Vampire Enslavement (Lords of Bondage) (37 page)

Your rescue is imminent. Do not kill yourself in despair. There is life after blue rot. And it is one that will make you a very wealthy woman. Those monsters will pay.

The note was signed with the Agrippa seal. She wondered what it meant. Whoever had slipped the note under her door must be the conspirator aligned with Marly and Lucine. Instead of relief, the note spurred anxiety and worry over Cabrian. If anything happened to him it would rip her heart out. She didn’t want to be separated from him. As she paced the small chamber, the note disintegrated in her hands. Magic. What else could make a note turn to ash without fire? She sat down on the bed and debated what to do about the note. She would have to tell Cabrian and warn him of an inside threat.

About a half hour later she had an unexpected visitor. Visant Brannon, the druid, materialized inside the room. Cassia swiped the sheet from the bed to cover her nakedness. “How did you get in here?” She knew he wasn’t permitted entry.

“I have my ways. I need to talk to you privately.” Visant motioned for her to sit down on a nearby chair. He took a seat beside her. “I have been having visions of you. Troubling visions.” He let out a deep breath and removed his hood. “I’ve seen visions in which you betray us to the Romans.”

“I would never do that.” First the mysterious note, then this bizarre visit from a druid claiming to have visions of the future. Had Visant sent the note? Was he the conspirator? “Who sent you?”

“Nobody sent me. I came on my own. I’ve told no one of these visions. If I mentioned word of it, Diermont would order your death. I will only discuss the matter with Lord Ross. But first I wanted to talk to you to see if I could discern the truth.”

“I would never betray Cabrian. I love him.”

Visant looked deeply into her eyes as if he was trying to see straight into her soul. Finally, he nodded. “I see that you do. I know he feels the same about you. That is why I chose to handle the matter with discretion.”

Cassia thought of mentioning the mysterious note to Visant, but she kept quiet about it. She wasn’t sure who to trust. Cabrian was the only one she was sure of at the moment. “What else did you see in your visions?”

“Death. I saw death and it surrounds you.” He frowned. “You will cause death in this villa. Horrible suffering and great tragedy will be your legacy.”

“I don’t see how that is even possible. I’ve never harmed a soul. Human or hybrid.”

Visant looked perplexed. “I don’t understand the visions. They make no sense.” He stood and replaced his hood, once more obscuring his profile with the heavy black cloth. “I will speak to Lord Ross. Maybe he can shed some light on the matter.”

Visant dematerialized and Cassia was once more alone in the room. Her heart was pounding fiercely. Cabrian wouldn’t see her as a threat but the others already did. She wasn’t safe in this villa. Neither was Cabrian and the other warriors. Someone was about to betray them all but it wasn’t her.

Chapter 24

The key was in his pocket. It had fit the collar around his neck perfectly, leaving no doubt to Kiera’s guilt. Cabrian had given him the key after they had left Kiera in his room. He had suspected her involvement, but the lady was such a good liar that he had doubted himself. Now he knew the truth. Kiera had a naughty tendency to steal blood from unsuspecting, sleeping males. She could turn herself invisible. She was stronger than she appeared, and when she wanted something badly enough, she used physical force to get it. His cock swelled inside his trousers just thinking about it. He had used the key to remove the collar. He wanted to see the look on her face when she saw him without it. She knew the price she would have to pay for her transgressions. She would have to make herself available to him whenever he wanted, and not just during the heat. She would be his blood whore until he decided otherwise.

He made his way to the library where a meeting was taking place. Diermont had an announcement to make. He took a seat by Seamus. He gave his friend a smile and hoped he didn’t ask why he had been acting strangely of late. When he had imagined Kiera with Seamus, he had felt pangs of jealousy. Now he knew the discoloration on her thighs was his own seed. Much of her body was currently darkened with his designs. He had marked her like a possessive, crazed male. No male would come within ten feet of a female marked like that, not when she was in the keeping of a possessive, crazed warrior.

“The collar’s gone,” Seamus said.

“Yes, the metal finally weakened enough for me to break it apart with my hands.” Modez didn’t like lying to Seamus, but he couldn’t tell him the truth without placing the blame on Kiera. “I feel more myself now.”

