Chapter 6 – Elliot
ELLIOT
Ican’t believe I was stupid enough to get caught.
You’re useless. Crippled. You’ll never amount to anything. You’re a piece of shit. My father’s words burn through my mind, and I feel them tugging me down with each step I take.
I struggle against the vampires who drag me through the hall, and even harder as they open a door, force me inside, and chain me on my knees onto the floor. My wrists and ankles feel swollen against the thick chains. I try to lift my hands, but there isn’t even an inch of give.
A gangly vampire leans down close to my face. “If you thought our prisons were bad, wait until you see what the shade will do to you.”
With that, the men turn and are gone, slamming the door behind them.
I’m panting, trapped in my human form. No matter how many times I reach for my stone form, it’s simply not there.
Which is more frightening than anything I’ve ever imagined.
The only thing that soothes me is knowing that my Brotherhood is still free. I know Jordon saw me just before I was hauled past the gate. He’ll tell the others, and they’ll come up with a plan.
But it might not be enough.
I hate having to admit it, but the second I got too close to the vampire’s castle, my stone form had disappeared.
I’d plummeted to the earth, reinjuring my leg.
The vampires had caught me far more easily than I ever would’ve imagined, and being taken behind the walls has made me realize that without our stone form, we have no chance against a clan of vampires this powerful.
Or the shade.
I freeze as I remember the woman on the throne.
She’d looked so strangely out of place against the pale, thin vampires.
She had practically glowed with power and strength.
Her skin was the palest green, almost an earth-green color, and her body was curved and soft looking.
When she’d stood in that dress, it’d seemed to glide around her, and when her purple eyes had locked onto mine, she’d looked… sad. Almost worried for me.
In my life, I’ve only faced a few weak monsters and one dangerous one. The one who injured my leg.
This shade was nothing like any of those beasts. But perhaps she was simply better at hiding that treacherous side of herself.
Time seems to tick away. I hate that my body is cloaked with days of filth from their dark prisons. I hate that I stink. That my hair feels stiff and caked with filth.
And I hate even more that I have no idea what to expect from the shade.
When the door opens a time later, it’s soft, almost unnoticeable. I don’t want to look up, but I do.
The shade stands in the doorway studying me, then looks back at a female vampire that lingers behind her. “Bring food and wine. Lots of it.”
The vampire woman bows low, then disappears.
Without hesitating, the shade moves to me and kneels down on the floor before me. I want to look away from her, but her gaze seems to pin me where I kneel.
“You’re hurt,” she says.
I glance down at where my injured leg throbs in its twisted position. “It’s an old injury.”
She doesn’t look away from me.
I hear someone behind me.
“Put it here,” she says.
The vampire servant places the food and wine beside us, then disappears from the room.
“Are you hungry?”
I see no point in lying. “Yes.”
She picks up a piece of ham from the plate and lifts it to my lips.
It feels strange to open my mouth and let her feed me, but I do.
And she feeds me slowly and carefully until I feel full for the first time in days.
Then she pours a glass of wine and has me drink two glasses before she settles down on the floor before me and drinks a cup herself.
“So, you’re a gargoyle?”
I study her. What does she want me to say? We both know what I am. “Yes.”
“And you’re here to kill me?”
I don’t hesitate. “Or capture you.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Is she serious? “You’re a monster, and I’m a monster hunter.”
She cocks her head. “You explain killing someone you’ve never met in such a simple way. As if by making it simple, it doesn’t make it wrong.”
It takes me a second to close my mouth. “And you don’t kill?”
“Oh yes.” She nods. “I hurt men who try to kill their wives and children. I kill women who lure others to a brutal end. I give people who endure the worst that this world can offer some peace in knowing that their pain has consequences. That someone will defend them when they think no one will.”
Again, I’m shocked. She sounds so innocent, and yet so sure of herself.
“Don’t you know the reputation shades have?”
She shakes her head. “Tell me.”
Does she really not know? “You’re brutal minions. Servants to Hades’s will. You don’t kill all bad people, just the ones he decides are bad.”
“But I don’t serve Hades.”
I tense. “But you serve the lord of these vampires.”
“I don’t serve anyone. I’m free.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
Her brows draw together. “No. I guess I’m not. But it’s very important that I am sure.”
She stands, then goes to the bath in one corner. It’s a beautiful thing, massive, with clawed feet. She turns the handle, grasps a bucket from nearby, and fills it up. Then, clumsily, she hauls the bucket toward me and sets it down.
“What are you doing I ask?”
She looks at me as if I’m a fool. “Bathing you. You’re filthy.”
Again, I consider protesting. What if this is some weird thing shades do before they kill? And yet, the idea of feeling clean is too precious a thing for me to protest, so I stay silent.
She dips a cloth in the water, squeezes the water out, and then begins to clean the back of my neck. Her touch is so gentle, and the warmth of the water so unexpected, that a groan slips from my lips.
