by Myers, J. L.
Combine with Pure Blood.
I remembered then the gash and dried blood across Marcus’s wrist. His blood, Pure Blood, mixed with poison. Terror clawed through my heart and I became very still. Consciousness was slipping away. I couldn’t hold it off any longer. I couldn’t do anything to stop this. Everything faded, and then there was nothing but silence.
~
Tangled sheets clung to my body, restraining my movements as I dreamed of a cold, dark place. A throat-constricting smell of decomposing flesh hung thick in the air, threatening my gag reflex. Only one exit was visible, a solid, wooden and iron-braced door. A door that sat closed. I tried to move, to pull myself up from the moist stone ground, but stalled. The clang of metal on metal raked through my ears. Weight was pulling at my wrists. Alarm bit into me. I was shackled, and I knew exactly why. Marcus.
Any thoughts of looking for an escape, or a way to unbind my shackles forfeited as my vision blurred. I was being torn back to reality. “No, no, no!” I knew what was coming, and I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have a plan.
The stone and shackles faded as consciousness gripped me, and the amethyst pendant warmed against my chest. I wasn’t alone. Broad hands were curled around my shoulders and shaking me. The room was black. My eyes refused to adjust. But it could only be one person. Marcus. He was already here to claim me.
Anger struck through me. There was no way in hell I was giving in without a fight. Still blinded and with my body barely responsive, it took all of my strength to strike out. My arm flailed, fingers connecting with the bedside lamp before hurling it back at him. A sound of cracking porcelain erupted with what I hoped was a clean hit to the skull.
“Amelia, stop!”
The strong nurturing voice shook me. It was a voice I couldn’t confuse. The last voice I’d expected to hear. My eyes widened in the dark, finally adjusting. Shattered porcelain littered the carpeted ground at my uncle’s feet. He was standing at my bedside and rubbing at his forehead. Blood beaded from the gash my retaliation had created, slowing as the wound began to heal.
“Uncle Caius?” My voice sounded hollow. “But I thought… What are you doing here?”
“There is no time,” Caius said, tugging on my arm. “You must come with me.”
As he pulled me from the sheets that were still coiled around my body, I staggered, falling. The poison Kendrick had forced on me under Marcus’s order still had a hold. It weakened every one of my muscles, slowing my motor functions.
Caius reacted instantly, arm curling around my waist and hoisting me up against his side. “Easy there.” His next words were mumbled, so quiet I questioned if I had heard them right. “Why are you so weak?”
I frowned as we moved across my room and out to the hallway. My mind felt sluggish, reeling with unending images that made absolutely no sense. “What’s going on?” I asked, ignoring Uncle Caius’s question. Why was he in my room? “Where are we going?”
Caius kept his narrowed eyes focused ahead, leading us down the shadow-cast stairwell. “There has been a security breach. You are in grave danger.”
He knows about Marcus? A glimmer of relief washed over me, but it was short lived. Kendrick. Marcus had been using him, and I didn’t know if he was still part of this. What if he was still in harm’s way? “Kendrick,” I said as we moved down the strangely unlit hall, nearing my uncle’s office. “We need to go back for him. He could be in danger, too.”
Caius’s supporting arm tightened for a split second, then relaxed. “He’s not in any danger,” he mumbled, jerking me into his office before releasing my weight. “The entire castle has been evacuated.”
Evacuated? Uncle Caius’s suddenly absent support along with his words stunned me. My legs buckled and I tripped, catching my Vans on the Persian rug. It was by pure miracle that I managed to catch myself on the seat before his desk. My limbs quaked at the sudden burst of energy, aching in protest.
As I turned into a sitting position, a glimmer of brass reflecting under the desk lamp’s light caught my eye. There was something beneath the corner of the rug my shoes had lifted. Not that I was really looking or paying any real attention. Confusion-fueled questions stole my train of thought, distorting my vision while forming on my lips.
