Crimson Crown

by Amy Patrick

  Kannon’s expression turned stormy once more. “Why don’t we just take him out? Say the word, and I’ll put together a small strike team of our best guys. We could be ready to go in a matter of days.”

  “No. We are not going to assassinate the president of the United States. That’s something Imogen would do, and as you may have noticed, I’m not Imogen.”

  He grinned. “I noticed. Maybe you should be a little more like her—at least when it comes to some things. We’re losing Bloodbound soldiers left and right to defection, and recruiting replacements is tough.”

  “Are you that mean of a commander?” I teased.

  “Maybe, but that’s not the reason. The troops are getting restless, you know? When it comes to the celibacy requirement, I mean. It was bad enough when we had to wait weeks or months for a turn with Imogen. But now... well... it hasn’t gone without notice that the only one you ever invite to your chambers is Reece.”

  “I see.”

  He held up two hands in front of him in a defensive posture. “I’m not telling you what to do—you’re queen. But maybe you should start getting a little scarier and take a few defectors’ heads... show them what happens if they desert and take a mate. They’re breaking the rules because they don’t think you’ll do it.”

  “They’re right. I’m not going to execute someone for falling in love. I’d be the world’s worst hypocrite.”

  “Well then, maybe, you know... spread the love around a little bit... give the troops some hope and invite a few of the Bloodbound to your chambers. Most of them are pretty eager for a turn with you.”

  His hands went higher. “Not me—I don’t mean me. Reece would slit my throat in my bunk at the barracks. But the other guys... it would go a long way.”

  “Maybe it would,” I said. “But it’s not going to happen.”

  Kannon threw up his hands. “Well then, I don’t know what to tell you, Abbi—I mean, my queen. If we can’t get this flash drive open and get leverage on Parker and it does come to war, you’re not going to have enough soldiers to even stand a chance.”

  “We’ll have to put our faith in the flash drive evidence then—and in Larkin’s cure.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he muttered. “In the meantime, maybe you could increase the amount of queensblood in our rations. I don’t know if it’s because you’re younger than Imogen or what, but the current amount doesn’t seem to be getting the job done.”

  “Can I tell you a secret? I haven’t been putting it in at all.”

  Kannon’s jaw dropped open so fast and so far, I thought it might hit the floor.

  “It just didn’t feel right to me to force loyalty,” I said. “If I can’t earn it, maybe I don’t deserve it.”

  Now Kannon was shaking his head, and his eyes drifted back to the lab door. “No wonder,” he said in a voice so low I wasn’t sure he even meant to say it out loud.

  I looked at the door too—the door behind which Larkin stood working oh so closely with her attractive male partner.

  Acting on intuition and the desire to tease my old friend, I said, “Kannon... now that I think of it... maybe I should set an example. Can you give me the names of the Bloodbound who’ve violated those celibacy vows? And call a gathering in the Grand Dome?”

  His eyes shot back to me and opened wide in alarm. Before I could tell him I was kidding, he excused himself.

  “I need to get to... I’ve gotta go. Let me know if you change your mind about that strike on the White House.”

  Then he speed-walked away, nearly running into Reece, who was coming down the corridor.

  12

  Acting More Queenly

  Reece

  It wasn’t every day I saw a look like that on Kannon’s face.

  He was without a doubt the baddest of all the badass soldiers I’d worked with. Now he was practically sprinting down the hall away from Abbi, looking terrified.

  I turned and watched his rapidly disappearing back. “What’s going on with him?”

  “I was wondering the same thing,” Abbi said. “I think Larkin might know, but she’s not talking either.”

  Picking up on the amusement in her voice, I studied Abbi’s face. “Do you think those two are...”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “And how would you feel about that?” I probed. Hopefully my tone didn’t give away my jealousy.

  As queen, Abbi had the right to spend time with any and all of her Bloodbound soldiers whenever she liked doing whatever she liked.

  She’d assured me several times she had no interest in claiming carnal rights with the others, but it was tradition, and I knew a lot of the other guys were hoping for it—especially now that their queen was a beautiful nineteen-year-old instead of a woman who’d walked the earth for more than two hundred years.

  “Well, I love them both, so it makes perfect sense for them to love each other,” Abbi said. “Anyway, it’s their business.”

  While I felt the tension leave my body, another worry took its place. “Is it though? If they are involved and word gets out, it’s not going to be good. The other Bloodbound will start feeling like they’ve got carte blanche to do the same—you’ll have the inmates running the asylum here before long.”

  “Well Kannon had a very helpful suggestion about that,” Abbi said.

  I didn’t understand the note of mischief in her voice. My own was full of trepidation. “Oh?”

  “He thinks I should start inviting Bloodbound soldiers to my chambers to give the rest of them hope.”

  The tension snapped right back into place—and doubled. It was joined by a burning sensation in my stomach and an involuntary growl. I reached for Abbi, pulling her into my arms.

  “The only Bloodbound who’s setting foot over your threshold is standing right in front of you. If anyone else tries it, his hope better be that he can outrun me.”

