As if his vitriol had summoned her, she glided into the room not five minutes later. Her shroud hid her expression as she took his hand, turning it over for her inspection. He thought uncharitable thoughts as he sweated in her presence, and those salty droplets froze upon his back. “Yes, I think it worked,” she said. She flexed his hand, ridding it of its icy coating. His skin did not warm even upon exposure to the air.
“I have another mission for you.” She seized her magical orb, looming over him as his heart beat at his ribcage for escape. Her voice crushed into his head, speaking an order he couldn’t fight. “Within the heart of the palace rests my old laboratory. Beneath it is a jail, and inside waits my most loyal servant, Blood Prince Taryn. You will release him and bring him back to me.”
“Yes, mistress,” he said from between gritted teeth.
“But first, there’s one more thing you need.” She drew the shroud from her head. On the inside, Julian gasped, but his expression remained one of obedient blankness.
Under her skin pulsed blood as black as night, staining every vein like the stroke of ink. He’d seen her true face in his dreams. The reality was so much worse. Her breath stank of old meat as she tossed her perfumed veil aside. Two rows of sharped teeth spread too far on her face in a Cheshire cat’s grin. Her brows drew together over eyes like two black pits.
“Take a good look. Know that your beloved Curator saw fit to do this to me. I’m ruined. My body needs to be replaced to match my majesty.” She placed a gloved hand over his cheek. Now he knew why she kept her whole body covered, including veiling the horror of her face. She was something ripped directly from the past, the definition of a Fell from what descriptions he’d heard.
She tilted his chin upward, those soulless eyes inspecting his face. “Are you afraid in there, wretch? Answer me.”
“Yes,” he said, if only to avoid her ordering him with his magic. His body trembled with more than the cold as he looked upon a monster who could eat him alive with fangs such as hers.
“Good. You should be,” she purred. “I will destroy you for what you did to my lifemate. No, no, you will destroy yourself. You will tear your own life apart, brick by brick. But maybe I will have some mercy if I hear you beg for my forgiveness.”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, staring at her with the blankness only a thrall could accomplish. She didn’t order him to beg, and she wasn’t his true master. Had Elandros told him to beg, Julian would be forced to grovel and kiss the ground Lucia walked on.
But he wouldn’t do it of his own free will. If she’d truly been Marcus’s lifemate, she would understand that he and his kin would never beg.
Lucia snapped her teeth as the silence drew on. “Very well. Allow me to give you a taste of what’s to come.”
Quick as a viper, those sharp teeth closed around his shoulder. Pain flared in twin half-moons from multiple punctures. Black spots danced in the corner of his sight as numbness spread from those points like a dark tide. It dragged him under to a feverish blankness, his body flushing hot for the first time since his captivity began.
In that void, he started seeing things.
A tall girl wearing an extravagant yellow gown on a stage, dancing with another man as a song about true love was sung by a live choir. She had a generous scattering of freckles on a plain face, innocent and heart-shaped, with a button nose and rose petal lips. Her face was framed by a few brunette curls, hair up in an elegant bun. Lucia was generous enough to creep the vision closer until he saw only her face and the crease of concentration between her brows as her lips moved silently to the lyrics of the song. She looked lively, in her element under a spotlight.
He knew her on sight, like a punch to his wounded leg. The woman he’d been searching centuries for. His lifemate.
Tainted by the inclusion of Lucia’s voice. “What a cute girl.” Julian knew true horror for the first time, not from Lucia’s presence or her bite, but for the fact that she was the one to find his lifemate.
“I passed her name on to a very interested party. Someone willing to put his men to my service for even a hint of information on someone so close to Alexander Rehnquist.”
The scene changed, showing him his woman sitting on a shabby couch. She jumped to her feet in surprise as her apartment door was kicked down by a man shrouded all in black. He could’ve screamed with her when he realized who they were. Haveners. Thugs of Bryant Collins, always determined to stick a dagger in the back of Alex and his closest friends.
