25. Twenty Five

twenty-five

The ground beneath me softened, dragging me into the dirt almost up to my knees. From below, I could feel more roots wrap around my feet and ankles to hold me firmly in place.

As if a good old fashioned impaling wasn’t enough.

My macabre snicker cut off almost as soon as it started.

Oh, that hurt.

“You find your predicament amusing?”

I dragged my attention up to the vicinity of Vitus’s face, squinting to bring his blurry features into focus. The throbbing pain that had taken up residence in my chest made that more difficult than it should have been.

“You could say that.” I licked my lips, tasting blood on them. “I’m just imagining what kind of expression Ahrun will have when he realizes what a sycophant you’ve turned into. Oh wait. I bet he already knows. Is that why he never brought you over, Vi? Because you’re a bootlicker?”

Vitus backhanded me. My face snapped to the right, a grunt escaping as the force caused the roots to shift painfully in my chest. It got hard to breathe through the sensation of a boa constrictor wrapped around my ribs.

“You have the arrogance of all your line,” Vitus sneered.

“I guess that’s why I was chosen and you weren’t.” I relished the look of fury that brought to his face. “How does it feel knowing someone you look down on has everything you want?”

It was foolish to push the psychotic vampire in this way, but I was probably going to die tonight. Horribly and painfully. Might as well give as good as I got. That way I could say I’d earned my death when it finally came.

Well fuck. I was just as crazy as all the other vampires in my life.

Vitus squatted in front of me, the anger I’d expected to see missing. He picked up a piece of my hair, toying with it as he offered me a condescending smile. “Is that what you’re telling yourself? That you’re special in some way?”

Pain bit into my scalp as he tightened his hold, nearly ripping the hair from my head. I barely winced; the sensation lost among the rest of the agony currently wracking my body.

Vitus grabbed me by the throat, lowering his face to run his nose along the same path Liam favored when we were intimate. “Poor, poor Aileen. So misinformed.” His grip tightened to the point of choking. “You’re Thomas’s mistake. And you’re going to be his downfall. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. That the boy my father chose over me is the one who will bring ruin to them all.”

The smile he offered gave me a glimpse of the boy he must have once been. Roguish and charming with just a hint of mischief. This was the person Ahrun must have tried to save by adopting him.

“You don’t know,” I whispered in realization.

He thought I was simply Thomas’s. He didn’t know Ahrun had a claim to me too. The knowledge gave me a sick kind of pleasure.

When he found out, what kind of expression would he have?

Just imagining it made me happy.

I’d probably die soon after, but it might be worth it.

My eyes drifted closed, the pain invading my body stealing my attention for a short time. It was also how I realized I wasn’t just being held in place. Somehow, I was being absorbed. Slowly eaten as my blood and power were siphoned away.

A vampire tree. What kind of place was this?

A sharp blow to the opposite cheek where Vitus had hit me jolted me out of the semi unconscious state I’d fallen into.

“There you are,” Vitus drawled as I came awake with a gasp.

My breathing was labored as black ate at the edges of my vision, threatening to drag me back under.

Vitus flicked the tip of the root sticking out of my chest, the faint vibration sending a ping through my already damaged muscles. “Ah, ah, ah. There will be none of that. No matter what I do, you’ll remain awake and conscious.”

I tried not to let the fear I felt show.

This was how the king must break his enemies. Hours of torture without the reprieve of blissful rest. Probably lasting decades or centuries.

Vitus twinged the root again. “The bond between a sire and a yearling is a unique one. Both a source of power and weakness.”

I gritted my teeth, refusing to allow any sound to escape as the vampire rose to circle me.

“It’s such an intimate connection, allowing the master to feel everything their yearling does. Every bit of pain and sorrow. Happiness and pleasure. I have several theories about why that is, but I doubt you care.”

Another flick of the root. Another bolt of pain. This time with the sensation of threads spreading throughout my chest.

Tiny, tiny roots that allowed the tree to better absorb me.

“I, myself, only ever made one yearling because of the risks. Your sire killed him.”

