Bloodmark (35 page)

I didn’t hear him leave, but I was alone again.

I felt my blood dripping down my back onto the floor. I don’t know how long I dangled there, but the silver shackles were cutting into my wrists, and a river of my blood ran down my arms. I didn’t fear death, I knew Old Mother would welcome me home, but I had never imagined it would be like this. I tried to think of a better time, but I couldn’t force my mind past the pain. Even if I got out of the shackles, it would be days before the silver poison left my veins. Escape was hopeless.

I woke again to Eamon unchaining me, and my body crumpled into his arms. My face fell forward into his hands, and my tears broke free. Everything I had felt poured out into the hands of my enemy, and I was helpless to stop the flood.

“Do what he asks of you, and he won’t hurt you anymore,” he said.

I looked for salvation, but his expression was blank. There was no safety for me there. He wanted to me to obey Adomnan to survive, but what survival was that? Submission wasn’t in my blood. I wouldn’t bow to a false king in this land of eternal night. Through my tears, I shook my head no.

He nodded to me. “I will try to protect you,” he replied as he left.

I curled in a ball in the pools of my dried blood as I sobbed. When my body stopped trembling, I crawled to the corner of the room near a window, soothing my back with the cold walls, and there I waited for the end.

By now Grey’s soul would be with Old Mother. We never stood a chance. I had led him to his death by choosing to love him. It was my fault he was dead. If I hadn’t interfered in his life, he and his horrible father would both still breathe.

Several nights passed by, and I saw no one. No sound of another living thing moved in this marble casket. Whether day or night, the light never changed through the windows, as though the whole land was frozen in an untimely death. I was grateful to be unchained. The silver started to lose its strength over me, and my mind started to clear. I kept trying to shift, but it was still useless.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps and whimpering approached my door, and I stood. Bento entered, dragging a young human girl no older than me across the cold marble. He dropped her at my feet. Her blonde hair was matted with tears, and her arms were bound behind her back. She’d been bathed and wore a simple ice-blue slip.

“His majesty thought you might be getting hungry,” he said.

The girl flinched as the door slammed closed. She was pretty. I leaned down to untie her, and she screamed, squirming away from me like a caterpillar. It was a pathetic attempt to save herself, though I had to admire her strength to try.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said softly. She had nothing to fear from me. “When you are ready, I will untie you.” I walked back to my corner and stared out the window at the ice-covered wilderness.

She lay where he had left her, but I wasn’t going to push her and frighten her more. Eventually she would realize on her own that I wasn’t a threat. I tried to pay her no mind, though I did peek at her. Her eyes were light blue and her skin as pale as mine. She was Nordic.

“Will you untie me?” she whispered. It wasn’t a request as much as a question. I could smell her fear. Her voice was soft and barely audible, but I could hear her clearly.

I moved over to her and knelt to untie her. I was a servant of Old Mother, and I would protect this girl, though I didn’t know how. “My name is Ashling.”

“Svana.”

I gave her a weak smile and touched her shoulder. I returned to my corner to stare out the window, giving her what little privacy I could. Soon she sat beside me, but her heart still raced.

“Why aren’t you going to eat me? You are one of
them
, aren’t you?”

“I have no interest in taking your life.”

“But you are a werewolf?”

I nodded.

“Why are you here?”

“I am no more a guest here than you.”

She considered what I said as she studied my face. Her eyes gave her away easily; she wasn’t fully convinced that I wasn’t going to eat her flesh, but she was willing to find out. Not that she really had a choice. Humans were interesting that way. They thought they were making choices when really they didn’t have one to begin with. Fate seemed to have a way of sneaking up on us all.

“Where is your family?” I asked.

“I am the last.”

I nodded sadly.

We slept that night huddled together for warmth. She seemed thankful to be with me, but what she didn’t realize was I couldn’t protect her from anyone but myself. She was as much at risk here as she was in the cages, but I thought it best not to tell her. It would only unnecessarily frighten her more. I wished I could set her free to live her life, but we were both captives.

As the false day dawned, Adomnan entered our chamber. I moved forward, leaving her behind me in the corner. I would protect her as long as I could, but it was a useless fight, I feared. He looked at her still living and breathing.

