Vampire Girl (Vampire Girl #1)(52)

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"I would have gone with Dragonslayer or Heartbreaker personally."

—Daison

Baron leads me higher up the mountain, to a small tunnel in the stone. "I really hope you know what you're doing, Baron."

I have to hold onto him and let him guide me in the darkness. My mind flashes with images of Daison, where I left him by the waterfall.

I push away the memory and focus on my steps, on the sound of dripping water. We step out of the tunnel and into a graveyard. The dead litter the ground: the soldiers of Stonehill clad in white and red armor, the raiders covered in brown and grey furs. In the distance, past a fog of white snow, Fen's soldiers chase the Fae through the forest. We won, and yet the city is destroyed.

Baron guides me through the red snow, away from the city. We enter a forest, where the branches are thick and the sky is dark though there are no more leaves. I have never been here before.

The sun is setting now. Twilight is descending upon us, bringing with it more snow and sub-zero temperatures. Baron seems fine with the cold. I'm freezing, but I keep moving. Something is wrong. I can feel it like a shackle around my gut.

Twenty minutes into our hike, Baron's ears twitch and he stops, a low growl in his throat. A moment later, I hear what the wolf heard first.

Men. Talking. I crouch next to Baron and listen.

"He'll tell us soon enough. Lester here, can get anyone talking. Even a prince." My stomach drops.

And then I smell flesh burning, and I turn and release whatever was in my stomach as silently as I can.

"Why don't he yell? Anyone else would be screaming!" A different voice.

"Would you both shut the hell up?" A third voice says. "I'm trying to work. He'll scream eventually. They always do."

A picture forms in my mind. I want to reject the images. It can't be true. I creep closer, fear knotting my gut. Three men bundled in furs sit by a fire. In front of them stands a large rock. A man is chained to the stone, his mouth gagged with a rag.

The man is Fen.

I can't breathe. Can't see straight. I want to charge right forward and save him, but I have to be smart. Even Baron knew he couldn't take on all three armed men at once and live.

So I take a deep breath and observe as many details as possible.

The three are armed. One of them, Lester, I presume, has a sharp prong that he sticks in the fire and brings to Fen's bare chest. He yanks the cloth from Fen's mouth. "Do you want to tell me now? If not we can keep going. I'm enjoying this a lot more than you are, right about now."

Fen spits on his face, and the man scowls and lays iron on skin, leaving a burning red mark. Fen's face twitches, but he doesn't make a sound.

"It's like he's made of marble. What the hell?" That's the second man I heard speaking. He's lanky with red hair and a red beard.

"Settle yourself, Cliff. Have some patience." The man speaking is big and tall, a brutish man with thick orange hair.

Lester is the most refined of the bunch. Slender with cropped white hair and a handsome face. They are all Fae.

I know you can't judge an entire people by a few—the girls who work for me are Fae and lovely—but these men... I want to skewer them all for what they are doing to Fen.

Why doesn't he fight back? Tear them apart? How did they capture him to begin with?

"At least the raiders did their part," says Cliff. "Brought him to us like a present."

So the whole thing was just a trap to capture Fen. But why? Why not just come after me directly if that's what they were going for?

Doesn't matter. We have to save him. I've got a sword and a very angry wolf. That will have to be enough. Now I just need a plan.

I'm still trying to think of something when Lester summons Cliff, who groans but comes to stand beside him, holding out his wrist. Lester slashes Cliff's skin with a knife and sticks the bloody arm over Fen's mouth. Why are they feeding him blood? Wouldn't that make him stronger? I feel like I'm in one of those nightmares where you have no idea what's going on, but everyone expects you to know what to do.

Fen tries to pull away from the blood, to refuse it, but Lester holds his head and shoves the blood into his mouth, forcing it on him. When Cliff pulls away, Fen's eyes are heavy, and his head lulls to the side, his body slumped in his chains.

"The ultimate irony, isn't it?" Lester taunts with a cruel smile. "Your kind coming to our world, only to find we are poison to you. But it's a sweet poison, isn't it? One you want more of."

Cliff holds his arm up, and Fen looks up, his nostrils sniffing at the blood, his eyes crazed with desire. This time when Cliff offers Fen his wrist, Fen doesn't resist. Not at first, but then a spark returns to his eyes, and he jerks his head away, spitting the blood out.

Lester paces in front of him. "You are stronger than most of your kind. Even of the first, you are something special, aren't you? But I'll find a way to break you. In fact, I think I've already found it."

The other man. The big one with orange hair is gone.

I was too focused on Fen, on figuring out a way to stop his torture to notice.

I spin around. The big man is there, a few feet away, sword in hand. Baron jumps forward. The man kicks him away.

I clutch the hilt of my sword, but before I can draw Spero, the man grabs my arm. With his other hand he grabs my hair and yanks me toward his group.