Divergence
I don't make any money doing this. Underworld belongs to its creators.
The sword blade gleamed in the intermittent flashes of lightning, a shape of sharp and deadly beauty that could cleave flesh as easily as it now cleaved the air. Her shining sword struck, swift and silver, knocking aside Janos' too-slow thrust of a spear. Sonja leapt into the air in a graceful flip, kicking Varos across the jaw and drawing a shower of blood. She landed and sliced open Varos' throat, watching him fall dead.
A moment's ferocious regret assaulted her for killing her own kind, for killing vampires she had trained and fought with. But whatever regret she felt was erased at Lucian's muffled grunt as one struck him. A thorny circle of her father's Death Dealers held her husband at the point of a crossbow. The sound and sight of it lit a fury in her, as furious and elemental as the storm that raged around them, soaking her to the bone.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
If that was true of a human woman—how much more did it mean for a vampire? The First of the Death Dealers?
Janos ran at her again, armed now with a sword. She parried and spun in a tight circle, bringing her blade down across the back of his neck. He twisted as he fell, and she saw his face set in a macabre mask of surprised agony. A hysterical urge to laugh bubbled up.
Dead again, Janos, she thought, thinking of their many spars.
Sonja turned and was rocked by a vicious backhand slap. That was familiar. Now the moment she had dreaded. She lifted her sword, gleaming red with vampire blood, against her father.
"How dare you raise your hand to me!" he bellowed.
"I do not want this," she stated, fugitive blades of agony slicing shallow wounds in her soul. The pain mingled with anger and fear, a potent, dangerous mix. These wild emotions made her desperate—and she had everything to lose.
Unhearing, Father shouted, "I am your father!"
All of Sonja's buried resentments and hidden slights surged up, coalescing into one pulsing nub of concentrated wrath. Father drew his own sword and together they danced with their blades, elegant, singing sweeps of steel cleaving the air. Much of her style was derived from her father's restrained rage, wicked-sharp focus—with her own sophisticated polish and brazen flair.
He grasped her sword arm, wrenching it to a painful angle.
"You think you can defeat me?" he sneered.
"I don't want to defeat you," she spat through clenched teeth.
Sonja yanked her arm free and the duel intensified. They moved faster than human vision could follow, the steel of their swords screeching in protest. She batted aside his sharp thrust and disarmed him with a clever twist of wrist. A brutal shove knocked him across the stone steps. The sight of her father prostrate beneath the blade Lucian had forged for her filled Sonja with a peculiar mixture of satisfaction and pain. If their places had been reversed, she could not say with any certainty that he would hesitate on the killing blow. It was a bitter draught to swallow.
She set the tip of her blade to Father's throat.
"Killing me won't save your precious Lycan!"
"Please call off your men. For the sake of your grandchild." she replied calmly. Sonja watched the shock and horror of it dawn on Father's face, then those blue eyes snapping with spectral flames of rage.
The storm's snarling sounds filled the courtyard. Tension stretched and strained and screamed. Sonja could not break the connection of their eyes, one misstep and they would lose. As long as she held the sword to her father's throat, no Death Dealer would harm Lucian. She grabbed Father's slack white hand and pressed it to her belly to share in the marvel of her baby's heartbeat.
"A miracle, Father. A union of the bloodlines!" she exclaimed, appealing to his mercy this one last time. A tiny fragile seed of hope remained in her heart, offered to her father in cradled hands. Father yanked his hand free, seething in rage and disgust and betrayal, his face twisted with their ravages. Sonja watched herself die in her father's eyes, her name and deeds erased from his memory. The seed was crushed and her heart bruised.
"I curse the day your mother gave her life to bring you into this world. That thing inside you . . . is a monstrosity!"
Steel glinted out of the tail of her eye.
Viktor struck.
She struck faster.
Sonja knocked the knife out of his hand with the flat of her blade and skewered him through the shoulder with a deft stab. Pain and surprise colored his low hiss. The drilling look of loathing he gave her extinguished the lone flame of love that remained.
