Underworld: Blood Enemy (16 page)

“Please, Father!” Sonja begged, holding on to Lucian from behind. “Do not be angry! I love Lucian, truly I do. We are man and wife!”

“What?” Viktor raged. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” He turned to bark at Soren, who stood a few paces behind the irate Elder. “This is your fault! You were supposed to watch over her!”

Soren went visibly pale. “But milord!” he protested, aghast. “I did my bes—”

“Enough!” Viktor silenced the anxious overseer. “I shall deal with you later.” He turned back toward Lucian and Sonja, and the unchecked fury on his face gave way to a look of icy resolution.

“Take them both,” he instructed the guards, “and round up the rest of the filthy lycans.”

“No!” Sonja protested, but to no avail. Viktor stepped to one side and let the two Death Dealers surge past him.

Chain mail covered their leather armor. One-handed swords hung at their sides.

“Stand back!” Lucian warned. Without the full moon on his side, he was badly outnumbered, but he would not surrender Sonja without a fight. He drew his wolf’s-head dagger from his belt and adopted a defensive stance. He bared his fangs as a growl emerged from his throat. “I’ve never killed a vampire before, but there’s a first time for everything!”

The first Death Dealer—Ulrik by name—lunged at Lucian, grabbing for the lycan’s arm. Lucian slashed out with his blade, slicing open the soldier’s palm. The scent of spilled blood filled the chamber.

Ulrik backed away warily. Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he exchanged a glance with his fellow soldier, Lazar, who likewise drew his sword. Silver-plated blades caught the candlelight. The guards cautiously advanced toward their intended prisoners, circling Sonja and Lucian as much as the chamber’s generous furnishings permitted.

It was best to keep them on the defensive, Lucian strategized. With his free hand, he snatched up a writing quill from the vanity and hurled it like a dart at Ulrik’s face. The pointed quill speared the Death Dealer in the eye, and he dropped to his knees, clutching his face in agony. Cold vampire blood seeped between his fingers.

An instant later, before anyone could react to the first soldier’s blinding, a glass perfume bottle shattered against Lazar’s face. Slivers of broken glass invaded his skin while the oily perfume stung his eyes and cuts.

Take that, churls!
Lucian thought triumphantly. He viciously slashed the air with his dagger, and a frightened Leyba ran out of the room. Never
underestimate a lycan in love!

“Bah,” Viktor snarled impatiently. “Must I do everything myself?” He strode past the stricken guards, menace in his dark eyes.

Lucian readied himself for battle, but the Elder was too swift, too strong. He came at Lucian like a thunderbolt, knocking the dagger from his hand with a single blow, then grabbing Lucian by the throat and lifting him from the floor. Viktor held Lucian at arm’s length before him, so that Lucian’s feet dangled impotently in the air. He kicked and thrashed in a desperate attempt to free himself from the Elders iron grasp, tugging on Viktor’s clenched fingers with both hands, but he was helpless before the ancient vampire’s superior power, like a wolfling cub being carried about in its mother’s jaws. Viktor’s grip tightened around Lucian’s throat so that he could hardly breathe.

“Stop it, Father!” Sonja cried out frantically. She pounded against Viktor’s adamantine form with her fists, but she might as well have been hammering on the castle walls itself for all the good it did; the Elder remained unmoved, either physically or emotionally. “Don’t hurt him, I beg of you!”

“Soren,” Viktor intoned, not even looking in Sonja’s direction. He ripped Lucian’s pewter badge from his tunic and hurled it angrily across the room. “See to my daughter… if you think you can manage that.”

“Yes, milord!” Soren hastened to obey. He rushed forward and seized Sonja from behind, clamping her arms to her side. She tried to twist free, but the burly overseer easily overpowered her.

Lucian watched in agony as Soren roughly hauled Sonja out of her own bedchamber. No doubt the humiliated brute welcomed the opportunity to abuse the apparent source of his troubles.
Unhand
her, you vein-sucking monster!
Lucian thought.

A jabbing pain in his side brought him back to his own predicament. “I’ve told you before, lycan,” Viktor snarled, withdrawing the blade of a silver dagger from between Lucian’s ribs. “Keep your eyes to yourself!”

He squeezed more tightly on Lucian’s throat, cutting off his air. Lucian gasped like a fish out of water, choking to death within the Elder’s grip. He tried to growl in defiance, but all that emerged from his larynx was a pitiful squeak.

