Page 57 of Blood Magic

I did it anyway. I slammed the wooden stake into her heart and it pierced her chest wall easily, with only a subtle cracking of bone and hiss of blood. Without hesitation, I lifted my blade and with two strokes, parted her head from her body.

Axton screeched and fell to his side on the floor, his voice ending in an agonized howl.

“Now his bonded slave,” the elder said, and it took me a few seconds to understand he was speaking to me. “Kill him. His remains shall be burnt and spread upon his master's lands where the warped blood magic might dissipate.” He gave me a regal nod. “Once through the heart, Ms. Silver. The master’s magical hold on the boy will be strong, so do not remove the blade until his lifeforce has bled from his body.”

Axton could no longer shriek. He whimpered and his body jerked, and I wondered if he weren’t having a seizure. The human slave simply bowed his head and waited. He didn’t beg or cry or even look up.

The audience whispered and cried, some of them, and it was like a wind raking its cold fingers through piles of dry leaves. The vampires would feel their master’s sorrow. Whether they liked him or not didn’t matter or occur to them. He was their master, and they didn’t want to see him suffer.

“Kill the slave,” the elder ordered. “Kill him.”

At my hesitation, the whispers on the wolf side of the room became murmurs, and those murmurs rose into a chant that wrapped around my very soul.

Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.

Why did they want to see more death? I wasn’t sure. Maybe they only wanted to see the vampires—and especially the vampire master—suffer.

I walked to the human and knelt before him, and then without thinking about it, I reached out to brush his hair out of his face. He refused to lift his stare, at first. But as I knelt there, silent and patient, ignoring the bloodthirsty wolves and even the elder’s command, he looked at me.

“Do you want to live?” I murmured.

There was something in his eyes. Not the look of a normal human who’d been tortured by vampires. There was something wild and fierce in his eyes, and there was pride. He was a warrior, this human, or he had been, once upon a time.

“I won’t beg,” he said.

I was shocked that such a strong voice came out of such a wreck of a face. I shook my head. “But do you want to live?” I was genuinely curious. I’d seen the despair inside him. He would choose death, and gladly, over slavery. But what if… “What if you were freed? Would you want to live?”

His eyes blazed but he said nothing, not at first. Then finally, “I don’t know.”

But I think he did know—he was simply afraid that he would not be free. Ever. I knew that feeling.

I stood, abruptly, and faced the elder. “I’ll take him,” I said. “I’ll help him get free of his master’s chains, and then I’ll release him back into the human world.”

He stared at me, his eyes dark and displeased. “No, Wolf. You will not do that.” And even as I narrowed my eyes and opened my mouth to argue, he added, “You cannot. He is a vampire master’s bonded slave, and he will die without his master. He will break free of you and hurry back into his master’s arms, even if he has to dig forever to reach him. It will not be possible for you to stop him. And he will slaughter and spill the blood of other humans along the way. Do you want to be responsible for that?”

But I tapped my chest, right over my heart, where I felt the confidence and determination and I knew I could do what he thought was impossible. “I won’t kill him, Elder. I want to help him. Give him to me.”

He stepped closer to me and peered up into my face, and I didn’t look away, not even when I so badly wanted to. And at last, he gave me what I wanted. Sort of. “You have one month to break the bond. If, in that time, he returns to end his master’s—and his own—punishment, he will be swiftly killed, and you will be publicly flogged. Fifty lashes with a magic-laced whip. Is that agreeable to you?”

I swallowed hard, and for a second, I wavered. More than anything else, being publicly whipped was about humiliation. Oh, it was about pain, too—a whole lot of pain—but mostly, it was about degradation and shame. Humiliation.

I looked down at the human. “Tell me.”

Finally, he nodded. “You have my word. I will take my own life before I return to that…” He curled his lip, and it was a moment before he could speak. “That thing.”

I believed him. I nodded at the elder. “It’s agreeable to me. I’ll take him.”

Deep inside me, my wolf slunk away and hid, afraid and alone.