Blood Shaper

Book 6: Chapter 24

“There’s no need to rush,” One of the figures huddled in a shadowed spot between tents whispered to their fellows. “Why are we being pushed to move this quickly?”

“It isn’t like there’s actually a threat to deal with,” Another agreed, “We’re going to stomp on some backwater little ‘king’ who thinks they’re big enough to demand terms from the Order after some little scuffle. Honestly, who do they think we are? A two-bit band of mercenaries that have killed a random vampyr or two? We’re the Shatterplate Order!”

“No, no,” A third jumped in with a falsely sweet tone, “We aren’t going to stomp on anything, we’re just showing the concerned king who had some little vampyr problem they couldn’t deal with on their own how powerful the Order actually is. There won’t be any violence just a show of why they should be grateful for the Order’s assistance instead of being pissy about things not going how their ruler wanted.”

The fourth figure standing in the shaded, out of the way area of one the Shatterplate Order’s many camps as they marched toward Avalon said nothing. The other three didn’t notice the silence, or if they did they didn’t care.

“You’re right though,” The third speaker continued, “Who do they think the Order is? Because they have to be completely out of the loop to think that we’d actually move the entire organization including our training centers into some little hodunk one city ‘kingdom’. The farther east you go the worse everything seems to get. They probably don’t even get that the Order is back by nations hundreds of times larger than theirs.”

“Do you know what actually happened? There’ve been all kinds of rumors floating around, but no one has given me a straight answer. I even bugged my team leader, and he just told me to ‘shut up and keep moving’! Can you believe that.”

“It’s been the same for me! Everyone’s been on edge this entire time, I wonder if they think we’re actually going to get in a fight when we get there?”

One of the three leaned in closer and whispered excitedly, “Well I heard it involves the Commander’s daughter.”

The other two scooted closer to hear the juicy gossip. “Really?”

“Really. The minor king or whatever they call themselves out there apparently had a vampyr causing problems, one the Commander’s daughter was tracking down with her hunting team, and the king fell in love with her, but she didn’t want to shack up with some petty little mid-tier calling themselves a ruler. The guy got so mad he caused a bunch of problems, got in a fight with her team and then had to run off to lick his wounds when the hunting team kicked his ass. Then he made some demands like there was a real fight and talked all this shit to the Order, that’s why we’re going to show him what’s up.”

“Are you actually fucking stupid?” The fourth figure asked.

All three of the rumormongers jumped back in shock.

“Who are-“

“Nope.” The fourth figure was suddenly in their face, staring at them with disdain. “I asked you a question, and I want an answer. Are you fucking stupid?”

“Ah... um... No, ma’am?” One of them answered.

She turned a hard stare on them.

“No... Hunter Ravenhome?”

“Close enough.” She swept her glare back on to the other two, who had thought her attention being leveled on their fellow for a second might actually give them a moment to escape. “If you’re not complete morons like I think you are. How can none of the three of you have any idea what the hell we’re doing out here or why we’re going to Avalon? I’ll allow some level of nonsense and rumors to taint your idea of things, but to literally have only the most basic of bullshit ideas of anything that went on? There was a mandatory gathering where the Commander told everyone what happened! Where you not there for some reason?”

That was looking like it would end up being a long term problem. The old-school Crusader Generals that were now being led by Crusader General Stonegnawer seemed ready for a schism between the two main factions that the Crusade had clustered around. Stonegnawer’s faction was willing to accept Kay’s demands, with a few codicils, and were looking to use them as a means to break the power of the other faction, which was growing too reactionary for many of the Crusader Generals who had been with the organization for a long time. The other faction was led by younger officers, who were angrily refusing to have anything to do with anyone even remotely related to vampyr in any way, and many were still pushing for the entire Crusade to gather and burn Avalon to the ground. Which wasn’t going to happen for a multitude of reasons. Alice wasn’t going to be surprised if the Crusade broke into at least two different factions in short order, and one of those was going to be a threat to the safety of others.

That wasn’t her problem though. Her problems were many, but controlling someone else’s idiots wasn’t one of them. She had to deal with her new position as he dad’s protege, one she’d never actually planned to have, learn to function with her new species that had an interesting new dietary requirement, and figure out how to finally get the Vampyr Hunter Class she’d been busting her ass off to make come to fruition.

“So, you’d turn down King Kay if he propositioned you?” Her dad asked with fake casualness, “It’d be a good way to connect the Order to Avalon and make sure we can stay relevant in our new home.”

“Dad!” Alice protested. “That’s not funny, you know I wouldn’t do that.” She paused for dramatic effect, “If Eleniah asked though...”

Edric chuckled and shook his head. “Sadly for your romantic fantasies, we both know she and Kay are going to end up together in the end.”

“Sure, but they’re both being so obtuse about it, I might be able to slip some nice nights in there with her, you never know.”

“We’ll see. Good luck if you see and opportunity but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” He glanced over at her as they walked back to their shared tent. “How’re you doing at... ah...”

“Acquiring blood to drink?” She couldn’t blame him for his hesitation in dealing with the topic. They’d both dealt with too many damn vampyr to treat the idea of drinking blood casually. “It’s been fine. Kay and Lauren’s message to me that they included in the general ones to you and the Order gave me a bit more information than I’d figured out and I don’t think they know that animal blood is fine as long as we drink it in larger amounts than blood from people.” She stopped in place for a moment before forcing herself to keep walking. “I don’t think they know that we can go into blood lust if we don’t drink enough either.”

Edric stopped, turned to her, and dragged her into a hug. “You didn’t hurt anyone. You literally didn’t even touch anyone. You found out it was happening, kept yourself totally in control, and dealt with it by finding an animal to drink a bit from. You literally proved you aren’t a vampyr with that. Those monsters literally can’t control themselves when their blood lust hits.”

“I know. I’m just worried about it happening to them and it causing problems.”

They both scowled at the thought of giving the rage fueled or just damn stubborn idiots who wanted to keep insisting that Kay, and now Alice, were monsters to be eradicated more fuel for their pyres.

“Kay knows quite a bit about vampires from his world, remember? I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Alice let out a sigh, then squeezed her dad tight before letting go. “You’re right. And besides, with the Crusader General setting the pace, we’ll all get there in no time, both to support them with this new problem and I can tell them all the things I’ve figured out about being a vampire since I’ve seen them.”

“That’s a good attitude. Plus you’ll get to see Zeia again!”

“Dad, that isn’t funny.”

“What?” He asked with all the false innocence in the world, “She has to have been studying vampires and different things we can learn about the vampyr from them this whole time! I was being topical!”

“Right, that’s totally what you meant.”