Cursed Relic: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 1)

by Shawn Knightley

  ‘Why am I not healing?’

  “When the vixra are about to die, their magic turns bright red,” he explained. “It’s a calling from the other side that their time in this realm is nearly done. And their elders are bringing them back home in the afterlife.”

  ‘Home? Home where?’

  “That, little kruxa, the likes of you and me aren’t permitted to know,” he whispered in my mind. “But you might soon learn if you die here in these woods.”

  ‘You would love that,’ I screamed at him in my thoughts.

  “I honestly don’t care. But he does for some strange reason. And I will respect his wishes. This time.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Stop this!” a strong male voice said from a short distance away. I heard the other vampires back up. Including Victor. I couldn’t move. I could barely think. The skin on my body was aching. The pain in my skull was like a burning fire searing a hole inside me.

  I heard a heavy sigh along with the sound of snapping twigs as someone knelt down closer to me.

  “This is quite a predicament you’ve put me in, G,” Tobias muttered.

  ‘G? He hasn’t called me that since…since…’

  “I just regained the trust of my coven and you placed yourself directly in my path. Again.”

  ‘Edmund was right. They made him coven master again.’

  He was close. Too close. The vixra magic from my body should have thrown him back like it did the others.

  Then he did the unthinkable. He moved his hand under my knees and neck, lifting me up so I was limp in his arms. I didn’t know where and I didn’t know how but I wanted to get away from him.

  He reached for the back of my head. The feel of his touch sent more flames into my body. Which should never have happened. Tobias’s skin was cold. Every vampire was. Or was I hot to the touch?

  “I told you a long time ago that I would protect you,” he said. “You may not have liked my methods but I kept my word. And I will keep it now.”

  Before I could summon the energy to argue I felt something sharp like a knife jab right into my throat.

  No. That was his fangs. Tobias was drinking from me.

  I was sent by the vixra to kill him. Only he got to me first.

  ‘Keep calm, little kruxa,’ Victor whispered in my mind. ‘The vixra may consider you disposable but for some reason, Tobias doesn’t.’

  The pain inside my body started to dissipate. The fire in my head dwindled down to nothing more than a lukewarm throb. And just when I thought the pain had subsided enough for me to regain the energy to move my arms again, everything around me faded to black. The last thing I heard was Kitty screeching high above me as she flew through the trees, knowing there was nothing she could do to help me.

  11

  Small knives dug into my skin over and over again. First in my wrist until I faded away once more. Then again on my thigh. Then on my other wrist. Then on my shoulder. Again and again. I must have passed out dozens of times before it stopped.

  “No,” I mumbled, barely summoning enough energy to even get the word out.

  Then a pair of strong arms lifted me up into the air.

  ‘Is this it? Am I dying? Will this be the one time I don’t wake up again? Are they done feeding on me?’

  My worst nightmare had come true. I had been captured by a group of hungry vampires. Vampires that knew what would happen when they killed an immortal kruxa who would always keep coming back. They could kill me again and again until they all had the power to walk in the sun.

  “Tobias,” I called out to him, knowing he was nearby. Watching. Waiting.

  “That’s enough,” he would say, telling them to stop feeding on me just before I blacked out. Until it started again and I felt the jab of fangs digging into my flesh.

  I knew he wouldn’t stop them. No matter how much energy I managed to regain and no matter how much I begged him to make them stop. He knew the vixra had given me orders to kill him. He wouldn’t let such a thing go. Not Tobias Vallas.

  My head was hanging down and my arms were extended outward. I was tied up so my body dangled like I was pinned to a dartboard for target practice.

  “Enough,” he said to one of the vampires. He didn’t listen. He dug his fangs in deeper. I could feel the muscle inside my forearm tearing open. I groaned from the pain and heard Tobias shouting. “I said that’s enough,” he yelled, reaching for the vampire and casting him to the side.

