Cyprian pulled her arm away from Theresa. “The Necromancer is on the loose.”
“Impossible!”
“We shall see,” Cyprian said. “Lord Fane awaits.”
Seraphine eyed Theresa suspiciously before marching on ahead with them.
They were almost at the archway when a familiar voice stopped them dead in their tracks.
“He’s not up there. She’s lying to you.”
They turned around.
Harland had dragged out the innocent woman into the middle of the corridor.
His foot was at her throat.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The walls of the corridor loomed. The ceiling overlooked the floor. There was scraping and friction and harshness just by looking at it, at anything. Theresa was out of ideas.
In other words –
“The Princess is on her own tonight,” Harland said. “Lord Fane has her clearing up some mess he’s made somewhere. Thought we’d all get involved. Without us knowing. And as I started to think about it – why Lord Fane would want a necromancer, I realized that there was every chance he was working another angle entirely. What I’m talking about, brother and sister, is a conspiracy. To lure us here in promise of royal flesh. And yet this whole time he’s scheming behind our backs. Trying to figure out a way to get rid of us all.”
“Is that true?” Seraphine demanded shoving Theresa against the wall again. “Is it?”
“He’s out of his mind,” Theresa said pointing at Harland.
Harland scoffed. “Come, come, come. You had your fun. Just tell us where Lord Fane is and we’ll let you go.”
“I did tell you,” Theresa insisted. “He’s upstairs.”
“Don’t lie to us!” Seraphine screeched.
“Just a moment,” Cyprian said, stepping between them. “Let’s hear her out.”
Theresa blinked. “I was just with Harland at the harem when Lord Fane passed word. We came here as quickly as we could. I had to turn Harland down of course, which angered him. I wasn’t going to choose him anyway. I’m much more into both of you.”
Seraphine batted her eyes. “Really?”
“Um. Yes.”
“If that’s true, then you won’t mind if I kill this servant, now will you?” Harland challenged. “Just say that you don’t want me to hurt her and I’ll leave her be. But if she means nothing to you. Then of course. Don’t try and stop me from breaking her neck.”
“Why don’t we all go upstairs and see if Lord Fane’s actually there?” Cyprian suggested.
Theresa looked from him to Harland.
With his menacing.
Bright.
Green eyes.
“Harland was telling me about how he’s manipulating both of you,” Theresa said. “How he thinks he can turn you against Lord Fane. How you’re his hard-little-workers, while he sits back and puts his feet up on the throne.”
Cyprian’s lips curled inward. She could see the sharpness of his teeth.
Seraphine started walking towards Harland. “Is that true?”
“Of course it’s not true!” Harland said suddenly flustered. “But I mean we still have to edge out our plan to destroy Lord Fane before he summons all the necromancers and sorcerers to come after us –”
“Shut the hell up!” Seraphine snarled.
“We’ve heard enough!” Cyprian shouted.
They were both closing in on him.
“Guys, can’t you see she’s tricked you? I’m not trying to –”
“I said SHUT UP –”
The vampires leapt at one another.
Theresa didn’t waste another second. She hurried down the corridor towards the fallen woman and shook her violently. Her eyes fluttered open. “What’s going on?”
Harland was screaming around the corner.
“There’s no time,” Theresa said. She grabbed the woman’s wrist and pulled her up.
And then they ran down the corridor together.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Samuel was at the top of the stairs waiting for them. His arms extended, he pulled up first the rescued woman, followed by Theresa. They quickly shut the trapdoor and shifted one of the cabinets away from the wall on top of it.
Exhausted, Theresa collapsed to the floor out of breath, her arms aching.
“Not a great time for a lie down,” Samuel remarked.
“Get her into the carriage,” Theresa insisted. “I’ll be there in one minute. I just need to –”
“No, you’re coming too,” the woman said helping Theresa up. “We’re in this together.”
“Thank you,” Theresa said gratefully.
The three of them piled out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the keep’s main hall.
Still deserted. For now.
They raced across the floor to the wild winds waiting for them outside. They stumbled across the carpet and across and down the road to where Samuel’s carriage was still waiting.
Once Theresa and the other lady were packed away inside safe and sound, Samuel got on top and harnessed the horses, steering them away back out into the road. Theresa’s eyes were glued to the window as they galloped away from the keep.
And inadvertently, away from danger.
“I’m Maxine,” the woman said.
“Theresa,” she replied, smiling.
“You’re so brave. Standing up for me in front of those monsters. I thought I was done for.”
“It was nothing really,” Theresa said modestly. “I know you would have done the same for me.”
“No offense, but I doubt it,” Maxine laughed. “You can’t even fight with those things, let alone kill them. I’m not as tough as you are.”
