Deadly Lovers (The Prussia Series) (5 page)

“You can go,” I offered, pleading, “Just leave and I won’t say anything,”

“Oh, is the Princess giving me leave?” the Duke asked, mock shock in his tone, “Thank you, Princess, for such kindness!” he growled, throwing me forward into the dirt and straw towards the dungeon door.

I looked up from the dirt with straw in my hair, my hands raw from trying to catch myself, and my knees were scraped from the rough landing. He had thrown me roughly 20 feet. I began to scoot quickly towards the light of the dungeon door, seeing no way to get past him. The Duke continued to move towards me, slowly, his smile a mask for cruelty that I had seen worn before by others.

I felt the tremble start in my hands as I continued to scurry backwards through the dirt, trying to move quickly. But the tremble didn’t stop there. It attacked my knees, as I tried to crawl and had to continue to scoot backwards, the pain shooting through my entire body. I had countless scrapes and bruises. They contributed to the overall ache that spread over me.

I tried to keep my eyes on the Duke, to keep track of him, but every time I looked into his eyes all I could see was the possibilities of what might come next. And I knew I needed to think of something, anything, some way to get help or get away from him.

After a few moments crawling backwards I saw the light spill over me from the door of the dungeon. I looked back quickly, relieved that I had made it, but relief turned to terror as the Duke walked right over me, grabbing me by the hair as he walked and dragged me after him. I felt the terror grip me as I rolled behind him, hair threatening to rip out of my scalp with every yank and pull he made.

My mouth filled with the dirt that covered the floor and the bits of straw that kicked up as I was dragged along. I spit, kicked and thrashed my arms wildly as the Duke dragged me across the dungeon floor. Just as I thought he would release me, I felt some of my hair rip from my scalp as the Duke flung me from the floor into the dungeon wall.

The wall shook, brick and dirt bowing slightly at the weight of me being thrown against it with such force. I bounced off the wall and fell back into the dirt, more dirt and straw falling from above as the barn floorboards that made up the ceiling of the dungeon showered debris down on me. I coughed as the small cloud of dirt that settled over me and got up on all fours, still trying to get the dirt and straw out of my mouth.

The Duke stepped forward quickly and sent a hard knee into my face. I felt the bone of his knee connect with my nose which sent my head reeling backwards. I felt the gush of blood flood down the front of my face and the sharp crack of a broken nose. The light exploded as my eyes went in and out of focus, the blow disorienting me with little more than an outcry of pain.

The blows came quickly, without rhyme or reason and as if they came from every direction. He kicked me again, and again, and again. Each blow opened a new wound. Each kick found something else to break. Every breath that escaped my lips, forced out in pain, could barely be replaced before the next blow came.

It wasn’t until I lay on my back, the warm trickle of blood on my face beginning to pool in my left eye as I looked up and he paused. The light blurred like a halo around the smiling face of the psychotic Duke.
Why had Sebastian left me alone with this monster?
I thought.
Why did I always end up in a pool of my own blood?
I wanted to scream out but I couldn’t move my jaw. He may have broken it. As the blood pooled in the small curve of my left eye, I closed it. I looked up at the menacing Duke with only my right eye, even that beginning to swell closed.

“You just won’t die!” said the Duke, with a fascinated look on his face, breathy from exerting so much force in beating me, “You don’t mind if I take a break, do you?”

I thanked my stars that the Duke might stop. I felt the trickle of a tear begin in my right eye, blurring what little I could see even more. I didn’t move. I didn’t even moan. I could barely breathe and it hurt each time I took a shuddered breath in.

“A quick drink and we’ll resume,” said the Duke, as he roughly pulled me up from the blood smeared dirt and yanked my head to the side.

I hardly had time to react as the Duke bit down into the soft flesh in the curve of my shoulder. I wanted to scream out but every broken bone screamed out louder. My own pain silenced me.

The only thing I felt above the pain was rage. I felt the rush of warmth leave my shoulder as the Duke pulled deeply, drinking in the warmth and leaving chills racing down my spine as the cold began to climb through my limbs inch by inch. Soon, the only thing left to warm me would be my rage. I opened my eyes as best I could; the blood that had collected over my left eye had spilled down the side of my face and down my neck, just where the Duke had bit me. My right eye, swelling quickly but still able to make out rough shapes and outlines, showed me enough.

