by Aja James
And this was how Seth had been ever since.
Unconscious and in untold pain. His eyes shut tight. His jaw clenched hard. Every muscle in his body tensed with agony.
Tristan held Isolde at the foot of the bed now, but the little girl patted his arm to get down.
He released her so that she plopped onto the mattress and crawled until she got to Seth’s chest. There, she curled against him and placed a chubby palm on his neck, snuggled close and held on.
As if she, too, knew that he wouldn’t be here much longer, and she’d better get her hugs and kisses in while she still could.
“This is bullshit,” Sophia cursed under her breath and stormed out of the room.
Unaware of the outside world, the palpable grief of his longtime comrades, Seth lost himself in the murky world of dreams.
While Rain tried to save his strength to prolong his life, he focused all of it on one last projection.
He had to be there for her when she needed him the most, even if he died for her in the process…
800 AD, Hangzhou, China. Tang Dynasty.
Drowning was a horrible way to die, Jade reflected as icy water filled her lungs.
It was even more awful when the process of death by suffocation took hours rather than minutes.
Aside from the frantic need to fight her way toward the surface, despite the utter futility of the effort, given that the stone dragging her down to the bottom of the lake weighed far more than she did and was cuffed tightly to her feet by thick iron chains, there was too much time to think and reflect on how she got to where she was.
Granted, it was her own stupid idea to take the blame for the deaths of several men in the village. But she couldn’t let the rabid villagers unleash their maddened fury on a compound of unsuspecting and unprotected women.
Never mind that those women didn’t accept Jade, even though most of them were social outcasts themselves.
At least Rain treated her fairly, without prejudice or jealousy.
If Jade had lived, perhaps they could have eventually become friends. The dream of that alone was enough to move Jade to action.
Anyway, it wasn’t a heroic deed on her part, Jade thought bitterly.
She’d merely had a moment of weakness. And by the time she regretted opening her big fat mouth, it was too late. They’d already strung her up and secured the boulder to her feet, and then they were rowing her to the middle of the lake.
She peered into the murky darkness of her watery prison and wondered how much longer it would take to die.
And then a crazy idea took hold of her—what if she was forever locked in this terrible fate? Dying but not quite dead?
What if instead of signing up for a tortuous, self-sacrificing end, she’d simply signed up for a torture that never ended?
With a burst of desperate strength she flailed and fought, opening her mouth to scream.
More water filled her lungs, her eyes and nose and ears.
She couldn’t stand the pain any more. She wasn’t brave enough.
Oh, please, Goddess!
Release her from this hell! This never-ending torment of loneliness and despair.
And then her prayers were answered.
Against all hope, someone heard her pleas.
Phantom arms enfolded her from behind, and she heard a familiar husky voice whisper in her ear.
“You are not alone, my lady,” the deep voice murmured, “You are never alone.”
Jade tried to twist around to look at the speaker, but her strength had finally deserted her.
Her Pure healing abilities were no match for the advance of death, cold and suffocating, filling her veins with ice.
“Don’t cry, my lady,” the voice warmed her heart even as the rest of her lost feeling.
Jade wondered with her last tenuous hold on consciousness how the speaker knew she was crying.
Surely with so much water all around them, he couldn’t discern the small drops of salt that leaked from her closed lids?
“I hurt when you hurt, my one true heart,” the voice comforted her.
“I cry when you cry.”
She sighed as the ghostly arms seemed to tighten around her, and a luxurious heat, like the sun’s bright rays, soaked into her icy skin.
“I love you, my lady,” the voice told her in a roughened rasp.
“I will love you always.”
Jade smiled.
Somehow, she didn’t feel as if she were drowning any more.
Somehow, she knew that when she awoke, she would have the chance to find the owner of that magical voice. Those wondrous arms.
And somehow she knew, with every last beat of her stubborn heart, that he would possess beautiful gray eyes like the surface of the serene West Lake as the morning sun glinted off its mirror’s edge, shining through stormy clouds.
In her mind’s eye she saw those eyes so clearly.
Crinkling at the corners, framed by thick, bristly lashes.
As they smiled in recognition back at her.
*** *** *** ***
Jade jackknifed to a sitting position, gasping for breath.
Involuntarily, she rubbed at her eyes, but her hands came away dry.
Someone had already caught all of her tears.
Suddenly, the heavy wood of her chamber doors crashed open against the opposite walls.
