Death Comes for Her, page 1
Death Comes for Her
Raven Flanagan
Copyright © 2024 Raven Flanagan
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: GetCovers
For one of my favorite heathens,
Thank you for being weird with me
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Content Warnings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Acknowledgement
About The Author
Books By This Author
Content Warnings
This book contains references to and graphic depictions of: blood, violence, gore, death, abduction, mental illness, abuse, sexual assault, dub-con, depression, grief, suicidal ideation, MMF threesome/polyamory, bisexuality, public humiliation, parental loss, mild bondage, degradation, bloodplay.
Chapter 1
Old things have strange hungers.
Undead things have violent cravings—malevolent appetites that encourage them to conquer the world. One day, a monster might come along with the voracity to consume the sun. And when that monster succeeds, those with sunlight in their veins would be devoured.
Or so the Elders warned.
Like most thriving civilizations at the height of their power, the wisdom of elders is generally ignored. The kingdom of the Fae was no different in their hubris than mankind, which so often rose only to fall again.
And I was there to witness the fall of the fae in the days following the consumption of the sun.
Another red dawn rose over the dark horizon of the wilderness. In the distance, the jagged outcrops of the north mountains were no more than bleak shadows painted across a crimson horizon. In ten years of red skies since the undead stole the sun, witnessing a new day still made me sick to my stomach.
Twenty years ago, the undead creatures lurking in the shadows crept from their dark hiding places, scheming and plotting with magics so old that even the Elders no longer remembered them. They discovered a spell that, when cast under a crimson moon that came once a century, the sun could be contained and snatched from the sky.
Under a blood-red moon shining like a ruby in the sky, the vampires attacked. No creature was prepared for the carnage and horrors that followed. Not even shadows were safe.
One vampire, older and stronger than the rest, stained in the viscera of the dead and empowered by the evil of a newly summoned eternal night swept in unseen. Like a shadow in the night, his army decimated all in their path. For ten years, emboldened by the absence of the sun, vampires overwhelmed all races who dared to fight back, devouring anything and anyone with the will to stop them.
Vampires cowed humans into subservience first. Without sunlight, humans had no magic and no weapon strong enough to hold off against a calculated vampire horde. They easily slaughtered or took most as a food source. No human kings remained after the Everdark Morning.
Werewolves were cursed creatures. Unbridled in their rage, but equally strong as vampires. What they lacked in humanity or reasoning they made up for in primal strength. But that didn’t stop the vampires from using dark magic to keep them trapped in their monstrous wolf forms under the red moon. Beaten and broken, the wolves became glorified, overpowered guard dogs for vampire royals.
Vampires sought after the fair folk for the sunlight coursing through our veins. All the races of the mortal realm were eventually crushed and defeated by the vampires’ all-consuming hunger on the unholy night when the fairies finally succumbed to the war.
The undead bastards hunted us like pigs for slaughter, all so they could gorge and revel in a grand feast of golden ichor. And when the vampires caught a fairy, they were sure to feast and feast and feast and feast—
Aided by flight and magic, the fair folk had fought back the hardest because vampires went mad for fairy blood. Fairy blood intoxicated vampires, sending them into a drunken, lust-filled frenzy. Fairies became the prizes at the end of the war. Wings ripped off as trophies and bodies drained of lifeblood. All the warriors were tortured and killed, while they took the rest of the fair folk as delicacies to be leisurely enjoyed by the victors and champions of the war.
Memories of blood slicked floors and wet, warm gore squelching under my feet flashed behind my eyes. A field of haphazardly strewn bodies felled from the rust-colored sky skewered with arrows and drained of life stole a strangled whine from my lips. Phantom pains shot between my shoulder blades, and I shuddered—not from the cold.
From my vantage point at the peak of a towering barn, I watched the world drag itself to wakefulness. A heavy fog shrouded the distant village that morning, turning the world below the rolling hills of the farm into a dark haze. With each slow exhale, my breath curled in white wisps, heralding the early days of another bleak, lifeless winter.
A low, howling wind curled the edges of the mist. Toes balanced precariously on the edge of the barn roof. I lifted my arms, welcoming the wind. Cold air kissed my arms, tickled my fingers, and pulled threads of golden hair loose from the untidy knot atop my head. I closed my eyes, relishing the sensation of the wind caressing my face like the touch of a loved one.
One foot slipped over the edge, threatening to… to fall, to leap, to soar?
My breath hitched, lodging in the base of my throat. The backs of my eyes pricked as I remembered. I remembered soaring, being lifted by the air and smiling among the clouds in a blue sky.
But there were no more blue skies. And there would be no more soaring through the clouds. Not for me.
Another phantom ache throbbed in my shoulders.
A weighted darkness in my stomach sank lower, dragging my heart down with it. That darkness danced up the base of my spine, eliciting a shiver, and it whispered through my ears. Would it be so bad if I took that step?
