The King's Knight (Royal Blood Book 5)

by Kristen Gupton

  “He killed Mother Thinliss last night, didn’t he?”

  He cocked a brow and looked over at her. “Ah…rather a sharp change in conversation.”

  “I can tell by looking at him that he’s had a proper drink, if you will,” Thana said, stepping back from the fence, brushing the horse hair from her shirt. “He didn’t volunteer anything, but he came back to bed in the middle of the night and told me the spell was broken.”

  Jerris looked to the side and nodded. “Aye.”

  She sighed and nodded as well. “Is the church going to come down on him for this? You know how he gets tight lipped about things sometimes.”

  “No. In fact, the Church Knights were there. They are on Keir’s side with it,” he replied quietly, still keeping his gaze averted.

  Thana could feel his discomfort, and she decided to back off. “Well, that’s all I suppose that matters. He wouldn’t have done her in if she didn’t deserve it.”

  “You take your husband killing people awfully well,” Jerris replied with a weak laugh.

  “You’re the one who’s best friends with him,” she said back, giving up a smile. “I know you probably want to stay here with Patrice, but if I don’t at least get an escort back to the castle, you know Keir will go apoplectic.”

  Jerris rolled his eyes. “Aye, he will not let me live it down if I don’t see you back there safely. I need to go into the house for just a moment, first.”

  Thana nodded. “I’ll start to get Quin and Drake ready for the ride back.”

  The guard turned and jogged to the back door of his house, quickly disappearing inside. With the curtains drawn, the interior was dark, new thunderclouds obstructing the sun.

  Jerris felt the back of his neck instinctively tingle as a wave of fear hit him. He went still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the low light.

  Danier was sitting at the small table in the middle of the space, having helped himself to one of Jerris’ bottles of homemade wine. “The Tordanian king’s lapdog… how are you?”

  Jerris felt his heart in his throat, his right hand moving toward his hip, but he’d taken off his sword belt while working on Patrice.

  The Sadori vampire stood up, dropping the bottle to the floor where it shattered, wine splashing across the floorboards. “Terrible excuse for wine, don’t you think?”

  “What do you want, Danier?” the redhead asked, wondering if he could retreat back out the door before the vampire reached him.

  Danier didn’t make any move to advance closer, enjoying the tension coming off the guard. “I noticed Thana has taken possession of my horse. I simply want it back and to personally thank her for taking such good care of him in the meanwhile.”

  Jerris knew he didn’t stand a chance against Danier unarmed, and he did his best to slow his breaths before spinning and making his run for the door.

  “No you don’t!” Danier said, almost laughing as he launched forward.

  Jerris got his hand on the door’s latch and pulled it open before he felt Danier’s arm cinch around his neck, dragging him backward. Before he was yanked inside, he managed to yell out, “Thana! Run! Danier!”

  The Sadori vampire kicked the door shut and tossed Jerris across the room.

  The guard hit the floor hard, landing on his left arm. He cried out in pain, the weakened limb breaking again upon impact. Jerris rolled flat on his back, clutching his arm to his chest as his mind swam in pain.

  Danier laughed and moved over, kicking the guard in the ribs. “Pathetic!”

  Jerris would have screamed as several of his ribs gave way, but the wind had been knocked out of him and all sound refused to come out. His ears set to ringing as they generally did before he passed out, but he tried to fight it with all he had.

  The door to the house opened again, Thana’s eyes wide. She’d heard Jerris say something in a panic, but she’d not been able to make out the words. The light coming in around her landed on the fallen guard. “Jerris? What’s going on?”

  “Run,” he croaked out, his chest tight and dizziness overwhelming his senses.

  With the brightness around her, Thana couldn’t see Danier yet. She was driven to go to the guard upon seeing him hurt, but his order to run got her attention and she turned, darting back out.

  Danier leered and stepped over the guard, taking chase.

