A Shade of Vampire 81 A Bringer of Night - Bella Forrest Page 0,81

go well. Other creatures emerged from the ship and went dashing after her, their long fangs glistening with hunger. “Get back here, witch!” one of them snarled. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Not without revealing my location behind a bush. These were dangerous people, and my survival instinct was telling me to keep quiet.

They caught up with the witch, tackling her violently. “What the hell did you do?” another fanged man asked.

“You wanted a portal! I gave you a portal!” the witch replied, her wrists pinned to the ground. She struggled to release herself, but the fanged man used his whole weight to keep her down.

“You tricked us!” the first fanged man said, visibly angered and panting. There were dozens of them, each furious about whatever the witch had done. “We had a deal!”

“I had a deal with the Lord and Lady Supreme!” she snapped. “You broke it the moment you drank my blood against my will!”

“It’s not our fault you had us wandering through freakin’ space until we ran through our blood supply!” a third man said. “We wouldn’t have had to drink from you had you taken us in the right direction.”

They dragged her up and tied her to a tree. She was too weak to fight. She could barely stand. I’d heard those titles somewhere before. Lord and Lady Supreme… Oh, crap!

These were Aeternae! The Aeternae had somehow made it all the way to Cruor before the Elders took over. What in the ever-living hell was going on here? I was missing some pieces from the already-jumbled puzzle that was supposed to be the bigger picture.

“You tricked us! You said you’d take us to a new world for us to conquer,” a female Aeternae said, approaching the witch.

“I brought you to a new world for you to conquer,” she replied, grinning with bloodcurdling satisfaction. “Only you’ll never find your way home ever again. You’ll drink this place dry, and then you’ll have nowhere to go. You’ll starve. You’ll suffer. And my agony will have been avenged!”

The first Aeternae man scoffed, shaking his head in dismay. “So, let me get this straight. You showed up on Visio claiming you had powers and magic, thinking you could maybe dazzle us and gain our fortunes. Then, when you saw our resources and powers, you realized you were of no use to us unless you gave us a new land to conquer, beyond Rimia and Nalore.”

The witch said nothing, but the hatred in her eyes spoke volumes.

“That’s exactly what she did, Prometheus,” the female Aeternae said. “She dangled the prospect of expansion before us. She boarded our ship; she made us wander among the stars for months on end until we depleted our resources and started feeding on her. She didn’t like that very much, so she decided to pull one last trick from her sleeve and, well, here we are. Stranded. I don’t even think we’re in the same galaxy anymore!”

“You’re not even in the same universe anymore.” The witch cackled.

Prometheus backhanded her so hard blood spurted from her split lip. “You’ll pay for this!”

“What do we do now?” the second Aeternae asked, despair darkening his face.

“I don’t know, Basilius,” Prometheus replied. “We obviously cannot go home. Not after what this witch bitch did.”

Gasps erupted from the rest of the crew. Some of their wounds from the crash were still healing, and they were all quite pale, their eyes glistening with hunger. They’d had nothing to feed on but the witch for far too long.

“We’ll settle here,” the female Aeternae said. “I can smell fresh blood nearby. This planet is definitely inhabited.”

“It is,” Basilius replied. “I caught a glimpse of a few settlements on our way down.”

Prometheus nodded, his gaze fixed on the witch. “If you don’t help us, you’ll be of no use to us. And if you’re of no use to us, then we’ll kill you.”

“You’d be doing me a favor. My biggest mistake was going to Visio and thinking I could make something of myself there,” the witch spat. “I should’ve gone to Earth, like my other sisters, when they opened their portal.”

“Earth?” the female Aeternae asked.

“There’s no point in telling you about it now, Elena.” The witch chuckled. “You’ll never get there, anyway. You’re all stuck here.”

Prometheus grinned. “You’re forgetting something, Noula. Your life, your existence, still depends on us. In fact, you know what? I’ve just changed my mind. We won’t kill you. No, we’ll keep you as a pet. We’ll drink from