A shadow formed around Moldark’s figure. And a terrifying truth stung Theresa’s side.
He’s just like them.
“I have to go,” she said.
“By all means, you’re not my prisoner,” Moldark said flippantly.
She headed towards the door.
“Where are you going?” he hollered after her.
“I’m going,” she said, glancing back at him.
“What’s wrong with the window?”
She turned back and hurried towards the door. Before she reached it, he pounced on her and threw her across the bed. She struggled to get off it, but he landed beside her and held her down.
“Not your prisoner,” Theresa exclaimed. “Then what the hell is this?”
“Which of them is it?” Moldark demanded. “Who has stolen your heart?”
“No one!”
“Is it Harland? You have been in his close company?”
“Stop it!”
“Or perhaps it’s Lafayette. I saw you with him earlier.”
“Enough!”
“Surely, it’s not the Warlock himself. Not with all his misdeeds.”
“It’s none of them!”
He peered down at her, his eyebrows lifting. “The peasant? The – the carriage driver I let go? Him?”
Theresa swallowed.
Moldark laughed. “Peasant girl prefers her own kind then.”
“He’s married and he has a family so you’re wrong.”
He stared at her, his face darkening. “Why are you rejecting me?”
“You see it that way?”
“What is it you think about me that turns you away?”
Theresa shook her head. “This is your city. Isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Soon I shall have more.”
“Right. More of this.”
“This?”
“A city of vampires where ordinary folk aren’t safe. You’re all in your fancy houses drinking bottles of blood stolen from the innocent and abused. What sort of world is that?”
Moldark leaned towards her. “Like it or not, we vampires are the masters of this earth. You can hate us. But we only –”
“The Bloodflower,” Theresa said.
“What about it?”
“You find me the real bloodflower.”
“That’s impossible –”
“You find me that flower and you can have my hand.”
Moldark let go of her.
Theresa squirmed across the bed, then forced herself to sit up.
“Is it impossible or not?” she asked. “Don’t lie to me. Remember. You tell the truth.”
Moldark shuffled himself towards her. He placed his hands on her shoulders. Began massaging them. “I don’t mind this. You making me earn your affections.”
“Moldark. Answer my question.”
He kissed the back of her neck gently. “Anything is possible I suppose.”
Theresa forced herself off the bed, away from him. “This isn’t a game. Do you understand?”
“It’s all a game, Theresa.”
“No. Not this. You find me that flower. Then we can build a new truce between our peoples.”
“And if I can’t find it?”
“Then I am your sworn enemy,” Theresa said. “As you are mine.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
A stage coach dropped them around the area Theresa had been attacked by the vampire family earlier, and from there they walked to the armoury and made their way through the trapdoor to the portal.
This was where they were to part ways. Go in separate directions. As intriguing as her time had been with the southern vampire, Theresa would soon be relieved to be rid of him. The flower would of course be a testament of his love and willingness to restore peace to the land. Without taking the blood of servants and slaves, together they would put an end to the Princess’s tyrannical rule. But until then she could not side with Moldark. She could not let him near her. She couldn’t allow him access to her heart…
“Do you know where you’re going first?” Moldark asked as they moved towards the portal together.
“I do,” Theresa answered. “What about you?”
“I have some idea.”
They walked through the portal and then found themselves in the main hub underneath the dome at the plantation.
Theresa moved quickly away from it towards the curtain.
“You’re off to find your antidote then?” Moldark asked.
She turned. Nodded.
“Do you want to see me off?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Ye of little faith,” Moldark muttered.
He pulled the lever back and forward and it began rotating its colors. He stopped when it landed on silver.
“Where are you going?” Theresa asked. “Do you actually have a real chance of finding it?”
“There’s only a few people in the land who would know if it still exists. I have a contact in the Winged Islands north-west that should point me in the right direction.”
“Well. Good luck I guess.”
“And where will you go? Once you’ve cured yourself?”
“I don’t know. I guess make sure my friends are safe.”
“What you could do is start figuring out who will ally with us for the final battle.”
“What final battle?”
“Once Lord Fane is defeated, Bloodflower or not, the rulers of the other three houses will start plotting their ascent to power. If there is any among them you can bring round to your reasoning, it would not be a wasted diplomacy.”
“I’ll take that into consideration.”
Moldark nodded. “I hope you have the right idea about me, Theresa. I really do.”
She shrugged.
“I care about you,” he said. “And remember. I don’t tell lies.”
He turned away from her and walked into the portal.
It was only after he’d disappeared that she said the words.
