Page 16 of The Vampire’s Mercy (Blood Melody #1)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

PARIS

She makes sandwiches with sweetened cream and strawberries, singing her favorite sad song.

A sandwich like a cake, but with regular bread. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

She tells me everything will be sweetcream. She tells me we’re fighting for a purpose.

She hugs me when I cry.

She hugs me when I laugh.

And she makes those sandwiches every morning. Breakfast of champions. Delight before the good fight.

She dies…

She dies…

So much blood, so damn barbaric…

She leaves me all alone and I can’t forgive her for leaving, even if it wasn’t her fault.

Not supposed to leave me.

Not supposed to.

Not supposed to.

Please come back!

PEARL!

PEARL!

PE—

I woke up with a scream ripping out of my burning throat.

Shit.

A coughing fit followed, tearing through my chest, layering on extra suffering.

Breathing hurt. Being awake hurt. Sleeping fucking hurt.

Ugh. This was going to be a bullshit death.

I’d rather be awake, though. This kind of pain was better than the other kind.

The Pearl kind.

Man, those nightmares were vicious, a damn plague on my life I’d never been able to shake. If Pearl were here, she’d help settle them down with her awesomeness. Everything about her tempered the shadows, making life bearable.

At one point, my executioner training got the better of me. Around the age of ten, I couldn’t take any more, wanting out of the relentless routine of physical labor and killing captured vamps in the arenas, trapped in a cycle of death and violence.

I wanted more.

So much more.

I’d experienced a massive breakdown no ten-year-old should suffer, unable to stop crying, caught in a dark spiral of sadness. I wanted out, to be free. I even tried to escape, getting as far at the perimeter fence before Pearl found me.

Lucky, really. Because if one of the teachers found me, I’d have been beaten, starved, and Aidan only knew what else.

Back at the barracks, the two of us huddled under her covers because I couldn’t sleep alone, Pearl said, “Remember the words of Aidan: In every tear there is purpose. In every laugh there is purpose. Remember purpose. Never shy away from it. Never lose sight of it. For a true heart knows where the light shall fall.”

Words to live by and then some. From that moment on, I remembered my purpose for breathing, reading my Aidan Tome every night. His words were always a comfort from then onward, my faith as radiant as Him.

I’d been charged with purging the fanged scum from Quintrealm, and I held on to that. Even when the world turned its back on us, I carried on with truth in my heart, never losing sight of the endgame.

Even after Pearl’s murder.

I groaned under the nauseating force of the dead flowers as I lifted my head. The area beyond the bars was dark again.

Good. I didn’t want to see Silvanus’s damn face watching the show.

Pearl’s death both haunted me and emboldened me. A real fucker of a monster on my back, with claws buried deep inside my soul. I hated the combination of sadness and determination. They didn’t seem to align, but also kind of did.

I lived for her.

I lived to kill.

Pearl and I could’ve changed the world together. We could’ve made a difference. After finding sanctuary with Suzanne, and bonding by betrayal, we planned our first retaliation with eight other executioners already there, along with Hal and Suzanne.

Our first target was an unsavory house in the east of Cosgrove where we’d discovered vamps throwing illegal feeding parties. They were drugging victims and taking blood without consent.

A victim came to us, hearing about the sanctuary on the grape vine.

The poor woman met a vampire at a bar with her husband, looking to spice up their sex life.

No blood stuff got discussed, only a threesome.

Apparently, the couple had donated blood before, but through voluntary extraction.

They had no interest in attending a feeding ball.

The scumbag went back to their place, drugged them, and took them to the cesspit house. Killed the husband by taking too much blood, then beat her to a pulp, locking her in the basement.

Thankfully, she was a mage and managed to use a spell to escape with her life. Barely. No one believed her and the town’s guardians rejected her pleas for help, leaving her out in the cold alone.

Until she met us. Pearl assured her we’d take the house down. I mean, we didn’t need much of a reason to slay vamps, but fucked-up stuff like that only threw more fuel on our fires.

We all took turns scoping out the property, noting down all activity before we devised a plan which should’ve been a done deal.

Pearl died before we got a chance to implement it.

