Blood Life (30 page)

Surrendering her thoughts of revenge, she shifted her stance and moved carefully to the bed. There she sat down and attempted to clear her head enough to think straight. She recovered from his strike, physically, but mentally she felt ruined.

Overwhelmed with sensations of losing her mind, she couldn’t even remember how long she had been there with Lokee. Her thoughts drifted back to Roman and Devendra. She could not comprehend how they could really just forget all about her as Lokee had suggested.

No. It wouldn’t turn out that way. She knew it in her heart—every word that fell from Lokee’s lips was a vicious lie based on the artful manipulations of a powerful vampire. Nothing more than lies.

Again, Alethea sent out her vibrations. She concentrated on Devendra’s face, on her aura. She imagined her own essence flowing out the window and over the valley, through time, back to Roman. She filled him with her light. She instilled him with her presence. She imagined with her mind—as hard as she could—her would-be heroes rushing through the door, releasing her from Hell.

“Alethea? What are you doing?” Lokee’s voice cut through her meditation.

She opened her eyes to find him kneeling before her, his face dark and sad. Truly sad. Her heart skipped a beat, but she wasn’t sure if it was from pity or panic.

“Look, Lokee,” Alethea started, shakily, “let me go and we will never fight.” She did not know what point she was getting to but kept talking. “Let me go and you can live out your life; we will not interfere. Stop this war before it’s too late.”

He rose and moved onto the bed next to her. She inched herself away from him, beginning to sob, knowing his intentions were not good ones.

“Crying will do nothing. You use that method for sympathy much too often, Alethea. Can’t you think of anything else with your new mind?” he taunted.

She looked away from him, hiding her eyes, feeling ashamed.

Merciless, he continued, “Or, have you not decided to accept the facts about Roman and Devendra? They have no intention of rescuing you, believe me, I have made it easy for them to track you here.” He lied with such ease it sickened her. Reaching for her face, he took her chin in his fingers and forced her to look into his eyes. “They are not here; but I am, and I love you.”

The room was spinning. Alethea fought the urge to faint. Confusion seeped from her pores. In every possible way, she tried to deny him. “Get out of here!” she cried, angrily, through tears. “Get the hell away from me, you filthy, disgusting beast!” She shoved at him, pushing his hand from her face, disgustedly.

He laughed. “Oh, and I suppose you’re the purest of angels?” he asked, sarcastically. She stared at him blankly. “You and I are exactly the same, Alethea.”

“We are not the same!” she spit.

“Oh, but we are,” he assured her. He put his fingers to his lips, thinking. “You say you want me to leave you?”

She nodded.

“Hmm.” He acted as if he was pondering the thought. “No. I think I’ll stay right here with you.”

She took a breath of air and held it, anticipating his next words.

“And you will give me what you refused on our wedding night. You forget, Alethea, that you are lawfully mine. In body, mind and soul.” He moved too quickly for her to react. In an instant, he was on top of her, pinning her down with immense strength.

She tried, but failed, to push him off. “What are you doing? NO! Get off me!” she yelled in panic, squirming under his grasp.

The harder she fought, the more he forced. She couldn’t breath; he was crushing her. Soon, out of nothing but exhaustion, she knew he would win. “Never!” she tried, crying with all her heart in resistance.

“Now,” he retorted, panting from growing excitement.

“NOOOOOO!” she screamed. Her voice echoed against the castle walls.

He slapped her again, this time across the mouth. She could taste blood draining down the back of her throat.

By the time he retreated, she was close to unconscious. She couldn’t move her limbs; the fear had her paralyzed, but she could think. Perhaps her mind could take her away from the torment she faced. She was still able to send her essence in abundance to Roman and Devendra. She begged them to hear her, to find her before Lokee destroyed her spirit.

Sensing her mental pleas, Lokee reappeared above her with a darker face than before. Only, this time, there wasn’t a trace of sadness, only pure evil. “You will pay for that, Alethea.”

Taking shallow breaths, she begged of his forgiveness with slurred, broken sentences. He threw her on the stone floor, and as she tried to push herself up, barely regaining the ability to move her limbs, he kicked the middle of her back with his heel, forcing her ribs downward in vengeance against the hard stone floor.

She caught a sharp, excruciating pain as her ribs cracked like chicken bones. It only lasted a few moments, but those moments were filled with agony beyond belief.

She gasped for air, struggling to lift her head and face him. Pain shot down to the small of her back. Had he hit her there, too? She didn’t know anymore. Her vision became hazy, distorted. Colors didn’t look right to her. Inanimate objects cackled at her, pointing and whispering. A woman’s terse voice echoed through her mind:
Get up, Alethea! Get up and fight him!

Her hair was wet and matted against her face. “Devendra?” she asked aloud to the voice in her head.

She heard Lokee laugh. His voice seemed far away, though she knew he was still standing over her.

 Get up!

“No . . . please, no. I can’t . . .”

Get up, now! What are you doing? Get UP!

The pain. Why wasn’t she healing? Oh, pain. Pain that lasted more than only a few moments. What was this?

“What?” he demanded, without the least bit of softness for the damage he had already inflicted upon her. “You can’t what?” he ordered, crouching down to lean his face closer to hers.

She could only close her eyes and form words with her lips. The pain in her ribs returned and was too sharp—she couldn’t expend the energy to speak.

Silently, she begged for death to take her. She visualized an empty grave. She opened her eyes and searched the room for Azrael, the only one she had left to plead with in these final moments of judgment. She half-smiled when she saw him sitting solemnly in the window.

He shook his left index finger at her—refusing her!

