by Katie May
haggard faces of a dozen other humans.
What the actual fuck?
“Get the fuck up, bitch!” A kick was aimed at my unprotected middle.
Before the foot could connect, I snapped my hand out and caught his ankle.
He grunted, stumbling under my sudden assault, and I took his lapse in
concentration to jump to my feet.
“Who do you work for?” I demanded, volleying my gaze from the man to
the frightened humans. They were a variety of ages and races. The youngest
appeared to be maybe fifteen, and the oldest was well into his eighties. Each
of them had greasy, unruly hair and dirt-stained cheeks. They
looked...starved. Hollowed, almost, as if they hadn’t been fed a decent meal
in weeks.
I counted at least ten assailants in the room with us, all broad-shouldered
and terrifying Vampires. Their thin white shirts molded to their chests and
biceps, and I noticed a strange symbol etched across the fabric, just over their
hearts. It almost appeared to be a logo of some sort.
What the fuck?
“This one’s feisty,” the Vampire before me sneered. “Where did you find
her?”
A second man joined him, and my eyes narrowed into slits.
“You,” I accused, glaring daggers at the arresting man from the inn. The
one who had kidnapped me.
His smile grew, childish dimples appearing in his cheeks, as he stepped
forward.
“She won’t bite, Bert,” he soothed the other man, attention still locked on
me. “She’s only human, just like the others. Nothing special. Besides...” In a
span of seconds, he was across the room with his hand around the fifteen-
year-old boy’s throat. “There’s an easy way to subdue her.”
“Don’t!” I pleaded, instantly relaxing my defensive posture. The kid’s
wide eyes stared at me, begging me to do something, to save him. He looked
at me as if I was supposed to be the hero of this story. The savior.
Didn’t he know I was only a monster? I couldn’t even save myself.
My body sagged in resignation as the guard—Bert—stepped behind me
and secured cuffs to my wrists. Fucking cuffs. When this was over, I was
melting all of them.
Well, except for the ones Ryland wanted to use.
A thick chain was clasped from my handcuffs to the cuffs of the man in
front of me, effectively holding all of us humans in a line. The boy was
placed directly behind me, body trembling with terror.
“It’ll be okay,” I assured him meekly. But fuck “it.” I didn’t even know
what “it” was. How could I promise it would be okay?
For some unidentifiable reason, this didn’t feel like Aaliyah. I didn’t
know how I knew, only that I did.
So if it wasn’t her, then who?
As one of the Vampires checked my restraints, I peeked at his crisp white
shirt and the strange image I had noted earlier. On closer inspection, it
appeared to be a pair of black fangs dripping with blood. That blood cascaded
downwards to spell out “Bloody Carnival.”
That didn’t sound good.
We were led through what appeared to be an industrial warehouse. A
draft made the air bitter and chilly, slicing at my exposed skin.
A woman near the front of the line began to cry, and one of the Vampires
hit her over the head. I bared my teeth but remained stubbornly silent. As
soon as I was free...
And then what, Z? I asked myself dryly. Could you really take on ten
Vampires? While simultaneously protecting the humans?
Have you ever had an “oh, fuck” moment? Well, this was mine.
Sometimes, I liked the word fuck—especially when it concerned my mates.
But this type of fuck? It was a “fuck me in the asshole without any lube” sort
of deal.
Basically, it was a fuck times ten.
The Vampire who had kidnapped me paused suddenly, standing at the
front of the group with his hands clasped behind his back.
“When you are placed with the other cattle, you will remain silent. No
speaking. No crying. No fighting. If you do any of that, we will kill you.” He
nodded towards the other guards to indicate whom, exactly, he meant. My
pulse skyrocketed at his crude words.
Cattle?
“Stay in a single-file line as we lead you to the bullpen,” he instructed.
With that ominous statement, he heaved open a heavy metal door.
Immediately, sounds assaulted me. Laughs, screams, cries, and
conversations. Intermingled with all of that was thumping music, the bass
reverberating through my body.
As we stepped through the door, my eyes practically bugged out of my
head. It appeared to be a tent, pillars erected around the sides and in the
center. At first glance, it looked like a circus of some sort. The red fabric of
the tent and bright artificial lights provided the area with an eerie feel.
Horror filled me, consumed me, gripped my throat in an iron vise and
refused to let go. What I was seeing…
It was beyond wrong, beyond depraved. My stomach twisted and
tightened, seconds from expelling the contents from last night’s dinner. I had
known the Shifter and Mermaid Kingdoms were fucked up and twisted, but
this was an entirely separate level.
Bloody Carnival catered to Vampires, no surprise given the name. Near
the front entrance of the tent, two female Vampires were selling tickets to
Nightmares of all species. The majority were Vamps, but I spotted a few of
the others as well.