  Thana looked back over her shoulder as Danier emerged from the house. Within a second she recognized him, and she knew she needed to stay out of his reach. She’d not gotten either of the horses bridled yet, so going to them to flee wasn’t an option. Caught out in the open, she saw the barn they’d been grooming Patrice in, and she headed for it.

  Danier easily gained on her, his longer strides carrying him faster than she could manage. He saw her dart for the barn and followed.

  Thana entered the rickety wooden structure and looked for a hiding place, her breaths burning in her throat.

  The vampire stopped in the wide doorway and drew in a long breath, leering. “Dear Thana, there is nowhere to flee.”

  She turned around and tipped her chin toward her chest, narrowing her eyes. “What do you want, Danier?”

  “I was going to kill you, to be honest,” he replied, slowly beginning to walk forward. “However, I think it would be better for me to help you restart the Aroothi line with proper Sadori blood.”

  Thana began to hyperventilate, her entire body starting to shake in terror. “Don’t you come any closer!”

  He smiled and shook his head, not particularly threatened by her words. “You can’t stop me, woman.”

  She stepped backward away from him, but the barn wasn’t particularly deep and she was soon backed up into a corner. Thana clasped her hands together before her chest, her left one wrapped around her silver right.

  He growled, his predatory advance sparking his excitement. “I will certainly prove to be much more of a man than that Tordanian rat you call a king.”

  Thana closed her eyes as he grew closer, turning her head to the side. She felt him press in close, his left hand being planted against the wall on one side of her, the stump of his right wrist on the other.

  “Danier, don’t do this,” she whispered.

  He quirked a brow, looking down at her trembling form. Smelling the fear coming from her was intoxicating. “What? Begging won’t stop me, Thana. It is better than dying, don’t you think?”

  The answer to that in her mind was a resounding no, but she swallowed hard, placing both her hands against his chest. Her voice cracked with her next words. “Just don’t hurt me.”

  Danier’s grin widened and he looked down, seeing her silver prosthetic. It was intriguing, but the thumb was certainly pointing in an odd direction.

  Before he had a chance to say or do anything else, Thana shoved forward with all the strength her adrenaline-soaked muscles could produce. The aged wooden wall behind her creaked and some of the boards cracked, but she didn’t fall through.

  As her arms straightened, her right hand curled into a fist just to the left of his sternum, the dagger’s blade emerging from between her knuckles. The thin blade easily slid forward between his ribs, lodging directly into his heart. She could feel the actual beats of his heart traveling up the blade and into her wrist and forearm.

  Danier shrieked and tried to move back and away, but Thana wasn’t going to let him escape. When the silver hand had clenched into a fist, it had done so with a good amount of his shirt’s fabric clutched within, her left hand also grasping tight.

  The vampire reached down and managed to tear her left hand away, but the right refused to let go. As his heart fluttered with ineffective beats, he became desperate and swung his left arm, his fist connecting with Thana’s temple.

  Her mind swam, but she managed to hold onto consciousness and stayed up, though her legs grew weak and unresponsive.

  Danier staggered back and fell. Thana collapsed down with him, sprawling against his front. Though her body was sluggish to respond, she repos
itioned herself to straddle his chest. She braced the wrist of her prosthetic with her left hand and leaned forward against it, twisting the blade within his chest until she felt it digging into the wooden floor beneath him.

  Danier’s eyes were wild with pain, but he was quickly losing what was left of his strength. He put his hand onto her shoulder and tried to throw her off, but within seconds, his arm dropped to the floor.

  Thana had her eyes closed when he quit struggling. She remained where she was and gasped for breath, terrified to move lest he wake up. There were tears of horror upon her cheeks.

  Jerris staggered into the doorway of the barn, sword in hand. He saw Thana lying on top of Danier’s unmoving form, realizing she’d used her built in dagger to take out the Sadori. “Good God…Thana, are you all right?”

  She still didn’t open her eyes, keeping exactly as she was. “If I move and this blade comes out of his heart, he’ll wake up!”

