Текст книги "A Bargain So Bloody"

Автор книги: Vasilisa Drake

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Forty-Seven

I fled the ballroom as fast as I could. The crowd parted, uncertain.

“Don’t follow me,” I begged, knowing he’d hear me.

Raphael simply stood there, a stunned look on his face.

I turned away and ran faster. But Iademos was on my tail, and I couldn’t have a guard for what I was about to do.

I had to leave. Now.

Pardon or no pardon, I couldn’t be here any longer.

“Leave me be,” I insisted, knowing the general would hear me.

“I’m to guard you,” he replied from the shadows. Where my voice shook, winded as I ran quickly, his was even, monotone.

“An hour,” I said. “Give me an hour. I’m going to my rooms. I… I need to be alone.”

“Raphael would behead me if I did not see you there.”

I made a hysterical sound and continued to run. The little rat in me knew only one thing—scurry, escape, faster. The stone steps turned to familiar carpet as I reached my chambers. The halls were empty—everybody on this level and below would be at the ballroom.

“Leave, Iademos. I want to be alone. I’ll be in my rooms the entire night—and Raphael will behead you for not listening to my wishes,” I bluffed.

“As you listened to his?” he snapped.

I flinched at the ire in his normally carefully controlled voice. “Just leave me be,” I pleaded, more forcefully.

Demos looked displeased, but he turned on his heel and left. I watched him disappear around the corner, then shut my door. I locked it, even though I would be gone in a matter of minutes.

I need to leave.

Damn Titus and all his bargains. Damn Raphael and his confusing words.

I couldn’t cause his death… but I couldn’t stay here either. One small bag was packed and stashed within my bed. What was left of the coins from when I’d arrived, some jewelry Amalthea had foisted on me I didn’t think she’d miss. I slung it over my shoulder and went for the grimoire. The necromancer—I’d find them. Even if it meant going back to the Witch Kingdom and certain death.

The vampires celebrated Anagenni by taking human blood, but this was the will written in the book. The goddess wanted a witch to rein the vampires in. I would give the witch the tool they needed for that.

I’d had nothing before.

I can do it again. I wished the thought felt less like cleaving my heart in two. Now I had a purpose.

I cast a look around the room, something thick and hot in my throat I couldn’t quite swallow. It had been my home for several months. Now that I was leaving, I could admit that to myself. There was no other explanation for the grief that sliced through me. It had been more of a home than I’d had in many years. Raphael, Thea, Demos—not a family, exactly, but I’d had people I was safe with.

Grieve later. Get out now.

The ballgown was cumbersome when it came to escaping. I’d needed Amalthea to get dressed in it. Undoing the lacing would be nearly impossible by myself. A pair of trousers and a tunic would have to suffice for when I had time to change. I bent into the dresser and selected the least conspicuous colors, then quickly set them aside. I’d have to use the dagger on my thigh to cut myself out of the dress.

“Where, precisely, do you think you’re going?”

I jerked upright and slammed the drawer shut behind me.

Titus.

His invisible magic slid away, revealing the spymaster. He was only a few feet away, dressed in nondescript gray servant clothing. His dark eyes latched on to my bag with accusation.

“I locked that door.” I knew I had.

He smiled, but there was nothing friendly in it. “Doors are nothing when you have cards that let you move through walls, you foolish chit. Now, I’ll ask once more: Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m leaving.” I willed my hands not to shake. “I know this means no pardon, but I just… I can’t do it.”

His lips twisted with contempt. I felt echoes of the emotion inside me. What kind of woman would betray her kingdom like this?

Perhaps the Witch Kingdom hadn’t been mine since they locked me in Greymere. And I hadn’t been theirs since I made a deal with a vampire to break out.

“You must be joking,” Titus drawled with disbelief.

My heart pounded in my chest. I checked my mental shields—I couldn’t let Raphael find out my plans before I left Damerel. If he found out I’d plotted against him… memories of the Monastery floated in my mind, the bodies ripped apart by Raphael’s wrathful might.

Titus was eating into my precious time to leave. If this took too long, it would be too late. “I won’t tell anyone about you.” The words left me in a rush. “I just can’t be the one to do it. I can’t aid you in this. I know we’ve been taught they’re monsters. But they can be better. Raphael could show them how to be better. Killing him would just have someone worse take his place.”

