Blood Redemption (20 page)

She pushed the morbid thoughts away.

They didn’t serve her now.

And time was far too precious.

Every moment counted—now, more than ever.

If the gods were merciful—and she hoped that they were—she could comfort Ciopori in
her final hours, spend her last moments with Nikolai, and send her dark, dangerous
brother-in-law to the cell where they were keeping Saber Alexiares with one final
request:
Remove the dragon’s
head
with your
bare hands
and deliver it to
me
on a silver platter.

The biblical character Salome had nothing on Vanya Demir. After all, hell hath no
fury like a woman scorned, and in this tragic, barren moment, Vanya knew that she
had been scorned beyond imagining.

Saber Alexiares’s head, in Marquis’s hands, was her last, dying wish.

Saber shot up from his cot into a sitting position, both startled and alert, as Marquis
Silivasi stormed into the dimly lit watch room like a Tasmanian devil. The Ancient
Master Warrior was wearing a garish, spiked cestus over his right hand, and by the
look on his murderous face, he was more than just a little angry.

He was downright furious.

Determined.

Hell-bent
.

What
in the world?

When Marquis bulldozed past Ramsey and Santos, headed straight for the iron keys to
unlock Saber’s cell, and neither one of the guards made any attempt to stop him, Saber
knew it was time to pay the piper. Marquis’s jaw was set in a hard line; his eyes
were feral and ablaze; and Ramsey and Santos were only too willing to stand back and
allow the scene to unfold.

Clearly, the males had found out about Vanya.

They knew about the
sex
.

But how?

Saber leapt to his feet and readied himself in a defensive posture, watching warily
as the enraged vampire made child’s play of the lock, flung open the door, and literally
flew into the cell, apparently too angry to walk. “Before I am through with you, Dark
One, you will beg me for death!” The vampire’s voice reverberated through the tiny
space like thunder in a roiling sky, and Saber visibly recoiled.

He shook his bewildered head, trying to dislodge his momentary confusion:
Unholy minions of hell
, he and Vanya had bent a few rules, played fast and furious with their passion, but
surely it wasn’t
that
serious. She was his
destiny
, after all.

Before Saber could respond to Marquis’s threat, the incensed warrior hurled a pulsing
stream of fire from the tips of his fingers directly at Saber’s scalp, connecting
instantly with his wild black-and-red mane. The flame burned so hot that it shone
blue in the air before wrapping itself in a conical halo around Saber’s skull, and
Saber cried out in agony from the searing heat.

“What’s your problem!” Saber glowered, panic beginning to set in. He was far too weak
from blood loss to defend himself.

Marquis gave him no quarter.

The son of Jadon quickly followed the preternatural flames with an equally dangerous
assault: Conjuring two razor-sharp pinpoints of light from his hate-filled eyes, he
leveled his gaze at Saber and began to wield the grisly lasers like a macabre scalpel,
slicing wickedly across Saber’s forehead, just below the hairline, just below the
already emblazoned crown. Resolute, he began to carve a gruesome incision around the
cranium, outward beyond the brows, downward toward the ears, and angled to the nape
of Saber’s neck.
Dark lords
of
hell
,
the male brandished the fiery scalpel with the precision of a master surgeon.

He was scalping Saber alive from five feet away!

Saber tried to step out of the line of fire. His hands shot up instinctively to his
head and were instantly singed by the blaze. He tried to smother the flames to no
avail—
just how far
did the warrior intend to take this
?

The question was quickly answered.

As blood seeped beneath the fresh conical incision, Marquis stopped just short of
removing Saber’s scalp. Rather, he allowed the crimson fluid to pool into a bubbling
crown, where it oozed until it began to act like a buffer between the fire and Saber’s
face, shielding his skin, his brows, and his eyes: Marquis was using Saber’s own blood
as a natural fire-line. He was preventing the fire from spreading in order to keep
it burning longer…hotter…deeper.

Saber tried desperately to extinguish the flames, to gather his wits, but the fire
burned way too hot and the assault was far too relentless.

