Fate Of The Minotaur (Her Dragon's Bane 5) by Harmony Raines

she did. “They will confront you and there will a be a battle. This other leader will slay you. He will put a stake in your heart.”
    The vampire placed his hand over his non-beating heart, flinching at the thought. She had to decide if he was worth saving. But when she examined the outcome of his death, she knew that he must be the key. If she could keep him safe, if she could make him the victor, then the human race might be saved.
    “I’ll tell you exactly how he does it. Then you can be prepared.”
    “There a way I can stop my death?”
    “I think so. It will mean you listening very carefully to what I say.”
    “Can I trust you?”
    “That would depend. I want your word that when this is over, I get to leave.”
    He held his hand out to her. “I give you my word. If you help me to survive and be victorious, then you can leave, with my thanks.”
    She put her hand in his, feeling the coldness, the fragile, papery skin enveloping her and threatening to take the warmth of her life blood, as the chill spread from him to her. “What’s your name?” she asked.
    “My name? It means nothing here in this world of the undead.”
    “I want to know who you were, so I know I am doing the right thing by saving you.”
    He chuckled. “Your vision must already tell you that or I believe you wouldn’t let me live. I think I am as much your best hope as you are mine.” He studied her, weighing and measuring her. Then he said, “I was a great lord. And a bit of a cad. Lord Angus of Middleham. Such great things were expected of me. But I slept with a woman, and her husband found out. He paid a man to kill me. Only that man gave the ticket to a vampire, who turned me instead. I struggled not to bring death and destruction on the husband of the woman I slept with. I blamed him. Nights, I would sit on their windowsill and watch them sleep. But then I realised the fault was mine. I was corrupt, I was in the wrong.”
    “So you let him live?”
    He looked at her mournfully, the red in his eyes almost gone. “No. One night I saw him strike her. I watched while she wept and he forced her to do such degrading things. It was then that I realised she had sought my arms as a way of escape. A few hours of pleasure to make up for the pain of her marriage. So I killed him and freed her from it. Then I left the place I grew up in and somehow came here. I have found peace amongst my own kind. Yet there are those of us who do not want peace. They want to enslave the human race. Bleed them until they can bleed no more.”
    “So what part do the dragons play in this?”
    “Dragons? None, there is a truce between us.”
    “But a vampire tried to break that truce.”
    “Really? I had no idea.” He was silent, thinking for a moment, his whole body and his face so still, he might have been made from hard marble. “Ahh. There were five deaths. A fire. Yes. I see now. But why?”
    Then he moved, ostentatiously strutting across the room as though he were a great host and she, his invited houseguest. She stood still, her half-emptied glass in her hand. When he reached the staircase and saw she wasn’t following, he turned and called her. “Come, Sybil. You should sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day for us both. Let us hope we will both be here by the end of it all.”
    She carried her glass, not sure what she was supposed to do with it, and followed him up the ornate staircase. He took her along a corridor and deeper into his lair. She had no choice but to follow. And when he stopped outside one of the countless doors, she hoped he didn’t expect her to spend the night in the same room as him.
    “Here, you will be safe. Nothing can get in, and I trust you not to be foolish enough to try to get out. I thank you for your information, but you are too precious to be allowed to go free until this is finished. If you try to leave, my gargoyles will stop you. And there is not a single creature here who will save you. Remember, what lurks