"You'll pay for that," he promised.
"I already am, Viktor," she whispered, grateful her voice didn't shake. That seemed to touch him, for he frowned a little, a thoughtful pursing of lip. In a louder voice, echoing his in its haughty injunction, Sonja commanded. "Call off your men!"
It was Viktor who broke their stare, glancing seethingly at Lucian. The storm's rage ebbed, a hush as the next words floated in the air.
"Drop your weapons," Viktor rasped. His Death Dealers stared dumbly for a few moments.
"Do it!" Viktor shouted, accompanied by a deafening boom of thunder. Crossbows fell to the ground with a dull, protesting twang.
"Lucian." She summoned him with a whispered word, seeing hate transform Viktor's features as he approached. Sonja didn't dare even look at her husband, though his closeness was balm to her soul.
"You won't get away with this, Lycan!" Viktor's voice boiled with impotent rage, hands balled into fists.
"I plan to, Viktor. You will see," Lucian replied quietly. Sonja tilted her face a fraction of a span to one side, feeling the warmth of his skin and scenting the blood Viktor's Death Dealers had shed. She grazed her eyes over him briefly, assuring herself of his soundness.
"Go, my love."
His gaze flickered between her and Viktor then nodded once, blue eyes warm with empathy. In one smooth leap, he jumped to safety on the far side of the wall. Lightning split the sky, glowing strangely in her father's eyes that bored into her like an auger. Sonja yanked her blade free from his shoulder. Unable to bear one more moment under his gimlet stare, she instead addressed the blade she held—coated with the blood that marked her a traitor to all her own kind.
"I did not want it to come to this. I truly didn't. Goodbye, Viktor."
His heart labored within his chest, pounding in mad beats in an effort to keep his blood churning through his veins. His lungs screamed and a deep aching burn resounded through every muscle. Sweat mingled with rainwater and stung in his eyes and he swiped irritably at the tangled tendrils of hair falling in his face. The toe of his boot caught on a tree root and he fell to his knees with a grunt. Lucian braced his hands on the ground, gulping down grateful breaths of cool, rainy air. He fixed his gaze on his hands, unable to bear her gaze. Her cool hand brushed his brow and it soothed his fevered flesh. Lucian dragged in a slow breath, enjoying her scent, like pine and the earthy scent of woman.
"Come, my love. I know you're tired, but we have to keep going," Sonja said.
Since vampires did not have to trouble themselves with such inconsequential concerns as breathing, they could run from dusk to dawn without pause. Lucian nodded and staggered to his feet, still too breathless to speak. She drew his arm across her shoulders, avoiding tender ribs, and bearing some of his weight. Together, they surged into an odd, lurching jog, Sonja nimbly leaping over roots and stones and Lucian determinedly trying to keep pace.
Both of them had existed in such a fevered state of crisis that the magnitude of the past hours had yet to fully sink in. Desperate minutes spent in battle and escape, followed by hours of dogged running, at any second expecting the angry whizzing of a crossbow bolt or the thunder of horses' hooves. They were nearing the clearing where Lucian's small army was mustered. His plan had involved breaking into the castle and freeing what remained of the Lycans. But . . . he glanced at her in profile, features strong and turbulent, like the storm that raged overhead in all its stark, violent emotion.
Now he had a family to consider.
"Why . . . why didn't you . . . tell me?" Lucian wheezed. Sonja glanced at him, a frown pulling at the supple curve of her mouth, hazel eyes wide and pleading holes.
"There isn't time for this now," she said, quickening the pace. Lucian dug his heels in, pulling them to a stop. His belly felt as tight as a drum, ire flashing through his veins.
"Yes—there is time for it! Time enough to . . . to tell your thrice-cursed father about it!" he snapped, "He won't stop now, Sonja. We've humiliated him and broken every law of the Coven! He won't stop until all of us are dead!"
Anger shivered through her like an unseen current. She jerked away from him, eyes a snapping blue.
