by K Loraine
“They wanted me to tell them how to find the rest of the hunters. I wouldn’t.” Chains rattled as he tried to move. “So this is my punishment.”
“Didn’t the council kill them all?”
“No. I know for a fact Hector got away with at least five others. And I killed two of the bastards before Eliana got to me.”
My chest lightened at the knowledge some of them survived. “What about Knight? Have you seen him since…”
“Since I nearly drained him dry? No. I don’t think he’s going to want to have anything to do with me.”
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t control yourself.”
“I should have let myself die. I could have. I stopped before feeding on you even though I wanted to taste your blood so badly my whole body hurt.”
I stood on wobbly legs, my head spinning from the concussion I’d likely endured. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
“But I’m not. I’m a fucking vampire. I’m the thing I hate more than any creature. I’m the same type of monster that killed my sister.”
I knew this was what would happen. That he’d hate himself. But so did Anne. She had celebrated that fact in front of every vampire in attendance at the ball. “Don’t. Don’t let Anne win. You’ve been resisting her so far. You can be the hero of this story if you try.”
A bitter laugh left him. “The hero? The hero gets the girl. Is that how this is going to end, Liv?” When I didn’t answer, he pulled on his chains. “Exactly as I thought.”
“Logan, please—”
“Tell me you haven’t let him inside you since he took you again. That you didn’t taste his blood.” I didn’t protest, and he scoffed in response. “I can fucking smell him all over you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand plenty.”
“You were trying to turn me against him from the beginning.”
“Of course! He was holding you hostage, manipulating your mind, taking advantage of you. All so he could have your blood. I can’t believe you fell for it twice.”
“That video you showed me…he didn’t kill my mother. He…he found her and tried to save her, but it was too late. Someone else killed my her.”
“You believe that bullshit?”
“I do.” I held my head high and fought back the tears. “I believe him.” I walked to the bars and sat next to them, resting my head on the cool metal.
“I can’t do anything to help you if you think he’s not lying.”
“I don’t want you to help me. But I do want to get you out of here.”
“So I can kill every human I come across like a vicious animal?”
I wrapped my arms around my knees. “That’s not who you are. It’s not who Cashel is either. You are strong and smart. You will overcome this.”
“I can’t overcome being turned into a monster.”
“It’s what you do, not what you are that makes you good or evil. Be the good.”
He let out a shuddering breath and groaned. “You’re bleeding.”
I reached back and almost touched the gash on my head again. “She hit me over the head from behind. I never stood a chance.”
“Be glad they just fed me. I might have pulled these chains loose and killed you.”
My stomach twisted. “Charming.”
“Well, isn’t this nice? Two lovers, reunited.” Eliana’s voice was a cold trail over my skin.
“Isn’t it? Shame about the chains though.” I stood and gestured toward the corner where Logan was huddled.
“It is. My darling pet has been such a good boy though. I think it’s time to reward him for everything he’s been through. After all, he put on such a brave face.”
Heart lurching, I looked frantically at Logan. The chains scraped the stone floor as he got to his feet and came as far as he could before his restraints stopped him. His eyes were wild, fangs extended.
“Liv, get out of here,” he growled.
“Oh, pet, she’s not going anywhere. This is the end for her, I’m afraid.” Eliana opened the cell door and locked it behind her. “A newly turned vampire is a thing of ravenous beauty. A hunger that can’t be sated.”
Kneeling, I reached for the small silver dagger strapped to my inner thigh. She wasn’t watching me as she unlocked the shackles from around Logan’s wrists and ankles. One well-placed thrust of this blade would incapacitate her, maybe even kill her if I could reach her heart.
Logan looked into her eyes, staring hard, then his gaze flicked to me and I leapt, but Eliana was faster. She gripped my throat with one hand, wincing as I slashed her arm with my dagger, but not releasing me. Panic raced to the forefront of my mind with every beat of my heart as the oxygen I so desperately needed was denied.
Then, with the world fading to gray around the edges, she threw me into the corner. My arm was a blazing fiery thing, pins and needles which gave way to a deep throbbing ache. I stared down at my hand where my weapon had been, willing myself to grab the blade, but my fingers didn’t move. My arm was broken. Nausea clutched my belly and a sob welled in my throat, tightening everything inside me.
A low, husky chuckle came from behind me, prompting me to look through the bars where Eliana now stood. The lock clicked and she tutted. “I’m going to love watching Cashel mourn you.”
I screamed in anger and pure frustration. All I had to do was kill her. I failed, and now Logan was going to kill me.
The heavy steps of a hungry vampire filled the cell, pulling my attention from Eliana as she walked away. Logan was shaking, eyes black, fangs long and sharp. He reached down and grabbed me by both arms sending agony ripping through me.
“Logan, please,” I said through a trembling voice.
But Logan wasn’t there anymore. He had one goal, to feed. And I was the only prey in the room.
“Stop,” I begged. “I know you don’t want to do this.”
He blinked a few times, pupils tightening and showing the deep brown of his irises. His hold on me softened, but his gaze was still trained on my throat. “Liv. I can’t.”
