Chapter Five ~Serenity~

This boy was capturing my interest more by the second. What was the presence I sensed from him, that growing unease of danger that had poured from his body?

It was like nothing I had ever perceived before, so strong and alluring. It thrilled me to my core, and instead of filling me with fear driven awareness I was excited. The prospect of oncoming battle so enticing I felt my breath grow heavy, and my cheeks warmed with a strange fluster I didn't understand. A flare of something had danced between us in those quick seconds, and I ached to see the conclusion.

Master's words faded into the background as I stared at the stranger, no. At Cret. I now had a name to go with this complex and fascinating stranger. Those eyes of his narrowed on me and flashed something dark and promising, it made my creature flex and stretch with delight and my mortal self fluster in foolish embarrassment.

The sound of the door opening to my right hardly broke my concentration on Cret, but the scent of stale death granted my full awareness.

Ryder!

Her hips swayed far too much as she entered the room, my life long rival in all her lanky beauty. Tall, much taller than me and strong, though with her slender frame you would never know it. Skin pale like fresh snow, hair of charcoal black, and those calculating eyes of hers. The ideal appearance of our kind in all her supernatural beauty, and just as ferocious. There wasn't a single thing about her I didn't dislike. From the elegant wind swept motion of her long hair, to that scent of dead bodies all around her. I took every chance I got to engage her in battle, and I the victor every time. Still it wasn't enough. I wanted to see her destroyed. Ryder's annoyance wiped from existence. I was the higher rank but that didn't matter to Ryder, she still thought me less then her.

"Ryder, show our guest to a room," Master commanded and I couldn't help the words that flew out of my mouth.

"I can take him, My Lord."

I don't know what came over me, but the thought of her alone with Cret angered me. I wouldn't allow her that, even if I was being insubordinate. In horror at my misspeak I looked back to Master.

Vondorian's cold glare focused on me, disapproval flexing in his eyes and I knew I had more than overstepped my limit. I was disobeying again, but something nagged inside me to get this stranger alone—to question him before Ryder or Master could have their way with him. I silenced myself. Folding my hands in front of me and taking a step back into the shadows I directed my gaze downward.

Cret's gaze burned against my flesh. I couldn't look at him, it only made the protest inside me louder. I bit down on my tongue to keep from yelling out, clenching it between my fangs to keep from screaming. I watched in agonizing conflict as Ryder, with all her smug expressions led Cret out of the room without a word, and he willingly followed.

Fool.

The unforgiving sound of the door closing made me tense, and I was right to. Master gripped at my hair, pulling back as a pressure pushed at my knees sending me down to the floor. I stayed there, head jerked back with my raven strands clinging to my scalp in tingling pain, kneeling for him.

I instinctually reached a hand back to tug in defense of the tortured strands, but Master grabbed my wrist and twisted it behind my back. Pain pinched at the twisted point of my wrist. Just a little more pressure it would shatter against his assault.

"Do not undermine my orders again!" Master growled, venom dripping off his every word.

Master had become increasingly short tempered over the last week, in the past he would have overlooked my outburst and given me a simple verbal warning, or maybe even a seductive tease before leaving me to deal with my heated desires. Now he was more on edge, making his reactions to any subtle deviation in orders swift and violent. It was to be expected. I watched as the days passed and the expression on Vondorian's flawless face became more and more stressed. This place was proving to be difficult and challenging. Every last thing that could possibly delay us had already transpired, and now this stranger arrived right when everything had finally fallen into a set rhythm of ruin.

"I don't trust her," I groaned out in defense, a partial lie leaving my lips so swiftly.

There was no lying to Master. Maybe before when his keen eyes were not always upon me, but now it was a silly effort and I braced for the pain. He would punish me for speaking so blatant a lie. Would it be my wrist to fall to his violent rage, or maybe he would rip my hair out this time? Either way I was ready, and in all its depraved truth I wanted to feel it.

I fell forward on my hands, the cool stone of the floor greeting me. He let go. The sting in my scalp dissipated and my wrist was left intact. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand him at all lately. These mood swings of his were confusing. Even his silence was strange. Master no longer challenged me like before, and when he looked in my direction his glare was cold and distant, not wild or hungry as it always had been before.

"First she let Marcus get away, and now this boy," I pointed out, directing the attention to Ryder's misdeeds. Trying to regain my master's interest. "That is one too many to be a mistake."

"Worry about your own duties," he growled behind me.

"Have I not proved myself enough this last week?"

Silence hung around my question. Tension built in the air. I wasn't sure what he was doing or where he was. Vondorian was capable of that. Despite all my training he could still hide from me, quieting his whole body until it melted into the surroundings. Moving without a flicker of wind to give away his position, it was at that point not even our bonded sensation could aid me in finding him. I admired the skill it took, the mental focus to do such a thing, but I hated it all the same. It only served to remind me the distance between our skill levels and how I was always at his mercy.

