Lucian’s fight was over, but Sonja’s had only just begun. Across the courtyard, she faced off against her father, who stood between her and the gates. A pair of ponderous stone towers framed his imposing figure. His somber robes and severe expression gave him the look of some nocturnal bird of prey. Rain ran down the blade of the silver-plated broadsword in his hand. Her face stung from his blow.
She slowly lifted her own sword. “I do not want this, Father.”
“How dare you raise your hand to me!” Anger flashed in his eyes. “I am still your father!”
Sonja did not deny it. Despite all that had transpired over the past few nights, the bonds of kinship still had a hold upon her heart. Two hundred years of loving memories could not be easily shoved aside. Yet it was clear from his unforgiving mien that he was not going to let her depart without a fight, and she could no longer abide the cruel injustice of his rule. Not when it demanded the death of her one true love.
Very well, she resolved. Let my sword speak for me.
The blade sliced through the rain. He parried with his own sword, blocking her blow. Sparks flew as metal rang against metal. She flipped her sword, just as she had while being chased by the werewolves four nights ago, and rammed its ornate hilt into his chest. Wincing, he stumbled backward into a stone wall. His sword arm sagged and for an instant his heart lay bare before her. She drew back her sword to deliver the fatal thrust, but a flicker of doubt stayed her hand. Could she truly end her father’s life?
She hesitated only for a heartbeat, but that was one moment too long. Snarling, Viktor rebounded from the wall and lunged at her like a demon. She went for the kill, but he batted the thrust away with his own sword and swung back savagely. Rain flew from their blades with every counterattack and riposte. Sheets of rain rendered the cobblestones treacherously slick. Thunder punctuated the clash of steel against steel. The wind whipped Sonja’s hair about.
Her lover wanted her free. Her father would not let her go.
But only she knew all that was truly at stake….
Their heated duel drew the attention of the nearby Death Dealers. The vampire soldiers gaped in amazement at the unlikely spectacle of the Elder trading blows with his own daughter. None rushed to join the battle; all sensed that there was nothing to be gained by getting in the middle of this deadly family dispute.
When the high and mighty warred against each other, the smart immortal kept out of the way….
Only Lucian yearned to throw himself into the melee, but the guards’ crossbows kept him at bay. He stepped forward instinctively, only to be brought up short by the silver points pressing against his throat—like a lethal variant on the moon shackles he had once worn.
He could only look on helplessly as Sonja fought for her life.
“Do you think you can defeat me?” Viktor said incredulously. He sneered at her through their crossed swords, their contorted faces only inches apart. Their matching azure eyes glowed with equal intensity. Ivory fangs betrayed their vampiric natures. He forced her backward across the bailey, toward the weathered stone steps leading up to the ramparts. His blade bounced off the guard of her hilt, sparing her fingers. A forceful cross almost knocked her sword from her grasp. “I am older and stronger.”
“I don’t want to defeat you!” she insisted. Why was he forcing her to fight him like this? Let me go and I’ll never trouble you again!
A skillful feint failed to penetrate his defenses. He charged at her head-on, driving her halfway up the stairs. His blade thrust at her shoulder, but she spun about, dodging the blow, and swung her sword at his side. The vigor of the attack forced him to vault back onto a landing to avoid being cut in twain. His soggy black robes fluttered in the wind like the wings of an enormous bat.
A bat with my father’s face, sucking the blood from my veins…
A disturbing fragment of her earlier nightmare flashed through her brain. Pressing her advantage, she lunged after her father. She slashed repeatedly at his guard, like Lucian pounding on his anvil. Again and again, her sword rained down against his, in arc after blinding arc, as he parried each blow at the last minute, only seconds before they slashed his face to ribbons. Sonja began to think that she truly had a chance of defeating her father.
If only she could bring herself to kill him!
Lucian watched the frenetic duel in an agony of helplessness. Silver arrowheads dug into his neck, scalding his skin, as the armed Death Dealers hemmed him in on all sides. His bloodied face was racked with worry. He clenched his fists in frustration.
Sonja was fighting for her life and there was nothing he could do!
With an explosive burst of strength, Viktor propelled Sonja backward, regaining the offensive. His sword came whistling through the rain at her neck. Sonja parried in time, but the jarring impact sent a jolt through her arm. Gasping, she gave ground and stumbled backward a few steps. Her blade momentarily drooped toward the floor.
Seeing an opening, Viktor charged again, but she ducked beneath the blow and spun around behind him. Hah! she thought. Too much confidence makes you careless, Father. Before he even realized that he had fallen for another feint, she brought down the flat of her sword hard against the back of his hand. He hissed in pain as he lost his grip on his sword. The blade slid across the slippery landing before tumbling off the stairs. Sonja heard it clatter to the ground many feet below.
Viktor wheeled about to find Sonja’s sword leveled at his throat. His eyes widened in shock. He swallowed hard, stunned to find himself at his daughter’s mercy.
How does it feel, Father, to look death in the eye?
