Those thoughts of self-preservation must have distracted her, because suddenly she felt the Vampire’s cool claws slide down the side of her leg, felt the hem of Valek’s sweater being pulled up around her hips. Don’t cry, she reminded herself, you cannot cry. Nausea rolled deep. Her mind quieted as she glared at him again.
Lusian straddled her, his knees pressed to the mattress on either side. He hushed her as he ran his other set of claws through her hair and bent so his face hovered directly over her ear. “Little Lottie was afraid of the dark….” he murmured in a singing tone that sent a shiver up her spine. She clenched her jaw over wanting to vomit. Closing his claws around both her wrists, he pinned them to the headboard at either side of her head. The manacles nipped her. He ran his tongue from the base of her neck to the flesh just behind her earlobe and she felt the skin of her arms prick with sickening goose bumps.
She lurched to the side, trying to shake him off but stiffened again as one of his hands released hers in order to cradle her face. He opened his mouth and very carefully—almost lovingly—sank his fangs into the flesh of her throat. At first, the intense pain shot from the top of her head to her toes. She didn’t cry out. Instead she clenched her jaw, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Her fingers wound into tight fists, though her scar sang for it. It was disgusting. Horrible. She wanted to set him on fire. At first, she noted the hard pinching pressure before the feeling of freezing cold underneath the bed of her skin. The chill traveled up the side of her neck and completely numbed half of her face to her shoulder, like pins and needles. A lack of blood. The rest of her extremities began to numb as the blood rushed out of her and into Lusian’s mouth. He locked to her, his body twitching with the pleasure she now knew they felt from feeding. Her lungs heaved in involuntary silent gasps. As it always did, her pulse swelled in deafening tones in her inner ear –that and his deep, controlled breathing was all she could hear until he finished and pulled away from her.
“I don’t want to take to much,” he crooned. “I want you to stay awake –to feel everything.”
She kept her hands in tight knots, her jaw clenched. She glared with all of her rage and fury cast up at the ceiling, refusing to give him the attention he desired.
“There, there, little doll.” The Vampire ran a cool finger across her cheek. She jolted away from his touch, the sharp movement of her head making the fresh wound at the side of her neck sting horribly. Her heartbeat reverberated in her lower stomach. He hadn’t taken a lot from her –just enough to make her weak and hazy. He was clever. He knew exactly how to control her.
“I saw what Valek did to that poor girl.” Lusian soothed and stroked her hair. “The experiment was…inspiring, to say the least.”
“Where’s Edwin and Třínožka?”
“Now, now.” He forced one of Sarah’s chocolate beads into her mouth, gripping her jaw open and pushing it between her lips, holding her like that until she swallowed. So this was how he would torture her, she thought. Take a little. Heal her. Take a little more. He would kill her slowly. “No questions.” If she did not escape, he would make her his own personal pet –keep her alive just for the mere sake of feeding.
Her gaze remained on the blank space in front of her, the dark room, the dust particles on the silver shafts of light. She could feel his frosted eyes fixed on her face, but she still didn’t glance once in his direction.
Angered, he gripped her chin and yanked her head front, forcing her to acknowledge him. His mouth was only centimeters away from hers.
“You taste so good, Charlotte,” he whispered. “Pure, somehow. It makes me wonder….”
The fear came back and the shame spread in warm pools against her cheeks.
“If you’ve ever been touched in a different way.”
His breath was like snow flurries on her skin. He released her chin and began to slide his claw up her bare stomach under the sweater.
“Please don’t,” she whispered as tears finally broke from her, though her words came out hard and stoic. She imagined herself cast in granite. Hard. Secure. It was her own way of self-preservation. To suddenly disappear far enough inside of herself until she felt nothing. She anticipated doing just that.
