Chapter 12
Aryana
When night descended, Zarathos emerged through the shadows.
“I have good news, Aryana. Your savior has arrived.” He stepped forward, a grin on his face, a vial filled with a dark liquid in his hands.
He took her in and frowned. “What is this?”
Aryana touched the collar, a sourness on her tongue. “King Salen has decided to keep me.”
He stepped closer, his eyes growing wide. He reached out and ran a clawed finger over the metal. “Because locking you in a room wasn’t controlling enough.”
“He… wants to make this arrangement permanent and if I don’t obey him, he can hurt me.” She wrapped her arms around herself, a shiver running through her at the memory of being unable to move for hours on the floor.
Zarathos’s expression darkened, something black and threatening sparking in his gaze as his hand dropped to his side. “He has hurt you,” he said with a soft snarl.
It wasn’t a question. She hesitated, but then nodded. “He says he’s going to marry me.”
His breath picked up, and the gold light in his eyes glowed with a burning intensity. “The bastard.”
Aryana stared at Zarathos, her brows drawing together. “Are you… angry?”
“Of course I’m angry. Look at you.” He glanced away, his square jaw clenching. “The transformative potion I brought is useless in your current state. How can I get you out when he’s got you locked down like this?”
So that was all. She was only an inconvenience to him. Her predicament was the foil to the next step in his plans.
His hands curled into fists and his cloak swirled about him as he turned from her. “I will take care of this.”
The shadows pulled around him, and he vanished.
Aryana waited, unsure what he would do. She hated being at his mercy.
She wanted to rip off the collar and escape.
Escape the king of Terra Monstrum. Escape the demon arch king.
Escape her uncle. Escape everything. Her fingers brushed the Bloodbound mark on her thigh under her skirts.
All she had to do was wait for the right timing and she could overcome everything that had been holding her back.
As long as they found a way to free her from this damn collar.
Zarathos returned soon after, clutching a bloodied arm in his hands that had clearly been violently amputated from some poor soul.
Judging by the metal cuff on the limb, the appendage belonged to King Salen. Aryana gazed at it as the blood dripped to the ground, too stunned to move or speak.
Zarathos approached, his movements betraying the barely controlled fury that was evident in the tightness of his face. “Negotiations broke down.”
“So you ripped off his arm?”
He didn’t appear the least bit sorry. “I said I’d get you out alive, and so I shall.” He came close, lifted the arm and pressed it to the collar on her neck. A clicking sound followed, and it sprung open. She reached up and pulled it off her throat.
She took a deep breath, for the first time able to breathe.
Zarathos reached into his cloak and lifted out the vial from earlier.
“Now drink this transformation potion. It will get you through the bars.” He nodded to the window above.
She eyed the potion warily. “What does it transform me into?”
“No time. Drink,” he said again. “Meet me by the stream that is about two leagues north of here.”
“What stream?”
Aryana had arrived in a covered cage. And he expected her to know where to go?
“Follow our Bloodbound bond and you will find me.” He stepped into the shadows and vanished.
She glared at where he had left. So she should trust him? Just like that? Her gaze dropped to the arm on the ground, the pieces of the controller sitting next to it.
Whatever awaited her. Whatever the potion did to her, she knew one thing.
Zarathos wouldn’t purposely hurt her until he had used her to obtain the vampire portion of the scepter. She uncorked the small container and downed its contents.
It tasted bitter, like red wine coursing over her tongue. A moment after swallowing, nausea caused her to double over, gripping her stomach. Shouts came from outside her door, but Aryana barely acknowledged that as her skin became flushed. Then the world spun around her. Faster and faster.
When the rotating stopped, everything appeared darker than normal. Aryana squinted into the blackness. She tried to call out, but a squeak emitted from her and her surroundings lit up in bright outlines. The spinning wheel, the floor, the bales of hay. She moved and spread her wings. Wait, wings?
Aryana was a bat.
Out through the bars, of course. She let out another squeak, the room lighting up briefly in her mind. As the door burst open, she flapped her wings, letting the instincts of the creature she had become direct her up to the window ledge. She passed between the bars.
She sensed the wide space around her, the vast nothingness above her and the warmth of the earth beneath, giving her a sense of direction. Using her new power of echolocation, she flew through the forest, dodging around tree trunks and branches.
Even while she was airborne, the shadows tugged on her mind, compelling her to go right, so she proceeded that way. After a moment, the shadows insisted she move forward. Cold and pressing, they pulled her along like a fishing line.
Until she came upon the stream Zarathos had spoken of.
And there the demon arch king waited beside its rocky shore. His glowing eyes landed on her, and a small, triumphant smile graced his lips. He held out his arm and Aryana alighted onto it, her little claws grasping the fabric of his cloak.
“Glad to see you could join me, Vampress.”
Opening the palm of his other hand, he offered her a tiny piece of fruit.
Without thinking, she bit into it.
He set her on the ground, and her body again changed. The world spun in circles as her arms sprouted, her vision returned, and the trees grew smaller.
As she transformed back into her usual vampire form, Zarathos stepped forward and draped his cloak over her bare shoulders.
She drew it tightly around her naked form, the lingering warmth of him still clinging to the fabric.
She rose on unsteady feet and met the demon arch king’s uncompromising gaze.
“King Salen. Did you actually kill him?” she asked.
“That would have been highly satisfying, but no. I didn’t want to start a war.”
“Ripping off his arm might start a war.”
A slow smirk crossed his face, his eyes glinting. “I doubt it. Not with the trials coming up. I told you, I don’t make deals I can’t fulfill. Besides, he was an ass.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
His grin grew wider, something possessive and playful flashing in his expression. “And he was trying to marry my wife.”
Her hands clenched around Zarathos’s cloak, and she gave him a withering look. “I’m not your wife.”
“Keep on with that attitude, because if anyone finds out we are Bloodbound, we are as good as dead. It’s fortunate you put the mark in such a… less obvious place.”
She drew her legs together as she thought about Zarathos sucking blood out of her thigh and how exquisite it had felt to have his warm tongue lapping at her skin.
“King Salen will send his son after you in the trials,” she said.
“I’d expect nothing less.” He stepped forward, reaching for her. “We should get moving.”
She flinched and involuntarily stepped back.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Or we can remain here and wait for King Salen’s soldiers to find us. Or even the sun to rise?”
She didn’t trust this demon, and she hated that she was bound to him.
That she didn’t have a choice. Forcing her tensed muscles to relax, she reminded herself why she was doing this.
If Zarathos won the trials, then she could make a world where innocent humans were safe from not only vampires, but all demons.
She could do that in the name of those she had lost. Of her friends, who her uncle had destroyed. Joy, Terrance, their parents, their town.
He moved toward her again, and she didn’t pull away when he took her arm. “On to get the scepter?”
She nodded and this time, when his shadows gathered, their cold darkness enveloped her as well, whisking her to wherever Zarathos willed them.