Dhampirs of Sgiach

39. Altina

Altina picked at the cuffs on her wrists irritably. She could feel the Orin on the edges of her mind but couldn’t touch it. She could also feel the minds of others on the edges as well. Ephemeral and barely heard.

When she woke up, the bracelet was already on her, and she was under guard from werebears. She was also covered in blood and other things she didn’t want to consider. And the scent of spiced honey.

What has that Lurah done to me?

The truck doors opening startled Altina from trying to remember what had happened. The scent of bear filled the room, along with the scent of spiced honey. The two men that sat in the front of the truck looked nothing alike. The shorter man was the one who drew her attention like a moth to a flame.

His hair was cut short and looked like ebony dipped in blood. When he turned to look at her, she gasped. Amber eyes were looked out at her from Duke Maximus Xanthus’s face. “You look just like him…” she said breathily.

“Never say his name.”

The power in the man’s voice gripped Altina and forced his will on her. The Duke had a dhampir bastard, and the fanger knew who his father was. “By the Ravens… The emperor needs to know!” Altina asserted.

The bastard fanger snorted. “Your emperor probably has his own dhampir bastards floating around. Probably f***s his daughters after they clean his toilet.”

“Kieran,” the werebear in the driver’s seat said. His voice was a deep baritone, and his bronzed skin, golden hair, and a glimpse of sapphire eyes marked him as Lurah’rin’Elkin.

The fanger, Kieran, looked at the werebear and shrugged as he looked ahead when the truck began to move.

Altina had seen another Lurah’rin’Elkin, one of the Frostfang bloodlines. But werebear meant the Ursine bloodline. “How in the hell has Lurah of Frostfang, Obsidian, and Ursine bloodlines come together? Last I knew, the Frostfang bloodlines detested the Obsidian and the Lasaire bloodlines.”

“You must be high in the Mallum Sanguinem aristocracy.” The werebear glanced at Kieran. “I’m assuming not so high as him.”

“He is a dirty fangbanger. And his demon spawn is a rapist,” Altina said icily, looking out the window at the passing scenery.

“If I had known what I was doing, I would have killed you,” Kieran said mildly. “Only good Necromancers are the Death Guardians.”

Altina stilled at that. He didn’t know what he was doing? Was that his first shift? s**t, if he didn’t know what he was doing and still managed to get past Father… He must be nearly as powerful as Duke Xanthus.

“Everyone knows the unchained are just animals that need to be chained or put down,” she said flippantly.

“Everyone also knows that the Mallum Sanguinem Aristocracy is just as corrupt as any other government, more so since they are the only country that still has slaves,” Kieran countered. “Tell me why Mallum Sanguinem was working with a damn wererat Alpha of a weak Pack.” Magic filled his voice and reached out for Altina.

“He came to us and offered a Luris’rin’Nephilim…” Altina froze. She hadn’t meant to say that, and she tried to stop the words, but they kept spilling from her. Kieran would ask clarifying questions when she held back, but he and the werebear mostly listened.

“How did you do that?” she asked when she was done.

“He is your Alpha,” the werebear said.

The drive was completed in silence for the rest of the day until the line of trucks pulled into a clearing before sunset, and people jumped out to begin setting up camp. Kieran got out of the truck and walked around to Altina’s door. He held her upper arm as he waked her to the trees and a bush.

“If you need to use the restroom, do it now,” he said, leaning against a tree.

Altina felt her cheeks heat. “Not with you watching!”

“You were going to turn me into a sanguinai and enslave me. Deal with it.”

“Perverted fanger!”

“Either pee in the bush or pee your pants. I don’t give a shit.” Kieran’s eyes glowed like amber dipped in blood, and his fangs extended past his lips.

“I’m not going to pee in front of you!”

“Do you need to pee?”

That damn magic filled Kieran’s voice, and Altina was forced to answer even as she tried to resist. “Yes…”

“Pee in the bush.”

Her movements were jerky as she tried to resist his command. Tears leaked down her cheeks as she turned her back to him. It was humiliating. She was Duchess Altina Stahlberg. Daughter of Duke Erik Stahlberg, one of the strongest Necromancers in Mallum Sanguinem. She didn’t pee in a bush while an unchained watched her. “Bastard fanger!” she growled through her tears and barely recognized the animal growl in her voice.

“Yeah, I’m a bastard fanger. Get over it and finish up.”

