Nerissa shrugged. “I spent today setting up a task force. Once we know who the victims are, we can immediately reach out to their families, if any of them have living kin. I also had to hold a press conference about the incident. Sarkness was there. He was walking a thin line, but Camille’s right. He looked about as sorry as somebody who just won the lottery.”
I sat, mute, for a moment. Then—“Do we have a list of known dead yet?”
Nobody bothered to point out to me that all the victims were already dead. Vernacular was tricky when coping with vampire deaths, but right now, the fact was twenty-three lives had been wiped out by hatred.
Nerissa was about to say something when the phone rang. Camille answered.
Chase, she mouthed, and handed the phone to Nerissa, who motioned to Delilah for a notepad and pen. She began taking down what looked like names.
“Roman’s promised a vampire contingent to guard the city, then?” Camille leaned forward, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t bother Nerissa.
“Yeah, I need to go over there after we talk to Trenyth. He’s going to introduce me to the squad before he leaves to meet with Blood Wyne.” I stretched, feeling too bound up.
Delilah cocked her head. “His mother’s getting involved?”
“I think she has to, don’t you? We have to bring the vampires in against Shadow Wing. It’s time we joined together—banded as a unified force. But attacks like this one are going to make things that much more dicey, though.”
In fact, it was likely to make human-vampire relations pretty damned nasty for a while, and I hoped to hell all the work Wade, Roman, and I had done to establish an acceptable truce between the two factions hadn’t just blown out the window along with the first two floors of the DarkTower Gardens. Vamps were testy creatures—I knew that from personal experience. We were easy to ire, and given the fact that we had a rung or two up the ladder on humans meant that some vamps found it more than acceptable to take advantage of humans as juice boxes, rather than as equals.
Nerissa handed the phone back to Camille. “He gave me the names.” She handed the list to me. I scanned over it. I recognized them all, though none of them were close friends. But they had all been members of the Seattle Vampire Nexus, and at least one of them had been in Roman’s employ as a security guard.
“Fucking wingnuts. Can I have a copy of this for Roman? Or is Chase going to e-mail it over to him?”
“I’ll have him e-mail it. Meanwhile, you guys need to call Trenyth.” Nerissa pulled out her phone as we headed to the living room. The parlor was too small for us to all comfortably fit, so Smoky and Shade carried the Whispering Mirror out to the living room and set it up. Camille, Delilah, and I gathered around it, and the others in back of us. Times used to be, when we’d call, there would be a chance of talking to our father. Now that was gone, along with so much else.
Elqaneve was still clearing out the rubble from the disaster Telazhar had sicced on their doorstep. A good share of the Elfin race was dead, but they were doing their best to pick up the pieces and as much as I didn’t like the basic concept, I understood why the government was putting an emphasis on the fertile women to get pregnant and breed. Even if their husbands had died during the war, they were being encouraged to pick a partner—preferably full-Elfin blood—and get knocked up. Meanwhile, Sharah was doing her best to make being half-elf acceptable, especially since she had a daughter with Chase, but the sentiment of the basic populace wasn’t behind her on that. Especially not now.
As we stood there, waiting while Camille activated the mirror, I said, “It still seems so weird to think of Sharah as a queen.”
“That may be, but she’ll be a good one.” Camille glanced over her shoulder. It suddenly hit me—even though I had known it was going to happen, it really hadn’t registered that Camille was slated to ascend to a throne, as well.
“She’s certainly stepped up. She hasn’t seen Astrid since birth. It has to be tearing her up.” Delilah frowned. “I still think the elves were cruel to make her leave her child hours after the birth.”
Of all people to defend the elves’ actions, I didn’t expect it to be Iris, but she cleared her throat.
“They needed their queen. With Asteria dead, if the Elfin race has any hope of survival, they absolutely have to have someone to flock behind, and she must be someone with royal blood. With the other heirs dead in the carnage, Sharah was the next in line. It’s her duty. As grave as the choice was, she made the right one. Chase is raising little Astrid with love and care. Sharah will be there when she can. When you live that close to the throne, you grow up knowing that you might be forced one day to make the choice between duty to throne and duty to family.”
