Chapter Nine ~Serenity~

With nervous repetition I paced the length of the room fumbling my hands over each other again and again. I tried to grasp on to something, an idea, a hidden skill I never knew I had, anything that would halt the punishment I was about to receive. I had fought brutal battles, lingered near death, trained with the most savage of beasts on all the planes, and yet nothing could compare to the twisted punishments my master delivered. Beatings were standard, those I had become numb to, but for the crime I committed this punishment would be so much more than a simple beating. Something far beyond what a person could define as punishment or torture. It would carry his special brand of sick twisted horror and I feared it.

Hours had passed since I had been confined to this room, held behind a large stone door deep under the manor. It was part of an old system of tunnels and dwellings used long ago, remnants of the previous people that used to call this valley home. The waiting was maddening, not knowing what cruel torment Vondorian had in store for me, locked away under layers of stone where no one could hear me cry out. The more time passed the more nervous I became, not from the delay of what would happen, but in the knowledge that the hours spent unable to unleash his rage only made it grow. In the heat of the moment my master was violent, brutal at times, lashing out like an animal at the source of his anger. Not a thought crossed his mind in those moments but those of inflicting pain and hearing the cries of his victim as he broke bones.

However, in those moments he was unable to rage like a beast. When he had time to stew in his intense rage, the thoughts that entered his mind could only best be described as creative. Twisted otherworldly forms of pain that not even the demons had discovered. His torments no longer became just about the pain he could physically inflict, but what depraved mental hell he could construct inside the mind. I had known some to even lose their sanity to his creative methods. I considered it to be one of his many dark gifts, his ability to reach deep within someone and pull out the one thing that could crush their very soul.

The thought built a lump of discomfort in my stomach, one that churned with every ticking second. Not even the pleasure of Victoria's traumatized state could settle my frayed nerves. I should have been delighted, gleeful even.

The young girl had gone to find her father and only moments after she had left the dining hall a blood-chilling scream echoed through the manor. I knew that she had found her father just the way I left him. Run through with a sword, slain in a pool of his own blood. Nothing elegant or brutal about the scene. A simple death with his supposed attacker, the sensitive with the broken wrist, dangling above his body, pale blue with lifeless eyes. The breath strangled from him with the rope around his neck. There were the personal touches, some scattered papers, an overturned chair, a little blood smear to give the illusion of a fight. In truth there had been no struggle from either of them.

A scene of complete horror crafted with an artist’s fine hand just for her to witness. Simple and not too graphic but enough to burn its image into her mind, my perverted gift to Victoria. It had the desired effect, Vondorian had been consoling the young girl all night and into these early morning hours. At least I thought it was morning. Locked down here even my senses were thrown off by the smell of musty earth and stale air.

Frozen in mid pace a feeling crept up my back and tingled across my skin spreading a chill of terror. He's coming, my mind whispered fearing he might be listening. I didn't want to give him the pleasure in knowing just how frightened I had become, how worked up the mental recalls of former examples of his abuse had made me.

I couldn't hear him, not even on the unstable stone staircase that led to my cell with all its missing steps and loose brick work. His movements were too silent, too skilled, but I could sense him. The unnerving sensation that was special just to him, like something was there just beyond the full grasp of the senses. It wasn't a feeling you could fully take hold of and analyze, but still it was there. Faint and off in the distance of the mind, like a phantom taunting with its dreadful feeling.

At the first sensation of him, my dark master, my heart skipped into a flutter of fear, but now as the stone slab sealing me in started to rumble, my heart slowed. It dared not beat a fraction louder than a soft hum for fear of the delight my panic would bring him. Will he rush in with mad fury? Rush me with that unnatural speed and ravage my body with blood hungry claws? The possibilities flooded my mind from the most graphic idea that these stones would soon be saturated with my blood, to something more psychologically damaging.