  The guard understood well enough and he moved forward quickly. While he would have simply used his sword to cut off Danier’s head, he was too unsteady to swing the blade without putting Thana in danger.

  He dropped the sword and picked up a pointed broken axe handle and took it to where Thana and Danier were. “Here…”

  Thana finally opened up her eyes and turned her sights to the guard, seeing the sharp wooden handle in his grasp. She pushed herself up enough to expose where her dagger penetrated Danier’s chest.

  Jerris knelt down and placed the spike of the handle against the entry wound then shoved down with all his weight. There was resistance as the wood was driven between Danier’s ribs and through his body, guided through the path made by Thana’s dagger. Like her, Jerris refused to stop until he felt the end of the improvised stake hit the floor below.

  “Okay, I got him,” Jerris said, still keeping his downward pressure on the handle.

  Thana sat up and jerked her right arm back several times before the blade was pulled free. She tumbled to the side but quickly scrambled up, afraid Danier would move, but he didn’t.

  Jerris slowly let go and sat back, looking over at her. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, unable to take her eyes off of Danier’s body. “Aye. You?”

  He sighed and looked away, queasiness roiling in his stomach. “I think the bastard broke my arm again and maybe some ribs. Once the adrenaline wears off, I’m going to be in sad shape. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop him, Thana.”

  “It’s all right, I did,” she replied, bringing her gaze away from the vampire’s corpse and onto the guard. “And I don’t regret it.”

  * * *

  Drake was gone.

  Quinrah was gone.

  So were their respective owners, and Keiran wasn’t a happy man.

  He paced the courtyard, his arms crossed over his chest. While he’d been tempted to saddle up Porter to go and search for his missing wife and friend, he’d stayed put. There was no doubt within him that they’d vanished together. While they surely had their reasons, he didn’t like it.

  Not that he thought they were up to anything bad per se, but the notion of Thana being out in the world at large without his protection wasn’t one he much liked. Besides, if he took off and they returned in the meantime, it wouldn’t help matters.

  He lifted his gaze from the ground and scowled at the castle gates when he heard galloping hooves approaching. When he saw it was Thana, he dropped his arms to his sides and jogged toward the gates, immediately knowing something was terribly wrong.

  She reined Quinrah to a stop before him. “Come on! Jerris is hurt!”

  He looked her over, seeing the bruising on the side of her face, black starting to ring one of her eyes. “What in the hell happened?!”

  “Just get a horse and come on!” she said back, disregarding her own injury for the moment.

  Keiran nodded and went to claim a horse from one of the guards in the courtyard, not wanting to take the time to saddle Porter. He gave an order for someone to also alert Magretha, though he had no intention of waiting for her to join them before leaving.

  Within a short time, they were at Jerris’ house, Keiran’s questions still unanswered as it had taken all of Thana’s concentration to make the ride back into town.

  Once off the horses, Thana turned to Keiran before the door to the house. “All right, Danier attacked us. I think his arm is broken again, and he took a bad blow to the side of his chest.”

  Keiran’s eyes went wide. “Danier? What in the hell? He hit you?”

  “I killed him, relax,” she said, perhaps a little more casually than she intended. “Either way, Jerris is inside. I just don’t want you barging in there and scaring him, Keir.”

  He gave a dumb nod and stepped around her, slowly opening the door. Thana had left a few lamps and candles burning in the interior, so he was able to see without much trouble. “Jerris?”

  The guard was lying on the bed in the corner. He weakly lifted his good arm upon hearing Keiran’s voice. “About time you showed up.”

  Keiran glanced back at Thana, but she waved him forward. He nodded and went to Jerris’ bedside. The guard’s shirt was off, the purple and blue mark of Danier’s boot easily visible on his side. His left arm was lain out straight at his side, the splint around his upper arm just as broken as the bone beneath it.

  Keiran looked down at the guard, wanting to sit on the edge of the bed beside him but afraid it would jostle his injured friend. “Jerris, you don’t look good.”