In walked a female she knew only from video surveillance and pictures but had never met in the flesh.
Sophia Victoria St. James.
The Pure Queen.
“How did you get past my guards?” Jade asked calmly.
She had no reason to fear a little girl not even old enough to drink legally, even if said girl managed to get past her heavy security.
“I helped her,” Inanna, Jade’s ex-Chosen and closest friend, said from a few feet beyond the threshold.
“I think you should hear her out.”
“You owe me big,” Jade heard Anastasia, her head of security grouch to the Light Bringer.
Sophia closed the doors behind her, shutting out all further conversation between the two warrior females.
“To what do I owe the plea—” Jade began, but was abruptly cut off.
“He’s dying.”
Jade stopped breathing, her world tilting on its axis.
She did not need to ask who the Pure queen referred to.
But Sophia clarified anyway: “Seth is dying.”
“How?” Jade managed to croak.
Sophia threw up her hands, unable to control her fury and frustration.
“Isn’t it obvious, you blithering idiot! He loves you! He’s dying of the Decline! You are killing him!”
Distantly, Jade envied the teenage queen her freedom to rant and rave as if she were still human, as if she felt everything acutely just like other humans, likely because they only had a brief life to live and weren’t inured to its harsh realities like thousands-year-old vampires and Pure Ones.
Although, given how Jade was still not breathing normally, perhaps she’d learned to feel things acutely too.
Seth had taught her that.
He’d made her feel again.
He’d made her care again.
“I’m not supposed to say anything,” Sophia ranted on.
“Why the hell can’t we say anything? I’m fucking pissed off that a member of my family, one of the best males I know, is dying because he loves someone who’s too stupid or broken or just plain stupid to love him back! He made Ayelet promise not to tell you. He didn’t make me promise, and by the way I wouldn’t have made the insane promise because you need to know!”
“Why—”
“Because he doesn’t want you to feel bad, that’s my guess anyway. He doesn’t want you to find out and feel guilty.”
Sophia got right in Jade’s face, front and center.
“Well, guess what? I want you to feel very, very guilty. A beautiful, courageous, wonderful male is dying because he loves you. If you don’t lov
e him back, you deserve to be eyeballs deep in guilt. Let his death be on your head, you spineless, selfish fool.”
Sophia stepped back slightly at the look in Jade’s eyes.
“But that’s not it, is it? You do care for him.”
The young queen knelt down in front of Jade, still sitting arrested on the edge of her bed.
“Can you love him?” Sophia asked urgently, her eyes welling with tears.
“He’s in so much pain, Jade.”
Jade inhaled a long, shuddering breath, as Sophia plunged on.
“I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. I’ve always admired you. Was rather in awe of you. You seem like a fearsome queen. You’re everything I’m not. There’s no reason for you to listen to me. But hear me out anyway, because I’ve made this mistake before.”
Jade stared at her unblinkingly as the tears slid down Sophia’s cheeks unchecked.
“I was in love once. I’m still in love now, actually. I will always love him. But back then, in my previous life, when I had this one chance to make the right choice, to own up to my love and claim him, I…I…didn’t. I was stupid and cowardly. I’m paying the price for all the lives afterwards. I made tens of thousands of people pay with me. But you know what my biggest regret is?”
Jade shook her head, showing that she was listening attentively even though she made no gesture or sound.
“It’s that the male I loved never really knew how I felt. He’d died believing that I didn’t love him. He’d sacrificed himself for me, for everything he thought I wanted, when the only thing I’ve ever wanted, needed—across the countless incarnations of my soul—is him.”
A soft gasp escaped from Jade’s lips.
Sophia impulsively grabbed hold of Jade’s hands and squeezed hard.
“I don’t know what happened between you. I might be the crazy bitch talking out of turn right now. I just know that Seth is suffering the worst torture anyone could ever suffer. He might only have until tomorrow morning. If you care for him at all, I wanted you to know. Even if you can’t reverse the Decline, maybe if you were with him at the end…”
Jade pulled her hands out of Sophia’s grasp and took a deep breath, and in so doing, she seemed to bottle up tightly all of the emotions that had been broiling beneath her skin, on the verge of cracking her apart.
“I have heard you,” she said without inflection, perfectly calm.
“Now if you will excuse me, I must prepare for an important event. Anastasia will show you out.”
To her credit, the young Pure queen did not rant further.
As if her personality switched on a dime, she drew herself up regally, nodded to Jade and exited the chamber with dignity and grace.
