Instead, Legion said, “I brought him.Just as I promised.Now you need to do as you promised.Make him mine.”
Weryn’s mind had a hard time interpreting the words.Was Legion betraying him?Legion?!The Childe of his Heart? But, of course, they were.They knew he hated them.They knew he hardly tolerated them.They knew he thought about killing them.
“Yes, of course, Legion,” the Eyros Vampire spoke, but Weryn heardKaly’s voice in those cadences.
“Kaly!”
Weryn lunged.
Or he made to lunge.
He didn’t move.
Not an inch.
Not a millimeter.
He was still standing exactly as he had been before he realized the betrayal and who the Eyros Vampire was.
No, no, no, no, he has me.Somehow he has me.I should have been more careful!I should have listened to my heart.I should have–
The Eyros Vampire stepped close to him and patted his cheek.“Don’t feel badly, Weryn.I had you the moment you touched my soul gem.Your desire to make up for the wrongs you’ve done Daemon didn’t have any effect at all.”
Weryn wanted to glare daggers at him.But he could not.He could do nothing.
“Yes, IamKaly.The closest to the original you’ll find anyways,” the Eyros Vampire chuckled.“But when I wear this form, I go by the name Roan Tithe.”
Time Rhymes
The present…
Grayson’s power lashed out of him without thought.He didn’t touch the Marrowstalker.Instead, it was the sand around the creature that he moved.He hollowed out the beach beneath the Marrowstalker’s feet so that those reaching arms were now falling.Itwasphysical.At least in some way.The pit Grayson had dug with his powers was deeper than the Marrowstalker was tall.It glared up at him from two feet below the surface of the earth.
Grayson staggered backwards.He wished–not for the first time–he had his Vampiric reflexes.But he wouldn’t need them here, because he fully expected to feel Fiona’s arms around him and that sickening swirl as she teleported them away from.But that didn’t happen.
Instead, he heard her choke out his name.“G-Grayson!”
His head snapped towards her even as the Marrowstalker’s hands started pulling itself out of the pit.It was trying to flap those wings.
“Fiona, what’s wrong?We’ve gotta get out of here!”he cried.
But she was standing in place.Her arms synched tightly against her body and her feet seemingly rooted in place.She looked as if a gigantic hand was squeezing her and holding her where she was.
“Ashyr,” she croaked out.“Eyros.”
He was completely at a loss for why she was calling for him and Balthazar.Another noise had his head shooting back to the Marrowstalker.It was emerging from the hole like a butterfly from a chrysalis or more like a maggot from a corpse.
“No, you don’t!”He growled.
Again, not touching it, he had the sand sift out from under its forearms and more sand begin to pour on its head even as it tried to flap free.The thing was slipping back down under the beach.He’d buried the damned thing under tons of the silvery stuff so that it would take one hundred years for it to dig itself out.
“How is he doing that?”A woman asked.Her voice was light and breathy.Young like a child with just a hint of sullen teenager. “He’s human, isn’t he?”
“Hesmellshuman.But perhaps that is deceiving,” another female voice–this one deeper–answered.
Two Vampires emerged from the woods that bordered the beach.At first, he thought one of them was Sophia Strange, Seery’s Childe, with the blond wavy hair to her shoulders and big, anime eyes.She was young, so young, and lithe like some girls can be before puberty hits them.
An insect in amber,he thought unconsciously.