When Altina was done, they headed back to the others, and Kieran left her with the younger version of the large werebear as he returned to the woods. At least he didn’t force me to watch him pee.

The Telum Kieran had turned were around the fire, with bowls of stew in their laps that they picked at. Each one shook slightly as they scratched at themselves. Altina moved further away from them. They weren’t Telum any longer. They were the unchained. The scent of cotton candy called to Altina as a tall, slender man stood before her and held out a bowl of stew.

He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. More androgynous in appearance than masculine, his copper skin was smooth and unblemished, and hair like onyx fell to his shoulders. His tilted eyes were the crimson-flecked silver of a demonic Nephilim. He was beautiful, but he was a Luris’rin’Nephilim of the Frostfang bloodline.

Altina turned her head from him and ignored the bowl.

“You need to eat,” he said in a melodic tenor.

“Get away from me, fanger,” she snapped. Altina didn’t see it coming. Her only warning was the painful pull of her hair and the feel of fangs at her throat as Kieran bared her neck and bit her. She screamed and tried to catch herself as the bastard threw her into the snow.

Altina tried to get away from Kieran, but he dragged her back and started to force-feed her the stew.

Before sunset, Altina was stripped and put in a cage. The last thing she remembered as the moons came out, full and shining, was pain as the shift overtook her.

That was how it was the next and final night of the full moon. On the third night, the Nephilim had tried to offer her a bowl again, and when she called him fanger, Kieran bit her again before dragging her to the tent and commanding her to stay put and eat the bowl of stew.

Altina was curled up on the cot when Kieran returned to the tent and laid down on his cot. She tried to ignore his scent of spiced honey, but it invaded her mind, and she wondered what it would smell like mixed with the Nephilim’s scent of cotton candy. Before she knew what she was doing, she had stood from her cot and walked over to Kieran’s.

He was lying on his back with his hands behind his head and amber eyes closed. They opened and looked up at her. “What?” he asked in a flat voice.

“I have to pee,” she lied.

“There’s a bucket in the corner,” he said, rolling onto his side with his back to her.

Altina glared at him a moment before she tipped his cot over. Kieran growled and got out from under the cot before Altina tackled him. He rolled them so he was on top. His eyes glowed with bloodlust, and she watched as his fangs extended.

“What the f**k?” he growled.

“I said I had to pee!” she screeched back.

“There’s a bucket, and I’m trying to sleep!”

“I’d rather pee in a bush!”

“Tough s**t!”

Altina screamed and started to hit his chest with her cuffed hands. Kieran grabbed the chain, pinned it above her head, and glared down at her. “I get it! You hate what I am and what I did to you! You hate that a fanger has power over you! Well, guess what, cupcake, your daddy isn’t going to take you back!” he snarled in her face.

Tears welled up in her eyes. “He’ll take me back!”

“You really think so? After a fanger violated you and turned you into a werecheetah?” His voice was cruel, and he ground himself against her. His fangs grazed along her throat, and she hated the sound of her whimper.

“Please… Stop…”

Kieran looked down at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher. “We can either get along, or you can die,” he finally said as he got off her.

She watched as Kieran flipped his cot back over and laid down. “Why only those two options,” Altina finally asked.

“You committed crimes against the Sleuth. Grizzly Auron will kill you if I reject you as my mate.”

“I don’t want to be your mate.”

“Don’t worry. I’m dying. You won’t have to suffer me long.”

Altina frowned at him. “You’re dying?”

“Yep. The rat gets the last laugh.”

“So, my options are put up with you until you die young or die at the hands of the Grizzly of a Sleuth of werebears?” Altina said as she sat on top of his hip. Kieran growled at her. “You sure have an odd way of picking up girls.”

“You sure bounce back fast from being a whimpering princess,” Kieran snapped, shoving her off him and his cot.

“You said it yourself: we can either get along, or I can die,” Altina growled. “I won’t even care if you decide to have a side piece.”

Kieran sat up, and Altina flinched away from the look in his eyes. “I’m guessing you’re offering to allow me to have a side piece so you can have one?”

“Well, I have needs,” she said as she got up and went to her cot.

“Neither of us gets side pieces,” Kieran said. “I’ll be dead soon enough that you can wait to bounce on some other jackass’s dick.”

“What is your problem?” Altina demanded.

“You are!”

Altina hissed at him and tackled him. They clattered to the floor, and Kieran just looked up at her. “If you don’t want to sleep on the cot, fine,” he said tiredly, rolling so she was spooned to his front.