Marquis whispered something beneath his breath, and the flames grew hotter still,
shooting even higher in the air. Saber moaned from the pain and felt his reason slipping
away into an ever-increasing abyss of horrible agony and shock. His head was burning
like the devil, yet the fire wasn’t consuming his flesh. He should have been burnt
to a crisp by now. At this rate, the damnable thing might just burn forever, until
his scalp was nothing more than a bloody heap of blisters, resting beneath charred
hair and melted flesh.
Why didn’t the warrior just kill him and
get it over
with?
Did he really intend to scorch him,
indefinitely
, just for the fun of it?

Just for
having sex with Vanya
?

Did the vampire intend to torture him forever, or would he finally be moved to mercy—or
fury—and just kill him already?

Saber panted through the unbearable pain, and then he cringed in horror as realization
finally dawned on him: What was it Marquis had said when he had first entered the
room?
Before I am through with you, Dark One, you will beg me for death
!

The hot-headed vampire had meant every word.

He wanted Saber to fall on his knees and plead for mercy—mercy the warrior would surely
deny him. The son of Jadon was hell-bent on exacting his pound of flesh, and up until
this point, Saber had been helpless to deny him his professed due.

Saber Alexiares blinked rapidly, several times in a row, trying to clear his tortured
mind, trying to flush the dripping blood from his eyes so he could see his enemy more
clearly. He raised both hands to his mouth and blew freezing shards of air over his
fingertips until icicles began to form on the ends of the digits; then he massaged
his hands rapidly through his hair, hoping like hell that the fire would melt the
ice into water instantly. He repeated the process again and again, all the while thinking,
T
his is
like applying
some
damnable
netherworld
shampoo
, until at last, the fiery blaze was extinguished.

Marquis laughed, indifferent. “Not going to save you, Dark One.”

Knowing the warrior was right, Saber decided to try a different tact. The truth of
the matter was this: Marquis was much too strong, and Saber was much too weak. The
sentinels had kept him so pitifully drained of blood—deprived of power for so interminably
long—that he barely stood a chance in this unprovoked battle. Still, he braced himself
against the lingering heat in his scalp, the all-consuming pain, and focused keenly
on his enemy. Saber Alexiares had no intention of going down without a fight, regardless
of the odds. It was time to change his posture from defensive to offensive.

Without warning, Saber lunged at Marquis for all he was worth; he focused like a laser
on the Ancient Master Warrior’s neck, his thick jugular vein, and the amount of force
it would require to rip it open and tear it to shreds. Their bodies collided with
a heavy thud, sending both males flying into the iron bars behind them before they
ricocheted off and hit the floor, each laid out prone. Saber sank his fangs deep,
grasping, tearing, and shaking his head from side to side like the wild animal he
was. It was a desperate attempt at changing the odds, but Marquis kept his cool…and
his concentration.

The warrior countered with a brutal uppercut, ramming the full potency of the spiked
cestus beneath Saber’s jaw; and the maneuver worked beautifully, swiftly dislodging
Saber’s fangs.

Saber came at him again…and again.

He released his own lethal claws and swiped at the Ancient’s eyes rapidly—forcefully—until
a tip finally connected, scoring Marquis’s cornea. Marquis stiffened ever so slightly
and growled deep in his throat, and then he released his own claws and plunged downward
with his left hand, tearing what felt like an eight-inch gash in Saber’s side.

The two ferocious males traded attacks, punching, stabbing, biting, all the while
rolling around on the floor like a furious ball of hate-filled energy; until at last,
Saber felt his life force begin to wane at an alarming rate.

He looked down in shock, trying to focus his blurry vision on his body.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing, but his entire lower torso was a bloody
pulp, and his insides were slithering onto the ground, escaping from a gaping hole,
oozing languidly along the front of his body like lava along the side of a volcano.
Stunned, and more than a little confused by the extent of the damage, Saber absently
tried to scoop his intestines into his hands and pack them back inside the ruptured
cavity, all the while releasing as much venom as he could from his incisors to dress
the wound. He had to try and seal his innards back together. And quickly, at that.

He had never felt more helpless, cornered, or
enraged
in his entire life.

Saber Alexiares was a soldier, and a damn good one for that matter. But this fight
was completely imbalanced. Untenable. As a starved, wounded prisoner, encased in diamond
day after day, night after night, Saber might as well have had both hands tied behind
his back, a blindfold placed over his eyes, and diamond shackles manacled to his ankles.
Blood was
everything
to a vampire. And he simply didn’t have any in reserve. If he hadn’t consumed at
least a pint or so of Vanya’s blood the night before, he would have already been dead.