Camille hushed us as the mist in the mirror cleared. Trenyth’s image flickered in. We were ready to rock and roll. “You said we should all be here to hear what you had to say?”
My sister wasn’t wasting any time, I’d say that for her.
Trenyth nodded. “I have been watching your reports come in. Based on Telazhar’s moves, we sent spies into the Sub-Realms. It’s a fool’s mission, but we have some loyal men who can pass—Svartans willing to return and seek out information. I’ll just come flat out with the news. Shadow Wing found a fourth spirit seal. We don’t know how or where, but he found one. He now has four, to our four, and there’s one left on the loose. And worse, rumors have it that he’s setting up his own sinister version of the Keraastar Knights, using demons as the hosts.”
Dead silence, and then we all started talking at once. After a moment, Vanzir let out a loud whistle and we quieted down.
He looked particularly pale. “What do we do?”
“What can we do? If we could find that other seal we could combat this more easily. But Camille, according to the legend, now that you are taking the throne as a Fae Queen, you will be in charge of uniting the Knights and training them. You need to find the last spirit seal and also the Keraastar Diamond and do what you can with what we have.”
She bit her lip. “I’ll do what I can, but we are fighting nonstop over here against Telazhar’s insurgents. Can you find out anything about how he’s managing to find the rogue portals?”
Trenyth had only looked this defeated once before—when Queen Asteria had been killed. He sat back. “Elqaneve . . . we are a makeshift city now, in a land that has been devastated. We can do nothing about him except ferret out what information we can.”
Camille glanced over at Smoky, who nodded. “Smoky and I will be going to the Dragon Reaches tonight. We were going to head there before dawn, but I had to go out to talk to Aeval and Titania. But we will go after we finish talking to you. Trenyth, I’ve decided it’s time to call in my marker. We’re going to ask the dragons to help fight Telazhar. They are bound by a promise to help me when I call, so they will come. When they appear, it’s going to be up to you to let the other lands know not to attack them or impede them. The dragons will be coming to war.”
For a moment I thought Trenyth was about to laugh, but then tears began to trickle down his face. “You may just have saved thousands of lives. Go and the gods speed you. Let me know what happens. And tell Chase the Queen fares well and she misses him and their daughter.” And with that, the screen went black.
For a moment, the room was silent, then Camille pushed back her chair and stood.
“I guess we should get ready to leave.” She turned to the rest of us. “We’ll try to be home by morning. At least the vampires will be out patrolling.” And with that, she kissed Delilah and me and walked over to Smoky. “Let me dress for traveling, first.”
He nodded, silent and brooding. As she headed up the stairs, he turned to us. “My mother and the Wing Liege will honor their promise. Telazhar may be a mighty necromancer, but he will not stand against dragonfire. That I will tell you.”
Delilah glanced at me. “I suppose you better get going
too. The Nexus must be up in arms after today’s attack. I’m going to call an emergency meeting of the Supe Action Council, so I’m manning the phone trees tonight.”
Vanzir, Rozurial, and Trillian headed out to patrol. Shade opted to stay and guard the house until Hanna and Maggie were also downstairs, safely locked away. Nerissa was dead tired. As I kissed her, I hated that she had to head back out again. Pocketing my keys, I could only wonder what hell life would be like in a week . . . two weeks . . . by the end of the year if we made it that far.
* * *
I decided to swing past the DarkTower Gardens on the way. The area had been roped off and a crowd was still milling around. After debating whether to stop, I decided to just get my ass over to the Seattle Vampire Nexus. I stepped on the gas and sped past, gripping the wheel as I struggled to settle my anger.
The Nexus was busy—the moment I walked into the building, I could tell that the explosion had hit home and everybody was up in arms, probably trying to pinpoint exactly who had been destroyed. The receptionist motioned to me.
