The Lycan Collapse (The Flux Age Book 2) (3 page)

All in all, Yasmin commanded a crumbling ruin on top of a forgotten mountain in rural Romania. No - she didn’t quite feel like a queen.

The succubi were warming to Yasmin day by day. At first they had shrank away from her, perhaps overwhelmed by her power. In the last few weeks Yasmin had felt a strengthening bond with the succubi, and had even begun sending them on various missions. The castle needed a complete overhaul, which meant acquiring furniture and art. The succubi had proven themselves adept at sourcing such items from the various mountain villages in the surrounding range. Yasmin had no problem with theft, sensing that many of the antiques she gained were once part of the castle’s estate in any case.

As for the doktor, well, he was a curious man. In many ways Yasmin would be forever in his debt. She had been languishing in New York when he had set up the beacon that drew her here to eastern Europe. Things hadn’t gone so well with the Lycan Society and Yasmin was as heart broken as a young woman could be. She had fully expected to join lycan ranks only to be divined as something completely different. She’d always known deep down that she wasn’t a lycan, but had fallen in love with the lycans nonetheless. One in particular had captured her heart - Jack Foley. The less she thought about
him
the better. The bastard had turned his back on her as soon as it suited him to do so. Sure, he’d muttered something about hunting her down, but she no longer believed it. She couldn’t allow herself to believe it. The fact was she was a queen mother of the vampyra and he was a lycan werewolf. In what universe could they possibly have a future together? The problem was, the harder Yasmin tried to banish Jack Foley from her mind, the greater his grip on her heart. Despite everything, she felt safe with Jack. With him, she could just be Yasmin Silver. She didn’t need to be anything else. And now, they were on opposite sides of the world with trouble brewing on all sides. She wanted desperately to know if he was OK, but she couldn’t exactly pick up the phone and call him. What would he say? The thought of his disinterested voice at the other end of the line chilled her to the core. No, she had no choice but to make a new life for herself here in Romania. At least here the people seemed to understand who she was. The lycans seemed to recognize
what
she was, but they had no idea what to do with her. In the end, she was effectively banished from their Society. At least they’d left her future in her own hands.

Which brought her to Tomas Verdano. To a man broken by circumstance and in need of a new purpose. A man who had lost his family to a psychopath in Berlin. A man who would walk the ends of the earth for
her
. As far as Yasmin could tell, there wasn’t anything sexual about Tomas’s devotion to her. It had more to do with the power structure of the vampyra. Yasmin was a queen and they both felt it. The succubi sensed it too, treating Yasmin with a detached reverence.

Today, Yasmin stepped gingerly from her room as darkness enveloped the castle. The wind howled through the cracks in the wall that the Maramurians had yet to cement over. She’d spent the day lying in a foetal position under several thick quilts. Her inability to function by day was growing worse over time. The dawn was a time to be dreaded, feared even. The sun’s rays were no longer life-giving - they were life-taking. When each day rolled into the light Yasmin just wanted to curl up into a ball. It wasn’t as if she could use the time to think or to plan. Her mind seemed to shut down during the daylight hours, becoming a crumbly, stuttering mess. It was far better just to shut her eyes and block out the world.

The night was another world for Yasmin Silver. It was now her playground, her fire, her inspiration. Her pace quickened as she approached the main hall. She was gathering strength with every step. She stopped to peer through one of the slits that passed for windows in this place. Winds from the valleys were raising snow flurries and pressing the powder right up against the castle. The Maramurians wouldn’t be able to visit for days. Cursing to herself, Yasmin entered the main hall and found Tomas huddled in a damp corner. The tall, broad-shouldered man was gaunt and disheveled. She suspected that he was struggling with the same problem she was - the problem of feeding. Both had the hunger on the edge of their souls, just begging to be satiated. Tomas had supped on Yasmin’s blood when he saw her, which was his right as her loyal servant. Both of them now needed fresh blood in order to regain strength and power. The problem was that Yasmin knew in her bones that human blood was best. It was an instinctive thing, like a human drawn to meat and vegetables. She had an indefinable hunger that needed slaking soon or she would begin to shrivel away. She could see how consuming fresh blood might be possible in the city, provided she could link up with a hospital. But out here in the Romanian wilderness fresh blood needed to be hunted. Tomas looked up at Yasmin with yellow eyes. Yasmin had no doubt that her arrival had probably saved his life. The man now had a focus for his energies. He usually spent his nights working on the castle after the Maramurians had gone home. His energy was amazing to witness. Yasmin had never seen someone go about his duty with such zeal.