I gritted my teeth with every inch of willpower I had left as I raised my broken arms as quickly as I could and grabbed hold of the Dukes face. I pushed as hard as I could to get him away from my shoulder. I felt the surge of rage failing me as the Duke laughed into the blood spilling out of me, the gurgle of his laughter making me sick to my stomach and fueling my rage further. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth harder, my rage transforming into something I had never felt before, something I had only imagined others around me to feel - insanity.

My adrenaline surged and my hands quickly found the sweet spot I was looking for as I dug into the soft eyes of the Duke with my thumbs. I didn’t press into them with the pads of my thumbs. I took the points of my nails at the corners of his eyes and dug into the soft slimy material of his eyeballs. I used my hands to press securely to the sides of his face, a perfect anchor to navigate my thumbs as he tried to pull my hands away from his face.

I jabbed my thumbs in hard, digging in until I hit bone and then I scrapped as hard as I could. His screams pierced my ears and I smiled, still gritting my teeth. The Duke that had only moments ago been standing over me, kicking me into a pile of broken and barely held together pieces, crumpled to the floor at my hands.

“Mercy!” he screamed at me again and again, still trying to pry my hands away from his face, clawing at my arms.              

Each pass he made over my arms left deeper gouges from his digging nails and the wounds ran red with my blood but I refused to let go. His shrieks of desperation echoed in the small enclosed dungeon but instead of mercy, instead of restraint, I offered him the only thing my pain would allow me to offer him. Justice.

“Any minute they’re going to come looking for me,” whimpered the Duke, his cheeks covered in streaks of fresh blood, his eye sockets empty, hollow.

He felt the floor with his hands, shaking and patting the earth as he went as though looking for the eyes he must have dropped on the ground. But he hadn’t dropped his eyes. I had dug them out with my thumbnails and enjoyed it. My face twisted into what resembled a snarl more than a smile as I watched him, in shock, trying to figure out which way to flee on his hands and knees.

“It’s about time you end
ed me, don’t you think, Duke?” I asked, mocking him.

I heard him sob as he continued to pat the ground, trying his best to keep his back to me. Every time I stepped around to the side of him, following him, he would change his direction, shuffling across the dirt in the opposite direction. I couldn’t help but enjoy this. Every step I took following him, every breath I took mocking him, I felt pain. I couldn’t deny him that equal feeling. It was only fair.

“Mercy!” he cried.

“Mercy for my ears,” I muttered, crouching down next to his face, ignoring the splintering pain shooting up from my shin which clearly had been fractured in several places, “Perhaps I’ll take your tongue next to save my ears,” I whispered.

The Duke scurried away from me, trembling.

“Why aren’t they healing?” he screamed right before he crawled face-first into the brick wall behind the chair he had been tied to. Pools of my own blood were not far from him. Even as I followed him, enjoying his torment, I left a trail of fresh blood that still oozed from my cuts, breaks and gashes all over my body. He had bloodied me good. He had enjoyed it. And I couldn’t help but enjoy repaying him for his kindness.

“Maybe…” I said, “Maybe I’m different. Maybe I’m the one
vampire
you shouldn’t have messed with,” I said, soaking up his fear and letting it fill me up, making me drunk with my anger.

“You’re not a vampire,” he whimpered, curling up into the fetal position against the wall, dirt smeared all over his expensive suit, splattered with blood as it continued to drip from his echoing eye sockets, “You’re not healing either…I can smell it on you, the blood. I can smell it pouring out of you,” he spit the words at me as he cowered on the floor.

“You’re right,” I said, “I’m not a vampire. But I’m not human either,”

“What…what are you?” asked the Duke, his gouged eye sockets looking for me with eyes he didn’t possess, crying blood in place of the tears he could no longer shed.

I didn’t like his question. I didn’t want anyone to really know. I liked this feeling shooting through me. The pain was nearly unbearable before this feeling. Now, it felt like strength, like power. I felt invincible where I had once felt helpless. The adrenaline raced through me even as the blood drained out of me. My every bone screamed in agony and yet…with every step the scream was a little quieter.

