Renegade (Shadow Realms): An Urban Fantasy Dragon Shifter Romance

by Amber Ella Monroe

  She lowered her gaze and turned her body away from him.

  “How did you ascend to Superior so quickly?” he continued. “Your slow recovery after the car crash tells me that you only recently became vampire but I’m sensing a stronger source of power within you. A power very few have here in the Court.”

  “Car accident?” Elaina asked.

  She rubbed her palms over her bruised body. She remembered being stabbed in the chest and healed by Mercer, but where had the other scars come from.

  “You mean you don’t know that you were in a car crash?” He laughed and the chains and other jewels on his belt loops clinked together.

  She gasped and her back stiffened. “Are my friends alive?”

  “Oh, calm down. We’re Dresdan. Do you really think we’re going to die from getting thrown from a van? I’m not going to let them off the hook that easily. All of my enemies die deaths worthy of their traitorous crimes.”

  Elaina frowned. This man spoke of her friends’ deaths like he was having a normal conversation about current events.

  “You bastard,” she muttered.

  He sighed and shook his head. “Why did you have to go there? I was just taking a liking to you. “ He stood and waved a few fingers in the air. A young woman came to him immediately. “Give her something to wear. Roy and Eldric will bring her to the square once you’re done.”

  Russo shifted out of the room without another word.

  There were bite marks all over the young woman’s neck and shoulders. She reached for Elaina.

  Elaina flashed fang. “If you touch me, I’ll snap your neck.”

  The woman fled the room, and two Dresdan Superiors entered. Elaina resisted all the way down the long winding corridor made of stone until she was led out onto a courtyard.

  The first person she spotted was Vicq, who stood in the middle of the area with his limbs chained to the ground. Despite having multiple veins opened up on his arms and legs, he remained upright but seemed to sway back and forth as if he would collapse at any moment.

  Bile rose in Elaina’s throat at the harsh picture before her. Both Mark and Melrose were also chained, but they were both weakened and on the ground.

  There were spectators, all vampires, looking across the courtyard as if this was a circus and they were all animals.

  Russo was seated on a throne-like structure made of the same stone as the Court.

  The Superiors who’d brought Elaina in, shoved her harshly into the courtyard, directly in front of Russo.

  “Perfect. They’re all here and conscious for their sentencing,” Russo said.

  “What is this?” Elaina yelled.

  “You really weren’t seasoned in the ways of the Dresdan, were you? No Superior should ever be ignorant of our ways,” Russo replied.

  “I’m not ignorant, you silly bastard,” she countered. “Do you know what these Dresdan had to go through to take down District 5 while you sat your lazy, non-working ass on a throne? They don’t belong in chains.”

  The crowd gasped and guffawed as Russo sat fuming.

  “Their punishment is for crimes committed against the Court before they executed these deeds you speak of.”

  “Are you serious? You’re obviously drowning in so much authority and power that was never meant for you that you can’t even see through your own thick-headed ways of bigotry.”

  Two Superiors came out with chains.

  Russo held up a hand and signaled for them to wait. “Let her spit flames, but I won’t raise my sentence.”

  “Is this really the way of the Dresdan?” Elaina asked. “Explain to me how anyone but a coward would put the people that have stood up and fought not just for themselves, but for all vampires to death.”

  A wave of silence fell over the area.

  “Explain it to me like you would a human. Why is a Dresdan who takes on a mission bigger than himself labeled a traitor? If you were my Master, I’d turn my back on you, too.”

  She pushed forward toward the throne, only to be held back by two Superiors.

  “Do you know what they say about a leader who sends his men out to do all of his work for him?”

  “Enlighten me,” Russo said to Elaina’s surprise.

  “You will never gain the support due a true leader unless you walk with those you command. You sit on a throne, throwing out orders, but will you ever execute them yourself? Have you ever?”

  Russo’s face was now red in what Elaina hoped to be more shame than fury.

  “Why are you speechless now?”

