Page 136 of Beds and Blades

I twisted hard enough to wrench one shoulder, drove my heel backward, and tried to pull an arm free. Nothing moved. It held me as easily as if I had not resisted at all.

Varia watched me struggle.

Then she looked at the other vampire.

“Help him.”

The blood-covered creature crossed the room.

One vampire pinned my arms behind my back. The other locked both hands around my shoulders and upper body, holding me upright and still.

I tried to kick.

One of them trapped my legs between its own.

I tried to turn my head toward Skip. A hand closed around my jaw and forced me to face forward.

Every part of me was contained. Not merely restrained.

Positioned.

Varia stepped closer.

“One would be sufficient,” she said. “But I want no accidents.”

Behind her, Skip strained against the ropes. I could feel his panic.

Varia’s gaze never left mine.

“Morvanna told me through the dark bond that you would come,” Varia said.

Her voice was hers on the surface, but something beneath it was not, as if the dark bond had learned to imitate her.

“Morvanna said that the claiming bond would bring you out. That you would not be able to feel him afraid and stay behind the wall. That you would come.”

I looked at her. At the face I had woken up to four months ago when she brought breakfast and smiled at the ring. At the face that had been on the wall with me in the snow.

Whatever was in front of me was not her. She had come back through the gate and reported a victory. She had sat in the infirmary and let Caen close her wounds. Every word, every movement, every hour she spent among us had been part of the plan.

All of it calculated. All of it intentional. All of it set in motion the moment they turned her. Every step leading to the moment she walked back through the gate, opened her mouth, and said: three vampires down, village clear, I am the only one who survived.

Morvanna had not turned a random soldier. She had turned the person who knew this garrison best, who knew Skip best, who knew me best—and had sent her to finish the job.

The smile again.

“Morvanna was right.”

“Varia,” I said, the name breaking out of me.

“Varia is not here,” she said, almost gently. “I exist within the dark bond now.”

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked.

She held my gaze with those red eyes and that borrowed smile.

“Kill you?” she said, with a trace of amusement. “Of course not.”

She tilted her head, considering me.