Page 96 of Blood Ties

25

STELLAN

The guard’s blood hit my tongue hot and bitter.

I tore my fangs free and shoved his body towards the gate. He struck the iron hard enough to make the damaged frame shake. The red lines on his throat went dark, but they didn’t disappear. They sank into his torn flesh and followed the veins towards his chest.

“Adrian’s blood is inside them,” I said. “The red marks run from the throat to the heart. He hasn’t laid the command over their bodies. He’s put it into their blood.”

The woman caught in the vines screamed. Her claws ripped through two stems, and Harrowmere replaced them with four more. She twisted towards Bryony even while the garden dragged her backwards.

Bryony kept the sword raised. Lenora had one hand pressed to her bleeding side and the other closed around the knife she’d recovered from the wall.

Three more guards forced their way through the cut gate. The first carried a narrow black blade made for opening royal seals. The second had a sword. The third entered with empty hands and fangs already down.

They spread across the garden because Adrian made them use the training I’d given their predecessors.

“Stellan,” Lenora said. “The marks begin over the heart. Damaging the throat won’t release them while Adrian keeps feeding the command.”

“I know.” I stepped over the dead guard and tasted his blood again. Adrian’s authority saturated it. “Every guard he sends inside will carry proof of who controlled the attack.”

Adrian stood safely outside the white barrier. “Proof for whom? You’ll kill every witness before the court opens.”

I faced the approaching guards. “You put your blood inside loyal vampires and forced them to attack the heir they’re sworn to defend. Their bodies are the record. Harrowmere has already tasted what you did.”

“Harrowmere is a ruined house answering to an uncrowned human who doesn’t understand it. Come through the gate while it’s open. Leave her to the Crown, and I’ll remove the collar myself.”

Bryony gave a short laugh from the spring wall. “You really do think everyone is as stupid as you need them to be.”

Adrian’s gaze hardened. “You inherited a prison and mistook it for power. Stellan will leave you the first moment that chain allows it. He planned to use you from the start, and you know it.”

“I do know it. He told me himself.” She adjusted her grip on the sword. “You’ve run out of secrets, Adrian. All you have left are other people’s bodies.”

One of the guards flinched as if the words had struck him. Adrian lifted two fingers.

The red marks pulsed.

All three attacked.

The unarmed vampire reached me first. I caught his forearm, turned under his swing and broke his elbow across my shoulder. Bone split, but the command drove him on. His other hand closed around the cut on my chest.

He tried to tear it open.

I hit him in the throat and threw him into the spring. Water rose around his body in a white sheet. The garden caught his ankles under the surface and held him there.

The swordsman came in low. I blocked with the dead guard’s curved blade, forced his weapon aside and struck his jaw with the hilt. He staggered without falling.

The guard carrying the seal blade ran past me.

“Bryony, left.”

She moved at once. The black blade passed her ribs and struck the top of the spring wall. Lenora seized the guard’s wrist with both hands while Bryony drove her shoulder into his chest.

The wound in Lenora’s side opened farther. Blood ran down her armour, and her injured leg folded.

I kicked the swordsman back and grabbed the chain at my throat. It had already started to lift from the path.

“Get away from them,” I told the swordsman. “Give me one step that belongs to you.”