"You think I don't know that? You might have forgotten, you ignorant dog, but I was once a council member and First of the Death Dealers! I know the Coven's laws—I've executed vampires for less than what we've done tonight! I've burned all my bridges. For you."
Lucian recoiled as if she had slapped him. He leaned against the solid trunk of a tree, arms folded over his chest. Clad in black leather and silver mail, she looked like a tragic heroine, sad, beautiful and fierce.
"You're blaming me?" he whispered, "after all this?"
Sonja exhaled an impatient breath, raking long fingers through black hair that hung in half-dried hanks framing her face. Thunder rumbled softly now, the rain a steady soak instead of a downpour. Rain gathered on leaves and branches before falling in hard drops on their heads and shoulders. One such drop struck her and Lucian watched its path down the swell and dip of forehead and temple.
"No. I'm sorry." She closed her eyes and one hand fell, cupping her belly protectively.
"I didn't know how . . . I couldn't . . ." Lucian studied her mutely as she struggled find her footing in the terrain of her soul. When she opened her eyes, they were her natural hazel, warm and soft like the lazy brush of a fern frond in the breeze.
"I didn't want to burden you with it if I didn't have to. You had other concerns—like freeing yourself and your brothers from slavery. I told Fath—Viktor . . . because I wanted to give him one more chance to know me . . . to love me."
Lucian's anger evaporated.
"Sonja," Lucian crooned, wrapping his arms around her. She hissed and shoved him back, fangs distended.
"Forgive me, my love. I cannot stand the smell of your blood. I was imprisoned for three days without sustenance."
Lucian touched his lower lip, which had begun to bleed again during their argument. It was a small amount, no more than a few drops, but was as tantalizing as a feast for a thirsty vampire. He was struck once more by her bravery, by the depth of strength and will that defied description. Any other vampire deprived of blood for three days and nights would have either collapsed from exhaustion, or gone into a wild frenzy of feeding the instant they came within range of a beating heart. She could have hidden a mortal wound and he would have never known the difference.
He bent and drew his knife from his boot, poised to cut his wrist.
"No, Lucian!" Sonja cried. He frowned.
"Why? You've drank from me before." She looked discomfited; obviously remembering the predictably sexual results of the encounter Lucian alluded to. His groin tightened at the memory.
"That was different," she muttered, "I won't drink from you. You're exhausted. I won't drain you of your strength. I'll be fine." There was a peculiar emphasis on the word 'fine,' as if she was reprimanding the parts of herself foolish enough to complain about the lack of nourishment.
Lucian grazed the blade across his wrist, unconcerned with the stinging pain.
"Oops," he said, smiling. He watched in fascination as her hazel iris was swallowed by bright, icy blue, like the stroke of an artist's brush. A shudder raced through her. Lucian offered her his wrist, veins laying distended like blue cords under his skin. She fell to her knees, cupping his wrist like a sacred offering. Her lips trembled in eagerness. Those bright eyes blazed up into his, crystalline in their hurt and anger.
"Damn you, Lucian."
What powerful weapon her thirst was!
It clawed at her like a screeching demon, urging her to drink and drink of this life-giving liquid flowing from his veins, from that delicious throbbing heart. She could make it churn swift with fear, it added such a sweet flavor—fear. She had not been thirsty when she drank from him before; she had needed it only to heal.
Now, half-mad with thirst, she drank with greedy abandon, only dimly aware of Lucian's soft grunts of discomfort. The frenzy intensified, the pounding of his heart rang in her ears.
No! No, it's Lucian! Lucian! Screamed a tiny voice. With a cry, she tore herself away, leaping up against the trunk of a tree twenty paces from him. Shaking like an addict in withdrawal, Sonja pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and tossed it to him.
"Wrap the wound until it heals."
He obeyed and Sonja jumped down, addressing the dripping boughs arched above their heads.
"Never tempt a thirsty vampire. Even if that vampire is your wife. I may not be able to control myself next time."
