Crown of Blood

  She smiles broadly, nodding.

  All of Alivia’s house members watch us, studying me. I offer them a little awkward smile, wondering what they’re thinking.

  But not really caring.

  “Can we hope that with you back, that husband of yours will be content to stay in Roter Himmel for a while?” Christian asks. And there, I see the darkness in his eyes, the darkness put there when Cyrus somehow killed, or was the cause of his father’s death.

  “Don’t give us a reason to come back for a good long while, ‘k?” I say with a wink.

  He winks back.

  “Are you sure you’re alright?” Alivia fusses, speaking to Nial Jarvis. “This is so sudden. I feel like I’m just dumping everything on you and running.”

  “Things will be fine, Alivia,” he reassures her. “It isn’t as if we haven’t dealt with the unexpected before.”

  She smiles, but it’s forced.

  In her eyes I can see the terror.

  I wonder again: what did Cyrus really do to her?

  But I have to force that thought down. The past is in the past and we can only learn and grow from it.

  I turn to Rath. “And what about you?” I ask. “Where do you go from here?”

  He steps forward, placing his hands on my shoulders.

  “I’ve spent the last sixteen years watching over you, Logan,” he says. “You’ve given me purpose, something to focus on. But this is your time,” he says, his eyes gathering weight. “You have others around you. You have those in your service. But what I know is this: that you don’t need anyone but you, my Queen.”

  He takes half a step back, and dips into a deep bow. And when he rises, there’s determination. “It is time I return to my own home. It is time that I returned to the House of Conrath, where I belong.”

  I look over to Alivia. Her eyes are filled with tears and her lower lip trembles. Without a word, she crosses the space and wraps her arms around Rath. Neither says a word, but I feel it, the unspoken forgiveness that flows between the two of them.

  “Thank you,” I say, offering Rath a little smile as he looks over Alivia’s shoulder at me. I turn my gaze to the rest of the House. “Thank you all for your hospitality. It was nice to meet you. Until we meet again, I suppose.”

  Looking over at Eshan who waits beside me, I turn, and we walk down the big, wide steps down to the cars that wait for us just outside the doors.

  “You even talk different now,” Eshan says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask him, my brows furrowed.

  He pins me with a look. “You talk all formal now. Older words. And you swear a lot less.”

  Holy shit, he’s right…

  I laugh, shaking my head and ruffle his hair.

  Smith steps out of the house, immediately slipping into the driver’s seat. He’ll be bringing Cyrus’ car back to this house once we all get on the plane.

  The four of us load our bags into the trunk, and squishing in tight, we climb in.

  The weight of what is coming distracts everyone into silence as we navigate to the nearest airport. It’s a private field, one that accommodates the private jet Alivia arranged to take us back to Greendale and then across the globe to Austria.

  We pull onto the tarmac, easily finding our waiting jet. Smith parks beside it and we all pile out, gathering our bags, which an attendant loads into the plane. With a quick goodbye to Alivia and Ian, Smith climbs back in the car, and takes it back to the House of Conrath.

  “How am I just supposed to go back to normal tomorrow?” Eshan says as our bags are loaded. “Never mind how pissed mom and dad are going to be. I just spent four days as a vampire, learned my sister is a couple-thousand-year-old Queen, and that a seriously badass King is my brother-in-law. How the hell am I supposed to just go back to a normal life?”

  Ian clamps a hand down on his shoulder. “You count yourself as damn lucky. You enjoy a drama-free life.”

  Alivia huffs a laugh, takes her husband’s hand, and leads him into the belly of the plane.

  “You’ll be fine,” I say, offering Eshan a reassuring smile. “And for what it’s worth, I somehow doubt you’re just done with all this craziness.”

  He smiles excitedly, and I wonder how much of this reality ever hit him. If he remembers that he killed someone. If he remembers what it felt like to drink a human’s blood.

  I hope he doesn’t.

  He scrambles into the jet, going off about how cool it is that Alivia has a private jet at her beckoned call.

  I’m about to head in when my cell phone rings.

  I pull it out to see Larkin’s name.

  “Any updates?” I ask without a greeting.

  He lets out a breath. That slight moment of hesitation sets my blood cold. “I’ve caught the perpetrators,” he says, his voice grim. “They’re in custody.”

  “That’s great,” I say with relief. “I’m actually on my way back right now.”

  “There’s something more, my Queen,” he says solemnly. “I caught them leaving your parents’ home.”

  And now all the blood has disappeared from my veins. My internal organs have turned to ash.

  “There was a reason the attack on Cyrus was feeble,” Larkin says. “I do not think it was him they were truly after.” There’s a long pause. And I feel the air grow heavier. “I think they were actually looking for you, Sevan. And now they’re trying to draw you back.”

  “What do you mean?” I breathe.

  One more pause, and I can’t breathe anymore.

  “They killed your parents.”

  And the world goes silent as a high-pitched ringing sets off in my ears.

  Chapter 34

  I think I blacked out mentally.

  One moment I was talking to Larkin on the phone.

