“And what if they do? Then Mehmet will march to put me down, my whore brother in tow.”
“Vlad,” Eira snapped. “Do not call him that.”
In the silence that followed, the flames crackled loudly on the hearth. A log shifted with a thump and a flare of sparks.
Cicero and Fenrir looked between mother and son, waiting. She was his mother, but he was a prince.
Vlad turned around and folded his arms across the mantlepiece, rested his forehead on them and peered down into the flames, though their heat was uncomfortable against his face. “Forgive me, Mama.”
She approached then, and set the cup by his elbow. Put her hand against the back of his neck, the vulnerable stretch of it exposed by his pulled-down collar and his tied-up hair.
“If Sultan Murat were here before me now,” she said, “then I would tear his throat out with my fangs and enjoy it. But I’ll grant you the man isn’t a fool. He sent you here to secure Wallachia, and you took an important step toward that today. He knows your people are no fans of his. You said what you had to. Write to him, let him think you’re rabblerousing to defeat Hunyadi, and then later, when you’re stronger, when you can, you can see about throwing off the Ottoman yoke.”
He rolled his head so he could peer at her over his forearm. “You make a terrible amount of sense, Mother.”
She smiled. “Of course I do. You don’t think your father loved me just for my hair, do you?”
“Your captain’s coming,” Fenrir said, tone suddenly hostile, and a moment later a knock sounded at the door.
Vlad sighed and straightened, half-turned, one hand still on the mantle. “Come in, Malik.”
He did so, looking a touch unnerved. He hadn’t announced his presence after all.
Fenrir bristled in a way that Vlad could feel, and he sent the big wolf a quelling glance.
“Your grace,” Malik said, “I have the list of names you requested. The boys in the city old enough and willing to fight.”
“Very good. You may place it on the desk.”
His footfalls echoed in the loaded silence as he moved to comply. And then he lingered. “Your grace.”
“Yes?” Vlad turned to face him, and as he did, he noticed the way the firelight touched the wolves’ eyes. A bright gleam, completely inhuman. He was grateful to have the fire at his back, to have his own face in shadow. A part of him wanted to know what Malik saw when he looked at him, but another, larger part of him already knew.
Malik stood as unruffled as ever, calm as a frozen lake in winter. But he smelled nervy. “Your speech today,” he said, the words slow. “It was…very rousing. Effective, your grace.”
“Thank you, Malik. Will that be all?”
“Yes, your grace.” He took his leave with a bow.
When he was gone, and his footfalls had faded, Fenrir let out a deep breath. “That one knows. He doesn’t know what, but he knows something.”
“Yes, well, I can’t kill him just yet, not while we need his men.” Vlad tipped his head. “Though, eventually, I think I might have to.”
~*~
He woke to howling.
Despite all his restless doubt and worry – and probably because of three cups of wine – Vlad had managed to not only fall asleep, but stay asleep. So the howl dragged him out of the depths, launching him into sudden, frantic wakefulness. He opened his eyes to a room made dark by closed shutters, close and cold, humid body heat trapped beneath the blankets and furs heaped over him, and Cicero beside him.
The wolf had been sleeping on his back, one arm flung up over his head. The most restful Vlad had seen him since their reunion. He jerked awake now, and grabbed wildly for Vlad, finding his arm, holding tight. He pulled a little, an instinct. Stay here so I can protect you.
Vlad shook him off and slipped from bed. The fire had burned down to coals, and the stones felt like ice under his bare feet. He didn’t care. He rushed to the window and threw back the shutters, letting in a gust of sharp autumn air, deeply cold and scented with leaf mold from the forest.
Another howl. A second. A third. They could have been regular wolves, hunting a stag by moonlight. But they were close; they sounded right outside the walls. And Vlad didn’t believe in coincidences.
“Get dressed.” He went to his wardrobe. “We’ll take Fen and handle it ourselves. Maybe it’s nothing.”
