I slumped back against my pillows and rubbed my hands over my belly to comfort myself. I’d just started closing my eyes again when I heard Arthur speak.
“Yes.” My eyes popped open in shock. He was standing at the windows on the other side of the room so I couldn’t see his face. “I regretted it.” Was he crying? No, that’d be ridiculous. “Her blood frenzy could’ve been avoided.”
“So you blame yourself?”
“No. Blame, no blame, it doesn’t reverse what happened. But it could’ve been prevented. And I hated myself for betraying her for a long time. It changed who I am inside. I have no line between guilty and slightly less guilty. There’s only innocent and lawbreaking. That’s why Olivier left the Hunters. She couldn’t follow someone who wasn’t lenient.” He scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “I’m not saying I’m different now, because I’m not. But I will say this. No matter how necessary it was, and I do believe it was necessary, Cameron and Renard did not deserve to be cast out like that. They were trustworthy. And I know you feel guilty about having to carry out the other vampires’ wishes, but it wasn’t your fault. They were in the wrong, not you.”
“A heart to heart talk with Arthur,” I said ironically, picking my teacup up again. “It must be opposite day.”
“I did what you asked. There’s something on the tray for you,” he said.
I noticed a small folded paper in the little flower vase. I picked it up and unfolded it to see Cameron’s handwriting.
‘Lisbeth,
I can’t say I wasn’t expecting this to happen, so don’t blame yourself. In fact, I’ve been anticipating it for months. I knew that eventually things would come to a head, and the Order would turn us away.
I couldn’t prevent this, no matter how hard I tried, but that doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying. There’s only one thing I can do to help, and that’s infiltrate the turned ranks. I know it’s dangerous. Regardless, I must do this. If this war is to happen, I’ll do my part to help end it.
I’ll be careful. I know we’ll meet again in more peaceful days. I love you.
Cameron’
CHAPTER 29
CAMERON WAS GONE. HE WAS off risking his life trying to fix the mess others like me had made. My optimism regarding his survival was not high.
Olivier was gone. Her official reason was a more in-depth search for Othello, but I knew the real reason. She was angry at me for throwing out her lover. She hadn’t said so, and perhaps it was my guilty conscience convincing me of her anger, but nevertheless she still had left.
I was gone. With my spirit broken, I wandered around the castle day after day, feeling as if I was watching my life from a distance. I was alone now. With no friends, no family, no lover, no father-figure or whatever Othello had been, I was utterly on my own.
Arthur was the only constant now, and we were definitely not friends, even if we had more respect for each other than we used to, you know, like when he was hunting me for breaking the law. Ahh. Fun times.
My only escape was the hidden library in my office. I spent most of my free time there, and I had read almost every book on every shelf, and though the room was small, it had plenty of both. Some weren’t in English, but I spoke many languages, and those that I didn’t were easy enough to learn.
The content of said books were largely disappointing, though not dull in content. They were simply chronicles of vampires that had come before me. Tales of vampires who had built the pyramids, influenced cultures to be born, raised Rome to the ground, and many other things in history that did not surprise me in the least that vampires were behind them.
Pompeii? Vampires.
War of the roses? Vampires.
Library of Alexandria? Vampires. (Yeah, thanks for that, losers.)
It seemed my kind left destruction in their wake wherever they went. Maybe that’s why Anastasia Bathory had done what she did. Karma? It was sufficiently ironic.
The volume about Anastasia’s treachery was the only book in the room that was probably forbidden. I read and re-read it dozens of times, and every time I did, I became more convinced that Anastasia had been a half-Bicus half-vampire. Bipire. And I needed to know if that was the fate that awaited my child, a life of violence and terror. There were two things that prevented me learning more, of anything that wasn’t written in the volume.
1. Anastasia had disappeared, and since I’d never heard her story in my 400+ years, I had little doubt she was still missing, or dead.
2. James was the only vampire who knew anything about her, so far as I knew, and the only one who wouldn’t be upset for my asking.
Therein lied my problem. If I wanted to learn more, I would have to break two rules. I’d have to consort, again, with a vampire that disobeyed the blood limit law, not to mention biting vampires to control them, which was a horrible thing to do even if there wasn’t a law about it, and I’d have to ask him to talk about a vampire of whom information regarding her was banned on pain of death.
The only way this could be accomplished was if my only ally helped me. And lucky me, that ally was a rule junkie. A rule junkie that was knocking on my door.
I set the Anastasia book back onto the lamp table and left the room quickly. It clicked shut behind me just as Arthur entered the office. He bowed in his short military manner and flicked his eyes behind me to the secret door. Had he seen it move?
“Another group has arrived,” he informed me. Since Gennadi, Born vampires had been coming in slowly from all over, seeking refuge in our home. With every larger group came a member of the Council, on which I now held a seat. “Castilla was with them.”
