Tyroz inhaled deeply and listened to what Xiathor had to say.
“The…commotion earlier…it jacked my pulse up, made it beat faster. I was watching Alara fight with your guards from the sidelines when blood was drawn. I was instantly connected to her as she grew hungry, but didn’t follow through. When she grew upset and stormed outside, I followed her, staying out of the shadows as you ran after her not long after. She passed the gates and…” Xiathor met Tyroz’s eyes and shook his head.
“Xiathor,” Tyroz growled.
He looked up at everyone and then swallowed. “I figured you went out, to try and stop her from getting out of the gates. Or chase after her, make her come back. I watched you, but you let her go, choosing not to cross the protection of your home.”
Everyone looked at Tyroz.
“Is this true?” Nikalye asked.
Tyroz ignored him, staring at Xiathor when he continued.
“You walked away after a while, while she begged you to prove her wrong. Prove that you cared.”
“How can you know that?”
“I told you, Master, I am connected to her because her emotions were so strong. It pulled me into her body.”
“What happened?” Nikalye asked.
“Someone grabbed her, knocked her unconscious.”
Tyroz didn’t listen to anymore of the vampires words. He strode through his home, yelling orders to his men. Once he finished, he spoke to Nikalye, “Who were they?” He felt a slither of fear tickle his spine as he thought of the humans. He didn’t want to image the things they would do to Alara.
“Vampires. Assassins to be exact.”
Tyroz stopped. He heard no lies within the guardian’s words, but he had to ask. “You are positive.”
“As positive as I see the future, Tyroz.”
Tyroz began to walk again, running a hand through his hair. Alara in the hands of her own assassins seemed like a worse fate than the humans. The humans would torture Alara, but go no further than that. Apart from killing her.
The assassins would do much more than torture her. They would break the hard shell she used to protect herself. Break her soul before they ended her life.
Nikalye cleared his throat, bringing him from his thoughts. “I am afraid to inform you that it is against the assassins’ law to kill another assassin.”
“What does that mean for Alara?”
“It means a fate worse than death. It means a lifetime of torture.” Nikalye grabbed Tyroz’s arm, bring them face-to-face. “Alara is a dhampir, so the torture will be far worse for her, they will torture her until she is raging with hunger and set her on those she loves. She will not know who she is or right from wrong. Not only will she be breaking the assassin’s rules about drinking blood, but she will have the blood of her loves ones on her hands. That is not something you forget.”
“Gather the others. Nikalye, you lead them, follow her trail. We cannot let anything happen to her.”
“I will lead them, and I will find her. I take it you will be staying here as usual?” Nikalye’s eyebrows rose before he walked away.
I won’t let anything happen to her!
“Guardian!”
Nikalye spoke without turning, “We will not let anything happen to her. But we must hurry.”
He walked after him, his heart hammering. It had been a long time since he battled. He was always quick to join in a fight until Lord Riyzan’s daughter was taken. When she went into bloodlust, everything changed. He knew there were other monsters roaming around, attacking his people and wouldn’t put himself in danger with his reckless behaviour. He’d chosen to hide instead of fight.
Things needed to change. He couldn’t put himself first, not when the woman he loved…
Loved?
Tyroz stopped suddenly and Nikalye turned to meet his eyes.
“The bond is a complex emotion, Tyroz. Don’t underestimate its power. You will say the words in the end.”
“Do you say that because you have seen it, or from experience?”
Nikalye smiled and put his hand on Tyroz’s shoulder. “Both. Come we must move.”
Chapter Seven
Alara opened her eyes and groaned. Her head felt like it had been split open. She rubbed her head and swallowed back bile as she looked around the room—it was small and dark. Alara swallowed and moved to get more comfortable, the chains around her ankles and wrists clanked across the floor loudly. She glanced up and looked at the wall where the chains disappeared and stood up, wincing at the pain in her head. Ignoring it, she wrapped her hands around the chains and pulled, using all of the strength she had. The wall gave way a little but the chain seemed to be further in the wall than what she thought.