Wrong. Alches. He was the one who’d eaten Vitus’s yearling.

“Right about now, Thomas is getting the feedback from your pain. He’ll feel the agony we inflict on you. The way your life ebbs away.” Vitus knelt in front of me. “Your suffering will drive him mad. And while he is lost in his rage, I will end him. Muiredach was right. This is much better than killing you quickly.”

“Spectacular plan. Really great. Did you come up with it all on your lonesome?”

It was pretty much an exact replica of what his yearling had attempted when he’d tried to take over Columbus.

It had failed then. It would fail again.

“I expected more from you,” I rasped.

He was the big bad, after all. The plague that had dogged Thomas and Liam for centuries. I’d anticipated something a little more mastermindy. Not a rip off of something that had already been done.

“Aren’t you the feisty one?”

Vitus stabbed his hand into my belly. A pained grunt was all I could manage.

There was no emotion in Vitus’s eyes as he stared at me. No satisfaction or pleasure at the delivery of pain. Not a speck of humanity. It was like the lights were on but nobody was home. Nobody human that is.

“Lilith was like that too. At least in the beginning,” Vitus whispered in my ear.

An agonized gasp left me as Vitus squeezed. Something inside my abdomen burst.

An organ. My organ.

Hope I didn’t need that for anything important.

“You remind me of her a little. That same arrogance. That same assurance that nothing can touch you. So fierce and independent. Ahrun’s great love and the second vampire he ever made.” There was a worshipful look on his face. It faded as he focused on me. “It was a pity that I had to destroy her. She was glorious.”

Vitus’s hand moved inside me, sending another wave of agony ripping through my body.

“But needs must.”

I barely registered the faraway look on Vitus’s face as my head swam. The need to pass out struggling to rise before the roots inside me smoothed away the sensation, leaving me feeling the full extent of what was happening.

Too bad. A little time out would have been nice right about now.

“It makes me wonder how long you would last. Lilith took months to wear away. I suspect it won’t take as long with you. You’re mouthy but there’s little of substance within you. As far as I can tell, you’ve only come this far through pure dumb luck.”

“You’re lying,” I mumbled.

Except he wasn’t. There was too much pride in his voice as he described what he’d done.

Ahrun couldn’t have known.

“Are you saying that because of Ahrun’s gift of foretelling?” Vitus asked.

I barely grunted this time as he shoved his hand deeper into my abdomen.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. There are blind spots to his gift. Lilith wasn’t the first test, but her death confirmed my hypothesis.”

I spat out a wad of blood on the ground. “What is it about you? Why do you hate Ahrun so much? Is it really just because he refused to make you a vampire?”

From the fact he was standing here before me, Vitus had obviously found a way around that. He’d gotten what he wanted. Why was he still so focused on the past?

“Hate Ahrun?”

The genuine surprise in Vitus’s voice made me still. He withdrew a hand covered in blood and gore and other matter I didn’t want to think too hard about and gave it a shake, genuine bafflement in his expression.

“This isn’t about hate or what Ahrun did or didn’t do. Ahrun has always simply been a means to an end. He denied me my rightful place as his heir. That’s what I can’t forgive him for. That position belongs to me. Not that child he replaced me with.”

I stared uncomprehendingly at Vitus as rage suffused his features. For a second, he resembled the monster he actually was.

“No matter though. After tonight, all will be made right again.”

Dread pooled in my stomach at the sight of the sadistic smile he offered me. I’d barely swallowed the whimper that wanted to rise when he extended a blood covered hand to touch my cheek.

“Shall we get started? I’m looking forward to seeing your features wracked with pain,” Vitus crooned, his smile widening as fear leaked through my defenses. “That’s it, child. Now you’re getting it.”

What felt like an eternity later, a scary amount of my blood covered Vitus’s hands, arms, and chest as he paused my torture to look over his shoulder at Navya. “What is it?”

“How much longer do you plan to be?”

I was too exhausted and hurt to feel relief, able to do nothing but hang there, my strength long since exhausted, as Vitus gave the other council member his full attention.

“Why do you ask?”