Vlad felt alert, anxious, but it was nothing compared to the energy rolling off his Familiar as he tugged on breeches and opened up the chest at the foot of the bed. Cicero vibrated; palpable emotion that warred between nervous and excited and furious, none of it comparing to the choking sense of responsibility. Vlad felt his presence, a weight at the back of his mind, the assurance of protection, and devotion, and unconditional, animal love.
With quick, though reverent movements, Cicero drew his pelt from the chest and unfurled it. Slung it over his shoulders and did the clasp; pulled the hood up over his head.
It was an old, old tradition, wolves wearing their pelts to battle. He’d asked Cicero about it when he was only four or five, curious. Wolves could shift and fight without it; they didn’t need it. It was, in essence, just a bit of old dead skin and hair. It was to honor the wolf that birthed them into immortality, Cicero had explained.
It also looked damned unnerving.
Vlad buckled his father’s sword to his hip. “Ready?”
They didn’t have to get Fen, it turned out; he met them on the stairwell, his own pelt a rusty red that nearly matched his hair. He looked monstrous in the dim half-light of moon and shadows. Vlad caught a faint glimmer of metal in his hand – his massive battle axe.
“Vlad.” He sounded eager.
“I know, I know, lead the way.”
There were guards posted, soldiers who’d think nothing of a few howling wolves. They went out through the kitchens to avoid them, slipping silently out through Eira’s gardens.
The howling had stopped. Vlad had time to spot a long line of shadow – of rope – trailing down from the outer wall, and then he smelled them.
He’d always liked the scent of wolves; each unique, but all bearing a certain earthy warmth, a musk, a hint of pine needles and forest, tree sap caught in fur. But these – these wolves had tracked and helped to kill his father, a phenomenon he still couldn’t comprehend. And so this scent now, not of natural wolves, but of werewolves, lifted all the small hairs at the back of his neck.
He growled, and his own wolves answered it.
“They’re here,” Vlad said as they fell into a triangular formation, blades ready. “Can you scent them? Is it them?”
Cicero’s growl deepened, low and vicious. His voice wasn’t quite human anymore. “It’s them. I’m going to gut them.”
Three on three. Vlad liked those odds. And there was no need to go hunting; their prey came to them.
A hedge rustled, and a gray-brown blur leaped over a line of boxwoods, wet fangs flashing ivory in the moonlight. They’d climbed over as humans, and then shifted.
Vlad side-stepped, and brought his sword up in a short, forceful swing.
He missed. Damn it!
Fur brushed his cheek as the wolf sailed past him…and landed just behind Cicero. Vlad turned in time to see fangs sink through thin cloth and then flesh, just above the top of Cicero’s boot. He raised his sword for another strike.
Cicero yelped, and whirled, dropped his sword, and shifted.
“No!” Vlad shouted, but it was too late, and the two wolves fell to the ground in a seething, growling tangle. Impossible to attack without hurting or killing his own Familiar.
Footsteps.
Vlad spun, muscles bunched, ready. “Stay on your feet!” he called to Fenrir. “That axe will do far more damage than your fangs.”
Fen chuckled, and the axe sang as he twirled it expertly; Vlad could feel the breeze it made as the edge sliced through the air. “Don’t you worry, young prince. I can keep my wits about me.”
Vlad snorted. “When have y
ou ever?”
And then a man stood up, just on the other side of the hedge.
Vlad had an impression of dark, snarled hair, a dirty face, and a strong body clothed in rags. Then Fenrir roared and leaped at him, axe already swinging.
Strong, but fast, it turned out; the strange wolf danced back, and Fen gave chase, laughing wildly.
“Crazy fool,” Vlad muttered, and turned, knowing what would happen now.
It did, predictably.
Vlad sensed him, scented him, before he’d gone a quarter of a revolution, and he blocked the swing of his opponent’s sword with his own. The blades came together with a shining sound like the ringing of a bell.
The third wolf was broad, and tangled, and dirt-smeared, but his moth-eaten clothes were finer. A uniform, one from an age Vlad didn’t recognize right away. Slavic bone structure, and fixed, sightless eyes. A puppet.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t fight, though.
Vlad spun, and ducked, angled his next swing at the wolf’s wrist, wanting to take off his sword hand.