Sonja fell back behind Lucian as they approached the Lycan camp, trepidation like weights of lead around her legs. Despite Lucian's reassurance, Sonja doubted any sort of warm welcome. After all, their leader had run off in the middle of the night to save her and they had barely escaped with their lives. Lucian blasted a loud whistle that screeched in her ears, three notes, high, low, then high again. A handful of seconds passed and an answering whistle whispered through the rain.
Lucian flashed her a brilliant smile and seized her by the shoulders for a quick kiss, no less thorough for its brevity. His joy tingled on his lips and infected her with its euphoria.
"We're free and alive, my love. Nothing else matters," he whispered, then interlaced their fingers. Pleasure rushed through her, as absurd and flighty as a teenage girl with her first beau. They didn't have to hide anymore.
Hand in hand, she and Lucian entered the camp. With a Death Dealer's appraising glance, she took in their number, one hundred and two; their armament, a motley assortment of stolen swords, axes and pitchforks, none of which were in arm's reach, the amateurs; and the lay of the land. Lucian's triumvirate of lieutenants, Sabaas, Xristo, and the big black man, Raze, had the high ground, though if she had to, she could jump from that boulder to the tree behind them and—Lucian's hand squeezed hers, sensing her tension. Sonja tried to relax, tried to prize her hand free from the hilt of her sword, but a deep-seated instinct held her back. The prickle of unfriendly eyes made her perversely calmer. She gathered her vampire's cool dispossession, an icy arrogance.
"Good to see you back, Lucian," greeted Sabaas, his thin, fox-like features grazing over her bedraggled appearance with unconcealed dislike.
"A testament to Viktor's weakness if you could steal his daughter from beneath his nose," sneered Xristo, a blatant barb against her. Insolent pup! As if he could wound me! she thought fiercely.
"Don't give me the credit. Thank Sonja. We would both be dead without her," Lucian said, his dark blue eyes soft with love on her.
That one glance, that one statement of faith melted the walls of ice she had begun to build around her heart. She felt so vulnerable and exposed, her weakness standing beside her as plain as day. It would be so easy to cripple her. Unthinking of their audience, she brought his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles.
Their shock was palpable.
"You?" Xristo repeated dubiously.
"What did you do?" Sabaas asked. Sonja straightened, meeting his gaze with drilling precision, primally pleased when he glanced away.
"When Viktor's Death Dealers had Lucian at the point of a crossbow, I stabbed him in the shoulder until he capitulated," Sonja said succinctly. The rain and wind conversed quietly in the silence that followed.
"Is that true?" Xristo demanded. One hundred and two pairs of eyes swiveled to Lucian. With the smugness of a proven faith, Lucian nodded. Raze broke the stunned silence by approaching the two of them and clapping a friendly hand on hers and Lucian's shoulders.
"It was a fine brave thing that deserves a drink, eh?" he rumbled, his voice as deep a bass as thunder. Sonja looked up at him, as thick and solid as a hundred year old tree. He would make a formidable enemy, Sonja thought, now that Lycan blood coursed through that massive frame. Lucian laughed, a rare and beautiful sound that seemed to fill the world with its music, in Sonja's biased opinion. He was always so stern and serious. It was a miracle to see him smile and laugh with such ease.
"I think you are quite right, Raze. Do we have any mead left?"
The air of the camp relaxed as the men milled about fetching food and tankards. One of the young Lycans, seeing her hands empty, offered her a crudely hewn plate laden with thick stew and a hunk of dark bread. Sonja accepted it with a thin smile, hoping he wouldn't wait until she took a bite. He didn't, thank the Elders, and Sonja turned to find a place to sit and met Xristo's hateful gaze. She saw the blow coming, but to her surprise—and essential to his survival—he didn't strike her, but dashed the plate from her hands.
"Don't give her food, my brothers!" Xristo shouted, "Do you want to know what she is? She is vampire and they take their nourishment not from food, but by drinking a man's lifeblood! She's a parasite!"
