With every last ounce of strength she could muster, Seta pulled herself up, hissing as pain ricocheted through her limbs. She managed to rise to her knees and look up at the brutal man she’d foolishly fallen in love with, seeing him now for the devil he really was. “I will never leave him. As long as a part of my spirit remains, I will be with my son, and I will see that you pay for what you have done.”
Eyes glazed in madness, Roberto backhanded her again, whipping her head to the side, before hoisting her onto his shoulder. She screamed from the pain as he walked toward the ledge, each step jostling her broken body.
“There will be no pieces of you left,” he said as he lifted her from his shoulder and tossed her over the cliff’s edge.
She fell quickly, her screams shrill in the otherwise quiet night as she plummeted, Roberto’s arrogant face fading from view. Her body hit jagged edges of the steep cliff, but did not impede her fall. Terror welled up as air escaped her lungs and she found herself suffocating. Before her lungs could cease completely, her head hit something hard and darkness enveloped her.
“Dream Teller, what have you gotten me into?” Eron asked as he watched the dark shape hurtle toward him. The old witch from his dreams had ordered him to this exact place at this exact time, instructing him that he was to save the woman now falling toward him in the way only one of his kind could save a person.
He winced as he heard the crack of bone against rock, and braced himself for the impact. Arms outstretched, legs locked into place, he caught her before she hit the ground and stumbled under her weight, nearly backing off the ledge he’d been waiting on.
Quickly recovering, he glanced up, pleased to see no one currently peering over the edge. He’d heard enough to know the woman had just had her child ripped from her arms by the boy’s very own father. He closed his eyes and allowed his nostrils to flare, letting the fury work its way through him. Any other time, he would have intervened and saved the child and the woman, but he’d been ordered not to. The woman was valuable, and once he saved her she would not be able to care for the boy. The child was best off with his father… for now. Even if Eron didn’t like it.
He glanced down and sucked in a breath, a low growl erupting from his throat as he took in the extensive damage. How any man could do this to a woman and still call himself a man was beyond his ability to reason. “I have you now, little one, and I will mend you.”
He lay the woman down on the ground as gently as he could, aware of her broken bones. Unconscious, she made no sound. His conscience twinged. In his many years he’d never created a fledgling, and didn’t care for the idea of creating one who didn’t have enough awareness to give permission.
The Dream Teller was wise, though, and if the witch had ordered the changing over, it had to be done. Eron placed two fingertips to the woman’s throat and grimaced at the thready pulse. So slow, he couldn’t even hear it. “Please do not let her wake consumed by madness,” he prayed as he quickly took action to save her life.
He extended his fangs and sank them into her mottled neck, digesting all the blood he could take in until she hovered just over death. As she lingered in that plane of near-death, he cut his wrist with one of his fangs, careful to keep his saliva away from the gash, and held the wound over her mouth. Her nostrils flared, sensing the powerful life-saving nectar, and her bruised lips parted. Eron gently slid his wrist between her lips and she clamped down to suck greedily at his vein.
He allowed her to drink until he felt lightheaded, and then extracted his wrist. He licked the wound, allowing his saliva to close the gash, and sat back on his haunches to watch as the least severe of the woman’s cuts healed. By morning, she would be healed completely of the physical injuries the man had inflicted upon her.
It was the mental injuries he feared her struggling with when she woke into her new form. Humans who were turned into vampires while their minds raged with fury often woke into madness and had to be destroyed. He prayed the Dream Teller hadn’t made an error in sending him to change over the woman as he lifted her from the ground.
“Rialto,” she murmured in her sleep. “My precious baby.”
“Think of that love, Seta. Hold on to it.” He glanced down at the woman in his arms, entranced by the sheer beauty of her. Caked in blood and still showing evidence of abuse, her delicate, exotic face and voluptuous, yet small body stole his breath. “Hold on to the love of your son and focus on it. Do not make me have to kill you.”