“You want your revenge?” he snarled at Marquis, hoping to provoke the warrior’s pride.
“Then take it fairly.” He glared at the son of Jadon in challenge, one combatant male
to another. “Let me feed until I’m at full strength, then fight me as an equal. Win
or lose based on superior ability—not obscene advantage.”

“I’d love to,” Marquis growled, still sounding far too confident. “But, unfortunately,
time is of the essence. And since all I desire is your suffering and your death, I
couldn’t give a celestial-damn how easy the pickings are.”

Saber realized then that he was about to die.

For real this time.

No games, no taunting, no more reprieves.

Marquis Silivasi had come to deliver him to the Valley of Death and Shadows, and it
was only a matter of seconds, maybe minutes, before he succeeded. Saber released his
gut, hoping the venom had already begun to work, and threw a lightning-quick punch
at Marquis’s jaw, connecting with an audible crack. The warrior’s head snapped back,
and Saber followed the attack with a brutal series of strikes to Marquis’s eyes, hoping
to blind him once and for all.

Marquis leapt to his feet in an effortless motion and took a leisurely step back.
He spit out a mouthful of blood and smiled.

S
miled
.

And then he slowly raised his right fist, the one containing the ancient battle-worn
cestus, and peeled it off his hand, cracking his knuckles in anticipation. “You want
to do this old school?” he drawled. And then he bowed in a satirical, old-world gesture
and snarled like a primordial beast. “By all means, let’s dance, devil.”

He grasped Saber by the collar of his shirt and yanked him up from the ground. And
then he unleashed a furious barrage of punches, jabs, and uppercuts on the weakened
prisoner, trading targets at will between Saber’s torso, face, and head. Saber felt
like he was being lashed by a violent storm: a mad, turbulent, and unrelenting cyclone.
There was no mercy. There was no momentary reprieve. There was only Marquis Silivasi
and his never-ending fury descending upon Saber with practiced precision and ease.
Certain that several of his ribs were broken along with his jaw—at least one lung
had collapsed as well—Saber doubled over and, at last, held his hands up in a gesture
of surrender.

He wasn’t hoping for mercy.

He knew there would be none forthcoming.

Just the same, if he couldn’t best his enemy with brawn, then he had better find a
way to employ his brains. To use words, if possible.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked through gritted teeth, knowing the question sounded
as absurd to Marquis as it did to him. Obviously, there was an endless array of reasons.
But what he really meant to ask was…
why now
? “I mean, other than the usual reasons,” he added, his tone as flippant as possible
considering the overwhelming pain he was in.

Marquis just stared at him with contempt and slowly shook his head. “You are a lot
of things, son of Jaegar, but stupid? Not hardly.”

Saber was just about to reply when he suddenly felt his legs grow weak beneath him.
His kneecaps seemed to rotate, then buckle; and just like that, he sank to the floor,
kneeling unintentionally before his enemy and struggling not to topple over completely.

Marquis placed a heavy boot against Saber’s chest and shoved him onto his back. He
bent over and tugged at his legs, stretching them into their natural prone position,
before straddling Saber’s broken body, descending to one knee on either side of his
soon-to-be corpse, and glaring down at him with lethal intent. Baring a jagged claw,
he used the talon to slice through Saber’s shirt, ripping it from neckline to hem,
exposing the soldier’s chest; and then he licked his savage lips. “Know this,
brother
…” He spat the last word with utter contempt. “I will feast on your heart after you
are dead and deliver your severed head to Vanya on a silver platter. And you will
have all of eternity in hell to contemplate
why
.”

Saber felt nothing.

He did…
nothing
.

Marquis Silivasi was a force to be reckoned with, an immovable mountain of strength
and resolve. There were no words in the English language, or Romanian, for that matter,
that would save Saber from his impending fate; and he would rather just die like a
man.

“Then do it,” Saber grit out defiantly, locking his gaze with his executioner’s.

Marquis winked at him in assent, drew back his powerful arm, and prepared to strike
the heart—hopefully, swiftly enough to remove it in one fell swoop.

Saber held his breath.

He refused to shut his eyes or look away.

He would die as he had lived, boldly and without apology.