  The next a car was picking us up from the jet and the humidity was gone and the landscape was familiar. Security from the House of Valdez was swarming.

  I blinked, looking around.

  All the faces were solemn. Alivia. Ian. Eshan was totally stark white.

  Did I tell them all? Did we talk about it? Do they know?

  I snap into myself as we turn down our street. Everything comes crashing in as my childhood home comes into view. The red brick. The driveway where I used to draw pictures with chalk. The grass I started mowing when I was twelve.

  I think they were actually looking for you, Sevan. And now they’re trying to draw you back.

  Darkness gathers in my chest as we park at the curb. Black ink spreads through my veins. A thunderstorm rolls in through my brain.

  I open the door and stalk across the grass. I shove the door open with enough force to crack the doorframe.

  But my determination depletes as I see the blood.

  A smear of it goes from the front door, through the living room, around the corner. Just past the corner, I see my father’s wheelchair turned over.

  “No,” I breathe in horror.

  I slowly step forward. Through the living room. I turn that corner.

  So much blood.

  It’s smeared all over the kitchen. A bloody handprint is on the pantry door. Track marks from the wheelchair cut through streaks of red.

  This was an animal.

  They played with my parents.

  They toyed with them like mice.

  I turn when I hear sound.

  “Eshan, no!” I yell, holding a hand out to stop him from seeing it all.

  But his eyes are wide, looking around in horror.

  “No, no,” he says, his lips quivering. “Where are they? Where’s mom and dad?”

  I pull him into my chest, which is difficult considering he’s inches taller than I am. “I will deal with this,” I promise him. “I will make them pay.”

  From the basement, I hear Larkin call my name.

  My eyes ignite and I feel my fangs lengthen. Ian and Alivia hesitantly step inside, taking in the carnage. “Stay with them,” I tell Eshan, pushing him toward Alivia.

/>   I can feel the power ripple through me. The strength of the rhino. The speed of the cheetah, the stalking abilities of the jaguar. It flows through me, created by Cyrus so, so long ago.

  I open the door leading down, and step onto that first stair.

  I smell it.

  Their fear.

  It’s intoxicating. My blood sings for theirs, to spill every drop of it, to see it wasted into the dirt.

  I step off the stairs and turn into the dim light of the unfinished basement.

  Larkin did me proud.

  He holds them captive.

  A huge stake is driven through each of their wrists, through their ankles, and one through their stomachs, nailing them to the wooden studs behind them. Blood is pooled on the ground beneath them, some dark and congealed, some fresh and wet.

  But the moment I see their faces, I feel the fear and the past slammes into me with the force of an avalanche.

  * * *

  Waking in the absolute dark with nearly no air was terrifying.

  Using the strength I didn’t know why I had, to fight my way through the wooden box was terrifying.

  Having a crushing force of dirt collapse in on my face was terrifying.

  Digging my way through that dirt was terrifying.

  Climbing out of the ground and finding myself in the outcasts graveyard was bone chilling.

  But the burn in my throat, the way my nostrils flared, smelling the air: that was instinct.

  I knew where I was going. I knew the way back to the village and where everyone slept. But they didn’t have names. They were only bodies with the solution to my burning.

  I took one and I drank and I drank until the burning was only an ache in my throat.

  But in horror, I understood.

  I could never show my face again.

  I had been dead, and now I wasn’t. And now I had killed someone I had known my whole life.

  My life as Itsuko was over.

  For weeks I hid, keeping to the forest, trying to force myself to drink the blood of the animals I found, but it was never right. I found myself vomiting it back up, and always, I went back to the village at night, and killing someone I did not want to kill.

  One night I had a dream. Of a man. A man with captivating eyes. A man with beautiful lips. A man with power in his hands and heart.

  “Cyrus,” I whispered as I woke up.

  The next night, I went down to the docks and spoke to a captain, asking how I could get from this corner of the world to the land far away known as Austria.

  He told me how much money he needed to take me to the closest point he could.

  I was to return in two nights.

  It wasn’t hard. I was silent and quick and no one even saw me. I snuck into homes and I stole what I needed.

  And I wondered how I got here.

  I was in the territory of the House of Himura. Considering I now remembered my life as Sevan, I knew I had to be a daughter of a Royal. As Itsuko, my mother did not know the name of my father, only that he was a wealthy man who had passed through our village and took her to bed.

  And here I was.

  My mother had no idea what my father was. Or what I would become one day.

  And here I was, an unknown Royal. Here I was, Sevan and Itsuko.

  I returned to the dock after two nights with the money. I boarded the ship. And we set sail for a long journey.

  But when I woke after sleeping the second night, two men stood above me, wearing wicked smiles.

  A man with a scar down the left side of his face, barely missing his eye. And a man missing one of his front teeth.

  “Welcome back, Queen Sevan,” one of them said with glee in his eyes.

  The other grabbed me by the throat, picking me up and lifting me off of my feet. I kicked, tried to scream, but his Born strength held me immobile.

  “We knew we would eventually find you, and finally we found you first,” one said.

  “What do you want?” I choked.