As I was about to speak, airing the confusion, I froze. A cluster of lost memories had hit me like glass shards slamming into sharp focus. The meals and hours I had somehow forgotten had been spent in this very office. Each evening I’d sat opposite my uncle while chatting and indulging in mouth-watering dinners and decadent chocolate desserts. Remember all you have been made to forget. Kendrick had compelled me under Marcus’s command. But why had I forgotten? Who made me forget? It was like two people’s voices were fighting in my head. Disjointed images swirled through my mind, but there were so many I couldn’t make sense of them. Was there more I was supposed to remember?
The pendant pulsed with rapid heat, like a beacon warning. My revelation became a second thought. Marcus was closing in on us.
My head whipped around to Caius, who was rifling one-handed through the top drawer of his desk. His other hand clutched the diamond paperweight. Good, a weapon. He was thinking ahead. The rapid movement caused my vision to blur and I struggled to rise from the seat. It took all the strength my arms and legs could muster to brace against the arm rail. “We have to get out of here!”
Apart from the door we had entered through, there was only a double-paned window to escape out of. Although with my lack of motor function, leaping to safety from two stories up wasn’t the greatest option. If we didn’t leave now, we’d be cornered.
“Now!” I said. My hand strained uselessly to tear the arm of the chair free for a makeshift weapon. “I think he’s coming.”
Uncle Caius sounded surprised. “He?” He moved around the desk. Something gleaming silver was clutched in his hand.
The pendant pulsed again. It was so hot it sizzled against my chest. The smell of burned flesh invaded my nostrils. Disquiet seized my slow-beating heart as it ached to drum. My eyes darted back to the open door. In the same instant the lamp doused and a gust of wind blew past me. A starburst of pain erupted from my temple and my limbs gave out. My body crumpled in a heap as unconsciousness claimed me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I stirred with a groan, surrounded by darkness. The stink of decomposing flesh hung thick in the air. It made me want to gag. Heaviness weighed down my limbs. My jeans and tank top clung to my body, dripping with rank, foul-smelling water. Agonizing pulses shot through my head in rhythm with the slow beat of my heart. It felt as though I’d been slugged with a sledgehammer. Where was I? What happened? Frustrated, I tried to move, to pull from the moist stone ground, but stalled. The clang of metal on metal raked through my ears. Horrific reality dawned on me, knocking the breath from my lungs. I was awake in my living nightmare, shackled to the wall. We hadn’t escaped, and now Marcus had me. But where was Uncle Caius?
Desperation began to set in and I tugged at my restraints. It was pointless. The poison was still surging through my veins, weakening every one of my muscles. With every ounce of strength I could gather, I shuffled my heavy body back until I hit the wall. Labored breath rasped through my lips and sweat-beads budded across my forehead. Then a click sounded with the illumination of a dim bulb. Expecting to find Marcus, my eyes darted about the claustrophobic cell. A single bare bulb, swaying on a cable from the mold-caked ceiling, offered a small cone of visibility. In its light I could see a single closed door and my chains. I gulped. They ran along the ground, rising up to where they were bolted to the wall. I was trapped.
A footstep sounded, followed by another and another as a tall man stepped into the light. My heart skipped a beat and my eyes grew wide. “Caius?” Had he intercepted Marcus? Was he here to save me? Words tumbled from my mouth in a barely audible babble. “You’re okay? He didn’t hurt you?” My eyes scoured over my uncle. His ash-gray suit was stained and speckled by damp patches. Dried blood flaked from
his wrinkled forehead—the only remnants of my wrongful attack. Apart from that, he appeared completely unharmed. “What happened? Where are we?” I tried to raise my cuffed wrists, but they barely budged. “Can you break these?”
Caius made no attempt to answer my questions. He just stood there, his face shadowed and lined in an unreadable expression. A deep unsettling twisted through my gut. The throbbing pain inside my skull sent a shockwave down my spine, causing me to wince. Where is Marcus?
“Best we get this done,” Caius said with a smile. His lips parted just enough to reveal the point of extended fangs. “Before anyone notices you missing.”
The hair across the back of my neck prickled. “What are you talking about? Get what done?”