“I’m not really tough,” Theresa mumbled. “Uh… How did you wind up down there?”
Maxine swallowed. Leaned back against the seating. “I live in a small village just outside the main walls. Lord Fane visited three days ago and found me washing my father’s clothes in the garden. He offered me his hand in marriage. I couldn’t refuse. He took me back to his keep and fed me food that made me tired. Or perhaps it was the juice, I don’t remember. All I know is I woke up in a dungeon with like twenty other girls. One of his guards came along earlier and said he was letting us out, but we just wound up walking into this underground maze, where you found me. If you hadn’t been there before, you have idea how big that place is. Shit. I can’t believe that just happened.”
Theresa shook her head. She was disappointed. So very disappointed in Lord Fane.
He should know better than that.
Now she wondered if she should bother helping him at all.
“You don’t by any chance know where I can find a necromancer, do you?” Theresa asked.
Maxine stared at her. “Why?”
“No real reason.”
“There were rumors about one hiding in the blue caves a couple of years ago. They’re not far from my village. A few of us went up there to see if there was anyone around there but didn’t find anything.”
Theresa bit her finger. “How far is the village from here exactly?”
“Only about ten minutes once we’ve cleared the gate.”
“Would you be willing to take me out there? To the caves?”
“I guess so,” Maxine said. “Unless – do you mean tonight?”
“Of course.”
She shifted in her seat. “Well, I’ve been gone three days I really want to –”
“Please. You just have to show me where the caves are. That’s all I need. I’ll be your friend forever if you do this.”
Maxine raised her eyebrows. “Forever?”
“Forever.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Theresa.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Samuel had no problem driving them to Maxine’s village, but they would have to find their own way to the blue caves. “I’m all for helping people and being part of an adventure,” Samuel said during a pitstop. “But I can’t in good conscious go out seeking evil
to smite more evil. There’s too much of it about as it is.”
Theresa said she understood. He’d done more than enough.
Sitting in the back of the carriage and listening to Maxine talk about her life in the village, Theresa begun to realize how similar her world seemed to Theresa’s before the first vampire war. Technically part of Lord Fane’s province, the village was protected from bandits and other ill creatures of the night wishing harm. Not all commoners were forced to be impoverished. Not all faced a choice between servitude and slavery. That was a good thing.
Between the gate and the village was the first time Theresa really had a chance to unwind again. The night had been such a whirlwind of exhilaration she didn’t know how to process it. How about the fact that she’d lost her virginity to a vampire who wound up betraying her. How about how the sole responsibility of protecting the people of this land rested on her shoulders.
How about how she’d made these two awesome friends.
Maxine.
And Samuel.
She didn’t want to lose them.
No matter what.
They rode on west away from the Warlock’s Keep and followed the paths as Maxine had directed. The window wasn’t open so they didn’t see it at first.
It was the smell that wound up getting them.
“Do you…?” Maxine began.
“Smoke,” Theresa confirmed.
Samuel pulled on the reins and the carriage came to a stop. Both Theresa and Maxine hurried out to see where the fire was coming from.
“Oh no!” Maxine squealed. “Papa!”
She ran blindly down the road.
“Maxine, wait!” Theresa screamed.
But Maxine couldn’t wait. Her village, once peaceful and vibrant and full of the nicest people she’d ever meet – her village was on fire.
Theresa looked back at Samuel.
His body shifted forward. His face drenched with concern.
“What do we do now?” Samuel asked.
No sooner had he gotten the words out did he find himself with a sword underneath his throat.
Theresa turned and tried to run for the trees, but one of the vampire barbarians seized her up from the path and threw her on the front of his saddle as though she were made of air.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
This was real. This was happening.
As if the horrors of the Warlock’s dungeon weren’t enough, now the horror was out in the open in a night that should have been filled with cocktails and music and stares from across the room. Instead Theresa had been thrust into the midst of a massacre that was all too familiar.
She knew exactly what this was.
The beginning of war.
But Theresa wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Already ahead of her she could see blood splattered on the walls of burning cottages. Innocent commoners pleading for their lives as monsters towered over them. Circling for a kill.
The Vampire in the saddle behind her was grunting and growling. She could feel his hard cock rubbing against her behind from his trousers. It wouldn’t take more than a fool to see it was meant for her.
A sudden glimmer.
A flicker of light.
Theresa looked down and saw a small glinting dagger strapped to the Vampire’s boot.
They were almost at the village. There wasn’t any time to think about it.
Theresa reached out and ripped the dagger away, stabbing the Vampire in the leg.
“AARGH!” he cried, throwing her from the saddle.
She landed on the path in a huff of pebbles and dust.