Either my pain tolerance was growing or I was healing. Either way, I gritted my teeth and sucked it up, sucked up the pain, and let it blind me along with my rage. I had spent my fair time on the ground, in the dirt, getting kicked. And here I finally had the opportunity to kick back. And I did.

I pulled my foot back, the pain shooting through my leg like tiny constant volts of electricity, and placed both of my hands against the wall as I looked down at the blood streaked, hollowed out eyes of the Duke. He brought his arms up to protect him. I didn’t make a sound but somehow, even without eyes, he could see me, sense me. I couldn’t stand his face. I hated the sound of his voice. I wanted to crush his skull and see the end of him for every kick he had landed on me.

He had had a chance to leave. He could have left me alone. If he had just left the castle, he wouldn’t be crumpled where he now sat in the dirt, straw, and his own blood. But he chose to stay. And after what he chose to do after he stayed, I had decided I was going to make it right.

I didn’t care how much pain it caused me. I pulled my knee forward with all the force I had in my entire body and let it impact the Duke in the face. The lights in the room became so bright I couldn’t see for a second. The pain was blinding but I still smiled. I gritted my teeth and smiled. I had broken my leg. I knew it, I felt it. Whatever fractures I had before had broken when I kneed the Duke in the face. But watching my knee connect with his mouth, watching his front teeth break off into his mouth and the back of his head rebound off the brick wall, made it worth it.

I stepped back and tried to keep my weight on my other leg as I watched the Duke lean forward, hands on the floor, and spit out several of his teeth along with a mouthful of blood. I secretly wished it had been his fangs but it hadn’t been. My mouth twisted up in disgust as the Duke spat out mouthful after mouthful of blood and cursed me between breaths.

I was losing that feeling, the feeling of power. I liked that feeling but it was slipping away with every curse he tossed at me, with every low guttural growl that slipped from between his lips as he crouched on the floor. I wasn’t anywhere close to done and we weren’t any where close to being even. I hopped on one leg over to the table that had tools spread out on it. It just so happened I was fully equipped to make sure justice was served.

I picked up a pair of surgical looking pliers and hopped back over to the Duke, still spitting blood in splatters all around him. It looked as though I had killed somebody. Still, he bled. I knelt down next to the Duke and he recoiled, his arm swiped out at me and hit my face, scratching the side of my face in the process. I fell over into the brick wall but recovered quickly.

The Duke sat back, his legs forward to keep distance from me, one of his hands up in front of him, and one behind him to keep him up. His hollow eye sockets looked for me, unable to see but clearly listening for my movements. Nothing was going to keep me from getting my justice. It was my job, after all, according to Queen Victoria. And not only was my leg starting to feel better but I was starting to enjoy the job of doling out my brand of court fairness.

I recovered quickly from his strike and lunged over the Duke, a leg on either side of him. The Duke looked up at me without any eyes, only blood streaking down his cheeks, face and neck, and his mouth open with a terrified hiss. I smiled as the Duke gave me the opportunity I was looking for. I shoved the pliers, open, into the Duke’s mouth. I had hoped for his fangs but would settle on his tongue.

I caught the Duke’s tongue between the grips of the steel pliers and locked them down, pulling forward and feeling the give and take of the Duke’s tongue stretch at my hands. The shrieks of horror and pain were ear splitting. The Duke tried to scurry backwards, away from me, but I had him by the tongue and as soon as he pulled at all against the pliers his scurry halted. I gave a tug and listened to the gargling of blood in the Duke’s mouth and the sound of pain drowning in his throat.

“Get. Up. Slowly,” I said, a whisper so crisp it would have given me goose bumps if I wasn’t coated in layer after layer of dry and drying blood.

The Duke used his hands to carefully push off from the dirt floor and stand up. I held the grip of the pliers with both hands, not wanting to lose my grip, and pulled the Duke by the mouth back to the metal chair he had once been restrained in.

“Sit,” I said, as I squeezed the pliers tighter and a deep, gargle of a moan attempted to escape from the Duke’s throat, blood splattered out of his mouth as air fought to escape with each moan and cough.

