Page 51 of Mortdale

Everyone was missing.

Where were Logan’s soldiers? This place was littered with guards all day and night.

I set Piper inside the laundry cabinet, covering her in every dirty item of clothing I could find, including my own to throw her scent off.

Grabbing Thomas, I shoved him between the layers. “I will find you a big juicy corpse if you keep her safe.”

“Still fresh?” he rasped.

“Blood so warm it will burn your tongue,” I promised, wrapping a few blankets in a swaddle big enough to look like a toddler.

“You have a deal with me, Willow Rose Duncan.”

His hoarse cackling accompanied me all the way out in the gardens, still echoing even as thunder above hailed with lightning.

Wind and sharp rain beat at me as I ran towards the back gardens that led into the woodland, clutching the bundle of blankets. The pale grey fog was thicker inside the belly of conifers, and a shiver drew down my arms when the cold condensation slipped from my neck and past my chest. Scaly branches whacked against my limbs as I rushed deeper into the thicket, dry needles poking against my sore naked soles. A warning static coursed through the mist, prickling all the senses in my body, making my fingertips itch to cast magic to dispel it.

Hopefully, someone would have seen me run out of the mansion. Maybe I’d give Logan enough time to come back and fix this.

I slowed when a branch snapped somewhere behind me, and a shadow stretched over mine. “You must be the witch bride.”

I glanced at him over my shoulder. A few others approached us, surrounding me on all sides, poking from behind the wet conifers. Vampires—all tall, broad, and armed. All staring at me as if they wanted to peel me open layer by layer.

“Let me see who you have there,” he said, beckoning me with a hand.

He lurched forward when I dropped the blanket on the ground, sneering when he realised he’d been led out here for nothing. “Stupid bitch!”

His hand grasped my hair and he dragged me across the dry, thorny forest floor and into the estate’s greensward, the skin on the back of my legs scraping against the pebbled garden before he hauled me up to my feet. My scalp, back, and legs were raw as he dropped me in the middle of the entry hall where Christof, Theodora and the rest of the service staff were lined up against a wall, tied up and bleeding.

Are you alright? I mouthed at Christof, and he gave me a weak nod.

The broad vampire who’d caught me circled around me. “Where’s the little girl?” he asked, grabbing a fistful of my hair when I remained silent, and pressing a pistol under my chin. “You have no loyalty to these people. They’d skin you alive if you weren’t their fancy little blood witch. He’ll knock you up and toss you in a tower where you’ll never see daylight ever again. So, tell me, where is the little girl?”

When my mouth pressed in a tight line, he lowered himself to his haunches and said, “If you tell me, I can help you get back to Meridian. Return you to your people.”

I could have scoffed. “I think you’re going to die.”

His twitching lip curled in a steep sneer. “What did you just say?”

I chuckled. “I said, I think you’re going to fucking die.”

His lip peeled back to reveal his fangs. “Do you think I am playing here? I will blow your brain to pieces. Where. Is. The girl?” he shouted inches from my face.

My smile stretched into a big grin as I managed to successfully pull a long piece of thread from my nightgown. “What. Girl.”

His callused palm came down on my face so hard, I dropped to the ground and hit my forehead against the wooden floors. A sharp sting pierced right through my skull. My ears felt warm and full, as if someone had blown them from within. Rolling on my back, I tried to shake the haze and the ringing off, focusing on each breath leaving and entering my lungs.

He pulled me up. “The girl! Where is she!” he bellowed, pulling on my hair until my scalp was screaming from the burn.

“Bless this head and help to grow,” I murmured low, watching his brows drop to a frown. “Grow and grow, then it must sow.” Leaning in, I whispered, “You should know to gag a witch first.”

And then I pulled on the thread until it snapped.

Only a fraction of something crossed his eyes before I was smacked right in the face with slimy and gritty mush made of blood, bone, and brain.

There was a full minute of absolute silence before my ears started ringing.

And then his headless body dropped with a wet thud.