At that moment Tomas was looking at Yasmin through eyes slitted with concern.

“You’re so thin,” Tomas croaked. “Tonight you need blood. Please.”

The doktor offered his bare forearm. It was pale and scarred, as if Tomas had experimented with drawing his own blood. Yasmin winced at the sight - the notion made her skin crawl.

But the doktor was right. Tonight was the night. She would leave the castle and hunt, weather be damned.

“Will you come with me, Tomas?” she asked.

Tomas’s face came alive. “But of course, Queen,” he breathed.

Yasmin did not try and correct the doktor. Technically, she
was
a queen, and the truth was she enjoyed hearing it. The title reminded her of the heavy responsibility she now carried. One that would get heavier every day.

“Then come,” she said. “You will talk to me on the way.”

Minutes later the pair were gliding across the snow in their heavy cloaks. Neither had their hoods drawn. One of the physical changes Yasmin had noticed since being divined was a resistance to extreme cold. That meant she could traverse the frigid mountains at night with little discomfort.

“How do you think we’re placed, Tomas?” Yasmin asked as they moved at an easy, unrushed pace.

“We’re consolidating our resources, ma’am,” Tomas said. “Apart from the two of us, the succubi have settled in well. We have a score of Maramurians to draw on for hard labor and also for sending messages. The main hall and east wing are secure. The rest will be built, winter or no. The succubi are sourcing what wealth is available in these mountains. The beacon is lit.”

The last part was added with uncertainty. The scarlet phosphorous beacon in the belfry tower was designed to attract fellow vampyra to the cause. No one had come in several weeks. Yasmin had to tell herself again and again that nothing was “wrong” at her end. The most likely explanation was that few vampyra had been divined this early in the Flux transformation. That would change over time, and more followers would surely come. The only thing to do about that was wait. Or get a diviner. Not for the first time Yasmin wished Mischa, the diviner she’d met in Berlin, was here in Romania. To have a diviner at her disposal would make the emergent vampyra very powerful indeed. Yasmin had a feeling that the absence of a diviner in her retinue would come back to bite her if she wasn’t careful. She resolved to set her mind to the problem and let it bubble away in her subconscious. As a vampire she found she had an improved ability to conceptualize problems and solve them using her “resting” mind. Which is partly why she needed fresh blood - all her new vampiric abilities seemed to suffer without it.

On impulse Yasmin turned to Tomas as they made their way through lightly wooded terrain. Their movement, already dampened by the thick snow, was near silent as they picked their way through the trees.

“I want to thank you for everything you’ve done, Tomas,” Yasmin began. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. Which is why I want to make you Prime Consort.”

Tomas’s eyes widened in delight. It was obvious he wanted nothing else in life. Yasmin had already considered the danger of trusting Tomas with her life. She hadn’t had a chance to do any research on vampyra but creating such a position for Tomas seemed logical. It was essentially making him her personal advisor in all things. Tomas wasn’t exactly muscle, nor did he seem particularly good with people. What he
did
have was a wise, logical head and a close affinity with vampire lore. Far better to put his talents to good use.

“It would be an honor, queen,” he managed to breathe. Yasmin hid a small smile - she adored how this man continued to show such enthusiasm when it was clear she was starting from rock bottom. His profound loyalty was exactly why she trusted him - he’d invested too much of himself to be some kind of threat.

Tha pair moved through the solemn pine trees in amiable silence for a while. Yasmin had some idea to head for the hunting cabin the Maramurians sometimes used on the other side of the Pontar Valley. She had no inkling of what she might do when she got there - she had no desire to kill her Maramurians. Perhaps it would be possible to ask them to go get some human blood? Yasmin hadn’t thought beyond that primitive concept.

