Page 58 of Dragon Slayer

Treadwell clenched his jaw, muscle jumping in his cheek, and winced, like the movement pained him. “The kind of people who know exactly what a monster he is.”

Her chestached. But she kept her voice calm. “You’re admitting it, then: that you’re keeping him prisoner.”

“The Institute is,” Ramirez said. “We just follow orders.”

“The prisoner you’ve been talking to–” Treadwell started.

“He has a name. And a title.”

“Not anymore he doesn’t. Valerian is a violent, dangerous, manipulative liar. Whatever he’s been showing you, that’s not the real him.”

She thought of the golden-haired boy who loved his brothers. Who picked rosemary sprigs for his mother. Who needed his brother’s help to hold a bow steady, but who could race a horse bareback across uneven terrain at age six. She thought of his pain, and confusion, and fear at Gallipoli. Of the way he’d cried out for his father, and wished for his mother, the day the sultan took him.

She was so unspeakably angry she didn’t trust her voice. Pushed the words out through her teeth. “My father wants me to come to Virginia so bad? Fine. When do we leave?”

14

KNIFE FOR KNIFE

The Ingraham Institute

Virginia

There was a stark difference, Vlad had come to realize in the past few months, between knowing that you were immortal, andunderstandingthat you were.

He’d been born a vampire, and he’d been brought up to know exactly what that meant. Had sipped blood first from his mother’s wrist, and then from a golden cup – rich wolf blood that filled him with strength and stamina – and then from humans. Some willing, some not. No matter.

He wielded a sword with the strength of ten mortals. Could survive grievous wounds.Hadsurvived them, the worst of which was the last, the one dealt him by his brother.

He’d known that vampires could come back from almost anything. If the heart was intact, still beating, however faintly, a vampire could go to sleep in a close, dark place and take all the time they needed to heal. When they were whole, a wolf could wake them. Sometimes hours passed, sometimes days. Sometimes years. Sometimes centuries. Father had done that. And clearly, so had Romulus.

So he knew what immortality meant.

But not with this kind of firsthand certainty until he was sitting upright on a slab of metal, blinking against bright lights, assaulted by a tangle of unfamiliar smells and a rapid back-and-forth in a language he didn’t fully understand.

English, some part of his still-sluggish brain had supplied. The language of Britain.

Learning the language, as it turned out, had been the least difficult adjustment in this new century.

He’d been surrounded by a terrible abundance. There had been plenty of blood, human and wolf, offered to him in tall cups, and plenty of rich, belly-filling food. Plenty of water, and wine, and fruit juices, and something the humans called Gatorade.

Plenty of clothes, though they were thin, and tight, contouring to the shape of his body in a way that would have scandalized the people of his own time.

Plenty of incomprehensible devices that mortals used to communicate, and tabulate data, and treat one another medically. A nervous, sputtering young man in a long white coat and spectacles had attempted to show Vlad how to use a little glowing rectangle that he called an iPhone, squeaking in surprise when Vlad plucked it from his hand. He could use it, but he didn’t like it.

He didn’t like anything about this time.

Except having the chance to spar.

“You’re slow,” he said, stepping back and lowering his sword a fraction when it became apparent that the Baron Strange would collapse if Vlad carried through with his next strike. “Out of practice, or out of shape?”

“Both,” le Strange panted, letting his sword arm drop and reaching with the other to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He’d tied his long hair back – scratch that, his wife had doubtless braided it for him – but the fight had loosened it, and long strands clung to his sweaty neck. He plucked at them with a grimace. His white sleeveless shirt was translucent, clinging to him. He looked ready to fall over, his arms shaking.

Pathetic, Vlad thought.

Fulk le Strange was a wolf with a reputation, one that Vlad had heard murmurings of as a boy. When Fenrir would sit them down by the fire and tell tall tales of other immortals. Heartless, unflinching, vicious – le Strange was a legend among wolf kind. As old as he was, as strong as he was, he should have been backing Vlad across the packed sawdust of the training ring, giving as good as he got.

When the wolf leant forward and braced his free hand on one knee, gulping air, Vlad turned away, sneering, disgust sour on the back of his tongue. He went to the wall and the table there, where cloths, whetstones, his scabbard, and an assortment of other blades waited.

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