Page 7 of Marked for Desecration

“Take these and burn them.”

His head snapped up and his mouth fell into an ‘o’ before he quickly shut it. He nodded his head, grabbed the items, and left my sight like a scared mouse.

I kept walking past the other rooms and toward the main lounge located in the middle of the place. This mansion housed ten available bedrooms along with plenty of other communal rooms. It was amazing how the Cromwells were able to maintain it with their rugs, runners, and drapery while the surrounding towns were destroyed and in rubble.

In the world we lived in, vampires continued to live in luxury while our meals continued to struggle to survive out in the wild.

Serves the humans right. We needed to keep them like feral beasts in order for them to breed more survivable offspring for us. Who wanted to feed from the weak?

“Good morning, Mrs. Cromwell,” came another familiar voice.

I nodded my greeting at another one of the familiars in the house while continuing past him. He was an older gentleman with graying hair. It was amazing to think that he still harbored hope he would be turned one day and cheat death. Clan Letos played mind games. Manipulation was the preferred tactic second only to outright savagery and insanity.

Changing my mind about the lounge, I took the stairs down and explored the rest of the mansion. It was the only place I haven’t explored during any of my visits. The further down I went, the more dilapidated it became. The main floors were kept, as if in a time capsule, for entertainment purposes. But down here, the temperature dropped, and the walls became jagged stone.

A scream erupted from somewhere and it made my nipples harden.

I followed the sounds of moans of agony until it brought me to a fascinating room with low hanging ceiling lights.

I sighed pleasantly as the smell of fresh blood stained the air. The sound of a struggle stole my attention. I quickened my footsteps giddily to find a familiar strapped to a chair with his gut flayed open and his intestines hanging to the ground.

He was young, too young to find himself in such a predicament. I wondered what naughty things brought him down here for this kind of punishment.

My ears twitched when the sound of a soft footstep came from the side. I swiftly slunk into the shadows and watched from a distance. Whoever the executioner was, he probably knew I was there and chose to ignore my presence.

He drug in metal materials that glinted under the lights and began sawing off flesh a piece at a time. The human moaned through his broken jaw, unable to let out a scream.

He must be the family butcher.

“Are you having fun over there or are you here with a fucking message?”

Another asshole.

“Figured you needed some supervision.”

He looked over his shoulder, with a menacing grin. “William talks a lot about you. I know exactly who you are. Your ass isn’t supposed to be down here where the meat hits the pavement.”

I scoffed while secretly fuming at his insinuation that I was a kept wife.

“Your husband wouldn’t want you to break a nail playing in the Letos sandbox. Now, run along and do whatever it is the lady of the house does. Go fuck some familiars or something.”

My nails lashed out across his back, and he swung his blade at my face. Ducking, I clawed him one more time before kicking the leg of the chair in front of him, sending the half dead human tumbling into the ground, dirtying what was to be our meal.

“Tell William, he’ll need another butcher because this one is incompetent,” I snapped.

He growled, throwing the large, serrated knife my way. It nicked me as I dodged it, sending a sharp prick of pain up my arm.

Suddenly, he gurgled and fell down right over the meat, his own neck spurting blood, and adding to the pool beneath him.

I looked at him with apathy and sighed, lifting my arm up to lick my wound. My skin lightly itched as it began stitching together slowly.

“Ian, don’t forget your clothes next time.”

I turned and made my way back up the stairs.

ChapterThree

Valka

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