Page 86 of Vows Forged in Blood

I cringe away from the monster before me, and his crimson eyes dance with amusement and…triumph. My stomach churns violently at that expression but I try to keep my thoughts from running away, to use everything that Nova and Wesley taught me to stay calm and in control.

“I thought perhaps the leech gave you a bit too much,” the Revenant muses.The leech? I frown and he arches a brow. “Don’t you remember?” he asks in a mocking tone. My brow furrows as I try to pull the last memory from the fog in my mind. Alaric and I had argued over my turning…I’d stormed from the cabin in a huff and gone to the pond…and then Highspear?—

I gasp as I finally remember: the feigned threat, the sharp pinch at my neck, the heavy feeling settling over my entire body. He’d given me some kind of drug and brought me to a Revenant? But…why? My brain is whirling, trying to fight past the panic to find the right answer, until it finally becomes clear as glass:

Traitor.

The Revenant chuckles, the sound like carriage wheels rolling over gravel.

“Ah, figured it out then, have you?” I don’t understand everything, but I know that I’ve been betrayed and understand enough to know that nothing good is going to come from me being in this place with a Revenant. How long have I been unconscious? Does Alaric know that I’ve been taken? Does he know where I am? Terror starts to rise, but I press it away. Wesley told me to think of the fear as a physical thing inside my mind, something that I could imagine taking in my hands and putting away in a closet or trunk, and closing it up tight until it's time to deal with it.

So I do as my dear friend instructed and imagine the fear as a large black stone. I imagine putting it inside of a heavy, iron box with an even heavier, iron lock. I imagine turning the key and then burying that box far beneath the earth behind the cabin, near the cairns that still stand in memory of Kane, Descartes, and Isaiah. My friends can guard this fear for me until I’m ready to face it.

And, unbelievably, it works. I feel an almost cold detachment from the fear, as if it isn’t mine for the time being, not a part of me at all. I press my shoulders back and rise to my feet. The Revenant watches, unconcerned with my movement, and rises as well. He’s not quite as tall as Alaric, and has a rangier build, but I know he’ll still be incredibly strong and agile. All Revenants are, as all vampires are. The legends say that the two species were one and the same long, long ago, but at some point, the Revenant line somehow split off and they became what they are now. It’s why they’re so similar: both supernaturally strong and fast; both have keen senses, fangs, and a thirst for blood; both can be poisoned with silver.

“What do you want with me?” I ask, surprised by the lack of tremble in my voice.

The Revenant studies me for a long moment, and I force myself not to squirm beneath his gaze. I am a Consort. I am theHigh General’s mate. I am Dahlia fucking Clayburn, my father’s firebrand. I will not be cowed by this monster, not like before. I jerk my chin up in defiance and something flashes in his crimson eyes. Amusement, a touch of admiration and surprise, and…something else I don’t want to name, something that makes my stomach churn.

He ignores my question, and instead says, “You know, I wasn’t sure what to make of a leech coming into my territory, claiming to want to betray his own kind all those months ago.” Despite knowing the truth, I deny his words, hoping that somehow I’m wrong, that I’m misremembering or that Luca had a reason for what he did and then someoneelsecame and took me…

“No. No, I don’t believe you. None of Alaric’s soldiers would betray Braxhlem like this. They would never work with something as vile as you.”

“Hmm, is that so?” He turns and nods towards the door and a few moments later, Luca steps into the cell. The vampire somehow looks proud and ashamed all at once, and something deep inside of me tears free from its cage. It wasn’t a mistake. He did this. And he’sproudof himself for bringing me here? After I was kind to him? And what of the vow he made to Alaric? To break that is beyond incomprehensible.

“You fucking bastard!” I scream. I lunge at him as he steps up beside the Revenant, something primal and animalistic taking over my body and roaring inside of me to tear his fucking throat out. The chains pull taut and yank me backwards before I can get my hands on him. He has the decency to look guilty, but that doesn’t do much to assuage my rage. He tenses and averts his gaze.