I breathed a sigh of relief that she was unharmed. “Set her up on the top floor with the rest of the Council.” Space was becoming a precious commodity now, and we had to put safety over privacy. Arthur had given up his rooms and was now staying in my suite. Even the Council had to share their rooms with each other. It was a necessary sacrifice, but some of them acted like it was completely intolerable. I told them in the politest way to stick it.
“Olivier sent word,” Arthur said once I’d waddled over to my chair. I was hopeful and scared all at once. Was it bad news? Did she tell me to go suck blood and die? “She hasn’t found Othello yet, but she thinks she has a lead. She’ll update us soon.” I fiddled with my fancy feather pen. “And also, I know about the secret room with the contraband book.”
I’d never been good at faking things, so my surprised, “What secret room?” had about as much effect as a 1.0 on the Richter scale. Arthur gave me the most apathetic look I’d ever seen on his blank face. He didn’t even bother looking skeptical.
“Okay, fine. I suck at lying.”
“Yes, you do.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and imagined how it would feel to strangle him. “So?”
“So?” he repeated.
“Are you going to turn me in to the authorities?” I asked with a gulp.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “It might surprise you to discover this, but you are the authorities. I answer to you.”
“You’re the puppy of the Council. I am not the Council.”
“No, but you’re on the Council. And I signed paperwork that means my allegiance to you is surmount to any other loyalty. Including the Council,” he added.
Oh. “That was in the paperwork?”
“You didn’t read it,” he stated, not the least bit surprised.
“There was a huge stack that day. I didn’t want to read all of them,” I said defensively. He let out a breath that was almost a sigh, which in Arthur speak meant he was rolling his eyes internally. I was less annoyed with his annoyance at me, and more excited at the fact that he had just solved one of my problems. I leaned forward and put my elbows on my desk, then I nestled my chin in my hands and smiled at him. “So…”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Don’t look at me with that face ever again.”
I scowled at him and dropped my folded hands on to my desk. “Fine. I need you to
do something for me. And it involves breaking the rules.”
“Does in involve killing another vampire, or killing a human, or not killing a Lycan?”
“Nope.”
“Then done.”
I hadn’t expected him to be so chill with it. Now I couldn’t use the argument I’d thought up to convince him to help me. It was really good too. I’d even thought up a showtune to go along with it, though that part was just for me because he wouldn’t have appreciated it.
I leaned back in my chair. “I need you to contact a vampire for me and have him brought here. Secretly. He’s a law breaker. He indulges in blood intake, and he….” I swallowed and gripped my belly with one hand. I felt my baby’s tiny hand reach out to me to give me comfort. “He bites other vampires to control them.” Arthur took in a sharp breath, but remained silent. “He has information I need about… someone, and that information is forbidden to be spoken of to all who know about it, and you can be assured that there are others here that do.”
Arthur was a soldier. When others would protest, question motives, or report you to the Council, he simply nodded his head and asked, “What’s his name and where do I find him?”
CHAPTER 30
THE SMALLEST AMOUNT OF STRESS was off my shoulders now that Arthur knew some of my secrets, and had agreed to not only keep them but assist me in a few of them. He assured me my message to James would be sent and his arrival here would be kept secret. So now all I had to worry about was being in the same room with James at some point. I wasn’t sure if that would bring me to tears, or end with my fingers around his throat. Either way, I was dreading it.
Almost every Born around the globe had taken refuge at our castle. We numbered over 500, in a fortress that was made to house maybe 100. Not every human companion had made the journey with them, so we had the problem of too many vampires and not enough blood to go around. It was for that problem, and many others, that we had gathered for the first Council meeting since my trial, and the first where I had a seat at the ridiculous half circle desk that had magically reappeared in the bigger drawing room.
Sitting at it as I now was, I saw that each seat had its own little area on the desk. There was a pitcher of water with a crystal glass, a little black pen cup filled with designer pens that costed more than a liver transplant, a stack of monogrammed paper (the monogram was BV for Born vampires, because pretentiousness started this entire mess so we might as well rub it in), and a vase with a single hand etched flower made of glass. Why? Because money. Ignoring all that expensiveness, the chair I was sitting in was worth any amount of money. It was like heaven under my butt. I was stealing this chair. Arthur could suck it.
Out of the other 11 Council members, 9 had survived and were at the meeting. Only two had met their end at the hands of the turned.
“Lisbeth, it is good to see you again.” Castilla sat in the seat next to me and shook my hand. She was smiling, but she had less glow to her than the last time I’d seen her. Then again, so did I. “Su niña,” she cooed, and put a hand to my belly before I could stop her. Some of her weariness melted away and she removed her hand with a smile. “Beautiful baby. She is worried for you. She feels your fear.”
Great. Didn’t anyone care about keeping a baby’s gender secret anymore? If this baby was born a boy, I was going to ride that boat of irony for centuries.
“The Council will come to order,” Arthur shouted over the noise of people talking. He stood with his hands crossed in front of him and waited for the room to quiet before he continued. “We have come here to discuss the current situation, and how we will proceed from here.”
The Council members offered up suggestions one by one. They ranged from do nothing (who invited you?) to bargaining with the turned. Bargaining. With traitors. That would work well.