  He pinned me against the wall, his hand closing tight.

  “You are the key,” he said, bringing his face close to mine. “The key to ending this whole monarchy. The key to ending the banishment.”

  My eyes widened.

  There were thousands of Born in the world, those descended from the five exiled grandsons. The ones who had been banished from our lives.

  “For all these years we have tried to take out Cyrus and his blood descendants at Court,” the other hissed. “But never to any avail. They are too loyal. Too comfortable. Cyrus is too well guarded.”

  The man holding me grinned, leaning in a little closer.

  “But the King has one weakness,” he said softly. “One thing he will do anything for, give up any throne for.”

  My eyes widened and my heart stopped beating.

  Me.

  They were going to use me as the bargaining chip to tear down everything we had built. And I knew he would do it. To get me back, Cyrus would turn it all over. He would walk away from every bit of the system.

  Tears pricked into my eyes. A sob tried to push its way over my lips, but the air couldn’t move with his hand around my throat.

  They both grinned wickedly.

  “It has been building for centuries, lovely,” he said. “And now, after all this time, we will finally make it happen. We will finally end the monarchy. And we will end Cyrus.”

  Tears slipped down my face, but steel framed its way around my heart.

  I knew what that meant.

  They would get Cyrus to give up the throne.

  But then they would kill him.

  They’d kill me.

  They’d kill everyone at Court. And those who allied themselves with my son, those who wanted to take over the world, they would be in control.

  So I waited.

  I knew what I had to do.

  It took so long until I had my opportunity. They kept me locked in a cell with nothing within reach. For days, probably weeks, we sailed toward Austria and the closest port.

  But finally, I heard noise. I could smell something other than sea.

  I climbed to my feet and waited for them to come retrieve me.

  Roughly, they dragged me out of the cell and we went above deck. The moon shone brightly, illuminating the quiet but still-occupied port.

  I walked down the plank, onto the dock. My eyes wildly searched, looking.

  And there, just within my reach, I spotted a harpoon.

  I moved faster than I’d ever moved.

  I grabbed it.

  And I buried it deep in my chest.

  Pain seared through me, and then it pierced my heart.

  I was dead. I would never make it back to Cyrus.

  But without me, these men had nothing.

  With me dead, he, and everyone at Court would remain safe.

  And I knew, someday, I would be born again.

  * * *

  “We meet again, Queen Sevan,” the man with the scar says with a smug smile.

  My movements invisible, I was so fast, I rush forward, wrapping my hand around his throat. His head cracks back against the wood studs.

  “How many of you are there?” I hiss in his face. “Who else is here in Greendale?”

  He just smiles, baring yellowed fangs. “This goes beyond the Born now,” he says. “Others have not been happy with the reigning King, one who has had too much power for too long.”

  “Are you saying that some of the Royals are turning on Cyrus?” I demand, my grip on him tightening.

  He just smiles and laughs.

  I yank.

  I rip his head clean from his shoulders and let it fall to the floor with a crack against the concrete.

  My eyes dark and narrowed, I move over to the man who has gotten his front tooth replaced since the last time I saw him.

  “Tell me everything you know,” I growl.

  His eyes narrow. “No.”

  My hand darts out and I grab one of his fingers, snappin
g it off.

  The man screams out in pain.

  “There are two factions trying to get Cyrus off the throne,” I demand. “True or false?”

  “There have always been those of us trying to get Cyrus off the throne,” the man growls through his pain. “Ever since he suppressed us. The time of humans must come to an end.”

  I snap another of his fingers off. “That is beside the point,” I snarl. “The Born are trying to get to Cyrus through me. These Royals. Are they a real threat?”

  The man smiles through his pain. It grows slowly.

  “Oh how blind Cyrus has been to what has been going on within his own Court for so long. Cyrus cares about so little anymore. His focus has been on finding you, his long lost wife, for all these years. He didn’t care to take note of the whisperings in his own land.”

  My blood rushes hot. But now fear races through my veins.

  “Are the two groups working together?” I ask one more time.

  The man laughs. “If we are, if we are not, either way, the King will fall now that you have returned.”

  My hand darts out and my fingers burrow into his chest as he lets out a choked off cry. Warm and wet, they know exactly where to search. The muscle and incredibly soft tissues pulse as my fingers wrap around it.

  And I rip his heart out.

  I stare at it, anger raging through me. Terror slips through my veins like a snake.

  We’ve dealt with insurrection before. With assassination attempts.

  But this one feels different. If what he said is true, if Royals are turning against us, the game will change.

  “There are no others here, my Queen,” Larkin speaks from the shadows. “I’m sure of it this time.”

  I nod, still staring at the man’s heart.

  “We are returning to Roter Himmel,” I say as I squeeze the heart just a little tighter. “I’m taking my parents with me. I will bury them there. We can’t leave any evidence here.” My eyes flick up to Larkin’s face. “Do you understand?”

  “I do, my Queen,” he says with a deep bow.

  I turn, finding Ian standing there. Softly, I hear Alivia comforting Eshan upstairs.