A stage was assembled near the back of the room where humans were
being sold off. At least, that was what I assumed the purpose was. A stout
auctioneer stood behind a podium, gesticulating wildly with his gavel. In the
center of the stage, a thirty-year-old woman stood naked under the blinding
lights. She was sobbing, attempting futilely to cover her body from the
prying, hungry eyes.
Against the opposite wall, numerous benches were positioned for
Vampires to feed from humans. All of the humans were shackled and
screaming as the Nightmares tore at their flesh. More than one dead body
littered the ground.
In the center of the tent, numerous stalls were set up, each detailing a
morbid game. One appeared to be Pin the Tail on the Human. A lone human
male stood in the center of the stall, crying, as Vampires jabbed him with
daggers and swords. Next to that stall was an ancient guillotine and a bucket
full of severed heads. I spotted what appeared to be gallows a little ways
down, each holding a wiggling, thrashing human.
The bastards weren’t just selling humans.
They were torturing and killing them.
As I watched, horrified, the woman on the stage was gripped by two
smirking Vampires. She screamed as they dragged her down the steps and
straight to a forest just outside of the tent. The wooden sign overhead labeled
it as “The Maze.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My hands trembled as we were paraded forward. Vampires leered at us,
flashing fangs.
How could this type of institution exist?
Did the princes know about this?
I wanted desperately to believe that they didn’t, but I remembered Bash
<
br /> mentioning human carnivals.
We stopped in front of a large, wooden pen that sat adjacent to the stage.
Over fifty humans were huddled together in the cramped space. Before we
entered, one of the Carnival’s employees unhooked us from each other and
removed the handcuffs from everyone except for me. Asshole. The guard
then slid open a padlocked door and pushed us inside, slamming it behind us.
From this position, we were on display for the malicious Vampires to see.
More than one stuck their faces to the fence and hurled insults and derogatory
phrases at us.
How am I going to get out of this? How am I going to save all these
people?
I didn’t want to admit it, but I wasn’t sure it would be possible.
Somebody appeared behind me and stuck a key into my cuffs. They
clattered to the floor with an audible clank.
I turned, instantly on alert, only to freeze when I noticed who had joined
me in the bullpen.
“Axel?”
TWENTY-THREE
Z
I said his name again, half wondering if he was a mirage that
would disappear when my sanity returned. But why I would imagine
Axel, of all people, remained a mystery.
He placed a single finger to his lips before disappearing from view,
blending into the shadows so seamlessly I couldn’t differentiate where he
ended and they began.
My head was left spinning as I stared at the spot he had disappeared from.
Was he a part of this?
Question after question clamored for my undivided attention. Instead of
focusing on any of them, I spun in a wild circle.
The younger boy from earlier huddled near me, as if he sensed the
predator lurking just beneath my angelic exterior.
“What’s your name?” I whispered to him, my voice overshadowed by the
desperate cries and screams of the other prisoners.
“Miles,” he responded. His hand instinctively hooked under the hem of
my shirt, holding on for dear life. When he realized what he was doing, he
released me instantly and straightened his spine. He attempted to appear
nonchalant, unfazed by what we were enduring, but his hands trembled by his
sides. His face turned ashen as he stared through the throng of humans,
wincing as he looked towards the stage.
“I’m Z. It’s nice to meet you, Miles. How old are you?”
“Fourteen,” he answered immediately.
“What happened?” I questioned, carefully observing my surroundings
with an almost clinical detachment. One of the humans—a burly male—
lunged towards the fence, pounding his fists against the distressed wood. Two
guards stepped forward instantly, sticking a cattle prod through the gap. The
human fell backwards with an enraged snarl before blissfully drifting into
unconsciousness.
“I live with my sister near the border of the Vampire Kingdom,” he began
doggedly. A lump in his throat moved as he swallowed. “I was gathering
supplies at the marketplace when a Trader captured me.”
I stared at the kid, truly looked at him, for the first time. His honey blond
hair was curled around his ears, accentuating the golden flecks in his spring
green eyes. His face was slim and lean, his cheekbones prominent. Despite
his disheveled appearance, there was an iron glint in his eyes that made me
think this kid had been through hell. Been through hell...and survived. Maybe
not unscathed, but then again, none of us were.
We all wore scars from our battles, not all of them visible.
“Where are your parents?” I queried.
“Dead,” he said bluntly, not an ounce of inflection in his voice. His
features were just as cold and impassive.
“And your sister? Where is she?”
His mask cracked briefly as raw pain flitted across his face.
“She should be fine…” He scrubbed a hand through his curls. “She’s
smart, smarter than most kids her age…”
“How old is she?” I questioned, dreading the answer.
“She turned eight last month.”