“Lord Roman’s waiting for you—he asked me to send you right in.”
I nodded, heading toward his office. As I entered the room, he was leaning against his desk, reading through some e-mail on his tablet. He glanced up, his eyes pale as moonlight. I didn’t wait for him to acknowledge me, I just slid in beside him and he wrapped one arm around my waist and gave me a light kiss on the forehead.
“What’s the damage?” There was no use going over what had happened—we both knew the story.
“We’re up to twenty-nine missing and presumed dead. We’re following up on the names now, but I think it safe to say that most of the vamps were in their beds. The entire complex is still off-limits due to the zone still being so hazardous, so we’re setting up emergency sleeping quarters in the basement here for the rest of the residents. I’ve called in extra security for the day from the Supe Militia to guard the Nexus during the light, when we cannot.” Roman seldom raised his voice, but at his most calm, he could be his most deadly. “We will find the culprits and they will be punished . . . our way.”
I nodded. The courts wouldn’t dole out justice on our behalf, and I wasn’t going to argue him on this point, or mention it to anybody else. “Where are my troops for the city?”
“In Training Room Two. But, before you go, a kiss. I’m leaving in an hour or so to visit Mother to discuss the situation—well, your situation, and this situation. I’m not sure what she’ll say, but I’ll bring home the point that Shadow Wing won’t stop at destroying humans, that he’s going after anyone who opposes him.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned up to kiss him. As he set the tablet down and pressed his lips to mine, the weight of the world seemed to settle around our shoulders. But his lips were cool and passionate, pulling me deep into the darkness that surrounded our lives. I let out a soft moan, wanting him—wanting to reaffirm the dark hunger that rose whenever we were together. He shifted slightly, and I could feel his erection pressing hard against my thigh.
“Do we have time?” My voice was barely a whisper, but he nodded.
“We will make the time. In this world, you have to take what you want and fight for what you have. And at times, you grasp hold of the joys when and where you have the chance, because the Hags of Fate like to fuck with us all. They’re all too willing to shovel us up on a sacrificial platter.” He swung me around, grabbing my wrist. We headed out the French doors to the gardens beyond. With a gesture to one of his security officers, he motioned for her to fall back. She gave him a curt nod in return and disappeared into the shadows.
We were in a secluded and gated area, heavily wooded. The moon was up, still round enough to shed silver beams down through the foliage. I pulled away from him and a slow smile filtered across my face. Time to hunt, to play, to tear through the forest and give in to the bloodlust. I tagged him on the arm—“You’re it!” And then I was off.
I scaled the tall fir next to me, swinging from branch to branch with ease, paying no attention to the limbs and needles sweeping across my face. As I reached twenty feet up, I leaped for the next tree. Roman—true to our rules—gave me a sixty-second head start. But then he was on the move, heading up the other trunk. We had developed an odd set of rules for our game of chase, but they worked for us. No shortcuts allowed—at least not for the first few minutes. No turning into bats or anything else. Simply, we took parkour to a level no breather ever could.
I flipped through the air to land on a branch, steadying myself as the soles of my boots found purchase. I was sixty feet up now, still scaling toward the sky as I went. Douglas fir trees—which were actually false hemlocks and not true firs—were common through the Pacific Northwest and easily soared up to several hundred feet.
I scurried up, using the branches as a ladder, until I found one sturdy enough to tightrope out on. The next tree was about fifteen feet over, and I crouched, coiling my muscles to spring. As I went flying through the air, I missed the branch I was aiming for and went freefalling down, but only about ten feet before I caught hold of another. I swung my feet up to catch the limb and within seconds was crouching in the new tree. Roman let out a laugh from a few feet lower down on the tree from which I had just jumped.
“Catch me if you can!” I taunted him, tossing him a kiss.
“Oh, I will catch you, my darkling, and the things I will do to you . . .” His voice was growly and made me shiver from head to toe.
