The Red Lily (Vampire Blood)

by Juliette Cross

  Upon entering the dim cabin of the carriage, she realized that Volkov’s partner Boris sat on one side. She took the seat opposite him. He simply glared at her in silence. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, her one source of comfort. The windows were curtained so there was no place to look except at the beast sitting across the short aisle.

  “Did Volkov die?”

  The vampire, his appearance more feral than the other Legionnaires, muttered hoarsely. “Oh, he’ll be all right, witch. He’s a might upset knowing you’re going to your death.” The creature leaned forward, black eyes glinting like a demon’s. “He wanted the pleasure of watching you burn. Now that pleasure falls only to me.”

  Sienna turned away and closed her eyes. The vampire laughed low in his throat. Sienna sought a place of peace within herself as the carriage rattled on. Her mind drifted…

  She stepped lightly under the great black oaks of Silvane Forest, luminous sable leaves shining silver by the morning light. Then she rode atop Duchess, who sped through a meadow, her brothers and her mate keeping chase with playful yelps. Sienna laughed, her head back and hair flying in the wind. Then she was in her cottage with a cozy fire crackling in the hearth. She smiled as she poured two cups of tea and walked to the sofa. She handed one to her friend Arabelle, who smiled back. Arabelle faded, replaced by the handsome form of Nikolai. Her lieutenant. Her protector. Her lover. Her love.

  The carriage jolted to a stop. Sienna held his image in her heart before opening her eyes. The carriage door swung open, and the sounds of a murmuring crowd hit her along with a biting wind. The sea of accusing faces parted as the Legionnaires marched her roughly along the cobblestone to a platform at the center of the familiar town square, a place where she’d walked and shopped as a young girl. Upon the platform was a separate raised dais with a solid shaved trunk jutting toward the sky and encircled with a stack of fresh-cut pine for a fast burn. One of the Legionnaires jerked her arm to twist her about and face the crowd once they stood upon the platform.

  Lord Barker stood forward and to her right with his lackeys in a line. The icy wind billowed the hem of her cloak and sheer gown, chilling her bare feet. She stared out at the horde who’d gathered in the cold to watch a witch burn. Her arms and legs trembled from the cutting wind and the fear and the hatred, but she held her head high nevertheless.

  Lord Barker cleared his throat. “I hereby condemn Lady Sienna, formerly of Worley House and now of Silvane Forest, for witchcraft.” He emphasized the last with a loud bellow, letting it echo through the square.

  The horde watched in wide-eyed silence.

  Sienna wondered who among them might have been planning to join the cause of the Black Lily, for she saw no allies among them now. Only the faces of a blighted people who had been choked by fear too long, seeking one to blame for their misery in this frightful world.

  She bit her lip to hold back the well of tears. Regret was a bitter beast, a solid stone in her chest. It had all been for naught. Nikolai had begged her to relent and surrender the search for more recruits, but she had convinced him otherwise. If she had listened, they’d be back in her cottage among the black oaks, safe and sound. Even so, she held on to the belief that they had to try. Despair and surrender only gave the wicked more strength. She had to hold on to hope, even as she looked on her own death.

  Lord Barker continued. “For her numerous, murderous crimes against the people of the village of Sylus. And for the murder of our very own Widow Winchester here in Dale’s Peak.”

  Sienna snapped her head in his direction. The audience gasped. One petite woman, her face withered with age, put her hand to her mouth in shock. Sienna couldn’t bear for them to think her guilty of such abhorrence. But what was worse was knowing she would be put to death without ever seeing Nikolai again.

  Lord Barker walked toward her and unclasped her red cloak, whipping it off her body with a violent tug. The wind pushed the fabric of her nightgown against her body. He grabbed her arm and twisted her around, then tore the strap down below her shoulder, exposing her breast. She covered herself with her arms and hands though her back faced the crowd.

  “Do you see!” He shoved her closer to the edge of the platform. “She has the devil’s mark! She is his bride and colludes with him to cast sorcery against mankind.”