What better way to get Julian than to steal his lifemate? Forced to watch it happen, he was proud that his lifemate punched one thug in the face. But it earned her a beating before being hogtied and dragged from her home. They taped her mouth to muffle her screams.
Not so muffled, Julian made a sound of pain. Just one. He opened his eyes to find Lucia licking his blood from her teeth, her expression pure pleasure. “Now you are marked as mine. This will be easy.” She gestured to make a portal and jerked her chin toward it. “Do not dally.”
He drew himself up, every muscle protesting the motion with how the cold had seeped into him. Nothing pained him worse than the sucking wound she’d delivered to his emotions, even if he couldn’t express it. He limped through her portal and covered his face under the cover of darkness, taking a deep breath as his body threatened to betray him.
Haven had his lifemate. And he didn’t even know her name.
He’d searched the world for her. No one other than his true match would do, not with the final promise he’d made his childhood love.
Lucia meant to dangle temptation before him just to snatch it away. He had no means of getting a message to his coven and ask for help. And he had no one to tell what he’d just learned of his lifemate and Lucia alike. There was no way he could stop her plan with him positioned directly under her thumb.
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself and move.” Lucia sounded impatient but, more importantly, quite present in his head. Had she read his thoughts?
Could she do that?
He stood straighter, his breath turning to cold mist before him. The portal had led to a room inside of the palace, pitch-black as was the rest of the island. His hair stood on end as he glanced out of the square where a window once was, seeing only an endless stretch of blackness.
“Wrong way.” Lucia ordered him to turn around, and his feet moved obediently to her task. He walked past the portal still wavering there in the dark and followed her instructions up a flight of stone stairs. As his eyes adjusted to vampire keenness, he started making out what was before him by shades of gray.
The worst part about the ghost town this palace had become was the smell. The stink of rotting fish and other sea life matched his wretched feelings. He moved with her orders just to get out of this place faster, locating her old laboratory and a set of stairs at the back. “He is bound by nephilim chains. You now have enough power within you to remove them. Be honored. Their magic will recognize Marcus within your wretched self.”
Down in the laboratory’s depths was a six-cell jail smelling vaguely of cleaning solution. He took a breath of that with a sigh of relief, pacing to the only cell with closed bars. A pair of eyes fixed on him in the dark, a flash of maroon in the light of the chains he wore. Julian was able to walk into the cell, its lock long turned to rust.
The only thing holding the man captive was two lengths of golden chains. They glowed of their own light, simple as iron locks but obviously infused with magic. A longer set hooked into a stone ring, anchoring the captive there. His wrists were bound with a second set. “Has my queen sent you?” His voice was a roll of thunder, belying someone of great size and strength despite the way he’d had to sit in the corner to stay comfortable while chained.
“Yes. I have come to free you and return you to her service.” Julian parroted Lucia in his head at her command.
“I knew my love wouldn’t forsake me.”
“Taryn has always been smitten.” Lucia sounded like she wa
s laughing at some private joke. “Look at the chains and find a knot of upraised metal. Press down upon it to free him. Bring me the chains.”
A portal opened not three paces from them, another sign that Lucia could’ve done this herself. She wanted him to further damn himself by setting up the dominos to fall as she wished.
Forced by her command, he turned over the chains Taryn thrust forward until he found a circle of metal raised over the rest. He pressed his thumb into it, feeling his skin prick on the metal’s sharp edge. A bead of blood pooled on the surface of his skin, and the manacles sprung free a moment later. He repeated this for the second set and carried both through the portal Lucia had left for them.
Upon reemerging into a room with light, Julian got his first good look at Taryn. The last Blood Prince had skin as dark as night, nearly blending in with a fine, old-fashioned suit he wore. His head and jaw were graced by scruffy hair, mostly unkempt in his captivity. His expression changed from a monotone, blank, nearly identical to a thrall’s stare, to a loving, coveting look upon seeing Lucia, still unveiled.
“My love. I return to your service,” he rumbled, kneeling before her.