“I care about you too.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Getting back to the village where she’d last seen Samuel and Maxine wasn’t as easy as Theresa expected. Navigating her way through the plantation and exiting through the gates out front was simple enough, but then when she came to the forest and trees where she’d flown through on Moldark’s back, she had other ideas. She instead followed the road to her left, hoping it would eventually make its way around. During this time she was able to think and reflect on things a little further.
Moldark was on his mission to find the flower and that was all well and fine, but Theresa needed to plan for a scenario where that didn’t happen. As cunning and duplicitous as the Warlock had proven to be in his absence, at least in no light had he ever wished for a complete vampire rule of the lands. To turn things into war. Into horror. She could hate them all she wanted, but Fane and Emberlynn had their part in preventing it. Theresa realized she must put her own feelings of betrayal aside and perhaps find a way to work with them to stop Moldark or Harland or whoever else wanted to savage the lands.
But then maybe…
That would make her the traitor.
Theresa turned her wrist over to inspect it as she walked. The wounds still hurt. They tingled and flamed and ripped through her veins. She wondered how long it would be. Till she felt the thirst.
The moon was still behind the clouds and it was as dark as ever, even in the middle of a well trodden road. She saw no sign of it bending. No idea how far away she’d be when it did. And she felt weak. She looked back in the direction of the plantation, but could barely see it, she’d come so far.
She wondered whether it was closer to the village if she went back to the portal and used it to get to the harem. Or whether she’d get there quicker just by following the road in front of her.
T-e-saaa…
A noise. Inaudible. Echoing on the wind.
She carried forward.
The-saaa…
Almost like someone was ca
lling to her. But no one was out here. No one that she could see. Perhaps she wouldn’t want to meet whoever it was calling anyway.
“Theresa!”
She stopped dead as a gray stallion broke free of the forest and galloped across in the distance.
There was a man riding that horse.
A man with glowing blue eyes. Calling her name.
“THERESA!!!”
She started running towards him. Catching sight of her the stallion steered into her path and raced along to meet with her.
“Thank God you’re alive,” Lafayette greeted on his approach. “We thought you were done for.”
“Who is we?”
“Your friends made it back to town and told me what happened. Come on. We’ll ride back. You can tell me all about what’s happened.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There were things Theresa didn’t tell Lafayette. Parts of the story she left out. She led him as far as New Haven Plantation. But she didn’t tell him about the portal underneath the hut. Or that she had been to the southern city. She said it was Moldark who had inflicted the bites on her. He had let her go. And rode west to meet with the rest of his men.
“The Warlock gave me an antidote for the vampirism,” Theresa said. “We need to find it in the wreckage before going back to town.”
“As you wish,” Lafayette said quietly.
The remains for the village was a scene of utter destruction. The Warlock’s men were on site, doing the best they could to look after the wounded, but it wasn’t enough. The cries and screams were beyond anything in Theresa’s recall. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen this before. It was as though being with Moldark had blocked it all out.
“Do you know where you dropped it exactly?” Lafayette asked as they rode through.
“No,” Theresa said. “I’m not even … I’m not even sure it’s here…”
“Perhaps we better ask the Warlock to fetch you some more.”
“Perhaps.”
Lafayette steered the stallion through the village and they took off once again.
Before they reached the town’s walls, a realization struck Theresa with blunt force.
“Wait,” she said. “Stop.”
Lafayette pulled the reins back. “What is it?”
“We can’t go see him yet,” Theresa said.
“Why’s that?”
“He’s still waiting for the necromancer, isn’t he?”
“I would imagine so.”
Theresa’s head titled forward. Trying to put the pieces together.
“You haven’t met any necromancers of late, have you?” Lafayette asked.
“Of course I haven’t,” Theresa said. “But my friend Maxine said she knew of one in the blue caves that are supposed to be around here. You don’t know where they might be, do you?”
There was a pause.
“Lafayette?”
“I’m just thinking. There were some crystal mines to the north of that village, but no one’s been there in years I don’t think. Does that sound like them?”
“I don’t know. Could be.”
“Shall we go have a look at them then?”
“Might as well.”
Lafayette kicked the stallion into gear and they rode off back down the road they came. They veered north at the sight of the village, Theresa again unable to take her eyes away from the destruction. Flashes of her life before came on vividly. She recalled details she’d once forgotten. The smell of the grass. The ash in her hands. Her mother was bleeding from the head. And when she reached out, when she tried to warn Theresa –
Lafayette pulled the reins causing the stallion’s front legs to lift and kick in the air.
“We have company,” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Make way for us, Harland,” Lafayette called across the pathway. “We mean you no harm.”
Theresa watched as Harland dismounted his steed and proceeded to move off the path a little. He walked back carrying Maxine, her hands and feet tied together with rope.
Harland threw Maxine out into the middle of the road between them.
“Harland, you bastard!” Theresa squealed.
