04 - Rise of the Lycans (27 page)

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.

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 you 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.

It will take more than one arrow to keep me from your throats!