  More gasps and mumbling amongst the people of her hometown. Simple people could always be goaded into belief with something as small as a red birthmark as unusual as Sienna’s. He needed little evidence other than that to condemn her to death.

  He turned her body once more to face the horde and gripped the wrist of her arm trying to cover her exposed body. He tore the gown from both shoulders down over her hips to let it pool at her feet. Sienna closed her eyes, unable to witness her own humiliation as he exposed her bare and bruised body to all.

  “Do you see how freely she gives her body as a bleeder? She gives herself to many vampires at once. Only a witch and a harlot would show such disgrace. This woman who was once a lady among our town gave all of it up for a life of the damned. To pleasure the immortals and to cast her spells.”

  It did not matter that it was all lies. It did not matter that she’d been taken by force and abused, then accused and wrongfully condemned. This was the queen’s orders, to kill her in the most brutal of ways. First with humiliation and then with fire while the people of her birth looked on. The winter wind stung and prickled over her skin like a thousand needles.

  One boy said, “She is a witch.”

  Another woman shouted, “Then burn her!”

  “Yes, burn the harlot.”

  And that was all it took. The people of Dale’s Peak had always shunned those who gave themselves up as bleeders. Lord Barker knew this. Volkov’s prize of biting her ruthlessly in more than one place and leaving open, savage puncture wounds was all part of the plan to prove to the people of Dale’s Peak that Sienna was nothing more than a whore for the vampires and an evil witch, deserving of a death on the pyre.

  “Good-bye, Lady Sienna,” whispered Lord Barker with a sneer.

  She snapped her eyes open then spat on the true face of evil. He merely pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped it away, nodding his head to the Legionnaires behind her. She was lifted bodily and set on the dais with the wooden pole along her spine. Her hands were bound behind it. Then her ankles were bound at the bottom. The ugly, contorted faces of the throng drove into her heart like a hundred daggers. Her naked and bruised body exposed for their condemnation only added to the damage to her spirit.

  Sienna stared up at the gray sky, trying to block the angry cries and vehement demands for her burning death. There would be snow today. The wind swirled, stirring her hair around her face and her breasts.

  “Nikolai,” she whispered to the winter sky, wishing she could hold him one last time. With all her heart, she prayed he would survive somehow, that he would not mourn her death too long. That he would fight the cause against men like Lord Barker and vampires like Volkov, all in her name.

  The popping and crackle of pine pulled her back to the present. She stared down where the torchman had lit the kindling at the bottom. The heat wafted up quickly. The din of the crowd died as the fire flared to life. The rising wave of heat blurred her vision as she stared at Lord Barker with his menacing glare.

  A cloud of black smoke billowed up and choked her. She coughed, twisting her body to the other side, but there was no escaping the smoke and the imminent flames. The heat reached up to her toes and feet. A piercing pain shot through her body as the flames licked her skin, rising up her legs. She screamed, tears of pain streaming down her face. The fire danced high along her right leg and hip, a giant spark popping up on her cheek with a burst of pain.

  Now she wished for death. Wished for the sweet release, for this pain was unlike anything she could imagine, her flesh being baked on the fire, the smell of her own skin melting away. She wept and stared straight ahead, hoping her heart would give out b
efore the fire reached her face.

  She repeated her mantra, calling her soul to still.

  Nikolai, Nikolai, Nikolai…

  Her mind drifted as the pain grew too intense. Beyond the crowd, through the rising flames and the smoke clouding her vision, a tall figure barreled forward, his blond hair a streak of lightning as he knocked one person after another out of his way, zigzagging and pounding his way through. Her avenging angel stormed closer to the platform, the look of a malevolent demon come to collect his souls. Her mind floated into darkness, her voice dying among the smoke and flames but not before she whispered…

  “Nikolai.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  If rage had a name, it was Nikolai. He heard her screaming from the snowy fields sloping away from Dale’s Peak. He blurred through town, following the cries of a mob and the crackling sound of fire and the smell of burning flesh. As he flashed into the town square, he saw in horror the maddening crowd watching his beloved Sienna burn alive. Her naked body exposed, her fair skin charring blacker with every second. He blurred through the horde, up to the platform, and leapt to the dais with his unsheathed dagger. In a blink, he’d cut her free, scooped her in his arms and bounded back to the platform. She cried out when he touched her burnt skin. Her head lolled to the side as she fell unconscious.

