“No, don’t hurt him!” At this Lucius looked behind at me, over his shoulder and the burning crimson in his eyes was like staring into the pits of Hell. His handsome face was still there but warped into something truly sinister. Black around his eyes, like the demon had infected the host and was holding him prisoner until the deadly deed was done.
Blood Of Kings (Transfusion Book 3) Page 25