I turned back toward the tree trunk and began climbing again. Sixty feet. Seventy. Eighty . . . at ninety I managed another leap into the next fir over. Up at this height, the trees swayed heavily in the wind and even though I had long ago stopped breathing, the power of the gusts filled me with energy, recharging me with their sweeping force that went galloping past.
Sneaking around to the other side of the trunk, I began to look for a hiding place. There, another thirty feet up, a thick pair of branches offered a comfortable place to sit. I quietly skittered up to them and crouched in my hidey-hole, waiting.
A moment passed, and another. I felt the tree shudder and knew that Roman had landed in it. Now to see if he would go on to the next or figure out that I had stayed in this one. I kept perfectly silent, holding on to the trunk as I waited. The moon was riding the sky, and I gazed up at her beauty. Camille and Delilah were both bound to her in a way I would never understand, but the moonlight was my sun, and the night was my life. Suddenly exhilarated, I stood and edged out on the branch, spreading my arms wide to greet the sky. I was a daughter of the night, a creature of the darkness, and my inner predator rose with joyful glee as I let out a long shriek.
Roman paused, and then I heard the branches rustle as he scaled the tree. As he came to where I was standing, a feral smile replaced the silent smirk and he let out a low laugh.
“My beautiful consort—you revel under the moon?”
“I revel in my nature tonight.” And then, as he moved toward me, I stripped off my shirt and let it fall over the side. “Fuck me. Tear into me. I need to play.”
That was all it took. One moment he was Blood Wyne’s son, the next he was my wild, primal mate, grabbing my wrist. He glanced around. “We will play hard, but not here. There are too many broken branches that could inadvertently stake us.” And with that, he wrapped his arm around my waist and leaped over the side. We sped toward the ground, but Roman was an ancient vampire, quite capable of flight—and of controlling his descents. At the last moment, he pulled out of freefall and we landed, laughing, on the soil beneath the tree.
He pushed me down on a bed of moss. The ground was prickly but nothing sharp threatened my back, and so I leaned back and let him strip my jeans off me. I was going commando, so no underwear or bra hindered the moment. The next moment he was naked, standing above me as his body shone with an inner luminosity, gleaming beneath the moonlight.
Roman
moved in, his eyes glittering in the night. “Kneel before me, sireling.”
A shudder raced through me. My gaze fastened to his, I slowly brought myself to my knees. He knew how much I both hated and craved this, and he was playing the glamour for all it was worth. I sat back on my knees in front of him.
“My Liege, what is your will?” My voice was steady, firm as the ground beneath our feet.
“Suck me. Taste me.” He made no move to force my head; he did not even touch me. But his words were the only impetus I needed—I could no more ignore them than I could the imperative from the sunrise to sleep.
I leaned forward, my mouth seeking his erection, the icy smoothness of his cock sliding deep into my mouth as I began to work my tongue around him, tickling the tip, stroking the vein below it that pulsed slowly, faintly, mirroring no heartbeat. I sucked, hard, sliding along his length to draw him into my throat, and then pulling back only to drive forward again, my lips creating a tight suction that held him fiercely and wantonly.
Roman shuddered. After a moment he let out a long groan and leaned down to suddenly catch me by my arms as he lifted me to face him. “Feed from me. Feed deep and drink your fill.”
As he exposed his throat, I leaned back and, fangs fully descended, plunged them into his glorious flesh, piercing deep into the jugular. Vampires had blood, but it flowed ever so slowly and without the need for our hearts to pump it. The viscous liquid began to stream into my mouth and I shivered at the taste. Roman was ancient—and the older the vampire, the more intoxicating the taste. It was sweeter than wine, sweeter than honey, sweeter than the most magical nectar in the world. As the crimson drops trickled across my tongue and down my throat, a ripple of power began to race through me. Roman was strong, and his blood took on a power and life of its own. The energy began to trace its way through my body and I coaxed the blood faster, my lips fastened against his neck as the coppery liquid bubbled up to the surface. I made it hurt, I made it delicious, I drove pain and pleasure with my bite until the force rippled through his body.