Sighing, Alara sunk to the floor and rubbed her face. She didn’t have a clue where she was or who had taken her. All she knew was that she was in deep shit.
Very deep shit.
She had been stupid leaving the safety of the gates. No one knew she had been taken so no one would try and get her back.
She was an idiot.
The door to the room clicked and then opened. A man walked in, his face covered in a black mast, and instantly, she knew where she was.
The assassins’ guild.
He walked up to Alara and pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket. He went through them and pulled out an old looking key, he pushed it into the manacles and unlocked them. He pulled her to her feet.
“No funny business, or I won’t be nice,” he told her.
Alara nodded and waited for him to unchain her from the wall. She attacked, thrusting the palm of her hand into his nose and them elbowing him in the face. Once he’d fallen to the floor, she grabbed his keys and unchained herself and put the manacles onto him to keep him from alerting anyone. She frisked him thoroughly, pulling out his daggers and taking his hidden blades. She unmasked him and sighed.
“Okalak, you idiot. What price was given high enough for you to betray me?”
She grasped the daggers in her hand and quietly walked out of the room, passing more rooms that held prisoners. Some were quiet and others were screaming for help. She ignored the screaming ones and snarled at the ones that tried to grab her. Once she got to the end of the corridor, she pulled out the keys and unlocked the door. She listened before pushing the door quietly open and peaking inside. Everything was quiet as she surveyed the room. She moved forward once she was sure no one was there.
The floors and walls were covered in blood. Both dried and still wet. Alara swallowed, remembering the nights she spend training with the other assassins in the room, how much blood she’d spilt and each time, walked away.
“You have been a very bad girl, Alara.”
She whirled around and saw Siantis sat in a chair high above the ground. There were more chairs around the room, low enough for others to see into the pit but high enough that no one could reach them from it.
Siantis had been the one to suggest she sign the assassins contract to seek her revenge on Tyroz and he’d been the one to train her up, making sure she was strong enough before she began to track Tyroz.
“You’ve been following me?”
Siantis laughed. “Of course I have. I had to make sure my star student did her first job well.” He stood and stepped off the side of the spectator’s floor. He landed lightly and quietly. The perfect assassin. “I watched you track him, watched as you infiltrated the safety of his protection, and watched you attack him, but not kill him. I saw how you acted, Alara, and I knew I had to act.”
“You set those assassins on me?”
“I did, but I clearly underestimated Tyroz’s abilities.”
“Why? Why would you do that? Why would you betray me?”
“Betray you?” Siantis laughed. “I did no such thing. You betrayed me. A binding contract, Alara, did you forget that when you let your emotions get to you?”
“Siantis, it wasn’t anything I could help! We have the bond—do you know what that means?”
“The bond? T
rust you to fall in love with someone who hates the very thing he fucked. Does he know? Is that why you ran away in tears?” Siantis moved fast and pushed Alara against a post. She banged her head but he put the manacles around her wrists before she could fall. She sagged and she fought the nausea building up in her stomach. The crack of the whip made her forget about being sick.
Siantis was well known in the guild for killing his marks with a whip.
“Don’t do this!”
“Rules, Alara!” He put his lips close to her ear. “I will break you, dhampir and I will make you into the very thing you fear.”
The first sting was excruciating. Alara screamed in pain and felt blood flow freely down her back. The vampire whipped her again and she screamed again. He did this over and over and Alara didn’t stop screaming until blackness swirled around in her vision and took her.
Chapter Eight
Nikalye had followed Alara’s scent for hours before he’d lost the trail. They were left wondering around, searching for clues to her whereabouts, but so far, had found nothing.
Tyroz had begun to worry about Alara’s safety when Xiathor made everything worse. He’d screamed, arched his back and fallen to his knees.
“He’s connected with Alara and is experiencing everything she is. We must be close,” Nikalye spoke clearly while Doxiak used his abilities to heal the injured vampire from the wounds he could only feel. The wounds Alara was currently experiencing.
Grounding his teeth together, Tyroz grabbed Xiathor and shook him. “Where is she!”
