by Anne Malcom
If I wasn’t mistaken, I might’ve seen a little twitch at the corner of Rick’s mouth, even though he sipped from his glass to hide it.
The king, amused? Well this was turning into a fun night.
I really hoped I got to kill SS at the end of it, but I didn’t think that particular wish would be granted, unfortunately.
Her mousy male vampire companion fumbled with an iPad—interesting to see the Sector had gone paperless—and pressed some buttons with a pudgy hand. “You were denounced by your own Vein Line,” he began.
I crossed my arms. “Yeah, my family’s sweet like that. Plus they didn’t get me a birthday present this year. Almost five hundred. A big one.”
He glanced up at me, then back down to the screen, obviously deciding to act like I hadn’t spoken.
I was going to have to start killing more people to show I was serious about getting the attention I deserved.
I’d start with SS.
“You have been accused of treason in the highest degree, the betrayal of the crown, monarchy and Ambrogio himself for taking up with one who is fated to destroy us all.”
I grinned at Thorne. “Did you hear that, honey? My mom knows we’re together and is happy enough to tell the entire vampire society.”
Thorne grunted out a harsh chuckle. “I’m sure she’s browsing for wedding china as we speak,” he muttered.
I grinned even wider at his ill-timed joke.
Ill-timed jokes were the best kind, and the most hilarious.
“I’ll register us at Slayers r Us,” I continued.
The disproval in the room was heavy enough to bottle and sell as perfume to humans.
SS chose that time to speak once more, her pinched face darting between me and Thorne. “You’re not going to renounce your crimes to the Sector?”
I rolled my eyes. “Love is not a crime. Have you even listened to Bob Dylan or John Lennon?” I asked defensively. “Also, I don’t deny anything. Because mostly I’ve done all the outrageous and depraved things people accuse me of. And the things I haven’t done give me inspiration for future acts, so it means even if I haven’t done it, I probably will do it at some point in the future.”
“You refuse to take anything concerning our race seriously, but your blatant disregard for rules that have been in place for centuries is less than pleasing. In fact, it’s reason for immediate imprisonment,” she said.
The moment the words left her mouth, Thorne lurched forward, his fury blanketing me. “You try to imprison her. See what the fuck happens,” he dared her.
I patted his hand and grinned at the way she blanched with his motion. “Now, now, honey, SS isn’t going to lock me up, just like I’m not going to put her in fashion jail for her horrific choices, no matter how much I want to. There’s just no simplicity in this life or even in death. It’s this pesky war. They need us,” I observed.
The ensuing silence made me smile wider at the fact that I was so very right. Of course I was.
Rick cleared his throat and leaned forward slightly. “The Sector recognizes the sacrifices and valiancy in battle you’ve offered to the crown in the face of this rebellion, as well as the need for an alliance to fight it since our enemies are doing the same with creatures throughout the community. In times of war is when rules held for centuries are broken and reevaluated for the sake of survival. We need to be able to adapt in order to keep ourselves separate from animals. And humans.”
The way his cold voice spoke the words told me—and, more importantly, Thorne—exactly what he thought of humans and the fact that they were classed lower than animals.
He let that sink in while keeping my eyes. “Both the Sector and the crown are offering you a full pardon for your crimes.”
I smiled at him, clapping my hands. “A full pardon! That’s even better than that pony I was wishing for. Now I can sleep at night without fearing the monsters in the night will come and snatch me away from the warm body I’m lying next to.” I paused. “Oh no, wait. I didn’t want a pardon. In fact, I’ll sleep even less with that little thing. It means I’ve done nothing wrong, or at the very least, something right, and that’s so not acceptable. What will that do to my carefully frowned-on reputation?”
Something in Rick’s eyes moved with rage while the corner of Thorne’s mouth tipped up. That was becoming the thing with these two, moving around each other like a seesaw. One was enraged and the other was ecstatic, either because of the other’s rage or with whatever lay between them, dictating it.
And I wasn’t dense enough not to know that one of the things laying between them was a red-haired and magnificent vampire who the king didn’t have rightly platonic feelings for.
But even I wasn’t self-centered enough to think that I caused this much animosity between them. It stank of something aged, hatred fermented through the years, through history that was much more than just nature dictating them as enemies.
“Take the pardon, Isla,” Rick said smoothly, standing. The puppets from the sector followed suit.
“No,” I pouted.
“You’re going to take it because it also comes with the guarantee that attacking you, or the human belonging to you, is a crime of treason tantamount to death. And once the treaty with the slayers is signed, it will likely be necessary for your survival.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh yes, a little pardon is going to save me from the race of vampire-human hybrids employed by rebels who are intent on overthrowing your power and everything you represent. They’ll totally bring down your whole regime, but they’ll keep all the pardons granted to wayward vampires for nostalgia’s sake.”
“Isla,” Rick said once more.
I glared at him. Then at SS and her mentally challenged colleague.
Then at Thorne, the one who would give me the horror of silence and the gaping hole that would come with it if he did die.
“Fine,” I bit out. “I’ll take the fucking pardon.”
