Page 35 of Unbound By Shadows
Sam ran his palm over his face. Normally he hated talking about himself, especially details about his past. Years ago, one of the Queen’s guards had tried to engage him by asking this same question and Sam had tossed him through a window. But unexpectedly, the question didn’t bother him when it came from her.
“I was abducted from the Underworld,” he said.
“Abducted!” she gasped, her hand covering her mouth. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I was only a boy.”
“What happened?”
Sam met her eyes. “You wish to know?”
“Yes, I mean, if you’d like to tell me.”
Slowly, Sam began, “I had only seen eight winters—years, in human terms. I was sleeping in my bedroom, then woke abruptly. A creature had entered my room. I thought perhaps it was an imp come to play a trick, or one of my father's servants. But it was not.”
Sam remembered the confusion he felt at the odor filling his room when Zaybris appeared. It wasn't a demonic scent. Nor was it the earthy aroma emitted by the dead when entering the Underworld. It was something else.
He continued, “Then I saw a man, a handsome human male with pale skin and long blonde hair standing over my bed. He wore a fine velvet jacket. I didn’t understand how a human got past the royal guards. I-I sat up to cry out for my father but the man clamped a hand over my mouth. His face was anguished, his mouth… his mouth was red and pinched.”
Sam’s throat tightened as he remembered how he had also seen two yellow fangs within that red mouth. It was then that he understood the reason why the human smelled neither dead nor alive—he was a vampire. They couldn’t enter the Underworld until fully dead, nor exist peacefully among the living.
“The human clamped a hand over my mouth then roughly pulled me onto his lap.”
“You must have been so scared,” she said softly.
Sam swallowed at the wave of emotion her words brought. It suddenly became difficult for him to speak as he thought back to the vampire’s tone, his inflection. He remembered how his kidnapper’s voice dripped with spite,Well, well. Look at you, son of the great, captivating King Asmodeus. A little abomination. I am Zaybris. Have you heard my name before? I am loyal. Devoted. Steadfast.Each word was bit out with malice.
Sam had struggled, but Zaybris only tightened his grip and said,I have spent years searching for a way to enter the Underworld and now that I’m here, I find you!The hatred and utter disgust that the stranger had for him was terrifying. Then Zaybris had twisted Sam’s arm painfully before crying out,Let her know the agony of loss as I have!while pressing his thumb into the wire-wrapped stone hanging from a cord around his neck, lurching Sam into his new life.
Sam played those words over and over in his head thousands of times, desperate to make sense of them.Let her know the agony of loss as I have.Let who know? And why?
He met Selene’s eyes over the fire. “Yes. I was scared,” he admitted. “Then everything went dark. I was in great pain, and woke up in Aurelia.”
“Do you know who it was that kidnapped you?”
“No,” he lied. “He left me in this realm and I never saw him again.”
“I’m very sorry. Who eventually found you?”
“A kindly couple who took care of me until I was grown,” he said, only providing her with half of the story.
“And the queens can’t take you back home?”
“No. It is a realm for the dead.” He began removing his boots and set them near the fire. “What was it like for you when you came to Aurelia?”
Selene shuddered. “Very unpleasant. Queen Thema told me when she passes through her portals it feels as natural as blinking. But that isnothow I felt. First, there was an odd smell. I rememberthat came first. Then it was as if the ground… it shook under me. Seemed to swallow me whole until I felt like I was falling. Or I had been pushed from a great height. But there was no relief of hitting the ground, I just kept dropping down further and further.”
“I felt that too,” Sam said. “Falling, but there was more to it. I was also being crushed. As though two great boulders were squeezing—”
“The squeezing!” Selene echoed emphatically. “As if all my bones were breaking.”
“Yes.” Sam picked up a nearby stick and poked it into the dirt. “For me, the squeezing and falling continued until all at once it stopped. Like a candle being blown out. Then I was thrown on my back against muddy ground. Blinded by a horrible yellow light and wheezing for breath.”
Selene’s eyebrows drew together. “A yellow light? I don’t remember that.”
“No, a human wouldn’t have noticed it as remarkable,” he said. “It was months before someone finally told me that harsh light was called the sun.”
“Oh.” She looked surprised then apologetic. “I guess coming to Aurelia was more of a shock for you than it was for me.”
