Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
He didn’t acknowledge the razor-sharp nails tearing his skin open. He didn’t feel as the vampire injected the venom into him. There was the rush that came with battle, a dark satisfied feeling that had crept up on him unawares several centuries earlier. That had been the beginning of the scars marking the inside of his body. Thick scars that covered his heart and tried to vein across the darkness that was half his soul. The more often he killed in battle, the more those inevitable scars marked him as changing into something else, something potentially terrifying and deadly—more so than he was already.
Lightning forked across the sky and then slammed to earth, signaling the demise of Odon. They were down to Frisi and Elek. Elek hadn’t rushed to the aid of his master. He backed away rather than stalk Benedek from behind. The moment he saw Odon fall, he shifted, taking to the air in his effort to get away. He took the form of a small owl, his intention to fly quickly through the forest, his small shape allowing him to speed through the numerous branches.
A cat leapt at the owl, claws ripping through the head and breast so that black acid poured out of the lacerations. The cat was small, fierce and relentless, hooking nails into the owl so that they both plummeted to the ground. At the last moment, the cat shifted, and Nicu materialized. As Elek shifted in sheer desperation, Nicu stepped into him and took his heart. The battle was over in seconds, leaving the master vampire to fight on his own.
Benedek refused to withdraw his hand despite the vicious raking from Frisi’s steel talons. When he couldn’t dislodge Benedek or shake him in any way, the vampire changed tactics, leaning forward to tear at the hunter’s shoulder with spiked teeth. It was a move Benedek was very familiar with, and he changed the composition of his shoulder before the teeth sadistically bit down.
Frisi’s teeth clamped down hard on the diamond-hard shoulder and shattered, the spikes falling like pieces of blackened tacks from his mouth. Black acid poured from his mouth as he threw his head back and screamed for his pawns. His talons raked at the hunter’s arm, trying to saw it in two, hacking away, piercing the flesh and muscle to the bone as the fingers gripped his heart and began to pull it from his body.
The master vampire thrashed wildly, using his legs to climb Benedek’s body. Tomas materialized on the left, a sword in his hand. He swung the blade, removing the vampire’s head so that it hit the ground and rolled obscenely, coming to a halt against a rock. Lightning veined the sky in a multitude of crackling, white-hot whips.
Benedek tossed the withered heart into the air and stepped back, allowing Mataias to incinerate the heart, head and body of the vampire.
This was the moment Benedek always dreaded. The battle was over. The vampires defeated. He had to face the fact that he had felt something during the fight. That something wasn’t a good thing.
He bathed his acid-covered arm in the white-hot glare of the energy whip Mataias wielded to clear the acid from his body. Venom had tipped the talons Frisi dug into his skin, injecting it into his system. He found he was bleeding from dozens of lacerations, some deep. That was standard after battles with vampires. All of them would have wounds. Each would have to find and clear out parasites injected into their bodies before they could continue their journey. They also needed to find blood to sustain them after the loss of it.
Benedek calmly performed the maintenance tasks. These had been done for centuries and were automatic for all of them. Nothing would slow their journey other than being unable to move during the day. That had been the worst consequence of the loss of their plane. They could have slept while still traveling. Now they were forced to go to ground during the day or if one of them was seriously wounded in a battle.
“Too easy,” Nicu commented. “When has a fight with a master vampire and his minions been so easy? When did it start to become boring?”
Benedek reflected on that. They couldn’t become too complacent, or they would eventually be killed.
“Frisi spent too little time fighting, allowing his pawns to battle hunters and bring him food. He was out of practice,” Benedek said. “Or we’ve been in the game too long and need to retire. In any case, if you’re ready, we have a couple hours of night left to hunt for blood and cover miles.”
Chapter
3
“Silke, Silke,” an excited child’s voice rang out across the meadow. “Where are you?”
Silke’s hands were buried in the soil. Around her, countless wildflowers poked their heads through the soil and grasses toward the sun. The meadow was close to her beloved forest. She enjoyed what she considered gardening. It was really transplanting medicinal plants, bushes and trees close to the protection of the forest. The special flowers were planted inside the protection of the forest but where they could get plenty of sunlight.