The quizzical look on Vitus’s face warred against the slight trace of hostility I could detect just under the surface.

For whatever reason, there was something about Navya’s interference that set him on edge.

“You promised me access.”

Vitus gave Navya his back in dismissal. “You can have her when I’m done.”

The flicker of something predatory in Navya’s expression as she trained her gaze on Vitus roused me from my haze of agony.

There was something there. Something that said she was contemplating yanking Vitus’s spine out through his neck.

The faint flash of hostility bolstered my flagging strength, giving me a spark of hope that had been fading with every second I spent in Vitus’s grasp.

There was the possibility that if I was very smart, and very cunning, I could use the friction between them in a way that benefited me.

That, or I could die trying. Anything was better than spending more time as Vitus’s toy.

Navya approached, her bare feet whispering across the grass of the glade. “She’ll be useless if this goes on much longer. If I cannot get the answers I seek, there is no reason for me to continue this alliance.”

I flinched at Vitus’s vicious expression, wishing I could shrink in on myself. A couple of hours, or however long it had been, was enough to condition me to feel fear at the slightest change in the vampire in front of me.

Seeing my reaction, Vitus calmed. “By all means then.”

Navya remained in place as Vitus withdrew, leaving us the only two in the clearing with the exception of the other poor souls held captive here.

“You’ve landed yourself in quite the situation, young one,” Navya observed.

Summoning my strength, I mustered a smartass response. “Is that what you’re calling it? And here I thought I had you just where I wanted you.”

“Tell me how you did it.”

“Did what?”

I wasn’t faking my confusion. I had no idea what she was talking about.

The depths of her dark eyes lit with a spark. A kindling of avarice that was just as terrifying as Vitus’s sadism.

“There’s no need for you to hurt. I can make this easy on you.”

“You’re going to kill me either way.”

“Yes,” Navya admitted. “But it can be made less painful.”

That brought a bitter laugh to my lips. “What makes you think I want an easy death?”

I was too vindictive to go quietly into the long night. If I was a bone, I’d be wedged in the craw of the person trying to eat me. I would drag this out, make things as difficult as possible right up until the very last minute.

Then when I went, I’d go secure in the knowledge that I’d done everything possible to survive.

Because Vitus was wrong. My death wouldn’t be enough to stop the boys. He thought Thomas was the real threat but it was Liam he should be wary of.

Connor too.

Thomas at least tried to play by the rules. Liam and Connor—not so much.

“It’s a pity you landed on the wrong side of this. You could have been powerful.”

“I could say the same to you. Ahrun isn’t the forgiving type. He’s going to tear you apart.”

Navya showed no expression at my threat. “Yes.”

That old relic will never allow someone who hurt his family to live. I already know he’s making plans to annihilate the council, Navya spoke in my head.

She sounded different this way. More human.

Then why—

I’m desperate and you have answers I need.

There was only one thing I could think of that Navya would be interested in. My role in pulling Ahrun back from the brink of madness.

If Ahrun had been willing to share the secret to his good fortune, I wouldn’t have needed to go to these lengths. Blame him for your predicament.

I tried to lean back as Navya came closer. “This isn’t going to work out the way you want.”

In my mind, her voice echoed. If you won’t willingly give me the answers I seek, I have no choice but to tear them out of you myself.

Her gaze caught mine, her pupils slitted like a snake’s. For a moment, a single instant, she held me spellbound.

Her mouth opened wide, exposing slender fangs that were obscenely long. The length of a human pointer finger. Tips as sharp as needles.

She struck, burying her fangs in the side of my throat.

I jerked. Lassitude stole over my limbs and mind, blissful as the pain receded for a moment and Navya’s venom worked through my bloodstream.

It was hard to think, my thoughts growing tired and sluggish.

For the first time in a long time, I felt like a victim. Helpless as the predator with her teeth buried in my throat took whatever she wanted.

It was a terrible feeling. The absolute loathing it spawned helped me push away the haze that stole over my thoughts as she fed from my throat.

