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“Kill the bird!” the audience chanted.
Their stomping sounded like thunder.
One of the soldiers poked me with a spear just enough to cut through skin on my side. I hissed. And another soldier stabbed my arm. Pain seared.
Blood soaked through the material of my dress. Then another spear pierced my leg. I’d had enough of their taunting.
I rose and stumbled forward. Golden blood marked a trail behind me as I dragged my feet. I looked pathetic, but I would not be cornered. The soldiers circled me but kept their distance as the audience’s chanting continued.
Too exhausted to fight, I slumped my shoulders. When the soldier with the pipe blew, I closed my eyes. Air thickened and swirled around me in a whoosh.
The needle should have pricked through my skin, but instead Victus stood in front of me with the needle between his fingers.
“Don’t lay a finger on her!” The smooth, velvety voice boomed loud as a lion roaring to protect its territory. Only I was his enemy and he wanted to keep me alive so he could be the one to kill me.
The crowd went silent as the dead of night. Victus let out a guttural sound and flung the needle at the soldier who had blown it. It impaled his neck and he collapsed.
“Enough!” Victus’s furious voice rumbled, his fingers balled into fists. “This is no meeting, Council. You all had your entertainment for the day. Now, let me make this very clear to all of you. This Seraphim is mine. No one is to touch her. I am your king and that is my command.”
I couldn’t see Victus’s face from my position, but I pictured veins protruding around his crimson eyes and canines elongated.
All seven council members rose and bowed.
The council leader said, “Apologies, King Victus.”
Victus’s gaze landed on my bloody arm, then turned back to his people in the stadium. “We are vampires, not savages. Kara, take the feathered being to the physician. Clean her up and draw more blood from her.”
I wondered who she was when the woman next to Nadira gave a curt nod.
Chapter Twenty
The Nurse
Evangeline
Kara escorted me through the hallways, Nadira by her side. We entered a room and halted by the door. A figure wearing a long dark dress straightened from being hunched over a metal table. When she turned, I blinked, surprised by her beauty and … a human?
The woman took off bloody leather gloves and closed a long curtain. The scent of sweet roses drifted my way as she approached.
“Kara. It’s good to see you. How can I help you?”
The lovely woman with one long braid smiled at Nadira and caressed her cheek, then her gaze landed on me. She let out a sharp gasp as she examined the cuffs on my wrists, then my white dress sprinkled with black blood.
“My goodness,” the woman said, her pitch high. “What happened?”
Kara never took off her cloak that covered her fingers, but she pushed back the hood. Light wrinkles across her forehead and slight puffiness under her eyes revealed her mature years. No scars marked her face, unlike her hands.
“Don’t be alarmed, Nina,” Kara said with a sweet tone.
Nina nodded and looked at me again with a small smile, her delicate fingers intertwining. Nina had a peace about her. A trusting face with olive-toned skin. A trusting voice. The deadliest kind of creature.
Kara jerked a chin toward my direction. “We need to clean her up. And King Victus gives you permission to draw more blood.”
“Of course, right this way.” Nina took us through a white curtain and into another room.
I remained calm, but terror rose to the surface. Bones and skulls in glass bottles of all sizes lined the shelves of the cabinets that took up the back wall. Large skeletal wings without feathers, about the same size as on the beast I had fought last, hung next to the cabinets. I shuddered and wondered if Nina was the one who had attached the wings to the beast.
Nina guided me to a wooden table with scalpels and medical tools scattered on top. “Please have a seat.”
