Chapter 34 | Skartovius #2
Her Loreblood trickles into my mouth, rejuvenating me in a matter of moments, and I suck on her arm for a few seconds before begrudgingly pulling back.
“There. Now we’re ready,” Sephania says, smiling. She wraps a piece of torn cloth around her wound to stop the bleeding and to stop me from agonizing over the scent.
We head out into the smoky night. It’s smoky because people have been lighting certain houses on fire. Nuhav has become a leaderless powder keg, it appears, with riots forming in various parts of town.
“What are they angry about this time?” Jinneth asks.
“I’ve heard they’re tired of losing their sisters and daughters to slavers,” I say. “So they’re going after anyone associated in the flesh trade.”
“Well that makes sense,” Jinneth finishes. “Good for them.”
I have a hood pulled low so no one can notice my pale skin. I doubt vampires—the typical possessors of said slaves—would be welcomed here at a time like this.
“It’s causing the distraction we need, at the very least,” I say near Sephania.
She stares ahead as she leads our trio down the winding alleys and roads, avoiding large groups of people, heading ever southward. Clearly she knows where she’s going, which allows me to keep my head on a swivel, watching for danger.
“It’s perfect,” Seph mutters to herself.
I eye her sidelong, noticing the hint of a smile on her face as she moves. Almost like she knows more than she’s letting on . . . and might even have something to do with this fracas plaguing the streets of her homeland.
When a group of Bronzes tears into the street in front of us, we freeze to let them pass, only for one of the men to shout, “Bloodsucker! There!” and point directly at me a hundred feet away.
Seems my hood became askew while we ran, and my alabaster skin shone in the dark night like a spotlight.
The clunky, armored soldiers barrel toward us.
Arrows flit through the sky.
“Fuck,” I growl, and raise a wall of shadows around us, batting the arrows aside as we crouch behind the wall.
Once the arrows stop coming, we take off down the alley we came through.
“Different route!” Sephania yells, tugging her mother’s arm.
The older woman can’t run nearly as fast as we need to. We won’t get far, so I stop us at the end of the alley and say, “Better idea.”
I create a small portal for us to cross into, telling Sephania, “Guide us where you need to go. Tell me.”
“South. The Firehold, Skar!”
I grit my teeth and nod. I’m not surprised, but I’m disappointed. I should have figured that was her destination—Lukain Mortis’ prior slave den.
The soldiers wheel into the alley and crouch to shoot more arrows at us.
My shadow finishes, I push Jinneth roughly in the back, and we catapult into the wall, vanishing from sight.
We emerge a few minutes later, both women wobbly and whining, but otherwise unscathed.
With a heavy sigh, I stop the trembling in my hand that’s suddenly started. “Seems me coming as an escort might have presented more of an issue than help, love.”
Sephania slaps me lightly on the back. “Nonsense. Come on, you handsome devil.” She winks at me, walks a few steps forward, and lifts the grate that leads down into the Firehold.
Once we’ve descended, a group of hip-high whelps surrounds us at the bottom, with sticks and makeshift swords to ward us off.
I frown. “This is what has become of the Grimsons?”
Sephania chuckles, hiding me in the shadows behind them, and waits for her ally Antones to arrive. When he does, Seph says it’s in my best interest to stay behind for now. The deep glare from Antones confirms that, so I do.
At least I know she’s relatively safe in here. Also, she can take care of herself, and surely she could defeat anyone in this dank dungeon that would try to harm her.
A few minutes later, Sephania comes hurrying back. “I’ve just made the introductions between my mother and her old friend. But he says we’ll need silver if we are to try and do this. Can you help, love?”
I sigh. “From escort to fetch-it boy. I’ll go see Vanison. You do not leave here, understand?”
Sephania salutes. “I wouldn’t think of it, Master.”
I roll my eyes and climb the ladder out of the Firehold.
I move much faster and sneakier alone on the surface, and it isn’t long before I’m approaching the underground hideout of Vanison Shirin, our resident silversmith.
I’ve bounced from shadow to shadow through the wretched city, making sure to stay unnoticed. There’s just one more alley for me to traverse until I can make my way down into the sewers.
I poke my head out from the alley—
And a sharp blade meets the soft underside of my chin, pulling me up short.
