The Kala Trilogy: An Urban Fantasy Box Set by Teagan Kearney

Author:Teagan Kearney [Kearney, Teagan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2017-01-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen: Anatolia, 1265 AD

Vanse doubled over, crying out and falling to his knees.

“Can I help? Tell me what I should do.” Fabio stared around the dark cave, a primitive lair that bore no comparison to the palazzo in Venezia. It smelled of wild animals even after they’d cleaned out the dried scat. Vanse declared it suitable enough, it offered shelter and it sufficed for the moment. They’d found it last week when sneaking as close as possible to the army they trailed, who were laying siege to a nearby town.

Vanse lay helpless till the spasm passed, then looked at Fabio with tortured eyes. “It’s Marianna. They’ve captured Marianna.”

How long ago since they’d left the sultry heat of Venetia? A week? A month? It seemed only yesterday a servant had woken them out of a blood intoxicated stupor after the sun had cleared the horizon.

“Master, it’s the Watch. They’re at the door.”

Vanse could have glamoured the guards, but he’d been in the city for three years and long ago learned not to take unnecessary chances. He, Marianna and Fabio had hidden in a cellar for five slow days and nights before the Watch departed. By which time Venezia was experiencing one of the high tides that flooded parts of the city and they were standing on broken furniture, waist deep in water, hungry and with tempers frayed. He made them drink from each other, a practice they found repulsive. Stale sour vampire blood had none of the rich freshness of blood from the living, but they endured because the desire to live was stronger than their disgust.

He had entered Marianna’s room one night three years ago when she’d been on the point of death from fever—a common enough occurrence in summer for the citizens of a city built over water.

She’d understood his nature from the minute she saw him. Her father was a well-known alchemist, and in a city steeped in rumors, she heard much.

He turned her after having traveled alone for longer than he remembered. He’d learned many of the skills mankind had developed since his early days. He learned to read in more than one language. He studied mathematics, philosophy, and at one point had held the post of physician to an eastern king. But ultimately nothing provided blood in the quantities that war did. Over time he also buried the memory of the number of families he’d created. What was the point? He became attached—his humanity saw to that—but sooner or later the compulsion to seek out Tatya forced him to leave. It was never the same when, or if, he returned. He decided living alone was harsh, yet it saved him suffering the pains of separation and loss.

But his loneliness made him vulnerable to Marianna’s beauty and to her pitiful entreaties. She became his consort as soon as she emerged successfully after her change.

“Will we be leaving?” Fabio, their newest member, a youth left for dead after a violent robbery, had taken to the vampire life with the utter joy of someone who has breathed the scent of mortality.

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