I’d fall, sure. But in those few seconds it took for my body to sail downwards… Gods, I’d be free. I’d be free again, wouldn’t I?
“Sierra!” a croaking voice bellowed into the field. “Come on, girl. It’s time to feed the pigs!”
Agonizingly slowly, my eyes peeled open, and I lowered my arms to my sides. Hidden on the barn roof, I held my breath and remained still. Perhaps if I waited long enough, she’d forget I existed and go away.
“Sierra! I know you’re out there. Come out now, or you won’t get any supper!” Griselda barked. Her demands broke up the still silence of the lonely field.
If I couldn’t forget my existence, neither would the farmer’s wife.
“Sierra, this is the last time I’ll call for you. No supper tonight.” It wouldn’t be the first time she didn’t feed me, either out of spite or misplaced vengeance. It hardly mattered.
“I’m coming!” I shouted back, fists curled tight at my sides.
After an overly dramatic groan, I forced myself from my brief sanctuary. A swift climb down the creaking ladder and I landed on the damp earth with a soft thud. I tugged my old, worn boots back on while listening to heavy steps approach.
Griselda’s sour face, lined with sixty years of permanent annoyance, scowled directly at me. Her arms remained crossed over her plump chest and her foot tapped impatiently. Her lips parted with a prepared scolding. Likely the same as I’d already heard a hundred times.
“You know, girl, you’re lucky Benjen and I took you in when we did. If not for us, you’d have starved or frozen alone in the woods, bloody and bruised as you were.” As Griselda spoke, I repeated the same thing in my head perfectly in time with her. “We’d already raised four children by the time we found you. The least you could do is show us some gratitude for saving your miserable life. Your pretty face won’t save you from working for the rest of your days.”
Gray-streaked black hair poked out from under her beige headscarf. Disdain ruddied her rounded cheeks, making her face resemble a tomato. The near permanent frown on her lips only worsened the lines around her mouth. Griselda wasn’t entirely a kind woman. Even when she agreed to save my life, she resented me for it. It hadn’t been her idea to take me in.
“Grizzy, leave the poor girl alone. It’s a frosty morning.” My reason for hiding all morning made his appearance. Griselda’s husband, Benjen, walked past the field on his way to the barn. A stocky, barrel-chested man with an unwavering smile. The bushy mustache over his top lip was reminiscent of an overgrown caterpillar.
Ten years ago, they found me shivering and hungry in the woods. Benjen and Griselda brought me to their farm and fed me. At first, their intentions were to clean up the pretty eighteen-year-old girl they found in the woods as a wife for one of their sons.
They changed their minds as soon as they noticed the healing scars on my back.
In return for a place to sleep and f
ood, I became a housekeeper and farm hand. Griselda had to teach me how to manage a home, and she wasn’t sparing in her punishments when I failed to appease.
After a decade, I’d stopped aging while Griselda’s homely beauty continued to fade. More and more, she resented her husband’s wandering eye—and hands… and cock.
Benjen’s kindness never came without the assumption I’d repay him.
“Winter’s coming early this year. We’d all rather be warm, wouldn’t we?” Benjen stopped in his tracks between me and Griselda. He smiled at his wife. A crooked smile that made his eyes glimmer.
I didn’t believe it, and neither did she. Not anymore.
“It’s no excuse to be lazy,” Griselda snapped at him. Her furrowing brows deepened. She resembled one of the wrinkled hunting hounds that prowled the nearby village.
“Go inside and get warm, Grizzy. The girl and I can feed the pigs.” Benjen grasped her shoulder, squeezing it to reassure her. Griselda exhaled through her nose in an obviously irritated huff. Not that Benjen would care.
My stomach dropped when he turned to me. The lecherous glint in his eyes when he looked at me made my stomach convulse. I didn’t care about supper if I’d have to scrub my skin raw all night.
Not today. Please, not today.
Internally, I begged and pleaded with fate to save me from Benjen’s horrid touch. I hid around the farm to get away from him each time he wanted to rut against me in the barn. Griselda ruined that by hunting for me. The very thing she hated me for brought me into his grasp time and time again.
I glanced between the husband and wife, skin itching from the brittle tension and resentment. At least they aren’t vampires, I reminded myself, resigned to my fate once again. As much as I hated them, Benjen and Griselda kept me fed and housed when others would have turned me in for a reward.
The alternative was death… an increasingly appealing option.
If I accompanied Benjen into the barn under the pretense of feeding the pigs and permitted him his ten minutes of lackluster thrusting, he’d ensure that Griselda fed me supper. He’d have his way soon enough, and I’d bear it if I wanted to eat.
Seething through her teeth, Griselda gave in. She turned away from her husband, relenting to his unfaithful desires. Her worn leather boots crunched on the dying brown grass as she stomped toward the small house nestled in the field.
Benjen turned his lecherous gaze on me. Even through the thick layers of plain woolen clothing, he stared as though I wore nothing at all. When the crimson moon vanished below the horizon and left the world in all-encompassing darkness, I could eat and wash away the evidence he’d leave between my thighs.