I found her mutilated body in the street outside our house in the morning. Her skin had been half-peeled from her face, stab wounds puncturing her body, every bone broken. Blood pooled beneath her, the January snow scarlet.

A message. A warning.

Once again, the guardians did nothing about it, turning the other way. Yeah, no shits given about my dead sister.

It was the day before our twenty-fourth birthday last year. We’d planned on going to the cinema to watch a movie to celebrate. I wasn’t a big movie watcher, but she loved them—especially the moody, werewolf-made ones.

To say her death broke me would be an understatement. I lost my shit, going on a week-long bender of drinking, fucking any guy who’d have me—vamps excluded—until I came to my senses.

Thanks to Hal’s kindness.

Hal.

Traitor Hal.

My behavior shamed my sister’s memory.

Vengeance honored it.

A few weeks after her death, I learned one of the executioners dropped us in it. He’d left a confession letter, saying he wanted to embrace life as it was now. Called us antiquated and bitter. Even had the nerve to say he loved Pearl and never expected her to die.

That same day, we stormed the vampire house, slaughtering every single one of them. Which also meant we had to leave Cosgrove, finding shelter in the village of Berryrise in the west.

After Suzanne’s death, our group split up, with Hal and me heading for Oreflame. I tracked the traitor guy and strangled him in his sleep.

A violent round of puking dragged me out of my memories.

Thank Aidan. Memory lane could crumble.

Hal. After all these years, he cut ties with me without a second thought. Sold me down so many rivers to spare himself.

To hell with not blaming him. Screw understanding. It only went so far, and he’d pissed all over it.

And just like that, I despised the man, mentally burning every bridge, the thought of him touching me again adding to my nausea. He was another traitor, another sniveling piece of shit who’d one day feel my hands around his throat.

I’m coming for you.

I’m so fucking coming for you.

Tears rolled hot and fast down my cheeks, my heart skewered with hate and rage, all wrapped up in the ugly bow of grief.

I wouldn’t be coming for anyone. I wasn’t leaving this cell with a pulse. I wasn’t one for giving up, but sometimes you knew when the cards weren’t stacked in your favor.

Man, I hated card games.

This is it.

Here comes the end.

At least I’d be with Pearl again.

A heavy bang forced a cry from my throat.

I lifted my head as the cell door tore open, scarlet eyes blazing in the darkness.

“Who—”

A blur of speed, me rushing, rushing, rushing. The rot relinquishing its grip, my mind and body set free.

Out in the fresh air beneath the stars and—

Silvanus’s hand closed around my throat. He pulled me toward his face, my feet dangling off the ground. Menace affected every aspect of his body language. And whoa, did those fangs protrude, winking in the moonlight like two pearly daggers ready to pluck out eyeballs.

By Aidan, he possessed some seriously monstrous beauty. Regal, scary, incredible. He smoldered in that way where you weren’t sure if the hot guy was about to fuck you or skin you alive—probably both, in this prick’s case.

“I’ll destroy you, elf,” he seethed.

He threw me to the ground. Jutting out my hands before I landed, they took the brunt of the impact, sparing my face, palms scraping asphalt. My knees slammed into the road, tearing my jeans open.

Free from the dead flowers, and buzzing with a new rush of adrenaline, I sprang to my feet, summoning my stakeblade. “Not without a fight.”

All my pain took a pause while I sized up the situation.

A palace carved from onyx with eight scarlet spires jutting at the night sky loomed above me. It crowned a sloped island, the twinkling lights of the houses on those slopes and the rolling sea around me told me exactly where we were.

Hurlock Island, a tidal island off the Ore Coast, nestled in the East Ocean estuary. Home to one of the eight vampire palaces in the world.

We were on the causeway connecting the island to the mainland, facing each other in the light of curved lampposts. The tide was out, which was good, considering it swallowed the causeway when high.

“Why here?” I asked. Did he fly us over here?

He responded with a growl.

Scum. Look at that palace, that mockery to Aidan. There should be a temple up there, not a shitty house of sin.

“Murderer,” he said.

Oh, did that get my mouth running. “You’re worse than me, you piece of shit. How much mortal blood is sloshing in your guts?”

