Chapter 3
I opened my eyes with a groan. The crude weave of burlap filled my vision, and the earthy scent of potatoes wreathed my head.
My heart skipped beats as I took stock of my situation.
Light streamed through the sack, but the gaps in the burlap were too tiny for me to see anything.
Still clad in my nightgown and robe, I sat propped against a wall, my legs stretched before me against hard, unforgiving stone.
Flagstones , I thought, shifting my bare heel enough to feel the grooves in the pavers.
My ankles were unbound, but my hands were fastened tightly behind my back.
Recalling Cyprio’s gap-toothed smile, I squeezed my thighs together, then released a shaky breath at the absence of pain.
But another kind of pain plagued me. The dull, persistent ache of silver started in my wrists and spread up my arms. Fortunately, the smell of burning flesh didn’t accompany the pain.
Cyprio must have padded my restraints to stop the metal from searing my skin.
A small favor. Or as he’d said, a way to protect his “merchandise.”
“Fucker,” I said, my hoarse voice amplified and mildly shocking inside the potato sack. Other sounds intruded. The low hum of indistinct voices. The clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the rhythmic pattern of wooden wheels over a road. Not dirt. Cobblestone.
My heart beat faster as I turned my head, straining for more sounds.
Distantly a bell clanged, its notes deep and evenly spaced as it tolled the hour.
Clang…clang…clang. Three o’clock. Not nighttime, surely.
The bustle outside was far too heavy for that.
Which meant I’d been unconscious for around twelve hours.
Plenty of time for Cyprio to have carted me to Sausberg.
Panic clawed at the edges of my mind. I shoved it away, dragging deep breaths of potato-scented air into my lungs to slow my runaway heart.
The silver put me at a disadvantage, sapping my strength and blunting my instincts.
If I had any chance of escaping whatever fate Cyprio had planned, I needed my wits about me.
I needed to prepare. It was what my mother would do.
My stomach knotted. By now she was awake and searching for me.
But it took hours to reach Sausberg. Worse, the city was huge, its center divided by the Kingsway, which was so broad and deep that merchants sometimes smashed their vessels against the banks.
By bridge or boat, every trip across was costly.
Even if my mother found someone willing to take her to Sausberg, she didn’t have enough coin to pay for more than a handful of crossings, let alone assistance searching the city.
Footsteps rang out. I held myself rigid as the scuffle of hard-soled boots on stone grew louder and then stopped. A jangle of keys, then metal scraped metal.
“I know you’re awake,” Cyprio said. Metal groaned, followed by more scuffling footsteps. A second later, the sack disappeared and sunlight blinded me.
I blinked rapidly as my surroundings slid into focus.
Sunlight beamed through a barred window high on the wall.
Stacks of wooden crates formed small pillars around a sizable room.
Here and there, large burlap sacks were arranged in tidy piles.
A small tear in one of the sacks had spilled rice onto the ground.
Wooden barrels stamped with King Hubert’s seal clustered near a set of bars that ran from the ceiling to the floor, the wall of steel unbroken except for the small door Cyprio had left standing open.
He went to a corner of what was obviously a storeroom and fetched a bucket. Water sloshed as he carried it over and deposited it at my feet. A washing sponge with a wooden handle thrust from the water.
My stomach did a sickening flip. I drew my legs up. If he got close enough, I could kick at his manhood. Or his gut. My mother had taught me all the best places to aim to injure a man. The key was to strike hard the first time. No hesitation.
Cyprio ran an assessing gaze down my body. He wore the king’s livery again. The round, golden amulet gleamed against his red tunic. The emerald studs shone in his ears. He appeared well rested, his face and clothing free of the sweat and grime of the road he’d worn the last time I saw him.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Fuck you,” I said.
His thick eyebrows rose. “An interesting response coming from someone in your position. You seemed smarter when we spoke on the road.”
Damn him, he was right. Taunting him was stupid. I drew a deep breath and released it. “I feel fine, thank you.”
“I’m relieved to hear it.” He nodded toward my arms. “I lined the manacles with leather and rabbit fur. My own design. I’m sure the silver is uncomfortable, but it’s necessary. You understand.”
“I thought you were a peddler.”
“Oh, I am.” He bustled to a stack of crates.
After a moment of rummaging, he turned back and held a frying pan aloft.
“I trade in all sorts of goods.” He strolled toward me, flipping the pan up and catching it.