“How could you?!” I roar, seething and pulling at my chains until the metal bites painfully into my wrists, the sharp metalcutting into my skin and drawing blood, but I don’t care. I keep pulling, desperate to tear him to pieces.

“Oh, I quite like this one,” the Revenant muses. “She’s much changed since the first attack,” he says, studying me in a way that makes my skin crawl. “Not at all the meek, worthless creature they described. Hid under a carriage, did she not? Cowered like a dog?”

I grind my teeth, knowing that he’s not entirely wrong and being all the angrier for it. I cut my eyes back to Luca, fury spiking as all of the pieces begin to click into place like those wooden puzzles da made when Enid and I were young.

“You were involved in that as well then? That’s why you looked so guilty when I first met you??” No answer. “And now you’ve drugged me and kidnapped me and brought me to this creature? Why? How could you do this?” Again, he doesn’t respond. “Fucking answer me!!” I scream.

He finally snaps his gaze up, all guilt gone, his eyes blazing with a fury I wouldn’t have thought him capable of.

“Because I am more than a worthless foot soldier!!” he yells, fangs snapping free. All of those boyish, innocent features that made me once feel sympathy for the vampire disappear, transforming into something dark and desperate and feral. “He didn’t think I was worthy of being a sergeant, passed me over time and time again! He never picked me for important missions. He didn’t even think I was worthy of guarding his precious little Consort! But I AM FUCKING WORTHY!!” I flinch back as he roars. He’s breathing hard and the Revenant watches on with a look that’s a mix of annoyance and pity and disgust.

“How?” I demand. “How did you orchestrate the attack on the road? How did you get me from the camp with no one noticing you carting my limp body around??”

“I have wielder blood in my family,” he says, shoving his shoulders back proudly. “I hid the truth so that I could beturned.” Wielders are rare these days and are forbidden from turning. There were many instances years ago where wielders attempted, and when the vampiric magic that made the turning possible bonded with the magic in their blood, their gifts became too strong to be contained. Their bodies were literally ripped apart from the inside, like a dam bursting from all of the raw power. I don’t know why Luca was able to withstand the turning. Perhaps his wielder magic was all but dormant untilafterhe turned, like the vampiric magic powered his own somehow? I suppose it doesn’t really matter either way. He survived and now we’re here. No use dwelling on thewhysandhowsof it all, at least not in this moment. If I live past tomorrow, maybe I’ll think on it more.

“I can shade objects completely and hold a shield for a time.”

“Shade…” I frown and then gasp when realization hits. “You were able to hide the Revenants and sneak them through the pass, to hide their scents from the vampires and get them past the guard stations.”

Luca grins, a wild gleam in his eyes. “Exactly. And the High General tried to say that I wasn’t good enough?! I brought his enemies into his home right under his nose,” he adds smugly.

Before, I’d had the urge to protect this vampire, to befriend him and try to ease his feelings of not belonging and disappointment. No longer. Now, I want him to hurt. Now, I want him to fucking bleed and I make the silent vow that one day, I’ll make that happen. For now, I’ll settle for using the barbed tongue of mine that mum always loathed. I think in this situation, even she would turn a blind eye.

I huff out a mocking laugh. “A mere dozen or so Revenants? If you were truly powerful, truly worth much of anything at all, you’d be able to sneak a whole contingent of Revenant forces into Braxhelm, to overtake the camp and then the entirecontinent easily. And alas, your planfailed. I was right to pity you, you pathetic little worm.”

The jibe hits just as I intend, and Luca’s face flushes with anger and shame. Despite everything, I smirk at him then, pulling myself up to my full height and looking down my nose at him the way a true Consort should, the way a prince’s fuckingmateshould.

The Revenant laughs in earnest then, making Luca flush even more.

“I can see why Alaric so enjoys you, little human. I’m so glad you’ll be with us for the foreseeable future.” My blood goes cold and the fear pounds on the top of the box beneath the earth. I will it away, beg my fallen guard to keep it under lock and key.

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