Titus advanced slowly. The wood of the dresser dug into my back. “Worse?” he echoed. “There’s no one worse, you stupid girl. He’s the strongest of them. If you’d played your role properly, we could have triumphed, cutting the head off the snake. But no. You’ve told yourself they’re not monsters.” He smirked, all thin lips and hollow cheeks. “It wasn’t enough to see them kill your mother? You need more proof?”

Blood and blood… I swallowed and forced the memory aside. For once, I wouldn’t let it trap me. “Just because one vampire did that doesn’t mean they all are evil.” Doesn’t it?

Titus actually laughed, throwing his head back. I took the chance to step to the side slightly, trying to shift away from where I was cornered. But his head snapped back, not missing the movement.

“I can’t believe this. They’ve attacked you. Or do you forget those who try to kill you so quickly?”

I flinched at the reminder. “How do you know about that?”

Titus came closer, and I had nowhere to go. “Who do you think told the librarian what you were doing?”

The missing books. I clenched my jaw as realization snapped through me. He’d set me up, playing on their fear of the necromancer. He must have overheard me at some point talking with Amalthea, perhaps some morning over breakfast when we’d thought we were alone.

“And that still wasn’t enough for you! You refused me. So I showed you what would happen to humans when vampires rule, and I thought, finally. The stupid girl will see. But now you double-cross me.”

My head swam. What would happen… “You? You killed the donor?” I stammered.

“Of course. I needed to show you what vampires are capable of, since you seem to have forgotten what they did to your mother.”

“But… you were the one who killed her.”

He waved the accusation away. “She sealed her fate the moment she became their blood whore.”

Fury slammed into me. I couldn’t run, and I didn’t want to run.

“You’re evil,” I snarled. “Worse than them. At least when they kill it’s an accident. But you chose to take her life.”

“She was a tool, Samara. Just like you. If you’d done your duty, then it would have been a noble sacrifice on her part. Unfortunately, you proved to be useless.” Titus’s expression went flat. “And I have no need for useless tools.”

He surged for me, but I was ready. When I’d realized I couldn’t get away, I set another plan in place. I drew the dagger from the harness I’d designed to sit around my thigh. It might be enchanted for vampires, but the blade was sharp enough to draw blood from any creature.

Titus startled slightly, as if not expecting a fight. Then he snorted. “That twig again?”

“I’m stronger than I was before.” I lunged forward and swiped at his side, drawing blood.

He knocked me away, and I stumbled into the back of the chair. His face contorted with hideous rage as he drew his own blade. Simple steel, but longer than mine. “You bitch!”

Bitch, traitor, useless tool… perhaps his true talent was finding ways to insult me.

We danced around each other. I had grown stronger. My body had put on muscle. The dagger was no longer an extra weight in my hand, but rather an extension of my arm. Unfortunately, the dress made me slow, my footwork sloppy.

We clashed again and again, neither of us managing to land a blow. I caught his blade against mine and threw him back hard enough to stumble. I can do this.

“You know your mistake, Samara?” Titus sneered as he recovered from the blow.

I didn’t waste my breath answering.

“You can’t win against magic.”

With a flick of his fingers, he cast a spell. I froze as every part of my body seized. The dagger slipped from my fingers, landing harmlessly against the carpeted floor. Sweat dripped down my back as I tried to force my legs to move. But no matter how I tried, nothing worked.

“I don’t normally reveal my magic,” he admitted. “Poor form for a spymaster to give up his secrets. But since you’re dying, it hardly matters.”

“Poi… son…” My tongue was too large in my mouth, the word barely scraping through my teeth.

He strolled over to where I stood, helpless, twirling his blade in his hand. “Yes, Samara. That card was made with my own magic.”

He plunged his blade into my chest.

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Chapter Forty-Eight

White pain exploded inside me, blocking out my vision.

A muffled sound as I fell, my ears ringing too loudly to process what was happening.

Dying. I’m dying.

Blood pooled on top of me, the warm liquid soaking my dress. Inside, an inescapable cold bloomed.

There was nothing but the pain. The white turned to black as my eyes shut, unable to focus.

“No!” A roar. Terrifying, vicious, animalistic. It cut through the haze of pain.

I wanted to turn my head and see the source, but any movement was impossible. Because of the poison, or because I was already dead, my spirit slowly detaching from my body…

Numbness coated my senses. Everything was distant.

There was a thunderous crash and a shrill scream.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel my limbs, my torso. My eyelids flickered, lights flashing in my periphery.

“Don’t do this!” he snarled. “Don’t you dare leave me like this.”

