Bitter Ashes- The Complete Series Read online

  My breath wheezed in and out shallowly as I pried at the thing's fingers. Fingers? It felt like a hand around my throat. Flashes of fear and rage pulsed in my mind, just like the other emotions I could sense from people. I saw blurry scenes that I knew had nothing to do with my own memories, they were somehow coming from the creature. The scenes faded as my vision began to go black from lack of oxygen. I forced away my panic, focusing on removing the thing at my throat. I felt a small rush of energy and the thing suddenly went limp. I threw it off me and pushed myself backwards across the floor.

  My vision came back in stages as I caught my breath. I could see the dark shape of the thing a few feet away, but it didn't move. I got to my feet and ran forward as steadily as I could manage in my panicked state, then stomped the creature with my heel as soon as I reached it. I jumped on it until I heard bones crunch. Sure that it was now dead, I leaned down to examine it again. It was a hand.

  The hand was now bruised and misshapen from my stomping, but that wasn't the worst of its injuries. Right above the wrist bone, the hand had been severed from its owner. Bone gleamed in the dim light as blood continued to gush forth. There shouldn't have been that much blood in just a hand, but the thing was covered in it. That was why it had been so difficult to keep a hold of.

  Yet, none of those things had been what killed it. I had killed it, just like I did Matthew. I knew it with a sickening surety. I had felt the same rush of energy when Matthew died. I had somehow stolen whatever life force had animated it.

  I pushed myself away from the hand, just before I lost what little dinner I'd eaten. My vomit and tears fell to commingle with the substance on the floor that I now realized was blood. The whole room was covered in congealed blood.

  I quickly got to my feet and tried to wipe my hands off on my jeans, but the blood was too sticky and I couldn't get it all off. I stumbled back toward the door, ready to take my chances with the creature in the hall if it meant I could just get out of that room. How had the hand even moved to begin with?

  I glanced back at the hand in question, half-expecting it to have disappeared, but it was still just lying there. My own hands were shaking so badly that it took me several tries to undo the lock. When I finally managed to open the door, I had to jump back because someone was in the doorway. I ended up slipping and falling hard on my tailbone.

  Alaric's hair fell forward over his shoulders as he looked down at me. “I thought you might try to run again. I figured I'd make sure you didn't get eaten.”

  “Great job,” I replied shakily, on the verge of hysteria.

  He crouched down and picked me up effortlessly into the cradle of his arms. He stood and carried me out of the room of horrors without a word, and I let him.

  “You need another bath,” he commented once we were walking down the hall.

  “W-what was that room?” I stammered. I wrapped my arms around his neck to feel more secure. In that moment, I didn’t care that he was one of my captors as long as he got me the hell away from that room. “There was a hand,” I added.

  He chuckled. “Sometimes parts get left behind. They can be a little cross about what happened to their bodies.”

  For a moment I thought I might vomit again, but I managed to hold it in. “And what happened to their bodies?” I asked weakly.

  “Did Estus tell you why you were brought back to us?” he asked rather than answering my question.

  “He said you needed a new executioner,” I answered breathlessly, as if it were a normal thing to say.

  Alaric stopped to hoist me up and get a more firm grip around me. “You just met the hand of our last executioner.”

  “You killed him!” I exclaimed, trying to wriggle out of his grip.

  “Not me personally,” he replied holding on and not letting me drop. “Though I would have. He was a traitor.”

  The struggling was getting me nowhere, so I stopped. “What did he do?”

  Alaric looked down at me with a cold expression. “He was a traitor, and we cannot afford traitors in times like these.”

  “Times like these?” I prompted.

  “My dear executioner,” he replied. “We are at war.”

  My next question froze on my tongue as I considered the complexities of what he was saying. Who would want to go to war with people that dismembered their victims, and let enormous, furry lizard beasts run loose in their halls? More Vaettir? Were there other places like the one we were in, with more crazy freaks populating them? I began to feel dizzy again.

  “What was that creature?” I asked suddenly, remembering why I’d run into the bloody room to begin with. “It was like a dog, but not a dog. Kind of like a lizard.”

  “Ah,” Alaric observed, “you must mean Stella. She’s James’ . . . pet. A lindworm, one of the few left.”

  Alaric let me down to my feet as we walked into the bathroom. He gave me a scrutinizing look. “I assume you can get back to your room from here?”

  I looked at him as he prepared to leave me while visions of lizard dogs and bloody hands danced in my head. “Please stay,” I said before I could think it through.

  He looked surprised, then smiled. “You mean, stay?” he drew out the word as if it meant more than just staying.

  My eyes widened. “Oh no,” I corrected. “It's just. What if there are more body parts wandering around?”

  “You handled that hand all on your own—” he began.

  “Please,” I interrupted.

  He shrugged and entered the bathroom fully so he could shut the door behind him, then went to sit on the closed toilet seat.

  “You have blood on your clothes,” I observed, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “You have much more on yours.”

  I looked down. He was right. The sticky, congealed blood had soaked into the back of my jeans, and there were smears of it all over my shirt.