“What’s the matter, darling?” His voice was rough and ragged in her ear as he cupped her breast and pressed until it hurt. “Aren’t you strong? Can’t you fight your own fight? You’re not a girl anymore, Lottie, are you?” His laughter sounded piercingly metallic as he pressed his lips against her ear, continuing until he’d torn the sweater in half and discarded it to the floor. She couldn’t take in air fast enough, her breathing coming in broken involuntary breaks. Her fingers wound in tight knots again above her head as her heart hammered deafeningly. She clenched her jaw, wincing, as he pressed his lips firmly against hers. Disappear, she told herself, just disappear.
His cold fingers trailed along her skin, causing goose bumps down the length of her body. She started to shiver, unable to control it. She had the urge again to spit in his face, but he would surely kill her.
He relinquished her lips, only to continue his selfish and deadly kisses down along her neck.
“Please, stop,” she murmured again, the tears rolling down her face. “Please.”
He didn’t listen. It seemed like her words hadn’t even been audible to him at all as he kept advancing. Charlotte, with her eyes shut tight, did exactly as she told herself. She disappeared—not even remaining in the same room with the monster. Instead, her thoughts took her to a distant summer day. She was alone at her waterfall. It was warm. She could feel the heat of the sunlight on her face. Her fingertips skimmed the top of the water’s surface.
She wrinkled her nose against the sting of her tears. No, she repeated, disappear.
She could hear the birdsong in the trees. It was so peaceful. She was not afraid. She was not hurt or unhappy, alone in her clearing once more. There, no one could touch her.
Abruptly, she felt Lusian move off her, though she refused to open her eyes. She kept her breathing steady and even, swallowing down a new pouring of tears. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She was a stone. She was invisible.
“Do not worry, little doll. Valek will return soon. I’m sure you have figured out that he only wishes to help you.” He continued to toy with her. Lusian was a snake. She mentally willed him to continue speaking, however, for there might be a clue in what he was about to say. “He can no longer bear to see you suffer, which is why he left so abruptly.” The edges of his claws stroked affectionately across her cheek again, but she moved her face away.
Charlotte opened her eyes as she stared blankly forward at the space before her. “I know that. Did he tell you where he went?” Her voice wavered sweetly, but her stomach rolled. If she was nice to him, she might get more information out of him.
She remembered what Valek had done the night before in the garden. She just couldn’t remember all that he had told her. Until she could figure out a way to escape, she would have to force herself to hang on to that thought. That Valek was coming back.
“He went with Sarah.” She heard the reluctance in his voice. He didn’t want to tell her much, but she knew the information was meant as some kind of reward, as sick as that was. “To find Baba Yaga,” he continued. “She is Europe’s oldest and most powerful hag and is perhaps the only one who will ever know how to fix you.” He explained it as though he were speaking to a five-year-old child. He ran the back of his claw up the side of her rib cage, which made her shudder. “Just know, Charlotte, that if I were Valek…I would have never left you alone with the likes of me. Never.”
He feigned a yawn and got up from the bed, an apathetic look suddenly spread across his face. He didn’t leave before he wrapped the chains twice around the bedposts, making it impossible for her to move even an inch. He drew the curtains closed, and turned around with another smirk to her, as if he liked the looks of her bound there. Her stomach sloshed again. Perhaps he wasn’t finished with her.
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“Don’t worry. I’m leaving you…for now.” He chuckled darkly. “Don’t miss me too much.”
He stood there before the bed and watched her watch him. She glared at him with as much rage as she could muster, trying to actually manifest flames to shoot from her eyes, but it was to no avail. She never thought she could hate anyone more. Not even Aiden garnered so much loathing. She pulled and stretched and twisted every which way to get the manacles to come loose, but they were clasped so tight, the only ting she ended up doing was cutting the metal deeper into her skin. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see him any more.
Lusian ensured that every thick, black curtain had been drawn so that no amount of light could creep into the bedroom. That was his strategy, she thought. To keep her weak. To keep her questioning. He preyed on her fear and on the worried thoughts in her mind. The bed dipped as he sat next to her. Though Charlotte did not open her eyes, she could feel him staring at her, studying. Like he could see right through her.
