by Aja James
“Why the hell not?”
Maximus glared at the warrior. Ramses’ obvious frustration wasn’t helping his own ire.
“If you haven’t noticed, Jade is more stubborn than a mule. She’s always done everything herself. She takes everything that goes wrong under her rule personally. She will not want anyone stepping in for her in case of a Challenge. Even if they have a high chance of winning and she has a high chance of losing. She won’t risk anyone else if she’s the one who’s targeted. That’s always been her way.”
“Even if it costs her life?” Ramses was incredulous.
“She’s died twice already and was resurrected, if the rumors are true—” Maximus said.
“You don’t know for sure?”
“Our queen does not share the details of her lives with anyone, even those closest to her. We only have rumors. Between her past incarnations and her present stubbornness, she’s not afraid of death. Over the past three years, I feel like she might have even welcomed it.”
Ramses’ eyebrows slammed down.
“Because of the Pure Blood Slave.”
Maximus held his glare.
“Yes.”
Ramses made no further comment, but his jaw flexed ominously.
“We need to prepare for the worst,” Maximus said again, going back to where they’d begun. “Alert the others.”
“And Jade?”
The Commander took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“She knows how to handle herself. We have to trust her when the shit goes down.”
*** *** *** ***
After a light lunch, Jade and Seth walked through Central Park, just like the first time they’d struck up this pretense of a happily married couple three years ago.
Jade looped one arm around his waist, while Seth held her close around her shoulder.
To any observer, they looked like a young couple deeply in love, lost in their own private world.
Jade looked up at the male by her side and felt a sudden pang of sadness.
It was all pretense, after all.
They were only using each other for their own gains. She wanted him for physical pleasures and companionship, and he wanted…
She still didn’t know what he wanted.
He’d requested that she take a Consort or Mate, but she didn’t understand how he or the Pure Ones benefited from that course of action. Perhaps he simply wanted her rule to be further solidified, because she was keeping their alliance despite the opposite push.
She didn’t want any other male.
She wanted Seth.
But she also knew that it was impossible for her to take him as anything other than her Blood Slave and still remain queen.
And he would never agree to be her Blood Slave. He was too proud.
She admired him for it, even as she hated him for denying her the one thing in the world she truly wanted.
Needed.
“You didn’t eat much at midday meal,” she noted as she continued to regard him, her attention shifting from her own selfish desires to the way his skin seemed to stretch thinner over his bones.
“Was the food not to your liking?”
He smiled down at her and shook his head.
“I wasn’t hungry. I was too focused on dessert.”
The melting heat in his eyes left no room for doubt that she was his dessert.
As he’d intended, she shivered with pleasure, and her lips curled in an answering smile.
The truth was, Seth’s stomach was no longer functioning properly.
He knew that if he took anything inside, he’d only heave it all back up.
The late stages of the Decline shut down a body’s organs one by one. He could feel his insides begin to break down.
Already, breathing was something he had to consciously command himself to do, rather than the natural reflex of a living being.
Oblivious of his struggles, she slid her hand into his back pocket, possessively grabbing a handful of ass.
“I wouldn’t mind some dessert myself,” she murmured almost demurely, though he still heard the aggressive growl lacing her voice.
“But I don’t want to go back to the Cove. I want to have you all to myself. I want us to be alone.”
She was afraid that if she went back, their day would end, even if the clock kept ticking. Returning to the seat of her rule would remind her too prominently of reality, and that what they had today was only a fictional blip in time.
“Come,” he said, guiding her in a different direction toward the nearest park exit.
“I know a great little bed and breakfast close by.”
“You have rendezvouses at quaint little bed and breakfasts, do you?” she inquired archly.
“Are you pretending to be jealous, wife?” he teased.
“I am not pretending anything, husband,” she answered.
“I am jealous of all your time and attention. And if you’ve been meeting attractive females in cute B&Bs, I’d find out who they are and hunt them down, but only after I punish you for being too generous with your time with females who are not me.”
He shook his head at her, though he couldn’t really tell whether she was serious or making fun.
Perhaps a mix of both.
“You should trust me, wife,” he said quietly.
“When I love, it is true, and it is forever.”
She stopped walking and looked up at him, her arms linking together behind his waist.
“Is this what you told her? Your human wife?”
For a moment, Seth thought about batting a careless quip back. This day was supposed to be lighthearted.
This day might be their last together.
For that very reason, he couldn’t find it in him to be careless.
So he held her gaze and replied solemnly, “You are my wife right now. It is what I am telling you.”
The small casual smile that curled her lips slowly disappeared the longer she held his gaze.
He couldn’t read her thoughts, but he knew that there were thousands of them swirling behind her iridescent sapphire eyes.
“Do you love me, Seth?” she whispered.