  “Sienna. Sienna.” He set her down and removed his coat, not noticing a soul but her until someone spoke.

  “Who the bloody hell do you think you are?”

  Nikolai stood slowly, white-knuckling the hilt of his dagger, and faced the man whose voice he recognized from when he was bound on the widow’s floor. The man flinched at the expression Nikolai shot him.

  “And who are you?” Nikolai asked with such dark gravity, the men behind him stepped backward. The Legionnaires had frozen, watching, none of whom he recognized.

  “I—I am Lord Barker. This woman has been condemned as a—”

  The lord’s eyes went wide. His mouth fell open as he gurgled blood and tried to suck in air. A deep slit opened in his throat, staining his clean, white shirt and satin vest crimson before he crumpled to the ground. No one had seen Nikolai move. He was dangerous on any other day. But today, he was utterly lethal. He stood over Sienna like a dragon over his most precious treasure, daring any man to come close where he could devour them.

  “Who am I?” Nikolai swept his cutting gaze over the crowd. “I am the devil himself. And if one of you even moves in her direction, you’ll be dead before you can take a breath.”

  A Legionnaire reached for his sword. Within three seconds, Nikolai had cut the throats of every man on the platform, gutting the vampires from naval to sternum and nearly severing their heads as well. Before they had even fallen into mutilated heaps, Nikolai sheathed his dagger dripping with blood and lifted Sienna in his arms, gently wrapping his coat around her exposed torso.

  He walked to the edge of the wooden steps, heaving deep breaths, his rage riding him hard, his voice razor-sharp. “Get out of my way.”

  The crowd scattered, mothers clinging to their children. Nikolai sped back the way he had come, taking the south road toward Hiddleston. As he passed Hanover Stables, a man stepped forward onto the road and waved. Nikolai stopped, his inner beast telling him to kill and maim some more. Make them all bleed.

  He recognized the startled face of the stable owner, Bart, who held both hands up in surrender.

  “Please, I mean you no harm. I heard what was happening today and refused to go to support such villainy.” He cast a sorrowful gaze at Sienna. “This town is corrupt. I knew she was innocent.”

  “Yet you did nothing to stop it.”

  He twisted his beefy hands in his work apron with regret shadowing his face. “Wait. Please. For a moment. For her.”

  Bart disappeared into a workroom. Astrophel whickered from her stall directly across. Ramiel stared out at him. Nikolai had forgotten them entirely. The stable owner returned with a white wool blanket but beckoned Nikolai closer under the overhang. Bart flipped out the folded blanket and spread it wide on the dry hay.

  “Set her down and wrap her in this.”

  Nikolai did so, cringing when her brow furrowed with even the slightest brush against her right side, which was blackened and oozing from her burned feet all the way up her legs and ribcage to her shoulder. Her face bore a blade-length burn from cheek to chin. And the bite marks. Fucking hell. Nikolai’s knuckles cracked as he balled his hands into fists.

  He lifted her wrist and pierced her flesh, giving her his elixir. Though he could not heal this deep an injury, he could numb her pain. Her pinched brow smoothed as the elixir released into her bloodstream. He licked the wound so that it would seal shut.

  Bart lifted one side of the blanket.

  “I’ve got it,” snapped Nikolai, taking over and wrapping her bruised and burned body gently. It covered her like a butterfly in a cocoon.

  “Do you want me to saddle the black for you?” asked Bart, waving a hand to the stall.

  “No. I’ll travel faster on foot.”

  Nikolai needn’t worry about her equilibrium now. She was already unconscious, and her pulse had slowed to the point his anxiety had taken root, burrowing into the dark places within him. His only hope was to get to Hiddleston and acquire a ship to take them across the Cimarron Sea to Cutters Cove. There he’d find Marius, and with his potent Varis blood Marius could make her vampire, instantly healing her. If he could only get her there in time.