The stone lurched back grinding against the floor. With each slow, agonizing scrape my heart continued to stall, turning the blood in my veins ice cold. My breath caught in my throat, my body screaming with panic, throwing out insane suggestions to break free or to smooth my master's fury. Everything from seducing him to attacking entered my mind. Why didn't I try to escape when I had the chance, before he locked me away in this room?

Out there was no better. Out there Ryder was waiting for me, a long time admirer of our master, she worshipped every inch of him. Having been in his service long before I came into their lives, Ryder was on the top. The whispered rumor in the ranks was that she would be my master's mate, the only one he would ever answer to. It was a high place of honor, one that in my youth I had striven for. Once I bested Ryder in battle, the feud between us started. Now she commanded the small band of Vamdari that followed us in our conquest, an elite group positioned just outside the valley. If I had run I would not have gotten far. Not with that group tracking me.

No, there was no escaping this. My master entered the room with a fluid grace. He seemed to be in a state of eerie calm. His stance suggested he had some type of deep inner peace, but those crimson eyes held a frightening delight.

He stood there studying me, even in the pitch blackness of the room I could see the blank expression on his face. Anticipation laced with fear itched on my fingertips as his gaze wandered over my still body, I knew the look on my face said it all. Told the story of my inner terror which rose when the right side of his lips lifted into the most devious half smile. It was all so clear now. My fate was sealed. Maybe if I begged for death he would grant it, if I pleaded with every ounce of my being there would be mercy.

Don't be a fool... You're so much better than that. I flinched at the sound of his growling voice inside my head. A small whimper escaped my lips and made the delight leave his eyes.

Everything stood still, frozen in a second of time, not even my panicked heart dare beat. The air grew tense, a breath held on both our lips as we just stood there. Neither one of us dared to move. It was some kind of demented stand off.

Why is he just standing there? My frantic mind screamed. This waiting was even more torturous than before.

My eyes burned from the prolonged exposure and my body trembled with anticipation, unable to hold his gaze any longer, I blinked. Thick black lashes blurred my vision for a fraction of a second. My eyes opened again to find the room empty. No menacing figure of darkness looming in front of me, just the pitch black nothing of the room.

Icy cold like death's embrace gripped at my neck, pressure at my waist pulled me back without full realization of what was happening. A hard, stiff all encompassing presence held me in place. I didn't move, I couldn't, the fear would not allow it as vanilla drifted across my nose, taunting me with its bitter side. Vondorian's grip wandered around my waist, his hand at my neck caressing and commanding my head in the direction he wished it. The sweet sensual attention disturbing in the current situation. My mouth ran dry and I tried to swallow to make my voice form into something that was audible.

“W-w-what will you do with me?” I asked with all the courage I could find. Each word quivering to match the permanent tremble of my body.

He didn't answer, instead dreadful silence and roaming hands spoke for him. Hands that searched my figure, stroking over curves and forming my body into his. The more he touched the more I trembled. Titling my chin up and to the side he exposed my neck, the bare olive flesh on display for him, his lips whispering against the soft curve of my ear.

“They fear a beast, so I will give them one.”

My whole being stopped, halted all at once at his revelation. Something far beyond fear settled into my core at his words, at what my punishment would be. This was far greater than I could ever have imagined. Air built up in my lungs and rushed out in a scream of protest that was stifled by his fangs plunging into my neck. Piercing flesh and muscle in one single powerful bite, it silenced my voice and turned it into garbled gasps that I tried to form into words.

His lips clamped on the wound he had created, suckling the flesh with harsh feverish need. His fangs embedded in my neck jerked back slightly only to clamp down once again causing my body to spasm in pain. This physical pain was nothing, it couldn't touch on the hell he was sending me to, and all the while his hands continued to wander over my body while I was too weak to deny him. The initial protest I was trying to form with strained words now vanished, my body relaxed into the weakness as he drained my strength. Drinking feverishly from me he pulled away, lapping at my skin like some animal cleaning a wound. My body limp against his I could do nothing but surrender.