TWO
Eron sat in the hard wooden chair at the small, round table, keeping vigil over the fledgling resting on the cot. He’d found the small abandoned cabin the night before, knowing he would need someplace to bring the woman after changing her over.
He’d never witnessed it before, but he’d heard stories, horrible tales of mortals turned in the heat of anger. They woke in a fury, with a bloodlust so deep there was no rationalizing with their tortured minds. They sought only to kill, to massacre every living thing within reach. They had to be put down like animals.
He would have never changed over Seta on his own volition, not with the knowledge of what had happened to her so shortly before, but the Dream Teller was a powerful witch, far more knowledgeable than he. Eron prayed that the old witch hadn’t lost her wisdom.
Seta lay on the cot, her crimson lips parted slightly. The thick fringe of her dark lashes cast shadows over her high cheekbones as moonlight through the small window highlighted her. The pale, silvery light made her look ethereal, like an angel tossed from heaven. He wondered if she was. Maybe that drop from the cliff was her descent into hell, a world of preying on others to survive only to live in a world where someone else raised her son. Maybe death would have been kinder to her.
Eron felt the slight stir in the air, and, with his mind, opened the cabin door before his longtime friend could knock. “She has not awakened yet,” he spoke softly as Christian’s footsteps sounded behind him.
“I see.” The door closed and soon after wood scuffled across the floor as another chair was set next to his. Christian folded himself onto the chair, his gaze on the fledgling before them. “She is quite exquisite.”
“Yes.” Heat rose in Eron’s gut, and burned behind his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he realized he was angered by Christian’s notice of his fledgling’s beauty. He shouldn’t be. The woman was beautiful, that could not be denied, but she was not changed into a vampire in order to serve as his lover. His job was to guide her, mold her into the weapon she was born to be.
As he let his gaze roam over her abundant curves, made all the more enticing by the trim little waist which helped give her the perfect hourglass shape, he squashed all thought of claiming her as anything more than a fledgling under his protection.
“She was thrown off a cliff?”
“Yes,” Eron answered. “And badly beaten.”
“The man who did this to her was the man she loved and trusted?”
“Yes.” That burning sensation reappeared in the pit of Eron’s stomach.
“She will be very fragile, this one. We must take great care with her.”
“If not kill her,” Eron murmured. “I followed the Dream Teller’s orders. I fear I should not have.”
“Have faith,” Christian responded in his usual, assured way. “The Dream Teller knows of what she speaks.”
“We will find out soon enough.” Icy cold fingers of fear traveled the length of Eron’s spine as he sat patiently, waiting for the fallen angel before him to awake and reveal herself as either a warrior or a monster.
Invisible flames licked at her body as she struggled to break free of the dark pit she had been thrown into. Pain erupted in her stomach and burned its way up and down the length of her limbs as she writhed in agony. Fire burned behind her eyes, which for some reason would not open. Still, she could see clearly. Seta watched helplessly as the scene of her death played over and over.
Roberto had killed her. The man she had loved, trusted… The man she had foolishl
y believed in. He had beaten her and thrown her to her death, discarded her like waste. Had stolen her precious son.
Rialto!!! In her mind, she screamed the name. How could she exist without the sweet smell of his skin, the beautiful sound of his garbled words, the sparkle in his dark little eyes? What fate would be so cruel as to leave her conscious in hell knowing that her son had been ripped from her arms and placed into another woman’s? A woman who he would call Mother.
Seta screamed and this time the sound emerged.
“She is not taking the change well.”
Who was that? Seta fought to open her eyes and see who spoke so near her in purgatory, but could not manage the feat. She saw only Roberto behind her closed lids, the fury on his arrogant face as he abused and cast her away. She saw the tears in Rialto’s eyes as he cried, his little hands reaching out to her as he was stolen away.
“One of her kind has never been changed over before.”
