Page 43 of Besieger
Mihaela wanted to challenge the truthfulness of his confession, but something kept catching at the corner of her eye, a shadow moved and walked the periphery of the room, its reflection caught and multiplied in the mirrors. And for one horrible instance it seemed like Ingenuar’s eyes, too, were seeing what was not there. The familiar nagging sensation entered her head and crawled at the surface of her thoughts. The moment she consciously started thinking in Bulgarian, the thing stopped and she could focus again. Ingenuar rarely read her thoughts, the sensation of him was more unpleasant than when Emerick did it. Where Emerick crawled, Ingenuar tore.
The same presence had haunted her whenever she stayed in the Coven. It followed and watched her; a shape she knew and felt but never saw. Once, when she had visited theMarquisin Béziers, the feeling followed her around, but she had dismissed it as one of Emerick’s many tricks and pricks. The sensation was the strongest in Berlin. In Ingenuar’s presence.
Of course it is, he is my maker. Doesn’t every vampire feel like this with their sire?
“You never told me why you made me. Why you chose me,” Mihaela uttered more to herself than him, expecting another diversion. She wanted to ask about others like her, other damned who had found their nature lacking and had dipped their hands into the occult, into the unexplainable.
Ingenuar’s composure crumbled. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it, having thought better.
Mihaela had never thought to read his mind before tonight. She did not think it would be sacrilegious to read the All Father’s mind—only impossible. Taking a gamble, Mihaela met Ingenuar’s gaze and sent a mental push, probing. She was instantly shoved back, the force made her body slam against thechair. The stunned look on his face showed that she had caught him off guard. In a few years’ time, with more practice, maybe she would succeed. She was his daughter after all; she was starting to believe she might be destined for more.
“Your making… Perhaps it is a story for another night,” Ingenuar finally said, suddenly eager to get her out of the room, as if he was expecting a guest who had been running late, one he could not permit her to meet.
His eyes scanned the room impatiently, as though trying to see through thin air and pluck from it the demon Mihaela had just revealed to him. It should have frightened her that something had unnervedhim—the oldest thing on the continent, as far as she knew.
She found it strange how Ingenuar’s eyes kept scanning the mirrors, studying their reflections in them. The room she kept in the Coven did not have mirrors. She had grown used to their absence; what use was there to look at her reflection when it never changed?
Before she could ask what was wrong, Mihaela heard something like a splitting pop. It was so faint and distant. The sort of popping sound she used to hear when Astra cut the membrane of reality right before appearing in front of her. Mihaela looked around, but saw nothing other than the shadows of the fire. Perhaps it was the wood in the fireplace cracking and fracturing into ash.
You have to go,Ingenuar said.
Mihaela hated when he did that, talking to her without words, intruding.
“I’m leaving tomorrow, first thing the sun sets. You know I’m going to Antalya. Scarlett has already notified theSultana. She sends her regards and informs us that she is willing to grant me an audience.” Ingenuar grunted in acknowledgement. “But I wanted to talk first.”
If he was angry with her, she needed to understand why.
“If you won’t tell me tonight, will you when I get back?” She insisted. If she could control a Prince of Hell, she could control her own father.
Mihaela.He pleaded with her, his voice thundered in her mind, making her flinch. When she tried to speak an invisible hand clamped over her mouth and hauled her by the head. Her body was commanded to move towards the door. She was too shocked to fight it off. He had never done that to her, never physically restrained or puppeteered her.
“Fath—” she snarled, her teeth snapped shut.
“We will talk when you are back.Nowgo! TheSultanadoes not like to wait.”
He repeated it in her head for good measure—the last words he would ever say to her. Mihaela surrendered to his will, her hands shook as she opened the door and closed it behind her. She heard the lock turn. The fear in his voice followed her into the night.
CHAPTER FIVE
EMERICK, 1098
THE NEXT TIME HE WOKE, wet soil filled his ears and his eyes. His mouth opened and under the persistent taste of blood, Amerigo swallowed earth, panic taking hold. Beside him in the grave, Silvio stirred and pulled him close, his hands clutched at Amerigo refusing to let go.
They stayed like this for hours— days—years—Amerigo could not tell. The only thing he was sure of was that every time he moved, the earth would shift and press them tighter together. It was dark, he could not breathe. When they finally crawled out, his whole body shook, bile rose up his throat. He vomited chunks of soil, pebbles and blood.
Panic jerked him upwards and he tried to run but Silvio’s hand dragged him down—No, no, no, Amerigo kept screaming, he did not want to go back. His nails dug into his lover’s shirt and tore. He was so cold. He pressed their bodies closer. Away from the hole.
“I got you, Rico. You are safe. I got you. It is over. It is done.”
Disgusting thing.
Amerigo looked up, breathing heavily, eyes wide, still spitting blood and sand.
Pathetic and weak. Screaming like a child.
A creature was crouching in the dark, a short distance from the grave, unmovable like a slab of granite. Noticing Amerigo’s eyes on it, the thing rose and walked towards them.
It was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Even ragged and covered in dirt, she had a commanding presence. Her skin was dark and flawless under all that carnage, her light eyes shone with a wicked glow in the night. She must have been a noble, judging by her torn clothes and the way she stood with her back straight; her red and auburn hair coiled in a remnant of an elaborate braid.