  I knew I should ask him to leave, but I could feel bruises forming on my throat from the hand. I’d nearly died in there. “Close your eyes please,” I said, making up my mind. I was more than ready to get out of the soiled clothing.

  “And what if I said no?” he asked with his eyes still wide open.

  “Then I would take my chances with the severed body parts,” I answered bluntly, refusing to show him just how rattled I was.

  He laughed at me, but still obeyed and closed his eyes. I peeled the soiled clothing off and hopped quickly into the tub. Instead of just filling it right away, I ran the water and splashed off any of the blood that was on my skin so I wouldn't have to soak in it. The pinkish water running toward the drain would have almost been pretty if I didn't know that it was from a man who had been brutally murdered. When I was clean enough, I plugged the drain to trap the hot water.

  I glanced at Alaric, his eyes still closed. Really, the tub was tall enough to hide anything I’d want hidden unless he stood up and looked down, but I still felt uncomfortable.

  “Can I open them yet?” he asked in a tone that implied that I was being very silly.

  “Yes,” I answered. “But keep your gaze forward please.” If modesty was silly, then baby, call me the queen of slap-stick.

  “You know it would be much more efficient if I could just hop in there with you,” he joked. “At this rate I'll never get to bed.”

  “I'll be out soon enough,” I grumbled.

  The water had filled enough for me to start scrubbing myself with the vanilla soap. As I washed I realized I had blood in my hair too. I scootched forward enough to lean back and dunk my hair into the water. When I came back up, the water was pink. I quickly turned off the faucet and unplugged the drain.

  “I was only kidding,” he said.

  “I need to refill the water,” I explained, turning to look at him. “Hey, avert your eyes!”

  He looked away with a laugh. “Why do you need to refill the water?” he asked, obviously trying to distract me.

  “There was blood in it,” I answered.

  He laughed again. “It will be interesting to see how you adapt among the Vaettir.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Do you enjoy bathing in the blood of thine enemies?”

  “Something like that,” he answered soberly.

  “You can't keep me here forever,” I added.

  He turned to look at me, but he seemed so serious that I just hunched down to cover my breasts rather than telling him to look away.

  “It would have happened again,” he said cryptically. “The taking of life is your gift.”

  “The taking of life is not a gift,” I snapped, once again thinking of Matthew.

  “Not always,” he replied, finally averting his eyes. “Nor is it always a curse.”

  I shook my head. It was a curse. There was no way around it. I plugged the drain and renewed the water flow, then slipped down into the tub, fully prepared to sulk. It would have happened again, he'd said. I couldn't bear what had happened with Matthew happening with someone else.

  “Tell me about this war,” I said, needing to change the subject.

  He sighed. “We are just one clan of many. We fight for power, land, age-old vendettas . . . ” he trailed off. “Aislin, the Doyen of a clan predominantly residing in Scandinavia, and Estus have been at war for years. As far as I can tell, they’re both searching for something.”

  I turned my shocked expression toward him, but he was still looking away. “You mean you’re fighting a war without knowing what you’re actually fighting for?”

  He smirked at me, then quickly turned away. “You believe the wars of humans to be any different? I am simply trying to live my life in relative safety. I do as my Doyen bades, because that is the way it has always been.”

  I washed my hair and scrubbed my skin nearly raw in silence. These people were absolutely nuts.

  “You have lovely skin,” he commented, pulling me out of my thoughts. “You should probably try not to scrub it all off.”

  “Stop looking!” I exclaimed as I sunk down into the tub to ensure everything was covered.

  “I can't protect you from severed hands if I can't see you,” he argued, laughter in his voice.

  I smiled in spite of myself. He was being a lech, but he was also trying to cheer me up again. I had to appreciate the latter, at least a little.

  “If you died,” I began, then cringed when I realized how inappropriate the statement sounded.

  Alaric turned wide eyes to me. “Do you have plans that I'm not aware of?”

  I glared and removed one of my hands from my chest to gesture for him to look away. “If you died,” I began again, “would you reanimate just like that hand?”

  Alaric kept his eyes firmly forward, for once. “As would you.”

  I gasped. I hadn't thought about that. Part of me believed that Alaric actually would reanimate. I could no longer argue with all of the evidence laid before me, especially when one of the pieces of evidence had just tried to kill me. Yes, I mostly believed that Alaric and the others weren't exactly human, but me? I still couldn't wrap my mind around that.

  “What if I had died last week? Would my corpse have walked right out of the morgue?”

  Alaric laughed. “We had more than one reason for keeping an eye on you. If you had died, your body would have been brought here.”

  I somehow didn't find that comforting. “What if I had died in a plane crash, and my body ended up at the bottom of the ocean. What then?”

  Alaric glanced at me in surprise, then looked away quickly. “Then I suppose we'd hear of sightings of zombie mermaids in the news.”

  He'd meant it as a joke, but the idea of my corpse walking around after I was dead gave me goosebumps. I shook my head, then dunked my hair in the water again, trying to get warm. I stayed that way for a while, but couldn't seem to wash away the cold, because it wasn't that kind of cold.

  When I was finished, Alaric handed me two towels, one for my hair and one for my body. It was oddly considerate. Then again, with the length of his hair he probably had to use two towels too.

