A Duel with the Vampire Lord (Married to Magic #3)

by Elise Kova

for all the book lovers with daggers and crowns on their bookshelves

My duty is seen as more sacred than that of many of the hunters themselves. For I am the one who will arm and armor them for years to come. I know the secrets of the forge. I am the keeper of steel and silver.

The first is that they subsist on human blood for sustenance and for their dark magics.

The second is that the vampire have only one true weakness—silver.

The final truth is that the vampires share one mind. The beasts that torment us month to month are little more than living golems that heed their lord’s will.

That is the way of things in the Runil family: the eldest daughter is the forge maiden and the eldest son heads to the fortress. Every family has their traditions and their role to play in Hunter’s Hamlet. There is security when we are all in our place. It is the promise and sacrifice we’ve all made.

can imagine what he’ll say later. How dare Davos speak about you like you’re not there, in front of everyone. How dare he speak of marrying you off like you’re some prized mare. But my fate is no secret. The forge maiden is always married before twenty. That’s just the way of it, the tradition, the necessity since any of our lives might end come the next full moon.

I might be the forge maiden, but I am no delicate flower. I am as cold as silver. As strong as iron. I will bend for destiny, but not for any man.

Fear marries desperation to breed poor decisions, Mother always says. We must protect the silver, for it is our only defense against the vampires. A defense that grows more finite by the day.

He might swear he’ll return, but… He’s lying.

“What are you?” he rasps. What am I? A strange question coming from a beast like him. I smile wildly. “I am your death.”

“They have made you a monster.” Disapproval—hatred bleeds into his words. An emotion we share. “If I must be a monster to kill one then so it shall be!” I leap up.

“Ah, yes, I am the monster, when you are the one who has been transformed into a test subject.” I ignore his words—the lies he spins for distraction—instead lunging for the sword once more. Yet again, he’s faster, already behind me.

If you’re ever face-to-face with a vampire, fight! I can hear Drew’s voice in the back of my mind. Fight with everything you have. Fight like your life depends on it.

“The truth of what you are becoming.” “You lie!” I scream and raise the sword higher. “That is why I have brought you here. The hunters are turning you into one of us—more or less—so that you might be able to stand a chance at killing us.” “I am not one of you and I will never be.” The elixir.

I was a forge maiden. Not a fighter. I wasn’t supposed to have even been here. That was made clear in the end. A true fighter would’ve been able to end it.

“What am I going to do with you?” “Love me forever?” My mouth moves on its own. “Careful, or I just might.”

“Vam-pie-err.” He sounds out the word slowly, echoing me with a bit of a sneer. “You humans butcher our kind in name and body.” “Are you not a vampire?” I don’t know why I’m asking. His nature is as apparent as his yellowed teeth, all-black eyes, and withered flesh. “We are vampir. Va-m-peer.” The word jumps from his lips with a flourish I’ve never heard before.

“Your benefit would be to have the vampir lord bloodsworn—bound—to you. I could not lie to you even if I desired to, nor you to me. Neither of us can break the terms of our arrangement once set. As I said, this is the best solution I could think of that would solve all our problems. If you know I cannot deceive or harm you, then you will know you can trust me, and the same works in my favor.”

“My power is intoxicating, isn’t it?” he whispers. “Do you want more? Break the curse on my people, dear hunter, and I can keep you drunk on my power until your body can no longer handle me.” He eases away, hair falling into his eyes, shadowing them with the evil I know is real, for he has imprinted it on my soul.

Has magic. “There’s magic in me?” I whisper. I hadn’t intended the thought to escape. He turns, a crescent brow rising. “Of course there is. Others might have assumed humans to be completely non-magical, but the vampir knew the truth of it: Everyone has power, if they claim it.” Power is made, not born,

They drink human blood to conceal their monstrous forms. That must be why they need to hunt humans on the full moon and why they look like shambling corpses when they do. Perhaps drinking the blood consistently is what allows them to speak and think—why these vampires are sentient compared to the ones who usually attack us.

“The place where the rot of your curse festers. Where you will see the true horror of what your dear hunters have done to our kind.”

For a glorious moment, I forget where I am and who I’m with. There’s only the heavy breaths of the bellows. The crackle of fire that casts everything in a familiar orange glow. There’s the clanking of metal as I set up my tools just as I want them. My heart is full. I am where I belong.

In Hunter’s Hamlet I am a prize to be gifted.

“The smithy was always warm. Bright, even in the darkest of nights. The fire never goes completely out. It always burned too hot for that and would be needed again too soon to ever snuff it completely. It was a place of power, creation, and life. Where people could gather and tell stories. Where men and women would gossip as they waited for their tools to be mended. It was the heart of everything.”

“Is the human laughing at me?” Ventos is somewhere between shock and anger. “I wouldn’t dream of laughing at the fearsome vampire.” I roll my eyes away from Ventos. Ruvan sees, judging from his huff of amusement.