Forgive me, Sonja,
Lucian thought as all-enveloping darkness encroached on his vision.

Viktor’s demonic countenance, glaring up at him with malign intensity, was swallowed up in shadow.

I tried to protect you!

Chapter Fifteen

CASTLE CORVINUS

Lucian woke to find himself chained to the cold stone floor of the dungeon. Sputtering torches threw writhing shadows on the moldering limestone walls. Rats chittered in the corners, alarmed by his sudden movements. A blazing brazier failed to dispel the dank, frigid atmosphere of the dungeon.

Darkness clustered beneath the high domed ceiling.

In truth, he was amazed to find himself still alive. His bruised throat ached from Viktor’s unbreakable stranglehold. Lucian tried to reach up and massage his neck, only to be halted by the shackles around his wrists. The damp floor stones sent a chill through his bones, and he trembled despite himself. Hunger and thirst added to his misery.
How long have I been unconscious?
he wondered. Is
it day or night?
All he could tell for certain was that the full moon had not yet risen.

“Lucian!”

He looked up from the floor to see Sonja only a few yards away, chained to a great oak column, her arms bound uncomfortably above her head. Her brocade gown hung in tatters on her slender frame. Iron shackles held her fast. Her chestnut eyes were rimmed with red. Crimson tears ran in torrents down her porcelain cheeks. “Thank fate you’ve awoken!” she exclaimed. “I feared my father had all but killed you!”

“Sonja!” Lucian called out to her. He could not bear to see her mistreated so. Snarling like a mad dog, he tugged uselessly against the unyielding chains. “My love! What have they done to you?”

“Quiet!” Soren emerged from the shadows, silver whip in hand. Vengeful eyes shot daggers at Lucian. “Another word, and you’ll taste my whip.” He glanced ominously to one side. “And that goes for the rest of you mangy curs!”

Sobs and muttered curses reached Lucian’s ears, and he realized that he and Sonja were not the only captives in this forsaken place. Ignoring his sore neck, he peered back over his shoulders and saw, to his dismay, his fellow lycans penned behind the iron bars of a prison cell. The caged servants yelped and whined piteously despite Soren’s warning, and the foul-tempered overseer cracked his whip against the bars of the cell, striking sparks in the murky gloom. Lucian saw that the iron bars were laced with silver alloy, the better to trap the distraught lycans inside. Along with several other mothers, Olga clutched her baby to her chest, trying her best to quiet the frightened infant’s cries.

Lucian also spotted Grushenka among the prisoners, although Leyba was conspicuously missing.

No!
Lucian thought. Leave
them alone!
His heart broke for the other lycans; it was not just that they should suffer for his crime, if crime it was. His anger rose, supplanting any lingering fears for his own safety. Was this how the vampires repaid them, after generations of loyal service?

Measured footsteps approached the dungeon from outside. A reinforced wooden door swung open, admitting Viktor, Nicolae, and various members of the Council. Their luxurious velvet robes contrasted sharply with the dismal surroundings. Viktor’s face was frozen in a somber mien, and even Nicolae appeared sobered by the gravity of the situation. Council members murmured darkly among themselves as the regal vampires took their places at the top of a set of low steps leading down to the sunken floor of the dungeon. A large brass disk, emblazoned with ancient runes, was mounted above the arched doorway behind them.

“Father!” Sonja pleaded. “Show mercy, please. We meant no harm!”

Viktor’s head turned slowly toward his daughter. His mighty broadsword was sheathed at his side. “You are my only child,” he informed her, “and the sole inheritor of my bloodline. Yet you have left me no other choice. You have broken the Covenant. You must be judged.”

The Elder’s forbidding tone filled Lucian with dread. “Lord Viktor!” he cried out, hoping to strike a bargain with Sonja’s father. “I take full responsibility. Do whatever you wish to me, but spare your daughter!”

“Soren!” Viktor barked, not deigning to answer Lucian directly. His lip curled in contempt.

“Teach this vile animal a lesson!”

“With pleasure, milord.” Soren stepped forward, uncoiling his silver whip. He sneered through his thick black beard. “I should have done this ages ago.”

