Vietka laughed raucously as if inebriated, though the woman was as sober as could be. The gate opened. Mikhail’s muscles tensed, the need to invade a primal urge. Vietka’s girls and Sienna meandered in, crooning and giggling to the Legionnaires.
“New girl, eh?” said one of the guards, offering his arm to Sienna.
“Bloody hell,” growled Nikolai. “She’d better hurry the fuck up.”
As if she’d heard Nikolai’s impatience, Vietka lifted her skirt, pretending to adjust her stocking and garter. “Brontus, luv!” she called out.
Brontus was the lead guard on this shift, the one who was most experienced and the most dangerous, according to her. Vietka never serviced the men, and she typically had one of the girls bring back the weekly wages. She’d said her girls wouldn’t be able to lure Brontus out the gate easily. But she could. He’d always had an eye for her.
The tall vampire sauntered out the still-open gate. Even from here, Mikhail could smell the man’s lust for her driving him forward.
“You got something for me, Vietka?”
She straightened. With one hand on her hip, her breasts thrust up, she crooked a finger at Brontus. “Was thinkin’ you might come keep me company tonight.”
He strolled closer, body still in an alert posture. “You’ve never come looking for me before.”
“I’ve never been without a good man in me bed this long.”
He scoffed, stopping right in front of her. “A good man?”
“By good,” she lilted sweetly, “I mean one who can keep it up long enough for a girl to get some relief. You think you’re good enough for the job?”
“Aye.” His hands found her hips, lust making him sloppy. “Let me get just a taste of you, then I’ll take you on inside.”
“Come on, then,” she took his hand and dragged him toward the shadow of the trees.
His eyes were locked on her. He smelled and heard the danger too late. Before he could even draw his blade, Riker was behind him, one hand on his forehead, snapping his head back, and slicing through his jugular with the other. Vietka leaped back as Riker cut the rest of the way with a serrated blade, completely taking the sergeant’s head off before he dropped it next to his crumpled headless body without a whisper of exertion.
“Now,” said Mikhail, noting the gate slightly ajar as Brontus had left it.
As one, they shot in a blur through the gate and set upon the lingering guards. Vietka’s women didn’t make a sound, as she’d ordered them not to. No cries or screams to alert more guards as, one by one, Mikhail and his men put them down and dragged their bodies into the shadows near the castle wall. All within seconds.
Wiping his bloody blade on his pants, Mikhail turned to the group of silent, wide-eyed women. “Best get back to town, ladies.”
They didn’t wait, slinking out the gate and down the road where Vietka waited for them. All except Sienna, who stood silent as the grave with her red cloak and hood shrouded around her. Nikolai stood protectively behind her, scanning the area for signs of other guards.
Yuri was at Mikhail’s shoulder, pointing to the right. “South battlement entrance.”
They strategically planned to take down the guards on each battlement overlooking the four corners of the Izeling grounds. If all seemed well from the battlements, then no reinforcements would be alerted. They could get in, get Mina and Izzy, and get out much swifter. The longer this took, the slimmer their chances were of getting back out alive. Speed was crucial.
With Mikhail at the helm, they entered the south turret door and wound in vampire speed up to the first landing. Yuri, Gregoravich, and Dane nodded with ten other guardsmen behind them, taking the first-tier battlement. Izeling Tower had a lower and upper tier of battlements. Mikhail swept up to the highest landing and pushed out into the night. Three guards swiveled from the parapet overlook, but they were no match for the fury riding Mikhail.
Before Nikolai, Riker, or the other guardsmen could even fall out fully onto the square, Mikhail had gutted one and slit the throat of a second. He turned on the third, but Nikolai swept in behind him and cracked his neck, dropping his body soundlessly to the ground. Riker finished off the gutted guard before his moans could be heard.
An upper passage led to the next battlement. Mikhail strode on swift feet, hearing the scuffling below and someone gasping for breath as the others were making quick work of the Legionnaires. Soundlessly, they sped through the shadows, finding five Legionnaires guarding the next tower. Dane kept back near Sienna while Nikolai fought alongside Riker, sweeping wide and dispatching the Legionnaires with little to no effort at all. They met back on the next passage leading to the north battlement.