Sonja stood unmoving under this verbal onslaught. His words were nothing she had not considered before, especially after drinking from Lucian. She was a parasite, a deathless cold thing that drank its life from the blood of others. Sonja had never felt such passionate self-loathing.
"Xristo," Lucian snarled. Sonja looked to find him standing, nearly trembling with rage, eyes wide pools of dark water. She read the intent in his stance.
"Lucian, don't-" she began, but was too late to stop the deadly momentum of his fist as it connected with Xristo's jaw. The other Lycan fell to the ground, limp as a dead fish. Lucian's eyes raked the camp and one by one, his men looked away like shamed children.
"Do any of you have anything ill to say about my wife? If you do, say on now, to my face! You fools! Do you have any idea what she has done to be here? There are none to match her in courage, or loyalty." Though Sonja's heart soared at Lucian's defense of her, she saw all too clearly the resentment in the faces of his men, especially Xristo who now came to, rubbing his bleeding lip.
Sonja heard the approach of running feet and leapt across the clearing, drawing her sword a few spans from its sheath.
"Someone's coming," she explained curtly. She sniffed the wind and relaxed, slamming her blade home.
"Lycan."
Sabaas moved forward.
"It must be Gyorg. I sent him to scout yesterday," he said.
"Whatever message he carries must be important. He's running like a demon is chasing him," Sonja commented.
"How far?" Sabaas demanded, teeth grating at the thought of asking a vampire for information that was beyond the scope of his senses. Sonja's mouth curved minutely.
"A quarter of a league, maybe. Would you like me to run and meet him?"
"No. I would hear his message from him," replied Sabaas. Without any editing from you, he said silently. Sonja shrugged as if the matter was of little import to her.
"As you wish."
Lucian caught her eye and winked, privy to both Sonja's amusement and Sabaas' annoyance. Presently, the bald Lycan Gyorg staggered into camp, falling to his knees at Sonja's feet. She offered him a hand. He looked up at her and she flinched at the look of raw, grieving hatred in his eyes.
His news was not good.
Sonja stepped tactfully back and Sabaas fell to his knees alongside his brother.
"Gyorg! Gyorg, what is it, man? What's happened?" Sabaas questioned. Gyorg gulped down breaths to feed his air-starved lungs, his barrel chest heaving like a leaking accordion.
"It's . . . it's Viktor . . . he . . . he's gone . . . completely mad. He . . . . he . . . he . . ." Gyorg gasped, his visage twisted by exhaustion and emotional anguish. He grimaced, revealing twisted yellow teeth. The camp clustered close, wound taut with mounting fear.
"He's . . . killed them—all of them! Our . . . our brothers! He's putting them all to the sword!"
Over a hundred voices rose in simultaneous outcry—of horror, shock and confusion. Sonja closed her eyes. She had feared this. Viktor's humiliation and rage would find vent somewhere.
"That vile monster!"
"Our brothers, gone?"
"What does this mean for our cause?"
Sonja turned to Lucian and saw the pain of it ripple across his face. The thread that bound them together writhed in mad denial. One by one, the voices died away, their attention swiveling to their leader. He didn't notice. Every thought was focused inward, muscle and sinew trembling in an effort to contain the explosion of feeling.
"Damn him! Damn him to hell!" Lucian shouted, his cry as raw as a wounded animal.
A small alarm began to peal in her mind and Sonja cursed the timing.
Sunrise.
"Lucian," she said quietly.
That one word broke through the haze of his anger and he looked at her, then followed her tactful glance upward. The cloud cover had thinned and patches of lightening sky appeared, awash with the colors of dawn. They had perhaps ten minutes, maybe less. Comprehension burned in his countenance, chased by naked fear. Lucian summoned Raze with a flick of finger and the large black man stooped his broad shoulders to hear Lucian's confidential whisper.
"Raze, there is a small cave about half a league due west. Take Sonja and wait for me there. Quickly!"
Sonja opened her mouth to protest when Lucian silenced her with a kiss, his tongue plunging into her mouth with delicious invading force. He pressed his forehead to hers, warm breath wafting delicately over her face.
