***Author's Note: As promised, although slightly delayed, I have finally come out with a new chapter. I do apologize for neglecting this story for so long, I've had a lot happen to me, as is part of life. Anyways, I am committing myself to try and finish this story, because it has been in my thoughts, even when I couldn't find the words to write. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the chapter. Please don't be disheartened if I don't update for a while, for I find the time to write while I work, and my clients do like to take up a lot of my time. Also, I am currently writing, editing, and re-writing this on my own and as I go. I welcome constructive criticism, for I know I'm not the best writer out there and I do miss some things when I edit. But, please be polite. I do not condone rudeness or negativity, and any comments that reflect a poor attitude with be ignored and deleted. Thank you!
Chapter 7
At Last We Meet
"Come to me… Come to me…" the voice repeated in a hypnotic baritone voice. I found myself drawn to him, like the sailors of old hearing the sirens' song beckoning them so sweetly to their doom. As I drew closer, silhouette began to solidify. I reached out to him, but my hands stopped my advance and I pulled taunt against something. The mists were holding me back from the hypnotic voice. I struggled, crying desperately as I pulled against the mists. Pulled with all my strength against my bonds, then finally they snapped and I reached out for him.
I was jarred to wakefulness when I was body slammed into the floor, my ribs and back creaked in protest as a nailed boot dug into my spine.
"Well, well, well. Just when I thought you would cooperate, you just up and try to run away." The captain sneered down at me. "You should have listened to my warning, but I guess we'll just have to teach you the hard way." I could hear the sick pleasure in his voice, "And I so enjoy the hard way," He grinned maliciously. He looked over his shoulder and called for the other guards and more chains. I could hear the stomp of boots and the clink of chains as the other guards came up the stairs. I cried out as the captain's boot dug deeper into my back before he pulled me up by my hair, causing me to yelp in pain.
Still dazed and confused from my abrupt awakening, I didn't comprehend what was happening. Even when I stared at the spiked manacles coming towards me. It finally became clear to me as the captain and two other guards grabbed and held my already bloody wrists out to the glistening teeth of the waiting manacles. I struggled futilely with them until I felt the hot piercing pain. I screamed my voice raw and bucked my body like a wild horse as my head became blind with pain, but it did no good. I heard the locks clicked, leaving the burning pain to consume my arms and head. I screamed again as they stretched the chains to the point where I thought my wrists would shred if I even twitched before the removed the old, blood crusted chains that they originally put on me.
I whimpered and cried, but my captors still had not finished yet. Before I could even recover from the first round, I felt the white hot pain encompass my ankles. The burning pain seared my entire body, and my sight went white with agony. It felt as if hot metal was being poured into my veins, I could even smell the slight whiff of burning flesh through the smell of my own blood and the rank odors of my captors.
They laughed at my suffering, as if it were some joke they had heard in the piazza and not the pain of another creature. Someone grabbed my chin, though my sight was so blurred by tears and pain that I couldn't comprehend who.
"Well, well, boys. Looks like our little Dhamphir has a weakness to silver after all." The guard's fetid breath made my stomach roll. His face came closer into focus, but this one was not the captain. He brought his lips closer to my ear, "I never understood until now," he said as he dug his fingers into the tender skin of my breast, "Monster or no, there is nothing more arousing that a woman's suffering." My sight sharpened and became clearer; night became day in my eyes as painful rage and, for the first time in my life, the overwhelming hatred I had for these men boiled my blood. I immediately felt the change in my body, but this time I embraced it all. Instead of the normal ache from my jaw as I turned to my darker powers, if felt more like a pleasurable release as I bent closer to his neck, the pain of the manacles tearing my limbs only spiked my desire to share the pain with my captors.
"Oo, I think the little puttana is angry," one of the other guards mocked, earning another round of jeers from the rest of the guards. I felt a growl rumble in my chest as my eyes fastened onto the fluttering pulse that strained against guard's neck as he craned his neck back to smirk at the others. I could hear the drumming of their heart beats, like a seductive rhythm that begged me to pay attention, to dance. I could even hear the dripping of blood on the wooden floor as the droplets leaked from the cuffs around my wrists, adding their own syncopated emphasis. I leaned forward towards the guard as his scent suddenly changed from revolting to tantalizing, but before I even had the chance to act, there was a loud thump above us that shook the rafters and rained dust down onto us.
"On your guard men!" The captain yelled from behind me. For a moment, all that could be heard was the hiss of steel as the guards unsheathed their swords and formed a circle around me as more thumps shook the building. I could hear the faint sound of the wood groaning and the sound of a claw purposefully scraping against the terracotta shingles, in a teasing manner. It was followed by the grunts of one of the guards as he primed his crossbow as slid a bolt into the mechanism.
"Hold your ground men. As long as no one invites them in, we're safe." The captain assured, although his words felt hollow as ghostly whispers began to circle the room, causing the guards to twitch nervously. I could their hearts beat wildly, almost like the hoof beats of a herd of horses galloping away from a threat, and the sickly, sweet smell of fear permeated the air. The cloying smell, plus the smell of the silver encasing my limbs almost made me choke as they burned in my throat.
And then I heard it…
It was so soft that I almost couldn't hear it, but I heard my name whispered like a sigh. The voice shivered across my skin and wrapped around me with its satin caress. Something that I had never felt before stirred with in me, a slow burning ache low in my belly.
