Tattoos and Cupcakes (Amulet of Queens Book 1)

by Everly Taylor

  Sinking into the seat, I dissolved into a fit of coughs. Fighting to stop it was no use, I just had to let it pass. I needed to feed again and soon to regain some sort of strength before this weakness took me and I wouldn’t recover.

  Leaning my head back against the soft chair, I willed my body to relax until my advisors came. I knew after a battle like that they would come straight to me, and I could have them help me feed and rebuild my strength again. Our club below had been a clever front to provide a way to feed regularly without harming humans. We had come up with a potent but harmless drug to slip into their drinks. It gave them a feeling of euphoria, allowing us to feed from them. The venom from our fangs furthered that pleasure as it entered their bloodstream.

  They were left with no after effects from the drug, only memories of a fun and pleasurable night at the club. The very fact that we made sure this happened was what set us apart from other clans who didn’t hesitate to kill and even drain corpses.

  My body started to feel heavy and sleepy as I felt myself drifting away. I would not call to them so they could take care of what was necessary. Protecting the clan would always come first.

  My daughter had been at the club earlier, of that I was certain. Blood had called to blood, and the pull of the amulet was strong as it asked for payment for our magic. What I didn’t understand was why she was not brought to me. Why the amulet was not brought to me, to heal our magic and to ensure our people were protected once more.

  Not long after the first tug from the amulet there had been a large drain of energy, as if she had used power from it. That was next to impossible though, she had no clue what the amulet was or that she could even use it. None of it made any sense. I had to wait to speak to my advisors, to see what was going on before I drew conclusions.

  I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I finally heard them making their way down the hall toward my room. My head felt too heavy to lift, so I just remained laying back against the chair with my eyes closed. They knocked on the door for permission to enter, I tried to form the words they were waiting for, but no words would emanate from my mouth. Another knock came and I couldn’t lift my head to force the words out.

  Hearing them as they rushed into the room, I knew that they would soon help me feed and we would fix all of this. The darkness was welcome, as was the cold washing over me. I just wasn’t ready to give up yet. Not before I made sure my clan was safe.

  Warm liquid trickled down the back of my throat and I greedily swallowed as it filled my stomach. My eyes opened slowly, trying to focus on the faces around me. Adrien had split his wrist and was letting it drain down my throat. He knew that it would not give me the strength I needed, but it would be enough to bring me back until I could feed from a human.

  Aldrich stood next to the chair looking relieved as I opened my eyes the rest of the way. Damien strode into the room with a deliriously looking happy human in tow. “Be gentle,” he warned the man.

  The human came and effortlessly lifted my thin frame, sitting in the chair and settling me on his lap. He started nuzzling my neck, ready for a make out session and probably more. Damien had really done a number on this one. I was too weak to engage in all of that at the moment, so I just turned his neck and stroked it lightly with my tongue before I bit down, making him moan in pleasure as my fangs penetrated his flesh.

  I always felt bad when I didn’t fully please the humans, but today it was about survival. We were set apart because we never killed them. We made it a goal that they walked away remembering only enjoyment, and it bothered me that I was giving him anything less than that. That it felt like I was only using him as a means to an end.

  My fangs pressed into his neck, finding the deepest place in his vein to pull the blood, rich and thick, into my throat. He moaned as I pressed deeper, the pleasure I had injected with my fangs now taking full effect.

  Once I was fully sated I slowly pulled my fangs from him, taking care not to damage his skin. Licking his throat, I made sure to heal the punctures I had left behind. I felt better seeing him looking sleepy and pleased. Much stronger now, I slid off of the human’s lap and stood as Aldrich took my arm, leading me back to the edge of the bed. Damien escorted the human out of the room and returned him to the club to enjoy the rest of his evening.

  My advisors surrounded my bed, taking their familiar positions with worried looks crossing their faces. “I am fine,” I tried to assure them in vain. They knew I wasn’t, but there was nothing that I could do until the amulet was returned.

  “My queen, you are not fine. You are declining quicker than ever,” Aldrich said while brushing his hair from his eyes, the only sign that he was agitated.

  “The only hope is the amulet being returned quickly. Please tell me what the delay is. I know it was here earlier, I could sense it’s proximity and I could feel my daughter. Why was she not brought upstairs?”

  “There was a bit of a complication,” Adrien hesitantly stated, looking at Damien. “I think he’d better explain this one.”

  Everyone in the room looked at Damien, waiting for an explanation. He was staring at the ceiling, stressed about what he was about to tell me. “Whatever it is you have to say, it’s better you just tell us so we can deal with it.”

  Looking back at me, Damien nodded and sighed, resigned to the fact that he needed to tell me what had happened. I assumed that he was taking responsibility for whatever events had passed since they had left my room. That was typical of him though, taking on everyone else’s burdens, regardless if they were his own or not. I suspected that he still felt like he needed to pay for his past mistakes. In my eyes he had not been at fault for anything he had been forced to do. His fight for his own survival, and eventually his moral sacrifice, said more about his character than anything else ever could. I wasn’t sure that anyone could ever convince him to see it that way though.