The wolf parried, and then advanced.
Vlad met him, and looked for his next opening.
He could still hear Cicero tussling with the wolf who’d bitten him; heard Fenrir shouting, too loud, determined to wake the whole palace, apparently. But his focus narrowed to his own fight, to his footwork, and the strength of his arms, and on everything every sword master had taught him in his seventeen years.
He blocked, and parried, and he kept stepping back, retreating beneath his larger opponent’s swings. He clenched his teeth and snarled, hands white-knuckled on his sword, fingers numb with the effort. Relentless, emotionless, the wolf kept attacking.
What if he lost?
The idea formed as his boots skidded on pebbles and his sweat-slick grip shifted. All his training, all his hatred, all his big talk of savagery and revenge – what if that all boiled down to this moment, here and now? He was still young, still untested on the battlefield. And he was a vampire, yes, but this was a wolf, and a wolf would know how to kill a vampire.
Just like he’d known how to kill Father…
An image filled his mind: Father held down. The knife. The blood…rivers of it.
He heard another yelp. Cicero.
If he and the family wolves died here, now, Val would be the only one left. A sultan’s plaything, but alive. Which was worse? He–
He caught the scent the same time his opponent did.
No, Val wouldn’t be the last one.
His opponent reared back, surprised, but not quickly enough.
A flash, as Eira drove her sword between two of the wolf’s ribs. A sound like a sigh; she’d punctured his lung.
With one hard swing, Vlad took the creature’s sword arm off just above the wrist; his blade clattered to the ground. And then Vlad ran him through, a clean stab, right into the heart. The body shuddered, and toppled. Vlad held his sword tight, and it pulled out as the wolf fell back, a gush of blood and gore following.
“Mother.” Acknowledgement and recrimination in one.
She’d laced her leather corset on over her nightgown, the scalloped white hem of which fluttered around her booted calves. She lifted her brows. “You get up in the middle of the night to fight invading wolves and you don’t tell me?”
“Ha!” Fenrir exclaimed, drawing their attention.
His opponent lay at his feet, destroyed by the axe.
“Cicero,” Vlad said, and went to his Familiar.
Cicero, still in wolf form, struggled to his feet, limping on his back left, the limb the other wolf had bit. But his opponent was down – was gutted, Vlad saw, just as promised – and Cicero greeted him with a lupine smile and a lick when Vlad scratched at his ears.
“It’s alright,” he soothed, voice shaky. His hand came away wet with blood. “Shift back so we can see to you,” he said, a gentle order.
Cicero ducked his head, as if to comply.
And then Vlad smelled smoke.
He looked up.
Fire bloomed a half dozen yards ahead of him.
“Fuck,” he murmured. The wolves had been a distraction. This was the real threat.
She stepped out of a tall column of flames, the fire skirting all around her, skimming over pale skin, and rich blue dress, but never touching her, never burning.
Young, pretty, smirking. Ageless.
When she spoke, it was with an accent he couldn’t place, though her Romanian was flawless in a technical sense.
“Now, now, down, boys,” she said, and the two wolves froze. Vlad could hear their hearts beating, but they didn’t move, didn’t twitch.
Mages could do this, Father had told him once. Command humans, wolves, sometimes even vampires. They could control them.
The woman walked forward, flame sweeping out behind her like a cape. Past Cicero and Fenrir, who in their right minds would have torn her to pieces. “You too, Mother-dear.” She snapped her fingers, and Eira went oddly placid and still, arms falling to her sides.
She smiled, flashing teeth, as she strolled up to Vlad, unhurried. “And here he is,” she drawled. “The Prince of Wallachia.” She stopped a pace away from him and folded her arms, cocked her head. “Bit scrawnier than I anticipated. Not as handsome as I’d hoped.”
He’d never met a mage, and her scent repulsed him. Ash, and death, and unnatural things; fire, and the scent of the air just before a thunderstorm.
He growled, and showed her his teeth in kind – fangs extended. If she wanted to compare, then let her see what she was dealing with.
