Chapter 32 New Prey
NEW PREY
The next day, I spent my time in the library.
Serban lingered nearby, watching me from the corner of his eye, hovering like a nervous milkmaid whenever Petra appeared.
His nearness grated on me. Never had I been so closely watched, so carefully managed.
Still, I wasn't locked in my room while he monitored me, and that was something—a small, pitiful freedom.
Petra went about her duties, lighting candles on the long table, though out of habit, I thought. The main hall had no windows to draw in daylight, but with the sharpness of my vision, I hardly needed it.
I sat in a large chair, thumbing through a stack of books I'd gathered from the shelves—tales of Christian Crusades to the Holy Lands, hand-illuminated and lavishly decorated copies of the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, most in languages I couldn't read.
Bestiaries describing mythical animals, their margins crowded with creatures half-lion, half-serpent—I wondered how many had once walked the earth in truth.
Star charts mapped the heavens in painstaking detail, constellations inked in gold and lapis.
I tried to imagine the lifetimes Serban must have lived to gather such treasures. I looked up at him. “How did you come to be here?”
“I don't stay in one place for long,” he said, not looking up from his ledgers.
“I've lived in Rome. Across the sea the Turks call the Akdeniz.
In Constantinople. At the foot of the Altai Mountains—that's where I discovered my fondness for the horses in my stable.” A small smile touched his mouth before disappearing.
“Athens, for a time. Among other places.”
I didn't even know most of the places he'd spoken of. To see the world like that—it was a life I'd barely imagined was possible. Certainly not for a peasant. “But why here?” I asked. Of all the places he could have chosen, a war-torn land seemed the least likely.
“I follow war,” he said tersely, irritation knitting his brows together. “You will find it is a convenience for our kind. Battlefields are full of men already dying, living conditions breed sickness. To hasten the end a soldier knows is coming is a mercy.”
Were we—what I had become—no better than vultures living on carrion?
His voice did not waver. “And if someone goes missing between battles, who is to say what took them? It is easier to blame the enemy at your gates than a thing most men refuse to believe exists.”
He looked at me pointedly. “And war is here.” He slid from the perch where he'd been watching me—pretending to work—and began to pace. “…skirmishes along your borders. The Ottoman Empire forcing its way north—enslaving your people, buying loyalty from those with means.”
Buying loyalty from those with means. Those words settled on me, somehow separate from the rest.
“And in the brief stretches of peace,” he continued, “your people turn on one another. They always do. No different than anywhere else I've been.”
“That day in the glen. Caius said he thought he'd recognized you.” I said.
“The golden-haired one? Or the other?” he asked, referring to Dani.
My heart hurt at remembering—the foolish infatuation I thought was love that lived inside the naive girl, hot and reckless. Now only a gaping void in my soul remained. “Caius was the one with the blue eyes and light hair, the son of the boyar,” I said softly.
“I don't recall seeing him before, but I know of his father…and his father's men. The ones who took you,” he added grimly. “I've been here for many years now. We are only a few hours' ride from your village.”
For the first time, I had some idea of where I was. Knowing I was so close to Buna made my heart ache.
He stopped pacing and folded his arms across his chest. “And I've traveled near to your home before, so perhaps he recognized me.” He shrugged. “My horses are…” He searched for the word. “…unique.”
They were that. “If your intention is to blend in, the fine horses and the glittering rings may not be the best approach.” I didn't soften my observation, nor did I particularly care how he received it.
For a moment, amusement threatened at the corner of his mouth. He mastered it quickly, smoothing his expression back into something more guarded.
“Why were you there—near my village?” I asked, curious about the way it seemed he watched us go about our lives.
“I don't interfere in the squabbles of humans, but you could say I play both sides.” He shrugged, as if that explained anything.
“I'd heard the boyar's men met with a go-between for a small group of Turkish forces—a few summers ago.” He paused, searching his memory.
“It was the summer I saw you picking apples.” A faint nod.
“I tracked the meetings. Once, even the boyar himself met with a Turkish general. I watched from a hill.” His mouth tightened slightly. “I think he saw me.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why would the boyar meet with our enemies?”