“Just in time to help me in my ultimate victory. I’m sorry our fellows saw fit to chain your strength.” She left him on his knees, motioning to the chains Julian held. “It’s a miracle these survived. Nothing magic touches can be fully destroyed, it would seem. Did these sap your strength permanently, Taryn? Or was it only while you wore them?”
“I am strong again, my queen,” he said.
“Good. I am pleased.” Even her words seemed to cause Taryn to lean in, eager to continue his service.
Instead of acknowledging him, she turned to Julian. Her fangs were fully bared in a vicious smile. “I have another task for you. Gather up the one person missing so I may begin anew. Bring me the little Sorceress, Violet. It’s time she paid her debt for me saving her miserable life.”
Screaming on the inside, Julian’s body obediently stepped through her next portal.
Chapter 38
Violet
VIOLET TOOK HER time to scrub herself until the nightmare and the slimy feeling it’d left on her skin faded. She pressed her forehead to the tile, gazing at the reflection of her silver eyes.
A monster had saved her life. And she still didn’t know why! She pounded her fist against the bathroom wall in futility before shutting off the stream of warm water. After emptying the contents of her stomach and washing herself crown to toes, she at least felt more ready for the day.
She donned a new outfit she’d picked out for herself after drying her hair. Without the whine of the dryer, she heard the clack of hangers sliding on the rack. Someone else was in Alex’s walk-in closet, where she’d already moved in her things. “Who’s there?” she called, hoping for Petra or even one of the maids who kept the mansion tidy. She missed the vampires who’d made this place feel like home so quickly.
“Julian,” came the response. The hair on the back of her head rose despite a confused smile crossing her face. She’d missed him and his stern manner, too, but why was he in her closet?
He carried out a dress still wrapped in a sheet of plastic from where it was purchased. A shiny, silver number very reminiscent of…
Oh no, she thought. She’d seen that dress in the reflection the Eye of Worlds had shown her.
“What is your heart’s deepest desire? Where do you wear this dress?” Lucia had mocked. She didn’t realize she already owned the very same dress.
Julian turned toward her, his expression completely blank. Her questions guttered in her throat. She’d seen a face like that before, stripped of its natural life to resemble a mask’s stiff, lifeless form. It felt like a lifetime ago when her coworkers at the zoo were butchered by Haven thugs, wearing that same expression.
She turned to take hold of her occultarus, but he was on her in a flash of vampire speed. He grabbed hold of her wrists and pinned them behind her back. Screaming, she realized she was immediately beaten without the ability to make magic symbols with her hands or touch her occultarus.
“I’m sorry,” Julian said quietly. He held her with one hand, the other pulling something from a back pocket. Cold metal shackled her wrists, but that wasn’t all. She felt her control of magic seep from her. Her occultarus fell to the ground with a dull thump, its light extinguishing.
“How could you?” she gasped. Of all people, she wouldn’t expect Julian to attack her. But the only response she got was his blank look.
She thrashed and screamed in his hold, digging in her heels as he gathered the dress and her occultarus. He threw her over his shoulder without a problem, uttering only a grunt as she kicked his chest repeatedly to get him to let go. The air thrummed with the opening of a portal before they were suddenly in a different room.
He placed her on her feet before a creature of her nightmares, clutching her shackles so she couldn’t escape. “Hello, Violet,” purred Lucia, her black-veined face unveiled as she leaned in, blowing a gust of foul breath over her.
Violet released another scream, this one pitched higher as her terror mounted. A swift smack silenced her. “Do that again, and I drive this through the back of Julian’s head. Are we clear?” Lucia held up a sheathed dagger that looked familiar. A weapon he used to wear, she realized. Who else carried weapons like that?
Still, Violet pressed her lips together. She knew Julian hadn’t suddenly experienced a change of heart on his own. “Better.” Lucia chuckled as she toyed with the blade, unsheathing it and checking its sharpness. A bead of black blood rose from her fingertip, seeping through her glove.
“What do you want from me?” Violet asked desperately when the other Sorceress started inspecting her instead.