  When I finally recovered I had nothing to do but wait again for more fangs to dig into my skin and to fade away into the murky depths of death until my immortality brought me back to life.

  Only this time, the fangs didn’t dig into me again. A soft hand came up to my chin and lifted my head up so I could see. My blurry vision started to fade and colors greeted my eyes. Followed by Tobias’s lightly colored eyes and pale skin. The pinkness of his lips and the thick black texture of his hair.

  “Just kill me already,” I whimpered. “I know you want to.”

  I heard him give a heavy sigh as if I had disappointed him in some way. Any time I heard him pretend to breathe I knew he was frustrated, given vampires don’t really need air to survive.

  “You already believe I failed you once,” he whispered. “I’m not going to let that happen again. Even I have my limits as to what I will allow you to endure.”

  “Tobias,” a soft feminine voice said from a few feet away. “I need some time alone with her before the ritual.”

  ‘Ritual? What ritual? What’s she going to do with me?’

  “Alright,” he said quietly. My arms were released and I had the sensation of falling. Followed by the feeling of a pillow under my head and a comforter over my body. I was in a bed. A soft bed with bright white sheets. The wounds from the fangs had closed up but I had a feeling I’d leave a few stains from blood on the pristine white sheets.

  Tobias looked down at me as I slowly took in my surroundings. I was in a bedroom. Was it his bedroom back in Denver? How did I get here?

  ‘He must have opened up a vixra tunnel to bring me back before I passed out.’

  A woman I had never seen before with long legs and brown hair speckled with wisps of gray appeared from the corner of the room. She was a bit older and yet she still had her good looks.

  “How long will it take to drain it?” Tobias asked.

  ‘Drain it? You already had your minions drain me dry countless times.’

  “Longer than you took,” the woman said. “She won’t die as quickly as you did with the spell keeping her immortal. Or with the crowning magic in her system.”

  “I never wanted it to come to this, Lenora. I wanted to give her the choice.”

  “It’s not your fault,” the woman said. “The vixra took that choice from her when they gave her crowning magic.”

  ‘Crowning magic? What’s she talking about?’

  Tobias sat on the bed next to me and took my wrist into his. His touch wasn’t how I expected it to be. It wasn’t threatening. His emotions told me an entirely different story. They seeped through his skin and tickled my senses, telling me that he was sorry. There was a sense of regret I didn’t even know him capable of feeling.

  “She already hates me,” he said to the woman. “But this will make her despise me forever. There’s no going back after this. No making amends.”

  The woman’s shoulders fell as I tried to make sense of what was going on. But my vision was dropping in and out, only giving me half the story.

  “You didn’t need her to care about you before,” she said.

  “That was before I found a new reason to live. A cause worth dying for.”

  “Then make your reasons hers as well.”

  He held my hand in both of his, gently kissing the tender spot on my wrist before opening his mouth and sinking his fangs deep into my skin. So deep that I cried out. He was sucking out my blood. Hard! I could feel the blood draining from my heart and traveling through my arm to the holes his fangs
created in my veins.

  I tried to breathe but the task got harder with each intake of air. My eyes started to close. I was losing all the strength I possessed.

  Then right before I thought he might take me close to the end where life faded away from me, something cold dripped into the wound. It traveled up my arm and back into my heart until it started beating faster. Unnaturally fast.

  ‘No! He’s not doing this! He can’t!’

  My eyes flashed open as a newfound energy shot through my arms and into my spine. Along with the prickles of freezing cold liquid running through my veins and making me tremble uncontrollably.

  “No!” I shrieked. “No! Don’t! Please!”

  “Lenora, hold her down!” he shouted.

  The woman with him came around to the other side of the bed and latched onto my wrists. She was stronger than I expected. I couldn’t pull away from her.

  Then Tobias reached over me, laying his full weight on my legs and chest. I couldn’t move under him no matter how hard I struggled. Then he plunged his fangs into my other arm as Lenora held it down for him. I screamed as every emotion I had pent up inside me came tumbling out. Every shred of hatred. Every lasting regret.