"This is not your fault. Go," he whispered. With that, he stalked out of camp, flanked by Sabaas and Xristo. Sonja took a step after him when a large dark hand wrapped around her wrist, warm and callused, nearly large enough to span her entire forearm.
"Come," he rumbled.
With one last glance at her husband's retreating back, Sonja caught the accusing glances, the resentment and suspicion emanating from each Lycan—old or young. She overtook Raze's ground-eating lope and couldn't help feeling that they were right.
This was her fault.
Raze was sharply aware of the honor Lucian had bestowed upon him, entrusting him with the life and honor of his own lady. His thick lips curved in a wry grin. Not that his lady needed protection. He had never seen a woman—vampire or otherwise—that moved with that liquid surety of a warrior and gods above, she was fast! Whatever Lycans had over vampires in strength, vampires made up for it in speed and agility. The sun threatened to break over the horizon at any instant and Sonja flew over the ground like some dark, graceful bird.
"Where is it, Raze?" she shouted over her shoulder. He lagged behind, unable to keep pace. He stopped, his heart feeling as if it would burst free from his chest. One arm lifted and pointed to a copse of trees a little to their left.
"Through there!" he bellowed. She disappeared into the shade scant heartbeats before dawn broke. Raze expelled a breath in relief and trotted the remaining distance. 'The cave' as Lucian called it was scarcely more than a hole in the ground. A man of Raze's size couldn't fit, but Sonja had room enough to sit up or lie flat. The sun dappled his shoulders with pleasant warmth, after the wretched cold of the long, rainy night. He had thought a Lycan's existence a curse beyond bearing, but now he realized that being a vampire would be far worse—scorned even by the sun. Perversely, it comforted him.
"Are you well?" he growled. She smiled, revealing the pointed white tips of her fangs. There was something eerily sexual about a vampire staring out from the darkness that prickled along Raze's skin. He stepped back, breaking the insidious train of thought.
"Yes. It was a close thing," she whispered. Raze nodded and squatted down, feeling his muscles stretch and expand in grateful relief. He closed his eyes, listening to the birds sing.
"I'm sorry," she said coolly, "for your brothers."
Raze opened one brown eye and saw real regret in her face. A secret smile tugged at his lips. Another quality she shared with Lucian—a tendency toward martyrdom. Both of them carried the weight of the world on their shoulders, every mistake and decision was somehow their fault.
"Lucian is right. It isn't your fault. It is Viktor's. He's the one who killed them."
"But he killed them because of what I did to him! I humiliated him and he retaliated by killing the innocent!" she shot back, tears filling her eyes.
"And if you had not fought back? Viktor would have killed you. And what would have become of Lucian then?" To this she had no reply, so Raze forged on.
"I have only known him for a fortnight or so, but Lucian is my friend. I have seen him with you and I know that if he lost you, he would go mad with pain. What Viktor did was against all of us, not just you and Lucian. I feel regret that they died—for they were my brothers now. But I did not know them as Lucian, Sabaas and Xristo did. Viktor perhaps has made a mistake in making them his blood enemies." Sonja nodded absently, finger-combing her long black hair.
"Thank you, Raze. Lucian is lucky to have a friend like you."
Raze smiled.
Lucian was the link between them, but Raze felt a kinship stir upon looking at her. Sonja was an outcast just as he was. Though he was a Lycan, many of his brothers looked upon him with suspicion, simply because they had never seen a man of his color. And in this land, where monsters ruled, his dark skin was at best unlucky and at worst, an indication of demon possession. Likewise, Sonja epitomized everything the Lycans hated: vampiric wealth, beauty and superiority, not to mention that their aggressor was none other than her own father.
Sonja smiled back, with a wry twist on her full lips that echoed both his thoughts and the tentative link of friendship.
"We should get some rest. It has been a long night," she said. Raze nodded.
"I'll take the first watch."
There! Lucian and Sonja are alive and together! There may be more of this story left in me. Let me know if I should continue.