“Please don’t do this. You’ll never forgive yourself. You said you loved me. If that’s true, fight this.”
His arms shook, and he took a long, slow breath. “I’m okay. It’s okay.”
Relief flooded me as he came back to himself. It was going to be all right. We’d get out of here.
He wrapped me in his embrace, hands tender on my shoulders and back. “I do love you, Liv,” he whispered. “But you should know better than to trust a vampire by now.”
Terror gripped my heart, but I couldn’t move. There was no way out of his hold, and I’d done it to myself. His fangs pierced my throat, roughly, painfully, and all I could do was scream.
18
Cashel
Everything was wrong as I descended the narrow stairs on my path to the dungeon. I couldn’t hear her heart. Olivia’s heart beat with mine, I was sure of it, but there wasn’t an echo of her pulse anywhere close. True, the dungeon was far below the house, a three-mile stretch of tunnel separating the manor and the underground prison, but I still should have been able to connect with her. Especially since she’d had my blood twice.
Hushed voices caught my ear from farther down in the tunnel, making me stop in my tracks. “Well, where is she? It can’t be that hard to keep track of one little human. Eliana will burn for this if she’s to blame.” Anne’s words were clear and angry.
“She’s been after the girl since the beginning. I can put a locator spell together if you have any of her blood left.” The other person was female, but not a voice I could place.
“Cashel, come out of hiding, darling. This concerns you as well.” The sing-song tone Anne affected was unnerving.
I strode toward them, forcing myself to remain calm. “Can you find her?” The witch, Thea, stood near the main door that led to the dungeon.
“Likely, yes. I’ll need something she’s connected to, her blood would be best.”
“I don’t have any. It’s…gone.” I couldn’t tell them about Callie. “And the only donation we took was for the ball.”
“Do you have anything else?”
Hope burned in me. “My blood. She’s taken some of my blood. Will that work?”
“If it still has a hold on her, yes.”
“Good, we need to find her and get her ready. The leader of the McKinley clan has put down a deposit. He wants to taste her and breed her if you haven’t gotten that job done already, Cashel.” Anne looked me up and down.
“No. You can’t. I can’t let you.”
Anne laughed. “Let me? Oh, you are either incredibly brave or stupid. I can’t decide which.”
“What can I give you in exchange for her? I’ll gladly lay down my life for her freedom.”
Anne cocked a brow. “You love her that much?”
“She’s mine.”
She rolled her eyes. “Men. So dramatic.” Then she sighed. “I’ll give her to you if you give me a child.”
My stomach rolled. “What?”
“You heard me. I need a Blackthorne heir if I’m going to keep my throne. So says the council. It’s written into the bloody law and there’s nothing I can do about it. Fucking patriarchy.”
“I…you made me call you mother. You were married to my father.”
“And you are the child of a whore and of no blood relation to me whatsoever. So, Cashel Blackthorne, prince of the Blackthorne lands, if you want your precious human to remain unspoiled and yours alone, you’ll do what I say.”
I shoved my arm toward Thea and nodded. “Find her.”
I’d sold my soul to the devil for my little bird, and part of me knew nothing would ever be the same after I held up my end of the bargain. Thea dragged a small knife over my skin and collected my blood on the blade. Then she closed her eyes and whispered softly to herself. The blood hissed and bubbled, disappearing into nothing more than a puff of smoke before she opened her eyes again and stared at me. Now her irises were clouded over, opaque white.
“She’s far from this place. In a cage. The…Hollyroad…no…brook.”
“Hollybook? The council has her.”
I turned on my heel and raced for the last place I wanted to return to—Hollybrook Estate, home of the vampire council.
The estate was eerily still when I arrived. No lights, no guards. It appeared abandoned and desolate. But I remembered the dungeon. The chains and torture. Pain I’d since learned to ignore moved through my traitor mark, bringing the memories of the branding, the punishment, to the forefront of my mind. What were they doing to Olivia? What kind of sick games were they playing with her mind?
I strode up to the tall castle doors and stared at the heavy wood. There wasn’t a reason to knock. This wasn’t a friendly visit. With all my considerable strength, I kicked the seam of both doors and splintered the wood outward. The heavy iron lock bar groaned in protest as it ripped away from the wood. No one came. Not a single soul even though the sound of my explosive entry filled the surroundings.
“Where are you?” I asked, scanning the area for some sign of the remaining council. They weren’t here. They’d abandoned their home, and for what? To lick their wounds after losing some of their numbers to hunters?
A bone-chilling scream echoed from somewhere deep in the estate. Olivia. I followed the sound, my own heart racing as urgency sent my blood humming. “Olivia!” I shouted, pulling my blade free of the sheath I’d attached to my hip. I ran. Hard and fast, homing in on her speeding pulse. Something was very wrong.
I came down a hall, following the only thing I had to help me find her. But it was a dead end. No doors, no stairs. Not even a tapestry on the wall to conceal a passageway. Dropping to my knees, I surveyed the stone floor. There had to be a way down. This was where the trail stopped. Uneven grooves in the mortar between the stones caught my eye. I slid my fingers over the edges and let out a sigh of relief when I found it. The lip of a trap door. I went down the dark staircase without a second thought. Cobwebs and dirt coated the corners and walls, a sure sign this was not their usual entrance, but it was how I’d get to Olivia.