  ‘The vixra should have killed you when they had the chance.’

  Tobias leaned up and dug his fangs into his own wrist, repeating the process and letting his own blood drip into the holes he made in my arm. I watched in horror as it filled with blood. My body was accepting it. It ran straight into my heart as it beat wildly. The chill touched my spine, my head, and my toes. Everywhere. Until my heartbeat got so fast that it wore itself down to a complete stop. And I was warm again. The air surrounding me didn’t have a tinge of coolness. Nor did Tobias’s skin as he felt my neck for a pulse. His skin felt… normal.

  I blinked a few times, not sure if I was living or still dying.

  “Leave,” said the woman. “I only have a few minutes while the spell can be lifted.”

  Tobias stood up from the bloodstained sheets and held my face in his hand. My body was too spent to jerk away from him.

  Then he turned around and left me alone with the woman he called Lenora as she placed both her hands on my temples and a blue light seeped through her hands.

  “Close your eyes, Georgeanna,” she said to me. “When you wake up, you will be free.”

  Her fingers moved over my eyes and shut them. I whimpered. It felt like the only thing I could possibly do to fight her. And it made me feel pitiful.

  Tobias won. I lost. He was making me into a monster. Something dark and unnatural that I never wanted for myself. He made me fall in love with him centuries ago. Then he broke my heart when he forced me to run away from my fate, refusing to let my blood mark him. And now this. He was right. I would despise him forever.

  Tobias made me a vampire.

  Lenora started chanting words I didn’t understand. But as she did I saw the blue light from her skin through the fluttering of my closed eyes as my lashes struggled to protect my sight.

  The magical cord around my neck grew tighter, burning hot and threatening to strangle me like a noose.

  I tried reaching up for my throat to stop it but I could barely even move my arms. They were like lead weights as the cold rush of Tobias’s blood swarmed through my body like a virus, changing every single thread of my being and taking away who I was.

  The cord loosened and I could breathe normally again.

  No. I wasn’t breathing. I didn’t need to breathe at all. I simply was. A shot of cold air dried the back of my throat and made me yearn for something warm to soothe it. Then the heavy weight over my shoulders from the cord lifted. I heard something shatter and spread all over my chest and collar bone along with a loud snap. The lights in the room exploded and glass went flying everywhere. When my eyes shot open I saw sparks flying from wall to wall. Lenora’s blue magic was flowing throughout the room like a swift wind. She seemed to be in some sort of trance as words left her lips and she focused with all the power she had. Which was more than I could ever summon without vixra blood in my body.

  ‘My god. You’re a luxra.’

  Lenora’s eyes opened and she peered down at me. The magic flowing throughout the room slowly dissipated. A light was starting to peek through the window from the sunrise and I knew a significant amount of time had passed without me realizing it.

  I yelped when the sunlight reached through the window and grazed my skin. It felt like someone had touched it with a hot iron. Then it started traveling up my arm and to my shoulder. I moved so fast to get away that I crashed into the wall beside the bed and covered my eyes from the sun’s bright light.

  Lenora moved quickly to close the blinds with Tobias’s thick dark curtains.

  “Tobias saved some of your blood,” she said. “We’ll fix that little problem. I promise.”

  I stayed there in the corner of the room as I shivered. It wasn’t that the room was cold. I couldn’t even feel the air surrounding me. It was the cold dryness at the back of my throat. It was so cold that it burned hot. I needed it to stop. More so than anything. I looked up at Lenora who was staring down at me with cautious eyes.

  “Oh no you don’t,” she said. “You have no idea how hard that spell was to break. You’re not going to repay me by biting me.”

  And with that she shot her magic through her palm right in my direction, shocking me back into reality with the stunning might of blue electricity shooting across the room and into my chest.

  “Tobias,” she shouted. “Get back in here and tame your new toy.”