“Fuck,” I cursed. An eight-year-old kid? Alone? In this world?
“We live over in RoseGrove,” he muttered, another stab of pain appearing
in his eyes. “By the watermill. The property has been abandoned for years.
She loves it. Says it reminds her of those adventure novels Mom used to read
us.”
From the way he talked about her, I could tell he loved her immensely.
His eyes warmed significantly, like a piece of ice being held over a flame. A
wistful smile anointed his face as he talked about her.
“You’re going to get back to her,” I vowed. A tiny sliver of steel
surrounding my heart withered and died. “I promise.”
He appeared unconvinced, but nodded once.
That was fine. He didn’t have to believe me for me to follow through on
my promise.
The lock clicked open, and the long-haired man from before sauntered in,
a wicked gleam in his eyes. Ignoring me completely, he grabbed a fistful of a
woman’s hair and dragged her towards the stage. Two more guards closed
and locked the door behind them.
“Who is that?” I asked, lips curling away from my teeth as I stared at my
kidnapper.
“Hans,” Miles replied, voice curt. “He runs the Bloody Carnival.”
I watched “Hans” parade the woman to the center of the stage where the
auctioneer leered at her. In one swoop, the girl’s dirty dress dropped to the
ground and she stood naked before the assembled Vampires.
“One female human, aged thirty-seven. Found near the Shifter Kingdom.
Bidding will start at one hundred coins. Do I hear one hundred? One hundred
to the gentleman in the back. How about one-fifty. Do I hear a one-fifty?
One-fifty to Cindy Mason! How about two hundred?”
The voices of the crowd blurred together as the bidding total increased.
Males and females alike raised their paddles in the air, demanding the
auctioneer’s attention. At one thousand two hundred coins, the woman was
sold to a slimy Vampire who wasted no time collecting his purchase and
dragging her towards a series of secluded rooms.
I didn’t even want to think about what went down there.
“I’m scared,” Miles whispered, interlocking his fingers with mine. I gave
his hand a reassuring squeeze, attempting to soothe the terrified boy.
What if I couldn’t get us out of this mess?
What if I could...but at the exchange of all these other people’s lives?
Would I be able to live with myself?
It was important to accept the girl staring back at you in the mirror. But
my reflection was riddled with scars and bruises, each one depicting a new
horror. My experiences had shaped me and molded me into the assassin you
saw today. I relied extensively on my own morality, my ability to detect right
from wrong. Without that, I had...nothing. I would be no better than the
Nightmares I had been tasked to kill.
The door to the bullpen opened again, and this time, Hans made a beeline
directly towards me. No, not me.
Miles.
The boy attempted to hide behind me, fear dancing in his eyes, and I
moved to stand protectively
in front of him.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
Hans’s smile only grew. “Z...Z...Z…” He shook his head slowly. “Why
do you feel the need to protect the boy?”
I didn’t answer, staring at him with narrowed, penetrating eyes. I hoped
he felt my rage on his skin like a physical burn.
I hoped he bled.
“Don’t touch him,” I said darkly. My daggers had been confiscated when
I had been knocked unconscious, but I was still capable of fighting with my
fists.
“I won’t touch the little boy,” Hans drawled, a sardonic twist to his plush
lips. “But, you, on the other hand…”
I didn’t fight him—or the five other guards—that grabbed me and pulled
me out of the bullpen. I should’ve been flattered that they thought I required
additional men to secure me.
Behind me, Miles screamed, the sound eerily similar to that of my own
voice so many years ago. When I saw my parents killed by Shifters.
Hans laughed, the sound borderline manic, as he dragged me up the stairs
of the stage.
The lights were so bright it was impossible to decipher any faces in the
crowd. I didn’t know if it made this situation more or less daunting.
More. Definitely more.
When Hans made a move to rip off my clothes, I growled at him.
Actually fucking growled as if I had the slightest chance in hell of being the
predator here. His eyes glimmered with mirth, but he held his hands up
placatingly, backing up a step.
Keeping his eyes trained on me, Hans stalked to the podium and grabbed
the gavel out of the auctioneer’s hand.
“We have here a lovely specimen, straight from the Capital itself!” he
declared to the enthusiastic cheers from the crowd. “Z, here, is the winner of
The Damning and the Kingdoms’ assassin!”
This time, the cheers were nearly deafening. More and more people were
congregating at the front of the stage, staring up at me in rapt fascination.
Though their features were blurry, indistinct, I knew their eyes would be
trained on me.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Hans slapped my ass, and it took every ounce of
willpower not to grab his wrist, crack all of the bones, and then shove each
individual finger up his nose. Or butt. I might have an unhealthy fascination
with anal play. “Starting bid is two thousand gold coins.”
