Rage

Chapter 1

Chapter One

T he first failing of weak men is knowledge.

They know they are weak. They know they cannot manifest change in the world, and that knowledge makes them cruel.

I suppose knowledge is my failing as well, for as much as I know I should not give Declan Margrave the satisfaction, I do. I know that by screaming and letting him see how much this hurts, how much it enrages me, I’m only urging him on.

Because Declan Margrave is a weak man.

He hides this weakness behind silver chains and cattle prods. Behind the slow drip of holy water and angled mirrors to reflect the dying light. Every whimper and cry that slips from my lips encourages the monster that is Declan. Every bruise I earn thrashing against those silver bars, and the blistering welts the holy water raises on my skin feeds the weak man within the beast.

He paces around my cage like a northern wolf, and my eyes catch on the stake dangling from the belt cinched tight around his trim waist. Hewn from a crucifix, the holywood stake is a favorite toy of Declan’s. Leather worn smooth by use wraps around the base, right up to the flared hand guard. Ribbons of mahogany and redwood wind around the shaft, capped by a gleaming silver tip pounded and sharpened to a wicked point.

Torchlight winks off the wretched metal, and my skin prickles in anticipation of the stake’s weight. The memory of cold silver against my flesh explodes in my mind. Despite how well I know not to do so, I flinch away, curling into a tight, tiny ball as far from Declan as I can get.

This is not the first time he has captured and tortured me. I wish I could say it would be the last, but I am no longer sure.

Ours is a dance, our fates tidally locked. Wherever I go, no matter how deep I run into the woods, he finds me, and I end up locked in this cage while he tortures me for a crowd.

But there’s always someone, some sympathetic Northerlands fool, who finds Declan’s work distasteful. I only need to pick them out of the crowd.

Declan pauses at the corner of my cage, obscured by the thick silver-coated frame. Men and women fill the hall, huddling at a safe distance. They leer at my bruises and wounds, their faces twisted in disgust as thick, clotted blood pumps from the cuts on my arms.

“You see?” Declan whips around the cage, driving a blade into my side.

I scream from the shock of it, the pain, furious that I dropped my guard enough to allow him that strike. I press my hand against the cut, deep crimson blood surging between my fingers as I glare at him. The pain recedes to an ache, and the flow slows as my skin stitches back together—a normal blade, then, not silver or doused in holy water.

“They bleed,” Declan states, “and anything that bleeds can be killed.”

“But they come back!” a villager shouts, too deep in the crowd for me to pick him out.

“Not if you do the job properly.” Declan gestures to the rear of the hall, where his men flank the walls on either side of large oak doors. I do not recognize a single one of them, which does not come as a surprise. Declan does not keep them for long. He is weak and cruel. Such men do not breed loyalty.

Still, every time I find myself in this cage, I search for a face I know, only to be met with strangers.

Two of his men peel away from the walls to haul the doors open. Screams fill the hall. Wild, feral screams that make my blood sing in recognition.

Vampire. Sister.

The blood of the First One chills in her veins as it does in mine, like calling to like, binding us together in our undeath.

“We found this one lurking in a village beyond your walls.” Declan’s voice rings over the enraged cries of my night sister. He paces the length of my cage and back again, pausing to spit. A thick gob splatters against my shoulder. I whip my head around to hiss at him, but he has already moved away, ignoring the beast in her cage.

My night sister wails and spits, fighting against Declan’s men as they drag her across the floor. Muscles in her legs twitch and flex, but her feet drag at odd angles. She puts her weight on one, fighting to the last, but her ankle folds, and she drops. Only the men’s grip on her arms keeps her from crashing to the cold stone floor.

“The bitch killed three of my men before we subdued her.” At this, he lowers his head and presses a hand to his chest, letting his words sit heavy in the hall. “We believe her to be the creature that killed Lord and Lady Beenleigh.”

A murmur grows in the crowd. Rumors of the horror in Beenleigh have spread far. The Lord and Lady drained of their blood, and their entrails spread to decorate Marley Hall. There were less than half a dozen survivors of the vampiric massacre, a feat I am still quite proud of.

Feet shuffle, and the mass parts. Finally, I am given a clear view of the manor lord and his wife seated on a low dais at the far end of the room. The lady’s cheeks are pale, her pinched features sucked to the center of her face, while the lord sits with his legs set wide. Rolls spill over the high collar of his shirt, and the buttons on his vest threaten to pop off from the strain of covering a rotund belly.

