The Shadow Games: The Chronicles of Arianthem VI Read Free

flipped her so their positions were reversed. She pinned her hands above her head.
    “I know that you are vampyre” Raine said quietly. “And you’re going to answer my questions or I will destroy your covey.”
    “I will do no such thing,” the keeper said, nearly spitting in her fury. She did not see how this woman could be so strong. Very few could match the strength of a vampyr, and this one did so effortlessly.
    Raine ignored her words. “I am looking for the Shadow Guild.”
    This produced no reaction whatsoever, telling Raine all she needed to know. Few knew of the guild-within-a-guild, the very upper echelon of the Assassin’s Guild. Those that did were terrified to speak of it and generally had a marked reaction. The name meant nothing to this woman, however, who just began to struggle and continued to spit in her fury. Her fangs were beginning to show.
    “I thought to transform you, to give you our gift, but now I’m just going to suck you dry.”
    “Well that’s not very attractive,” Raine said, enraging the woman further. Try as she might, though, the innkeeper could not get loose from the iron grip of the stranger, so she began screaming.
    “Oh, wonderful,” Raine said, sighing.
    The man came slamming through the door and in an instant, Raine was on her feet, her dagger out. He rushed her with the overconfidence of someone used to physical dominance, and he paid dearly for that misjudgment. Although there was much folklore on elaborate methods required to dispatch the undead, none of that was true. Killing them just required inflicting a massive amount of damage in a short time, enough to overcome their rapid healing abilities. And Raine delivered that massive damage by stabbing him in the heart, then cutting off his head, not because these acts were necessary for killing the creature, but because they were sufficient. The man disappeared into a cloud of black ash that fluttered into a pile on the floor.
    Raine spun about as the innkeeper charged her, breasts heaving in fury. She stopped the stampede of body parts with a strength that was again supernatural, slamming the woman against the wall. She pinned her with an arm to the throat, but somehow the keeper was able to struggle free just enough to sink her teeth into Raine’s forearm.
    The tavern keeper gazed at the stranger in triumph. The effect of a vampyr bite was near-instantaneous, injecting poison upon the first break in the skin. It quickly immobilized, paralyzing prey much like a spider. And the vampyr, like the spider, could then feed at leisure. The creature could sate its bloodlust, then transform or kill its hapless victim.
    But the vampyr’s bite seemed to have no effect at all on the woman pinning the innkeeper. She had not even flinched at the painful attack but rather had secured her grip so she could not be bitten again. And as time ticked by and the vampyr waited for her to weaken, such a thing did not happen. And the taste that was in the vampyr’s mouth, the blood that she licked from her own lips, was something extraordinary.
    “What are you?” the keeper muttered.
    “Something far more dangerous than a vampyr, I assure you.”
    Raine struck the woman with her free forearm, such a massive blow it would have crushed a normal skull. But this was not a normal creature, and although the blow rendered her unconscious, it did not kill her. Raine released the innkeeper and she fell to the floor, sprawling in an ungainly position. Screams from the main hall pierced the air, and Raine rushed through the door.
    The female vampyr held the little girl clutched to her chest. The cry of pain of her male companion had warned her that, impossibly, things were not going well in the bedroom, so she chose a most cowardly defense. Raine stopped in her tracks, afraid for the little girl. The woman was clenching her small frame so tightly the girl was turning blue.
    “Help me!” the creature cried to the thrall, who dumbly began to get to