Dinner With a Vampire (The Dark Heroine #1)(50)
Author: Abigail Gibbs

‘Ilta Zech Valerian Crimson, second son of Lord Valerian Crimson, the Earl of Wallachia, you are hereby charged with the attack and attempted rape of a human under the King and Crown’s Protection and shall await trial under the penalty of death. Henceforth, you forego any statuary rights held by a vampire, under the laws and treaties of the dark beings. Furthermore, I reserve the right to banish your family from the royal court,’ the King declared in all his menacing glory, slowly moving towards me and Thyme. Six vampires stepped forward too, wary of the three stood before them.

Ilta too took a step forward. ‘Vladimir. May I call you that now as I no longer have any rights? I see that as fair.’ He smirked. ‘And do you really expect me to remain silent? I would not stay silent if this were my last breath.’ His eyes very purposefully slid down my body, lingering on the scars he had so delightfully given me. He sighed. ‘It is a shame that such a pretty little thing – one day perhaps a beautiful thing – was ruined, don’t you think?’

Ruined.

‘You will die for what you have done to her,’ Kaspar growled from behind me.

‘I know I will, Kaspar. That is why I have come to the conclusion that if I must die for such a pitiful creature, I might as well achieve what I aimed to do in the first place.’

I barely had time to scream before he was lunging towards me; his mouth spread wide, eyes intently focused on my neck. I felt Thyme being snatched from behind me.

Yet the pain never came.

On the dusty ground of the drive two blurs, rolled about – Ilta and Kaspar – each diving for the other’s neck, frantically scrabbling for control as the two vampires who accompanied Ilta were thrown to the ground by Fabian and Cain, gasping for breath, their bulk nothing compared to the speed of the younger vampires. The corpse of the nanny was thrown aside, forgotten, still leaking blood.

I looked away as liquid spurted from the hearts of Ilta’s accomplices, their faces forever etched with fear, and found myself looking at twenty or so bloodthirsty creatures, all eyes red, each slowly licking their lips; each intently focused on the bloodbath before us. A few inhaled the sickening scent hanging in the air, snarling and spitting as the stench burnt their throats. Yet they held back.

That is until Kaspar lowered his fangs to Ilta’s throat and ripped his neck in half. I screamed as blood and sinew was ripped from Ilta’s carcass, monster after monster now throwing themselves at the ravaged corpse. His stomach was sliced open by a single nail, vampires lowering their heads to drink the blood from the organs torn out and treated as offal. I clamped my mouth shut, gagging uncontrollably.

Thyme darted forward, but not before I grabbed her hand, shaking my head. Yet as she turned to me, her petite mouth opened to reveal her pinprick, thorn-like fangs. She sniffed at the air, tugging on my hand as she tried to edge towards the carnage before us. Suddenly, she whipped back around and plunged her fangs into my palm. I yelped and yanked my hand back, nursing the two tiny incisions. She flew outside, dress trailing behind, whipping at her ankles, coming to a halt beside the body of her nanny.

She stared at it for a moment before taking a hand in her own, raising it to her lips as though to give her one final kiss goodbye. Instead, she pierced the flesh, sucking her nanny of blood via the wrist, slurping it down like a baby would milk.

This time I was unable to control myself and I doubled over as bile poured from my mouth, causing my throat to burn and my eyes to sting as tears continued to fall.

I had wanted Ilta dead, but never like this.

My gut clenched one final time and I gingerly wiped my mouth, still gagging – but my stomach was empty.

My eyes rose to see Kaspar throwing what was Ilta, now just flesh clinging to bone, aside, unwanted organs littered about in a pool of darkening blood. The chests of his accomplices had been ripped open and the nanny’s corpse was being raided for organs that might still contain the precious blood vampires worshipped.

‘You never did deserve the name of vampire, Ilta Crimson.’

Ilta’s bones clattered as they fell to the red-stained dust and gravel of the drive and I looked on through the double doors of the mansion called Varnley, paralyzed and horrified. Kaspar looked up, his shirt bloodstained and torn, tainted at the hands of the vampires he had just declared did not deserve the name.

My gaze locked with his, as he brushed blood-matted hair from his brow, his chest rising and falling rapidly, not even a drop of sweat falling. Thin black plumes of smoke drifted into the stinking air, as they burnt the remains of the four corpses.

A single drop of blood slivered from one of his fangs and I wavered, unsteady. My eyes flickered and I just caught the concerned face of Kaspar before they closed. I was sent plummeting to the floor to land in a pool of my own vomit, my consciousness spiralling away from the scene, reminded of the true atrocity of the creature called vampire.

‘Stop! Stop!’

‘Vampires are not gentle, loving creatures. It is not in their nature to change, or to adapt, to accept others. Their love is not what humans would call love, and lust consumes them on a level we will never understand. They do not grow old as we do, but age as stone does: they gradually weather, slowly perish, so slowly it is unnoticeable. But in the end, stone is a fixture forever, as are they.’

‘Don’t come near me.’

My words pierced the silence as several pairs of eyes followed me as I folded myself into the ledge of the window. I felt as though I was under interrogation – incidentally it was not I who had committed the crime.

‘Why are you acting like this?’

I exhaled loudly, caught between a laugh and a sigh. ‘It was a shock, seeing that. Don’t get me wrong, I remember Trafalgar Square … I just didn’t expect you to be able to do that to your own kind. And now for you all to seem so unbothered by it … it’s unnatural.’

‘We drink the blood of our own kind. Violet, Ilta deserved everything he got. But I admit we lost it. I don’t really know what happened.’ Fabian glanced over his shoulder at the two Varn siblings behind him, both with their arms folded, perceiving me through sceptic eyes. He started to walk towards me, but my eyes met with Lyla’s cold gaze and my breath caught.

But stood right next to Lyla was Kaspar, his eyes flickering between the three of us with blissful ignorance.

Fabian took yet another step towards me and I closed my eyes and turned my head away, holding back stinging tears. ‘I said, don’t come near me, Fabian.’