  “We originally met Selena at a tattoo shop. At the time we had no clue she was possibly your daughter, or that you even had one. When you informed us about her existence and her name, we suspected she might be who we were searching for, but we weren’t sure.

  “Unexpectedly, she and a friend visited the club right after you revealed everything to us. Our suspicions grew that she was the girl we were searching for because she was wearing an amulet similar to the one in the drawing. We were still not convinced though, the lighting during shows isn’t the greatest.

  “She ran from the club and Adrien cornered her in the alley. I may or may not have spooked her by trying to bring her up here to you. She fought back and overpowered me, knocking us both to the ground.”

  “Wait, she what?” I interrupted him, sitting up suddenly. The quick movement had me coughing again, though not as badly as earlier. The odd things that my body did as it deteriorated still baffled me. I was technically dead, but it still responded in a lot of ways that a human body would, the coughing fits being one of them. The link with the blood amulet kept me alive, but not living, immortal but able to die if that tenuous bond was broken. The rest of my clan were immortal like any other vampire. I was queen and bound by the rules of the amulet.

  After my coughing fit had passed, he continued, “She kicked against the wall and we both went flying across the alley. For me, it confirmed who she was.”

  I nodded in agreement. That was probably the sudden drain I felt from the amulet. Her fear must have unintentionally drawn from it when she fought back and she had no clue.

  “She attempted to leave the alley, and Alex and his goons stopped her. We tried to protect her, but she did a great job of that herself and pushed right past them. Oddly enough, after their initial standoff they let her pass without so much as pushing back. She then retrieved her friend with a little assistance from Aldrich.

  “Adrien and I followed her home to make sure she made it safely.” I nodded again, this time in approval. He shrugged as if it was a common sense thing to do. “When we got back, Alex was already waiting here with a larger num
ber of his people than we expected. He believes that Selena is a human and Cristian wants to know why we were protecting her.”

  I know that my shock registered on my face because he stopped talking as he let me register the information. “What did you tell him?” I asked, needing to know if my daughter was safe, that came first, even above the safety of the amulet.

  “I let him believe what he wanted, so he attacked me, knowing I wouldn’t give him what he had come for.” Adrien and Aldrich laughed next to him. “Okay, I may have provoked him a little too, but that’s beside the point. We got the upper hand and they left. But it’s not good. They know something’s going on, they just don’t know what. Alex knows about the amulet, he saw her wearing it. I’d bet money he already went back and told Cristian by now. The only thing we have going for us is they think Selena is human.”

  “It’s necessary to keep it that way, if they find out any more it won’t be good,” Aldrich added with a frown, probably already thinking through a plan.

  “Yeah, we will do whatever is necessary to protect her. They aren’t the quickest, so we have at least until the morning,” Adrien said, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to put together a plan quickly enough to do anything by then.

  “We need to keep the club going as usual. They send spies and always have, so we know they will this time. I don’t want them suspecting anything is going on from seeing the three of us missing, since we are there every night. It’s also more important than ever that we keep our clan fed and strong, because we aren’t sure what’s coming.” Aldrich seemed to have thought everything through as usual. He was our planner, and this was one of the reasons he was one of my advisors. He might be quiet most of the time, but when it came down to it you could count on him.

  “So we all agree that we will ensure she is safe and convince her to come here with the amulet as soon as possible?” I asked.

  The three nodded, stood at my dismissal, and left to take care of the aftermath of the fight. I knew there were no casualties, but they would still check on the wounded to make sure they were healing properly. Then they would clean up the mess that had been made in the street, so it didn’t leave any questions.

  Things had escalated much quicker than I had thought they would. Selena was more powerful than I had imagined if she was drawing power from the amulet. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering who her father was. There had never been another child born naturally of a vampire, let alone one conceived during the peak of the blood moon. We couldn’t fathom the levels her magic could reach. We needed to tread carefully, because if the other clan got ahold of the amulet, they could use it, and her, to wreak havoc on the world.

  I pulled my once platinum hair around my shoulders to lie down, a handful of the now dull and lusterless tresses coming out as I pulled my fingers through it. A tear ran down my cheek from knowing that I didn’t have much longer left, knowing that I may not be here to protect my clan or meet the daughter I had to abandon so long ago.

  Drifting to sleep, I held on to hope of our future, having faith that my advisors would keep Selena safe.

  Chapter Nine

  Selena

  I unlocked the door of Night Ink, letting it slam behind me, the bells ringing madly as I entered the shop. I almost didn’t come to work today because I was still so pissed off. What kind of asshole stood there and let an innocent woman be drugged and taken advantage of?

  Stomping to the back of the store, I pushed open my office door and tossed my jacket toward the chair while turning on the light. I only had a few minutes until we opened and I knew I had to pull myself together if I had any chance of being able to deal with clients today.

  Seriously though, Sam had just sat there climbing that muscled hunk like her life depended on it. As if being drugged wasn’t bad enough, whatever they had done to her was worse somehow. It was like she was driven to fuck him and nothing I had tried would stop her. The more I thought about last night, the stranger it seemed and the more it pissed me off. The blond that helped me only found it amusing to find Sam plastered to the muscled freak on the couch.

