She barely managed to stop her headlong rush into the ambush without skewering herself on the sharp metal points. She stood, frozen on the spot, looking down at the spear blades pressed against the vulnerable flesh of her throat, her breasts, and her belly.
The hoof beats were getting closer. The riders would be here in moments.
Falia arose from her sprawled position on the ground. Her nose was gushing blood. It flowed down her face and into her mouth, coating her teeth with red as she snarled at Chandra. Her dark eyes blazing with fury, the girl walked over, spat in Chandra’s face, and then slapped her, hard.
Chandra gave very serious though to retaliating… but she didn’t favor dying of a dozen spear wounds in exchange for the pleasure of hitting the brat. Instead, she demanded, “What have you done with Gideon, you warped little bitch?”
“Gideon is where I told you he was.”
“Is he alive?”
“Of course!”
Chandra studied her. “Ah, I see. You got him out of the way so you could have me carried off without his interference.”
“When he returns, I’ll tell him you disappeared. I’ll be very convincing.” Falia wiped her bloody face with her sleeve, but this only succeeded in smearing the blood all over her skin. “He’ll never know what happened to you. And he’ll forget about leaving here. Once you’re gone, he’ll stop thinking about going back to wherever you came from.”
“And, of course, you’ll comfort him tenderly while he grieves for me?” Chandra said.
“He will forget you,” the girl said with malicious satisfaction. “You are nothing.”
“I thought I was special enough to be a life-saving treat for your dark prince?” Chandra shrugged. “Listen, you sickly, demented, venomous child, if you think Gideon will ever notice you, then you’re even sillier than I thought you were.”
“He has already noticed me. I have more at my disposal than you may think. He will be mine,” the girl said furiously, her blood-smeared, sallow face going an unbecoming shade of puce. “If I am ever to be allowed to live, and better, to die, I need to produce a healthy successor. Gideon will help me do that.”
In that moment Chandra understood. Falia was as trapped as she was, perhaps even more so.
The noise of galloping hooves became too loud for further conversation, which was something of a relief.
The first thing Chandra saw was that fast-moving cloud of white fog traveling across the ground, glowing in the moonlight. Then she was able to see the riders, their looming black shapes rising out of the fog as they raced toward her.
They looked so terrifying that, for a moment, she couldn’t move. It was like being trapped in one of her nightmares. She wanted to scream, to flee, to weep, and she couldn’t do any of these things.
Then her wits came back to her in a welcome rush.
Spears! she thought. That ought to be an effective weapon against a rider.
And fire. Gideon had said that blood drinkers didn’t like it.
The four riders entered this part of the village and cantered around Chandra and her captors, circling them like a pack of predators. The thick mist swirled around the villagers and amongst them. Chandra felt as if icy snakes were twining around her knees when the fog reached her.
Perpetual nighttime worked in her favor on this occasion. Several of the men surrounding her were carrying torches.
She simulated terrified hysteria-which wasn’t that big of a leap-and staggered to her right, feigning confusion and panic as she shrieked. The men broke position, some of them falling back, others stepping to one side. She found her opening and seized a torch from one of them. She swung it around like a club, using the fire to keep her captors away.
“Seize her!” Falia shouted.
Chandra shoved the torch into the face of one of the men. He staggered backwards, lost his footing, and dropped his spear. Chandra caught it with her foot and kicked it up to her other hand. Warding off her captors with the spear, she used the torch to set fire to thatched roofs of two nearby huts. With the light wind, there as a good chance the fire would spread to more huts. Meanwhile, it was already distracting the villagers and sparking some panic among them. She hoped that, beneath the dark pall that covered Diraden, a big enough fire would be visible from far away. It would alert Gideon, if he saw it.
She had never used a spear before, but she assumed that sticking the pointy end into soft flesh would be effective. Turning suddenly, she dashed toward one of the riders and shoved the spear into his guts.
The force of her blow almost unseated him, but he was a skilled rider and clung to his mount. She could see the rider’s face as he moved away, the spear lodged in his belly. It was a bony and ghastly white visage, with black eyes, and lips so dark they looked black, too.
The villagers had backed off to the edge of the fray, but Falia was screaming for them to seize her. They apparently thought it was a challenge best left to the Fog Riders. They were more concerned about their burning village.
Chandra turned with her torch to attack another of the four riders. As he came toward her, she shoved the torch into the dark horse’s face. The animal whinnied, reared up, and danced sideways. She was about to follow up her attack and go after the rider when instinct warned her to look behind her.
The rider she had stabbed had withdrawn the spear from his guts and was swinging the long wooden handle straight toward her head.
In the moment before it hit her, Chandra thought irritably that Gideon hadn’t warned her that blades wouldn’t kill blood drinkers.
Chandra gradually became aware of a weight on her head. So heavy it hurt. Hurt terribly. It felt as if an enormous rock was pounding into her skull, over and over. It hurt to move, it even hurt to groan. She lay there in dazed silence, wishing the pain would go away.
She heard unfamiliar voices, echoing noises, laughter, growls. Sometimes she heard sighs or sobbing and felt wetness on her face.
“There, there,” said a deep, melodious voice.
For some reason, the voice frightened her. She hoped it would go away and never come back.
But it did come back.
“You look better, my dear.”
There was a groan. Chandra thought she had made the noise. To test this theory, she deliberately tried to repeat the sound.
Yes! She heard it again. She was groaning.
But the effort was exhausting, and she sank back into oblivion.
“Yes, I think you may surprise us and survive,” said the voice, some unknown time later. “I love surprises. Are you waking up?” the voice asked, dripping with amusement. “That’s it. Open those eyes wide. Surely it’s time for us to meet?”
Chandra squinted even in the dim light of the room. She heard a feeble moan and was embarrassed that she had made that pathetic sound.
Her vision adjusted and she gradually recognized that she was lying in a bed, with a red, silken canopy overhead. The opulent room was large and lighted with candles.
The pain in her head gave her a dazed feeling that she at first attributed to her unfamiliar surroundings.
“Ah, she lives,” said the deep, melodious voice that had become so familiar to her recently.
Chandra didn’t like the sound of it any more now than when she had been out of her senses. Moving carefully, she turned her head in the direction the voice had come from.
A young man stood next to a dormant fireplace on the far side of the room. He was tall, slim, and fair-skinned, with black hair that gleamed as if it had been polished, and red-rimmed dark eyes. His lips were so dark, they looked almost purple.
Chandra did not find him an attractive example of manhood.
“I’ve won,” he said.