Page 2 of King of Immortal Tithe (Darkmourn Universe 2)

This child was certainly a victim to starvation. But regardless, its blood would do. It would serve its required purpose.

Once the vials were filled, the vampire’s corpse melted beneath me, staining the ground in a puddle of bones and mush. Two was not as much as I had hoped to get, but it would do. It would keep me from needing to leave Tithe for a month or so. Two vials for two blissful and painless months. Only then I would have to hunt again.

I left the bakery’s cellar and the melted stain of death in my wake. Vials tucked carefully into the pouch at my waist, the knife gripped in my hand. Who knew when another vampire would take their opportunity to show themselves to me.

The world beyond was quiet, almost peaceful. I walked the empty, forgotten streets of Darkmourn, cutting down the main cobbled pathways with my bounty bumping against my hip. Only the clink of the full flasks and my padding footsteps gave me company as I began my return to Tithe.

I could hardly imagine what life was like for the occupants of this town before the curse had spread. But one thing I was certain of was they had something I did not: freedom. Must have been nice. I admired the wall-less view around Darkmourn, looking towards the faint outline of rolling hills and the dense forests which filled the horizon for miles.

Even the towering, charred remains of Castle Dread did not displease me. I drank it all in every time I came, hoping the vision would sustain me until my next visit.

Tithe was not like this. It was not a place of freedom like the outside world. It was surrounded by a wall so high it blocked out the view of anything and everything beyond it. Many of Tithe’s occupants hardly cared for the world beyond the walls. But I did. Even when I did not need to leave to get blood, I longed to step outside if only for a moment, just to see, to look around and let my eyes stretch for as far as they desired.

Trading freedom for safety was the price to pay for being kept alive. Most felt it was a fair trade. I was still not convinced.

The coughing began as I stood knee-deep in a shallow lake closest to Tithe’s boundary, scrubbing the vampire’s melted flesh from my leather breeches until the body of water turned grey. The sound was terrible. Wet gargles scratched up through my throat and made my lungs feel as though they would implode if I took a full breath in.

A sudden pain clamped across my chest and squeezed. I stumbled a step, almost falling completely, as the world seemed to shudder beneath my feet. If it was not daylight, I would have sent a message to all the vampires close enough to hear that I was ready for the taking.

I caught the droplets of blood in my cupped hands. It filled my mouth with the taste of copper, staining my teeth red and leaking out the corners of my lips. At least it happened now. The thought was not helpful. These fits were warnings my body was failing. They would start small, tickling spasms in my chest. Soon, becoming heavy rasping breaths which sounded wet and gargled in my chest, as though water filled my lungs and I drowned in it.

It was the warning I needed to know when it was time to devour a vial of my bounty. Vampire’s blood was the only thing which gave me relief from the pain and the impending doom the agony revealed. I was dying, and only one form of medicine could keep death from claiming me. Medicine. I had tried to convince myself that was what the blood was. It made drinking it less… sickening.

It took a while for the coughing to finally calm before I had the energy to clean myself again. Only when I scrubbed my blood from my hands and face did I sit myself on the bank of the lake, weak and tired.

Begrudgingly, I accepted my need to drain a vial immediately. I just sat there, trying to catch my breath as I felt the familiar draining sickness dance through my body, as though it rejoiced to be overcoming me again.

A shiver passed across my arms. The weather was growing increasingly colder with the welcoming of autumn, my most hated season of all. I could only face sitting in my stupor for so long before taking one vial from the pouch, uncorking it with my teeth and draining the contents into my mouth.

As I drank the vampire’s blood, I allowed myself to think of him. Small and pathetic, crumbling beneath my touch as I held the stake in his chest. I recognised the guilt as I did the sickness within me, trying to justify my murder by reminding myself why I did what I did…

And who I did it for.

Get up.

I repeated this mantra to myself four times before I got the strength and courage to stand again. It would take hours before the vampire’s blood finally took effect. Until then, I just had to hope another fit did not return.

One vial left. Fucking pathetic, I should have found more.

Angry at my truth and failure, I discarded the empty, pink-stained vial and smashed it beneath my feet as I trod back towards Tithe’s outer wall.

Today had started like shit, and I had a feeling it would not end any better.

2

Isqueezed my tired body through the narrow gap beneath Tithe’s boundary wall, far later than I would have liked to return. It was still morning, but I’d wasted precious minutes waiting for the Watchers atop the towering stone wall to turn their backs for me to slip inside town.

Any other day, I would scrutinise my narrow frame compared to the built, muscled bodies of the other young men within Tithe. At the fruitful age of twenty-five, I was still slight and painfully short. My body knocked years off my appearance, but without it, I would never have been able to leave and enter Tithe at my leisure. I was thankful for that.

Dirt and crumbled stone scratched across my chest and belly as I dragged myself through the hole which time had worn away. Only when I passed entirely beneath could I surrender a breath of relief.

Tithe was a cramped place. Narrow streets, and old black beamed and white painted buildings which seemed to lean on one another for support. I could see it now, through the thinning of trees I stood within.

My hand went to the pouch at my belt, fingers dusting over the swell of the glass vial within. Then I ran, as fast as my legs allowed, through the small patch of woods, across a field littered with the sheep who grazed upon the little patches of grass they could find this time of year.

With any luck, Auriol would have still been asleep when I reached home. At least I hoped so. It would have saved me the need to lie and if there was one thing I hated more than the Watchers and the immortals who commanded them; it was lying. Even if I was the self-proclaimed master of it.

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