“Either these men have seen few battles or they’ve never been trained properly,” said Nikolai, ten-inch blades in both hands.
“I’d say a little of both.” Mikhail glanced behind them at the crumpled bodies they left in their wake. “Dominik has spent his time raiding human villages and taking them prisoner. It will be the vampires infected with sanguine furorem and his compulsion elixir who will be the true challenge.”
“Seems he’s keeping them all at Dragon’s Eye,” said Riker.
“He didn’t expect an invasion this quickly,” added Mikhail. “We just need to—”
A harrowing scream pierced the clear night, raising goose flesh on his neck.
“Mina.”
Without thought, he fled like a madman toward the sound, the north battlement. Spilling out onto the large square, his heart plummeted. Two Legionnaires were cuffing Mina onto her back onto some sort of table. Mina’s expression—half horror, half fear—ripped him open. Dominik stood behind her, unbuckling his sword belt. In a flash, Mikhail took in the priest, the matrimonial cloth on the ground, and the queen’s determined expression as she stepped toward a stone table, where little Izzy was chained. Good God. He’d been right. She was going to kill Izzy and use her blood with black magic. And Dominik was about to consummate his forced marriage to Mina on the battlement.
“Over my fucking dead body.”
A new kind of hatred expanded in his chest. The kind that razed villages to nothing but blood and ash. The kind that overwhelmed all else within its vicinity, sucking the enemy into a gaping maw of black, black death. The kind that made him uncage his beast and push aside the man. His claws pricked, his fangs sharpened, and he knew his eyes rolled black with the beast.
Mikhail bounded across the space, unsheathing his double sword, throwing the scabbard into the air, but was tumbled to the ground mid-leap by Radomir.
Chapter Thirty-One
Mina was trapped, her hands still cuffed to the barbaric consummation altar as Dominik unlaced his trousers and edged closer. Her heart was full of fear and relief at the sight of Mikhail, storming toward Dominik like a demon come to collect his soul, but he’d been catapulted aside by Radomir. And this crazed animal was still intent on raping her right here and now.
She recognized Nikolai and some of the guardsmen who’d pledged their loyalty to her now engaged in fierce combat with the Legionnaires. And another grave warrior with an eye patch, whom she didn’t recognize. More of the king’s men flooded onto the battlement, having heard the fighting upon the towers. There were more men on the second tier of battlements for she could hear the cries of the wounded and the clang of steel.
A distant thudding sound vibrated from the ground through the stone castle. Queen Morgrid hissed as she swept away toward the parapet. While the Bloodguard were entangled in battle, the sound grew louder. Then a horn bellowed up into the crisp, clear night.
“Hurry, my son,” commanded the queen, rushing back to the altar where Izzy was bound, her black mantle whipping behind her. “It must happen at the same time.” The queen assessed the scene below. “Get to Dragon’s Eye. Summon them all,” she snapped at an officer standing at her side.
“Yes, my queen.” His dark voice was a whisper on the wind as he sped away.
A fireball burst upon
the queen’s cloak. In a whirl of icy wind she summoned out of the air, it snuffed out. Crossing the battlement between men in fierce combat strode Sienna. She raised her hands, palms up, and flicked her wrists. Tendrils of ropelike fire snaked down and coiled on the ground, the ends of the fire whip gripped in her hands. She raised her arms and snapped the fiery ends with a loud crack in the air.
“Let them go.” An orange aura of flame enveloped her from head to toe.
She snapped a man in half who dived at her, his body sliding in two charred pieces across the pavement.
The queen backed up a step, whispering some incantation under her breath.
That whisper, that inner secret sprung to life once more, rising out of a maelstrom of emotions. The one ringing clear and true above all was righteous anger. Singing to her a dark lullaby.
The growing awareness of the magic, that whispering that had kept her company for so long, intensified. The aura of flame billowing around Sienna in a mystical shroud and the knowing look in Sienna’s golden eyes told her what she couldn’t understand all this time.
Drink the blood of fire.
