LITMIR.BIZ

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holding. “My sister means me harm,” she said softly.

      Andre frowned at her. “Nonsense.”

      “No, it’s true. I was told-I was warned not to trust her.”

      “Warned? By whom?”

      “I don’t know…a spirit. He…it came to me last night, and it told me not to trust her. That she would betray me.” She blinked her eyes slowly.

      Oh, God, the stew, Will thought.

      “She put something into the food, Andre. I feel…so…”

      She got to her feet, pressing a hand to her head, stumbling. Andre was beside her immediately, holding her shoulders to support her. Frightened, she lifted her head, looking around the camp. “Where is everyone? Why is the camp so empty?”

      “They went to hunt the vampire,” Andre explained. “I stayed behind to take care of you.”

      “You alone?” she whispered, collapsing against him, but still staring up, trustingly, into his eyes.

      “No. I-and your sister.” He smiled gently at her, stroked her hair away from her face. “Foolish Sarafina. It’s Katerina I love. It’s always been her. Now she’ll have all that belonged to you, including your status in the tribe. She alone will be Shuvani. The most respected woman in the clan. And as her husband, I will be chief when Gervaise is gone.”

      “You…love Katerina?”

      “I was going to marry you only to ensure my status. Everyone knows you’re more gifted than she. Wealthier, more talented.”

      “But-”

      “We’ll comfort one another in our grief for a time. It will seem only natural when we come together.”

      “But, Andre, I love you.”

      “Go to sleep, Sarafina. May you never wake again.”

      Will’s rage against the man rose up inside him, but it was an impotent force. He couldn’t direct it. He couldn’t harm the man, though he howled and cursed him, even swung his fists at him. There was nothing- nothing -he could do to save Sarafina.

      She slumped backward, and Andre scooped her up into his arms. Then Katerina came forward from the lengthening shadows, smiling. She picked up an unlit torch, and ignited it from the central fire. “This way,” she said. “Bring her.”

      Will followed. God, he had to stop this somehow. But how? What could he do? Sarafina had seen him, heard his warnings. Even taken them to heart, though she’d tried to deny it. He knew that now. But she hadn’t known about Andre’s betrayal. If only he could have warned her about that. And now he was helpless, able to do nothing more than watch as Andre carried her deeper into the forest and, finally, through the mouth of a small cave.

      Will did not want to go inside that cave. Everything in him rebelled against the notion. He vaguely remembered having only just escaped a cave, a larger one, but a cave all the same.

      Still, he bucked up and followed them in. Deeper and deeper they went, until he heard a trickle of water and saw the flicker of Katerina’s torchlight in the distance. As they rounded a curve, he saw an underground stream, meandering through the depths of this underworld.

      “There, on that boulder,” Katerina said. “Lay her there.”

      Andre did so.

      Katerina thrust the torch into a chink in the wall, then leaned over her sister, tugging the green velvet robe off her, nearly tumbling Sarafina’s limp body to the floor in the process. “This was our mother’s robe. How the little whelp ever got her hands on it is beyond me.” She took the robe away, dropping it to the floor, only to bend over Sarafina again. This time chains rang in the silence, echoing from the stone walls. They seemed to be embedded in the very granite, and Katerina affixed their manacled ends around her sister’s wrists, then stepped aside to let Andre insert the bolts that would hold them closed. Fina’s arms were held apart. She would be unable to reach one wrist with the other hand to free it.

      Scooping up the green robe like a prize, Katerina gave one last look at her sister, drugged and helpless. “Burn in hell with your demon friend,” she whispered. Then she spat on her and ran from the cave, with her lapdog, Andre, right behind her.

      Will stood over the beautiful Sarafina, tears burning in his eyes. He tried to free her, but his hands moved through the chains. He tried to rouse her, to speak to her, but she was unmovable. He tried everything he knew to help her, and he failed.

      Sometime later-Will had no idea how long, and he wondered if he had again drifted with her into sleep-she opened her eyes. She blinked in the torch-lit darkness and tried to take stock. Her back was arched over the boulder, her head lower than her chest. She was chilled to the marrow, but she lifted her head and tried to see in the darkness. Will experienced every thought, every feeling, that she did. She heard the trickle of water that echoed endlessly. She tried to sit up, and only then did she feel the tug and hear the clatter of the chains at her wrists.

      Fear jolted her fully awake, and she tugged at the chains but only succeeded in hurting her wrists.

      “I’m sorry,” Will told her. “I’m here. I’m with you. I won’t leave you, but I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m so sorry.”

      She went very still, as if listening. “My spirit? My beloved spirit, are you here?”

      “I’m here!” he shouted.

      “You have to help me. Spirit, help me!”

      He felt tears burning in his eyes as he whispered, “I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

      Suddenly she realized there was a dark presence standing over her. A shadow had emerged from the very darkness, keeping well away from the light painted by the torch a few yards away.

      She gasped as a hand, cold and hard, came to her face, fingertips tracing the line of her jaw even as she turned her head aside.

      “Your sister has betrayed you, Sarafina. But I never will,” a voice said.

      Will knew that voice. The vampire.

      “Who are you? What do you want of me?”

      “I mean you no harm. In fact, I come to save you.”

       Liar, Will thought.

      “Then loose these chains from my wrists and help me find my way back to my family.”

      “Not just yet. First, there are things you must know. I will free you when you’ve heard them all.”

      “Free me now, and I’ll stay and listen.”

      “You’ll bolt.”

      She almost began to cry. Will could feel the tears brimming in her eyes, the fear bubbling in her chest. But he could also feel the supreme control she exercised over those things. She thought she could fool the beast, pretend not to fear it and gain some kind of an advantage. “At least grant me some light,” she said, forcing her voice not to tremble, “so that I can see you.”

      The vampire grunted, then moved around her, until he stood in the pool of light. She looked at him, and so did Will.

      He was big, oversize really. Heavy, but not fat. His build reminded Will of that of a professional wrestler. He was exceedingly pale, but with eyes and hair as dark as those of a Rom. He looked back at Sarafina, and she realized at last that she wore very little. Only her white shift.

      “Tell me these secrets of yours and then let me go,” she commanded, but her voice was shaking in spite of her efforts not to let it. His size alone was enough to terrify anyone.

      The vampire nodded. “First I will tell you what you already know. You grow weaker all the time. You have spells of dizziness. Sometimes you faint. You sleep more and more, especially by day. And you are often cold, no matter how warm the sun may be or how many blankets you wrap around you.”

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