SWNOVELS Chapter Minion
She helped Rowan sit more upright and didn’t even notice how their blood mixed on the ground before the sand absorbed it.
Marcus saw it happen, and a strange shudder ran down his spine.
His mother had the sight and would have called it a warning of something to come.
Rowan fed, but it barely changed anything.
The poison in the wounds soaked into her veins and made her fade fast, and although Alena’s pure vampire blood kept Rowan from dying, it wasn’t enough.
Marcus resisted the certainty that they had to move.
They weren’t safe here.
Rowan was dying and would be a liability to them, but neither of them wanted to leave her behind.
They didn’t have to speak.
He brought the horses, and Striker followed him, despite acting in much the same manner as he did the night before when the creatures attacked the castle. Nervous, spooked, uneasy, and almost wild as he kept shying at every shadow.
Striker kept pawing the ground and trying to nuzzle his mistress.
He sniffed at a wound, shuddered, and emitted a sound more like a growl than any noise a horse should make.
Alena patted his nose, but his eyes never left Rowan.
Striker allowed Alena to saddle him and stood motionless when they tied Rowan to his saddle.
When their horses moved into the night, he followed with great care as if he didn’t want to jostle Rowan, but she was unconscious.
***
Neither of them expected Rowan to make it through the night, and from the moment they left the safety of the cave, they kept hearing noises in the night. Alena kept glancing nervously at the darkness and checking on Rowan almost instinctively.
Despite her Nightvision, she couldn’t see much, but some instinct told her Rowan still clung to life.
She hated seeing the dhampir like that. Her attachment to this creature she met only hours before was as undeniable as Rowan’s impending death.
The creatures kept pace with them but never approached within visual range.
At some point, Marcus increased their speed when more and more noises came from the night.
“Marcus, wait, we’re being herded.”
Alena said when she realized the creatures were pushing them in a specific direction.
He altered their course chose, and the night came alive with screeches, chirps, shrill shrieks, and the pounding of many feet.
It spooked Striker, and he took off.
They didn’t even hesitate before going after him, but by the time they caught up to him, their attackers had given up the chase.
She half expected to find Rowan laying beside the road, but their ropes had held.
“Is she still alive?” Marcus asked, more concerned than she expected.
“Yes.”
“How can you tell?” he asked as Striker waited on them, his nose hanging low, more from sadness than fatigue, while their horses were nearly spent.
“I just can. We need to find shelter quickly.”
“Aim for the mountains,” he suggested, hurrying his poor horse along.
Nothing disturbed the night but the sound of the horses’ hooves on the stony ground, leather creaking, the tack shifting, their breathing, and the crickets.
Why, then, did she sense someone watching them?
“Do you feel it too?” Marcus asked so quietly she had to strain to hear him, and he didn’t need to explain.
She nodded.
***
Dawn already touched the sky when she spotted a dark opening just a few hundred yards ahead.
“That looks like a cave!” she said, already jumping off and going ahead of the tired horse that had nothing more to give.
Striker followed her and the horses followed.
“Hope it is deep enough for Striker.”
“It smells deep and dank,” she said thankfully as they entered the absolute darkness and kept walking until they reached a larger space.
Marcus used his flint to ignite a piece of linen, briefly lighting up a small cave and a few tunnels.
They lifted Rowan down from Striker, and she convulsed.
“The poison has reached her brain,” Marcus concluded. “I’m going to get some firewood.”
“That’s dangerous,” she countered.
“We’re going to need light: this place is too dark for even us.”
Alena couldn’t lie to herself anymore; earlier in the month, they had lost three soldiers like this.
Striker pushed against Rowan as if he wanted her to wake up and move.
“She won’t be waking, buddy.”
The tears in her voice surprised her, but the horse glanced at her as if he understood and, with his head almost touching the ground, remained beside Rowan like a silent sentinel, his nose brushing her arm as if he took comfort from her scent. They cut the barbs from her skin and removed the dead tissue. Alena wanted to sow the wounds shut, but Marcus suggested using a heated knife to seal them. It would destroy some of the poison and stop the bleeding.
***
Twice more, Alena fed Rowan her blood, despite growing weaker with every session. Risking herself if circumstances forced them to flee or fight, but she refused to watch the dhampir die.
At first, they were reluctant to give her Marcus’ blood since they had no idea what effect it would have on a dhampir, but eventually, they had no choice.
For two days, Rowan struggled on the precipice between life and death.
In her delirium, she saw something more than the present and the past, and her memories inadvertently supplied them with more information, while the rest seemed like garbled nonsense.
She repeated the same strange words at intervals until she stopped convulsing, foaming at the mouth, shivering with cold, or burning with fever, and said one clear thing that startled Alena.
“From the house of sin,
his blood will flow;
from the pure one
to the fallow born
and return once more.”
The words rocked her, and afterward, Rowan slept the sleep of the innocent.
It couldn’t be a coincidence, and the meaning was so clear.
“She seems out of danger, and we need to feed.”
Weariness made Marcus’ words slur.