Time stood still, suspended, as Azrael stepped down from the window sill and glided toward her. In his right hand, he held his scythe. The light in the room cast its reflection off it, causing her to close her eyes against the blinding ray. She forced them open again. Squinting, she noted droplets of blood trickling from the tip of the sharp blade. When the blood touched the floor in front of her, it dried, leaving nothing but a heap of dark red powder before her.

Standing directly in front of her, looking enormous from her position on the floor, Azrael reached down toward the back of her head and grabbed a handful of hair, ripping some from her scalp. In her stupor, only in the warped atmosphere of her mind, the sound of her hair breaking resembled the sound of guitar strings snapping. There was a strange, distorted tone that hung in the air after each strand gave. She heard this clearly; it intrigued but confused her.

Azrael pulled her across the hard floor, her wet skin gliding easily. He slid his hands beneath her armpits to pick her up to eye level. She looked at his eyes, only he did not have eyes, only empty sockets. The skin around where the eyeballs should have been was wrinkled and dried out. She swallowed the fear that rose abruptly in her throat and willed herself to search his sockets as if they had eyes.

His lips curled into a smile, acknowledging her inner battle, pleased that she would pretend he had eyes instead of gawking like the rest of them. It always annoyed him; made him want to rip out their souls without any explanation, against Fate’s timing. He pushed all that to the back of his mind and refocused on the young immortal in his arms. He removed his hands from her armpits.

Alethea became utterly aware of her status: she hung like a puppet in midair before the Angel of Death—her arms were stretched out lazily and her legs dangled beneath her.

She watched in terror as Azrael left her there to retrieve some of the blood-powder from the floor. Returning to his position before her, he opened his palm and slowly and deliberately blew the dust into her face, saying, “This will ease the pain; it will give you the magic needed to will it away. It does not seem you have the focus to do this yourself, but you must get through this torment to fulfill your destiny.”

Alethea gasped a full breath, closing her eyes against the grains that flew into her face.

Just like that, the pain was gone. She felt renewed energy and focus—it was like she understood how it was done, how to take her own pain away.

But why would Azrael help her? Was it because she was already dead? Was she one of his kind? What did he expect from her in return?

Stealing her thoughts from Azrael’s random display of affection, she was returned to her present situation. She moved her eyes to Lokee and watched in anguish as he unbuckled his pants. “No,” she whispered, desperately trying to crawl away from him.

“Will you deny me now,” he asked, moving in on her quickly, “or will you cooperate with me? How do you know that I cannot give you immense pleasure? Trust me, child, you will never forget this night.”

Alethea shook her head and punched at him as he bent down to gather her up and put her on the bed. He ravaged her with stiff, dry kisses. She moaned in disgust. He kissed her neck, then moved his way down to her belly. It felt like sandpaper to her, scratching her delicate belly skin, tearing at any innocence left inside her.

Ripping her blouse to reveal plump breasts, he fondled her and buried his face in them. She cried against him, sobbing for freedom.

Out of nowhere, her hands were bound and tied to the bed posts by an unseen force. She realized then that there was truly no more hope; he would have her and there was nothing she could do about it. In vain, she continued her struggle against him. He tore and shredded her clothes. He slugged her, close-fisted, in the face.

That was the blow that silenced her, for she had lost all respect for herself in her nakedness as he prepared her to receive him. Riddled with shame and disbelief, she prayed to a Goddess she did not yet know: Lillith. She prayed simply for release in death; it was all she had left to hope for.

Lokee, pleased by her sudden lack of struggling, threatened to beat her again if she so much as muttered a cry. Not wanting to be introduced to another blow like the last, she choked on her sobs. He suckled her breasts, biting at her nipples and making them bleed.

Alethea became completely motionless. He poked and prodded at her. She was wide open and undefended. As he lowered himself on top of her, intending to ravish her sexually, she turned her head to the side, trying to bury herself and hide in the pillows. She could pretend it wasn’t happening. She could pretend it was her Roman. In her head, she tried to dream of Roman making love to her, tried to see it on the wall like a movie.

Lokee hit her again, jealous of Roman even in her thoughts. He crept up slowly to kiss her mouth, but she hissed in his face. He stared into her face for a long, uncomfortable moment, then violently took what he wanted from her without so much as a second thought or passing remorse.

When he was finished, he withdrew and pulled himself beside her, cuddling the side of her limp body. She could feel his hardness stabbing into her thigh. He played with her more, moving his fingertips up and down her body softly. She shuddered, sobbing as silently as possible.

Lying there in the thick silence, Alethea suddenly became aware of Lokee’s intention. He wanted to create life, to punish her for rejecting him. She was expected to bear his child, to carry within her his seed. Another act of self-indulgence? To her horror, with her vampire mind, she reached inside herself to find a tiny glimmer of life. He had succeeded! Part of him now lived within her and the very thought burned a hole through her soul.

Forty Three

The loud, howling wind stirred even the eldest, mystical beings from deep hibernation. Lokee stood in a rich, green meadow, sending messages to them. He begged of their assistance in battle against Devendra and Lillith. As the beings started to whisper amongst themselves, the wind carried their voices into the air. Soon, they sang in chorus, shrieking loudly, causing Lokee to cover his sensitive vampire ears against the reverberations.

The trees cowered within feet of his approach and animals fled to avoid contact of any kind. Even the birds ceased their melodies in his presence. In this, Lokee found satisfaction. In feeling like a God and being feared by all living things around him, he gloated.

The voices of the beings grew louder, picking at him with questions and assumptions. They tormented his devious pledge of honor. He stood in a daze, pondering the next move he should take.

Suddenly, without intention, Lokee felt abandoned. Even with so many beings that had already agreed to join him in battle, he felt alone. The troops he already had, ready to risk their souls for his selfishness, were far from enough for him. He always expected more.