“Did you not enjoy my gift?” he asked. “Perhaps she’s not to your liking, perhaps something younger? Children have such tender flesh.”

I didn’t answer him. I merely stood my ground between him and Svana. He surveyed my response before erasing the space between us.

“Did you not smell her sweet blood? Her nectar?”

Still I didn’t respond to his crass questions. He leapt across the room to Svana, and she was trapped in his rough hands; he dragged her back to me. “Will you not enjoy her flesh?” he asked, forcing her body toward me. Her scent swarmed around me once again. Svana screamed.

I stared up into his angry face with contempt.

My lack of response was filling him with rage. Before I could conjure an answer, he grabbed her and bit her throat, ripping the flesh from her body. The cracking and popping sickened me. Her blood was smeared across his angular face, and her lifeless body fell to the ground at my feet. Her warm blood poured from the wound, soaking into my dress. I dropped to my knees, putting my hands over the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but it flowed freely past my fingers—her soul was already gone.

“You soulless bastard!”

He wrapped his bloody hand around my neck, forcing my face down to Svana’s dead body, smearing my face in her blood. “Does it not call to your soul? Just submit to the beast within, and we can be one.”

I was torn between the animal that did desire her flesh and my love for her human soul. I forced myself to turn away from her open wound. He lifted me up and suspended me above the floor. My feet dangled in his murderous grip. Her warm blood dripped from his lower lip as I gagged for air.

“I own you!”

“The hell you do,” I croaked, barely a whisper as he closed my airway.

My eyes fluttered from the lack of oxygen, making his face seem like a strobe. His menacing expression started to fade until I could no longer see. I smelled Eamon before I heard the crack and splinter of my body colliding with the glass window and felt my body sliding down on the broken glass, lifelessly to the floor.

23

Wild

Tears spilled over my cheeks as oxygen flooded my lungs
. The marble floor shined like black glitter. I ran my fingers through the cold liquid and lifted my hand to inspect the beautiful blood that coated my skin. It dripped down my hands—it was all around me. It was the scene from my dreams, and the smell made me want to vomit.

My hate for Adomnan writhed like worms under my skin. He stole Svana’s life as if it were nothing. This wasn’t the way of our kind, the way of Old Mother. All life and death was part of the earth and was to be respected and protected.

My shoulder oozed blood. I couldn’t focus on the wound, I kept seeing double as the blood poured out of my arm. I pulled a piece of glass from my flesh and wrapped my fingers over it, squeezing it shut as best I could. Sound finally started to return to my throbbing ears. I couldn’t make out what Adomnan and Eamon were saying over the high-pitched ringing, but I knew they were fighting. I could only guess Eamon was fighting for me.

Adomnan walked past Eamon toward me, his footsteps echoing off the walls like thunder. Nothing he could do would ever be as bad as losing Grey. I tried to center my mind on Grey, to shut out this nightmare, but Adomnan stood over my broken body, laughing, delighting in my pain.

Eamon pulled Adomnan away from me, throwing him into the doorway as Bento stood to the side, away from allegiances. Eamon stood alone between Adomnan’s fury and my broken body. I needed to shift before I lost consciousness; I needed to heal these wounds. I tried to shift, and my body began to vibrate. I could nearly feel my blood warm, but as quickly as it began, it ended, and I was still human. I was losing too much blood, and the silver poison still lingered inside me. I felt desperate and scared.

“What are you doing, Adomnan?” Eamon said.

“Get out of my way. I killed Father and won’t question doing the same to you.”

Eamon growled.

It was clear on Adomnan’s face that he was fully willing to rip the life from his younger brother’s body without any concern. Bento jumped between the two.

“We have her, why would you kill her, Adomnan?” Bento yelled. “You already have the power over all the packs.”

“I’m not going to kill her.”

“Than what are you doing?” Bento asked.

Adomnan grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet. My head throbbed and I was dizzy. He rubbed my shoulder under the strap of my dress. I squirmed from his touch, but his fingers dug into my skin, holding me in place.

Adomnan laughed. “I will break her. She
will
be mine.”