Pushing myself to a stand, I combed my fingers through my tangled hair smoothing the torment Vondorian had just unleashed upon them before turning. I wanted to face him, if I couldn't hear him I wanted to see those crimson eyes. I wanted to read what I couldn't from his troubling behaviors.

"Haven't I been punished enough?" I asked again with an edge of defiance. "Or do you wish me to beg for your forgiveness?"

I could make out the light glow of anger in those crimson pools of his. He was standing only a few feet away, studying me. His gaze never left my eyes but I could tell he was reading every part of my body. Every micro flinch of flesh he would pick up on and read into it some kind of deception. He was temping me to be disloyal.

A whisper of a word too low for even me to hear crossed his lips and then it disappeared, his gaze pulling away from me. Master was doing this often, not able to look in my direction longer then a few swift moments before his eyes wandered off elsewhere. It made me feel ashamed. I had disgusted him with my disobedience and for once I longed for his seductive torment.

I wanted to feel his hands wandering my body, claiming me inch by inch as I gave into his will. I longed for those sensual images he implanted in my mind and the deep struggle I felt between my two selves as he seduced them both. Anything was better than this obscure nature of his.

"The ships will arrive tomorrow night, and then we can be finished with this place." His words held such disdain, but the spark I caught in the corner of his eye said he was enjoying it.

"I will board at the cliffs and prepare the army," I replied bowing my head and turning to leave in disappointment.

Our army, the Vamdari Army was arriving by ship and had been lingering outside the long canal that empties the lake of Rouren into the sea. Master had kept the ships there in hopes he could still lure King Thyaon to Tentusa, but it did not go as planed. Now we would take this valley and then the capital in a swarm of fire and blood, swift and quick without all this prolonged suffering. That was how it should be. How it always used to be until arriving here.

"Ryder will be meeting the ships, don’t worry yourself."

His words burned into me in a white hot eruption of bitterness and fury. Vondorian had taken so much from me, my mortality, my heritage, my dignity as a vampire, and my control. He wanted to rip the last thing I had from my grasp, the only power I had left. The army was the one shining thing in my life.

When surrounded in battle with the hordes of Vamdari obeying my every will, the ache settled inside me. The dull pull that had been growing ever since we entered this cursed valley would be silenced. For a brief moment in time I could revel in the feeling of being a creature of violence and death without guilt. I felt alive and at peace with what I was, and he was taking that from me.

All reason fled from my senses, the creature inside me roared to life with the sting of Vondorian's words, and for once my mortal self aligned with its desires. I felt powerful.

"Those are my men," I hissed clenching my hands into bloody fists. Skin stretched across whitened knuckles until I was sure it would split. "I command the army. It has been that way for two and half centuries."

"You are no longer worthy of that position."

My vision went white, solid white. I drew my sword and whipped around charging the man I swore to protect with my life, a thought that made me chuckle with insanity. Swiping my weapon at his neck I went for the sure kill, I didn't want him to suffer nor did I want to return the pain he had dealt me. I just wanted him dead.

The sword stilled in mid stroke, bitter vanilla filled the air with the unmistakable metallic scent of blood. Vondorian's bare hand clenched at my steel blade, thick scarlet liquid running along the sharpened edge. He stopped my attack, thwarted it with one hand that was still staving me off as I pushed into the weapon. I felt it dig deeper into the meat of his flesh, but he didn't falter.

The stern look plastered on his face only enraged me more and I threw my weight into the weapon again. Driving the sword to the side to free it from his grasp to no success. "Then what am I to do?" I growled at him. All sense of who I was, gone, stripped away with but a few words. "Am I just your faithful pet? Your little dog that follows you around. A servant that cleans up the trail of corpses that follow in your wake?" My rant became hysterical, tears of hate and anger burning in the corners of my now scarlet eyes. "What am I?" I screamed in confused hysteria.

The weapon vanished from my grasp. I didn't see it move, nor my master flex a muscle. He was just before me one second and gone the next. I slammed against something hard and cold, though I had no memory of moving. The blow rushed the breath out of my body. I knew my head would suffer the same fate but the impact of hard surface never came, instead it was cradled away from the wall I had found myself up against. Vondorian stood before me, his arm outstretched cushioning me from any further damage. It was a gesture of kindness he had never shown before, and after I had so blindly attacked him.

A softness reflected in his eyes I couldn’t understand. I had never seen that expression on him before. It flashed for a second and was gone. Drawing his hand from the back of my head he trailed it along my jaw, using his thumb to wipe a tear from my cheek and smearing blood in its place. His scent slowly quelled the sting of his betraying words inside me and I leaned into his hand for a caress only to have it vanish.

"Clean yourself up," he ordered in that cold distant tone. Turning his back on me he added, "you smell like burnt corpses."