“I thought you were leaving,” she grumbled without looking at him. He didn’t answer her. She opened her eyes to glare at him, but only found the empty quiet darkness before her. Completely alone with herself. She must have not noticed him leave. Weird.
She lamented what she had done just a few evenings before, begging for more, and when Valek didn’t give it to her, she got it from Lusian. She recalled how much pain Valek’s eyes held as he watched Lusian feed from her. Her scar singed a little at the side of her throat as she pictured Valek’s face there before her in the darkness. She finally allowed her eyes to well up with fresh tears and recalled her nightmare. So far, the prophecies were fulfilling themselves. She was alone, and Valek was nowhere to be found. Now, she half-expected his corpse bride to come into the room and do away with her for good.
A tear seeped from the corner of her eye. The coolness of it trickled in between the strands of her hair. He had done what he said he would never do. He’d left her. He’d promised. More tears rolled. He promised.
She closed her eyes and tried her best to imagine that he was there, that he would burst through the door and do as he always used to do –save her. She didn’t feel safe anymore. The lack of his presence was absolutely mind numbing. It left her so hollow, like he had taken half of her body with him and left her there to die over and over again. Now she finally knew what it was like to be one of them. To have an addiction. The feeling of death on your lips.
She was freezing, she noted, longing to slip underneath the covers.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of footsteps thump in the far corner of the room. Stretching her neck to see who was there, the darkness was too thick for her eyes to focus. “Lusian?”
There was no answer. Her heart crawled up into her throat and she rested her head back on the pillow. It’s nothing, she told herself, probably just Lusian being a creep, not trusting her to remain in that room alone. Maybe he was sick, or bored, enough to stand there and study her. He probably had nothing better to do.
“Child of light.” A deep voice rumbled just inches from her ear.
Charlotte would have jumped ten feet into the air if she hadn’t been chained there. Her heart slammed in her chest as the oxygen escaped her lungs. She did not recognize this voice. What was happening?
“You are safe,” it said again.
It was low and velvet. Much deeper than any voice she’d ever heard before. Another Vampire, she noted, recognizing the hypnotic texture to the sound. But who was it? “Wh-who’s there?” she stammered.
“That is not your concern right now. The plan is being carried out. All is well,” it offered soothingly.
It did nothing to calm her nerves, however. “Can you get me out of here? Can you release me? Where is Valek?”
“In good time,” it said, “and beware your line of fate.”
A cool brush of air swept across her legs and the presence in the room was gone. On her right hand, there was a dull sort of burning that began through her palm.
No.
Chapter 27
The discreet colors of dawn transformed into a bright and garish morning as the demon animals continued to trample the snow beneath them. It sparkled like diamonds in the harsh light. Soft and silver, it melted down from the trees to the forest floor as they continued to ride on in silence.
Something in Sarah’s mind told him she did not wish to speak. Her nerves were too rattled. She had no words because she had no certainty. One thing Valek knew for sure about Sarah was that she hated being uncertain about anything.
The day washed over the bruised sky through the canopy of leaves, like God had spilled its brilliant reds and pinks from a can of paint. Valek knew this was a sight he would never take for granted again. Sunrise. Perhaps nature’s most impressive phenomenon. Earth turns. Earth revolves around one shining beacon in the center of its universe. Earth revolves around one, glimmering star. There are millions of stars, Valek thought. Billions and trillions. But out of the whole universe, Earth chose this one to be its source of life –its gravity. Without it, there would be perpetual darkness. And as the Earth was married to its revolution, and night is married to day, Valek could not deny the sensational gravitational pull that was yanking him back in the direction of home.
The hell-horses’ new hooves did not make a sound as they trotted swiftly through the blanket of fresh snow in the dense forest. It was still dark under the dense trees. Though they didn’t have a plan or a path in the vegetation, Valek trusted Sarah’s intuition as she led them forward. He listened again to her mind, tuning in as though it were a radio station.
Fear. That was the first thing he heard. Fear and uncertainty. With her grimoire propped open in front of her, she was letting it guide them.
“What does it say?”