  “I’ve looked better, I will admit,” he said quietly, his chest tight enough to make his words and breaths hurt. “In better news, you don’t have to worry about Danier anymore.”

  “Thana said she killed him,” Keiran replied.

  Thana dragged two chairs over, offering one to her husband. “Because I did. The proof is in the barn out back.”

  “Aye, she did,” Jerris added.

  Keiran sat down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he continued to stare at his friend. “He beat the hell out of you, though.”

  Jerris gave a weak nod, his eyes closing.

  Thana landed at Keiran’s side. “I came down here with him to see what Baden was sending for him.”

  The vampire quirked a brow.

  She wagged a finger at Keiran. “No, you don’t get to complain about it. You sneak out with him all the time.”

  “Aye, but look what happened!” Keiran said back.

  “I took care of it,” Thana replied.

  “She did, Keir. She saved her damn self…again,” Jerris whispered, a smile creeping up through the pain. “Took away our future fun of going back to the Sador Empire to kill him later.”

  He slumped back into his chair, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “So…so what in the hell was so important that Baden had it shipped all the way here from Lodain?”

  “The bastard found Patrice,” Jerris replied, his smile growing as his eyes opened. He lifted his head from the pillow to look at Keiran. “She’s in the pasture out back. Lame, skinny, but alive. I owe your little nephew a lot, you know.”

  Keiran dropped his hand back to his lap. “…and then Danier just showed up?”

  “More or less. There was a Sadori ship at the docks. Perhaps he was on it and just followed us here,” Thana replied with a small shrug. “He surprised Jerris then chased me to the barn. Thank God for the dagger in my right hand.”

  “Stuck him right through the heart,” Jerris said, gently placing his head back on the pillow. “Don’t piss her off, Keir. She’s killed as many vampires as I have now.”

  Keiran smiled at that, though it quickly faltered. “Jerris, we need to get someone down here to help you. Thana, I think you really ought to be looked at as well.”

  She waved off his concern. “I’ll be fine. Jerris is the one that needs to be patched up. That arm is broken again.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” Jerris replied quietly. “I can only imagine how much it’s going to hurt to
reset and splint my arm again.”

  Keiran stood up and nodded. “I’ll get Corina. She can drug you well enough that you won’t care.”

  “It is such a relief to be home,” the guard sighed. “You said it was going to be a very good day.”

  Keiran glanced toward Thana and then leveled his gaze at his poor, broken friend. “It is, Jerris. It is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take off Danier’s head to ensure he stays dead this time. I’d imagine Emperor Betram will be delighted to see it.”

  * * *

  Etras arrived back in Ibia. He went straight to Marique’s palace with the letter Betram had given him upon his departure from Tordania. The Sadori had no way of knowing that Danier was dead, so he carried on with the same sense of purpose he’d felt when leaving Tordan Lea.

  The guards at Marique’s palace allowed him entry once they saw the correspondence he carried from the deposed Sadori Emperor.

  Marique greeted his visitor with his typical level of grace. Etras was immediately offered a large spread of food, which he eagerly dove into after his long journey.

  The Ibianese king sat and smiled, watching Betram’s messenger get his fill. “Feeling better?”

  Etras nodded and leaned back on the multiple cushions surrounding him. “Good food has been difficult to come by during recent weeks.”

  “You’ve become spoiled living in Ibia,” Marique replied, knowing Etras’ identity well enough. They’d had business dealings many times in the past when Etras had been the Minister of Trade.

  The Sadori smiled and sighed, though the weight of the news he carried was still pressing upon him. Marique had refused to talk business until he’d offered up a proper Ibianese amount of hospitality.

  Marique could see Etras’ desire to get to the heart of the matter, and he spread his hands out before him. “Now, my friend, what do you have for me?”

  Etras shifted and pulled the letter Betram gave him out and passed it to the king. “Emperor Betram made it to Tordan Lea after Danier’s invasion, and he is currently under the care of King Sipesh. He gave that to me to present to you while the issue of Danier’s treason is dealt with.”