Down in the village, the bell tolled, cleaving through the morning silence. The heavy warning sound of clanging metal rang again, carried on the wind over the fog and across the meager human village. Panicked shouting followed, loud and shrill enough to reach us above the hills.
The sounds chilled me to the bone and sent my blood racing under my skin. Goosebumps crawled over my flesh like dozens of tiny spiders on spindly legs.
Griselda stopped short of the front door. Benjen’s head turned slowly to lock eyes with his wife. The corner of her lips twitched as she cut her gaze from him to me. Benjen shook his head. A silent warning, a plea for her not to do whatever he saw flashing in her eyes.
Increasing screams from the village interrupted their unspoken argument. Galloping hooves from dozens of horses trampled through the cobbled streets like distant thunder. Tense seconds passed as those sounds rolled over the base of the hills to the farm.
“Vampires.” Benjen’s face blanched, becoming a sickly shade of gray. “Go hide in the house, Sierra,” he ordered.
“She will not!” Griselda whipped back around to her husband. She prodded his beefy chest with one sausage-thick finger. “It’s been too long, and I’m tired of housing that whore. Bad enough that our sons would still leave their darling wives for her. Bad enough you debased yourself with her! I’m done harboring her under my roof!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grizzy. She’s just a poor young woman who needs help. We’re the only ones who can do that for her.” Benjen could plead all day, but Griselda wouldn’t stand for his unfaithful lies any longer.
The trotting hooves and clinking of armor grew closer, and no one moved. The last time vampires came through the village, they’d gotten away with a handful of the village residents. I’d remained hidden in the barn under a stack of hay every other year when the undead came to collect.
Unbridled fear gripped me by the throat. It was different now. How foolish I was to beg fate to save me from Benjen when worse monsters were rearing up from the darkness.
Viciously delighted laughter floated toward the farm from the main road. Any second now, a group of the vampire soldiers trampling through the village would come near enough. If I didn’t hide now—
“Fairy!” Griselda screamed at the top of her lungs. She cupped her hands on either side of her mouth, took a deep breath, and bellowed again. “There’s a fairy!”
Benjen whirled around to me. “Run, Sierra. You must run.”
My heart leapt into my throat. I frantically glanced between Benjen and Griselda for a brief second. When the vampires urged their horses in our direction, a bolt of energy slammed through my body.
I turned toward the shadowed woods behind the farm. The woods where Benjen and Griselda first found me all those years ago. Time slowed and my heartbeat echoed in my ears.
My muscles tensed, then propelled me forward.
“Fairy whore!” Griselda shrieked after me. “I should have let you die!”
My feet pounded over the earth as I forced myself into a sudden sprint for the tree line. No matter how fast I ran, the withering field seemed to stretch for miles and miles. Each step I took, the beating of hooves never faded.
“There she goes!” Griselda’s vitriol followed. “She’s a fairy!”
“Griselda, no!” The ringing of a blade pulled from its sheath cut off Benjen’s shout. Across the empty field, nothing covered the guttural choking that followed. And the soft whomp of something rolling in the dirt.
Despite my better judgment, and the survival instincts driving me, I looked over my shoulder. A mistake that would cost me dearly.
I stumbled.
Benjen’s headless body filled my vision before the corpse fell to its knees. Griselda’s shaking hands covered her face as she wailed to the black sky overhead. Blood sprayed over the ground, littering the dirt after another sword arced toward her.
Six riders in blood red armor astride beastly war horses speared into view, carelessly trampling the fresh corpses. A squad of vampire soldiers sent to gather humans for their local lords to feast upon. Malicious, hungry eyes marked me as their next target through the dark void of their helmets.
The one in front lifted his sword, dripping with fresh blood, and pointed it directly at me. “After her!”
The adrenaline coursing through me carried me further and faster away. I needed to get to the woods, then maybe I would have a chance of evading the vampires. The phantom ache in my back reminded me of the natural escape I’d lost.
That distraction stole my attention from the ground. I glossed over a branch, jutting up at an awkward angle.
My boot hit the branch with a reverberating crack. Pain shot through my right ankle, like a sharp fire jabbing into my tendon. My running ended as I fell to the ground, slamming into the dirt.
Ringing noise hit my eardrums. The force of my fall knocked the air from my lungs. I wheezed, gasping for breath. Stars danced behind my closed eyes.
A heavy body jumped to the ground nearby. Horses nickered and pawed at the ground, kicking up dirt at the sudden stop. The vampires whistled like they were calling a dog. Some of them laughed, but there was nothing jovial about the sound.
Dread pressed into me like a boulder weighing down my back. Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes. My trembling arms tried and failed to push up. When I moved my leg, pain shot up from my ankle.
A sickening realization settled in my consciousness. After years of getting away, of staying right out of reach, this was how it ended for me. Betrayed by the woman who took me in because her husband couldn’t help himself and took advantage of me.
