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Iwas scratching a tally mark into the lid of my sarcophagus when the vampire entered my tomb.
Well, tomb wasn’t the right word.Technicallythis was a temple, or at least it had appeared to be when my ex had lured me in here under false pretenses nearly fifty years ago. Or was it eighty? Thirty? The tally marks, which I etched into the lid every time I found myself conscious, were the only way for me to keep track, and I hadn’t been consistent with them. Not to mention I couldn’t even see them, only feel them by tracing the grooves with the pads of my fingers.
Anyway, even if this had been a temple, it had been decades, probably even centuries, since anyone worshipped here. The only people who ever stopped by to visit were lost travelers, and only on the night of the new moon, when the illusion spell that cloaked this place grew weak enough to allow passersby to see it.
The sound of the temple door opening, the scuff of leather shoes on stone, the rustle of a cloak in the otherwise still night, were a welcome interlude from the usual interminable silence thatfilled this place. My nostrils flared as I tried to scent the intruder, but all I inhaled was the stale odor of dust and decay that had been my close companion for as long as I could remember.
Once upon a time, I would have been able to smell the vampire long before they’d entered my prison. Would have been able to get a rough sense of their age, when they’d last fed, which house they hailed from. Would have also heard them coming far before they’d opened the door. But starvation and captivity had blunted my senses so badly, I couldn’t even tell if my intruder was male or female. Time had worn me down to a shadow of myself, a skeleton wrapped in skin and leather, able to neither live nor die.
A subtle wave of power rippled through the hall as the vampire ventured farther in, sending goosebumps shivering across my skin. Automatically, I reached for the silver stake lying next to my thigh, allowing myself to trace the cool metal with my fingertips. A macabre security blanket, and wholly unnecessary. None of my midnight visitors had ever successfully opened my prison. The warding spells built into the sarcophagus violently repelled anyone who tried.
Spells that, ironically, were fueled by my own fucking magic.
“Sparrow was right, Sire,” a male murmured. The voice was deep and gravelly, the rougher undertones at odds with the formal way he spoke, and I stiffened as I realized there were not one, buttwovampires in the chamber. “This is the place.”
“Of course he’s right,” the other vampire said. His soft voice echoed through the chamber, a rich, velvet timber that smacked of upper crust sophistication. “And even better, she’s still alive. I can hear her heartbeat.” A hint of amusement lightened his tone. “She knows we’re here.”
The stake was in my hand in an instant. Sweat slid down my spine as my heart beat faster, and my blood thrummed in my chest as I prepared for the worst.
These vampires weren’t some lost, drunken fools looking for shelter in the rain.
They had come looking forme. Specifically.
“Sire, are you sure this is a good idea?” the throaty-voiced vampire asked. “Perhaps Sparrow was wrong about the nature of the spell, and—”
“Sparrow has never let me down before, Lucius, and time is of the essence,” the other male said. “We do this now.”
I braced myself for the barrier spell surrounding the coffin to blast the two vampires across the room. Instead, the stone lid of the coffin scraped back from the box in one swift, fluid motion. It clattered to the floor, and I gasped as a gust of fresh, icy air whooshed in, caressing my skin like the long-lost touch of a lover. Faint threads of starlight shimmered through the windows of my divine prison, illuminating the stylized figure of a goddess looking down at me from where she’d been etched into the cracked stone ceiling. She gazed at me with hollowed out eyes, hair rippling out from her oval face in waves, her sweeping cloak depicting a multitude of nocturnal creatures.
I hadn’t noticed the stunning relief when I’d been shoved into this sarcophagus. Had no idea that Athanasia, Goddess of Darkness and Chaos, Divine Mother of the Universe, had enjoyed a prime viewing spot of my suffering.
A split second later, I was on my feet, my chest heaving as I faced the vampires. I cursed as my bandolier of silver stakes dropped straight from my hips to the bottom of the coffin—I had wastedaway to nothing during my imprisonment, my clothes barely hanging onto my bony frame. But there was no time to crouch down and collect them—the stake in my hand was my single shot to freedom, and I had to make it count.
The two vampires stared at me, vastly different expressions on their faces. The one on the left—an umber-skinned male with long, black hair woven into braids and secured at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon—stood with his arms over his broad chest, his lips pressed into a thin line as he studied me. The look of obvious disapproval in his amber eyes would have rankled me if I gave a shit about vampiric opinions. Beneath his cloak, he wore a fitted charcoal-grey tunic and trousers, and in addition to the blades he’d hidden on his body, he wore a steel gauntlet on his right arm I was pretty sure concealed a retractable blade.
In contrast, the other vampire bore no visible weapons, save for the claws that tipped his ivory hands. He wore a high collared black shirt paired with a sleek, midnight-blue vest and matching trousers tucked into knee-high black boots. Unlike his companion, he hadn’t deigned to lower the hood of his cloak, so I could make out little of his features save for cold blue eyes, a sharply defined jaw, and a full, unsmiling mouth. His perusal of me was far more clinical, as though I were a horse he’d come to market to inspect… and had found lacking.
“So,” he said in that midnight voice of his. “This is the infamous Kitana Nightshade. The most feared vampire slayer in all of Valentaera. Now reduced to little more than a bag of bones.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up, a taunting smirk that broke the dam on my pent-up rage and sent it shooting straight to the surface. “Sire—” the other vampire warned, but I was already halfway across the room, my teeth bared in a snarl as some hidden scrap of energy burned through me. The arrogantbloodsucker made no move to defend himself, and I raised my stake, aiming it for the center of his chest—
Every muscle in my body seized, and I froze in mid-air, my stake a hairsbreadth from his chest. His smirk widened as I struggled, displaying just a hint of fang, but my withered muscles could do nothing against the invisible hold.
“Not bad,” he said, his breath ghosting against my cheek. We were inches—fuckinginches—apart, and I couldn’t do a damn thing as he slid a clawed fingertip beneath my chin and lifted my face to meet his. “Your movements are impressive considering the length of time you’ve spent trapped here. Once you’ve gotten some meat onto your bones again, you’ll be quite formidable.”
“Formidable?” I spat, my muscles trembling with rage and fatigue. “The word you’re looking for is cataclysmic, vampire. You’re lucky that I’m a ‘bag of bones’, as you said, or you and your friend would both be dead right now.”
“I have no doubt.” The vampire’s smirk widened. “In fact, that’s what I’m counting on.”
I frowned at that, and peered into his face, trying to figure out what in all the hells he was talking about. Up close, his eyes were stunning. The irises were a cold, galaxy blue, with the faintest ring of fiery red around the pupils that radiated outward. It was as though the gods had taken strands of starfire from the celestial heavens and woven them into his undead soul, and I’d never seen anything like it before.
How many humans had he enthralled with those otherworldly eyes? And how many had he killed?
“You’re a Psychoros vampire,” I said, the gears in my brain turning now that my body was forced to a standstill. The bastardhadn’t been taunting me for the fun of it—he’d deliberately provoked me to see how I would react. What I was capable of, even in this weakened state. A quick glance into his pupils confirmed how haggard I looked—my square face reduced to skeletal proportions, my black-brown hair limp and scraggly, my violet eyes nearly as hollow as those of the dark goddess who watched us from the ceiling.
Anyone else would have died of starvation a long time ago.