“Does that feel good?”
I nod, unable to speak the words.
“I’m glad,” she says, and she sounds glad.
She cleans me carefully then, washing the dirt from my hair and the upper half of my body. She dumps the water several times out the window and fills it with more hot water. Then she rubs me with a soap that smells soft and feminine, like her, and cleans that off of me too.
When she moves to my legs, I flinch, wishing I could hide my injured leg from her gaze.
“How did this happen?” she asks.
I don’t answer. For some reason, I don’t want her to know my embarrassment.
After a minute, she continues to clean my injured leg. Her touch is soft against the scar.
“I don’t have any scars,” she says. “The ones from Hades’s undead healed.”
I glance at her. Her expression is troubled.
“But they hurt. And I don’t like to hurt. Or to experience pain.”
“Few people do,” I say.
She rubs a thumb along my scar, and goosebumps blossom on my skin. “Did it hurt a lot when it happened?”
The mind-numbing pain flashes back into my mind, and I shudder.
She tenses, and I hate that she’s noticed my reaction. “It hurt a lot.”
“Gargoyles don’t care about pain!”
It’s strange that she doesn’t react to the anger in my voice. “Well, they should.”
“No,” I find myself saying. “Wounds are nothing but a sign of weakness and failure. A good warrior should never be injured enough to have a scar like mine.”
Her purple eyes lock onto mine, and then she leans down and brushes the softest of kisses against my scar.
“I’m glad I’m not a gargoyle,” she says.
“And yet, I wish I was. If you had been hurt like this with me, I wouldn’t have seen you as weak or a failure.
I would have seen you as brave enough to endure something this terrible. ”
Something tightens my throat. “It’s good you aren’t a gargoyle then. Thinking like that doesn’t fit my kind.”
“I like you,” she tells me, her voice light. “But I don’t think I like gargoyles. They sound unkind and inflexible.”
“There’s nothing wrong with thinking a certain way and only that way.”
She begins to slowly clean my good leg. “Then you think like all of them.”
I don’t. And that’s what’s wrong with me.
When she’s done cleaning my leg, she pushes aside my loincloth, and I have only a minute to stare in shock as she begins to clean my cock.
“N—o,” I sputter out, even as my treacherous cock hardens beneath her touch.
She frowns, wrapping the cloth around my length and cleaning gently. “No what?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “You can’t just clean me there.”
Her hand freezes. “Why not? I’m in my bedroom.”
My teeth grit together. There’s no damn good reason I should be this turned on by what she’s doing. “It’s not…proper.”
She sighs. “Being proper. That’s another thing I don’t understand.”
But she moves the cloth from my erection and covers me once more. Then, rising, she dumps the bucket out the window and sets it down.
I’m breathing hard. Trying to clear my head. “So, what now? You kill me?”
She smiles. “Why would I kill you? You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I’m your enemy,” I say. Does she really not understand? Or is this another monster game?
She goes to the bath and turns it on, then drops bubble bath into it. The smell of flowers fills the room, and she sits on the porcelain edge, watching the bubbles fill up.
“Where will you go when you leave my room?” she asks.
“The dungeons.”
She stiffens. “Are they…dark?”
“Yes.”
Her hands cup a handful of bubbles, and she blows on them, watching the bubbles float across her room. “Do you like it there?”
Again, I can’t tell if she’s serious. “No.”
“Then you can stay here as long as you like. Lord Drac did say you belong to me now.”
I’m trying to figure out what I think of that when she stands and pushes the sleeves off her dress. In an instant, the silky fabric falls at her feet, and she’s standing before me naked.
I stare, shocked. She’s beautiful. So fucking beautiful that it makes my mind stutter.
Her body is finely curved in all the right places.
Her breasts are large and tipped with small, pink nipples, and her womanhood is bare and tempting.
The slightly green tint to her skin should be strange, but it isn’t.
In an odd way, it reminds me of when I shift into my gargoyle form.
My skin is different, almost alien, but still… mine.
She steps into the water, moans, and sinks down into the bubbles.
I remain kneeling, chained to the floor. My erection is straining beneath my loincloth. My body is begging for things that make no sense.
“So, gargoyle, tell me more. Tell me about attraction and sex.”
My mouth drops open. “Excuse me?”
Her gaze sweeps to me. “Explain why I find you attractive but not the other men here.”
She can’t be serious.
Her mouth curls into a disappointed line, and she leans over the edge of the bath, her breasts spilling out from the bubbles. “Please. I’m so new to this world. I just want to understand.”
My gaze is glued to her breasts. Damn it! I thought I’d do so well on this mission. I’d kill a bunch of vampires. I’d trap a monster and escape with her.
None of this was part of the plan.
I could only hope my brothers were doing better than I was.