Chapter 10
“You’re joking. This is a hilarious, classic Thorne joke, right?” I asked as I paced the living room in his house in the woods.
I hadn’t wanted to come for a sleepover in Slayerville, but he’d insisted since he had the brat for the night.
It was taxing, having to work around the human.
I hadn’t wanted to come in the first place.
He’d insisted.
I’d argued.
He’d used sex as a tool against me and I somehow found myself agreeing.
I almost ruined it all when the little human attached itself to my midsection upon my arrival.
“Isla! I’m so happy you’ve arrived,” she shrieked.
I flinched, taking her arms as gently as I could so I didn’t snap them, as was my natural instinct.
“We talked about this,” I reminded her once I’d detached her from me.
Her grin remained and I was disgusted to see the front tooth which she had lost was now only half there, in the midst of a growth cycle. It was rather disturbing.
“Stop smiling,” I demanded. “I want to keep my dinner in my stomach, and your little toothy grin is making me sick.”
She immediately complied. Well, the smile remained, but the teeth were cloaked by her lips and her eyes sparkled with excitement.
Her hair was piled messily on her head, fastened with butterfly clips, of all things. The same creatures decorated her tee shirt but were somehow juxtaposed with black jeans and boots.
I decided to ignore that, for I might just commit murder for fashion crimes alone. It didn’t matter how old you were; there was no excuse for that.
None.
“What did we say?” I continued, thinking back to our last conversation.
“That I must not hug, touch or come within five feet of you. And I’d get exactly one warning before any limb in your vicinity will be broken.” She parroted my exact words from months before rather dutifully.
Impressive. I didn’t think small human brains had the capacity for
such a repertoire.
I nodded. “How many warnings have you had?” I asked her.
She pouted. “One.”
I clapped my hands. “Great. You’re all out. So keep those sticky fingers off my person and my clothing and you might get to keep them.”
I had hoped she’d cry, or at the very least scamper off in fear and never talk to me again, but she did none of the above.
“Can we negotiate that rule when you teach me how to fight?”
I gaped at her. “What on earth gave you the idea that I’d teach you how to fight?”
She glanced to Thorne, who was talking on the phone as he had been all night, speaking to someone called Alexus about some meeting the next day that I hadn’t cared enough about to fully eavesdrop on.
I was too busy staring at his biceps flexing as he held the phone.
And trying not to snap his little sister’s neck.
It was rather hard.
Or that’s what I was telling myself.
I certainly wouldn’t admit that I liked the little cretin.
“Well, Thorne told me that you’d been training some of the others—”
“The fully grown humans,” I interrupted. “You are not that.” I frowned down at her miniature stature.
She folded her arms. “I’m grown enough to fight,” she protested.
“No, you’re grown enough to die,” I countered.
Her little eye twitched. “Same thing.”
“Being grown enough to die isn’t the same as being grown enough to fight.”
She gave me a long look that was suddenly devoid of the childlike innocence that her distance from the ground and stupid hair pins communicated. It was something that reminded me that she’d seen death. Been in the middle of a warzone. Not that she garnered any sort of special sympathy for that alone. A lot of children did that.
I’d done that.
And look at me. I’d grown up to be gloriously unhinged.
“No. It’s the same thing,” she repeated firmly. “If I’m going to be grown enough to see death, I’m going to be grown enough to know how to meet it with a fire in my belly and fight in my heart,” she said.
I stared at her.
She stared back.
And I relented.
Like an idiot.
So the evening was spent training with her and trying my best not to accidentally snap her neck.
I wanted to get laid, after all, and killing Thorne’s sister would likely have put a damper on the mood. Even if it was by accident.
Then I’d had to ‘put her to bed.’
“You’re old enough to handle a dagger, fight a vampire, and grow adult teeth. Put your damn self to bed,” I instructed her.
Thorne, who was finally off the phone, gave me a small smile.
Her eyes had widened. “Please.”
I rolled mine. “No fucking way.”
I put the little asshole to bed.
Well, she put herself in there in her pink pajamas with owls all over them. I merely watched the process with a scowl while perusing the room that alternated between pink dolls and taffeta and weapon paraphernalia. Her books were lore on vampires and the supernatural community in general.
I frowned at them. “Can you even read?” I asked out of curiosity.
She looked at the books, yanking the covers of her pink comforter to her chest. “Yes, I can read.” Her eyes did that same thing they had done earlier which had me in this taffeta, weapon-filled nightmare of a room. “But Thorne usually reads to me,” she said.
I stared at her. “Fuck right off. Thorne does not read to you.” It was a statement, not a question.
She screwed her nose up. “He does too. And he also says those words are bad.”
I screwed my nose up. “What words?”
“The cuss ones.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, well I think he should worry more about subjecting you to a battle in which your little limbs could get ripped from your body than swearing. Which is fucking awesome, by the way.”
I winked at her.
She grinned. “Okay. Well….” She drew out the word in question.
“Well, don’t die in your sleep,” I told her, intending on leaving the room.
“Will you read to me?” she asked shyly. “Just for a little while. There’s a book I’ve been reading that I found at a bookstore. Thorne hasn’t been reading this one. He doesn’t even know. He’d probably be mad.” The words tumbled out quickly, almost running into each other with the speed in which she blurted them.