Caius chuckled, shaking his head. “I guess there is no harm in revealing the truth to you now… It’s not like you will live to tell anyone.”
Ice grew within my chest, snaking out in tendrils that brought a traveling shiver to my entire body. Won’t live? I shook my head. I’d heard him wrong, I must have. But Caius’s face—lit by a disturbing smile—did not placate the nervous tension growing inside of me. The black of his pupils shimmered. His expression looked so alien compared to the uncle I had grown up with, the one I trusted and loved. Any hint of caring was lost behind predatory eyes. Fear coiled through my heart “You…” My blood ran cold and I choked on my next words. “You did this?”
I shifted, cowering. Something pressed against my backside. I didn’t take notice. My eyes were already scanning for a weapon, an escape, anything to release me from these chains. There was a burlap sack crumbled on the ground, well out of reach. There was only one door, wooden and iron-braced. And just as in my dream, it was shut. Was it locked? It didn’t really matter. Not yet. Not while chains imprisoned me.
Despair gripped my heart. Another set of shackles hung from the opposing wall. Apart from that, the room was empty. Just me and the man I had loved as my uncle.
Caius stepped forward, clasping his hands before him. “This day has been a long time coming. I have waited patiently all these years for you to come of age, so to speak. You see, my dear…”
The use of his loving name for me brought bile to the back of my throat. I fought the urge to cough and groaned, struggling to pull my knees up to my chest. Absently I noticed how damp and stained my purple-laced Vans were. I’d never wear those again…if I lived. And there it was again, the feel of something digging into my backside. What am I sitting on? Then it dawned on me. A lifeline!
“I had to wait for your blood to complete the transformation.” Caius turned and began pacing. His eyes became distant while he continued his story.
It was the distraction I needed. Focused only on the task and knowing it was my only chance, I made my move. The lack of function in my limbs made my arms trembled with strain. I reached behind my back and winced. The chains rattled like an alarm going off.
But my uncle was lost in thought, recalling events that seemed to bring him satisfaction. “…to turn into a fully-fledged vampire, before I could put my plan into action,” he was saying.
Then my fingers grazed the smooth rectangular disc hidden inside the damp back pocket of my jeans. My iPhone! The reprieve I experienced was short lived. Getting hold of the phone unnoticed had been my first goal, but what now? Kendrick might be the only person I could still trust, my last hope, if he was free of compulsion. I needed to send out an SOS. The dank space reminded me of the cells Caius had shown me during his guided tour. Except there was a distinct difference. Those chambers had barred doors, not solid ones. And the cries of imprisoned beings had filled the air there. Not here. The air was deathly quiet. Defeat dampened my mind and soul. I had no idea where I was. Don’t give up, my internal voice challenged. If you do, you’re dead. With renewed desperation I tried to spot any clue that could reveal my location.
Caius’s direct tone drew my eye. “The stories you were told of how you were saved and created are not entirely accurate.” He was staring down at me with a look of anticipation. “Your mother had to be on the brink of death before I could infect her.”
Infect her? I remembered Mom’s explanation of how we were all turned. She had been heavily pregnant when the rogue vampire attacked, and our father had died protecting us. She would have died too, “if not for Caius,” she had said. “He gave us new life when the only alternative was death.”
The truth of our past hit me like a blast of icy water. “There was no rogue vampire,” my voice quavered. The hand that shielded my iPhone behind my back began to shake violently. “It was you.”
Caius nodded with eyes almost solemn. “Though this is not how I had planned for all of this to play out. You see, my dear, taking your life had not always been my intention.” For a moment he appeared angry. Then his expression seemed to drop with a look of regret. “If you had only remained compliant and non-rebellious, a seed I could mold as my own to continue my legacy, well, then this would not have been an inevitability. I gave you many last chances, but in the end you acted too late. You are not the asset I once saw you as. You are a liability.” The regret striking his expression shifted with sound resolution. “In any case, it was the only way.”
Anger spiked my blood as I glared. The monster in front of me had orchestrated the attack on my family. The man I had accepted as my uncle had been the one to turn us all. He had damned us to life as vampires, and he had murdered my father. And we had all trusted him, seen him as our savior. My blood boiled, ice instantly turning to fire.