Another voice. Another man. Who was with her? Surely she was in hell. The heat in her body was far too intense for her to be waiting in purgatory, and heaven would not seem so horrible. Heaven would not allow her the horrific memory of having her child taken from her.
“And there is a reason for that. Her kind is not supposed to be changed.”
“The Dream Teller would not have given you the order to change her unless she knew the woman would survive.”
Survive what? Dream Teller who? Seta opened her mouth to ask, but only another deafening scream erupted. Her body bucked as the ghosts of thousands of tiny pins and needles attacked her skin. Fire shot through her torso to explode in her mouth, seeming to char her gums as they swelled. Her body rose from the soft surface it rested on only to be pushed down and locked in place by strong, iron bands.
All the while the image of her death flashed furiously through her mind. Her blood boiled as she gazed into Roberto Garibaldi’s dark, soulless eyes, reveling in the fact that he would one day soon look upon her again, those dark eyes open wide in terror as she ripped his heart from his chest. Wherever she was, whether it be purgatory or hell itself, she would crawl out and seek vengeance upon the count before retrieving her son. Nothing would separate her from Rialto, not even death.
“The change is never this violent! She should have rested peacefully and woken from her slumber at least an hour ago.”
Who was that?
“Her own power is melding with the gifts she has received from the turning. Two entities of such strength surely would not blend easily,” the second voice said.
Two men. Two men holding her down, Seta realized as she tried to evade the steel bands pressing upon her. Demons, they must be, pressing down upon her with their filthy hands. Were they there to torture her?
Rage built up inside Seta’s body, flowing through her veins, hot like burning kerosene. Her stomach burned with hunger she chose to ignore. She had already been beaten and brutalized by one man. No other man—demon or not—was going to harm her this night. Growling from low within her throat, she summoned all the strength she possessed, and felt something powerful and hot stir inside her as she forced her eyelids open.
Her gaze collided with eyes of the deepest green she had ever seen. For a moment she could only see the face above her. Perfectly sculpted cheekbones accented thin lips, but not so thin as to be undesirable, a proud, straight nose, a strong jawline, and those hypnotically emerald eyes that seemed to shimmer with pure power as they gazed down at her from below thick eyebrows the color of burnt umber. But the most remarkable thing about this demon-man was the unique color of his hair. As if his eyes were not stunning enough, his hair appeared to be a blend of gold and red with hints of copper thrown in for an even more startling effect. He was quite possibly the most beautiful piece of artwork Seta had ever laid eyes upon.
She raised her hand, desperate to touch the creamy white skin providing the canvas for such a mesmerizing face and feel if it was as silky as it appeared. Another man stepped into her line of sight, this one handsome as well, with dark wavy hair and nice blue eyes, but unable to draw the same response from her as the first. Instead, he reminded her of the moment she’d noticed the guard standing near Roberto. Her heart instantly revved as the urge to fight or flee took hold.
Seta quickly accessed her situation. She appeared to be on her back, lying in a bed as one man leaned over her, caging her. The other stood over her, ready to grab her should she run. There would be no fleeing. She had to fight. Adrenaline and fear mixed together, heating her blood and breaking away at the ice that had formed along her spine.
“Relax,” the beautiful one said softly, a strange lilt to his voice making it sound as if he were singing to her. “You are safe. You must make a choice now.”
Yes, she must. She chose to save herself. Gathering all the courage she could scrounge from inside her, Seta lunged forward, cracking her forehead against the man’s jaw.
She ignored the sharp burst of pain ricocheting around her skull and the man’s growled oath as his head snapped back. The other man stepped closer, but Seta was already barreling toward him, bent over. Her head connected with his stomach and propelled him backward. Using her momentum, she jumped over him as he fell and made a dash for the door, barely registering the small cabin she’d been brought to. Her surroundings did not matter. She needed out, as far away as possible.