She laughed. “Just a little boy after all.” She raised her hand in an unmistakable gesture; he didn’t have any experience with women, but he recognized come hither for what it was.
Vlad stood his ground; lifted his sword in a two-handed grip.
She frowned. Repeated the gesture, more forcefully.
Vlad lowered his head and rolled his shoulders; made ready for an attack. “Who is your master?” he asked.
She stepped in closer with a huffy sigh. “Oh, honestly, this is just–”
Vlad touched the very tip of his sword to her breastbone, the froth of laces and silk that covered her heart. The red of the blood on his blade glimmered in the moonlight. He said, “Who sent you?”
Her lashes fluttered, and her mouth worked. Beneath the ash-and-fire stink of her, he caught the first notes of fear, of sweat gathering across her skin. She was afraid. Wolves, vampires, humans – she could control others at will, and obviously did. But she couldn’t control him.
“Magic not working?” he asked.
Her gaze narrowed. “You shouldn’t be able to do this.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of. I’ll only ask one more time: who sent you?”
She burst into flames.
The fire sprang up from nothing, engulfing her head to toe, and it rushed toward Vlad, a curl of it like a great tongue, straight for his eyes.
He didn’t think about what he was doing; he simply reacted. He reached through the fire, a fast grab, and gripped her by the throat. The fire burned him – bright, blinding pain on the skin of his hand, scorching his shirt, eating away at flesh – but then it cut off with a puff of thick, acrid smoke. His hand was a red, blistered mess, but the sinews still worked; he was still able to squeeze until the mage choked, coughing and fighting for air.
Vlad dragged her in close, toes of her fine shoes fishtailing in the pebbles at their feet. Close enough to see her eyes bug, to see her face go dark with suffocation.
He peeled his lips off his fangs, long and sharp. Snarled. “Who sent you?”
She made a few croaking sounds, and he loosened his grip the barest fraction. “R-R-Rom-ulus,” she stuttered.
Romulus. Ah, Uncle.
He squeezed tight, and her neck broke with a pop. Her head sagged.
He dropped her to the path, and the others came back to life around him, shaking their heads, bewildered.
Cicero shifte
d back to his man shape, and stumbled immediately to one knee, his other leg torn and bloody.
“Your grace,” a voice said, behind him, and Vlad sighed. Turned.
Malik Bey stood just outside the kitchen door, a lantern held aloft, highlighting a face made wild, for the first that Vlad had seen, with unchecked emotion. Shock, and terror, and disbelief.
This was it, then.
Vlad wiped his blade on the sleeve of his shirt, the one that wasn’t burned, and sheathed it. Held up his ruined hand for the janissary to see. “Malik Bey,” he said, and his voice sounded heavy, the way the words felt in his mouth. “May I formally present my mother, Eira, Viking shieldmaiden from the Norse lands. Her Familiar, Fenrir. My Familiar, Cicero. Werewolves. And myself.” He gave a mocking little bow, best as he was able in his current state. “Vlad Dracula: the vampire prince of Wallachia.”
~*~
“It’ll heal on its own,” Vlad said through his teeth, resolutely not flinching under Eira’s ministrations. It hurt.
“Healing isn’t the same as healing well,” she chided, dabbing at his burned and blistered skin with a warm, wet cloth. Helga stood beside her, a bundle of herbs picked fresh from the pots in the kitchen window ledges ready and waiting; the scent filled the room, covering the stink of blood and dead skin coming off his ruined hand.
He sat in a chair by the fire in his father’s – in his own – study, the glow of flames and of the candles lined up along the mantle giving his mother light by which to clean his wounds. Fenrir stood beside the closed door, listening, keeping watch. Cicero, after a lot of protesting, had been pushed down into a chair beside Vlad; his leg had bled all over the floor. Vlad had insisted he be seen to first, an insistence that had left Cicero whining in distress; he wanted his master seen to, cared for; he could have bled to death, happily waiting. Vlad had stood over him, holding him by the scruff with his good hand, rubbing soothing circles with his fingertips until the Familiar pressed his forehead into Vlad’s stomach and subsided with quiet, protesting chuffs.
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 38
