Nerissa let out a long breath and leaned against a wall. Even though she had the courtesy not to say it, I could hear the Thank gods that’s over that I knew she was thinking.
Roman turned to us. “I would love to take you and your family out for a magnificent dinner, if you would allow me. Just because you and I cannot eat, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t.” He smiled so charmingly that once again, I felt a little like a fraud.
But as if he sensed what I was thinking, he took me aside. “Menolly, I want you to know that I am content. Marriage was not always struck as a love match. All through history, it has been an institution of politics and convenience. I grew up in a time when marriage was a way of cementing allies. And that is precisely what we have done here. We have struck a match that will ensure the strength of the Vampire Nation. And that is what matters to me.”
I gazed into his eyes. I knew he had fallen for me, even though I had warned him many times to guard his heart. But his intentions were clear. He meant every word he said. And that was when I realized that Roman was as much a creature of duty as my sisters and I were. He was playing his part, like Sharah was hers, like Camille would when she took the throne of Dusk and Twilight. He wasn’t mewling like a heartsick lover over the fact that I wasn’t his true match. Roman was taking it in stride and doing what his position called him to do.
That wiped away my worry. He had given his oath not to interfere with Nerissa and me and—for perhaps the first time since we had met—I truly believed he understood and accepted where we all stood.
“Thank you,” though, was all I said.
He inclined his head softly. “We all have our parts to play, and I have been around far too long to let such a thing as love sway me away from my duties. Now, please, allow me to be a gracious husband and take my new family out for a grand dinner. Mother, of course, will not be joining us. She will be at the cotillion but we are not expected to make an appearance.”
Curiosity won over. “Why not? We are the bride and groom . . . brides . . .”
“Because just like the honeymoon, they expect we’ll be at our stable, feeding madly because of the passion and buildup of the moment.”
My stomach lurched at the thought. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy a good drink, but the thought of wading into a room full of willing bloodwhores and letting loose on them spoiled my appetite. “I think dinner’s a much better option.”
And so we went out, and Roman and I drank a goblet of blood while the others plundered the menu at a local seafood house. I grinned, because before long Roman was joking with the men as if he were one of them, and I began to see a side of him he rarely showed—the side that needed and longed for friends. For buddies. He couldn’t have them with his subjects, and I doubted he trusted anyone in the Court well enough to fraternize like this. But he was spot-on having fun, from what I could tell, with Smoky and the others.
By the time we finished and left the restaurant, it was closing time—midnight—and we were all much more relaxed.
Nerissa yawned. “I need to sleep. I have my workout with Jason tomorrow and since it’s a weekend, he’s training me twice as hard.”
Roman insisted on escorting us to our cars and asking her about what she was learning. He slipped into the backseat of my Mustang, saying he’d just fly home from our land. Nerissa repressed a laugh, though I caught a faint snicker, and proceeded to tell him all about her martial arts training.
“I could hire you the finest trainers, dear wife.”
The minute it came out of his lips all three of us suddenly fell silent, and then first Nerissa cracked up, and then Roman and I joined her.
“That sounds so freaking weird. I can’t believe I’m married to a vampire. And a prince at that. This is just the final straw. After word gets out, I’ll never be able to go back to the Puma Pride. Do you realize what they’re going to say about me? I’ll be officially excommunicated. Pariah.” She was laughing, but I could hear the hurt beneath the surface.
Apparently, Roman could, too. He gently placed his hand on her shoulder. “I am truly sorry that your love for Menolly—and now this—has put you in such a position. And I’m sorry that your Pride mates can’t see beyond the surface to honor the love you hold in your heart. You will always be part of Menolly’s family and—now—mine.”
Nerissa glanced into the backseat at him. She placed her hand on his. “Thank you, Roman. Thank you for understanding.”
“You’re my second wife, and my first wife’s true love. What kind of monster would I be if I didn’t acknowledge your pain and the hurt it causes you in your heart?”
