Authors: Ella J. Phoenix
Turning left on the top floor, he reached the chamber he was looking for.
The door was ajar, so Tardieh slowly pushed it open while checking for
any foreign sounds. The sight in front of him stole his breath. His father’s
headless body was hanging from the ceiling by its ankles. Small droplets
of blood dripped onto the floor beneath the body where a large red
puddle had formed. Tardieh’s head spun; his stomach convulsed
violently. He turned sharply away from the scene in a desperate attempt
to stop the heaves, but his eyes landed on the mantelpiece. His father’s
head had been carefully placed on top of it with the famous golden crown
as its base, holding it up, as if it were a souvenir. No, not a souvenir, a
statement. The king’s lifeless eyes stared straight at him. This time Tardieh
could not stop the gagging. Bending down, he emptied the contents of his
stomach onto the floor. After a few more of those, still quivering, he
remembered Zoricah’s words:
“If the circumstances were different, if your
father were…if he somehow let you make the choice, what would you do?”
Tardieh had vowed to try to convince his father to stop the attacks on the
draconian kingdom. What a fool he had been. Now Tardieh would not
have to convince his father of anything, would he? As Zoricah had
insightfully predicted, his father
had
let him make the choice by leaving
this life. Or should he say that the draconian demigoddess had made the
choice for him?
Closing his eyes, Tardieh forced the dark memories back to the
depths of his inimă and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes
again, his three friends and personal guards were watching him
apprehensively. His hatred might have shown a bit more than he had
expected. He raised his chin and stared back at them. ‚Let’s go.‛
The green sedan crossed the narrow wooden bridge toward the
farmhouse. Dawn was still a few hours away. A couple of minutes later,
he reached the main house, drove around it, and parked at the back
entrance located near the kitchen.
The house had been a great find. It had the necessary space for his
work—the nearest town was four miles away—and the previous owner
had suddenly suffered a horrifying car accident the previous year, at least
that was what the police records stated.
The back door opened, and two razbian guards stepped out onto
the back porch.
‚In the trunk,‛ he commanded.
Having done the drill more than a dozen times, the razbians took
the female vampire out of trunk, blocking her feeble attempts to escape.
While they carried her inside, he stayed behind to retrieve the box of
supplies he had brought; then he walked around the car and closed the
trunk. The smell of urine penetrated his nostrils. At first he thought it was
the new girl’s smell lingering, but no, this one was different. Slowly, he
turned around and scanned the area. There, behind a small poison ivy
bush. Two big brown scared eyes stared up at him. He recognized her at
once. She was the vampire he had picked up at a filthy underground bar
in Chicago a few months prior. He smiled back.
‚Well, well, well, my little kitten,‛ he said to the naked female.
‚How did you manage to get out?‛
In a rush of panic, the female ran toward the woods that permeated
the house. Despite her vampire speed, the little whore was not very
bright, and in no time, he'd managed to ambush her and capture the
fucking bitch. Twisting her arms around her back, he forced her down and
shoved her face on the dirt floor, effectively muffling her cries. The noise
must have alerted his razbian guards for they were on the porch again
when he arrived with the runaway female.
‚How the fuck did she manage to escape?‛ he barked
‚Hmm
Fucking razbians. He would deal with those two later. Now he had
a more important lesson to teach. He dragged the female back into the
house, crossed the kitchen, and threw her on the floor in the middle of the
living room.
It was an ample space, but it felt cramped with the several large
hospital beds lying around. Ten females—draconian, vampire, and
human—lay sleeping on them. His harem was full, all beds taken accept
one. The farthest bed on the left-hand corner near the staircase which led
to the second floor had its pillows organized in such way that pitifully
resembled a body lying underneath the covers.
‚You got to be fucking kidding me,‛ he said under his breath. His
little kitten had pulled off one of the oldest children’s tricks on his
mentally challenged and soon-to-be-dead guards. He felt his jaw tense in
rage.
He bent down and pulled the female vampire off the floor by her
naked shoulders. The first slap hit her on the right side of her face. It was
quickly followed by the second on the left, but they did very little to help
stop the screaming which seemed to have had increased.
He slowly reached for his back pocket and pulled out a small round
device that looked like a cigar cutter but it had a bigger opening and
sharper blades inside its aperture. ‚Let me make something very clear, my
dear. There will be no more escaping or kicking and certainly no more
screaming.‛
With his right hand, he easily forced her mouth open and pulled
her tongue out. Then effortlessly holding it there, he lifted the small
device. ‚I would like you to meet my new toy—the tighajra.‛
He shoved the round device into her mouth, capturing her tongue
in the aperture, then squeezed the gadget shut. The soft sound of her
tongue falling on the floor was muffled by her failed attempts to scream
while choking on her own blood. Holding her in place, he watched her
choke in panic and was amused by how resilient the vampire body could
be. It did not matter how much she sobbed and chocked, she would not
die by suffocation because she did not need to breathe to survive. The
only ways of killing a vampire were by decapitation or by the well-known
solar encounter. Another bout of chocking-sobbing-chocking woke him
from his fascinating assessment.
‚Tie her up on the operating table near the hallway,‛ he ordered
his guards. He would bring in more guards and reinforce the perimeter
just after he cut the hearts out of those two.
