Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (43 page)

“There are more,” he said, no longer boasting and prideful. “I need more.”

“For what?”

“Ssso glad you asked.” He moved closer to her and his voice dropped an octave. “How would you like to rule with me, cousssin? How would you like to sssee the beginning of a new era and the fall of that ssshe-bitch’sss mother?”

The smile Morina gave unsettled me in its wicked sincerity. She fingered the patch over her eye almost idly, as if it bothered her. The gesture drew Damokles’s attention to it.

Morina said fiercely, “I’d love to.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if she actually meant it and hoped silently that she would not betray me. She turned her attention to me, then, and held out her hand. “Would you like to see, little pet? Would you like to see what has befallen those nasty vampires?”

I took the hand she offered and rose to my feet. Morina steered me by the elbow as she gave me the opportunity to gaze through the narrow windows.

Each cell we passed, I tried to school my face, to prepare myself for what I might see, though I had my back to Damokles. Each cell was dark but not dark enough to conceal the lifeless figures shackled along the walls.

Part of me prayed I wouldn’t find Renata in such a state, strung up and left like an empty vessel, Damokles’s precious trophy queen chained to a wall.

Anger flared in me.

Morina’s hands moved intimately on my body, sliding through my fur and cradling my hips as she guided me to the door in the middle. Her lips brushed my ear as she whispered, “What do you think, pet?”

I gazed through the slit and into the cell beyond. On one wall, I made out the figure of a man chained at wrists and ankles. The shadow of his head lolled forward as if he were unconscious. On the other, another figure was bound. I tried to look away when Morina pressed the tips of her fingers into my skin, and I knew with a sinking feeling that there was something she wanted me to see.

I stared at the figure more intently then, studying the shadowy outline. Strands of hair hung in waves about her face and heartache and desperation gripped me.
Renata
.

She did not raise her head, either because she did not sense me there or because she was too weak to do so. I traced the curves of her figure over and over, trying to be sure that my mind was not playing tricks on me. And then Morina steered me to the next cell and the next, though I stared into them in a sort of detached daze.

“Hmm?” she prompted before releasing me. I sank back to all fours and kept my gaze on the black stone under my feet.

I nodded in false approval, hoping Damokles would not see through my façade.

“Doesss ssshe ssspeak, Morina?”

“Rarely, dear cousin.” She gripped my neck tightly. “But she approves, don’t you? The vampires were not very kind to her. They deserve what they get, don’t they?”

“Yesss.”

My response seemed satisfactory enough as Morina and Damokles began to converse in hushed voices as we ascended the stairs and left the dank prison behind us.

While they talked, I listened to their conversation, trying to follow along and only missing a few words here and there. I learned that Damokles planned on sending a party out to retrieve another clutch of vampires, another trophy queen. He had his sights set on a clan somewhere near a town known as Jasper. Carried away by my thoughts, I lost track of their conversation.

Somehow, I had to find a way to get past Damokles’s guardsmen. Becoming a guard was the only way I could think to get close to Renata without arousing suspicion.

I wondered what Iliaria would suggest and another idea dawned on me. I shook the thought away nearly as soon as it entered my mind. If I challenged one of his guardsmen, it would raise suspicion…or worse. I could get myself killed in the process.

How then was I to gain access to the cellblocks? The answer eluded me.

Damokles continued to give Morina a guided tour of his stronghold. There was a dark beauty to the place, a sort of gothic resonance that made it cold and yet strangely warm. Damokles boasted almost thoughtlessly, as if such boasting was merely reflex to him. Whether he trusted Morina or no, he was proud of the world he had made for himself.

And given his hatred of vampires, there were an awful lot of them mucking about. We passed several in the winding halls, going about whatever daily tasks Damokles and his henchmen had set for them. They kept their heads down until we had passed. A few of them looked up only when they thought our backs were turned, and I caught the same resounding hatred I felt echoed in their eyes. When they noticed me, many of them glared with the contempt of caged tigers.

They were vampires, Azrael’s gift given out of love and mercy, twisted and caged by Damokles, who had taken that gift and turned it into something it wasn’t meant to be.

I watched one of the vampires out of my peripheral; he was garbed foot to head in gray fur pelts and kept a careful watch on us as we passed. Damokles came to halt. “What are you ssstaring at?” he hissed.

The vampire replied in a language I didn’t understand. The dark halo of hair around his face and deep blue of his eyes put me in mind of Vasco, and his memory clawed at my heart. If only Vasco was here, I thought. He would know what to make of all this and what to do about it.

Damokles raised his hand as if to strike the vampire. The vampire stood unflinching as his features blazed with challenge. He did not care if Damokles struck him. In fact, he seemed to invite it.

Damokles followed through on his threat, striking the vampire across the cheek hard enough that his head whipped sharply to the side. I thought he would stop there, but he didn’t. Damokles continued to strike him until the vampire was on his knees. Damokles grabbed a handful of his dreadlocked black hair and kept beating him.

Morina casually cleared her throat. “Cousin?”

Damokles seemed to come back to himself for a moment as one of his ears swiveled in her direction. He flung the beaten vampire away and left him to fall in a crippled heap on the floor.

“Asss weak asss they are,” he hissed and returned to Morina’s side, “their defianccce continuesss.” A tremble of rage or disgust shuddered visibly through him, making his tail lash behind him like the angry end of a whip. “Ssshall we continue?”

“If it pleases you, cousin.”

They carried on down the hallway, and I remained where I was. Damokles did not turn to look at me, but Morina spared a glance.

She touched Damokles’s arm to bring him to a halt before she strode back to me. She knelt and placed a hand beneath my chin to lift my gaze to hers. “Go back to our chambers and wait for me.”