And then we went back to discussing her training, but the shift in mood had firmly set in. Not the awkward oddness of the situation, but the feeling that we were now truly bound together by something greater than words.
As we pulled into the yard, Roman leaned over the backseat and planted a kiss on both our cheeks. “You have a good evening, and start looking at what kind of suite you want. I think . . . we have five rooms, along with a bath, that are not being used on one of the upper floors. The windows for your bedroom can be removed, so the sunlight will never reach you. So, five rooms—a bedroom, dressing room, sitting room, workout room, office, and bath.”
And with that, he slipped out of the car. Leaning back in through the passenger window, he added, “The rooms are quite large. I’ll have someone measure them and send the information over tomorrow. Start planning now so I can hire decorators.” And then, with that, he was off in a blur and vanished into the sky, in bat form.
Nerissa stared after him. “I’m guessing this isn’t going to be a DIY project with visits to Home Depot, is it?”
I snorted. “With Roman involved? Not likely. I doubt we’ll be donning painter’s pants and climbing stepladders. He means it, by the way, about the planning. So I guess we’d better spend a few evenings going over designs. I’m not picky, though I do like green.” In fact, I loved green. Nerissa loved pink. I had the feeling we were going to end up in Christmas Town by the time we were done—either that or a dated Laura Ashley ad for cabbage rose print dresses from the shabby chic era. But as long as we were together, it didn’t matter.
Inside, we found the others giving Vanzir, Roz, Iris, and everybody else a rundown of the wedding. When they invited us to join in, I shook my head.
“No, I think I’m about weddinged out. What about you, Nerissa?”
She snorted. “No, just no. As much as I love this dress, I want to get out of it, wash the blood off my arm, and then take a long, hot bubble bath.”
We left the others to tell them about the night and headed downstairs. When we were in our cozy nest, Nerissa and I helped each other out of our clothes. We were both too unsettled and tired for sex, so she filled the tub with Warm Vanilla Sugar, her favorite fragrance, and climbed in, easing back to rest her head on a bath pillow.
I wrapped myself in a long T-shirt that I slept in sometimes and then pulled a satin robe around me. I wasn’t cold, but the feel of the material was comforting. Before long, Camille and Delilah had joined me. Nerissa was still in the tub.
“Will you braid my hair up again? It’s pretty like this, but I’m . . . it’s not me.” I seldom took it down from the long cornrows, and by now they had become as much a part of me as my scars were, as being a vampire was.
Camille took one side, Delilah the other, and as they braided away, interspersing the colorful beads Nerissa had bought me for a present some time back, I flipped on the television. We got surprisingly good reception down here, thanks to cable, and I found an episode of Jerry Springer, delighting Kitten. She had the weirdest crush on the talk-show host, and how she could sit through hours of the drivel escaped me, but it made her happy and so we watched with her, not talking, but just enjoying being together.
When Nerissa padded in, wearing her pink camisole and boy shorts, they automatically made ro
om on the bed for her. Camille left Delilah to finish my braids, and she took the brush and began to glide it through Nerissa’s hair. Nerissa closed her eyes, almost purring.
After a while, during a commercial, Camille finally spoke. “This is the weirdest wedding night ever.” She sounded a little worried, as if she were afraid of offending us, but I let out a bark of laughter, as did Nerissa. Delilah joined in.
“I dunno about this. Politics suck, but you know, this could be the saving grace that binds the regular Supe Community together with the Vampire Nation. Think if we were united, how much more clout we’d have.” I shook my head, happy to have my braids back. “Think . . . about what we might be able to accomplish.”
“I’d rather think about that than the Degath Squad.” Delilah rummaged through her pockets until she found the candy bar she was looking for. “I dread going out for them, but I guess tomorrow we’d better start making inquiries. We have to find them before they find us.”