“Oh, don’t look so appalled, Amelia,” Caius spoke as though I were an unruly child. “You should be thanking me. Your mother was never part of my plan. I could have let her bleed out. Yet I didn’t. I showed her mercy and allowed her to live, allowed you to have a mother to grow up with.”
Insolence blemished my tone. “You want me to thank you?” Tearing my eyes away, I fought the urge to crush my iPhone in my still obscured hand. iPhone! Caius’s revelation had shaken me and re-written the past. It had distracted me when I needed to figure out where I was. “Where the hell are we?”
Caius shrugged. “Does it matter?”
Of course he wouldn’t tell me. Why would he? I shook my head, thinking to the last moments I could remember before waking in this dank cell. Caius’s office. He had lured me down there with lies and pretense. Why had he taken me there? For the life of me I couldn’t remember leaving, just wanting to, expecting Marcus to blaze into the room at any second. Everything, from the stacked piles of papers littering Caius’s desk, to the bookshelves and grandfather clock, had all appeared as usual. There hadn’t been a single thing out of place. I probed harder into my memories which were still swarming with too many images to comprehend. Then I saw it. On entering Caius’s office I’d fallen without the support of his arm, tripping on the rug before his desk. A split second glance I had disregarded at the time glowed behind my eyes. The desk lamp’s light had caught on something brass which had shone beneath the edge of the lifted rug. A latch… We never even left his office. We moved below it. I wasn’t at all certain that my hunch was right, but it was all I had to go on.
I forced my gaze up to Caius who was watching me with narrowed eyes. “You said it was the only way?” I hoped encouraging him to talk would distract him enough for me to send out my SOS. “The only way to what?”
Caius bent down, causing me to flinch. The dim light cast a glow around him, but left his face hardened by shadows. With a single finger he forced my chin up. My skin crawled, disgusted by his touch, and I tried to jerk back. “It was the only way to create a vampire whose blood would hold the key,” he said, then paused. His eyes became thoughtful as though he were choosing his next words carefully. “…to immortality.”
Immortality? The word rippled through my entire body, shocking, intriguing, and utterly what the hell? The elixir Caius had given us had done a lot more than hold off our transformation into vampires. It had started the groundwork for Caius’s plan. With a throat-s
queezing gulp, I forced my wide eyes up. “Does that mean…”
Caius’s sharp laugh stole me words. “That you are immortal? That you could live forever? Perhaps…” He shook his head, rising from his crouched position and turned away with a sigh. “But now we will never know.”
With the split second opportunity, I began keying a text. My hands shook and I winced at the clang of my chains. ‘Mortal danger. Trapped below…’
Caius turned back at the noise of my restrains. His eyes zeroed in on the iPhone in my hands. Then he lunged forward. My thumb hit the send button just as he snatched the phone from my grasp.
“Stupid girl,” Caius spat. “What have you done?” He glanced down, thumb traveling over the face of the phone. Fangs glinted through his split lips with an amused smile. A look of intention shimmered through his eyes. “He will never find you,” he said. Then with a belting force, he hurled my iPhone at the stone wall. It connected with a crunch and burst into shattered pieces.
An acidic lump crawled up my throat and I swallowed, feeling like I was drowning. The text was too vague and unfinished. Caius was right. Kendrick would never find me. “What are you going to do to me?”
Ignoring my question, Caius knelt and dug into the burlap sack. “Enough stalling…”
He pulled a glass jar from the bag and flipped the latched lid open. It was filled with a thick, dark-red liquid. Blood. It wasn’t human. It was something else, something peppery and metallic, a royal’s pure blood. For a moment I wondered if it was Marcus’s. It was a strong possibility, but I still didn’t understand what his part in all this had been. Why had Marcus helped Caius? What was he getting out of this? Inside I felt hollow and betrayed. Even more than that, I felt pissed. Pissed at my own naive trust of a boy I hardly knew, and of the uncle I had always loved.