She was inside me. In my head. Invading the mental forest that I used to protect my mind from telepaths and other mental attacks. Tainting my inner world with specks of black lacquer that flaked off during her passage.

Deeper, she traveled.

As if sensing the interloper, my darkness roiled, turning over and inside itself, rearing back as if poised to strike.

From the depths of my mind, something surged. My connection to Liam lit up. For a brief second, I had a dizzying image of him traveling at high speed through a dense forest, his rage a thunderous tattoo in his chest. A stag ran beside him, its coat the silver white of moonlight.

Before I could make sense of what I was seeing, darkness coated my vision. Ahrun’s presence blanketing everything.

It’s not time yet.

The voice in my head was so faint that I thought I’d imagined it.

Navya jerked back with a stricken expression. For a moment, she stared at me with wide eyes.

“Impossible,” she whispered.

Her gaze searched mine. Dismay warred with despair in her features. Navya closed her eyes to compose herself, but not before I saw her devastation.

I didn’t know what she’d found in my blood, but it was obviously not what she was expecting.

Good.

I hoped she choked on that knowledge.

“I’m not the only one who has seen my last sunrise,” I hissed.

Ahrun was going to eviscerate her for this.

I’ll do more than that, my darling. Your blood and life are mine.

I think Liam would disagree with that sentiment. Though it was good to know I hadn’t imagined Ahrun’s voice earlier.

There was a warm chuckle in my head, the brush of a velvet darkness sliding through my mind. My son is ever the possessive lover. Also, good job in whatever you did. We were having trouble feeling you before.

And now?

Satisfaction dripped from Ahrun’s mental voice. We are coming.

The wave of relief that coursed through me at those words made every muscle in my body go lax.

Give her this message for me.

I lifted my head to focus on Navya, still lost in her own thoughts. My voice was halting and weak as I repeated words in a different language. One so old I wasn’t sure there were any still living who spoke it. Yet somehow, I understood it.

“After all this time, we finally find ourselves on opposite sides,” I said.

There was a hint of sorrow in Navya’s features as she caressed my cheek. “So it would seem.”

“Ah, dearest. I wish you had listened to me.”

“I could not. You know that.”

“Yes,” Ahrun admitted.

His regret tugged at me.

“She’s exquisite,” Navya said, the brief flash of humanity fading until her features were as still as a glass lake. “I sense a curious mix of power. Along with something lying just beneath the surface that I can’t quite get at. If allowed to blossom, she would have been a worthy successor.”

“She still could be,” I repeated.

“Your words fall on deaf ears. I know you won’t overlook my tasting your yearling. You can’t.”

The silence that echoed down my connection with Ahrun was damning.

“Don’t bother lying,” Navya told me, probably reading the desire in my expression. “I know him too well to believe he’d give me a pass because of our history.”

Navya ran a finger over her lip, catching a stray drop of my blood. She regarded it thoughtfully before her eyes shifted to mine. The darkness in them froze me in place.

A second later, she tore out my throat.

“Consider this my last kindness to you, Ahrun. The next time we meet one of us will die.”

I gurgled a wet sounding protest as Navya climbed to her feet, her gaze cold and remote before she walked away. Patches of darkness threatened to swallow my vision as my life’s blood spilled out of the slowly healing wound. It flowed down my front, dripping onto the dirt I knelt on. My heart stuttered, the beat growing more and more unsteady.

Ahrun had gone silent in my head. His absence a hole in my chest.

Vitus moved out of the shadows at the forest’s edge, looking beyond Navya to me with a furrowed brow.

“I fear I allowed myself to get carried away,” Navya said serenely. “My apologies. I do hope you won’t hold it against me.”

Sophia joined Vitus as Navya disappeared into the forest. “What was that about?”

Uncertainty showed on Vitus’s face as he glanced from where Navya had vanished to me. “It doesn’t matter. As long as she remains our ally, Ahrun and his sons won’t escape.”

“What about her?” Sophia tilted her head toward me. “She’s in no condition to continue.”

Frustration flashed across Vitus’s face before he quelled it. “Although physical torture may no longer be an option, there are other methods available to us.”

The two shared a look.

