Dragon's Oath

CHAPTER EIGHT

Anastasia knew something was wrong. She could feel it like the change that happens in the air before a thunderstorm breaks. She was calling on the deep peace of each of the five elements when the wrongness slicked through the night, shattering her concentration and breaking the casting of the spell.

Automatically, her gaze turned to Bryan, to see if he knew what it was—knew what they should do. Horrified, she looked in time to see the human move so quickly that her brain tried to deny her eyes. He picked up Bryan Lankford, Dragon Lankford, Sword Master of Vampyres, by his throat and held him against a tree, and then began choking the life from him.

She didn’t hesitate. Anastasia ran straight at the man who was killing Bryan. Screaming his name, she hurled herself into the man, trying to get him to let Bryan loose.

He did let Bryan loose so that he could knock her to the ground. Head reeling, fighting to clear the specks of light from her eyes, Anastasia crawled over to Bryan, reaching for his hand.

“Bryan! Oh, goddess, no!” He was so still, and his throat looked wrong, like it had collapsed. He wasn’t breathing. She could see he wasn’t breathing at all.

“Leave him be,” the human growled. He grabbed for her, but Anastasia scrambled around the tree, avoiding his praying mantis reach.

“Want to play you a little hide-and-seek, do ya?” The human chuckled. “Well, there ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little foreplay. Biddle is comin’ to get ya…” And he started to stalk her around the tree.

Anastasia looked into the man’s eyes and saw that the fledgling High Priestess in Training had been right. Biddle was utterly mad.

She knew she only had seconds, so instead of trying to avoid the creature called Biddle, she crouched, put one hand on the thick bark of the tree. The other she placed gently on Bryan’s throat. Anastasia closed her eyes and thought of the earth below the tree—the rich, timeless, living strength that she believed with all her soul to be there. She envisioned it as a green fountain shooting up through the ground, to the tree’s roots, into the tree itself, and from there flowing into her, through her, and into Bryan.

“Come to me strong, wonderful earth;

a healing intent is the magic I birth!”

Instantly, heat surged from the tree trunk, into her hand, though her body, and into Bryan’s neck.

“Time for foreplay to be over. Let’s us get to the good stuff. Come on. I never had me no vampyre,” and so saying, Jesse Biddle reached down, took her ankle in a grip that was like a blacksmith’s metal press. As if she weighed no more than a child’s doll, he dragged her from Bryan and toward the dark rear entrance of the jailhouse. Anastasia watched to see if Bryan made any movement at all—even the smallest hint of breath lifting his chest again. She saw nothing but his crumpled, still form before Biddle tossed her inside the building and slammed the door shut behind them.

“Sssshe is not dead!”

Anastasia stared at the thing in the cage. It wasn’t bird. It wasn’t human. It didn’t even appear real. Except for the glow of its scarlet eyes it seemed unsubstantial, ghostly—something made of nightmares and shadows.

“Not yet she ain’t,” Biddle said. “I’m gonna have me some fun before I drain her.”

“Using her wassss not part of the plan,” the creature hissed.

“There ain’t no plan! There’s just me feeding you her blood so’s you’ll give me more of what I want. What happens before to her don’t matter.”

Anastasia looked from the creature in the cage to the sheriff. “What is that thing?”

“Don’t rightly know,” Biddle said as his hand slid up from her ankle to her calf. “Just ignore it—it ain’t real anyway.”

From where he’d thrown her on the dirt floor Anastasia kicked out, trying to break away from him, but his rail-thin body was deceiving. The strength in his bony hands was incredible, and with a single pull on her leg he jerked her back to him.

“No! Leave me alone! Don’t touch me!” She struggled against him.

“Aw, come on. Everybody knows about you vampyre women. Y’all have lots a men. So, don’t act like you’re some kinda virgin.”

Cold fear filled Anastasia, freezing her. She stared at the human who loomed like an animated skeleton above her.

He smiled. “That’s right. Just be still and it’ll go easier fer you.”

Keeping one hand clamped around her ankle, Biddle began unbuckling the belt to his pants with the other.

It was then Anastasia knew the truth—this human was going to rape and kill her.

Oh, Nyx! Please help me! I don’t want to die like this, she prayed frantically.

Then, through the shock and chill in her blood, she felt the warmth of the ajoite crystal that she’d shoved in her pocket as her spell had been broken, and beside it was the heaviness of a velvet bag filled with salt crystals.

As Biddle reached into his pants, Anastasia reached into the pocket of her skirt. She scooped a handful of salt out of the velvet bag and threw it into the human’s face.

Biddle cried out and jerked back, blinking hard and wiping his tearing eyes. “You bitch!” he yelled.

He’d given her all the time she needed. Anastasia scrambled backward as she lifted the bag of salt and the fist-sized ajoite, a crystal infused with phantom magick from deep within the earth. Since ancient times, priestesses had been using it to bring peace through clarity of spirit, and now Anastasia, a priestess dedicated to peace and the earth, reached deep within her spirit and connected with the element on which she crouched. With a single motion she whipped the open bag of salt around her so that it surrounded her with a crystal circle, saying:

“Binding salt, of you I ask,

link me to earth as your task.”

Then, holding the ajoite like a dagger, she plunged it into the dirt, crying:

“Earth below, filled with might,

grant me protection this dark night!”

She felt the surge of power come from below, as if a dam had broken free. Like a thunderstorm on the prairie, green light sizzled all around her. Pressing her palms flat against the element that had just gifted her with an affinity, Anastasia was weeping tears of happiness and thanksgiving when Biddle tried to cross the circle of salt. He recoiled with a cry of pain just as the creature in the cage shrieked, “No! The green light! It burnsss me!”

“Shut up, you!” Biddle kicked the creature’s cage and the thing of spirit quieted to a keening whimper. Then he began to circle the glowing shield. “What is this? What have you done, you damned witch?”

“I’ve called my element to protect me. You can’t hurt me now.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “I’m not a witch. I am a vampyre priestess with an earth affinity, and you can’t hurt me now!” she repeated.

“It won’t last! It won’t last!” Biddle said, nervously plucking at his shirt. “When that light dies, so do you.”

Anastasia shook her head. “You don’t understand. The earth is protecting me. It’s not going to die or fade or fail. And I’m going to sit right here and wait for my High Priestess to find me. I promise you, she will. The House of Night knows I’m here. They’ll find me and Bryan.” Her voice started to break, but she pulled more power from the earth below her and continued, “And then you’ll answer for what you’ve done tonight.” Her gaze went from him to