Page 29 of Sevan

Chapter Fourteen

Lorelei lifted her head slightly and tried to make sense of where she was. The minute her gaze fell upon the bladed torture chair, she knew right away—she was within Stegian’s compound, or castle as he so often referred to it.

In its hundred and fifty years, it had played home to countless murders and torturous acts. In fact, only seven months prior, Lorelei had found herself in a similar room, only Christian had been strapped to the torture chair while Stegian fought for control of his mind.

“There is my Lorelei,” a deep, familiar voice said. “I didn’t think you’d wake yet today.”

Lorelei did her best to sit up, but her entire body ached and lying on the cold stone floor hadn’t helped that any. “Samson?”

“Yes,” he said, stepping over her body.

She stared at his shiny black boots and did her best to focus on them, not him. The pain in her chest wasn’t from a wound, but from the knowledge that the man before her had owned her heart at one point in her life, and was now a puppet for evil.

“Why do you not look at me, Lorelei? Have you not missed your chosen mate?”

“You gave that right up when you…” There was no way she could bring herself to say it.

Samson laughed, sounding so very much like his brother, Christian, that Lorelei forced her guard up, afraid she’d trust or believe him. “Are you still upset about our last meeting, Lorelei?”

He bent down and for the first time in seven months, Lorelei looked into the face of the man she had mistakenly trusted with her life. While Samson had Christian’s same long blond hair and muscle-bound body, he had a face that had often left him being razzed for being as smooth as a baby’s bottom. It had also been one of the many things she’d loved about him. Sadly enough, his innocent good-boy looks were the reason she’d fallen into Stegian’s trap seven months earlier.

Samson ran his cool hand over her arm and tipped his head. “Your markings are gone. Why?”

He doesn’t know?

He jerked his hand away as if she’d burned him. “He has done it, hasn’t he? My brother has claimed you and planted his seed deep within you.” Samson stood quickly. Sharp, dagger-like fingernails shot out as his incisors lengthened before her eyes, leaving fangs in place of his normal teeth. “Tell me, does he fuck you better than I did?”

Lorelei knew better than to answer. The thing that stood before her was no longer a Shamenian royal, it was a monster—a vessel for pure evil. Somehow Stegian had not only managed to break Samson mentally, he’d converted him physically as well. Samson now possessed his powers as a Shamenian and those of a vampire. If that wasn’t bad enough, his sire had been none other than Stegian himself.

Where once there had been emerald-green eyes, there now lay black pools of hate focused solely on Lorelei. She shifted a bit and cried out as the open gash on her upper right thigh pulled slightly.

Samson smiled, looking every bit as evil as she knew he could be. “So sorry about that leg, Lorelei. My men tell me it was necessary, that you tried to fight them all single-handedly. Is this true?”

Narrowing her gaze, Lorelei let it go hard. “I won’t let you hurt Christian again.”

“Ah.” Samson tipped his head back and laughed. “It is so like you to be more concerned about others than yourself. What if I told you that my master has a new set of targets in mind?”

“Sevan.”

“Lorelei?”

The sound of Sevan’s voice in her head sent a surge of hope through her. Doing her best to hide her joy, Lorelei continued to stare at Samson with a hard look.

“Lorelei, baby, where are you? We’re all looking for you. Jacquelyn says you’re injured and it’s bad.”

“It’s just my leg. I’ll be fine.”

Sevan’s worry was so great that Lorelei actually felt it through the mental link they’d managed to forge. True mates did that. Powerful true mates could do that and so much more.

The air around her grew heavy with the smell of stagnant water. For a moment, the scent of death seemed to coat her tongue, bringing her dangerously close to vomiting. She closed her eyes and did her best to control herself.

“Hag, what business have you here?” Samson asked.

Hag? Stegian was rumored to have a set of hags at his disposal. It was rumored that they were just as evil as he was. No Shamenian had ever lived to tell if the rumor was true or not. Now, Lorelei knew it was.

Think. How can I defeat a hag?

“The master has sent me to drain the child’s life force. Her power can be harnessed and used to fight the rest of the group,” a shaky old voice said.

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