“It’s Sienna,” she whispered, her heart leaping with joy, even as Dominik snapped to two guards to go after her.
Sienna’s fire whips cracked in the air, wrapping around their necks. With a hard tug, the two decapitated men fell at once. Sienna locked on Mina’s gaze and smiled, the second before a burst of power threw Sienna across the battlement, knocking her head into the pillar with a crack. She fell at once, blood pooling from her auburn hair, the fire halo dimming until it evaporated into smoke.
“No!”
A cold electricity sparked in the air where the queen had closed her eyes and lifted her hands to the heavens, calling on some dark spell. Where the sky was clear before, a gathering of black clouds swirled in a maddened tempest, flashing with menacing magic.
Izzy squeezed her eyes closed, looking away from the queen, who stood over her altar, hands raised to the sky.
“Now, Dominik!” bellowed the queen over the winds.
Grief swept over Mina, watching Sienna’s prostrate form bleed out while the world went to hell around her. Then Dominik was on her again, yanking up her skirts. As he gripped a handhold near her head and leaned his large body over her, his expression set with grim determination and a hint of sadistic pleasure, her grief melted away, replaced by such dark rage she could only think one thing.
Survive. And kill.
His hand gripped her upper thigh, leaning forward just enough. She lurched up and latched her fangs in deep at his pulse, sucking so hard he screamed, squeezing her thigh harder.
“Let go, bitch.”
She clamped even harder, drinking him down, molten fire burning through her body like a volcano spewing lava into her veins. Burned. It burned, but she wouldn’t relent, determined to take his life in any way she could.
He jerked up, screaming, but she didn’t unlatch. Finally, he gripped her throat, blocking off her swallowing his blood, then finally her breathing. When she saw black in her periphery, she let go. He flew back off of her, blood dripping from his wound. Before he could set upon her the black vengeance in his gaze, Mikhail tumbled him to the stone ground.
The burning persisted as the potent blood of Dominik pumped hard. His blood blazed like liquid fire through her body, igniting a conflagration of its own.
“It wasn’t Sienna,” she whispered, staring up at Dominik’s banner, the black dragon sigil with fire-gold eyes. “Dominik is the blood of fire.”
Without a thought, she pulled on her restraints. They broke at once. She stumbled off of the altar and gripped the parapet wall. She heaved in breaths of the night air, taking in the sight below as a strange sensation swept through her body.
Far down the hill filtering through the now-open double gates and spilling into wide lines was the army of the Black Lily. Mina caught her breath. Merging with the human army on their left was Lord Rathbone leading his force of Arkadians, riding astride a great black horse, his silver armor glinting under the moonlight. Lord Maksim was at his side. The equestrians filled the fields beneath Izeling Tower by the hundreds, including the black-clad Bloodguard.
A great blast exploded a hole in the western exterior wall. Katya and Dmitri rode upon their mounts through the opening, leading the Bloodguard cavalry onto the western slope. Behind them came the armored men of the Black Lily and a solid force of hart wolves flanking Friedrich, Marius, and Arabelle. The white coat of Allora beamed under the moonlight. Her black-furred mate at her side.
Even from here, Mina could see the difference in Arabelle. Her proud stance, wearing a man’s armor with her blond hair tied in a tight rope of a braid, her skin gleamed pearlescent white like that of a vampire. She’d finally done it. The revolution that this peasant girl started would end this night. Mina laughed.
The king’s right hand, that vicious viper called Kostya, was down below on the snowy ground, calling out commands as lines of Legionnaires marched into place to face the onslaught preparing to charge across the open field.
And all this time, Mikhail went at Dominik full force. Mikhail bore a streak of blood across his cheek, though he appeared as strong as ever. He dove at Dominik, taking him around the chest right over the parapet. Mina gasped, leaning toward the parapet wall, finding them both back on their feet on the lower tier, where Gregoravich and Yuri fought side by side. Bloodied, but not fallen.
A roar of overlapping battle cries sounded from the field where raging vampires—no doubt infected with the blood madness—ran in a frenzy from the thick of the woods across the field toward the Black Lily army.