  He turned his back so I could step out of the tub and dry off. It only dawned on me as I finished drying myself that I didn't have any clean clothes to change into. At a loss, I wrapped the towel I'd used on my body tightly around me, then tapped Alaric on the shoulder.

  Now, when someone turns around to see you, you usually expect them to take a step back to make room. Alaric turned around without the step back, and was suddenly very close to me. His pants brushed against the bottom edge of my towel, moving the fabric ever so slightly. Luckily the smaller amount of blood he'd gotten on him was already dry and didn't transfer to the clean towel.

  I slowly moved my eyes upward, feeling nervous and perhaps a little bit of something else. Alaric looked down at me with a knowing smile, eliciting goosebumps up and down my arms once again. I eyed him warily, feeling small and vulnerable, but he didn't move out of my way.

  “If my gift is death, like you say,” I began carefully, “then shouldn't you be afraid of me?”

  “You would bring a swift death to a human,” he replied. “But I would only fear you if I were severely weakened.” He smoothed a hand down my bare arm.

  “You're really going to kidnap me, then hit on me?” I asked, pulling away from his touch.

  He smiled, not in the least bit offended. “I am simply letting you know your options. The choice remains yours.”

  “So I have the choice of whether or not I sleep with you, but not the choice of leaving this place?” I asked, now with a hint of anger in my tone.

  Alaric raised his hands in an I give up gesture. “That second choice is not mine to give. I would not offer you a lie.”

  A subtle throbbing was beginning to grow between my eyes. I pinched the bridge of my nose to ease the pain.

  “I'm very tired,” I said, hoping to end the conversation.

  This time when I was left in my room, I really would sleep. I felt unsteady on my feet just standing there. Alaric nodded and led me out of the bathroom and back down the hallway toward the room I'd been given.

  He stayed in the doorway of my bedroom, forcing me to squeeze by him in order to go inside. I half-expected him to follow me in, but he remained in the threshold. After a moment he stepped back to close the door for me, though he left it open long enough for him to peek his head back inside and leave a standing offer for him to be my “snuggle buddy”.

  I refused his offer. I needed a snuggle buddy like I needed hepatitis.

  Chapter Four

  I fell asleep almost instantly, and if I dreamed, I didn't remember. I woke up confused as to where I was, until the memories of the previous day came flooding back.

  Had all of that occurred in just one day? I thought about my little house, and the fact that no one would have yet noticed that I was missing from it. No one knew that I hadn't spent the last two nights safely tucked into my bed.

  I was still sitting in bed dazed and confused when Sophie flung the door open without a knock. She glared down at me still snuggled in bed, annoyance clear on her face.

  “Get dressed,” she ordered. “Breakfast first, then you have a job to do.”

  The job they had brought me here for was the position of executioner. Did they want me to kill someone?

  “I, um, I don't feel well,” I stammered. “I should probably just stay in bed today.” I had to get the hell out of this place.

  Ignoring me, Sophie walked to the nearby dresser and started pawing through the drawers.

  I watched her in apprehension, dressed in flannel pajamas I’d found underneath the red silky ones.

  Straightening her back, she threw a pair of blue jeans and an olive colored tank top at me. Next came a clean bra, underwear, and a pair of socks that nearly hit me in the head. Once she was finished flinging fabric, she stood at the foot of my bed with her arms crossed.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  I rolled out of bed and got dressed quickly, not wanting her to throw something more substantial than socks at me.

  When I was finished she looked me up and down, then said, “You know where the bathroom is. You'll find a toothbrush and whatever else you might need. I'll be waiting in the kitchen.”

  With that, she was gone, leaving me to fret over just what the “job” might be by myself. I peeked out into the hall to verify that the coast was clear, then hurried into the bathroom where I promptly locked the door behind me.

  I debated my options. Escaping at night hadn’t worked out too well for me, nor had running blind with no idea where I was going. I’d be better off going along with things until I could figure out where the exit was.

  My decision made, I scanned the expansive countertop until my eyes landed on the basket where Sophie had retrieved the soap the night before. In it was a toothbrush still in its packaging, a brand new tube of toothpaste, lotion, and deodorant. I was in a B&B from hell.

  I brushed my teeth and put on deodorant, then stared in the mirror. Deep bags had formed under my eyes, marring my skin. I felt vaguely unreal, like I wasn’t truly there. I didn’t want to leave the bathroom, to face Sophie and the others, but eventually I had to admit to myself that I couldn't just stay in there forever. I needed to plan my escape.

  I sighed, knowing I needed to be honest with myself. I was grudgingly beginning to not just think about escape, but of learning everything these people might know about me. The Vaettir had verified what I had always somehow known about Matthew. That experience had kept me chaste and alone for fear of it ever happening with someone else. Maybe there was some way to control when it happened. If I could control it, I would be free to live an actual life. That was, of course, if I could not only learn control, but then escape my captors in one piece. The latter was seeming less and less likely.

  Finally, I took a deep breath and went out into the hall, heading straight for the kitchen, memorizing every turn in the hall, and every shut doorway. Did more of the Vaettir live behind the doors? Or were there just more bloody rooms with dismembered body parts . . .