“I’m glad the druids were able to help you.” Seamus shuddered as he scanned the reddened patch of skin around his throat where the collar had chafed. “And it is good that you’ve got full access to your abilities.”

“It is a relief.” He hadn’t liked feeling weak. Perhaps he would place that same collar around Kiera’s neck the next time he bedded her. Payback was a bitch.

Diermont raised his hands into the air to gain their attention. “Visant believes he knows the location of the lab. Your efforts have not been for naught, my lords.”

Modez asked, “Where is it?”

“Outside the gates of Eros. We will not delay.” Diermont turned to Torin Sullivan, the Lord of Turloch. “I will lead our warriors and you will act as my second in command. Lord Halloran and Lord McLeod will come with us. Lord Ross will stay behind and guard the villa.”

“When will we depart?”

“Now.” Diermont turned to the one called Bloodfanger. “What experience do you have of Eros?”

The Northerner was garbed in reptile skin, giving him a snake-like appearance. “As you know, I was held by the Governor of Bacchus. But I traveled to Eros many times. The most influential families of Eros often intermingled with the Governor of Bacchus and his family. The Pornius family resides there, as does the family of the Augustus.”

Diermont waved his hand in annoyance. “Do you have any useful information, Bloodfanger?”

Sparks flew between the two males. Bitterness and resentment were Bloodfanger’s best friends. “There is a ludus outside Eros. It is held by a great Roman patrician named Vindicus Plavus. From the druid’s description, I believe the lab will be found there.”

“How well guarded is this property?”

“The Romans have sent most of their soldiers to the border where they stupidly think to encroach on Asstrumnian lands. The property is manned by slaves and gladiators.”

“Easy pickings. They will not see us coming.” Diermont raised his fist in the air. “Open the portals and let us be on our way.”

Visant opened a gigantic portal and Modez followed the rest of the hybrids through it. His stomach held its familiar queasiness when he made a longer jump via portal.

The underground tunnel was dark as pitch, but his hybrid eyes allowed him to see what humans could not. Modez gripped the hilt of his best longsword, ready to strike at the first sign of danger. He felt comforted that Seamus was at his side. His friend had saved his ass on more than one occasion in the past.

“Can you believe that Druscilla wanted to go with us?” Seamus snorted and shook his head. “She told the prince she could help us fight.”

“She is underutilized. Untrained, but totally effective.” Modez had seen the hybrid female tear those Romans apart with her bare fangs. He had been suitably impressed. “Someone should teach her how to use a sword. Imagine how she would be then.”

Seamus laughed. “Torin’s teaching her a few things about swordplay, from what I hear.”

“Like I said, she’s underutilized.” In his opinion, her natural talents were being wasted. “Any woman can be a whore but few can be a warrior.”

“Not any woman can be a whore. That requires skill as well as beauty.” Seamus licked his lips and his fangs elongated. “And a tight passage doesn’t hurt. I heard that Druscilla possesses a snug little purse. A little shallow, though. Torin could only fit three quarters of his cock inside her. But he said she squeezed him real tightly, so he didn’t mind. A male with a shorter shaft would be in heaven.”

Small, tight passages were a rarity among hybrid females. Such women were prized. They weren’t always the best breeders, though. Their litters tended to be smaller.

Modez heard a noise up ahead. Seconds later part of the tunnel collapsed. Huge rocks crashed down on the heads of a dozen or more warriors. Modez rushed to the site and helped pull the rocks from the buried hybrids. It took half an hour to uncover them. They were injured, but alive. One of the hybrids opened a portal and returned the injured to the villa. Some of the other hybrids checked the stability of the tunnel. Proclaiming it safe to proceed, they continued to walk deeper into the darkness.

Seamus joined his side after a trek through one of the nearby side tunnels. “There are women warriors, my friend, but few fathers are willing to spend the blunt to pay for their education and training. They would rather sell their daughters to males wanting mates. Why pay for a vocation when you could be collecting a rich bride price?”

“And when they fail to find a mate, what then?”

“A good family will provide for their spinster daughters. Otherwise they become whores.”