Morgrid cried out in rage, staring across at Mina, who’d escaped her dismal fate. The wicked queen held her hands to the sky, summoning the storm. A blistering wind swept across the battlements, filled with the crackling energy of malice and death, building stronger and stronger. A cacophony of snarls, howls, clanging metal, tearing flesh, and breaking bones echoed up to the ramparts as the mayhem of battle raged on down below. Mina glanced to Mikhail and Dominik, still locked in combat, though Mikhail’s side bled profusely, gushing onto the stone floor.
“Mikhail.” Then she found Izzy, still bound helplessly, still precariously close to the witch who wanted her as a blood sacrifice. “No,” Mina panted, standing tall.
The whispering grew louder, overlapping voices colliding into one voice, a woman’s melodious voice as she spoke clear and loud.
Awaken the white queen from her long, long slumber.
Strange words. Dominik’s blood scorched like living flame through her body. A burn that didn’t hurt but purged all weakness away, leaving a tower of strength and power in its wake. A purge of the girl who was afraid to hold her head too high or to acknowledge the beast that lived within. The beast that Mikhail had taught her to embrace. To love.
A sudden memory whirred through her fevered thoughts, her nurse walking her through the gardens of Briar Rose.
“You know the bones of the white dragon lay right here beneath your feet.”
“No. That can’t be true. That’s just a fairy tale.”
“Aye, sweet girl. ’Tis true. And that magic lives in your own blood, did you know?”
Mina’s mind snapped back to the present, but she answered her sweet nurse over time. “Yes. It does.”
She could feel it, the fire blood of Dominik melding with the magic inside her own, awakening something she knew was there all along but was too afraid to face.
The gathering storm of Morgrid’s making swirled with enraged violence, blocking out the stars and the moon. Morgrid finally opened her eyes and bellowed to the night sky. “Winds of night! Heed my call! Take my blood. Make them fall.”
She’d taken a blade from one of the fallen soldiers and sliced open her palm, raising it to the freezing gale, which thickened with icy crystals. The crystals crackled and grew as they rocketed down from the dark heavens. Nikolai cried out as he ran to where Sienna lay, blood pour
ing from her head, when a six-inch spike of ice embedded in his back, knocking him to the stone floor, immobile.
Mina backed up to the parapet, shaking her head in helpless rage as the deadly shards crashed into stone and into her friends and warriors. None of the icy spikes even touched her. They wouldn’t. The queen needed her alive. But it could kill everyone she knew and loved. Panicked, she leaned over the parapet wall to see on the battlement just below a dagger-size shard impale Mikhail’s wrist, forcing him to drop his sword. Dominik slung his weapon and scored Mikhail across the upper chest, just missing his neck as Mikhail leaned away. Mikhail’s blood spattered the air. Two more ice daggers impaled his thighs, dropping him to the ground. Dominik grinned like the feral predator he was, edging toward his wounded prey.
Mina screamed, gripping the stone of the parapet wall, claws pricking, blood burning.
Far down below on the field, ice daggers and ice swords fell from the sky, piercing the soldiers of the Black Lily army. A rain of ice daggers fell upon Lord Rathbone, his horse squealing as it fell and rolled over the vampire who’d helped her to become queen and had joined her cause.
Another hail of ice blades fell upon Arabelle, Marius, Friedrich, and Grant, who fought back to back, the shards hitting their marks and felling Friedrich to the ground, unmoving.
Kostya pushed his army of rabid vampires forward, bellowing the call to kill them all. In a swarm of screams and blood, the vampires descended and leaped upon the Black Lily army, ripping and clawing them all to the ground. The human army fought, but few could stand up against the rage-filled monsters the queen and her son had created.
Another troop of them filed in from the gaping hole in the wall, coming up behind Lord Rathbone’s army, behind her own Arkadians, slicing through throats. The vampires were on more equal grounds, but with Queen Morgrid’s ice daggers felling Mina’s people one by one, soon there would be no one left standing.
They were losing. And if they lost, she would be a slave to Dominik, for a child to be born of her, ripped from her womb and sacrificed in a black rite to bring an eternity of darkness across the land.
The Emerald Lily Page 27