  There was something building up inside me. A seething rage that I had often felt but never allowed to consume me. The second Tobias entered the room and saw me huddled in the corner with burns from the sun on my skin healing instantly right before his eyes, I launched myself at him. In a way I didn’t even know my body was capable. Almost as if I was flying through the air. Just like the vampires had when they attacked my Jeep. Only I didn’t burn in the sun or a cascading sea of flames like they did. I landed right on Tobias and shoved him to the ground, punching his lights out as hard as I possibly could right in his nose.

  “What have you done to me?” I screamed.

  “I saved your life. Again.”

  His arms shot up to block my strikes then he maneuvered them around my head until he had a hand on the back of my neck. He turned his head around and pulled me not away from him… but toward him. Right down to his neck. I could smell the blood coursing inside of him. Human blood. He had fed recently. It was still running through his veins and replenishing his body.

  I did the unthinkable. I bit straight into his throat and drank the blood right from his body. It wasn’t really a taste that I can clearly describe. Blood always smelled metallic to me. But this was something different. Something that warmed the raging cold drying out the back of my throat and soothed it instantly. Then it moved down into my stomach and absorbed right into my body, taking energy directly to my limbs and satiating me in a matter of seconds. It was glorious.

  Tobias didn’t try to yank me off. He let me lay there on top of him after I tackled him to the floor as I fed on him. Right from his neck. And the really strange part? He was stroking my hair. As if I truly was some sort of pet and he was trying to comfort me.

  When I pulled away his eyes weren’t angry with me. They were encouraging.

  “How do you think I always kept the coven in line?” he said to me. “By teaching them to feed from other vampires rather than humans. They only need to feed on one human. Then ten more can feed on that vampire to satisfy the others. I taught them not to kill. Well, to kill less than usual.”

  I was outraged. And yet, in a twisted turn of events, I was completely satiated. The freezing dryness in my throat disappeared without a trace. Even so, I knew it would be back. I could already feel the dread kicking in.

  I bolted away from him, backing up right into the wall as the blood dripped down my stained front. Lenora was looking at me like
she had witnessed a murder. I knew she could sense everything going on inside of me. The horror. The outrage. The panic. All of it at once.

  “Why did you do this to me?” I quivered. “Why did you make me into this monster?”

  Tobias stood up gracefully and I watched as the gaping wound I created in his neck healed in a matter of seconds.

  “I told you. It was the only way to keep you alive,” he said calmly as if he was approaching a wild animal that might attack again at any moment. “Who gave you the vixra magic you were using?”

  “You know Arthur always gives me a supply of vixra blood.”

  “No,” he said sternly. “The red magic. The crowning magic that was glowing from your skin. Who gave it to you?”

  ‘So that’s what its called? Crowning magic?’

  “Edmund.”

  “Well, Edmund handed you a death sentence.”

  I didn’t say anything. None of it made sense. And yet, I recalled the pain. It shot through my head and down to my insides right when I was ready to slice Victor through. It made me utterly defenseless.

  “When vixra are close to death, their magic turns bright red,” he explained. “They get a second wave of energetic magic that reinvigorates them. It’s the most potent and pure magic on Earth. It was far more than a kruxa could handle. Even an immortal one. Edmund was killing you by giving it to you. That’s why you collapsed when you did. You overextended yourself and used too much of it. It practically vaporized your immortality right out of your body. Turning you into a vampire was the only way to save you. And to free you.”

  “Free me? You call being a monster free? This is your idea of freedom?”

  ‘I wanted to be free. I wanted to break my chains. But not like this. Never this.’

  I lunged for him again only to miss and have him whip me around and hold both my arms behind my back. I gained many fighting skills over the years. I even went so far as to study a different martial art each decade as they became more well-known in the western world from all over the globe. But Tobias was older than me. And stronger. Especially in vampire terms. Whereas I had been reborn into something entirely different only a few minutes before.