The imperious tone… if I could have moved my lips, they might have twitched. As if this had been my choice. Or maybe it was. Somewhere along the way, I’d made a decision and put it all in motion.

“Samara.” My name was a plea. I’d gone so many years without hearing my name, and yet he used it over and over. I was grateful for that. The fact the last time I’d hear it wouldn’t be from the hate-fueled spymaster.

“I’m… sor… ry…” It took incalculable effort to offer that.

“No, Samara. I’m sorry, because I fear you’ll never forgive me for this.”

What was he saying?

I thought I could feel nothing anymore, but then…

Pain.

My neck ached sharply, more acute than I should have felt in my state.

Then, at my lips, something hot. Wet.

No. He didn’t.

He’d promised. The one thing I’d ever asked him to vow.

“Don’t… do… this…” I gasped through coated lips.

If he responded, I couldn’t hear it.

And then it all disappeared.

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Epilogue

I woke, staring at the ceiling.

Only it wasn’t the ornate, painted ceiling of my bedroom. Nor was it the bedframe I’d woken to for the past several months.

It was dark, unyielding stone.

I’m in Greymere.

That was my first thought before the events of the evening slammed back to me. Was this the ninth hell, for my treachery? I pushed onto my elbows and looked around. I was surrounded on almost all four sides by solid stone, the same dark granite above and below. It wasn’t polished and smooth, but rather a small room carved directly from the mountain.

Damerel.

There was no light source. It was completely dark, yet I could see perfectly.

Something was very wrong.

I slapped a palm to my chest, waiting to feel the terrified pounding of my heart.

Nothing.

No, no, no.

It can’t be.

I begged him.

I begged him… not to?

The only break in the stone was a small opening blocked with copper bars.

Cursed copper. I roughly shoved myself up, scraping my palms and feet as I stumbled over to the red-hued metal. I grasped them, desperate to deny the truth.

“Ouch!”

I startled at the sound and leaped back. Who had said that? But there was only me. I mumbled something and realized the truth: with my newly changed hearing, I no longer recognized my voice in my ears.

“Damn you,” I hissed, blinking rapidly.

Raphael had turned me. I’d begged him not to. Hadn’t he promised? Hadn’t he given his word he’d never take that choice from me? A taboo, he’d called it. To change someone without permission.

I’d rather die than live like this.

“You’re finally awake.”

A dark figure stepped forward from the shadows.

Raphael?

I blinked as he stepped out of the shadows.

No.

Demos.

His closest friend. A convenient target for my fury. “How could he do this to me?” I demanded. “Where’s Raphael? I need to see him. Now!”

The bark of laughter fell flat off the unyielding stone. “You think you have any right to demand to see the king?” He shook his head. “He’s in a coma, recovering from the poison you put in his veins.” He gave me a look of disbelief. “The first human he ever agrees to turn, and she poisons him.”

I didn’t agree to anything.

“A coma?” Why that panic temporarily overpowered the rage I felt at him, I couldn’t explain. The fear of Raphael dying was somehow even more primal. Then my rational brain broke through. I felt every single dark, evil emotion I associated with vampires when I hissed, “Good. Let him die from it.”

Demos snarled in front of the copper gate. For the first time, I wondered if it was there not to keep me here but to keep the other vampires from the void who had murdered their king.

“King Raphael will wake up,” Demos hissed, his usual composure lost.

Gone was Demos who had trained me. In his place was Iademos, general to the Vampire Kingdom of the West. The general wasn’t just a strategist; he was a warrior, and he wanted to strike me down for betraying the ruler he’d sworn allegiance to.

“And when he finds out what you’ve done, he’ll make you rue the day you came to Damerel. It won’t be a quick death, you gutter rat. Four hundred years I have kept him safe from every threat, but here you slipped into our midst.”

No, no, no! The words I didn’t mean to bubbled up in my throat, but there was no way to vent them. I backed up farther and farther with each accusation landing like an axe on a rotted tree, making me crumble and wilt.

Iademos surged forward, and I flinched, but all he did was push a goblet between the cell bars and set it on the floor. Where it had come from, I didn’t know. The smell immediately hit me, and a cavern I’d been unaware of opened up inside my body. Hunger, thirst, an indescribable blend flooded my system.

It smells… good. I dove for the cup, faster than I’d known my body to be able to. It was as though in one second I was across the cell, then the goblet was halfway to my lips before I realized what I was about to do.

Blood. It was blood.