Looking up she saw the Vampire ride off the road and crash headfirst into a low-hanging branch. The horse trotted around him, unharmed.
The Vampire was out cold.
Theresa looked ahead.
The Vampire that had carried Samuel off was already in the middle of the village. He hadn’t seen what’d happened.
Theresa looked in the other direction. There was a small slope down she could take and run out into the trees. If she made her move now, she had every chance of making it out of here alive.
“Oh…” she said under her breath tearfully.
She didn’t want to leave the others.
But they’d surely be dead by now, or soon anyway. It wasn’t like she could do anything.
Could she?
Just when she thought she was about to give out, a surge of determination filled her body and she charged off over to the fallen vampire. She pulled the battle-axe from his back and steadied it in her hands. It was heavy. Waaaay too heavy…
She looked around, the axe falling to her side.
She spied the dagger a few feet away.
Theresa scooped it up and then ran into the village screaming her guts out.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The vampires had brought the commoners into the centre of the village. Dozens of them, crying, bleeding, huddled together. There were bodies all over the grass. Weapons lying beside them. Those who had tried to defend had been dealt with. But still Theresa carried forward. Relentless. Seething. Not backing down.
She saw Maxine protecting some of the little ones, waving a broom dripping with flames at the vampires as a cluster of them were closing in on her.
Spying a similar torch discarded, Theresa dropped her blade and picked it up, running at the vampires from the side.
“Get away! Get away!” she screeched. “Leave them alone!”
Two of the vampires turned, snarling and hissing at her. She brandished the torch forward, causing them to back away with fright.
Catching them off guard, Maxine then set the fire to one of the vampires, setting him ablaze. The creature’s deathly scream echoed throughout the village, louder than any other scream present. Theresa watched as the creature burst and bubbled, melting away to ash.
“Run children,” Maxine said to the little ones. “Run as fast and far away as you can!”
They took off tearfully and sobbing, not wanting to leave her but knowing they’d be someone’s supper if they stayed.
Suddenly a vampire sprang on top of Theresa from behind, pushing her into the ground. She rolled over, dropping her torch.
It was the vampire she’d knocked off the horse earlier.
“You’re gonna get it bitch,” he swore at her, pulling up her dress. “You’re getting it right now.”
“No!” Theresa squealed.
She tried to fight him, but there was no angle.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Maxine also being ganged up on by more vampires, eight or nine or ten or –
“God NO!” Theresa squealed.
The Vampire laughed in her face. “I’m going to enjoy –”
He was cut off midsentence as a battle-axe tore through his head, decapitating him.
A hand reached out and pulled her up again.
It was Samuel.
“Oh thank God,” Theresa cried hugging him.
“Watch out!” he shouted, pulling her out of the path of another charging vampire.
Maxine backed away into the area where they were, and they stood there huddled together, the horde of vampires surrounding them.
This was it. Theresa knew it.
They were going to die.
“STOP,” a loud voice boomed, from the centre of the village.
The vampires turned, looking over their shoulders.
Then they scattered.
Moldark advanced towards them, on the grey stallion. He stared at Theresa fiercely, his eyes changing color from red to blue.
“Did you change your mind then?” he asked in a gravely, rasping tone.
“Pardon,” Theresa replied.
“Have you decided you want to be with me after all?”
Theresa swallowed. “You have to spare village. That’s the deal, okay?”
Moldark laughed. “No deal.”
Theresa got to her knees. She put her hands out, pleading. “I know you want me. You want to find out all about me.
And this is the only way. I beg you.”
Moldark was silent a moment.
His stallion shifted back and forth.
“Are you a virgin?” he asked.
Theresa looked up. Swallowed. “Yes.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Moldark said. “I’ll spare the village.”
“Oh, thank you, my Lord.”
“But you still must sacrifice.”
He snapped his fingers and two of the vampires rushed at Maxine and Samuel, seizing them up and hurling them to the ground between Moldark and Theresa.
“I will kill one of your friends,” Moldark said.
“No!” Theresa shouted.
“And I will let one of them live.”
“Please no, you –”
“NO YOU LISTEN TO ME, GIRL. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY!”
The stallion tore violently across the grass.
Moldark jumped from its saddle and pulled the sword from his own back.
“Choose, girl. Will it be Him. Or will it be Her.”
“I can’t choose that!” Theresa protested. “You’re not killing either of them!”
“You’re not choosing who dies,” Moldark said. “You’re choosing who gets to live. And time is running out.”
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WORKS BY ROSETTE BOLTER
STANDALONE BOOKS
Vampire Dating Agency
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PARANORMAL SAGA
1. Shared By The Dragon Clan
Game of Vampires: A Reverse Harem Serial (Part Two) Page 4