  He had finally decided to help me and had whispered whatever the hell he did to Sam’s guy, making him drop her like a fucking hot potato and take off. It wasn’t like I was ungrateful for his assistance, it was just weird that he had thought it was fine one minute, humorous even, and then with a few words it was taken care of. Who the hell were those people?

  It wasn’t okay that some of them pretended nothing was happening right under their noses. Just because they were like a bunch of sex gods didn’t give them the right to take advantage of people like that.

  The men in that club were sexy as fuck and knew it. They were cocky and full of themselves, making women want stuff they had no business wanting. My mind wandered back to the alley and how I had wanted Adrien to kiss me until I couldn’t think straight. I had wanted more than just a brush of his lips against mine, a fucking tease that left me aching, craving more than I would allow myself to have. Not after seeing the blatant way those douchebags exploited women.

  No one had ever affected me the way he had in that alley. Gentle heat had spread through my body, making me ache in places I didn’t even know could ache. I had fallen asleep last night thinking about how he had pressed me against the wall, the brick biting into my back as his lips whispered across mine. It had caused me to wake up this morning all hot and bothered, needing to take care of business, and I didn’t mean at the shop.

  I headed to the front of the shop, turning on lights to get ready to open for the day. Taking a minute to double check the supplies in the station drawers, I made sure that everyone had what they needed, and satisfied myself that we were prepared for the influx of clients we would have that day.

  Sitting behind the counter I settled in with a sketchbook to wait, I still had a few hours until my first appointment so I could relax a bit. We had walk-ins frequently, so I would just sit out here until the other artists came in.

  The bells over the door jingled and I looked up to see Sam breezing in, her usual cheerful self. For being drugged the night before she looked amazing. I was expecting her to sleep late, or at the very least look hungover. Disheveled. Something. Instead, she looked like she had just come back from a week at the spa.

  “Good morning, sunshine!” Sam leaned over the counter and gave me a quick squeeze, dropping a bag on the surface as she stood back up. “Bagels, I knew you wouldn’t eat anything this morning after our night last night. So I took care of breakfast.” When I just stared at her she shook her head at me. “This is where you say, ‘Thank you.’”

  “Sam, how are you okay this morning?” I asked in disbelief.

  “What are you talking about? Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be? We had an amazing time last night. I haven’t had that much fun in forever, Lena.”

  “Fun? Sam, are you crazy? You were drugged and I had to drag you out of there unconscious. The whole way home you were passed out and I had to carry you up the fucking stairs. I dropped you for fuck’s sake!”

  “That explains the bruises on my shoulder and ass this morning. Lena, I wasn’t drugged, that’s just silly. I probably wasn’t used to such a strong drink is all. You know they monitor for stuff like that in those places. If I had been slipped something then why weren’t you, or any other woman? Did anyone else look off to you?” she questioned, trying to convince me that I was wrong.

  “Look at me. First, no one is going to try to drug me, or take advantage of me. Not when you’re there. You’re so much prettier. I also wasn’t paying attention to what the other women were or weren’t doing. I was worried about you. You’re my best friend, Sam. I wasn’t going to leave you when I knew you weren’t acting like yourself. There was no way you would have allowed your naked ass to hang out, with some stranger groping it for the whole world to see.” Confusion crossed her face for a second before denial set in, yet again.

  “Lena, I was letting loose. It was no big deal
. I was in the moment and didn’t notice is all. If I had been drugged don’t you think I would feel a lot worse today?” Again she tried to reason with me. I knew I had to let it go because I wasn’t going to be able to convince her otherwise. I saw her last night though, something hadn’t been right.

  “Okay Sam, if you say so. I’m glad you had a good time, and I’m glad you’re feeling okay today. Just don’t scare me like that again, alright?”

  “Okay Lena.” I knew she was placating me and had every intention of going back to Reflections again. I had to make sure I kept my eye on her so she didn’t. There was no way I was letting my best friend be put in that situation again.

  “Hey, so I have an appointment in fifteen. Gotta run, but try not to work too hard!” She waved enthusiastically and sailed out the door.

  Sam was too good of a person and everyone took advantage of that. Not to mention she was stunning and everyone wanted to be with her. She was completely oblivious to the world around her and the fact that not the whole world was as good as she was. Sam had brought the good into my life, it was my job to keep the bad out of hers. Even if it meant both of us staying away from Reflections and the men that worked there. No matter how much he had made me want him.

  Flopping back in the chair I ate my bagel, glad she had thought of me. It would have been a miserable day being hungry. I had a few clients today but they were bigger pieces, so I would be sitting in the chair for long stretches of time, not able to get up to grab something to eat. Food was definitely going to be out of the picture for me for a while.

  I looked up as the bells on the door jingled again and a dark-haired man walked through. The morning sun cast him into shadows so I couldn’t make out his face. For some odd reason he gave me a creepy feeling that I couldn’t explain. He stepped farther into the shop and I thought I recognized him from somewhere, but I wasn’t able to place where.