Embrace of the Lycan - Chapter 14

Chapter 14
‘I hope I am not interrupting?’ the Duke chuckled. It was a disturbing and insidious sound. Krisztina blushed. She could not believe the man had just walked into their apartment without knocking. Had the Duke hoped to catch them consummating the marriage?

‘Not at all your Grace,’ said Tibor. He gestured him into the room. ‘May I offer your Grace a drink? Some wine perhaps?’ He placed his hand on the bottle, ready to pour.

Krisztina was unsure what to do? The wine contained a lethal combination of herbs. Should she speak up, then her chance of a peaceful demise would be lost. She had pledged to herself she would take Tibor with her, but she bore the Duke no ill will. There was something about him that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but it was not reason enough to kill him.

‘Maybe his Grace would prefer wine of better quality, husband. This wine will most likely be stale now,’ Krisztina smiled as graciously as possible and went to reach for the bottle but Tibor snatched it away.

‘Do not be silly, woman,’ Tibor snapped, then smiled nervously at the Duke, worried that he may think badly of him.

Krisztina decided not to pursue the matter. So be it if the Duke joined them in their demise. She smiled demurely at them both and bowed her head.

‘You’re young wife is just trying to please Tibor, do not be harsh with her.’ He accepted Tibor’s offered goblet while Tibor got himself another. The three of them stood there, and the Duke raised his drink to make a toast.

‘To the happy couple,’ he said and took a swig of the wine. Tibor was glowing with pride and happily drank. Krisztina watched them both drink, then took a large mouthful herself. The herbs were slightly bitter, but not very noticeable in the wine.

Tibor continued to smile even after he lowered his glass, obliviously to the extra ingredients. The Duke’s reaction was entirely different. He threw the goblet on the floor with such a roar.

‘What is this?’ His voice echoed round the room.

Tibor’s face blanched. He was completely unaware of the cause of his master’s outburst. The Duke looked at Krisztina, and she felt the atmosphere in the room become charged. He knew. He sensed the herbs and knew that it was her doing. Before she could react in any way, he was in front of her. For a second she wondered how a man could move that quickly.

The Duke struck her hard across the face causing Krisztina to stumble backward. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and it came away with a dark smear on it. The sight of her blood wrought such a change in the Duke, that even Tibor looked upon him with disgust.

The Duke’s face became shrunken and gaunt. His eyes had become a bright blue, and then he hissed revealing enlarged canines.

‘Vampire!’ Krisztina uttered in quiet shock.

Tibor could not believe it. ‘Y… y… your Grace?’

The Duke turned to Tibor and hissed again. ‘I have a new family. A family of immortals, and you shall join us.’ He then turned his evil gaze upon Krisztina. ‘Both of you.’

Within a blink of an eye, Boris had his hands around Krisztina’s neck and pulled her towards him. He clamped his teeth onto her throat and her warm blood ran into his mouth. Krisztina tried to cry out but was unable. She struggled but could not pull away from his stone like grip.

He let go after a few moments, and she dropped to the floor like a rag doll. The blood he had taken from Krisztina had only whetted his appetite. He then turned once again towards Tibor, who could not accept the horrifying scene in front of him. Krisztina was lying on the floor in an ever growing pool of her own blood, and the Duke was advancing on him, blood dripping down his chin, with such a bestial look on his face.

He did not have time to make any sense of what he saw, as the Duke pounced on him with such ferocity that it almost ripped his throat out. Just before unconsciousness took him, he vaguely heard a commotion from the front gate. The castle was under attack.

Lucian led his army as they quickly overran the guards at the front gate.

‘Raze!’ Lucian shouted to the big man and pointed up to the battlements indicating he wanted him to deal with the archers firing through the crenel gaps. Raze led a handful of men, who were able to defy gravity and climb the walls. Within seconds they were amidst the archers, and Raze roared as he beheaded a man. Lucian watched as the guard seemed to stand headless for a few seconds, his body not realising that it was dead, before it crumbled to the floor.

The moon hung overhead, bright and round. All around Lucian there were screams and shouts from the castle’s defenders. More of them flooded into the courtyard, but were met with the ferocity of the bloodthirsty Lycans. Some of his men had shifted into their Lycan forms, eviscerating the soldiers with claws and fangs. Others remained human, but did no less damage with their razor-sharp blades, made by Lucian himself.

The guards however, were not his concern. He was stalking much greater prey. He headed towards the section that seemed mostly to hold the accommodation areas. He quickly mounted the stairs, several at a time, and loped down a corridor listening for a clue to the whereabouts of Duke Boris or Krisztina.

He caught the familiar scent of his quarry in the air, but it was heavily masked by the aroma of blood. Large quantities of blood. The tangy copper odour was emanating from somewhere to the left, around the next bend.

He rounded the corner and saw a door at the end. Lucian knew his prize was the other side of that door. With a howl that brought upon a half change, he crashed through the thick oak door. He quickly evaluated the scene in front of him and saw the room had three occupants, one of which lay prone on the floor.

The Duke lifted his mouth from the ruins of Tibor’s throat, dropped the carcass and whirled on his intruder. The vampire hissed in fear.

‘Who are you?’ he challenged.

‘You are a pestilence on the land, Vampire, and I have come to destroy you.’ He leaped at the Duke, grabbing him by the neck and crushed him into the wall. He was squeezing so tightly that his claws had punctured the Vampire’s flesh.

He growled, ‘Where is Tanis? Did Viktor send him?’

The Vampire did not respond, but hissed at him. Lucian’s grip tightened as he let a little more of his beast rise to the surface.

‘Answer me!’

‘Andreas has returned to his master. My master. Markus.’

Lucian had feared that Markus may have been awoken. Markus hated Lucian and had told Viktor to destroy him while he was still a child. Viktor and Markus had never seen eye to eye on the subject of Lycans. Viktor resented the fact that Markus refused to let him destroy William, despite the chaos and destruction the plague he carried caused.

Markus viewed Viktor’s wish to breed a race of slave Lycans as a waste of time.

‘Where is Krisztina?

‘You are too late Lycan,’ he rasped. ‘The wench is mine. A gift from my new lord.’ His eyes looked past Lucian to the body lying face down in a pool of blood.

Lucian looked again at the female. This time he looked past the fine clothes and dressed hair to see the gentle face of his beloved Krisztina. In his shock he released the Vampire. He dropped to his knees next to her body, brushing the blood congealed hair from her face.

‘Krisztina, no! No! It cannot be!’