“I’ll see that it’s done,” Sophia murmured with an expression of anticipation.

Vitus made a rumble of approval as he stepped into the trees.

The smirk Sophia cast over her shoulder would have had me tensing if I’d had any energy remaining. As it was, I could only watch with a sense of numbness as she disappeared into the forest only to reappear a few minutes later dragging someone by the hair behind her.

She threw Deborah to the ground at my feet.

Despite the hank of hair partially obscuring her features, I could see signs of the beating my companion had taken. Bruises marched up and down her bare arms. They ringed her neck and wrists which had been rubbed raw in some places. Likely from being bound. Fang marks dotted her skin everywhere I could see.

“You’ll have to forgive us,” Sophia laughed. “We were a little rough on her. I hope you don’t mind.”

My hands tightened into fists as I clamped down on my response. If Sophia knew how upset I was, she’d hurt Deborah more.

Sophia prowled closer to prod the slowly healing wound in my throat with a look of fascination. “Oh, I forgot. You couldn’t tell me even if you did.” She pulled her hand away with a smirk. “I’ll leave you two to say your goodbyes.”

Deborah wasn’t moving as Sophia made her way out of the meadow. My companion’s body was scarily still.

I closed my eyes and concentrated, listening for her heart. Its beat was slow and irregular.

She was dying.

And I was helpless.

No.

I struggled to force my way off the root impaling me. This wasn’t happening.

Things ripped in my chest. Important things. The tiny, feeder roots that had started to branch off the main one tugging on my organs.

The effort caused me to black out. Not even the tree’s magic was able to keep me present and aware.

I came to, feeling like a red-hot iron had been shoved into my chest.

Green leaves fanned my face. The ruined remnants of Inara’s wings as she hovered in front of my face, her expression frantic.

“You stupid vampire. Are you trying to kill yourself?” she cried.

She pressed her tiny hands against my forehead as if to force me to remain still.

“Deb—” I mouthed, struggling to keep my eyes open.

Inara cursed. “This might hurt a little.”

Before I could figure out what she meant, she dropped to my throat and shoved a hollowed out acorn against it.

The blood oozing out was barely enough to fill the bottom. Grumbling to herself, Inara scraped a few flecks of dried blood into the vessel before darting over to Deborah and depositing the entire thing into her mouth.

Not that way, I wanted to say. She’d choke.

Except the words refused to form. Tired and at the end of my rope, my eyes slid closed again. Peace beckoned.

How easy would it be to embrace it?

Something stung the inside of my nose, rousing me.

Inara’s furious face filled my vision. “Don’t you dare give in to this. Stay awake, you stupid fanger.”

I tried to smile at her but the muscles in my face felt weird. Everything had gone cold and numb. The extreme blood loss making my body unable to carry out its normal functions.

A human would have long since expired by now. As a vampire, I was forced to experience in agonizing detail my systems shutting down one by one.

From a distance, I heard Inara addressing someone else. “What is wrong with her? This shouldn’t be happening. The tree should be keeping her alive. That’s what it does.”

The hooves of the eldritch entered the thin slice of meadow that I could see through the crack in my eyelids. This time I could hear the words within his sonorous rumble.

“It is her magic. It is interfering with the tree’s. She will be dead soon. Consider it a mercy over what the king would do to her.”

Inara’s keen swallowed the rest of what he was about to say. “No!”

“Denial will not change what is to come. She is fading. There is nothing you can do about it. I suggest you concentrate on you and your consort’s future survival.”

The eldritch moved out of view as Inara’s tears wet my cheek.

“I don’t care what he says. He doesn’t know you. I do. There’s no way a stubborn brat like you will let yourself die from something like this. Do what you do so well, Aileen.”

My lips were pried open. A drop of blood touched my tongue. Power zinged through my veins, bringing with it the taste of early morning sunlight.

“This isn’t your end, my friend,” Inara whispered.

There was a flutter. A tiny breeze from Inara’s passage touched my skin.

Then I was alone, only the labored sound of Deborah’s breathing and the silent presence of my fellow inmates for company.