Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 165649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 663(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 663(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
The three master vampires looked cowed in spite of the fact that they had gone centuries battling and defeating Carpathian hunters, earning the title of master vampire. The three shuddered and turned toward the five vampires striding toward them. Sergey was in the middle, two master vampires on either side of him. Clearly, he wasn’t taking any chances with his own safety. He had left with two master vampires, and somewhere another two had joined him. He had pawns at his disposal and no less than seven master vampires to fight for him. That was serious firepower.
There was fury in every step Sergey took. He had been thwarted in his goal of retrieving Elisabeta. He had no idea why the infection wasn’t spreading or working. The healer wasn’t supposed to be able to stop it. Many of those inside had to have the command in their brain to open the gate, yet no one had done so. By now the ancients should have been turning on one another. Chaos should have been reigning inside the compound. He didn’t understand and he didn’t have Elisabeta.
He had thought he could always contact Elisabeta, that she would be unable to resist coming to him, but she had. The few times they had connected he had felt her terror, but those times had been too few and hadn’t lasted long. He would find a way to get to her, and when he did, she would suffer as she never had before. He was just getting started, pinning humans to the gates. He would surround the compound with the dead and dying in her name. He would stick the heads of children on spikes and put them on the fence facing her, to stare at her with accusing eyes, so she would see them and know she had forced him to go to such lengths.
Snarling, he looked for a target for his impotent rage. Any target. He wanted to kill and keep killing, but cruelly, mercilessly, painfully, the way he had as a boy when his brothers teased him and he felt powerless, just as he did now. He would go into the forest and spend hours ripping apart animals and watching them suffer, looking into their eyes, feeling such immense satisfaction while their blood spilled around him and they silently begged him for death. He wouldn’t give it to them.
Later, he graduated to human children. That had been even more satisfying, especially when he had befriended them first, over time making them believe that he was their friend by bringing them little gifts and even doing chores occasionally. Knowing all the while that sooner or later his brothers would shove him around or make fun of him and he would come back and spend time enjoying torturing his victims. He welcomed the way they tormented him just so he could have the satisfaction of feeling omnipotent when he spent hours with his victims. It was one of the most delicious and powerful rushes in the world. Taking Elisabeta out from under the nose of her family and forcing her to his will each rising kept that feeling in him, especially knowing he hid her from his brothers.
He strode straight up to Luther Van Halen. The master vampire had always thought far too much of himself. He strutted around, his followers loyal to him rather than to Sergey. It wasn’t to be tolerated. And laughing? At him? Because he couldn’t get to Elisabeta? Luther had most likely conspired against him. Luther wanted to lead the others. He was just like Vadim, one of Sergey’s older brothers. He’d been one of Vadim’s trusted lieutenants, although Sergey had no idea what Vadim had seen in the vampire.
Luther stood there impassively as Sergey continued to come at him, no expression on his face. Sergey didn’t slow down, but the fact that Luther stood his ground infuriated him even more. He should be cowering. The other two would have had the good sense to back away, but not Luther. He was always challenging for leadership. Sergey had every right to reprimand him. To let loose his fury on the conspirator.
Without warning he slashed across Luther’s face with the talons of the harpy eagle, ripping through what flesh was left, tearing it from the bone and tossing it carelessly into that writhing, poisonous, starving web. The threads came alive, hissing and fighting for the morsel of flesh. The moment they had a taste, the web wanted more, sending out tentacles in every direction, greedy for even that rotting meat.
Sergey kept slashing, not giving Luther a chance to recover, stepping into him, ripping into his chest, tearing at his belly to get at entrails, slitting the vampire open so that black blood poured onto the ground. The tentacles acted like tubes, dangling from the trees, dipping into the thick gel of shiny black in a frenzied feeding.