  “Elaina,” Vicq croaked from across the space.

  She could hear him now, and he didn’t even need to say the words. He wanted her to stand down, but she wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to be silenced before dying. She hoped her words echoed in Russo’s memories long after her death. Maybe one day, he’d actually listen.

  Russo uncrossed his legs and rose from his throne. Then he descended the dais, coming down to her level. His eyes were red like the brightest rose and his fangs were distended, glistening under the moon and starlit sky over the courtyard.

  Elaina stood her ground as he circled her. She felt every inch of his gaze, every sweep of eyes across her. He closed the distance between them and snatched the blood necklace that Vicq had given her away. He crushed the glass and let the blood run down his arm, and then he grabbed a fistful of her hair and forced her to look up at him.

  Vicq fought against his chains behind her as Russo homed in on her neck. “No!”

  Elaina cringed as Russo slid his tongue against her jugular as if testing the heat of her blood and sampling the taste of her skin. She heard his fangs breaking through his gums. She remained completely still, concentrating on what she wanted him to see of her memories if he decided to take from her.

  His cold lips moved against her ear, and he whispered, “I am going to break you. That is what I do. And soon…you will learn.”

  He let go of Elaina’s hair, leaving her scalp burning. “But first, I’m going to pass sentence on your lover and those who aided and abetted him.”

  Her chest rose and fell harshly as Russo turned his back and returned to his seat.

  “Now, we’ve wasted enough time.” He opened his palm. “My pen?”

  A female vampire produced a pen and a container of blood. Russo dipped the tip of the pen into the blood and folded out the scroll of paper on the table beside him.

  “Mark,” Russo proclaimed. “For the crimes treason and plotting against the Court, you are sentenced to spend the rest of your days as a fledgling and a servant. You’ll be drained here in the Court of all your Superior blood.”

  He scribbled on the paper. “Melrose. For the crimes of treason, plotting against the Court, and five murders here in the Court, you are sentenced to spend the rest of your days as a blood slave. You’ll be drained alongside the traitor, Mark.”

  “I will kill myself before I become anyone’s slave,” Melrose yelled.

  “That’s what you say now,” Russo responded.

  He dipped his pen into the blood and scribbled some more.

  “Ah…Elaina, the spitfire of a Dresdan, who thinks she can speak to me like I am inferior.” He pretended to think and tapped his pen on the throne. “I don’t know what I’ll do with you yet after I’ve broken your spirit and brought you to your knees, but I do know that, pretty soon, you’ll be calling me Master.”

  “Over my dead body,” she said.

  He grinned. “Yes, of course.” He wrote on the paper, placed the pen down, and then folded it neatly on the table.

  “Vicq. You knew this was coming, didn’t you?”

  Elaina struggled against the Superiors holding her and turned, hoping by now that Vicq’s healing powers had taken over, and his wounds had sealed up. But they hadn’t. He still stood, tethered, while bleeding out his life force. She looked down at her own skin, wondering why all her wounds were healed while Vicq’s, Melrose’s, and Mark’s were not.

  “Are you
going to kneel or not?” Russo asked him.

  “How many times are you going to ask me that question? You cannot rightfully sentence those who do not kneel first.”

  Russo grumbled. “Reminds me of another rule that I need to nix from the Dresdan code. Such a stupid law.”

  “But you can go on and kill me without sentence like you did our Maker,” Vicq spat.

  “Maybe you’re feeling a little regretful that you didn’t get to him first,” Russo said.

  “The only thing I regret is leaving here without clawing your heart out first,” Vicq said.

  “Many, many chances have been given, and still you won’t kneel. We’re brothers. We promised Zaket that we’d always stick together.”

  “It’s a promise I cannot keep.”

  “Theodore, come open up another vein. This time, on his neck,” Russo ordered.

  A dude resembling a football linebacker came across the courtyard. He had a sword on his belt and dagger in his palm. Without flinching, he sliced a vein open on Vicq’s neck.

