Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony (The Order Saga Book 1) (27 page)

My head exploded in a flash of pain every bit as bright as the lightning that shattered the sky. I staggered and he followed, breaking a few ribs with those club fists and knocking me into a nearby puddle. The sky shuddered under another boom of thunder.

Before I caught my breath, he yanked me up off the ground again. “Thou still cling to me as base and false, while she is fair and true!” He was screaming now. “Did thou not behold how she cozened to that foul snake, just as she betrayed me with thou? All the horrors in this house, she has wrought them!”

He threw me into the wet gravel again. My head throbbed, my skin was torn from where a hundred little sharp rocks stuck me and my ribs stabbed me as they grated together but I waited for Sebastian to present an opportunity and willed myself to heal faster.

“She turned from me at my hour of greatest need, she with her cold, scientist heart!” he screamed to the heavens. An answer came in the form of a wicked crack of lightning that split the sky and made the night into day for a moment. He shifted his attention to me and charged, claws poised and fangs extended. “Could not see as I saw and tried to take it from me in envy!”

As he reached for me, I put my weight on my hands and kicked his shins—the wet, slippery gravel helped Sebastian lose his footing and spill onto his side. Fangs out, fingers tensed into eye-gouging claws and killing rage in my veins, I leapt to straddle him and pin his arms. He turned before I could accomplish the latter but I lunged forward to stab my thumbs into his eyes and sink my teeth into his throat!

I used the top of my head to push his chin up out of the way and bit at the soft skin of his neck. A small trickle of hot, delicious blood trickled onto my tongue but before I could tear open the small cut I’d made, Sebastian pushed me away from him with a snarl.

I shoved my arms forward, fingers seeking the vulnerability of his eyes but he rolled under me. After that, I remember the two of us rolling and clawing and biting at each other like wild animals as the pouring rain made it difficult for either of us to keep a good grip on the other. Finally, he was above me, his claws ripping open my chest and face, his teeth gouging chunks out of my shoulder, his fists smashing my nose and pulverizing my cheekbones.

“So, it’s blood thou crave, eh?” he asked, sounding almost conversational as he rose to his feet and stomped my stomach. “Come to me after I’ve finished this damned Game and, perchance, thou shall have it.”

I just lie there, convulsing and trying to remember how to breathe.

“‘Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh out the violence of your hands upon the earth,’” he quoted. “No more! With brave intent and cunning preparation, it shall be undone!”

Then he kicked me in the side, shattering whatever ribs weren’t already broken. I cried out, coughing blood and faded away.

* * * * *

A cry and the sound of something crunching onto the gravel pulled me from my trance. The rain drummed onto my face and down my throat but the rumble of thunder had subsided for the moment.

“Here,” Sebastian’s voice said, above me. “Feast well, for thou shall need strength in the coming nights.”

The smell of fresh, live blood nearby captured my attention. I heard a sob and a whispered “please” to my right. My hunger returned, demanding and I turned my smashed face toward the sound, peeking from the eye that was only swollen half shut.

Beside me lay a male victim from the cellar.

Sebastian must have gone inside and grabbed him from the library antechamber while I’d been out. I heard my stomach rumble and felt my canines push down from my gums. I didn’t see a man beside me, I saw food. Sebastian tore a gash in the man’s neck with one of his nails. Blood welled up from the wound and began to run, mixing with the rain.

I crawled over to him, thoughtless of what I was doing and unmindful of the agony of my bones scraping together with every movement. I don’t remember if he tried to say anything or not, because I couldn’t hear him. All I heard was his beating heart and the circulation of blood through his body. I lunged at the last second and bit down into his skin with every ounce of strength I had left.

I was rewarded with a flood of ecstasy and satisfaction beyond anything I’d ever known before. It wasn’t like sharing blood with Caroline, since there’s no comparison in flavor between human blood and the richness of Vampyr blood but there was a selfish, greedy pleasure here you didn’t get from sharing. I felt it soak into the tissues of my body and energize my cells. I felt my body’s regenerative processes working! I drank and drank, barely pausing to breathe.

The worst part of all this is that, even now, days go by when I don’t even remember doing it. I’ve tried to feel guilt but the best I can do is a kind of shallow embarrassment. I know the man must have struggled but it didn’t even register. All I knew and all I felt was the need to keep drinking until I’d squeezed out every last drop of him.

So I did.

Sometime later, I heard Sebastian chuckle and say something to someone else and then strong arms pulled me off my victim, despite my best efforts to continue sucking at the wound. Then, he carried me inside and upstairs to my room on the third floor.

I’d killed a man, a human being with a family and dreams and I barely remember him. A murderer should remember his kills, shouldn’t he?

* * * * *

I have no idea how long I lay there on the bed, just as he put me but it felt like hours before I even shifted position. I drifted in and out of consciousness and I healed but my rage didn’t leave me. It hovered and colored the few thoughts I had, thoughts of Valmont and Caroline, thoughts of violence, destruction and death.

I would kill Valmont shortly after sunrise. I would be healed by then and I could force myself to stay up long enough to do it. In fact, if I could get to Caroline first, she might have some of that serum she’d developed that helped combat the Vampyr hibernation instinct, one of the benefits of having me to study and test. I could stay up and he’d be asleep. Suck the fucker dry. Why not? Even his Dhampirs had to sleep sometime. Could I get a gun from the security office? Probably not. I’d have to improvise a weapon, grab some knives or something from the kitchen. Sneak down the servants’ stairs. It didn’t matter if I got caught afterwards, Sebastian couldn’t talk his way out of the fact that his Uninitiated Pupil had killed a Hegemon. His plans, whatever they were, wouldn’t matter. Caroline would be avenged and Iago would probably be able to keep himself alive.