“What I’d like to know is what exactly Shadow Wing means to accomplish by creating the faux Keraastar Knights. I need to know more about their history, and the only one who knew much about it was Queen Asteria. And she’s dead and all their written history pretty much bit the dust.” Camille frowned. “I guess I’ll ask Aeval. She might know, but this has to do directly with the spirit seals and since she was on the opposing force in that battle . . .”
Delilah suddenly straightened up and, mouth full of candy, asked, “What about Pentangle?”
Camille tilted her head to one side, considering. “She would know—she would have to know. And it’s not like I’ve never met her. She came to me when I was trapped in Gulakah’s mind. I wonder how I can get in touch with her.”
Summoning an Elemental Lord or Lady seemed incredibly risky, but for something of this nature, Camille was right. She should go directly to the source who could tell her details she might otherwise never find. The Keraastar Knights were bound to the spirit seals that we found, and when enough of them gathered, they would be instrumental in repelling Demonkin and holding the realms apart. The Maharata-Verdi, an ancient scroll that was created when the spirit seal was first broken into nine pieces and scattered, predicted the force of nine knights rising. Each would be a magical warrior to fight against the demon hordes. A Fae Queen would ride at their helm, bringing them together. That Fae Queen, we now knew, would be Camille. But we needed as many of the spirit seals as we could find, preferably all nine of them, and we also needed to find the Keraastar Diamond, a gem that the Fae Queen needed to wear to bind the knights and unite their power.
If the demons did break through into this realm, if they were able to reunite the worlds, as Shadow Wing was attempting, there was a good chance that everything would go boom. Not as in nuclear explosion boom, but the magical chaos unleashed would change the face of the planet and all civilizations living in all three of the realms—Otherworld, Earthside, and the Sub-Realms.
Sobering, I turned off the TV. “I guess you guys should get to bed. I’ll spend what time I have left before sunrise seeing if I can find out anything on the Degath Squad. I’ve got several vamps I can e-mail to ask if they know about anything. And I think I’ll e-mail Neely from the United Worlds Church and start moving ahead on forging a relationship between them and the Vampire Nation.”
And with that, Nerissa crawled into bed as I went into the sitting room and fired up her laptop. Camille and Delilah kissed me good night and headed upstairs to their loves.
The wedding had been an odd diversion, but now our minds were back on the demons. Because while we had taken out Telazhar, there was a Demon Lord on the horizon, waiting to meet us in battle. And he wouldn’t wait forever.
Chapter 14
As the light of the room startled me, I rose from my sleep to see Camille sitting on the opposite side of the room, waiting for me to wake up. I was on the edge of the bed, about to lurch across the room when the reality of where and who I was once again crashed down on me. As I shook the cobwebs from my head, it suddenly dawned on me that her face was wet, her eyes luminous with tears, and she looked like she wanted to be anywhere but sitting there.
“What’s going on?” I looked around for my clothes. But something made me hesitate.
Tears streamed down Camille’s face and she didn’t answer.
My stomach lurched as I realized that something had gone horribly, drastically awry. Then—oh shit, the demons! It had to be the demons.
“Did the Degath Squad put in an appearance?”
She slowly stood. “Menolly, I have to tell you something. I asked the others to let me be the one to do it. They’re ready to go out hunting. You need to get dressed so you can come with us. But first we have to stop by the FH-CSI. We need to go to the hospital.”
Hospital? Hunting? The butterflies churning in my stomach turned into metal-jawed leeches. I eased myself down on the vanity bench. “What happened, Camille? Did something happen to Nerissa?”
She handed me a pair of jeans and a sweater that was hanging over my clothes tree at the end of the bed. “Get dressed.”
I grabbed them out of her hands and yanked off my sleep shirt, hustling the jeans up over my hips. “Please, just tell me. How bad is she hurt?”
“There’s no good way to say this.” Camille shook her head. “Menolly, Nerissa isn’t the one in the hospital. It’s Chase. He was trying to protect her. The Degath Squad kidnapped her, and he tried to fight them off. We don’t know where they took her. Chase is in serious condition. He’ll live, but he got hit by a nasty dose of the Shelakig’s poison. Without the Nectar of Life in his veins, he would have died.”