Kiera had no family to protect her. She would do well to become his mistress. He would provide for her, care for her, and bed her whenever he felt the need for a woman’s company. It would be a better life than the one her mother led. He had thought to take a human slave for his personal use, but a mongrel would suit his needs even better. He didn’t want to share her with the rest of the Halloran fine, so he had to find a way to extricate her from Diermont.

Suddenly small weights dropped onto his head and tangled in his hair. Modez pulled them away and their fuzzy, squirming bodies wriggled in his hands. One of the suckers sank its tiny fangs into his hand. He wrenched it away and threw it to the ground, but the fang remained lodged into his hand like a splinter. Romanese spiders. The tarantula-like spiders were poisonous and deadly, although they weren’t fatal to hybrids.

“Fucking spiders!” Seamus pointed to a man-shaped mass of the creatures. The warriors scattered them with their swords. The man underneath the pile of spiders was dead. “That was Georgeus.”

Modez didn’t recognize the man because his face was swollen and purple, but he vaguely recognized the name. Gorgeous Georgeus was one of the human gladiators that had been enthralled and forced into Diermont’s army. Now he was dead.

Modez turned his head when he saw the recognizable flash of a laser gun blast. Rocks slid in the tunnel once again. One of the hybrid warriors standing a few feet in front of him was suddenly missing his head. The headless corpse fell to the ground as the hybrids scurried, trying to find the shooter. Romans weren’t supposed to possess laser guns. They weren’t supposed to know such technology existed. That was why they armed themselves with swords instead of the more powerful laser guns, even though they had a stock pile of them in their native Asstrumnian city. He chased the shooter into a side tunnel. Using his hybrid abilities, he mentally launched a boulder into the air, hurling it at the shooter. It made contact, pinning the shooter against the wall of the tunnel. The other warriors reached the site before he did. When they removed the boulder, they saw that the shooter was dead. Modez was shocked to see that it had been a young female.

“I didn’t realize the Romans had a female army.” Seamus watched as one of the hybrids confiscated the laser gun.

“It concerns me more that she possessed advanced technology. How did she come to have one of our laser guns?” Modez entered the chamber and paid little attention to the dead human once he saw what else the chamber held. A hybrid was suspended upside down over a vat. Part of his skull was missing and brain matter and blood dripped into the bucket. “A torture chamber, you think?”

Seamus walked up to the hybrid. The chained victim opened one eye and gasped, “Help me.”

The fucker was still alive. How was that possible? Modez tried not to show his horror. He suspected the male didn’t have long to live. “What happened to you?”

“They’re experimenting on hybrids. Trying to steal our powers.” The poor victim’s voice was raspy. “They used a witch. Tried to make her fill an amulet with our essence.”

“Who did this to you?”

“Maximus,” he croaked.

“Lucine Maximus?”

“No, not her. The younger one. But she didn’t want to do it. The mistress forced her.”

It wasn’t Lucine Maximus but the younger one. A different Maximus? “Can you give me her name?”

“Don’t remember. She’s a Maximus and a witch, but not a good witch. She couldn’t do what the mistress wanted. The mistress was angry with her.”

“What else can you tell us about her?”

“She didn’t want to hurt us.”

Seamus bandaged the man’s head while Modez talked to him. They hadn’t moved him yet because they didn’t think he would survive the move. “Who ordered the experiments? Was it Lucine?”

“No. The name was Agrippa.”

Seamus finished tying the bandage around the man’s head. “Agrippa. I’ve heard the name before. Must be one of Lucine’s partners.” He unchained the hybrid and Modez helped lay the victim on the ground. As they had feared, the hybrid passed away, the injuries too severe for him to be saved. They were fortunate he lived long enough to describe what had happened to him. They hadn’t had a chance to learn the man’s name. It was too sad.

Half an hour later, they continued their trek through the dark tunnel. It eventually opened into a chamber that was lit by a single torch. The shadows flickered off the walls and there appeared to be a single door embedded inside one of the walls.

There was a loud bang followed by creaking sounds and the floor collapsed under Modez’s feet. Hybrids screamed in confusion as they fell into the pit below. Modez hit the ground hard and rolled. He got to his feet and saw that many of his comrades had been shot with arrows that were no doubt poisoned. They had fallen into a trap. He opened up a portal and dragged the nearest fallen hybrid through it. He could do nothing for the others.