The Vampire And His Lady (Silver Hills #2)

Chapter 21

The bowels of Thornwood Castle were not a welcoming place.

Thornwood owned the place and even he hated to draw to close. Ever since his childhood he had sensed that the long dark stairwell descending into a dimly lit and low-ceilinged hall filled with nothing but crates and the occasional coffin was haunted by something far more terrifying than a vampire.

Even with a damned Shadowlord trailing him the place sent a shudder up his spine as he came down the last few steps. Genevieve had gone to wait for Elisabeth to wake, and Thornwood could see the dim glint of hope and desperation in her eyes as she stormed through the corridors.

Her constant. Maybe Diana was his constant. The one thing that kept his buoyed to humanity. Before her his life had seemed an endless night; she had ushered in the dawn for him. So he owed it to her to get this sword and use it slaughter those who tried to harm her.

"Are you sure it's down here?" Thornwood said, circling the room with raised eyebrows. Through the dim lighting his sensitive eyes tried to pick out any marks or hidden levers in the stone wall, but the sole thing that tainted them was the grime of countless centuries. "Or was this just an excuse to get into my cellar?"

Ezaryth wrinkled his nose and stepped towards the furthest wall from the stairwell. It had nothing pressed against it as it had began to crumble slightly in the middle- that was only thing that separated it from its brothers though. "As soon as this is all over we can come and crack open a crate if you wish."

Thornwood massaged his jaw as he stepped back and watched his uncle tap the wall frantically with his glove. "Unless you have a taste for blood, I'd advise otherwise."

"I do."

He sighed and drew closer to Ezaryth. "Tapping it won't do anything," he told him coolly. "You're just wasting time."

Something clicked. Thornwood blinked in surprise and wished he had waited longer to criticise the Shadowlord.

Ezaryth tapped it again. And again, the clicking noise.

"Here!" He declared. "This is the entrance."

"To what, may I ask?" Thornwood questioned sceptically. The retrieval of this blade was becoming more complicated than he had originally anticipated.

"The vault," Ezaryth told him matter factly. "Your father always did love a secret room."

"Not a trait I can say I inherited," Thornwood observed. "How do we get in? It's not doing anyone much good us just staring at it."

There was the faint and brief noise of steel against steel, and in seconds a dagger was pressed against Thornwood's palm. He hissed and felt the vampire lord in him click into place, ready to attack.

Ezaryth looked up at him in shock. "What's wrong with you? I just need a little bit of your blood to unlock the door."

Thornwood clenched his teeth together and obliged, not even wincing as the cruelly sharp edge ran along the crease of his right palm. Right along his lifeline. His mother used to trace those creases and play at predicting the future.

This one here, she would say, voice as calm as an ocean in a summer breeze, is your love line. Her own fingers would dart out to tap it. She'd filled his head with ideas of great romance it had taken him decades to unlearn. Unfortunately, it had made the agony of actually falling in love, and with someone with such a destiny as Diana, far worse.

The pain left as swiftly as it had come. His uncle guided his hand towards the weak spot in the wall and smeared a symbol into it.

"Rydaryth believes his security is foolproof. Ha!" Ezaryth chortled. "The whole 'only my own blood can open it' farce is far less effective when you have a son."