As the impact of her words hit me, a creeping panic began to rise. Nerissa had been kidnapped. My wife had been abducted.
I yanked on my boots, my hands shaking so badly that I couldn’t zip them. Camille knelt by my side, brushing my hand away.
“You can’t panic, Menolly. You can’t let your fear take over. You know that’s only going to complicate matters. You have to stick with me, hon. You have to get a grip. We’ll find her and we’ll save her, but we need you in control of yourself.”
“What if we don’t find her, though? What if they kill her first?” Every instinct in my body urged me to let out my predator, to run wild until I found them, but Camille was right. I had to get a grip on myself. I counted to ten, then counted again, slowly, whispering each number until I managed to bring myself back from the edge.
She zipped up my boots, then stood and brushed my braids back from my face. “First off, we’ve dealt with this before. Remember Karvanak and Chase? We have something they want, and we know what it is. They want the spirit seals. They won’t kill her—they’ll keep her alive. She’s their hostage, their ticket to power and they know if they hurt her, we’ll do everything in the world we can to destroy them. They realize that if they harm her, they’ll never see the spirit seals.” Pressing her lips to my forehead, she whispered, “I promise you, we will find her.”
“Can you do a Locate spell?” I was grasping at straws. Sometimes her Moon magic worked, sometimes it didn’t, but I was willing to chance any possible backlash.
She took my hand. “Already on it. Come upstairs with me. We’ve been working on this since we found out what happened. Delilah’s over at the hospital. She called about ten minutes ago to say Chase was coming around. He might be able to tell us something. Meanwhile, I’ve been doing my best to locate her via a spell, but I can’t get a read on her. Not her, and most importantly, not her body. With Morio’s help, I should be able to tell if she’s dead, but nothing’s showing up, so the good news is she’s most likely alive. Vanzir took off to the Demon Underground, and he phoned a few minutes ago that he’s on his way home. Roz is over at Carter’s. We’re doing everything we can think of.”
Her words hit like tiny little sledgehammers, pounding into me one after another.
I
stood, motioning to the stairs. “I think I’m ready. When did this happen?”
“Around two thirty, Chase called Nerissa. He said there was some sort of altercation and he needed her for victim support. He dropped by to pick her up—he was already on the way—and they headed off together. The next thing we know, forty-five minutes later, Yugi called us to say that Chase was in the hospital, violently ill.”
“Where were they going?” My rage-meter was simmering on high to explosive, but I finally managed to scale back the threat of detonation. Camille was right. I needed to be in control and focused if I was to help rather than hinder.
“We aren’t sure. Delilah will have more info when we get to the hospital. I’ve set the home phone to be forwarded to my cell in case the . . . the demons call about her.”
Damn it. If I weren’t a vampire, I could wake up at any time, just like normal people. Once again, for the first time in a while, I cursed my nature. “I can’t stand this, Camille. I’m going to panic and if I panic, I’ll lose it.”
We entered the kitchen. Smoky was there, and Morio and Shade, and they turned to me, their faces a show of sadness and support. Trillian came in from the back porch, shaking his head.
“Nothing on the property. I looked everywhere, just in case.” He stopped when he saw me and automatically opened his arms. The gesture hit me, and I started to cry. I leaned into his hug, and he patted my back.
“Come on, girl, we need you strong. Cry later. Revenge and rescue, now,” he whispered in my ear, and slapped me on the back.
I sniffled, and he handed me a tissue. As I wiped away the blood streaming from my eyes and blew my nose, I forced the panic and guilt to subside.
“There now,” Smoky said. “Let’s get going. Hanna, you take Maggie and stay down in Menolly’s lair. I don’t want either of you in danger. Iris and Bruce will be up here with the babies in a few minutes and they will join you. Vanzir and Rozurial will meet us at the hospital.”