“Yesss, my lady.”

I waited until they had rounded the corner at the end of the hall to turn back to the vampire. Surely, Morina didn’t really believe I was ready to lock myself away in a room and wait idly for her.

I had a better idea. I checked the length of the short hallway in which I stood, glancing down each of the three halls that branched off it to make sure no one was there.

I went to check on the unconscious vampire. He didn’t rouse when I stood beside him and so I nudged him with the back of my hand.

The vampire caught my wrist. I caught a flash of something in his hand before he raised it toward my midsection. I jerked my arm and rolled away from him.

I rolled onto my feet, kneeling with one hand on the cold stone beneath me. The vampire stood before me holding a makeshift knife made of stone in his right hand.

I drew my ears back. “Idiot!” I said in English, trying to keep my voice as low as I could make lest we be overheard. “I’m trying to help you!”

His jaw clenched as he glared at me. “Why would you help a vampire?” Thankfully, he kept his voice low and spoke clear enough English that I could understand him.

I thought of Damokles’s guardsmen and my aspirations to gain access to the dungeons. If there was a better plan than enlisting the aid of my brothers, I didn’t see it.

“I cannot talk long,” I said, listening intently in case someone approached. “But sssufficcce it to sssay, I want thisss hell no more than you do.” I inched toward him and he raised the knife in warning between us and I paused. “Will you help?”

“What trickery is this?”

“No, not trickery. Will you rissse and aid your kind in their time of need?” I asked. “You have three ssseconds to decccide.” I sank back, counting silently in my head. On the third second, the vampire nodded sharply. “Good.”

“What do you plan?” he asked.

I ignored his question, because I honestly hadn’t thought that far. I asked, instead, “Are there othersss among you that will aid usss?”

He nodded again, his brows knitted.

“Ssseek them, quietly,” I said.

Confused or not, the vampire agreed, and I slipped from the hallway in search of our room.

Time. A good, developed plan would take time to set into motion and unfold. Time I didn’t have.

The more conquests Damokles’s made, the closer he came to his goal of overthrowing the Draculian Empire. He planned on using the vampires to aid his cause.

Well, I planned on using them to aid mine. Cuinn, I thought with a slow smile, would be proud.

*

I made it back safely to our chambers and awaited Morina’s return. While I waited, I perched on the edge of the small bed and pondered my encounter with the vampire. I turned the tiny knob on the lamp beside the bed, giving the flame more wick to burn and sending a brighter light throughout the room. I still hadn’t figured out exactly what I would do with the vampires that agreed to help me. Would the vampire I had spoken with recruit them quietly? I certainly hoped so. Even more strongly, I hoped that he asked only those he trusted. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that none of the vampires had joined Damokles out of self-interest.

I rolled onto my back, careful of the wings stretched beneath me.
What would Renata do?
I repeated the question in my mind, as if the answer would come to me if I asked myself over and over.
Renata
. I exhaled loudly. I was so close to her and yet she was still beyond my reach. Every impulse and instinct in my heart told me to run to her.

But I couldn’t. I restrained myself because if I ran to her I would only expose myself, and any notion of a plan would be thrown out the window. Damokles’s guards would apprehend me, or worse. I had to play along with Morina’s game and my guise and hope that my reckless impulsivity in the hallway with the beaten vampire didn’t cost me dearly. I played the scene over and over in my mind, becoming nearly paranoid about it. Had someone been listening? Surely, Damokles had placed spies to keep watch on us, or did he trust Morina so completely?

As soon as I thought it, I knew better.

Damokles’s trusted his own brilliance to hold Morina to his plan. He was arrogant and the encounter with the vampire was just a childish temper tantrum. I stood and paced the room, trying to keep my mind distracted and my heels from itching with the urge to be closer to Renata.

How was it I still seemed to get strong feelings about others without the empathy? I hadn’t realized until I thought about it that I still relied on my senses, though they were not as acute as my power when I was a vampire.

Was I leading myself falsely to believe that the vampire in the hall would truly aid me? I didn’t think so. His hatred for Damokles was too sincere and he had not bothered to conceal it. I thought of the vampiress behind the bars of her prison.

The prisoners would be of little use to me unless they were fed, but how was I to feed them? There too, I couldn’t fathom how to feed them without getting caught. I passed by the slightly ajar door of the closet in my pacing and it occurred to me we didn’t have any new clothing with us. I sighed at the distracted thought.

Mayhap, I was not as adept at conspiracy as I thought. Surely, if I were, I would have come up with a dazzling plan by now, or at least, a better and more passable one than I had.

A hand clamped over my mouth as someone yanked me backward in a steel grip. Panic sang through my limbs as my pulse increased.

“Ssshhh, don’t startle the entire keep by screaming.” The familiar voice behind me lilted with amusement.

I jerked my arms up and peeled her hand off my mouth. “What the bleedin’ hell are you doing here?” I whispered. My heart hammered in my chest and I took slow breaths to calm down.

Iliaria, garbed from shoulder to foot in her black and gold brocaded coat, smirked devilishly at my surprise. “You really didn’t think I’d simply let you go and walk in here alone, did you?”

“You’re going to get yourssself killed!”

“And you’re not?” Her perfect brows arched high.

“How did you get in?”

“Ah, that,” she said. “He’s not had his little witchlings spell the place to keep any of us from evanescing in and out.”

“Where are the othersss?”

“Near enough,” she said, then added in response to the look I gave her, “They’re not here, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Morina ssshould be here any moment,” I said.

“Have you found
her
?” Iliaria asked, ignoring my comment and searching my features.