“Drained a flock of sheep before we got there.” Declan shakes his head.

“What concern of mine is that?” Lord Stilton scoffs and spit dribbles down his chins.

“The farmers will starve this winter, Lord Stilton. Many of them will die. Who will tend your fields in the spring, hm? Who will plant the seeds that grow the food to fill your tables?”

The crowd murmurs at his words, sharing glances. Lady Stilton darts a look at her husband, and my eyes catch the mottled purpling dotting her neck and disappearing beneath her collar.

Rage simmers in my poisoned blood. If my heart could beat, it would be thundering. Instead, a stillness settles deeper in my chest. I must remain calm because Declan Margrave is weak and cruel and far from done.

“Put her there,” he directs his men. My night sister’s body slams against the cage. Her screams rise in pitch as silver burns her back and arms. She twitches and jerks against them, and I spot the wounds on her arms, the backs of her calves, and across her ankles.

Yellowed tendons curl against pink muscle. Blood crusts the edges of the wounds like chapped lips, but none falls. At the sight, my night sister’s inability to walk makes a gruesome sort of sense—Declan’s men took a blade to her Achilles. The stink of rotting meat and burnt garlic reeks from the wounds, explaining the lack of healing and blood. I gag, and Declan’s blade slashes down my back.

My scream brings a smile to his face. His eyes flutter closed as he straightens and tips his head back, inhaling deeply and stretching his arms high. His vest stretches tight across his chest, leather creaking as the toggles strain against the swell of muscle.

Above me, my night sister pants against the bars, her screams reduced to rasping wheezes. Silver eats into her flesh like acid, filling my cage with more of the putrid stench of a rotting carcass. Even if she could walk, I doubt she could move now. Chunks of skin and meat drip from her back and arms, splattering against the floor and pushing me further into the corner. Closer to those wretched bars.

“As I was saying, anything that bleeds can die.” Declan strides around the cage, running a hand through russet brown hair to sweep the long strands away from his face. “You just have to do it right.”

He pulls the leather tassels at the end of his stake, removing it from his belt and spinning the holywood in his fingers, torchlight glaring off the tip as he holds it high for all to see.

“Silvered weapons will wound them if you’re lucky, but it only slows their healing.” He grips her jaw, fingers digging into her cheeks to force her mouth open. The assembled crowd gasps at what I know is a stub of meat capped in silver. A precaution he adopted to prevent us from using our allure against him and his parade of men. “Now, if you douse your weapons in holy water and rub garlic into the wounds”—he stands before my night sister and presses the tip of his stake just off the center of her chest—“you might stand a chance of surviving long enough to do this.”

He raises his arm high. Her shoulders twitch, her wheezes rising in pitch as panic overwhelms what remains of her ability to think. I want to reach for her hand and grasp her fingers in this final moment. I want my night sister to know that her death serves a greater purpose. That she will be avenged; I will reign down a fury on these men so terrible it will become a moment of legend.

Instead, I cast my gaze out among the crowd, searching. There’s always one. Someone hurt or hurting, someone who sees these cruel men for what they are: weak.

“I’ll give you this one for free, Lord Stilton.” Declan grins and drives the stake through her heart.

Her chest shatters like an eggshell. Declan is weak, but his body is muscled and strong—an armor he wears to disguise his failings. The silvered tip pierces through my night sister’s back and ash crawls out from the wound. With a final rasp, she dissolves. Gore and viscera pour through the silver bars, and the ash that was her settles like a grim snow on my skin and hair.

A deadly silence blankets the hall, pierced by a high-pitched, drunken giggle. It takes me a moment to realize the sound comes from Lord Stilton.

“Good show,” he says between giggles. He grips both arms of his chair, kicking his feet out to gain enough leverage to rise. Lady Stilton grabs his arm, attempting to help her husband stand, and he rips it out of her grasp, backhanding his wife in front of the hall.

I freeze in my cage, eyes fixed on the blooming of red on her cheek. Whether she senses my keen attention or simply needs a place to look that is not one of the people who allow her to suffer her husband’s hand day in and day out, I do not know.

All I know is that she looks at me, her chin lifted and eyes sharp.

It takes every bit of my restraint not to smile.

There is always one.