A large hand covers mine as I reach for a sword. “You’re really going to improve them?” I stare up at Ventos. “Unhand me.” “Answer me.” I grit my teeth but manage to say, “Yes. Sharp enough to cut that hand clean off if you don’t remove it from my person.”

“What you’re made to hunt.” “But the blood oath⁠—” “The blood oath prevents you from harming me, or anyone loyal to me. These vampir are not loyal to me. They’re not loyal to anyone. They are the monsters your guild made with their curse.” Ruvan’s eyes narrow slightly.

My heart begins to race, pumping the rush of the impending battle through my veins. From the darkness, the monster I’ve been waiting for emerges.

Just as I ease my stance, Ruvan speaks, low and harsh into my ear. “Don’t relax. One is harmless. It’s the numbers that will kill you.”

It’s almost as if I am inhaling glass and not air. Yet I gulp it down anyway, muscles screaming, lungs aching. I almost want my body to break. Break so it can be rebuilt stronger with this magic. I want more—to be more.

“I have to admit, you’re decent in a scrap, Riane,” Ventos says at my side. I must not be able to hide my surprise at his statement, because he tries to smother laughter and, mostly, fails. “Though I suppose vampir blood is the reason for most of it.” “I’m fearsome enough without it,” I try to bluff. Ruvan casts me a look that I can’t decipher. Or maybe…that I don’t want to decipher. He knows, a sinking feeling in my gut assures me. He knows of your deceit.

I’ve lost count of how many I’ve killed. My limbs ache and my breath is short. That was the third wave. Fourth?

“You have quick fingers. You take armor off men often?” He arches his eyebrows. The question catches me so off guard I can’t stop the blurt of laughter. “Something like that.”

I hate that I’m here. Yet, this place, this moment, this man—not a monster—it feels like the beginning of something consequential and inescapable.

He doesn’t see me as a conquest. I’m just Floriane, the woman whose name he’s only just learned. Who tried to kill him. And yet he still looks at me as if I am the place where the world begins and ends. He still touches me as if my skin is sacred.

“I fear that once I taste you again, I won’t be able to stop.” “You will stop when I say.” I level my eyes with his, matching his intensity with my own. He leans closer still, overwhelming all of me. “Are you presuming to order me? The fearsome vampir lord?” “Yes,” I say with pride, lacking all hesitation.

I want more. I want to cast it all aside and just be Floriane—not the forge maiden, not the hidden hunter. The woman.

We are two candles, but one flame. We cannot and will not let the other go dark. Not while one of us still burns.

“Did I taste all right?” I can’t help but ask. “Floriane, you taste…” He trails off. His eyes are shining brighter than the sun at dawn. He stares at me as if all the words of what he was going to say are written on my face. “You taste like strength, and hope.”

Kindness. It’s an odd thought, but as my eyes dip closed that’s what I settle on. “You taste like kindness,” I murmur. He rasps a chuckle and tucks wayward hair behind my ear. “And here I thought life had made me too bitter for that.” “You’re not bitter at all.” I yawn. “You’re…impossibly sweet.”

“How do we free ourselves from this torment?” “I don’t know if I want to be free.” His gaze drops farther, to my neck. “You might be torture and temptation incarnate. But you are strength and power. You are damnation and salvation trapped in curves that should be forbidden.”

What does my heart say? “That…I feel for you,” I confess. “That I want to keep learning who you are and knowing you.” “And I feel for you.” He pulls me a bit closer, his hands still around mine. “I ache for you. I burn for you. I want you.”

“That way…” He hums. “I think it’s armors from antiquity.” I inhale sharply. Old. Vampir. Armor. I have to see it. “Would you like to see it?” Ruvan reads my mind and holds out a hand with a warm smile. My heart does a skip. “I thought you’d never ask!” I take his hand and yank him down the hallway.

I give him a small grin over my shoulder, taking in his ethereal face. The warmth of his hand around mine. How wrong I’ve been… “We’ve never been monsters.”

“What did we do to her?” Ruvan slides into the door frame as smoothly as his voice. “We kept her alive. Shielded her. Clothed and fed her.”

Ruvan’s hands curl around my shoulders. “I know you are Floriane’s brother, and that alone is the reason why you still draw breath. But I care less and less for your relationship the more you manhandle her.” There’s a rough, protective edge to Ruvan’s voice that almost brings a flush to my cheeks.

“When she’s set her sights on something, she charges at it with all the ferocity of a wild animal,” Drew says with a chuckle. He’s wearing a smile now too. “I am not a wild animal,” I protest, giving my brother a glare. “No, no, that seems about right.” Lavenzia smirks. “Excuse me, I am not an animal,” I repeat for emphasis. “I am a forge maiden. And, yes, that means I am quite accustomed to hammering at things until I get my way.” “She’s always like this?” Ruvan asks Drew. “Worse, usually.”

Drew smiles, genuine and sad. I know his sorrow. For the first time, our paths aren’t perfectly aligned. We’re not enemies, but we’re no longer at each other’s sides. Shoulder to shoulder, marching forth. We’re each working toward the same thing, but now truly in our own ways.