  “Is there anything else I can do?” asked Bart, wringing his beefy hands.

  “Send word to Duke Friedrich of Winter Hill. He will send a man for the horses.” He cradled her close, the smell of burnt hair filling his nostrils where a tendril had caught fire and singed all the way up to her scalp. “And one more thing.” Nikolai pierced him with a lethal look. “If there is anyone in this godforsaken town who is willing to fight for the Black Lily and not cower behind the aristocracy as slaves, then send them to the Bull’s Head in Hiddleston. But not one man or woman who stood in that square and watched her burn is welcome near us. I can promise you I’ll kill them on the spot if I should see one of them again.”

  “Aye,” he said with a definite nod, twining his hands in his apron again. “I know quite a few who are as sick of the corruption under Lord Barker’s rule of this town.”

  Nikolai stopped midstep and turned. “You won’t have to worry about Lord Barker anymore. Or his lackeys.”

  “No?”

  Nikolai continued walking from the stables and called over his shoulder, “I killed them all.”

  …

  The road back was mostly clear and deserted, as if the world had stopped moving when his beloved was tied to a stake and set on fire. He dodged off the road when he sensed by smell or sound a traveler or carriage in the distance, weaving into and out of the woods with ease, never slowing his frantic pace.

  He thanked the stableman in his mind when the wind cut harshly against his cheeks and nose, knowing the pain of his force of speed against the winter wind would be tearing her skin apart. The snow dissipated the farther south he traveled, the landscape covered in yellow and brown foliage before the snows would find their way here.

  He stopped for a moment by a gurgling stream, setting Sienna down safely by a fallen log. He quenched his thirst with water when there was nothing else to revive his energy. He wouldn’t dare take a drop from her. After splashing his sweaty brow, he jerked his head at a sound from Sienna. In a flash, he had her in his arms again, her head lying upon his lap.

  “Sienna? Sweetheart, did you say something?”

  Her pulse had slowed further from when they’d left Dale’s Peak, every unsteady beat stabbing him again and again because he’d not gotten to her sooner. The burns had not entirely covered her body but they’d done their work. She teetered on the edge of death, and he knew it.

  “Sienna?” He gently brushed the hair away from her forehead and pressed a soft kiss to the porcelain, unmarred skin there
.

  “Nikolai.” A faint whisper.

  “Yes, my darling. I’m here.”

  Her glassy green eyes pooled with tears. “You came.”

  “Of course I did. I am”—he faltered, words choking in his throat—“I am sorry I was not sooner.”

  “You came. That is”—she dragged in a broken breath—“all that matters.”

  “Hold on, Sienna. We’re almost to Hiddleston. I’ll find us a ship there and we’ll make it to Cutters Cove. Marius will—”

  “No, my love.” Her words were a breathy whisper, cutting him to the marrow. “I will not make it across the sea. I’ll be gone soon.”

  “No. You will not be gone. I forbid it.” He pulled her entirely in his lap, his face only inches from her. “Do you hear me, Sienna? You will not leave me in this damned world alone. Just hold on.”

  She smiled faintly and blinked her eyes closed. “I want to touch your face.”

  He unwound the blanket enough so that her slender arm was free. Still, she was too weak even to lift it. He cupped her hand in his and swept a kiss upon her palm before pressing it to his cheek.

  “There,” she said. “Now I am happy.”

  Her mind seemed to be floating away already. “Sienna. Just stay with me. I know we can get there.”

  “If you love me, Nikolai. You will take me home. To my beloved forest. My wolves. I want to die there, not on the cold sea.”

  “Sienna, please,” he begged as if he were the one dying. In fact, he knew that he would, should he lose her now. There was no joy or light or life without Sienna at his side.

  “Take me home, my love,” she said, her eyes still closed, her breath rattling in her chest.

  Bundling her close and lifting to his feet, he pressed a tender kiss to her temple. “Yes, my sweet. If that is your wish.”

  He sped through the woodlands, taking the fastest and straightest route not the winding road. Night had fallen by the time he came upon Hiddleston. The full moon shone bright and full among a starry sky. A beautiful night. Lovely and clear.