His entire body froze at her question.
He’d been purposely keeping the truth to himself all this time, though he’d expressed it without words.
With his body, his blood, the life force he released into her.
He didn’t want her to know that he loved her, not because he was afraid to admit it, but because if she knew, she might put two and two together and realize that he was dying because of his love for her.
It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t or couldn’t love him back the way that he needed to reverse the Decline. He understood why she was the way she was. He’d lived her past with her through her dreams.
He admired her survival instincts and strength and perseverance despite all the odds.
He loved her for it.
Even if it meant that she locked her heart away in an icy cage, and starved her soul of affection.
He knew that she did this to be stronger, to hammer out all weaknesses and chinks in her metaphorical armor.
It was the reason she wouldn’t love him back. There was nothing anyone could do to change it.
Including him.
It also had no bearing on how he felt. His love for her was unconditional. Given, without expectation of receiving in kind.
But despite himself, in this moment of truth, he couldn’t lie to her after all.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
With a slightly shaking hand, he reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Yes.”
It was all he uttered, low and husky, a rumble that reached from his chest into hers.
She felt the vibration of his reply everywhere in her body.
Her hands clutched the back of his coat, clawing into the fine wool.
“Then you’ll stay with me? You’ll stay by my side?” she ask
ed urgently, her eyes blazing blue fire, burning into his dark gray pools.
He broke their gaze and looked down, the thick bristles of his lashes fluttering with distress, though she couldn’t comprehend his pain.
“We have today,” he said quietly. “Let us focus on today.”
She grabbed his chin and pulled his face down to hers, forcing him to meet her eyes.
“If you really loved me, you would do anything for me,” she seethed.
“You would not leave me until I released you.”
He cupped her face with both his palms, his large hands entirely enfolding her head on either side.
Distantly, she registered that his hands were icy cold, much colder than the air around them, which was unseasonably warm for the last weeks of winter.
He opened his mouth to say something, but the words stayed bottled inside.
Instead, he bent down and kissed her hard, a desperate collision of lips and tongues.
For many minutes she was lost to the world, and the only thing she knew was the heat and passion of his kiss, the addictive taste and smell of him, infiltrating her pores, her nerves, her very bones.
But finally, she recalled herself.
Remembered that he had not answered her. His silence was damning.
He didn’t love her enough to stay.
She tore herself away from him and staggered a couple of steps back, until they were no longer touching.
“Stay with me,” she commanded.
“Stay with me forever. If you love me, prove it.”
She held her breath as she waited for his answer, held her breath until she thought she were under that icy lake again, sinking to her watery grave.
His chest heaved as if he couldn’t get enough air to fill his lungs. His eyes glistened with an indefinable fragility, as if something was shattering within him, piece by jagged piece.
But she told herself to ignore it. She concentrated every molecule on his answer.
Silently, she willed him to give it to her.
The answer she most wanted to hear, the one she’d sell her soul to receive.
Finally, he said:
“I cannot.”
In that moment, she broke.
Without thinking, she lashed out and slapped him hard across the face, snapping his head to the side.
Then, she rushed forward and pushed with all her might, managing to make him stagger a half step back.
“I hate you,” she bit out.
“I hate liars. I hate you for making me feel. For making me want you so much I can’t breathe. I would have given anything for you. I’d kill for you. I have killed to avenge you. But you’re like all the others who have lied to me before. You-you toy with my e-emotions and y-you make promises, and then…and then…”
Impatiently, she wiped her arm across her face and was disgusted to see fluids on her winter coat from both her eyes and her nose.
For fuck sakes! She was blubbering like an idiot!
He tried to reach out and take hold of her arm, but she swung out of his reach.
“Don’t touch me!” she bit out.
“I am a queen. And you… You are nothing but a Pure whore.”
A breath left his body as if someone far stronger than she had just punched him in the Solar Plexus.
She herself reeled back from the blast of intense pain radiating from him.
But he held his ground and stood tall and straight, steadily regarding her with those stormy gray eyes.
They stared at each other like two Titans locked in a stalemate.
An oppressive silence stretched timelessly and infinitely between them, drowning out all other noise in the park.
Until finally, she calmed herself enough to speak.
“I’ve had enough,” she said in a completely modulated voice, reminiscent of the cool, controlled vampire queen he’d first met three years ago.
“No more negotiations. All deals are off. But I keep the promises I make, Pure One, even if you do not. I will choose a Consort before tonight is done. I should not ignore good advice even if I despise the advisor.”
She tilted a corner of her full, red mouth in her signature smile.
“The allegiance of a powerful Dark male will strengthen my rule, just as his hard cock will fuel my powers.”
He gave no tell that her words affected him, save the slight flutter of his lashes.