“Nice and slow, yes?” says a voice I instantly recognize.
Anger flares inside me, debilitating and all-encompassing, knowing who that voice belongs to, and knowing I’ve weakened myself by being so focused on Sephania for the past few hours.
Somehow this bastard managed to tail me.
With a twitch of my wrists, shadows curl around the protruding arm, lightly lifting the blade away from my neck.
I leap back, swinging out from the alley, and draw my saber. It glints in the night, reflecting moonlight.
Lukain Mortis stands ten feet away, cutting through my shadow. “You’ve gotten stronger since we last fought, Skartovius. Since you’ve tasted Sephania.”
“Of course I have, fool.” I bare my fangs at him. I could kill Lukain—could wrap him in my shadows and render him defenseless.
But I know if Sephania discovers it, she would flay me. It would ruin her, as much as I wish it weren’t the case.
Until I can make sure Sephania realizes the error of trusting a bastard like this, I can do him no harm. Not for his sake, but for hers.
“So have I,” Lukain says. His eyes shimmer.
“Is this the part where you show me whatever power Sephania unlocked inside you?” I muse, striking a stance.
“No. I’m not here to fight you, Skartovius.”
“Then why are you here. How are you—”
“I didn’t know where else to go. Come, follow me.”
I scoff. “Fuck that. Who do you think I am, to trust you?”
“There’s no time, you madman! You think if I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have just speared my sword through your neck when you poked it out of the alley?”
He jogs away angrily.
Begrudgingly, cautiously, I follow him.
In a nearby alley, Lukain emerges . . . with a small human carried in his arms. Her head is drooped over one side, her knees bent at the other. I recognize her instantly as Sephania’s friend.
But there’s something awfully wrong. The pale tint of her skin, the sleek rubbery texture—she’s no human at all.
I grit my teeth angrily.
“I had to turn her, Skartovius. She isn’t through the process. But I can’t keep her. Alacine wishes her dead—believes she’s dead. This was all I could think to do.”
I notice a plea in Lukain’s eyes when I study him. I can tell he’s speaking truthfully, as baffling as it is. “What am I supposed to do with her?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.
“See that she’s safe. Reunite her with Sephania. It will make her happy to see a friend.” He lifts his arms forward, urging me to take her.
I growl, “And it will endear her to you even more when she finds out this is your doing, saving her friend.”
Hope shines in his eyes when I say the words “even more,” and I curse myself for letting them out. For all Lukain knew, Sephania was finished with him.
His expression quickly darkens with anger. “Then tell her nothing of my doing. This isn’t about us, you arrogant bastard.”
Lukain’s words hang in the air.
I cautiously sheathe my sword and reach my arms out, stepping forward skeptically—distrusting and unwilling to be outsmarted by this half-blood fiend.
Lukain drops the light interfolk girl in my arms. She looks horrible, halfway to dead, and that’s because she is. There’s a great slash across her neck. It pains me, knowing Sephania can and will heal such a wound, weakening my beloved.
The dhampir is right: This isn’t about us.
This isn’t about our eternal feud. It’s about our shared love for Sephania Lock.
And whether I like it or not, Lukain Mortis is entwined in this fucked-up tryst. My little temptress refuses to let him go, and Lukain showing his face here, putting himself in such danger, is proof he’s far from letting her go, too.
When I take the girl and turn to leave without another word, Lukain’s words stop me in my tracks. “Have you told her about the sword yet? How you got it?”
I clench my jaw and jerk my chin over my shoulder. “Why would I, when you hardly understand it yourself, half-blood? You talk about things you don’t understand.”
He fixes me with a dark glare, his serious face blank besides the glimmer in his eyes. The hatred. “I will come for you, Skartovius. I will kill you.”
“You may try.”
“I know what you are,” he says. “Does Sephania?”
My nostrils flare with sudden anger. “No one knows what I am, Lukain Mortis. You least of all. Though if there’s anyone who might . . . I daresay Sephania Lock gets closest to the mark.”
Lukain breathes heavily, his chest pumping. He steps back into the shadows. “Then she knows you’re nothing more than a monster?”
I gaze into the shadows where Lukain stood, seeing his body meld into the darkness, waiting only to catch my answer.
“Yes. She knows.”