Page 28 of War Mage

The vampire reaches toward me, moving faster than a human could, and takes my arm in a brutal grip.

“Are you feeble of mind, woman? I told you to get up! I reported a dead castaway to the magistrate already and the storm is fading, so I must hide you before the city guards come for the body or they’ll take you away from me!”

His hand squeezes painfully as he begins to pull me up, but I summon my fires to the surface of my arm, heating the skin to an agonizing level for a non-fire mage. It’s a little difficult, my fires sluggish to respond to my call after being unconscious, but they answer just the same, my skin glowing with heat where he’s touching me.

The vampire hisses and jerks back, his pale hand already reddening. “What in the Nether?”

“I belong to no one, vampire,” I spit at him, dropping my blanket so that I can have both hands, even though it bares my body to his gaze. I stand while summoning small balls of flame to hover over my palms. “And you will never taste my blood.”

“A mage?” he asks incredulously, some fear in his voice. “Of fire? But you are wearing iron!”

“Time to burn, you bastard,” I declare, before pushing my hands forward, ready to spray him with fire and burn him and this lighthouse to ash. Suddenly he is in front of me, moving too quickly for my eyes to track, his hand around my throat and squeezing tight enough that I immediately lose my breath.Fuck.He must have fed recently on the blood of sentients. But I have had combat training and even the panic of not being able to breathe does not stop me from responding. I grab his arm with my burning hands, searing into his flesh.

This time, though, the vampire merely grunts in pain and squeezes tighter, my vision darkening at the edges as my brain loses even more oxygen. We battle for a second, him squeezing my throat and me burning him, but then my flames sputter out, needing my oxygen to feed them. Then he laughs mockingly, his grip getting even tighter. “I don’t know why your chains aren't working, but no matter. I have even larger iron chains in the back. Once you are unconscious again, I’ll bind your power and you’ll be just as weak as any regular human bloodbag. But I’ll still be able to taste your magic every time I feed and grow to be as strong as Grazrath himself! I’ll—”

“Do nothing but die,” comes a familiar voice.Urim!

Before the vampire can react to the sudden reappearance of the orc, Urim is behind him, huge, strong hands gripping his head and then, with a mighty pull, the orc snaps the vampire’s neck with a sickeningpop. The vampire’s grip goes slack, oxygen rushing back into my lungs. Then Urim drops the dead body to the floor, the vampire collapsing lifelessly to the ground in a lump, his head at an unnatural angle.

“Urim!” I breathe out a sigh of relief, gulping down air. I never thought I’d be happy to see the orc alive, not after everything that has happened between us, but I’m glad he’s not dead. “I thought—”

“He tried to poison me, but I’m immune to most poisons,” Urim says, breaking into my words. “I played along to see why he wanted me gone, but his motivations were boring and selfish. It would seem that he only had ambitions of having his own blood slave.”

“Well, that wasn’t a boring motivation tome,” I retort. “I was his intended target. If you hadn’t been alive to intervene I would have been bound with iron and enslaved. No more mission or freeing the Mage’s Tower.”

“That would have never happened,” Urim comments dismissively. “He was far too clumsy to succeed at killing me. I have survived worse and am not so easy to kill.”

I roll my eyes at his arrogance, but do not argue. I’m too exhausted to challenge him right now and besides, it seems to be true. He apparently drank nightberries and lived to tell about it, so what do I know?

Urim looks at me, as if trying to ascertain whether I am injured or not, but then turns away abruptly, reminding me that I am standing naked in the middle of the lighthouse cottage and Urim is just wearing a blanket tied around his hips. An involuntary blush heats my face and I hastily reach down to pull up the blanket I dropped earlier to cover my body.

“You should get dressed. If the lighthouse keeper’s words are to be trusted, we’ll have company soon,” Urim remarks, still looking away.

“WhyamI naked?” I ask, looking around the room before spying my damp dress hanging in front of the fire.

“Your clothes were lowering your body temperature and you were becoming hypothermic. It was either undress you or let you die.”

I absorb his words uneasily. The fact that my inner fires weren’t keeping me warm means that I must have been pretty close to death. I don’t blame him for taking action to save me, though I feel vulnerable in just my skin. But I run into another problem.

“You’ll need to remove my manacle so that I can dress,” I tell him, still holding my blanket over my breasts. Urim moves to unlock the cuffs at my wrists and then turns away again when I'm freed. With that taken care of, I pull down my shift from the peg in front of the fire. It’s still mildly damp from the storm and the ocean spray, but it’ll have to do. Glancing back warily at Urim, I see that he’s still looking away, giving me a semblance of privacy. Still, I keep the blanket up and somehow squirm into my shift while staying under the covering. When most of my body is covered by my shift, I’m less careful about being seen and hurriedly pull on my blouse, petticoats and kirtle. When I’m dressed again, I clear my throat to signal that he can look again.

“You should get dressed as well,” I point out. “Unless you want to meet the city guards in a blanket.”

Urim’s eyes flick over to me, his expression as unreadable as always. Then he gives a curt nod, before walking past me to his own clothes hung in front of the fire. I move to give him space, but keep my back to him, so that he can dress in peace.

“We should discuss a plan,” he says from behind me. “This is going to be a complication.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“The original plan was to wash up on shore under the cover of the storm and let the lighthouse keeper turn us into the magistrate, where I would show them the contract between Vargan and Grazrath to procure travel papers. His little stunt in trying to steal you has complicated matters.”

“Travel papers?” I question. They didn’t mention this part of the plan and I have never heard of travel papers before.

“Our intelligence shows that Grazrath has put Barakrin under an oppressive totalitarian rule,” Urim explains. “Unless you are favored by the Crown and wear his symbol, gatherings are limited to less than five people and travel between cities is forbidden. Merchants and other officials can be exempt, but must have official travel papers in order to not be stopped and imprisoned. Those that disobey are usually pressed into blood slavery.”

“They press their own people into blood slavery?” I ask, aghast. “Vampires can feed from each other?”

“Yes,” confirms the orc behind me. “Culturally it used to only be done between mates, considered the ultimate intimate act, but it can be forced. With the war with Adrik and Orik not going as easily as they would like, Grazrath and his supporters have been forced to conscript other vampires into the ranks of the blood slaves in order to have enough sentients to satisfy all his followers. Especially since Grazrath’s blood slaves do not last long.”

---