But that one small movement was enough, for she knew by now just how to hurt him, even if it was not “love” that caused it, but territoriality or possessiveness.
Good.
She was glad he suffered.
She wanted to bring him to his knees.
“I know just the male for the job. I think you do too.”
Yes, he knew. She saw in his eyes that he knew.
Dark gray eyes that were black with pain, the pupils having dilated completely, the irises filling with blood.
For an infinitesimal moment, she wanted to kneel at his feet and beg his forgiveness for hurting him so ruthlessly.
She wanted to take back every awful thing she said in the hurricane of rage and frustration and despair that possessed her.
But she knew that he would not change his answer once he gave it.
He would not stay with her beyond the duration of their contract.
And though she’d wanted to cherish every moment with him while she had him, she knew she couldn’t say good bye at the end of their time together. She’d try everything in her power to make him stay. Force him to stay.
But he’d leave her anyway.
She knew he would.
And by then, she’d be even weaker than she was now. By then, she wouldn’t be able to continue on without him.
She had to squash this weakness within her while she still could.
So this time, she was the one who turned around without another word.
She was the one who walked away and didn’t look back.
Chapter Seventeen
“My queen,” Rameses said the moment Jade entered the Cove, “where have you—”
She rounded on him so suddenly, he almost collided with her, but managed to take a hasty step back before it happened.
She bared her teeth, fully equipped with gleaming fangs, and let out a snarling hiss.
All right then.
Vampire queen in a fucking bad mood.
Note taken.
With that, she turned and kept walking, and he had to lengthen his strides to keep up with her brisk pace.
Maximus intercepted them halfway down the corridor.
A threatening growl emanated from Jade’s throat.
“Why are none of you asleep?” she asked with annoyance. “It’s still hours before nightfall.”
She’d wanted to hide in her chambers and lick her wounds in private. She didn’t think anyone would be up while it was still mid-afternoon outside.
But apparently, an all-out bawling fit in the shower would have to wait.
“The Dark nobles are gathering tonight. All of the heads of houses this time,” Maximus reported.
“Your attendance has been requested.”
She shot him a fulminating glare.
“Humbly,” he added.
Jade scoffed.
“You added the last part, didn’t you?”
“It was thusly worded in the invitation,” Maximus said, but no one mistook his meaning.
The queen of the New England Hive was being held hostage by the very nobles she supposedly ruled.
They expected her attendance at the gathering. Her absence would give them carte blanche to reconstruct the throne in whatever way they wished, including deposing a recalcitrant queen.
Jade slanted an unpleasant smile.
“Tell the nobles I am breathless with anticipation for tonight’s scintillating event. Tell them I have considered their request from the other night and have come to a decision.”
“You have?” Maximus asked, surprised despite himself.
He slid a look to Ramses, who shared his silent consternation with narrowed eyes.
Jade reached her chambers and stepped over the threshold.
“I’ll announce it at the gathering. Let all others know that I do not wish to be disturbed. A queen needs her beauty sleep before the big event, after all.”
With that, she shut the double doors in her personal guards’ faces.
*** *** *** ***
“Where is he? I must go to him.”
Rain and Valerius had just returned from their expedition abroad, called back early by Ayelet, so that Seth would have all of his friends around him, all save Dalair.
Without further ado, the usual greetings spared, Ayelet led Rain to Seth’s personal chamber within the Shield, where the rest of the Dozen were already gathered.
Though she’d lost her special Gift as the Pure Ones’ Healer, Rain was still a powerful healer in her own right.
Immediately, she knelt by Seth’s bedside and set to work, the thousands of strands of her hair tensing into needles and inserting into the Consul’s pores, in critical areas where his energy or qi coalesced.
Even had she been at the full height of her original powers, Rain could not have reversed the Decline.
Nothing could, except the love of the female to whom Seth had given himself.
But she could perhaps slow it down, give him a bit more time, and dull the excruciating pain of his body’s unraveling.
“How much time does he have?” Sophia asked tonelessly, perfectly calm despite the severity of the situation.
Rain shook her head.
“With my help, he has maybe until the end of the night. By next morning…”
Valerius sat down on the floor behind the healer, wrapping his strong arms around his Mate, giving her his strength so that she could give hers to her patient.
Cloud, Aella, and Eveline stood on the other side of the bed, silent and grieving, regret on their faces for not having had the chance to say goodbye to their friend.
For, when Seth had been recovered from Central Park by Tristan, using the tracking device built into the wristbands each member of the Dozen wore, the Consul had been passed out on a bench, his body shuddering in a fit of seizure he didn’t even know he was having.
Strangers had crowded around him, one in the process of calling 911, when Tristan arrived on the scene. He’d taken hold of the situation and got Seth back to the Shield without being stopped or followed by human law enforcement or emergency medical personnel.