Olivia’s voice echoed through the cavernous hallway and a chill covered me. “Logan, please.” Fear made her words tremble.
I ran harder, turning the corner when she continued. “Stop,” she begged. “I know you don’t want to do this.”
Logan’s whisper, “Liv. I can’t,” made rage fill my chest.
“Please don’t do this. You’ll never forgive yourself. You said you loved me. If that’s true, fight this.” I came into the main dungeon hall, scanning each cell for any sign of them with her words ringing in my ears. Then I saw them. At the farthest end of the prison locked in a cell together.
Logan’s body shook and he took a long, slow breath. “I’m okay. It’s okay.”
He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close. My stomach twisted knowing this would end badly. I moved as fast as I could as he said, “I do love you, Liv, but you should know better than to trust a vampire by now.”
Her scream tore through me. Grabbing the bars, I pulled hard, even as the silver burned my skin. Logan didn’t look my way as he destroyed her neck, tearing her perfect throat and spilling more of her blood than he was feeding upon.
A blur of dark hair caught my eye, and before I could register her presence fully, Eliana had shoved me away from the cell. I crashed into the wall, mortar and dust falling around me where the force of my collision had broken the stone. How had she gotten free?
“No. You don’t get to save her, Cashel. You get to watch her die.”
“Stop this,” I said, getting to my feet. “You shouldn’t be here.”
She laughed, the sound bitter and filled with hatred. “You taught me to be prepared, my love. Did you really think I would come into that chamber without a way out?”
“Leave her alone. You’ve killed Callie, don’t you have enough?”
“This is only what you deserve. You are a traitor to your kind. Now because of you, she will suffer at the hand of the other man she loved.”
I rushed her, slamming into her hard, but she was ready for me. She took me down at the knees, snarling with rage as she did so. Then I felt it, the smooth slice of a blade in the right side of my chest. It didn’t hurt, but it would. The stake I brought pressed into my back, and I managed to get one arm around to collect the sharpened wood.
“You missed,” I said, looking directly into her eyes. It was true, she’d completely missed my heart.
“Did I?” She cocked a brow and pulled the blade free before pressing it to my throat. The exact same blade she’d used to kill Callie. One quick flick of her wrist opened my veins as I slammed the stake into her back, hitting her heart with the force I used to drive it through. She coughed and spluttered, eyes wide as I struggled to stop the bleeding of my open wounds. This wouldn’t kill me, but the sun sickness she’d just infected me with would.
Her death wasn’t painful, but it was true. She fell to the side, a rapidly deteriorating shell of who she used to be.
My blood left my body at too fast a pace for me to keep up with, but I needed to get to Olivia. I had to save her from Logan. I crawled to her and found the bars wrenched open and the cell empty except for the crumpled form of my little bird, barely breathing and bleeding from her wounds.
“Cashel,” she croaked.
I couldn’t speak. My injury was knitting back together slowly, but not fast enough. I couldn’t save her. She would die.
She reached for me, her fingers coming through the open space between the bars. I did the same, and as her skin touched mine, I lost the battle with consciousness and said goodbye to my little bird forever.
* * *
The end…for now
Volume Three
Blood Heir
1
Olivia
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Icy drops of water fell onto the bare s
kin of my shoulder. They trailed down my chest, bringing me back to consciousness. I blinked in the darkness, a shiver building along my spine. The last thing I remembered was Logan. His words, his fangs ripping into my throat. I tried to bring my fingers to the place he’d bitten me, but my arms wouldn’t move. They were extended—bound in shackles and chains.
“H-hello?” I called, stuttering as the shiver turned to the reality of teeth-chattering, bone-deep cold.
Tugging my wrists toward my center, I stopped as soon as the metal cuffs bit into my skin. I turned my head, and a scream built in my chest, but I didn’t have the energy to let it out. My arms ached from their position.
“She’s still alive?” A rumbling voice I knew and once loved shocked me, echoing through the dark space.
“No thanks to you,” Anne’s response chilled me to the bone. “Now, look at me, Logan. If you want to survive, you’ll do as I say. She’s not to be released. Her blood has finally replenished, and I want every last drop reserved for my purposes. I’ve played nicely far too long and almost lost her because of it.”
“But Cashel—”
“Do not speak his name. Remember, it’s because of him Olivia betrayed you. You’re a monster now because of what she did. She left you for him. She abandoned you and let the council destroy most of the hunters. Olivia is your enemy.”
My gut clenched. She knew I was awake, that I could hear every word coming out of her mouth, and she didn’t care. Logan was under her control. He’d be helpless to stop her. I was at her mercy.
“Go on,” she pushed. “Two pints should do it this time. Or until she passes out. Whichever comes first. But, Logan?”
“Yes, my queen.”
“Make it hurt.”
The scrape of metal along stone pulled me from the parody of sleep I’d come to call normal. This was what Elias Blackthorne had promised me when I’d first arrived here. This was what Cashel had protected me from all this time.