  Abbi laughed and kissed me. Pulling back to meet my eyes, she ran her hands over my shoulders and down my chest. “Oh my. What a big, scary vampire you are.”

  The combination of her touch and the sexy tease in her voice lit me on fire. I looked up and down the corridor to make sure we were alone.

  Then I backed her up against one wall and pressed the front of my body to hers.

  Nuzzling her neck, I murmured, “I don’t know about scary... but yeah... if you want to discuss size, I’ll be happy to escort ‘my queen’ back to her chambers.”

  Abbi laughed and ran her hands over my abdomen and around to my back to pull me even closer.

  “I suppose as queen it’s my prerogative to take a little ‘private time’ when I want to. Let’s go.”

  A couple hours later, Abbi moved to the edge of the bed and put her feet on the floor, shaking out her long hair.

  I studied the beautiful curves of her waist, wanting more than anything to hook an arm around it and drag her back under the covers with me.

  She did have responsibilities though, and so did I. Pity though it was, we couldn’t spend all day in bed.

  “Do you think we’d have wound up together if we hadn’t been turned?” she asked, pulling on a silky dressing gown.

  I folded my hands behind my head and grinned at her. “Absolutely. There’s no way you would have been able to resist me. Especially when I kept showing up at your doorstep every day. Your father would have had to chase me off with a pitchfork—and I bet he has one of those.”

  She laughed. “He does. And several hunting rifles. But seriously... would you have pursued me?”

  “Abbi... you were beautiful before the queensblood kicked in. And smart, and funny, and fascinating. Should I go on? I told you then, and I’m even more sure of it now—we were meant to be together. I think the universe has proved that quite spectacularly.”

  “And yet it’s causing problems that I’m not ‘spreading the love around,’ as Kannon says.”

  Tension crept back into muscles that had been very, very relaxed. I didn’t like the note of uncertainty in
her voice.

  “Have you changed your mind about that? Are you considering it now?”

  “Noooooo.” She dragged the word out, making it sound more like a “maybe” than a denial.

  “I still don’t want that. But I think you might have to stop sleeping over—just for a while,” she added quickly. “We can’t exactly keep what we’re doing in here a secret—there are guards posted outside my door round the clock—guards with supernaturally acute hearing. As much as I hate it, I think I have to start acting more queenly. I can’t keep making the other Bloodbound jealous and unhappy.”

  “So you’re just going to make me jealous and unhappy,” I quipped, though I was only semi-joking.

  “Reece...”

  Her tortured tone plagued me with instantaneous guilt.

  Crawling to the edge of the bed where she stood, I wrapped my arms around her waist and pressed my forehead to her chest.

  She sank her hands into my hair, rubbing my scalp in a soothing way.

  “I get it,” I grumbled. “I do. I don’t like it, but I get it—and you’re right. We can’t afford to lose any more soldiers.”

  After pausing to draw a deep breath and letting it out on a long sigh, I said, “Do what you have to do... whatever that is.”

  Then I got up, dressed, and left her chambers, muttering to the guards who stood watch outside, “I hope you’re happy.”

  I certainly wasn’t.

  13

  Lost and Found

  Abbi

  It was impossible to sleep.

  The bed seemed too large without Reece in it, and I was cold. I got up and put on a robe then crawled back under the luxurious covers, dragging Sadie’s journal into my lap from the bedside table.

  Opening it to the page where I’d stopped last time, I resumed reading the words of my mentor, desperate for some wisdom—or at least some comfort.

  Following her description of the ball in 1835 was an entry written two weeks later in Sadie’s beautiful hand.

  * * *

  Today is the happiest day of my life. I am to be a bride! Alexandru is the most wonderful man. Following the ball, he courted me daily, arriving each night to walk with me in the gardens, take me for carriage rides, and escort me to the theater in London.

  His daughters accompanied us as chaperones, of course. They do not seem overly friendly, but I suspect it is only a matter of the language barrier. While I am far too young to be viewed as a mother figure to them, I have high hopes that in time we shall all become fast friends.

  Already I am learning more of their language, which is a good thing since we will be making our home in Moldavia where Alexandru owns a castle and extensive properties.

  Because of his unusual sleep patterns, the wedding will take place tonight instead of at the traditional hour. I think a wedding ceremony by candlelight will be exquisite.

  The only thing dulling my happiness is the absence of my sister. Imogen left Stony Hill Park the night after the ball without saying goodbye, going to join our mother on her holiday. I have not seen her since. Her letters said she was happy for me but would not return for the ceremony with Mother and our aunts. Her excuse was that she had not yet seen Rome and Venice.

  It is clear she is angry that Father’s arrangement with the prince was for me instead of her. I only hope it does not drive a wedge between us for the rest of our lives and that Imogen will someday find her own prince, figuratively speaking.

  Though knowing her as I do, I am convinced she will find a way to make it literal and wear a crown of her own one day.

  * * *

  The next entry described the wedding and party that followed in detail. There were several entries cataloguing their honeymoon trip, a tour of Europe, and then one describing the castle in Moldavia, which seemed to overwhelm Sadie with its size and opulence.