Lucia glanced over her shoulder. “Think I should tell her?” she asked two men Violet hadn’t realized were standing there. Though they shared Blood Prince eyes, as maroon as a glass of fine wine, they otherwise couldn’t have been more different. One was thin and gangly, with slicked-back hair and fine clothes. The other was a black man looming over everyone as the most muscular in the room. His expression was nearly as blank as Julian’s except for when he glanced to Lucia and gave an enamored smile.
“What harm would it be to show your brilliance now, my queen?” simpered the one she had a hard time believing was a Blood Prince. “They’ll both be dead soon anyway.”
Violet’s heart plummeted somewhere around her toes. “W-what?” she whispered.
“Oh, it’s nothing personal, my dear. Almost anyone would’ve done,” Lucia said, patting her cheek. Her fanged smile spread to encompass most of the lower half of her face. “This body of mine is ruined, and I am in desperate need of a replacement.”
She gestured when Violet opened her mouth, closing it with an unseen force. Brows pinching together, she made muffled curses at the other woman. She wanted to steal her body? Only how outnumbered she was stopped her from lashing out with a kick or headbutt. Anyone here could hold her down if they needed to. “You do have a pretty face, but I already tire of your voice,” Lucia said. Violet felt her face redden further as she tried to speak.
“As I was saying, almost anyone would’ve done. But I needed a special woman who could survive the transformation to a Sorceress and establish herself with a powerful mate. I tire of ruling alone, despite my lifemate’s untimely end.” She shot a glare at Julian.
Violet could gag. In her body, Lucia could trick Alex into thinking it was still her. “With the right events in place, Alexander will ascend to Ancient and bend to my will,” Lucia continued, her expression growing smug as she read Violet’s reaction. “He’s no Marcus, but he will do. Meanwhile, you will bear my curse for however long it takes for your friends to find and execute you. Whomever swings the sword will inherit the curse, as that’s how Fell magic works. But that won’t be my problem anymore.” She shrugged casually, ignoring how pale Violet had turned.
Snapping her fingers, she sauntered from the room. “
Bring her. It’s time.”
The two Blood Princes followed her. Julian tried to prod her into motion before resorting to carrying her again. This time, she went completely limp. “Help. Please. Tell me you’re still in there,” she whispered, finding Lucia’s influence left when she left the room. He was her last hope here before her body could be stolen.
“I’m sorry,” Julian repeated. “I would never…” He marched her from the room even still.
“Can you call to someone?” she asked, seeing a hallway decked with lavish portraits and painted landscapes pass by. She sniffled, realizing belatedly that her tears were soaking into his shoulder. She cried for both of them as he shook his head because whatever these chains were, they had sucked away every ounce of her magic. There was no escaping this moment, so expertly plotted as Lucia had lain dreaming beneath the waves for so long.
Everything had been set up, leading her to the gallows. From saving her from the Haveners, gifting her magic long lost to the past, to setting her on the path to meet Alex. She sobbed as she thought of him laying with Lucia and thinking it was still her. Him kissing her, telling her that he loved her.
They entered another room, and all the furniture moved to one side to reveal wooden planks. The surface had been scored deeply in a circle as wide as Violet’s arm span, complicated symbols engraved at intervals on both sides. “We are fortunate this ritual doesn’t require an Alchemyst’s blood. There are none left after all,” Lucia said, having a private chuckle at that.
She drew out Julian’s dagger. “Reposition her arms in front of her. You can unlock one side by holding the other closed as you press the release.”
Julian’s cold hand closed around her left wrist as the right shackle unlocked. She whirled to elbow him in the ribs, but he merely took the impact with another grunt and grabbed her free wrist, locking it before her. Lucia watched, amusement tugging at her lips. She grasped Violet’s elbow, standing at arm’s length as she cut a series of symbols into her forearm. She stopped only to make a pinching motion when Violet began to curse her out and tell her where to go, silencing her once more and finishing her task.
Dream Walker: Blood Legacy Series Book 1 Page 23