“Travel all over Ghedda, visiting big cities and tiny pisswaters alike.” Another flip and catch.
“Interestingly, the money’s better in the pisswaters.
People lust for a bit of flash and finery, you see.
” He stopped at my feet, and the pan’s handle smacked against his palm as he caught it.
“And sometimes, people in the pisswaters tell me where I can find a dhampir.”
Ice slid down my spine. “Who told you about me?” Pushing out the words took effort. Maybe because I didn’t want to know. I’d spent my life helping my mother tend to Derryton’s sick. Just last year, we’d delivered the blacksmith’s wife of triplets. And one of my neighbors had betrayed me.
Cyprio’s golden eyes gleamed like old coins. “You must have rejected Mistress Bagley’s boy one too many times, Miss Trevil.”
My throat went dry. “She couldn’t…” I shook my head as I ran through all of my interactions with the Bagleys in my mind. I’d been so careful. So polite. “She doesn’t know what I am.”
“No,” he said. “I suspect not. But as I said, I trade in all sorts of goods. And she informed me that Derryton was home to a beautiful healer with an even more beautiful daughter.”
Bile burned my throat. My resolve to keep my taunts to myself flew out the window and onto Sausberg’s streets. “So you’re not a peddler. You’re a pimp.”
He shrugged. “I’m a purveyor of luxury items. Difficult-to-get items.”
“I’m not an item —”
“You’re not a human, either, and the nobles of Sausberg pay top coin for pets who heal fast and tire slowly.
” Footsteps approached, but he continued speaking, a satisfied-looking smile curving his lips.
“With the gold I fetch for you, Miss Trevil, I might purchase a title myself. Retire to the countryside and become a fat squire.”
“You’re already fat,” a man said as he ducked through the doorway.
He was one of the tallest men I’d ever seen, with a long face that matched his lanky build.
Hair the color of mouse fur brushed his shoulders.
His eyes were dark and cold. But it was the thick length of silver chain wrapped around his hand that made my heart beat faster.
He shook it loose as he stopped next to Cyprio.
Cyprio shot him an irritated look. “Nothing wrong with having a little meat on your bones, Fark. Better than being a beanpole.” He leaned backward and lowered his eyes to the other man’s backside. “You don’t have enough ass to hold up your britches.”
The man kept his gaze on me. “They’re ready upstairs.”
“How many?” Cyprio asked.
“Full house. I wasn’t sure I’d get the word out in time, but the runners did their job.
” Fark, whose mother apparently hated him, stepped closer to me.
His gaze slid down my hair, which streamed over my shoulders and fell to my waist. “Are you certain she’s”—Fark’s throat bobbed as he swallowed—“one of them?”
Cyprio grasped Fark’s jaw and forcibly turned it toward the window. “If she were a full-blooded bloodsucker, she’d be a pile of ash right now.”
Fark jerked his face from Cyprio’s grip, and a sullen expression crept over his features. “Fine. But we should check for fangs.” His gaze moved to my chest, and he swallowed hard. “We should check for blemishes, too.”
I tugged at my wrists—or tried to. The ache pulsed like a beating heart, every throb sapping my strength. All I could do was sit and seethe under Fark’s lecherous stare. As Cyprio had noted, his pants drooped low, making it impossible to gauge the location of the soft parts between his legs.
Cyprio grunted as he pulled the washing sponge from the bucket.
“We should get her upstairs as soon as possible, which is what we’re going to do.
” He moved forward and held the dripping sponge before my mouth.
When I only glared at him, he shook it a little, sending droplets raining onto my lap.
“Come now. You’ve had nothing since the forest. You must be thirsty. ”
Rage was a fire in my chest. “I would rather—”
He thrust the sponge into my mouth. Water coursed down my throat, giving me a choice between choking or swallowing. I swallowed.
Fark leaned forward, his dark gaze rapt. “Think she’ll suck a cock half as well?”
Cyprio withdrew the sponge.
I came off the wall hissing, anger and outrage punching my fangs through my gums. Something brought me up short, wrenching back my shoulders in a burst of agony. Cyprio had chained my manacles to the wall.
Fark stumbled backward, his chest heaving. The end of the chain in his hand scraped over the flagstones.
Cyprio chuckled as he tossed the sponge into the bucket. “Sure, if you don’t mind having your dick bitten off.” He gave Fark an expectant look. “Does that answer your question about the fangs?”
“Yeah,” Fark rasped. He hitched his pants higher on his hips.