I shook with rage, my feet curled tightly in my shoes. I’d kill him. Somehow, I’d bypass his defenses and obliterate him.

“My friend—”

I roared, no slow crawl to anger here. “Fuck your friend! Fuck all of you!”

Was I supposed to feel empathy for Layla? Never. No vamp would ever get a drop of my sympathy. I’d rather throw myself into a vat of acid than shame my sister’s memory.

How screwed up was this world when vampires played the poor little victims?

He charged, moving too fast for me to react. He slammed a fist into my chest, sending me flying backward.

Definitely broke a rib or two.

The back of my head slammed off the causeway, my spine screaming from the landing.

Damn. Here came the pain again, sending a flurry of colored dots to my eyes. I coughed, bringing up blood.

Yep. Broken ribs for sure.

Oof. Vampire punches were brutal, but he took it to the next level. I was surprised there wasn’t a hole through my chest.

But it’d take more than this to keep me down. My bloods worked together, the werewolf healing kicking in, my elf nature drawing on the sea flora around me.

I got back to my feet, rolling my shoulders, a soothing warmth hugging my ribs.

He growled, fangs seeming bigger than before.

I hated him. I hated him so much. The bane of my existence, the heart of nightmares, the source of all pain.

“Come on!” I bellowed. “Come get me!”

If I couldn’t beat him, at least I’d go out fighting.

The king was on me too quickly again, spinning me so my back pressed against his chest, his hands on my head ready to break my neck.

“I shouldn’t make this quick,” he said, voice oozing vehemence. “You deserve to suffer.”

“Then make me suffer,” I countered, my hands locked behind my back, his leg wrapped around both of mine, pinning them together.

Basically, I was screwed. No amount of resisting and twisting would get me free.

This would be a great time for that crystal blade to arrive.

Hello? Help an elf out?

Nope. No miracle here.

“You’ll always be the invaders,” I threw out.

“You can whine about your friend all you want, but it doesn’t change what you are.

A monster who came to kill and drink and destroy.

Disgusting.” I spat blood. “The rest of the world might wear the rosy glasses, but I never will.” I spat again to punctuate my words.

I expected my neck to crack then.

Instead, he said, “Why? Why are we here?”

Erm, okay. “I can help with that. Pick any of the following options as a reason: You’re scum, a prick, a murdering piece of shit. Call it all one answer.” I struggled against his hold, still getting nowhere.

No response. He went still, holding me tightly in the briny sea air.

“Hello?” I said.

Nothing. He made no sound, only the gentle waves of East Ocean lapping at the edges of the exposed salt marshes around the island.

Minutes passed. He didn’t move, barely breathed.

“What’s happening?”

No answer.

He was taunting me. Playing some game with me.

Whatever.

As more minutes ticked by, I closed my eyes, losing myself in the march toward death. It was coming. When he’d finished pissing about, he’d break my neck or worse.

Pearl appeared in my mind, the two us outside on a spring day. Sitting in the back garden of the Cosgrove house, sheltering from the sun beneath Suzanne’s apple tree.

Man, those apples were the best.

She taught me a song called the ‘Melody of Little Maple’ that day. An old elvish song from way back in the day about a leaf on the wind, exploring the world. Happy to be free from the tree, no longer trapped. Only for it to all end in tears when the leaf withered and died alone.

Autumn. What a bitch.

The subject matter might be sad, but the melody was so pretty. I used to sing it all the time after Pearl introduced me to it, and I relied on it now to get me to sleep when grief ravaged me in the late night.

I started singing my favorite part of the song, ignoring the sad parts, wondering if my sister would hear it just before we reunited in the afterlife.

The world is mine!

Treasures so divine!

Out I go to wander and see!

Oh, how magnificent to be a leaf so full of glee!

Silvanus pushed me forward. I fell to my knees, bones giving the causeway a painful kiss.

“Fuck!” I barked, spinning with a sweeping kick.

Direct hit! The vampire king went down on his arse, his hands clasped to his head. He didn’t react to the fall. Instead, he hunched over, rocking, muttering to himself.

What the hell?