Another twenty minutes hike up a reasonably sleep slope saw Yasmin and Tomas to the hunting cabin. The Vampire queen was relieved to see dim rectangles of light in the windows. The cabin was occupied.

Tomas went first, rapping on the door. A filthy fur trapper replied, his frost-burned, toothless smile turning into a leer when he saw Yasmin. These weren’t Maramurians. Probably Hungarian hunters from the north. The one before Tomas grinned wolfishly and beckoned to his unseen comrades. Four hunters paraded through the doorway, axes poised.

“We know something is changing the world,” the leader said in provincial Hungarian that Yasmin somehow understood. “Europe is a wild place once again. Dangerous for those in fancy fur coats, no?”

Tomas looked nervously at Yasmin. In truth, this was unexpected. Over the past few weeks she had grown accustomed to something like awe from the local Romanians. These trappers were belligerent and looked highly dangerous. Worse still, they seemed to think the laws of modern Romania no longer applied to them. Surely the world hadn’t slipped so far, so soon? Yasmin supposed that certain pockets of the world had already become wild places. From the look of these men, they hadn’t yet found their spirit beasts.

Tomas’s glance was a mixture of things. There was fear there, but Yasmin knew it wasn’t for his own safety. He felt what she did - terror at what they were about to unleash.

The first trapper came at Yasmin, leaving his friends to look after Tomas. He tossed his axe from hand to hand in anticipation of violence. Yasmin could read the first swing as if it were in slow motion. She ducked under it, a little sheepish in the knowledge that the fight was over already. She allowed the man to make several more clumsy swings, fatiguing him in the process. When at last the trapper stumbled forward after a reckless downswing, Yasmin stepped forward and lifted the man from the hips. Not quite knowing what to do with the man, Yasmin simply tossed him into the air. To her astonishment the trapper sailed clean over the hut, landing head first. Despite the softness of the snow he wouldn’t have survived that landing.

Yasmin froze with the realization that she’d just killed a man. She’d seen plenty of carnage when the Berlin Club set a trap for the lycans but she’d somehow been able to avoid killing anyone in that particular battle. And yet he she was, tossing men to their deaths like they were rag dolls.

A second trapper approached Yasmin uncertainly. Unwilling to prolong a fight that was essentially unfair, Yasmin swept the man’s legs from under him and stomped his throat efficiently. Even as she fought she realized that it was foolish to leave survivors. Who knew how many men the trappers would return with? Better to leave a grisly mystery here at the hunting cabin.

Tomas was handling two trappers with aplomb, his body spinning with roundhouse kicks. One of the trappers rebounded back against the cabin and then fell forward, either unconscious or dead. The second was sent flying against a tall pine where he was impaled by a chest-high branch. The sheer force of Tomas’s blows was gobsmacking. These rustic men were no match for the heightened abilities of a vampire at night. The darkness seemed to give Yasmin and her prime consort the strength of several men.

The final trapper stood several yards away, eyes darting to the trees.

“I cannot let you leave,” Yasmin said, closing the distance to the man with such incredible speed that she managed to surprise herself. “I’m sorry.”

Before Yasmin knew what she was doing her mouth had latched onto the trapper’s throat. The vampire queen held the trapper on his feet as warm, metallic-tasting blood gushed into her mouth as if from a jet. She gulped it down like a feral beast, delighting in its transformative powers. It was as if someone had set a fire in her solar plexus, a fire that made her entirely body glow with contentment.

She found she didn’t have much in the way of sympathy for the man as she looked into his fading eyes.

The initial rush of blood slowed to a trickle, and Yasmin sucked harder, determined not to waste a drop. She eventually let the man go. His face and neck were grey and dessicated. The effect was a little ghastly, and Yasmin had to turn away in shock.
She
had caused that.
Yasmin Silver from downtown New York
. She thought about the Lycan Society, about those noble lycans who never needed to kill like she had done. She felt nauseous for a moment, finally realizing the full implications of who she was. What the old Yasmin Silver had sacrificed to become the person she was now. She looked across at Tomas with tears in her eyes. The poor man was kneeling on the snow, blood trickling down his chin. He had the same haunted expression. She glided across to him and offered her hand. He took it with a slight nod, his eyes never straying from hers.