Death Dealers belatedly rushed to his defense, racing up the steps with their swords raised high. Sonja shot them a warning look. Her fierce blue eyes dared them to test her resolve. She kept her face as cold and implacable as the rain beating down on her. Her dark hair fell wetly across her pale white countenance as she struck a defiant pose, resembling a warrior goddess whom only a fool would cross. The soldiers got the message and kept their distance. None wanted to be responsible for the death of an Elder.
Neither do I, she thought. But I will if I have to.
Despite the sword at his throat, her father swiftly regained his composure. His face hardened into a stony mask. His voice was cold as ice. “Killing me will not save your precious lycan.”
“I do not wish to kill you, Father.” She made one last attempt to reason with him, and possibly avert more bloodshed. “There is another way. Please, call off your men”—she placed a hand upon her belly—“for the sake of your grandchild.”
Viktor’s jaw dropped. Startled exclamations blurted from the Death Dealers. The soldiers stared at each other in disbelief, too shocked by her unforeseen revelation even to try to conceal their feelings from their master. Sonja realized that she just undermined the very foundations of the Covenant, perhaps for all time. But would the truth, in fact, set them free?
Lucian could not believe his ears. Sonja was with child? How was that even possible? Lycan and vampire were two completely different breeds, or so he had always believed. The blood of wolf and bat could never mingle; they were eternal opposites.
But Sonja and I have already put the lie to that myth, have we not?
He recalled their frenzied lovemaking in the watch-tower only a few nights ago. Was that when his seed had taken root in her womb, or had it been during one of their earlier trysts? How long had she known of this unexpected blessing?
No matter, he thought. All that concerned him now was that Sonja lived to raise their child far from here. But would Viktor ever allow that to come to pass?
Lucian doubted it.
Now, more than ever, he longed to rush to her side. But, alas, the ring of crossbows trapped him where he was. He could only watch impotently as Sonja pleaded for their child’s freedom. Their eyes met briefly and they shared a single poignant moment as he tried to convey to her just how much their shared miracle meant to him as well. He was a father now, who wanted his
bride and offspring to have everything it was in his power to offer them.
Sadly, at this dreadful instant, that was nothing at all.
“A miracle, Father,” Sonja proclaimed, her sword still at her sire’s throat. Her voice caught in her throat. “A union of the bloodlines.”
She prayed that, despite everything, news of his heir would soften her father’s heart. Vampire births were rare and treasured events, and even more so where the nobility was concerned. With her free hand, she tried to place her father’s hand against her armored belly, but he yanked it away in disgust. Her hopes were crushed by her father’s vitriolic reaction. His initial look of shock swiftly gave way to an expression of utter disgust and condemnation, exceeding even his violent response to his discovery of her illicit liaisons with Lucian. He glared venomously at her even as he shook his head in dismay.
“I curse the day your mother gave her life to bring you into this world,” he said bitterly. Icy contempt, leavened only slightly by a trace of unspoken sorrow, dripped from his voice. “This… thing inside you is a monstrosity.”
His harsh words stung more painfully than the brightest sunlight. Sonja realized at last that there could be no hope for a reconciliation between them. She had to choose between her father’s life or her child’s.
Which was no choice at all.
“So be it,” she said coldly, steeling herself to do what must be done. The memory of his fangs rending her throat gave her the strength she needed to put aside her past devotion. He brought this on himself, she decided. His tyranny and prejudice force my hand. She drew back her sword.
Lucian was not surprised by Viktor’s virulent words. He knew too well how deeply Viktor loathed all lycans. The fiendish Elder was never going to acknowledge a half-breed bastard as his heir, no matter what Sonja might have hoped. Her love for her father had blinded her to the true depths of his evil.
Kill him, he silently entreated her. Kill him now!
His eyes widened in alarm as he spied Viktor slyly reaching behind him to draw a long silver dagger from a concealed sleeve at the back of his robe. Distracted by her father’s scathing rebuke, Sonja failed to notice Viktor hiding the knife behind his back. Ironically, Lucian recognized the doubled-edged blade as his own work. Its keen edge would slice through vampire flesh as readily as any lycan’s.
Damn you, Viktor! She’s your daughter! He lunged forward, heedless of the crossbows around his neck. Their silver points gouged his throat as he shouted in panic. “SONJA!”
The butt of a crossbow struck his skull, producing a blinding explosion of pain. He tumbled forward onto all fours, scraping his palms on the rough stones. A heavy boot dug into his back, grinding him into the wet pavement. Crossbows targeted his head once more. The tip of a quarrel jabbed the nape of his neck.
A smirking Death Dealer kicked him in the ribs.
* * *
“SONJA!”
Lucian’s urgent cry commanded her attention. Looking away from her father, just for instant, she pivoted in time to see Lucian beaten to the ground by his unfeeling captors. The force of their blows rang out even over the pealing thunder. A pentacle of crossbows were aimed at his prone body. The guards looked as if they were about to execute him on the spot.
No! she thought. Lucian!
Her fears for his life proved her undoing. Seizing his opportunity, her father swept her blade away with his arm, then whirled behind her ere she knew what was happening. His arm encircled her waist. A knife somehow appeared against her throat. She felt the edge of the dagger press against her jugular, not quite drawing blood. One move, she realized, and he could slit her throat open.