“I propose,” Castilla said when it was her turn, “a full-scale assault on the turned. We find out where they are and we attack.”
The smallest giggle escaped my mouth, and of course, everyone heard it. I half expected Arthur to come smack me on the face again.
“You find this amusing?” Castilla asked me, slightly insulted.
“Kind of,” was my answer.
“These meetings must be taken seriously,” one of the other members reproached.
“Oh, I am taking it seriously, believe me. But you’re suggesting attacking an enemy that has double, if not triple our numbers. And triple is being generous. We turn dozens of vampires every year. And how often do we procreate? On average, once every 15 years. We have maybe 500 at best in this castle right now. They have thousands. Thousands.” I slammed my finger onto the desk to emphasize my point. “We fight them as we are and we perish.”
Castilla sat down and took a drink of her water in the expensive chalice. “You make a good argument. What is your proposal then?”
They all waited for me to wow them with my idea, which I can assure you I had, but it wasn’t the awe inspiring one they were waiting for.
“I propose an alliance with the Lycans.”
The room went so silent, I could hear a rabbit running in the field outside. The sound of Castilla putting her glass down was deafening.
“You’re joking, right? Having a laugh?” a Council member asked in disbelief.
“I can assure you, I’m not. They have the numbers. If they become our allies, we’ll be able to defeat the turned.”
“You’re assuming they’ll agree to it,” Castilla pointed out. “Which they will not.”
I shrugged. “They might. The turned threaten our safety, and in turn the safety of the packs. If humans find out about us, it won’t matter who helped who. But if we want to stay secret, we’ll need them.”
“This is insanity,” another member declared while rubbing his forehead. “Aligning with the Lycans. I know you’re new here, but that’s not how we do things.”
Othello’s letter came back to me, and I smiled.
If someone tells you ‘we don’t do it like that,’ tell them, ‘we do now.’
“Maybe it should be.” I sat back and folded my hands over my belly. “But hey, we could just do nothing and be slaughtered. There’s always that option.” Silence around the desk. “We’ll put it to a vote. That’s how things get done here, right? All in favor for surviving this with our lives by making an alliance with the Lycans before any attacks take place, raise your hands. And all those in favor for committing hara-kiri by attacking the turned with ridiculous odds, don’t raise your hands.” I raised my hand, and felt my belly stretch with the hand of my baby. She wasn’t even born and I could feel how sarcastic she was going to be.
Mentioning death and hara-kiri must’ve sparked something in the other members, because six of them had their hands up.
I won.
The only other order of business was the issue of our human population. Still brimming with the success of my Lycan alliance, I suggested we bring back past companions that we trust, who would never turn against us. It was unorthodox, since the companion contract was binding and had more than a few words about our non-involvement in their lives after they left us, but desperate times and all that jazz. We had more than enough money to make up for bending the rules, and now was not the time to be caring about social issues.
After the meeting ended, messengers were dispatched to the Lycans, and the dismissed companions we chose were contacted. I was officially breaking two codes of conduct while still being an unofficial leader. Or maybe I was official now? Was there a waiting period for being official when you get the job from a kidnapping? Was it like human marriage where the person has to be missing for seven years before you can get married again? No one had said anything, so maybe I was officially official until Othello came back. If. If Othello came back.
A week after the Council meeting, Arthur knocked on the doorway of the secret room and kept me from nodding off in the dusty chair. I glared at him and thumped the Anastasia book onto the end table before reaching a hand out to him. He crossed
from the doorway to where I sat and helped me out of the chair. My belly had greatly increased in size, and even though it pained my dignity, getting in and out of chairs now required Arthur’s assistance. I didn’t thank him for helping, since that would mean every other phrase that came out of my mouth would be ‘thank you’, and he didn’t require it to continue doing so.
I waddled out of the hidden room and heard Arthur close the door behind us. He followed me to my desk chair and helped me sit down before standing at attention nearby.
“Now,” I said when I’d finally found a position in the chair that was mildly comfortable. “Why did you pull me out of my hideaway? I was about to take a nap. I’m pregnant. I like naps.”
“Several things require your attention, I’m afraid. You’ll have to nap later,” he said with a hint of sarcasm.
I sighed comically. “Do I have to get up?”
“Not yet.”
“Then fire away.”
He handed me a stack of papers to sign, and its thickness was causing phantom pains in my wrist just looking at it. “These are the temporary companion contracts made for the returning companions.”
“That was fast,” I commented in surprise while lifting up the first one. I scanned it and found it very well thought out with very in-depth legal language. “Do we…. Is there a group of vampire lawyers here that write these?”
Arthur rolled his eyes at me in the exact fashion Olivier always did like I was the stupid cousin again. “For a smart person, you are very short sighted.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “There’s a difference between being smart and not paying attention.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re very adept at making that distinction.” I threw a paperweight at him, which he caught insultingly with little effort. “I noticed you didn’t contact any of your past companions.”
Child of the Outcast (Born Vampire Book 2) Page 12