While the razbians followed his command, he went to check on his
newest rising star in another hospital bed near the kitchen. Bending over,
he delicately stroked the draconian’s long red curls, then her cheek. She
uttered a small distressed sound and tried to turn her head away, but it
barely moved. He smiled; the drugs were still working their magic. His
hand went even lower and caressed her naked breasts, then her
overextended belly. She was close, very close, he realized. ‚It is growing,
my dear. You will soon experience the joy that every female yearns for.‛
The park was mostly silent apart from the usual sounds of animals
foraging for food. Tardieh was getting impatient. It was almost four in the
morning and so far no signs of foreign activity had been reported. The
four vampires had arrived in the park almost one hour earlier and covered
the grounds twice. If Zoricah was plotting something, they would have
found evidence of it by now.
‚I don’t like this, my lord.‛ Hikuro, crouching beside him, was as
fidgety as Tardieh felt. ‚At least let me go meet with them in your place.‛
‚We have not found any vestiges of a trap in the park, Hikuro. If an
attack on my life is on Zoricah’s mind, she will do it as a surprise.‛
‚Exactly, my lord. You should not be here.‛
Tardieh took another look around. The narrow stone bridge where
the geographic coordinates on the note led to was one quarter of a mile
away. They were far enough to easily hide in the shadows but close
enough for a good vantage point of the meeting place.
Tardieh punched a button on his cellular and whispered, ‚Dyam,
what’s your status?‛
Dyam and Joel were keeping watch one mile north and east,
respectively. This way, the four friends had a closed circle around the
meeting point which was a short stone bridge over a deep walking track.
Half a second later, he got his answer. ‚Situation unchanged, my lord.‛
After repeating the procedure and receiving the same answer from
Joel, Tardieh went back to watching the bridge and its surroundings.
Three fifty-eight. Hikuro shuffled on his heels but refrained from standing
up.
Four a.m. Tardieh opened his senses to anything and everything in
the park and beyond. Suddenly, he heard high-pitched sounds deriving
coming from the west. They were soon followed by dark wings coming at
them. Bats. The bats that had been having their evening fruits on the
western side of the park were flying out, scattered in every direction, as if
fleeing from a threat.
‚My lord, something is scarring the animals here. It’s coming from
the west.‛ Tardieh could barely discern Dyam’s voice on the cellular over
the bats’ screeches, but before he could respond, he heard Dyam say, ‚I’m
going to investigate.‛
Tardieh did not waste time watching the distressed bats fly low
over his head. His trained eyes were already scanning the woods for any
sign of danger. Then he saw it. It was just a shadow, and it could have
easily been discarded as a trick of the moonlight, but he knew better.
‚My lord, three o’clock.‛
Tardieh’s head snapped forty-five degrees to the right as a response
to Hikuro’s reference. He saw it again. This time it was clearer. A huge
beautiful black panther crossing the woods toward the stone bridge at
high speed.
‚What the fuck?‛ If it wasn’t for his oversensitive vampire eyesight,
he wouldn’t have caught it for the beast was the fastest he had ever seen.
He was about to go after it when Hikuro’s hand on his forearm
stopped him. ‚Please, my lord. Let me intervene on your behalf. I beg of
you, stay here. Do not endanger yourself any further.‛
Tardieh’s gaze darted to the stone bridge, then back to his friend.
Tardieh was breathing hard and fast, he realized with a start. He was
feeling a strong sense of anticipation he had not experienced in a long
time. Hikuro was right; he was too involved in this case to think logically.
‚Okay. Go and find out what Zoricah wants.‛
Hikuro darted across the woods in a flash but kept himself hidden
in the shadows. Tardieh saw Dyam’s profile pop out from behind a
nearby tree. He signaled his friend to go to the bridge to provide Hikuro a
strong backup. No words were needed. In the long years of service to their
king, the three official guards had learned to take care of one another.
They were like brothers and would protect one another at all costs.
Tardieh valued and admired his guards’ loyalty not only to him but to
each other.
A quick movement on his left side made him snap his attention
back to the action. It was Joel taking Dyam’s place where he could easily
protect his king and provide backup for his friends on the bridge.
Hikuro stood up from his hiding place and started crossing the
bridge.
What the fuck was he doing?
Tardieh had to tilt his head slightly to
see what had caused such an open advance from his most loyal guard and
friend. A tall brunette beauty with short spiky hair stood on the opposite
end of the bridge. She was standing with open stance, her arms hung
loose on both sides of her hips. She was wearing black pants and a black
top that complimented her lean figure. Hikuro reached the edge and
stopped, facing the woman, the length of the bridge between them. From
Dyam’s descriptions, that must be the woman who had hypnotized the
vampire bouncer at the club. In an instant, Tardieh saw Dyam getting out
of hiding and place himself just behind Hikuro.
The brunette took a sharp breath at the sight of Dyam, as if
something had hit her, but quickly recovered. ‚I’m here to give an
important message to your king.‛ Her voice was quiet and husky. She
knew there was no need to shout. Vampires have overly acute hearing
abilities. They could hear a pin drop in a room full of screaming kids.
‚Give it to me and I’ll pass it on,‛ Hikuro said in the same low tone