“So…so much p…pain,” he whispered, his eyes rolling back slightly.
Tyroz shook him again. “Concentrate! You can feel her, follow her, Xiathor so we can stop the pain for you both!”
“Feel…her. Yes, I can…she’s…” Xiathor closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He still shook, but when he spoke, his voice was strong. “She’s close…and injured badly.”
“Feel free to state more of the obvious,” Saugner said while he picked his fingernails with his dagger.
“She’s…in an arena, with the assassins around her.”
“Arena?” Tyroz asked. He glanced at Ziahzu and raised a questioning brow.
“The area, where all assassins train and…play with their target.”
“Do you know the way?” Nikalye asked.
“I don’t. The entire guild property is kept a secret, even from us assassins.”
“But it is not hidden,” Nikalye replied with a smile. He then grasped the vampire’s face and stared him in the eye. “Ah, Siantis, my old friend. I look forward to us meeting again.”
“Nikalye?” Tyroz asked.
He let go of the vampires face. “Siantis was my mentor at a very young age,” he replied. “He trained me on how to use my ability in battle, how to control it when it took over. Siantis’s own ability rivalled my own, and we often fought with each other for right and wrong. I beat him, and gave him the chance to change but when he didn’t I left, wanting no part with him.”
“I’ll leave you to him then, while the rest of us search for Alara.”
Nikalye nodded and led the way.
Three hours of walking in painful silence, interrupted only when Xiathor gasped and collapsed to his knees in pain, and they’d finally arrived at their destination. The Assassins Guild appeared to be an old storage building, ready for demolishing, but Tyroz knew better. The assassins wouldn’t keep their organisation in plain sight where creatures seeking revenge could find them—their secret hideout was deep underground, with all the privacy they could need.
But not everyone had someone as talented as Nikalye with them.
“They will be heavily guarded—be ready to fight,” Ziahzu told everyone.
“No one awaits us, Assassin. All is clear beyond the walls of that building,” Nikalye murmured as he strode forward, pulling his twin blades from their sheaths.
Tyroz followed close behind and motioned for Ziahzu and Saugner to circle around the building and search for any creatures waiting to ambush them.
Nikalye quietly pushed open the door and searched the room before stepping inside. The room was spacious and empty. The large windows smashed and most boarded up. All the storage unit doors were open and also empty but that didn’t surprise Tyroz. The assassins wouldn’t keep things where wonderers could come across them.
“Guardian, do you know the location of the door?” Apart from the one they stepped through, there were no doors within the room.
Without a word, Nikalye strode across the room and to a thick iron post stuck up from the middle of the floor. He felt around for a second until there was an audible click, and the floor around him shifted and spun, spiralling down and away, opening up into a large staircase that took up most of the floor.
Tyroz was impressed.
Nikalye descended first, Tyroz followed and the others—apart from Xiathor—brought up the rear. They met no one on the stairs, and when it opened out into a large and luxurious room, filled with leather chairs and settees, large portraits, crystal chandeliers and exotic rugs, no one jumped out at them and tried to kill them.
Something isn’t right.
From above, Xiathor groaned and gasped. “Hu…rry…the pain is…get…getting worse!”
“Hold on,” Nikalye called back up.
They spread out, searching the entire room thoroughly before meeting at a large arch with stone steps that led further underground.
“We will deal with the assassins,” Nikalye told Tyroz. “You find Alara and get her to safety. She is your number one priority, do you understand?”
He did. Nikalye wasn’t calling him weak, or a coward. The fact he’d come this far showed his dedication to the woman. But Alara was his bonded mate, and if anything happened to her, it would destroy him.
Nikalye wanted to prevent that—they’d both seen what can happen to the strongest of creatures when their bonded mate no longer lived.
“Alara is my number one priority.” And he would kill the bastards that hurt her.
“Trap!”
Tyroz took out the vampire attacking him and spun around, ready for another. He’d known it was a trap long before the alarm. The assassins were too ready, too prepared. They knew they were coming.