Lucian braced himself for the blow he knew was coming, yet no amount of preparation could have steeled him against the searing pain that raced through his body as the whip viciously lashed his back again and again. The barbed vertebrae tore through his ragged tunic and made ribbons of his hide, burning his skin even as they sliced through his defenseless flesh, paring it to the bone. The pain was unendurable.

Chained to the post only a short distance away, Sonja twisted within her bonds and shouted desperately at her father and his dire companions. “Nooo! Leave him be!” she yelled on Lucian’s behalf. “Stop it! Stop!”

But the lashes kept coming. Behind him, over the thunderous cracks of the whip, his lycan brothers and sisters went berserk, enraged to see one of their own kind treated thus. Though caged, they threw themselves against the silver-tainted bars, growling like the untamed beasts within them.

Without the moon’s liberating glow, they could not shed their human guises, yet they raged like creatures of the wild, rending their crude homespun garments and gnashing their teeth. Angry curses gave way to savage howls and roars as the wronged servants voiced their primeval wrath against their masters.

We will never forget this night,
Lucian vowed, even as the merciless whip shredded his flesh anew. At last, he was left gasping on the blood-slick floor. Crimson welts showed through the gaps in his rent tunic.

Soren drew back his lash once more.

“Please, no more!” Sonja begged frantically. “You’ll kill him!”

“And what of it?” Viktor glared at her accusingly. “What does this wretched creature mean to you?”

Sonja swallowed hard. “He is my husband… and the father of my child.” She stared boldly into her father’s eyes. “Your grandchild!”

“What?”
Viktor stiffened in shock. A flicker of trepidation passed across his face, and he reached for the hilt of his sword. “You are with child?” he asked in a horrified tone. “By this animal?”

Scandalized gasps escaped the Council members behind Viktor. Nicolae’s jaw dropped in astonishment.

“By my one true love,” Sonja asserted defiantly. She seemed to draw strength from the memory of their times together. “Our blessed union has conceived a miracle!”

Viktor struggled to contain himself. “Heresy,” he hissed.
“Abomination!”
His face twitched in revulsion before congealing into a grave and rigid expression. When he spoke again, his voice was as hard and unbending as steel. “There can be no forgiveness for what you have done, not even for the daughter of an Elder.” His hand came away from his sword. “What I do now, I do for the sake of all our kind.”

Turning his back on Sonja, he marched steadfastly toward the arched stone doorway. The other vampires stepped aside to let him pass, then filed out behind him. Their velvet robes rustled like cobwebs as they departed the dungeon, leaving Soren behind to watch over the prisoners. The heavy oaken door slammed shut, trapping Sonja, Lucian, and the lycan captives inside the fetid torture chamber.

Bloodied and exhausted, Lucian lay prostrate upon the floor, which was now sticky with his own lifeblood.
Is this the end?
he wondered, praying that the torment was soon to cease. Perhaps, despite his unforgiving words, Viktor would be content with Lucian’s destruction and, upon time and reflection, spare Sonja and the others. Lucian could not imagine that the wrathful Elder could condemn his only daughter forever.

By fate, she is his own flesh and blood!

The scream of protesting metal reverberated nearby, echoing throughout the cavernous chamber.

Lifting his eyes, Lucian saw Soren wrestling with a heavy iron wheel mounted on the wall in a shadowy alcove at the far side of the dungeon. Soren’s silver whip was draped over his shoulders as the overseer put his back to the task before him. The corroded wheel did not want to move at first, but Soren’s determined efforts finally proved enough to crank the wheel in a clockwise direction.

Timeworn metal gears began to squeak and grind in the ceiling overhead. Panic flooded Lucian’s face as he guessed what Soren intended. Sonja also grasped what was transpiring. Her wide brown eyes stared into Lucian’s, terror-stricken.

Is this what Viktor had decreed for his daughter?

“Please, no,” Lucian whispered hoarsely, but the relentless gears kept grinding against each other. Directly above Sonja’s head, at the very apex of the domed ceiling, a circular iron hatch slowly dilated. Several yards away Soren backed deeper into the shelter of the secluded alcove.

Lucian saw a glint of sunshine overhead and realized, to his horror, that it was still daylight outside.

The deadly radiance poured through the widening gap, which opened onto a vertical shaft rising the entire height of the castle.

The golden beam fell directly on Sonja, who let out a bloodcurdling scream.

No, not the sun! Not on her!
Lucian lunged forward desperately, and the heavy chains snapped taut, holding him back. The iron shackles cut savagely into his flesh, yet he barely noticed the pain.