“This isn’t right, Adomnan,” Eamon said, “you know this isn’t right.”

“She’s of the Boru line. Royalty. You can’t take what isn’t rightfully given,” Bento said.

“She’s unmarked.
Ripe
for the taking,” Adomnan said as he pulled my dress down, exposing my naked body. I tried to cover myself from their stares, but he held my wrists. I felt violated and terrified. “My lovely queen,” he said.

I finally understood what he wanted. He intended to consume all of me, claiming my body and soul for his, and his alone. To stand as his queen. If he raped me, I would belong to him by all our laws. I would belong to him. No one could take me from him, and I couldn’t be saved. Our laws were clear and absolute. An unmarked female wasn’t her father’s property. Once Adomnan mated with me and his scent filled me, I would belong to him. By not branding me, my father had thought he was protecting me, but instead he gave Adomnan my life.

I wanted to throw up. I felt sick with the idea of his body touching mine. Losing Grey, losing everything—to die even—I could endure. But to be raped? I couldn’t stand the thought. It made every inch of my skin burn with hate, but I felt too weak to fight or shift. I wanted to live, but I didn’t know if I could fight this to the end.

Maybe Grey and I would meet in another life. I wondered what kind of creatures we would be. I believed with all my heart that he loved me, that he still held onto my heart after his death, and that I would be with him again. With the amount of blood I was losing, I would be dead soon anyway.

“Come to your senses, brother,” Bento said. “You will be starting a war.”

“I won’t let you do this,” Eamon said.

“You won’t
let
me?” Adomnan laughed, letting go of my arm. I crumbled to the floor.

“No. I will not let you do this.”

The two squared off in human form and lunged at each other. Their bodies clashed together, and their growls echoed off the walls. The sounds dripped with their hatred for one another. It stemmed deeper than this one moment, I was sure. Eamon threw Adomnan into another glass pane, and Adomnan broke through the window. The glass rained down two stories below into the snow. Adomnan’s body dangled outside the window, bent out awkwardly and faltering, as though he might fall, but he caught his footing and lunged back into the room. He slammed Eamon’s body into the iron bathtub.

Eamon cried out in pain as his right arm broke, hanging unnaturally at his side. A twisted laugh escaped Adomnan’s lips. Eamon retaliated, ramming his body into Adomnan’s chest, slamming him to the ground. His lifeless arm still hung at his side as he crushed several of Adomnan’s ribs.

But Adomnan wrapped the chains from the shackles around Eamon’s throat as he kicked him in the back. A cracking sound came from Eamon’s neck. With the sound of an animal dying, Eamon finally fell to the ground in a heap, gasping for air. It was all over so fast, a clash of gods in mere moments. Bento rushed over, helping his fallen brother back to his feet.

“Will you not stand by me, brothers?” Adomnan said.

Neither brother answered Adomnan’s call to fight. They just stared back at him. He was once their brother, their leader. Now they had to decide if they stood with him or against him.

“Choose!” Adomnan screamed at them. “Choose!”

Eamon’s head fell with shame for his elder brother.

“We can no longer protect you from yourself, Adomnan,” Bento said. “We cannot stand with you.”

Adomnan nodded and turned his back on them. After centuries of loyalty, their blood bond was broken. It was almost heartbreaking to imagine, but it wasn’t so different from what I had done to my family, fleeing from them as I did.

Eamon was too wounded to fight again. I could see it in the way his limbs hung unnaturally at his sides. With the silver poisoning him, making him temporarily mortal, he needed to escape, or he would die easily at his brother’s hands, like his father before him.

“I failed you,” he said to me as Bento led his broken body out of the room.

There was nothing and no one left to stand between Adomnan and me. No one left to protect me. The truth of his imminent rule over me made me sick.

After studying his wounds and torn garments, he turned to face me. “There are no more fleshy bodies standing between us,” he cooed, his voice soaked in a false admiration. “It’s just you and me, and now we can finally be together.”

He said it as if it were
my wish
to be with him, as if he were fighting for what I wanted. He reached out tenderly to touch my cheek as a lover would, but I flinched away. He grabbed my chin, nearly crushing the bone with his force, and turned my face back to his.