The little line formed between her eyebrows again. “No words. All I see are…footprints.”
“Footprints?”
“Well…chicken feet?”
“Sarah, are sure—”
“Yes! Don’t you know the legends of Baba Yaga? Her hut travels atop chicken feet. The book is just telling me where she is.”
“Are we getting close?”
“Soon.”
There was another piece to her thoughts—perhaps an alternative agenda, though Sarah kept that part carefully guarded. She must have guessed he was listening, so he immediately tuned out, though he was still curious.
Though Valek continued to stare straight in front of him at their path, he really watched Sarah intently in his perfect peripheral vision. Her gaze was forced and squinted, like she was so buried deep within her thoughts that even if he started to speak, she wouldn’t have become distracted from them. It reminded him of the night in Francis’ house when she had received the vision of Aiden and Charlotte getting married. Valek wondered if Sarah was receiving another vision now. She was so still. He wondered if the fates were speaking to her.
They’d decided run fast from the borders, but once Valek deemed them to be a safe distance away from the area, they continuedon at a normal, human pace just after Sarah injected the animals with the light Fae blood.
Valek was uncomfortable about testing the limits with such newly changed creatures. At any moment they could rebel and take off, much like any other freshly cursed blood-drinker. And he didn’t want there to be a couple of demon beasts prancing around a world of mortals. He needed to assure himself they were obedient to him first. With Aiden at large again, he was sure it was only a matter of time before something would begin to snowball and steer off course. He didn’t want to be responsible for anything that might become the catalyst for something terrible.
Valek glanced over at Sarah once again, noting Charlotte’s satchel hanging from the Witch’s pointed shoulder. Even from this distance, his acute nose picked up the scent that the bag still carried. It smelled just like her and an overwhelming feeling of regret spread through his chest again. Any time he pictured her sad eyes in his mind, that same feeling was resurrected
. The feeling of regret.
She was probably waking up now without him there. Probably bitter, wondering where he was and how he could have gone without her. He imagined she was absolutely furious.
A noise forced Valek out of his reverie. Charlotte’s face rippled away as though it were a mere reflection in a pond and someone had tossed a stone.
“Valek!”
“Yes! Wha-what is it?” he replied finally, though he didn’t look at her. He continued to fixate on the forested path before him.
“Jeez, what is wrong with you? I’ve been trying to get your attention for ten minutes! I resorted to throwing snow!” Sarah chirped.
“I apologize. My mind was…elsewhere,” he said and finally turned to look at her. “What can I do for you?”
“Look. There!” She stretched her index toward a tree trunk. Valek noticed a strange image etched deep into the bark. “And over there.” She indicated a different tree with the same rune. It looked like…an eye in the wood.
All of the sudden, Valek noticed every surrounding tree had many eyes carved deep into their bases. And there was something more. Were they…blinking?
“What is this?”
“They are Witches’ runes for protection and staying hidden. They let us know who draws near. She knows we’re coming.” She smiled in utter excitement, leaning up on the stirrups. “We must be close!” Jiri snorted at her in frustration and she leaned back again.
Valek’s gaze flew across the thousands of wooden eyes blinking back at him from around the forest. “She’s watching,” he mused.
“Her many eyes,” Sarah murmured softly.
And then, in the distance, Valek’s sensitive ears caught a different noise among the soft breeze rustling the pine needles and the whining of the tall swaying birches. It was a chorus of screeches and cranks. Metallic. What was it? Gears? Yes. The sound of iron heavy trappings cranking against one another and then something else…like a train horn. But it wasn’t as loud as one of Czech’s typical boxcar trains. This sound was smaller. Valek searched through the breaks in the trees until he noticed the narrow cobblestone footpath revealing from under brushes of snow winding down the shallow hill. As the cranking and howling advanced, small orange lights spluttered on along the path. They flickered like candlelight, though seemed dim and eclipsed by something. Through the heavy snow, Valek could see the candles hadn’t been situated within lanterns, but rather…human skulls.
Of Blood and Magic Page 33
