To Seduce An Assassin (The Omaja Series Book 2)(73)

They took the torch, left her there, and shut the door. The room went pitch black, and she heard them locking it from the outside with a padlock. Graciella allowed the terrified tears that were just below the surface to flow freely in the darkness, praying Yavi would come.

§

Yavi stopped to rest Sikar for a few minutes near a creek at the intersection of Ularian Road and the trail that led to the small village of Faril. The horse had galloped hard for two hours and was starting to fatigue. Yavi stood near his head, patting his neck, whispering to him in Nandalan. Sikar nudged him affectionately.

“You forgive me for running you like this, eh?”

Sikar nudged him again.

“Good, because we must fly again in a moment.”

He let the horse drink his fill and graze on the wild berry bushes nearby for a moment, and then swung himself up into the saddle again. Another hour or so of hard riding should bring him to the tower. He prayed that was her location, because he was running out of time to search.

§

There was a sound of footsteps hurrying down the stairs, and Terijin and Uman jumped up, drawing daggers as the wooden door flew open.

A group of six or seven grinning rebels rushed in, their eyes and teeth showing they had made the transition to Vyrkune. They bowed to Uman, breathing hard.

“My friends.” Uman chuckled, sheathing his dagger and motioning them to come inside. “You are the first to arrive. Come, we will celebrate our victory in the sanctuary. Terijin, go and retrieve our female guest. She will enjoy this.”

Terijin nodded and grabbed a torch off the wall, eager to smell her flesh again. He hurried through the archway and down the long hallway to the chamber where she was being held. He placed the torch in a sconce, fiddled with the padlock, and swung the door open.

When he brought the torch inside, she looked up, her face stained with tears. Terijin set the torch in a sconce and rifled through the keys on his key ring until he found the correct one. He went to her side to unlock one of her wrist cuffs, leaning close to inhale deeply of her scent.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked softly.

For an answer, he merely chuckled and unlocked the other cuff.

Without warning, she kicked him, hard, in the groin, and he doubled over. She tried to run past him, but he grabbed her skirt, which tore in his claws. She struggled to free herself, but he managed to lunge forward and grasp her by the waist. The contact with her warm flesh through her dress was almost overwhelming to his senses, and he found himself opening his jaw to take a bite of her shoulder, saliva dripping from his teeth. But as soon as their sharpened points made contact with her creamy flesh, she winced, and he remembered Uman’s warning. If he brought her upstairs with a bloody bite mark, his liege would not be pleased. Best to wait until later, and hope that Uman would share at least a few nibbles.

He lashed her wrists together with the rope and dragged her down the hallway toward the sanctuary. When they arrived, more of their Vyrkune army had made it back to the fortress, totaling about twenty soldiers. Uman looked out from the altar platform as Terijin pulled his feminine captive into the room. Uman’s loyal subjects grinned, leering hungrily at her.

“Back up!” Uman shouted from the platform. “Give them room.”

The Vyrkune shuffled quickly aside to leave a path, and Terijin led the Stovy girl up to the altar with her torn skirt dragging on the floor behind her. He turned her to face the audience, held her by her arms, and waited for Uman’s next command.

Uman addressed the newly arrived soldiers. “You see I have taken the queen’s younger sister captive.”

The Vyrkune cheered, their voices deepened and roughened by the transformation.

“The Zulfikars will track her down soon. They are master assassins. And when they arrive, we will capture them,” Uman swore, grinning. “And we will eat of their flesh tonight!”

“What about the girl, Sire?” one of the Vyrkune soldiers asked, saliva dripping from his fanglike teeth.

“She is mine!” Uman thundered, and the soldier shrank back, nodding submissively.

§

Yavi reached the site of the crumbling tower sooner than he’d expected and veered off the road opposite it to hide his horse in the trees. All was quiet around the abandoned-looking tower. Yavi drew his hood over his head and started to cross the road, but then he noticed movement in the woods just south of the tower and shrunk back into the cover of the trees.

Several dark figures sprinted with unnatural speed to the tower and disappeared into its archway. There must have been at least nine or ten of them, and whatever they were, they didn’t move like ordinary humans.

Yavi’s gut tightened with worry for Graciella. He whispered a prayer to Tejeshwar that his blades would be true, and that she would be unharmed when he found her.

He waited a few moments until he sensed the night’s stillness again, then slipped quickly across the road, into the shadows of the tower’s outside walls. He peered through a window to see if there was any movement inside, but all was quiet. He ducked through the arched doorway, looking around for a trap door or some sort of entrance to an underground chamber.

He found the staircase leading down and drew his dagger, palming the handle of it backward so that it lay against the inside of his forearm, out of sight under his sleeve. At the bottom of the dark staircase, he pressed his ear to a wooden door, checking for sounds of movement inside. Hearing none, he carefully pushed the door open and slipped inside.