The Duke sat with a shrill scream of pain as I dropped the pliers and let his tongue hold the full weight of the pliers. I quickly grabbed the ropes that were scattered about on the floor. Clearly they had not been tight enough. As the Duke struggled to figure out how to unlock the clamp the pliers had on his tongue without being able to see how the lock on the pliers worked, I tied the ropes around his feet to the legs of the chair. I smiled with appreciation at the metal rings on the chair that would prevent the ropes from simply slipping off the legs of the chair. I tied the ropes as tight as I could, no intention of ever untying them. By the time the Duke had gotten the pliers off of his tongue, I had already slipped the last piece of rope around his torso and tied him to the back of the chair. I pulled as hard as I could and smiled each time he groaned in pain.

“You can’t do this,” he said, “I’m of another court,”

“No,” I said, securing the last knot in the rope and coming around to view my handiwork, “You’re in my court,” I said, smiling.

“Don’t you mean
Queen Victoria’s
?” asked the Duke, cautiously, his tongue a mangled mess and his pronunciation skewed.

“I get the feeling…” I said, as I turned to view the tools spread out on the table and let my hand roll over the smooth silver finish of the knife handles laid out carefully, “…that it’s more of a
family
responsibility,” I said, looking back at him with a smile on my face.

“Just kill me,” groaned the Duke as I picked up a sharp cleaver, heavy in my hand but the weight exciting me, “That’s what you’re going to do anyway. Just do it. Just kill me,”

I put the tip of my finger on the sharp blade of the knife and flicked it, feeling the razor sharp edge and being satisfied that it would be a good first choice, a first try.

“Tell me,” I asked, curiously, “How do I kill a vampire?”

“What?” asked the Duke.

I’m guessing his eyebrows would have been drawn together more tightly if he had eyeballs still.

“You know how to kill a vampire,” said the Duke.

His voice sounded frustrated but the fact that his tongue had been so mangled by the pliers meant his words came out sounding…well, funny. His tongue had begun to swell from the trauma. I started to wonder if I would still be able to question him if his tongue got too big to answer.

“You’re referring to Jasper,” I nodded, though I knew he couldn’t see me, “Yes, well. Jasper was an accident. A convenient accident and not one I feel especially bad about but still an accident,” I said, waiving the cleaver around as if giving a speech. Looking back into the hollowed out cavities of his eyes, it dawned on me that the performance was lost on him.

The Duke didn’t respond. He just sat there, looking towards my direction but never at me.

“Spit it out,” I said, “Otherwise, you have no use for that tongue and you’ll spit
that
out,”

“The heart,” offered the Duke quickly, “it’s the fastest way,”

“And…what if I want a slow way?” I asked.

I thought he was going to answer me but he paused. His mouth hung open for a minute.

“Go to hell,” he growled at me through gritted teeth, blood spilling out of his mouth where his missing teeth left gaps in his sparkling white row of teeth with blood foaming at every curve and corner of his mouth.

“I would, certainly,” I said, placing the sharp tip of the cleaver at the curve of the Duke’s neck, “If I weren’t immortal,” I said with my sweetest smile and happiest voice as I began slow slices into the muscles that held his neck attached to his shoulders.

The Duke tried his best, for several strokes of the blade, not to cry out. But by the fifth slice, as the blade began small shaving cuts into the collar bone, the pleading and begging began to bubble up from his lips in sweet succession. As his cries turned into gentle murmurs, a gurgle of blood dripping in a small trickle from the corner of his mouth, I headed back to the table to test out something new. I wanted him lively and active. I wanted to talk him through his pain and hear every ounce of it.

I selected a curved blade next. It reminded me of a small wheat sickle, just small enough for my dainty hand and just big enough for a grown vampire. I let a gentle hand trace the outside of where the Duke’s eyes had once been.

“I never noticed what color your eyes…were,” I said, enjoying that I could still find humor in the situation, “What
were
they?”

The Duke sobbed, no tears but plenty of despair. I laid a hand on his forehead and let my thumb gently stroke his eyebrow, comforting him. The Duke shook his head back and forth violently. He didn’t like it. And it made me laugh.