She’d barely flung the door open and taken one step into the evening air when she ran straight into a solid wall. Bouncing back, her jaw slackened in surprise as she looked up into crystalline green eyes. “How did you…”
“I move very fast,” the beautiful man said sharply, “and you will find that you do as well, once you adjust to your new existence.”
He stepped closer and Seta stepped back in reflex. The hair along her nape rose as she sensed the other man drawing near from behind her. “What new existence?”
The brutal beating she had received from Roberto’s hands and her descent over the cliff flashed through her mind and she looked down, holding her arms out to examine. No wounds, cuts… no mars whatsoever to her golden skin. Not even a bruise. “Why am I not broken and bleeding?”
She’d felt the pain from every punch and kick, had lost her breath from the impact. She’d heard, in addition to felt, her ribcage snap. Blood still stained her torn dress. How had her body mended from such an assault? Who were these men? In all the stories she’d heard of hell, it was a world of fire and brimstone. She stood now in a small cabin with minimal furniture. No red creatures with arrow-tipped tails, pointy horns, and forked tongues surrounded her with pitchforks aimed for her head. Only two men, two unusually attractive men, stood near. Men with the power to appear before her out of thin air after having just been knocked down. Men who must have used some sort of magic to heal her. “Did you trade your soul for your power?”
The green-eyed man’s mouth curved upward. “It feels like that some days…but I did not. Nor did Christian.” He tipped his uniquely hued head toward the man behind her. “Christian is the Godliest acquaintance I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. You have no need to fear us.”
Seta swallowed hard, the gulping sound loud in her ears, yet not loud enough to drown out the beat of her heart. If only it were easy enough to believe what the beautiful man said. She’d believed Roberto was an honest and noble man. Look where that had gotten her. No, she couldn’t trust them. She bowed her head and made another attempt for the door.
The beautiful man’s hand snaked out and caught her effortlessly.
“You can not go out into the night until you make your choice,” he said, gently pushing her back until she stood before him.
“What choice?” She looked between him and the other man, Christian, who’d walked around to also stand before her. “I only have one choice, to get my son, and that is not a choice at all. It is what I have to do and I will go through you to do it.”
“When it is time to retrieve your son we will not impede you in any way,” the man said.
“When it is time?” She squared her shoulders. “Are you mad? I am getting my son right now.”
“How will you care for him if you must sleep so many hours during the day? How will you care for him while running from slayers?”
Seta stilled, doing her best to ignore the growing hunger building in her core as she studied the men, trying to comprehend their message. The one called Christian looked genuinely sympathetic, the beautiful one was harder to read but he didn’t carry himself as she imagined a deranged man would.
“Why would I have to do that?”
“Look at yourself, Seta. Do you recall what the count did to you, to your body?”
She looked down at her hands, raising her arms to again inspect her condition. She’d been cleaned, obviously, but soap and water could not close gashes. She remembered blood. She remembered the feel of her body hitting jagged edges as she fell from the cliff.
“How did I heal so quickly?” She looked over at the cot she’d awoken on. “How long have I been here?”
“Roughly twenty-six hours,” the man answered.
“This is not possible. No medicine or herb is this strong.”
“I healed you,” the man answered, “when I gave you new life.”
A chill skated down Seta’s spine as she looked into his eyes. “What are you?”
“The same as you, if you choose.” He paused, looked at his friend, and then returned his gaze to her. “You would have died last night if the Dream Teller, a wise witch who watches over us all, had not sent me to catch you. I was to allow you the decision of life or death but you were unconscious and fast approaching death. I saved you by drinking your blood then filling you with mine.”
Seta reflexively placed her hand over her stomach, nausea now warring with the hunger growing inside it. “No.”
“Yes, Seta. I am Eron, and I am a very old vampire tasked with the duty of saving you so you may reunite with your son again when he is of age to care for himself. I am sorry to have given you this life without your consent. You may still choose. If you accept, I will take you to feed and complete the process. If you reject this life, I will … take it back.”
Seta's Fall Page 2
