The Hollow by Nicole R. Taylor Page A

her, she supposed, but she'd always been light on her feet. As he came for her, her hand shot up and grasped the flesh of his neck, stopping him mid-stride. She stared into black eyes and fangs, but she would have recognized his features anywhere.
    "Ser Tristan?" she gasped. How?
    "Lady Arrow a vampire?" he said, cocking his head to the side. "Now I understand why you were so good at killing."
    For the first time that she could remember, she was truly lost for words. Lady Arrow was the name she had given him, but it was one of many identities she had taken over her long life. The last time she had laid eyes on Ser Tristan was in the Holy Land on the march for Jerusalem. And that was a very long way from the dark Austrian forests in which they now stood.
    Tristan seemed almost amused that she held him by the throat and unconcerned that she was much stronger than he seemed to be. "Were the Crusades bloody enough? What does the blood of the Holy Land taste like? I imagine it would be ripe with God. I imagine it would burn one from within like the devils we are."
    Yes, it was true she had fought side by side with him during the Crusades, but that had to be forty years ago. The man who stood before her didn't look a day over thirty human years and besides, he wasn't human anymore.
    "What happened to you?" she whispered, her blue eyes trying to pierce through the blackness that his had become in his vampirism.
    "I'm hungry." His lips curled around each word like they were a delicacy. She knew he wasn't really looking at her - even she could hear the thumping of the girl's heart, the swooshing sound of her blood.
    Aya saw Tristan's muscles begin to tense and she pushed a shoulder into his chest, driving the air from his lungs and threw him over her shoulder as hard as she could. His body sailed through the damp air and crashed into the trunk of a pine, the branches of bones rattling violently. The girl let out a blood-curdling scream and began to run back towards the village, but Tristan was on his feet in an instant, ready to pursue, but Aya was on him again.
    "You will not feed on her, Tristan," she snarled, pushing him face first into the ground. "Not while I am here. I forbid it."
    A horrible, gut-wrenching wail tore from his throat as she pressed a knee into his back as she allowed the girl to escape into the night. Struggling with all his strength, he cried out like a wounded animal, clawing and scratching at the ground, teeth snapping. Aya didn't have a patience to calm him down, so she wrapped her pale fingers around his head and twisted. His neck broke with a sickening snap and he fell limply on the ground, eyes open and vacant.
    He wasn't truly dead. His body would heal itself in a short while and then they would talk, whether he wanted to or not.
    She carried him back the way he'd come through the macabre forest, following his scent of blood and decay until she found the ruins of a once magnificent castle. On the outside it was covered in moss and vines, leaf litter rotting in corners of once grand rooms that now housed nothing but crumbing walls and rotten roofs. The main hall seemed to be intact and this is where she knew Tristan spent his nights when the sun was asleep.
    A fire burnt in the hearth and a lone chair stood at it's foot and this is where she set him down to wait for him to wake.
    How ironic that he would find the one castle that was devoid of human habitation. As a vampire, he needed to be invited into the home of his would be victims. Here, he was free to come and go in his macabre grandiose, reigning terror on the countryside. For a vampire, he'd made himself right at home. He was indeed the Lord of these forests. The villagers even brought him his meals.
    With a loud gasp, Tristan's eyes snapped open, clear and green like she remembered. He clawed at his neck as he gained his bearings once more and when he'd found enough clarity, he turned towards her with a snarl.
    "There is no use trying to fight me,"