“To broker a battle,” he said. “A small one. For coin.” There was a hint of dry humor in his tone, as though he were explaining something obvious.
“Both sides gain what they want. The boyar reinforces his warnings about foreigners—fear keeps people obedient when they share a common enemy. The Turks receive payment, secure a tentative alliance with someone powerful in case the conflict grows, and can report back to their superiors that an engagement took place. Everyone wins—except for those who fight, of course.”
“The summer we met?” I asked quietly. “Was it the fighting later that season?” Memory rose unbidden—the orchard heavy with fruit, the reckless sweetness of the day I gave myself to Caius.
And then the aftermath: the wounded carried back on carts, blood soaking through linen, Buna and I tending them for days while the village mourned its “narrow escape.”
Serban considered the question, then reached for a small journal tucked beneath a stack of books near his chair. He thumbed through several pages, scanning quickly until he found the entry he wanted.
“June—1387.”
My head was still reeling from what I learned when we rode into a nearby village long after dark, and left our horses hobbled in a field. Serban wore the fur mantle again, and I a dark dress that had mysteriously appeared in my room, along with a new pair of boots, these ones a perfect fit.
“Pull up your hood, Magda.” Serban cautioned as we walked in the shadows between the buildings.
I shot him a questioning glance. It was dark, the sun was no longer a threat, and even then my eyes were becoming more accustomed to the sun a little more each day.
“We aren't that far from your village. You are supposed to be dead. I don't think you are ready to answer questions about how, and why, you still walk.”
Begrudgingly I pulled up my hood and hid my face in the shadows.
Within moments we both heard it, the singsong of a drunken man who had spent too long at the tavern drinking ale, trying to find his way back home in the dark, weaving with steps unsteady down the lane.
Serban reached out a hand to slow me and indicate to watch.
The man was nearly upon us before he realized we were there.
He looked up and smiled, at Serban and then me, and then his smile slipped away.
Fear for an instant, and when I saw his eyes widen every nerve in my body fired.
Even in the dark I could see the way the pulse point in his temples thrummed in time with the beat of his heart, the goosebumps forming on the bit of skin exposed on his neck.
The awareness of those changes was intoxicating…
and arousing. The way my body flooded with pleasure when I'd touched myself or laid with Dani, I felt it again.
I was confused as I watched Serban look in the man's eyes, make no move toward him, but I could see and hear the voice Serban wove into the man's thoughts, gentle, soothing, the same one he'd used on me.
The man's heartbeat immediately slowed, and then he took an unsteady step toward Serban, one, then another.
It was painful watching his lumbering gait, and it was all I could do not to step forward and offer him an arm to steady him.
As if Serban read my thoughts, he cut me a look that made me recoil.
Serban beckoned the drunk, and after a few more wobbly steps he fell into Serban's embrace.
The small man was almost completely wrapped in Serban's mantle.
I saw him dip to drink from the man, and I heard the small weak sound his skin made as it parted for Serban's fangs, and then the whoosh of the man's pulse as he drank.
The smell hit me and I dropped to my knees and trembled, fearing Serban's wrath if I did what I wanted and joined him.
Serban kept one eye on me as he drank, his watchfulness a constant stifling shackle on me. But then he pulled his mouth away and his eyes told me it was my turn. The man lolled in his arms, twin crimson rivers snaking down his neck.
Serban held the man as I fed. My teeth were closer together than Serban's and I made two new punctures just inside the two he had left. I pulled from him until I heard Serban command me to stop. Like the first few times I fed from Serban’s wrist, I did not want to release him.
The hunger had a will of its own, tightening its grip the longer I drank, until it felt less like sustenance and more like surrender.
Back then, when I failed to pull away, Serban had forced the distance himself—rough, unyielding—reminding me who held the line.
Now the sensation shifted. What had begun as hunger deepened into something warmer, more intimate.
Sexual pleasure unfurled through me, slow and insistent, threading along my nerves until it pooled low in my body.
My breath hitched. Awareness sharpened in ways that had nothing to do with blood.
It wasn't attraction for the drunk man, I knew that much, but the confusing feelings overwhelmed me.