Suffocate In Spirit - Shadows of the Night 4

Chapter 23

Hi,

I hope you all had a great weekend - mine was more than great! Okay, guys, things are happening in this one. Anyone saw this one coming? Let me know! :-)

Lara

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Chapter 23

I took a good look around. George and four other vamps – all waiting for Alexander's orders. Servants and subjects. And he considered me one of them.

The fence demarcating Marrok's fortress, a city of shape shifters within the city, was at the end of the street. A real-life jungle of steel and concrete within the city. If I took a closer look, would I be able to make out the yellow glint of eyes peering out of abandoned windows and the line of wrecked cars in front of us? Shape shifters lying in wait, guarding their territory with the sharp sense of a predator on a hunt.

Alexander turned and held out his palm in an inviting mock-gesture. I forced my limbs into motion. Let him believe he managed to turn my head inside out. Let him think he won and that I was going to be his human servant for good.

Reshape the world? Change the parameters? Fine. Maybe I was just going to do that.

But first I had to go to the bottom of Alexander's and Brown's relationship. Find out if Alexander had earned his respect among fellow leaders through blackmail and deceit. Even if I had to expose Brown.

I walked up to Alexander and watched him turn around in silence, staring at his back was we made our way to Marrok. Was I making him the enemy? Did I want to get out of our master-servant-relationship so badly that I was too blind to see what else was going on? I stared at the set of his shoulders, concentrating on the way he held himself. Gauging Alexander's motives was like trying to catch smoke. Not human and yet not dead. Walking the world somewhere in between human lines and demarcations that meant nothing in his long existence. Endless power at his disposal.

I shook my head. No matter what he did or did not do, no matter what lay between us, he had forced this bond on me with the arrogance of a conqueror. And that was something I couldn't ignore or forgive.

I moved on in silence, trying to fit back into my old skin, the me that would see red whenever he forced me to do something for him. But the more I tried, the less it fit. There were other things to consider. This city. My city.

I blinked, stared past Alexander to the graveyard of metal and steel. Marrok's territory. The vamps were shadowing me and Alexander like a ring of noiseless ghosts. Even if we looked the part, we were not paying Marrok a courtesy visit.

We made it as far as to the middle of the street before it happened.

The street lamps exploded, the sound of glass shattering as if caught up in an afterthought. Shafts of darkness spilled into the night, filtering through whatever little light remained in the street. Explosions of sound around us. Popping noises I was well familiar with. Shadowed, hooded figures that glided out of portals opening in quick-beat succession.

Rogue witches.

The vampires stirred, as if someone had breathed life into their rigid forms. They moved into a half circle in front of us like a living, protective shield. Power sizzled along the pavement, blue sparks of electricity biting into asphalt.

The shapes stepped out of the forest of half-shadows, and I caught a glimpse of faces I didn't know. Then, among them, a rogue witch with green eyes. Dark, thin, and gangly. This was the same group that attacked me here once before. My eyes went back to the end of the street and the entrance to shape shifter territory. Was this a trap set up by Marrok?