Page 3 of House of Vampires and Flame

Which meant a larger group wasn’t far behind.

Shriekers knew no fear, and they had one single purpose—serve Ruin. They’d been hunting me for eight years now, ever since I’d escaped their master at the age of eleven.

They were monster and machine blended into one, put together by my father’s foul magic. These abominations had demonic faces, scaled necks, and rattlesnake tongues. Their scorpion-like claws and legs were part machinery. Those were the basic packages of Shrieker soldiers. Some of them were upgraded with lethal tentacles.

I called them Shriekers because they shrieked like hundreds of nails scratching through glass when they found their mark.

The scouts closed in on us, one female and two males. Amid the Shriekers’ ranks, a female gave the orders.

“Princess,” the female greeted, parting its black slit lips to reveal four rows of serrated teeth. “You’ve sunk so low. Master would disapprove.”

The Shriekers never called my father God of Ruin outside his realm, as he didn’t want the world to learn about his existence before he returned to his former glory. And to completely recover and regain his form, he’d need to feed on me. I was born for that purpose alone—to drain the magic from the land for him, then to be fed on by him endlessly.

My throat closed in fear while icy hatred burned in my chest.

Sy leapt from her crouch, her claws extending and swinging toward the female’s left eye. The female let out a shriek and jerked its head back, but Sy had gotten the monstrous eyeball with the tip of her claws.

“Hello to you too, nameless,” she said with a sweet smile. Sy was most vicious when she beamed and acted friendly. “Here’s our gift to you, love.” She flung the dark eyeball at the female Shrieker’s demonic face.

The female shrieked again and leapt back in shock, not expecting us to have leveled up. In the absence of being tortured and fed upon daily, we’d gained incredible strength.

“You’re too strong, Princess,” it hissed. “Master must know!”

“If you can live to tell Daddy,” Sy mocked.

The female lunged, its claws swiping down at our head. Sy jumped out of range of its strike and dashed toward the male Shrieker to her left. The male thrust a scorpion leg at our chest; Sy sidestepped to the right in a flash, then leapt several feet and crouched on its back.

Without a moment of hesitation, she embedded her claws into its skull, shattering its bones and scrambling its brain tissue. Its black blood shot out like thick grime when Sy yanked out her claws.

Well done, Sy! I cheered her. One down. Two to go!

I can count, she said smugly.

The remaining male Shrieker charged us, and Sy sailed from the back of its dead pal to meet the challenge. She twisted in the air, about to stab its neck, but a dozen tentacles burst out of its shoulders and caught us in their vise-grip.

Sy slashed at the tentacles that choked us, but they wouldn’t release us, threatening to crush our ribcage. The Shrieker’s piercing shrieks rang in our ears, and the female joined in. All I wanted was to clamp my hands over my ears to stop the terrible sound.

Sy gnashed her teeth and hacked at our captor frantically, her arms weakening, her breath wheezing. Pain exploded in our chest and spread everywhere until we couldn’t tell the source of the agony. I could feel two ribs on our left side cave in and crack. We sucked in a ragged breath, praying they wouldn’t pierce our lungs.

Sy’s arms went limp at the press of the tentacles.

“Master said to maim but not to kill the princess,” the female Shrieker hissed.

“Yes,” the male Shrieker hissed back. “We must cripple the princess to bring her back to Master.”

Cold panic seized Sy and me. For a second, we couldn’t hear or feel anything but the roaring fear that pounded into our bones. We’d rather die than be captured and delivered to that hellhole of ultimate horror. We’d have to find a way to end us on the road once our fate of captivity was sealed.

Then a shot of rage erupted into flames within me.

No, we wouldn’t be done today! Being born into slavery, we hadn’t really lived. Even after we’d escaped, we’d been constantly looking over our shoulder while living on the streets.

The world swam and stars blurred in front of my eyelids as the Shrieker tightened its grip, its tentacles binding us. The female stalked toward us, its snake tongue darting out as it hissed smugly.

If we blacked out, we’d be done.

Sy, I cried. I’m taking over.

Clawing through my blurry vision, I surfaced and shifted. My smaller humanoid form slipped through the tentacles and alighted on the grass. Whenever we were in my humanoid form, my current clothes came with me. While I was barefoot, I had an old shirt on and loose trousers.

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