He strained with all his might, working himself into a lather of blood and sweat, but there was not a damned thing he could do to save the woman he loved.

He could do nothing but watch as her pale face blackened and crumbled. Sonja tossed her head from side to side, but she could not escape the unsparing sunlight as it turned her vulnerable flesh to charcoal. Smoke rose from her flaxen hair moments before it burst into flame, turning the shrieking princess into a human torch. Her face contorted in agony, showing her fangs, and her blistering arms twisted helplessly above her head. His beloved bride was being burned at the stake, just as Lucian had always feared.

“Noooo!”
he shouted like a madman, his raspy cry of despair joining hers in one final, excruciating moment of communion.

“Sonja!”

Lucian shuddered uncontrollably on the floor of the dungeon, drained of tears and emotion.

Hours had passed, and the blood beneath him had long since dried. The killing sun slowly faded from the sky, and the purple glow of twilight shone through the circular hole in the ceiling.

Sonja was dead. All that remained of his beautiful and loving wife was a lifeless, gray statue of charred bone and ash. Her powdery arms were still raised above her, held in place by the unyielding iron shackles. A look of anguished sorrow, for both herself and their unborn child, was baked on the statue’s agonized features. Only a single golden shimmer added a touch of color to the bleak gray figure: Sonja’s crest-shaped pendant, still clasped around her charcoal throat.

As the last hint of sunlight disappeared from the sky, the prison door slammed open once more.

Viktor entered the dungeon, garbed in somber hues of mourning. Long-faced and solemn, he made his way across the chamber to the crumbling effigy that was once his daughter. If the blackened ruin troubled him, his stony face bore no evidence of it.

Ignoring Lucian completely, he reached out and touched the gilded pendant embedded in Sonja’s ashes. His eyes watered briefly, and a look of genuine grief flashed across his face, but it passed quickly as his aristocratic countenance re-assumed a cold, distant expression. He plucked the pendant from Sonja’s throat, easily snapping the delicate chain, and turned toward Lucian at last. Icy disdain and hatred smoldered in his eyes.

His callous inhumanity inflamed Lucian, who matched the Elder’s baleful gaze with a red-hot look of his own. His blood surged volcanically within his veins. “You heartless monster!”

He pounced at Viktor like the wolf he was, but the stubborn chains jerked him back once more.

Viktor nodded at Soren, who emerged from the safety of his alcove now that the sun had set. The sadistic overseer fell upon Lucian at once, bludgeoning his lacerated body with devastating kicks and blows. Soren’s fists and boots crashed against Lucian like a rain of meteors until his battered form dropped back onto the damp stone floor, panting and gasping.

But though his body lay defeated, Lucian’s unquenchable fury still burned like the eternal fires of hell. “I’ll kill you,” he croaked through broken and swollen lips. “I’ll make you pay for her life, you bloodsucking devil!”

Viktor stepped forward and grabbed Lucian’s long hair. He savagely yanked the prisoner’s head back so that he could stare into Lucian’s pulped and bloody face. Viktor’s own features wrinkled in disgust.

“For you, death will come slowly. I can promise you that.” A cruel smile revealed his heinous intentions. “Forget the whip,” he instructed Soren. “Fetch me my knives.”

At that moment, through the opening in the ceiling, the full moon slid into view from behind a bank of billowing clouds. The bright lunar orb shone down on Lucian.

For once, he readily surrendered to the Change. His blood-streaked eyes turned cobalt blue, and a bitter laugh escaped his lips. Renewed strength flooded his exhausted sinews as his body gained size and weight in the space of a heartbeat. His bloodstained tunic and leggings came apart at the seams, and coarse black fur sprouted from his hide, hiding the ugly welt marks on his back. His hearing and sense of smell heightened immeasurably, so that he could practically taste the alarm in Viktor’s blood as the haughty Elder suddenly grasped his mistake.

You should never have let the moonlight find me,
Lucian thought vindictively. Now
the tables
are turned.

The metamorphosis took place in an instant, and it was as a complete werewolf that Lucian lunged once more at his nemesis. This time, the iron chains snapped before his inhuman strength, and he leaped at Viktor, his outstretched claws preceding him. With a single swipe of his shaggy arm, he snatched the gilded pendant from Viktor’s grasp.