  Elaina screamed.

  Russo laughed.

  “You see how much agony this bitch is in?” Russo asked. “Put her out of her misery. Just kneel.”

  The color left Vicq’s face. It seemed that his life force was fading with every beat of his heart. Elaina could feel it now. She could feel his death as if it were her own.

  “Kneel and become the servant you were always meant to be.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Another,” Russo ordered.

  The dude with the knives went in again, splitting a vein open on Vicq’s forearm.

  “Vicq, please…”

  Vicq lifted his eyes, which were now a dull brown. “I cannot.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “He’ll kill you.”

  “He’ll kill me anyway. And I promised my Maker I would never…” He took several deep breaths. “I can’t break any more promises.”

  “The sword,” Russo called out from the throat. “In the gut.”

  The dude with the knives tossed the dagger on the ground and quickly unsheathed his sword. He plunged the lengthy blade into Vicq’s gut.

  Vicq lurched, but still he kept to his feet, not giving in to the pain and dangling from the restraints. “I’m sorry, Elaina.”

  How conflicted he must feel to want to live and die at the same time. The agony was there on his face and in his demeanor, but still he would not accept defeat. Not while he still lived.

  Elaina turned around, tears running down her face. “You animal!”

  “Do you know what my Maker, who also happens to be Vicq’s Maker, taught me?” he asked. “When you give your word, you should keep it. I warned Vicq that if he turned his back on me that I would treat him in the same manner as everyone else under my command. He would receive no special privileges. And you know what he did…? He shunned me. Ran and denounced the Court under my leadership. I’m keeping my promises and my word to my Maker.”

  “Please…” Elaina fell to her knees.

  “The flames have already begun to diminish, Elaina. I will put them out, one by one, just like I told you.” Russo lifted his hand and again, calling more men with swords into the courtyard. “Finish him.”

  Elaina called on a source of power she didn’t know she had, or maybe the amount of rage she felt inside fueled her. She shoved at the Superiors holding her, allowing for a brief second to free herself. Once she had room to move, she lunged for the dagger discarded on the ground and used it to slice straight through the neck of one Superior and then another.

  You could have heard a cricket crawling in the room after the bodies dropped to the ground.

  Elaina wasted no time. She went straight for the linebacker who’d plunged the sword in Vicq’s gut. After his entrails had fallen out, littering the ground, he fell face down on them. Elaina swiped his fallen sword from the ground.

  Her training as a vampire tracker and combat fighter was not wasted. She may be skilled, but she wasn’t here to display fighting prowess. When she had the opportunity, she took the kill. But the wounds she sustained weren’t healing nearly as fast as the bruises from the car accident.

  Elaina stood in front of Vicq with a dagger in one hand and a sword clutched in the other. When she looked up at the throne where the coward sat, she took a lot of pleasure in seeing the look of fear on his face.

  “Hayward. Nathan,” he commanded, sending two more Dresdan into the square with swords.

  Elaina cut them down one by one until sweat—theirs and her own—seeped into her wounds. She glanced behind her at Vicq, who’d regained some of his strength but still struggled to heal. Before she could race to feed him, a Superior barged in, shoved her off, and sent her flying across the quad.

  This time, Russo ordered a series of lashes with a leather whip across Vicq’s back. The first strike echoed across the courtyard. Before the second lash came down across Vicq’s back, Elaina got back up and charged with a blade, which she ended up driving into her target’s spinal cord. While he was lying motionless on the ground, Elaina picked up the whip, tied it around his neck, and dragged him front and center right in front of the throne. She picked up another discarded sword and beheaded the paralyzed victim.

  “Stop! Enough.”

  Two Superiors froze on the way to the center of the courtyard.

  Russo rose forcefully from his chair. “What kind of shit is this? How many of you does it take to stop a woman?”

  No one said anything.

  “Bring her to me,” he ordered.