I tossed it across the cell. The blood sprayed across the floor, a glittering crimson beacon. Once, it would have reminded me of my mother’s death. Now, all I saw was a cure to this animal hunger, this deep pit of unnatural thirst, inside me.

How dare he do this to me? He’d promised. I’d have chosen to die a thousand deaths before I let myself live as this monster. One who took, and took, and took to survive.

“Don’t be petulant.” Iademos crossed his arms in front of the gate. “You need to drink. All new vampires do.”

“I won’t!” I snarled. Did I sound more like an animal that time? Why did he do this to me? My chest ached, even though my heart no longer beat.

“You will. If you don’t now, you’ll be begging for a sip within the next two days.” He bent to pick up the goblet. Was he going to bring me more blood?

Could I throw it away a second time if he did? Was my nature so easily changed?

I sprinted forward again and somehow managed to snag the goblet.

Then I hurled it through the slotted bars. It collided with the cavern wall and chipped the stone with terrifying force.

“Get away!” I screamed. “Get away, and don’t you dare bring me blood again!”

I expected Iademos to argue.

But instead, while looking at me, he retreated. Five deliberate slow steps. He made no move for the goblet, simply looking at me as if waiting.

There were no rapid heartbeats to accompany the thunderous panic I felt as Iademos obeyed. His eyes were glazed like a human’s under thrall.

What?

“Go back to your post and forget what just happened,” I stammered. Is he really going to…

Demos turned on his heel and went to the other side of the cavern, his spine straight as he assumed the practiced stance of a guard with his hands crossed behind his back. The glazed look left his eyes, but he said nothing.

My mind raced, trying to come up with an explanation, but there was only one possibility. Only one creature had dominion over vampires, only one power could make them obey with the same ease they commanded humans into blind obedience.

The scourge they feared, the way I had feared them ever since my mother died in front on me.

The necromancer.

A feral smile curled over my lips.

I was the necromancer Raphael had been hunting for centuries.

And I was going to tear his kingdom apart, one fanged monster at a time.

Thank you for reading an A BARGAIN SO BLOODY! Need more Raphael? You can get his POV of several scenes including their first meeting, the Monastery, and their final chapter herealong with other goodies like the official ABSB playlist and character art.

The story continues in A MAGIC SO DEADLY

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Acknowledgements

My favorite thing to write in a book is actually the acknowledgements section. I love getting to reflect on all the ways a book gets made and how many people are involved in bringing a story to life. This one is the first where I’m a little scared, because so many people have been involved in bringing this book together that it’s inevitable I’ll forget someone. So, if that someone is you, and you helped this book along, please know I’m grateful.

Now, in no particular order…

My critique group, who saw the first chapters and convinced me this wasn’t atrocious: Ang, Jen, Jenn, Mel, T.K. (and double thanks to T.K. for nicknaming Daddy Raph because it always makes me smile).

Olivia (OliviaHelpsWriters) for all your developmental work. You really saw this book for what it was, and the book is so much stronger for it.

Lee (Ocean’s Edge Editing) for your incredibly thorough copy edit.

Jenny (Owl Eyes Proofs & Edits) for not only proofreading this manuscript, but providing the most educational citations I’ve ever had for an edit.

Christian (CoversByChristian) for once again, knocking it out of the park with this gorgeous cover. Everyone does, in fact, judge a book by its cover and this is my favorite one you’ve made yet.

Aaricia (Malice and Mayhem Book Covers) for doing the gorgeous case design—I don’t know how you made something as perfect as you did, but just, wow.

Cecily and Alyssa for making an incredible audiobook that brought Samara's journey to life.

The entire FaRo Society for your support and input at various points in this process, and for being an all-around wonderful community.

My parents: As ever, I hope you don’t actually read this book (but, Mom, I know sometimes you flip to the end to check…) You have always been my biggest supporters, and you’re who I’m most excited to tell when good news comes in, and who I can go to with the bad.

My amazing ARC readers and street team members: Thank you for being the first to read this book in its finished form, and for spreading your love of Samara and Raphael to other readers. And an extra thank you to all of you who sent me typos and continuity errors along the way.

My readers: Thank you so, so much for picking up this book. Whether this was your first introduction to my books (sorry about the cliff?) or you’ve been with me since the early days of Forsaken Mate, I’m glad you took a chance on this story.

I hope you enjoyed getting to know Samara, and I look forward to seeing you all at the end of A MAGIC SO DEADLY.

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