Vameer (Bonded Souls #2)

Prologue

VAMEER

Panicked screams echo off the rock while frigid wind whips my hair around my face.

Ignoring it all, I climb higher.

Tierra del Fuego is harsh. Brutal. Unforgiving.

Which is probably why I like it.

And why I want to rest here.

Gods, I just need to rest.

The sword attached to my left hip catches on the side of the mountain.

I shift closer to the drop-off on my right and keep walking.

The wind and screams continue, and exhaustion scrapes against my bones.

I’ve been here before, eighty years ago, on this exact goat path, headed to this exact destination. Shown the way by a druid posing as a monk.

I stayed for two weeks that time, relaxing in the silence.

This time, I will stay longer.

Perhaps a month.

The first voice finally quiets, only for the second to shout for someone to please help.

“Fementido, quiet!” I growl at the obnoxious men.

I’m just so gods damned tired.

The silence lasts for a moment before the scream changes to a plea. “L-let us go. Please, we w-won’t tell no one.” The man’s quieter volume doesn’t make me like him any better.

Of course they won’t tell anyone. What would they say? A big man with horns and fangs and eyes like the devil kidnapped me.

Vampires stand out. We cannot go unseen by humans our whole lives.

But most men who lay eyes on me are siding with evil.

So, they die. And the ones who live in small villages, who commonly see their local vamps, stay quiet.

Through fear, loyalty, or disbelief by others.

Because for all their storytelling, humans don’t like to believe in the supernatural.

Ten more minutes of climbing, then I see it.

The uninterrupted wall of rock gives way to an opening, three feet wide and seven feet tall.

I duck through the entrance of the unnatural cave, and exhale my relief.

The screaming resumes as the two men are pulled behind me, forced to follow.

There’s a dull thud, and the wailing cuts off.

Glancing back, I see that side by side, the two men are too wide to fit through the opening.

I sigh and wave my hand.

My gravito backs them up, turns the pair sideways, then floats them through, shoulder first.

The men struggle. But they will not get free. My gravito is wrapped around them, looking like smoke but feeling like chains. Their feet are not touching the ground, and their arms are pinned to their sides. They can fight until they pass out; it will do them no good.

The ceilings inside the cave are high, so I can walk upright as I make my way deeper into the mountain. It’s still too narrow for the men to face forward, but their heads are free to move, so they can turn enough to see where we’re going.

Except it’s dark. And the farther we go, the darker it gets. But there are a few pinholes in the rock, created by water over the millennia, letting in the faintest amount of light.

Pitiful whimpers follow me down the passage, and the longer they continue, the more I’m tempted to just kill the men. If they keep me awake, I will abandon my plan and make their end painful.

Finding what I’m looking for, I flick my wrist, and a thick slab of stone slides along the wall, revealing a chamber.

I enter.

And the men start to scream again when I drag them inside with me.

This room has been used for many things. By many people. Though I may be the only one who uses it for this purpose.

I circle around the low altar to the far side of the room, where a cell is carved into the back wall.

The entrance to the cell is narrow, and the barred door is long missing, but beyond the threshold, there is enough room for two men to stand and move.

They keep screaming.

Irritation flares bright inside me, and my power shakes the room.

The men fall silent.

“I don’t know what you two are even whining about. The pack is filled with enough rations to last you two months. You won’t be here more than one.”

“R-rations?” The man chokes on his words. “It’s f-filled with swords.”

I shake my head. “The other pack.”

It’s getting more and more tempting to feed them my bag of blades, but keeping them alive is the whole point of bringing them here.

They aren’t good men. But they are clever enough. And physically strong. For humans. So long as they are both alive when I wake, I won’t need to drain either of them to build up my energy.

If one kills the other… Well, then death will be their sentence also.

My gravito drops the large leather sack of swords at my feet.

I nod in thanks, then roll my eyes.

I need to rest.

Thanking my own power has got to be a sign of something. And not something good.

But my gravito has been at my side, in my chest, in my mind, as far back as I have memory.

All vampires have gravito, named for the way it feels like a gravitational pull living inside us.

We can harness this power to move items. To move ourselves, jumping incredibly long distances.

But not all vampires have the same amount of power.

Intensity and ability to control it vary between bloodlines and between individuals.

I’ve always been strong.

Bigger than most.

So even as an adolescent, I was forced to stay in control. I couldn’t act out. A tantrum wasn’t safe for anybody.

But that control didn’t manifest as a shutdown of my power. It manifested as a complete honing of my skill.

And after my parents… while I was struggling with the loss of them and responsible for my little brother, I learned to get what we needed through stealth. And as I got larger, stronger, more powerful, that stealth became one of my biggest strengths.

By the time I reached thirty, the age of maturity, my gravito had been acting on its own for years.

It’s never acted in a way I don’t agree with. It’s a part of me. An extension of my will. It knows what I know. Feels how I feel. And after nearly two centuries of working as one, I trust it, and myself, enough to let it do as it pleases.

Sentient gravito is not a common thing among vampires.

I have only witnessed it a few times in others.

And those instances are the only other times I’ve seen gravito.

Aside from my own. Otherwise, it’s always invisible.

Clear. Completely see through. But when it wants to be seen, or not seen through, it can darken to look like smoke.

And I have moved enough prisoners to know that they are slightly less crazed with fear if they can see what is carrying them. Even if that thing looks like air.

I step aside, and my gravito floats the two men, sideways, through the narrow entrance into the cell.

“You can’t do this!” one of them shouts. The other is just crying now.

“I can.” I pull two of the swords from the sack.

I twirl the blades, keeping my wrists loose. Then I channel gravito into my arms as I thrust the sword across the entrance of the cell, embedding the blade several inches into the rock.

Stabbing across and up with my other arm, I sink that blade into the opposite side of the entrance, creating an X.

The sword was not put in the stone by a wizard.

I take a third and thread it straight across, pinning the original two in place.

Then I repeat the process, working my way down the doorway.

Before I do the last set, I kick the sack of rations into the cell, then I complete the barrier.

With the last sword in place, I step back, and the gravito wrapped around the men disappears.

They fall to the floor in a pile.

“Where are you going?” One of the men crawls to the front of the cell. “What are we supposed to do in here?”

“I’m not going anywhere. And you are supposed to survive.” I wave my hand, and the large slab of stone on the outside of the chamber slides back into place. Removing all traces of light, filling the room with utter blackness, and sealing us off from the world.

The men whimper.

They were feeling tough a few hours ago, when I found them slaughtering their neighbor’s cattle. But now, in the dark, trapped in a cave with a vampire… They are not so tough.

I unsheathe the sword at my hip, my favorite one, and lay it on the edge of the altar.

Looking around the space that will be my home for the next few weeks, I pull my hood up and thread my horns through the slits in the wool.

Then I sit on the altar and lie back beside my sword.

I adjust my robe around myself and fold my hands over my stomach.

One month.

I close my eyes.

Visions of death fill the darkness.

Ones I’ve caused.

Ones I’ve witnessed.

I keep my eyes closed.

Remembered sounds of despair resonate in my skull.

Pleas for mercy.

The silence of none.

One month, then I’ll figure out what is next.

One month, then I’ll find my new purpose.

My gravito wraps itself around me.

Fighting has been my purpose since that awful day. Since I watched my mother fall.

I slow my breathing.

Maybe when I’m rested, I will want to continue.

But maybe once I’ve rested, I will find a new meaning to life.

Just one month.

And I will find myself when I wake.

Believing that, I let myself fall into sleep.