Page 62 of Unbound By Shadows
“Yes.”
“Right. Well, he was left in the care of a cruel, terrible vampire named Julian. There are a few things you need to know about Julian. First is, he enjoyed gambling, he did. And gold. But many of the queens don’t approve of gambling and have banned it from their lands.”
“Queen Aello of the Harpies is one of them,” Brunie said with pride. “As is Queen Keebee, Queen Yerena, Queen Cebna—”
“Many of the queens,” Eldridge interrupted. “The second thing you need to know about Julian is that he had some… odd notions.”
“About blood,” Brunie said.
“Yes. And the superiority of different races, but mainly about blood. Julian believed Aurelian blood was inferior, but could be made more potent, more nourishing if the heart beat faster before drinking. If the victim was quite frightened.”
“Or tortured. Or in pain,” Brunie added.
The eggs and toast in Selene’s stomach turned sour.
Eldridge continued, “Julian was a charming sort and convinced a lot of vampires to believe in the power of tormented blood, just as he did. So he found a way to combine all the things he loved—gambling, gold, and torture—and called it sport.
Selene listened as Eldridge explained how Julian held fighting matches where the losers would be drained to death by the highest vampire bidder. He traveled by wagon so he could sleep during the day, and added more wagons to his operation as he recruited young males to fight.
“You look a bit pale, dear. Do you want us to stop telling this story?” Brunie asked.
“I’m all right,” Selene lied. Mounting dread as to how the three of them fit into all of this was making her nauseated. “Please continue.”
Eldridge’s ears twitched. “Julian had a team of fighters that were making him a lot of money and a lot of tormented blood. But they were frequently injured, and it was expensive to keep buying meals from taverns. So he went in search of staff.”
“He found me first,” Brunie said as she stood to take Selene’s plate. “I was cooking at an inn called The Whiskered Fish until he came along. People used to come from all over for my pies,” Her voice trailed off and pain clouded her features. “Snatched me up while I was taking out the rubbish bin. Clipped my wings, and that was that. They’re fine now, but it was very painful.”
Eldridge reached out to take her hand, but Brunie waved him away to go into the kitchen. His eyes were sad as he looked at Selene. “Then he found me living in a town called Redfalls. I used to handle transactions for the local merchants until Julian walked in one day and plucked me from my desk. He tossed me into a wagon and told me I would be managing his gold.”
Brunie came back into the room. “It was just a few weeks before little Samael arrived.”
“But by that time, Julian had gotten himself into trouble with debts. He couldn’t afford to buy another wagon, so he put Samael in my cell with me,” Eldridge said.
Brunie put her hand over her heart. “The only bit of good fortune the boy had at the time.”
“He was so frightened,” Eldridge said. “Didn’t understand what had happened to him and cried for his mother for months, he did. I did my best to comfort him, as did Brunie. None of us knew much about demons, but we noticed the lad had a temper. He would get very angry, very fast if someone did something he didn’t like. Vengeance, he used to say over and over. Vengeance. And he had a preoccupation with rules. Always wanting to know what was allowed, what was forbidden. Each night, we talked about what was right and wrong in Aurelia. Then Julian found a use for his demon prisoner.”
“How?” Selene asked.
“Tormented blood. He began using the boy to get it. It started with Julian making Samael growl and intimidate his fighters to get their fear flowing. Even as a young demon, he could be very frightening. Then when Julian grew bored of that, he began to place petty criminals before Samael and encouraged him to respond with violence.”
“Which he did. To the delight of the crowds,” Brunie added. “Soon, Samael’s part of the show began to eclipse the fights themselves.”
“Oh God,” Selene murmured.
“As he grew, he became quite gifted at combat. He had to learn quickly, as many of Julian’s victims fought hard for their own survival. Julian didn’t like for Samael to kill within the tent—it was tormented, living blood he was after. But sometimes… ” Eldridge paused. “Sometimes, the lad didn’t always know how to temper his strength. When the rage would overtake him, his body became even more demonlike. In those moments, he possessed the least amount of control and would often do the most damage.”
Selene remembered how haunted Sam’s face had looked when she asked if he had ever killed anyone. “I see,” she murmured.
“He cried for weeks every time he took a life,” Eldridge said. “Wethought it was strange at first, a demon with remorse? But we bought a book on demons from a traveling merchant and learned it was forbidden for his kind to kill. It interfered with the order of things, you see. Demons have a strong belief in fate and don’t like to see souls come to the Underworld by the hand of their own. And we knew how fixated with rules Samael was. So, we tried to teach him how to control his rage and focus his mind. The calmer Samael was, the less Julian used him.”
The room was quiet until Eldridge exhaled. “Samael and I continued to share a cell, even when he grew very large. I taught him how to read, and every day we worked on the difference between right and wrong. He learned how to control his instincts, and Brunie and I fell in love, despite the terrible circumstances. We did our best to protect Samael, and he protected us. We protected each other from the misery that was our life.”
“We survived,” Brunie said.
The atmosphere was heavy until Selene asked, “How did you escape?”
Her question seemed to drop the veil of sadness from Brunie’s face, replacing it with a ruthless grin. “With fire. And vengeance!”