  “No!” She raised the sword. “If you touch me or any of them, I’ll proceed until I’m ready to die.”

  Russo straightened his collar and came down from his throne once again. “Put the sword down or I’ll have no choice but to send more Superiors in.”

  Elaina laid the sword at her feet within grasping distance.

  Once he reached her, he said, “What are you trying to prove? Vicq will die, either by sentence or because he failed to give in.”

  “Release Vicq. Take me,” she said.

  Chains rattled, but Vicq was so fatigued from blood loss that he could barely muster a word.

  “What’s that?” Russo asked.

  “Prove your worth to the Court, and when the time is right, when he is vulnerable…take back what is rightfully yours.”

  Mercer’s words came to her right when she needed them the most; as if they were meant for her. She only wished that Vicq had listened to him. But she’d made a promise to Vicq, too, and she wanted to honor it.

  “I’ll kneel in his place,” she said.

  “Elaina…don’t!”

  Russo circled her. “They say you taste of sunshine,” he said. “And of a blood type so rare, it takes a Dresdan on the most delicious high.”

  Elaina swallowed.

  “You’ll be the most scrumptious blood slave I’ve ever had.”

  “I’m not a slave,” she said.

  “If you kneel before me, you’ll be whatever I want you to be.”

  Chains clanged on the stones behind her.

  “But I’m no fool,” Russo said. “I see your worth and how quickly you rose to Superior. In exchange for the life of the traitor there, you’ll be my Donor.”

  “Is that your word?” she asked.

  “I give you my word before the Court that if you kneel before me now, I will let the traitor go,” he said.

  “I—”

  “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He leaves the Court and never returns. If he steps foot back here, he will be murdered on sight, but first, I will make him watch while I drain the blood from you this time.”

  Elaina turned around, only to find that Vicq had collapsed on the stones. He wasn’t kneeling, just collapsed, as if he’d given up. Hanging from the chains that tethered him to the posts. There was still life within him as he mumbled the same two words over and over again. “No, Elaina. Elaina, no.”

 
“He is Superior no more. His power against me is gone,” Russo said. “Make your decision. Or else he’ll be dead before the deal is done.”

  “You’ll let him leave?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’ll even send someone in here for him to snack on before he goes. But once you accept in front of my people, the deal you make with me can never be broken. Any bond you share with him will be shattered.”

  “And my friends?” Elaina asked, referring to Melrose and Mark, who were bleeding out on the floor.

  “No, Elaina.” Russo shook his head. “I will not reunite the traitor and those who aided him. I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy.”

  “Give me your word that they won’t become slaves,” she demanded.

  “Fledgling,” he said. “And that’s my final offer.”

  “I accept,” Elaina said.

  “I’m going to have so much fun breaking you. Bring a blood slave to feed these idiots,” Russo commanded a Superior.

  The same young woman that Elaina had threatened in the room earlier came out. She slit her wrist, knelt next to Vicq, and offered her arm. Vicq tried to protest, but his will to live was much stronger, especially when blood was offered freely. He grabbed her hand and fed until she had to be snatched away by a Superior.

  “Do you see how easily sides can be won, brother?”

  “Why, Elaina?” Vicq stood with the chains still holding his arms and legs in place.

  It pained Elaina to see him this way after she’d all but accepted another vampire to do with her as he pleased. She lowered her gaze.

  Russo traced the outline of her face with his fingers. “Kneel,” he said.

  And kneel she did, to save the life of the man she loved.

  “Rise,” Russo commanded.

  Holding her tongue and all the hateful words she wanted to throw Russo’s way, she rose. Russo turned her so that she was facing Vicq and swept her hair off the back of her neck and over her other shoulder. The moment Russo’s fangs pierced her, Vicq closed his eyes.

  Russo fed until her limbs were weak and she had no choice but to fall to her knees again.

  “The deal is done. Go now. Before I change my mind,” Russo told Vicq.

  Two Superiors unlocked the chains holding Vicq.