“This is over!” he barked. He relieved her of her sword, then nodded at the guards below. “Remove him!”
Her head and shoulders sagged in defeat. An awful chill sank into her bones. She sobbed openly as Lucian was dragged off to the dungeons by the brutal Death Dealers. His spilt blood was washed away by the storm, which finally began to abate. Unable even to lift his head, he looked more dead than alive. She feared that death by combat would have been a kinder fate than what lay in store for him.
Why did you come back for me? You were free… and safe.
Now both of them would pay the price for their transgressions, as would their unborn child.
The guards on the steps came forward and clamped a pair of heavy manacles around her wrists; the dense metal was strong enough to bind even a lycan—or a vampire. Only once she was securely chained did her father remove the dagger from her throat. He bent low to whisper in her ear, his damning words meant for her alone.
“Do you understand what you have done?” Anguish warred with anger in his voice. “This night was never about you. It was about him. I could have given him to the Council and swept everything else away. In time, the rumors about you would have been forgotten. But not now.” He yanked his hand away from her belly as though the very touch of her repelled him. “Not after that.”
He stepped back and gestured for the soldiers to take her away.
Chapter Twenty
They were together again, after a fashion.
Lucian and Sonja shared adjoining cells in the lowest level of the dungeons. Two rows of iron bars denied them the comfort of each other’s arms, as he sat across from her, much as he had once done with Raze. Her wrists were chained to the bars of her cage, so that she could not even reach the bowl of cold, congealed ox blood lying before her. A wide gap separated their cells. No matter how far he stretched, his fingers could not reach hers. Only their eyes met.
That will have to be enough, he thought. Little as it is.
The sight of her locked away in this fetid hellhole tore at his heart. Stripped of her fine armor and boots, she had only a tattered linen shift to protect her from the chill and grime of the dungeon. The striped blue-and-green garment was hardly fit for a beggarwoman, let alone a noblewoman. Her golden pendant shone incongruously against the threadbare fabric. That she had been allowed to keep the jeweled ornament could only be a sentimental whim on Viktor’s part. To Lucian’s mind, the paltry gesture did nothing to ameliorate the sheer injustice of her plight. He did not know whom he blamed more for this tragedy, her father or himself.
“I am so sorry,” he murmured. A coarse brown tunic and trousers had supplanted his leather armor. The guards had not bothered to replace his collar, however; apparently, he was no longer a slave but a prisoner. The gashes left by the silver arrows had long since healed, leaving his bare throat unscratched. But his guilt tortured him without respite. If only you had never met me!
She shook her head. Gentle brown eyes refused to hold him accountable. “No,” she said softly.
He welcomed her kindness, but was less quick to accept her forgiveness. His mind feverishly reviewed the last few days, trying to figure out how he might have averted the disasters that had befallen them. “If I had not left… if I had not forged that key… none of this would have happened….”
“And you would not be who you are,” she said, gently throwing his own words back at him. A brave smile offered him absolution. She glanced at the other lycans trapped in the cages around them. “You were right. No one should live a life like this. Others, both human and lycan, are free because of you. Things will never be the same because of what you have done.”
Lucian nodded, seeing some truth in her words. He thought of Raze and the others making a new life for themselves in the forest, and wished his fellow rebels well. And yet knowing they were safe was small comfort when the woman he loved, and the mother of his unborn child, languished in Viktor’s filthy prison, facing the wrath of her entire people.
“But I have failed you.”
She shook her head once more. “No, Lucian, you have not failed me. The choices I made have led me here, not you.” She spoke without regret. “You once said there were risks you were willing to take for me. As was I for you, for us.”
Lucian’s eyes welled with tears. His throat tightened. When did y
ou become so wise, so profoundly caring? He cursed the adamantine bars that kept them apart. “You would make a fine mother.”
A sharp metallic clang intruded on their communion. A squad of Death Dealers threw open the door of her cell. Sandor stomped across the cage, kicking the bowl of clotted blood aside, and roughly unchained her from the bars. “Get up!” he barked, hauling her to her feet. He shoved her toward his men, who dragged her from the cell. Sonja endured their brusque treatment with as much dignity as she could muster. The heavy manacles weighed her arms down. Her face maintained a brave front, but the trembling of her limbs betrayed her terror. Who knew what dreadful punishment awaited her?
“No… NO!” Lucian roared. The sight of her being led away from him, perhaps to her death, enraged him. He threw himself against the bars of his cage like a rabid animal. Baring his fangs, he railed at the undead guards. Wild eyes bulged from their sockets. He violently shook the unyielding bars. “I will kill you! ALL OF YOU!”
The soldiers laughed at the lycan’s futile threats. Raising a crossbow, Sandor fired at Lucian through the bars of the cell. A bolt thudded into his shoulder with jarring force. The silver tip sank deep in his muscle. He dropped to his knees but refused to let go of the bars. A savage growl gave vent to his pain and anger.