“Saugner!” he yelled, sinking his sword into the vampire’s stomach. He met his eyes when he strode into the room. “Lead them to safety, I’ll get Alara!”
The vampire’s eyes flashed. “As you wish.” He turned and exited the room.
Tyroz turned to the others. “Fall back!” Instantly, they surrounded him as he strode from the room, protecting his back.
Saugner stood facing a group of assassin’s when Tyroz and his men walked up to him. Suddenly, the entire room of assassin’s fell to the floor, screaming in pain and clutching their heads.
Tyroz felt his ability wash over his skin like tiny pinpricks of needles, and felt the others behind him shiver. Saugner’s unique ability was strong. It was why he kept him near him wherever he went.
While the assassin’s dealt with whatever nightmare Saugner had put them in, they all passed them and headed through the old, run-down and destroyed building.
“Saugner, find Nikalye and Doxiak once you’ve taken the others to safety and then find me. I know I can’t do this alone.” Tyroz had hoped he could take out all the assassin’s that had a hand in torturing Alara, but her safety came above all others. He needed to find her fast before he was too late.
Saugner nodded and he and the vampires broke away from Tyroz as he walked opposite them down the hall.
He stopped in his tracks and his heart slammed in his chest when he heard her screams of pain. “Alara!” He ran down the corridor, following the sounds of her screams and hoping to hell he wasn’t too late to save her.
He burst through a room that was so dark, his eyes couldn’t adjust to it. “Alara! Can you hear me?”
Laughter sounded behind him. “Alara isn’t here.”
Pain pounded
through his head and bright lights flashed in his eyes before he felt nothing.
Chapter Nine
“Rise and shine beautiful!”
Pain tore through Alara’s stomach and she screamed, jumping out of unconsciousness in seconds. Her eyes flew open but everything was blurred as tears filled her eyes. Instantly she knew she had been moved from the arena, and she’d been changed from her bloodied clothes. The breeze around her bare legs told her she’d been dressed in a small dress.
Siantis came into view, smiling. “I have a surprise for you, my sweet.” He moved to the side and yanked the chain binding her wrists together in the air, turning her around. He smiled again and pointed across the room.
Chained against the wall was a man with wild, blood matted hair and ripped clothes.
“I’ve been working on him for the last.” He checked his watch. “Oh, three hours or so. I thought I’d let you sleep in.”
Her heart pounded in her chest, spreading pain through her body that was both hot and cold. “Tyroz?”
Siantis laughed and clapped his hand like a child. “Isn’t this just fun?”
She struggled against the chains. “What the hell have you done to him! Tyroz!”
“I wouldn’t waste your breath, darlin’. He’s not quite…himself.”
“What have you done?”
Siantis giggled and pouted. “I was only playing with my toy.” He walked over to Tyroz, pulling a dagger from the back of his trousers.
“Siantis! Don’t!” Alara screamed.
Siantis just smiled, slit his own wrist and put the bleeding mess close to Tyroz.
He stirred, growling low and then snapped, pulling against his chains and baring his fangs.
“There he is—my good little pet.”
“Tyroz?”
At her whisper, he turned his eyes on her and growled again, pulling on the chains, trying to get to her. She was covered in blood, and to a vampire, dhampir blood was sweet smelling. Added with a bond, if Tyroz escaped, he’d kill her.
Siantis clapped and pointed the dagger at her. “I see it in your eyes—you’ve caught onto my brilliant plan!” He turned to Tyroz, waving his arm around. “At first, my plan had been to beat you and drain you of blood until you became animalistic and then set you on your loved ones. The thought of you killing everyone you loved with your own fangs.” He closed his eyes and shook his shoulders. “Gave me the chills. But! But then when Tyroz stepped onto this territory, triggering an alarm no one but us assassins could hear, that gave me a brilliant idea. Master Tyroz, the all powerful vampire who makes no mistakes.” He smiled. “I beat him unconscious and I drained him of blood and tempted him with none other than your blood. It’s quite fascinating what the blood of one bonded can do to a starving man.”
A Dark Passion Page 3