  After that there was a gap of several decades before the next entry.

  That’s weird.

  I flipped a few pages ahead and then back, sure I must have missed some. But no, the next entry was from 1869—more than thirty years later.

  What had happened? Had Sadie become so busy she’d simply had no time to journal?

  As I read on, the explanation wasn’t spelled out exactly, but it was pretty obvious when you read between the lines—she’d learned the reason for her husband’s unusual sleep patterns, and it had rocked her world off its axis.

  * * *

  Alexandru came home covered in blood again. It is happening more and more often, and I suspect he “forgets” to wash before coming to our chambers just to torment me. Or to punish me.

  He is convinced I have somehow willfully failed to conceive these past thirty-four years, though I have sworn to him on all I hold dear that I wanted nothing more than to be a mother and have his child.

  Now I think perhaps it is for the best that I did not.

  I am not certain it is even possible for one such as I—or that our particular sort of “family” should even exist.

  When the prince bit me during our wedding trip and made me like him and his other “daughters,” he assured me it was because he saw something special in me, because his people needed a true queen to survive and thrive.

  In spite of my shock and horror upon learning his “people” were not the citizens of Moldavia, but a race of blood-drinkers, I have done my best to fill that role and to try to accept the more frightening and repulsive necessities of life as a night-dweller.

  But the more time that passes without my giving Alexandru an heir, the angrier he becomes and the more violence he enacts against the humans here in Moldavia.

  The servants talk of rumors spreading wild through the villages surrounding the castle. I fear we may need to vacate the area soon and find a new home somewhere far from here where no one knows who, or what, we are.

  * * *

  The next entry was dated several years later in 1875. It was short but its tone was decidedly more optimistic.

  * * *

  The doctor has confirmed what I have suspected for weeks now. I am with child! Alexandru will be over the moon when he returns from Paris and I tell him. I only hope it is soon.

  Life here in San Francisco is strange, and it is lonely without him. I am hopeful we can return to London to raise our child. There are of course no friends or family left there, but at least the environs will be familiar, and the old estate in Hampshire was left to me when Mother and Father passed.

  It was an idyllic place to grow up. I would love for my son or daughter to experience the same kind of childhood I had, or at least as close to it as possible without being able to frolic on the grounds of Stony Hill Park in the daylight.

  How I wish I could watch a sunrise again and share the experience with my children! Life does not move in reverse, however, and I shall endeavor to move forward with gratitude for this new life inside me and with hope for the world at large.

  * * *

  Sadie had a child? My heart raced with excitement and hope of my own. If the baby had been a girl and I could find her, she could take over the reigns as queen and lead our people. It would be the perfect solution—especially as Alexandru and Sadie’s daughter was legitimate royalty—and Sadie’s direct, biological descendant.

  My hopes were dashed when I read the next entry in the journal.

  * * *

  I depart for Hampshire and Stony Hill Park today, but contrary to my hopes and dreams, I will not be raising a family there. When Alexandru returned from Paris, he was not alone.

  Imogen was with him.

  As it turned out, the “business” that kept him in France for such an extended time was my sister.

  He’d encountered her in Paris at the French Crimson court where she had finally found what she was looking for in all her travels—a vampire who would agree to turn her. In fact, she was the daughter of France’s vampire queen.

  Alexandru walked into our home in San Francisco with Imogen on his arm, boldly announced that after four dec
ades of marriage, he had realized his “error.” He had chosen the wrong sister.

  As I stood gaping, he ordered our servants to move my things from our shared room into the guest quarters and informed me that I was welcome to stay, like the rest of his former paramours, the women I had initially taken for his sisters the night we’d met.

  I did not even tell him about the baby. Alas, whether from the shock or grief or the mysterious rules of vampire physiology, I lost the child.

  Perhaps Imogen will be able to give Alexandru what I never could—an heir. Either way, I am now convinced the vampire race is a plague upon the earth. Certainly my husband is.

  If I could go back to the night of the ball in Hampshire, I would refuse to dance with him or entertain the notion of the marriage. I would attempt to save my sister as well, but I suspect she would have disregarded my warnings, as she did this morning when my carriage arrived to take me to the port for my voyage to England.

  “He cannot be trusted,” I told her. “Eventually he will betray you as well.”

  She laughed. “I stopped trusting men the day our father sold you to a vampire. Do not worry about me, sister. Unlike you, I always put myself first. Alexandru needs a queen... but I do not need a king.”

  “What do you mean? Do you not love him then?” I asked.

  “Love? I learned at age eighteen when Will died of scarlet fever that love is pointless. Power is what matters. And you should have seized power from Alexandru long ago. If he were capable of ruling the vampire species on his own, do you not think he would have done so? Instead, he has collected and discarded a succession of candidates, looking for a woman strong enough to prop him up and secure his shaky hold on the vampire race.”

  She shot me a wicked grin. “Well, he has found her—but I am no prop, as he will soon learn. I wish you a safe journey. We will meet again. And by then... I predict you will have forgiven me and realized I am doing you, and our entire species, a favor.”