I raised my brow. “Thorne, mad? I’m intrigued.”
She pushed up from her position half-hidden under the covers to reach under her bed, unearthing a large book with a battered spine and an old smell.
She extended it to me. I took it out of curiosity. “I thought it’d be a Mills and Boon or something,” I muttered, thumbing through the pages that smelled of something almost ancient and somewhat familiar.
I frowned at the title. “Strigoi.” I glanced at her. “This isn’t from Barnes and Noble.”
She shook her head.
“And where did you get it when you’re meant to be on some sort of slayer lockdown?” I asked.
She bit her lip. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked.
“Of course,” I lied.
“Well, Stacy is meant to watch me, but sometimes she doesn’t because she drinks a lot of wine and then her boyfriend comes over and then they make a lot of kissing before going into her room and… doing stuff.”
“Having sex, you mean.”
She gaped at me.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not giving you the birds and the bees talk, and frankly you’re too old to be ignorant to it. You know death, so you better be sure you read up on what sex is.”
Her cheeks stayed flamed. “I know what it is,” she mumbled.
“Okay, well don’t get all weird. It’s natural. Just don’t have it too soon, and promise me if someone tries to make you do it, you either kill them or text me and I’ll do it for you.”
She grinned. “That means I can have your phone number,” she said excitedly.
Fuck.
Why did I get myself tangled up in this shit?
“Yes,” I relented. “But only if you’ve got someone for me to kill. No other reasons like braiding your hair. Despite it being a total disaster, that’s not my job.”
Her hair was indeed a mess, namely because she didn’t have a mother to do it. Thorne wasn’t going to do so, and that slut Stacy was obviously a wino whore so neither was she.
I made a mental note to deal with Stacy.
“No, only killing,” she agreed solemnly.
Why did I feel like she was going to go out and try to find things for me to kill that might just kill her in order to kill me?
Oh well, not my problem.
“Right.” The book felt heavy in my hands. Vampire strength meant it should have been little more than a feather. Color me intrigued.
I ran my hand over the aged cover, the faded script of the text and the swirling designs of the pattern on the front barely visible, even to vampire eyes.
“So what made you want to read this?”
She stared at me. “They tell us to hate vampires since… well, forever. And I know I should hate them because they killed Momma and Poppa, but I know good vampires and bad vampires, just like good people and bad people. So I wanted to learn about them so I can decide for myself.”
I gaped at her for a second before schooling my expression. It wouldn’t do well to let the little creature know I was borderline impressed with that explanation.
Instead, I opened the book and started reading aloud.
“Ambrogio wasn’t extraordinary. He was a traveler, a human who was more aware of his mortality than most, so he sought adventure to fill his short life.
He found it in a woman, as men often do….”
I got so lost in the story I seemed to be there at the same time as being in that
ridiculous bedroom at the same time of being nowhere at all.
“…Deathless.
The children of the Vein Line created from love, hate and blood.”
I stopped talking but the words repeated themselves in my head, taunting me with their very proximity on the page. And in my life.
It wasn’t lightly that I had believed any of this prophecy crap. And there it was, staring me in the face.
Origin stories that told of where we began when the prophecy fairies kept saying things about history repeating itself.
“Is that how it happened?” a small voice asked.
I snapped the book shut with an echo that sounded throughout the room, as if such a gesture would make all of this go away. Like it was somehow that easy.
“Aren’t you meant to be sleeping?” I snapped.
She yawned, despite the murder in my tone. “Yes, but I like listening. You have a nice voice.”
“Of course I do.”
She smiled. “I like you, Isla. Thorne does too. You make him happy. I like that too. He’s not normally happy. He’s actually never happy. Not since I’ve known him. So yeah, it’s cool.”
I stared at her, still holding the book, its weight more palpable in my grip as the truth of her little words piled on top of it.
I didn’t know what to say.
“Well, time to go to sleep before I knock you out myself, if only just to shut you up,” I said, turning to switch off the light.
There was another strange little light in the corner of the room, bathing it in a bluish glow. I walked over to turn it off too.
“Don’t.”
I turned around.
“I’m afraid of the dark,” she murmured, small and childlike, the first time she’d actually sounded like the little human she was.
I followed her eyes to the small flickering of light the stupid little lamp was exuding. I ripped it from the wall, engulfing the room in shadows.
I walked through them easily.
“The dark is probably the stupidest thing you could ever be afraid of,” I informed her once it had blanketed us in its embrace. I could see perfectly well, but human eyes couldn’t see a thing. Which was the point. She was a slayer, or meant to be one in training. “Actually, it’s the thing you should be the least afraid of. Monsters rarely hide in the dark. It’s the light you should worry about.” I started to walk out the door, crushing the lamp in my hands. “You wanted me to train you, kid. This comes with the territory. You’ve got to learn about the right things to be afraid of. And in order to do that, you’ve got to hang out in the darkness and make friends with whatever monsters you find there before you can fight any others. Because the monsters you find in the darkness are only your own anyway.”