“We can’t both leave her, and one of us would be no match for the enemy,” Alena reasoned, struggling to keep her eyes open.
“We’re no match for them now.”
A loud crash startled them from their lethargy and got them to their feet.
Striker whinnied in the larger chamber of the underground cave, and they hurried in that direction.
The horse proved to be an excellent guard if you learned to interpret the sounds he made.
He had broken his halter at some point and went outside, dropping a rather large boar at his feet like an offering, pushing it in their direction with his bloodied nose.
“I wondered how he fed,” she admitted as the boar struggled to its feet, and the horse used his massive hoof to knock it down.
Striker seemed to grin at them, and his canines gleamed with blood, seeming ridiculously proud of himself.
“Well, I’d rather not go outside,” she admitted, and Marcus raised an amused brow. “It’s not as if we’re often used to better.”
“Well, I can say I’ve never fed on a giant boar caught by a horse,” Marcus joked, and when the boar stirred again, Striker didn’t need to daze it.
Despite its razor-sharp tusks and foul temper, it didn’t stand much of a chance against two hungry vampires.
“Thank you, buddy,” Alena said when she sat back and wiped her mouth.
“Yes, thank you, Striker,” Marcus said.
The horse nodded at the inner chamber, and Alena nodded at him.
“Go see, she’s much better.”
He didn’t need to be invited twice.
“And he seems to understand everything we say,” Marcus marveled as they butchered the boar to dry and cure the meat. There was no sense in wasting any of it.
Vampires ate just like people, but food alone wasn’t enough to sustain them, yet it helped manage their urges.
***
Striker liked the cured meat and took great delight in pretending to steal it while they pretended not to see him do it. He led the other horses outside before dawn each day to graze and fetched them back after nightfall.
Marcus followed them the next time Striker led the other horses away, and although it wasn’t far from the cave, the secluded little valley had sufficient grass, a small stream, and a large tree.
Marcus smiled as he filled the waterskins.
Striker was much more than a horse, he had to admit.
When he returned, the stallion walked with him, and the other horses stayed. It was a risk, but one they had to take.
They were almost at the cave when a rabbit bolted from its hole.
Striker almost reacted, seemed to decide he wasn’t hungry, and let it go.
How could this creature have such control? More so than some vampires. He would have thought this horse would be a mindless killing machine, but it didn’t seem to enjoy killing unless it needed to feed.
Striker respected the other horse and left humans alone.
He was like his mistress, something special.
***
Rowan woke with a start and tried to jerk upright out of reflex before dizziness forced her to lay back down.
For a moment, she didn’t remember where she was, but most of it came back in flashes.
She had almost got herself killed.
It wasn’t the first time she woke, but the first time she was completely lucid.
“Finally,” Alena greeted, and Rowan’s eyes roamed to where the vampire washed out a rag.
Marcus wasn’t in the cave.
“Marcus and Striker are out hunting,” Alena provided, surprising her.
***
“Only wild boar and deer roam these parts,” Rowan’s voice sounded stronger than Alena expected, and she had a wicked glimmer of laughter in her eyes as she mocked Alena.
Alena shrugged, unwilling to admit how grateful she was that Rowan recovered with no mental handicap.
“We don’t understand each other well, do we?” she asked with such seriousness that Rowan sobered.
“I rarely taste human blood, Rowan. Our father banned our kind from killing humans for sport, pleasure, or food a long time ago. You might find it hard to believe, but he valued human life. He respected our tenants, servants, and subjects,” she revealed, but she saw Rowan reject the thought.
“Father killed Darwin for murdering your Morian. He made him watch me decapitate his three sons before he burned the man alive. I didn’t realize why until you told me what he did. Although I think Father killed him for attacking you to set a president for anyone else who would try,” Alena speculated, and Rowan reacted to the thought with surprise and anger.
“Victor made you decapitate Darwin’s sons?” Disbelief and pity in her eyes.
With a sigh, Alena brought the water closer and held the rag to Rowan.
Rowan wasn’t ready to accept that Victor did anything for her good, but Alena found no other explanation.
“Do you want to wash yourself, or do you need help?” She asked, and Rowan took the rag.
“I served as Father’s second in command and dispensed judgment on his behalf. I’m much older than you, and by then, I had fought at our father’s side in a war.
“They were not the first or the last of our subjects to fall under my blade in the pursuit of justice,” Alena corrected, and this seemed to be news to Rowan.
Rowan got halfway through washing herself before accepting defeat, but she was much stronger than Alena had dared to hop.
She didn’t like asking for help, but at least she did it gracefully, which surprised Alena.
Rowan still had wounds and suffered pain but didn’t allow it to show.
It hurt Alena to accept that if her Father had been less unbending in his attitude toward Rowan, he would have loved her spirit.
Why did he murder Darwin in such a brutal fashion if he hadn’t loved Rowa?
The dhampir exceeded her expectations.
Two of their soldiers were pure-born vampires, and they hadn’t survived one or two of these barbs, while Rowan survived seven.
Victor made an error in judgment when he shunned Rowan, and if he were alive, she would confront him about Rowan and damn the consequences.