Fuck ‘em all. Whole Order can fucking die for all I care.

* * * * *

I had spent hours drifting in and out of painful memories, enraged thoughts and bitter plans as my body healed. The slow torture of bones, knitting themselves back together and ruptured organs repairing themselves kept my thoughts in a red haze as I lay on my bed. As my plans to kill Valmont and his Dhampirs got more detailed, I found myself thinking back to his rape of Caroline. More and more, I remembered that kiss and found it difficult to accept the innocent explanations I’d taken for granted so far. I didn’t want to think this way but Sebastian’s words taunted me with the idea that there was some element between Caroline and Valmont I was missing.

Had Caroline and Valmont been lovers?

The idea was repulsive but at the same time, a cynical voice in me said that Caroline had manipulated me already. That voice wouldn’t go away. In fact, it got more insistent the hungrier I became. There was something horribly comforting in putting the blame for everything that had happened onto Caroline. I know it was cowardly of me but it was so much easier to be angry than to deal with the emotional reality of what had been done to Caroline.

It was easier to believe she’d been betraying me all along.

My memories colored until I felt certain I’d seen Caroline’s secret enjoyment. This was before I ever saw the video and heard what passed between them. All I remembered was Valmont’s little mocking kiss and wink, his whispers in her ear and the way her eyes closed while her body flushed with excitement. The way she’d welcomed his bloody kiss.

Every moment of doubt I’d ever had about her came rushing back, every similarity I’d ever seen between her and Michelle. If Caroline was capable of using me like that after I’d trusted her with my heart and soul, then she deserved to die.

All at once, it seemed, an energizing sense of power and purpose came over me and I moved for the first time in hours, swinging my legs off my bed and sitting up. My regeneration, however, had used up all the energy I’d consumed that night. I was voracious. My mind supplied a ready answer. To keep myself awake past sunrise and make my escape from the island while under its glare, I would need the extreme energy found in Vampyr blood.

My mouth watered at the memory of all the times Caroline had fed me from her own veins. It was a taste I associated with happiness, love, pleasure and contentment. Fully healed and with her blood pumping through my veins, I wouldn’t need a weapon to kill Valmont. Then I could drink him dry as well, using his blood to sustain me through my escape.

Without another coherent thought, I stood and crept down the servants’ stairs to the second floor across from Caroline’s door. I knew she’d locked it and would be hiding inside. Checking to be sure the hallway was clear, I rushed across and put all my weight and strength behind a kick to the left of the knob, the way the cop shows had taught me—

It worked, just like on TV. The door cracked and flipped open, whacking the bookcase on the wall with a resounding bang. Caroline sat at her desk, typing on her computer. She’d changed into jeans, sneakers and a sweatshirt. The look of startled horror on her face as she spun toward me is a memory I don’t think I’ll ever be rid of. I see the redness of her eyes, the scrubbed rawness of her face and the way the strands of wet hair that had pulled free of her ponytail hung limp around her.

I think she said my name but I don’t remember hearing it. Even now, or maybe, especially now, this whole episode is like a series of grainy clips and images with an emotional soundtrack. I don’t want to remember it, would rather just skip over or summarize it but writing this has been about being honest with myself and I won’t take the coward’s way out now and hide behind phrases like “it all happened so fast” or “it’s just a blur.” It may not be completely clear and my mind may have done its best to shove this in a closet but I remember damn well what happened.

I remember my hands tightening into claws as I rushed her, almost able to feel the softness of her neck between them. She reacted quicker and more resourcefully than I expected, jumping out of her chair and flinging it at me as she moved to the side.

The chair slowed me for a second but I batted it aside, my eyes already tracking her as she moved. I caught up to her before she reached the bed and when she spun to duck back or throw me, I punched her hard enough to knock her back onto it. I followed her with a leap, intending to pin her down and bite or choke her but she rolled backwards off the other side of the bed and I landed on the mattress. She screamed for help and I ripped the covers in frustration as I scrambled to my feet.

She held what looked like a remote control in one hand as she pressed against the door to Sebastian’s room. It was locked, of course. She edged along the wall toward the hall. “Please, Avery, stop!” Her voice was choked, I remember that clearly. “Fight this!”

I wish with all my heart that I could remember feeling some conflict in that moment. That my love swelled up and made me hesitate for a crucial second or two but it didn’t.

I attacked her again.

I still give thanks to the Goddess every night that what she held in her hand was her stun gun and she was prepared to use it. As I reached striking distance, she dropped to one knee and stabbed the electrified ends of it into my abdomen. While not as powerful as the “stunners” that Ash and company used to capture me on the Turnpike, the charge proved sufficient.

She’s had the stun gun for as long as I’ve known her, it was just something she carried in her purse as a precaution. Ash must have let her keep it when he caught us.

I thank the Goddess for Ash, too.

* * * * *

A few hours later, with sunrise due in a little over an hour, four of Wilkes’s house guards dragged me into the council chamber and shoved me into a large armchair at the foot of the massive council table. Most of my bruises were from my earlier fight with Sebastian but the guards gave me a few new ones.

All around the chamber, the other Hegemons waited as Sebastian entered, closing the two massive doors behind him. They then demanded to know what the fuss was about.

I just sat, numb, while Sebastian used his rich speaking voice and official, dignified Latin to explain how I had planned to murder Hegemon Valmont after I killed Caroline and drank her blood.

Sebastian and his guys had worked me over a little but I hadn’t been interrogated. He got the whole story from Caroline and Bishop, who had been the only person to respond to the cries for help. I hadn’t seen Caroline since it happened and was glad. I had no idea what I could say if I ever saw her again. I remembered what I’d been thinking and feeling but it felt like a nightmare I’d just woken up from.