"Sylvia… Sylvia…. Let us in Sylvia…" The whispers chanted hypnotically, "We can set you free Sylvia… Just let us in, let us in, let us in..."
I felt like I was being caressed by a lover, that everything would go right if I just did as the voices asked and let them in. My eyes rolled in my skull as I tried to go to the voices, but the silver chains that burned my blood made me cry out in pain as they pulled against the fragile bones in my wrists and ankles. The whispers became hisses as my cries of pain riled them into a frenzy. Claws tore at wood as unearthly shrieks filled the night, followed by a deafening roar that shook my soul to the core and rattled the windows.
"Hold your positions men! They're just trying to scare us into letting them in. As long as we hold out until dawn, there's nothing they can do." The captain yelled as building literally began to sway and shake.
"But sir, Look!" I faintly heard one of the guardsmen yell. I didn't look to where he was pointing, the hisses and whispers drowned out almost everything. And then I heard it.
"Let me in, Sylvia…" A male voice whispered seductively. I shivered as if hands caressed my body, embracing me like a lover.
"Sylvia..." The way he said my name sang to my soul, and suddenly all I wanted to do was give into that demand. As if everything would become alright if I just gave him what he wanted.. My tongue felt heavy and dry as I tried to form the words that he wanted.
"Please…." I croaked, gaining my guards' notice.
"Quickly! Someone gag her!" Someone yelled, the men scrambling towards me.
"Come…" I rasped against the pain as I felt hands clawing at my face. I could feel the rough burlap catch on my forehead in their panic.
"In…" I whispered, the burlap shoved into my mouth too little too late as chaos erupted all around us.
Slivers of glass and broken wood went flying as the roof and windows exploded as a flurry of wings and claws fell upon the guardsmen around me. I winced as a slivers of wood and glass bounced, cut, and imbedded themselves into my exposed skin. I tried to cover myself as pale wings came flying towards me, but the chains still held fast and I could do nothing but close my eyes and brace myself as best as I could as bodies and wings whirled around me.
It felt like I had been kicked in the gut as the hissing vampire barreled into me, the chains rattled and finally snapped. I didn't even have any air in my lungs to scream as I felt my arm go limp with a sickening pop and blood flowed freely down my arms and feet as the spiked manacles ripped and pulled at my flesh. I couldn't even bring myself to comprehend that the mangled flesh I was looking at was mine. It seemed to happen in slow motion as I crumpled to the ground in a bloody mess. I swallowed down the nausea as I writhed in the growing pool of blood. All I wanted was the screaming and the pain to stop, to just slip away into the darkness that grew around the edges of my sight.
I was suddenly struck with the irony of it all, that my life was ruined by one vampire attack and now I was about to die in one. My shock addled mind just found the situation hilarious, even the feeling of my body lifting into the air, though painful, was funny. Weak laughter just bubbled from my lips in pain filled gasps, my mind numbed from the pain as I found myself swinging upside down. I just giggled madly, my head and arms flopped limply from side to side as we rose higher and higher into the night sky with each wing beat.
"Silence, girl!" the female vampire hissed at me. Her demonic face was contorted into a hideous mask to try to and scare me into silence. In my hysteria, I just laughed harder. Her face twisted as she snarled at me. We began to pull away from the villa, still ascending, when I could hear the screams of dying men and the shrieking and roaring of the other vampires as they relished in the bloody chaos. I could almost smell the foreign blood over my own, like a subtle perfume to tease my nose as flitted in and out of the scents that overwhelmed my senses.
"I said, Silence!" The female vampire snarled, tightening her grip on my ankle. I cried out in pain, my laughs turning to choked cries, however it did not last for long. When the vampire tightened her grip, the silver cuff loosened from my skin and slid down to touch and burn the claw that held me. With an ear splitting shriek, she released me and I plummeted towards the dark woods far below.
The wind shrieked in my ears as I plunged like a stone to the earth, but though a small part of me was terrified and screaming, I couldn't bring myself to react. I just stared at the trees that were becoming clearer and clearer, numb to the fear of death. I heard a roar in the distance but I wasn't sure if it was the wind, or just my imagination. When I could make out individual trees, I closed my eyes, hoping that death would be swift.
Instead of my body meeting the ground, I was impacted from the side. I screamed in pain, feeling as though my battered body had been thrown against a wall. I could tell by the feel of the vampire's sculpted chest beneath me that it was a male. I struggled weakly against the steel of his arms, causing another groan to slip from my lips as the pain speared through my broken body. It was then that I gave up fighting. I couldn't even summon the energy to turn away as my head lolled to the side to show me the monstrous face… The monstrous face that suddenly transformed into the face of the most captivating man I had ever seen.
Despite being older than me, he had an aristocratic air with his high cheekbones and sensual lips. His long black hair was pulled back from his face by the wind, which played with a golden clasp that glinted in the moonlight. But what held my gaze so completely was those same hypnotic, glacial blue eyes that had haunted my dreams since that fateful night when my life was turned upside down.
"At last we meet, Sylvia." He purred, those blue eyes staring into my soul. Before I could respond, my body went limp as the blackness finally overcame me and I knew no more.
