Slaying the Vampire Conqueror(20)

“Do not seer about me.”

And this was the stab, sharp and brutal.

“I—” I started, ready to weave my web of sweet apologies, but Atrius shoved his hands into his coat pockets and turned away.

“Erekkus will get you ready to leave,” he snarled as he walked away, leaving me on my knees by the bonfire. “Don’t try to run. I’ll find you. Be back at camp by sunrise.”





10





“Doesn’t that hurt?”

Erekkus cast a glance down to my bandaged feet. Atrius had been true to his word—he’d sent Erekkus to me with medicine after I made it back to camp, apparently long after he did. Erekkus had given it to me and then dutifully stepped to the other side of the room while I applied it, apparently to show his self-control in the presence of my blood. I could appreciate that.

The medicine was magic, and it worked well. Still, the wounds were tender and sore, especially since I’d been on my feet immediately the next night, called upon to help alongside everyone else with breaking down the tents. Erekkus worked with me on mine, always calling me back sharply if I wandered too close to the other soldiers.

“Stay in my sight,” he said. “He’ll have my head if one of them gets their hands on you.”

“So that’s your incentive to keep me alive,” I said, returning to his side. “We’ll both be equally fucked if I die.”

My language must’ve been surprising, because Erekkus arched his brows and shook his head.

“What?” I said. “I’m religious, so I can’t curse?”

He froze for a moment before resuming his work.

“That’s fucking uncanny,” he muttered.

I took my mission seriously… but I had to admit that in between all the very important work, it was fun to unnerve a Bloodborn vampire.

I liked messing with Erekkus, and it was shockingly easy to do. Atrius seemed to expect that I’d stay by Erekkus’s side at all times unless I was with him, so there were plenty of opportunities for it.

After one such event, when I snapped at Erekkus for something he was doing behind my back and he palpably shuddered with discomfort, I couldn’t help but laugh aloud.

“You enjoy this, witch,” he muttered.

“I’d think you’d have thicker skin.”

I turned and helped him haul the rolled up tent into a carriage. The horses shifted and snorted impatiently. I sensed their unease—near constant. I wondered if these beasts had been brought with the conquerors on their ships from Obitraes, or if they had been stolen from locals here. If the latter, they still seemed very wary of their new vampire masters.

“My skin is very thick,” Erekkus grumbled. “I fought the Wraiths of Slaede. Do you know what those are?”

I shook my head, amused by his seriousness. He leaned over the top of the wagon.

“Embodiments of death itself. Vampire souls tortured and mutilated until they became nothing but shells of pain and anger. I fought a thousand of those things. A thousand.”

“Hmm.” I pushed the cart door closed, latching it. I felt Atrius before I saw him—I always felt him, as if ripples in the threads constantly flowed in his direction. He hadn’t spoken to me at all since his outburst, instead occupying himself with the preparations to move camp. My awareness lingered on him as he helped some of his other soldiers disassemble tents.

I’d give him this: the man was brutally efficient. He’d been working from the moment the sun went down and had not stopped moving once for hours. He did not eat. He did not rest. He just worked.

He also had been slowly discarding his clothing over the course of the night—first jacket, then belt, then shirt, even his boots. Now he wandered around in the mud, shirtless and barefoot, his hair messily half thrown up in a leather binding that barely clung to its hold.

“And who led you in this great heroic battle against the wraiths?” I asked. “Was that Atrius?”

It was a casual prod for information, and not one that I expected to go anywhere. But Erekkus’s presence immediately shifted, so abruptly that I stopped mid-movement, turning to him.

His back was to me as he tied up another tent roll, but I knew his hands had stopped moving.

I prodded his presence gently. Regret. Guilt. Sadness. But above all… shame. Deep, all-consuming shame. All of it clamped down, like a bandage over an old wound that never healed right.

“Yes,” he said curtly.

That wasn’t the whole answer.

I kept my voice light and casual. “Is he a good leader?”

Most of Erekkus’s discomfort melted away. “A great leader. We’re damned lucky to have him. Not often a soldier gets a commander who’s just as willing to walk over coals for you as the other way around. Especially not us.”

That was an interesting little addition.

“Especially not you?”

Another pause. He seemed suddenly very interested in tying down the tents.

Erekkus, I’d come to learn quickly, had a very big mouth. That would be useful to me, especially given that Atrius was about as transparent as a rock.

“Not sure if you know this,” Erekkus said, at last, “but the House of Blood is not very popular in Obitraes.”

I did know that, even with my scant knowledge of Obitraen society. The House of Blood was the cursed house, looked down upon by the Houses of Shadow and Night.