There was an odd tugging at the base of my neck, some determined plucking of my ganglia, something trying to make itself known. But as that spoiled meat-smelling bitch knocked me into a tree trunk hard enough that I felt something snap, there was a moment of relief as I lost consciousness.
It could've been like five minutes later, or an hour or fifty years but all I knew was that some asshole was yanking me upright and dragging me toward the bonfire again.
It really is such a pretty night... I thought mindlessly. There were a million twinkling stars scattered over the black sky, the pines around me smelled so crisp and fresh, almost blocking out the stale smell of blood that I was pretty sure was coming from me. And then I saw him, and my heart sank.
"Aw, dammit."
It was James. He looked amazing, of course. His dark blue suit and cobalt tie were among my favorites and he was strolling casually, hands in pockets as if he had not a care in the world.
James…
“I’m really quite disappointed in you,” Miles said, clearly enjoying the fury from me, knowing I was barely holding myself in check. “You really wouldn’t give me this flesh for the answers you needed?” He was casually gripping my doll by her neck, his long, taloned fingers stroking the pulsing artery there.
I watched the look of shock, then comprehension pass over her pretty - and bloody - features. Her gaze was surprisingly soft until the grip around her neck tightened. I knew Miles was hurting her, and with an uncomfortable knife twist in my gut, I realized I knew this because I’d hurt her so many times in the past that her expression was quite familiar. But even as the spidery grasp of the monster squeezed harder, she pressed her lips together, refusing to scream.
“You’re pathetic enough to use food to hide behind, Miles? So weak…” I chuckled abruptly, watching the fury twist his features.
“Hmmm, your pet won’t scream for me? I’m sure I can find something…” The crowd ofStrigoibehind him chortled and hissed as a strangled screech came from her. “Not much,” the bastard taunted, “but I am certain that Lady Laurent will coax something much louder before she’s done stripping the skin off her body.”
I could feel the bond between us - a weak tug at most at this point - but still there.I feel you, my darling,I thought,I do. Do not give up hope.Her eyelids fluttered and a faint smile turned her bloody lips before she lapsed into a blank stare.
"This..." it was a hiss as Gisane strolled around from the cover of her undead retinue. "This is what you choose, my Sorin?" She arched her neck, trailing red fingernails down the pale skin. "You hide yourself from me, my love? And settle for what, a blood bag? A human?"
This, I remembered, how her voice would pitch higher and higher in her rage and spite until Gisane's florid French accent devolved into a hiss. "Look at her!" She gripped a handful of Meghan’s hair. "She shows no emotion at all. Stares into space like a dead china doll." She barked out a laugh, eagerly followed by the others.
I could feel the pulsing agony flowing through our bond, wrapping around my spine and making me grit my teeth.
“You were always so threatened by other women, useless sow,” I said casually, strolling around the fire, “always so fearful that someone younger, more beautiful would draw every eye from you. Keeping all of us half-starved, trying to hold our attention. Your reign is over. You disgust me. Even your children shudder when you touch them.” Her beautiful face twisted in hatred, and I smiled pleasantly. “But you already know, don’t you? Drowning in perfume to hide your stink?”
I turned to Miles, who was backing up slightly, but still had a grip on my girl’s arm. “And you. Is there nothing you won’t stoop to? You, at least, had a chance to survive in this new century. You’re not as decayed as Laurent.”
“You chose the wrong side this time, James.” Miles had the fucking nerve to sound genuinely regretful.
“Tell me, Laurent, what is your intention?” I was at my most infuriating, mocking best, and I knew it would infuriate the ancient monster. “I ask you to spare the girl, that I will swear my devotion to you forever? Oh, but where is my-” I felt my disgust rise, and something more, some ancient dread crawling up my spine like a scorpion. “-my Sire? Is he to be part of our happy, happy family?”
The creature facing me stretched her teeth in a hideous, bloody grimace. The expression turned her eyes to fiery slits and blackened spiderwebs of wrinkles distorted any remaining beauty.
“Oh, my sweet boy. You will crawl to him, begging his forgiveness. And you will spend the next century earning it.” She cackled as my eyes scanned the crowd. “I remember my Sorin. Your beauty and how dear Aleksei loved playing with you. Starving you to the point of gnawing your own flesh, my sweet boy. Your savagery in battle. And here you stand having the arrogance to not fall to your knees to me?”
Miles leaned closer. “He has not glanced again at the wretched blood bag, so perhaps it is not as dear to him as I’d thought.”
“Still….” Gisane drawled, gliding over to my poor, battered girl and grabbing her hair, appreciating the hiss of pain. “Then I am pleased to dispose ofthis,since it is no longer of use to you.”
Then, I chuckled.
Something flew into the bonfire, making it roar outwards in a flash of light so painfully blinding that the vampires screamed, arms across their eyes. Some caught fire and ran wailing blindly, into the trees. When the searing flare of silver-white light receded, my girl was gone, Miles was on the ground with a giant branch shoved viciously through his chest, the old vampire already crumbling to ash.
“It smells better already,” observed Steve, and Gisane’s remaining sycophants looked up, snarling to see him standing beside me and behind us, the shadows of twenty or so others. “Miles always did stink up the place. What about that one?” He gestured to an enraged Gisane, fangs out and so long they were scraping her chin. At the threat, her children clustered around her, growling.
“Bâtard inutile!”Gisane screamed, beginning to stalk forward with her clawed hands flexing, yearning to tear and rend at the two of us who had the audacity to look at her with such contempt. But we stepped forward, our dark allies as well and then it began, the battle, the bloodbath that the most vicious vampiress in 800 years had yearned for.
There were many who feared and hated Gisane and Volkov in our circles, but only twenty brave enough to follow me back to the mountain to finish them and their bottom-feeding followers.
Steve and I had fought together many times – we were called the Blood Brothers for good reason. We ripped apart those trying to protect Gisane before attacking her. In the end, after the screeches and howling, the nauseating smell of a slaughterhouse was all that remained.
I was covered in gashes and blood, but I stepped over what was left of my monstrous French mistress. She was ancient and powerful, and fought her end, panting for air she couldn’t use as she disintegrated. Watching her snarl, I smiled as I bent closer.
“Centuries of torture and in the end, you are only dust beneath my shoe.”