She jumped off the stallion as Lafayette lashed out, trying to grab her back.
“Theresa!” he shouted.
Theresa ran up the path way and fell on the dirt where her friend was lying. Maxine had a black eye and there was a cut down the right side of her face. She was barely conscious.
“What did that evil shit do to you?” Theresa cried.
“She told me where to look for you,” Harland said offering an explanation. “After I had my way with her.”
“RAARGH!”
Theresa jumped over Maxine and pounced on Harland who didn’t even flinch at the full force of her weight. He pushed her to the ground easily, putting his foot on her stomach to hold her down, laughing.
Lafayette rode over. “Enough of this! Release her at once.”
“This does not concern you,” Harland asserted. “This bitch and I have a history. A debt that needs to be repaid.”
“That’s right!” Theresa shouted. “You owe me!”
“Really?” Harland mused. “And what do I owe you for?”
Theresa’s eyes went to the back of her head. She saw Lafayette watching her intently.
“You promised to help me find the necromancer,” Theresa said.
“And why would I promise such a thing?” Harland goaded. “It’s not as though you put your body on the line for me, is it?”
A thin silence.
“Release her at once,” Lafayette commanded. “Or you’ll be sorry.”
“You think you scare me?” Harland scoffed. “Not even the twins were a match for my –”
Lafayette leapt from his stallion landing on top of Harland, forcing them both to the ground. Theresa got up and rushed over to Maxine, untying her ropes. She then helped her up, using her shoulders as support.
Harland and Lafayette were both on their feet again, facing off, about to exchange blows.
“Do you really have to fight?” Theresa asked. “It’s not worth –”
Lafayette pulled a blue dagger out from his boot and brandished it in the air towards Harland.
Harland grinned wickedly and removed his gloves exposing his fingers which began sprouting shiny green claws.
“Get her out of here,” Lafayette said.
Theresa brought Maxine over to Lafayette’s stallion, helping her up onto it.
By the time she was on the horse herself, the vampires were slashing and hacking and screaming at one another in a ferocious scuffle.
She kicked the stallion’s side gently and the two women rode north in pursuit of the mines.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
At a fork in the road ahead Theresa tried to veer the stallion left but she mustn’t have performed the correct action because he kept going straight ahead into the forest bramble, his speed increasing. “Shit!” Theresa cried in panic. Maxine’s arms wrapped tightly around her for support. The stallion leapt over a creak and a series of branches smashed into Theresa’s face almost knocking them from the horse.
She managed to hold on before falling, her face contorted into a permanent wince. Her line of sight going up and down and up and down endlessly, the horse’s hooves tearing dirt away in all directions. At least… At least they were gaining a distance away from Harland.
Eventually they broke through the forest into a grassy plain stretching upwards. Theresa thought she saw an opening so she pulled the reins back as hard as she could, an action the horse did understand.
They jolted forward to a violent stop and they both crashed into the stallion’s neck. Safe, but startled.
“I can’t believe we didn’t fall off,” Maxine murmured.
Theresa laughed and started to climb down but instead got the timing wrong and slid off the wrong way, landing on her backside in the mud.
“Ooh,” she moaned. “Crumbs.”
“Feeling better then, are you?” Theresa remarked.
Maxine nodded. “More or less.”
She inspected her eye again. “That piece of shit.”
Maxine sighed. “At least you know I tried.”
“Oh silly.”
Theresa pulled her into an embrace and they hugged for a bit.
“How did you get away from your one?” Maxine asked.
“Oh you mean, Moldark? Well. We came to an understanding.”
“What understanding?”
“It’s probably better if I don’t say. Right now we’ve got to go find that bleeding necromancer so that I’m back in good stead with Lord Fane. And then he can help me.”
“With what?”
Theresa reached underneath the patch on her neck and showed Maxine the bite.
“Oh no,” Maxine squealed. “He didn’t –”
“It wasn’t him. But – that doesn’t matter now. We just have to hurry this along. Do you have the energy required? Maybe you should take the stallion and go back to town.”
“And leave you stranded by yourself?” Maxine replied. “No way.”
“Thanks,” Theresa said. “I appreciate it. I wasn’t looking forward to going into this dump by myself.”
“I can’t blame you.” Maxine turned to the stallion. “Stay put. Understand? Stay here.”
The horse snorted at them.
Maxine turned back to Theresa. “That response doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence.”
Theresa rolled her eyes and smiled. “Have faith.”
“When I see it, I’ll believe it,” Maxine said. “And that goes double for finding any necromancers up here.”
“With how this night’s gone,” Theresa said, “nothing would surprise me.”
Game of Vampires: A Reverse Harem Serial (Part Three) Page 3