In stark contrast to the way she’d entered it.
When she was alone once more, Jade slid a quick look toward the blackout windows, and knew that it was already nightfall.
She sat upon her bed in silence for a long while.
It might have been thirty minutes; it might have been hours.
Finally, she got up.
Time to prepare for this evening’s gathering.
Time to prepare for a reckoning.
With a clap of her hands, servants entered her chambers, hastening to do their duty.
She wanted to look her finest tonight. She would make a grand entrance as the most powerful vampire queen in the world.
Dressed in velvet, furs and bedazzled in jewels, her reddish black hair piled elaborately on her head with wispy tendrils framing her delicate oval face, she strode to the main hall, a half dozen Sentries following in her wake.
“My queen,” Rameses greeted, then bowed formally, robbed of words.
Devlin joined them and whistled low.
Jade looked as if she was dressed to kill. Her beauty was so devastating, it literally robbed beholders of breath.
Maximus, Simca, Ryu and Ana joined them as well, armed to the teeth.
“Shall we, dear Chosen?” Jade murmured silkily, every inch the self-possessed vampire queen they’d always known.
“Wouldn’t want to keep the nobles waiting.”
Her personal guards immediately gathered in formation around her.
Together, along with another dozen Sentries, they exited the Cove in armored, black SUVs.
Without headlights, they shot through the night like black bullets, blending seamlessly with the inky darkness, not even a wan moon or pale stars to be seen.
The gathering was taking place across the river in New Jersey this time, which was a good thing for Jade, because she was in a bit of a rush.
With her guards at her side, she disembarked her vehicle and strode through the entrance of Andor Varna’s opulent mansion as if she owned every marble tile she walked upon.
“My queen,” Varna himself greeted her with a deep bow, though when he straightened to his full height, his eyes showed not respect but derision.
Jade smiled carelessly back at him and silently sent him a dare to do something to provoke her.
“Varna,” she said in her sultry voice, “how good of you to host tonight’s event. I do hope you won’t have to redecorate at the end of it.”
He arched an elegant blond brow in question.
She leaned in closer to whisper, “Blood, you know. It tends to splatter most inconveniently, and is quite impossible to get out of expensive fabrics. But not to worry.”
She patted his cheek smartly.
“If there’s bloodshed, perhaps it won’t be yours.”
Varna narrowed his eyes, filled with hate, but could do nothing in retaliation, even though she’d all but slapped him just now.
Not when Maximus and Ramses bared their fangs at him in unison behind her.
Varna knew when to hold his tongue.
All of the Dark nobles were already in attendance, gathered in the Great Hall in loose groups, surrounded by their own guards.
Jade swanned slowly into the gigantic room, inclining her head at the leaders of each Horde.
Vanessa, Mikail, Jacob—they were all here. Along with the other Dark nobles who considered overthrowing her rule, as well as her staunch supporters, including a maimed Ivanov, though he came without his Mate.
Contingents from the Great Lakes and Mid Atlantic Hives were also present, though their queens had stayed back.
Jade’s smile widened.
Looked like her sister Hives were as curious as the rest of her own Hive as to the outcome of this meeting.
And depending on that outcome, perhaps the queens would show themselves should the opportunity warrant it.
She wondered whether the creature was here as well, likely disguised as someone else she didn’t recognize.
No matter.
If it’s a show they wanted to see, she’d show them something they’d never forget.
She proceeded to a row of seats at the end of the Hall, arranged on top of a platform, with all the drama and frills of an opera stage.
Without invitation, she took the largest seat.
Maximus and Ramses stood on either side of her. Simca sat beside her legs. Devlin, Ana and Ryu lined up behind her, while her royal Sentries surrounded the Hall.
“Let’s get on with the show, children,” she said in an indulgent tone, her smile both enticing and icy cold.
“Come,” she beckoned to the strongest leaders of the noble houses. “Join me on this elaborate stage.”
Varna, Mikail, Vanessa, Jacob, Ivanov and a few others filed onto the platform and took their seats, arranged in a semicircle that faced the Hall, where the rest of the nobles and their guards stood silent with anticipation.
“Who’s first?” Jade invited, looking from one Dark noble to the other.
Varna opened his mouth.
“On second thought,” she said, cutting him off and making him shut his mouth again with an audible snap, “I’ll go first.”
“I am your queen, after all, am I not?” she emphasized, whether with sarcasm or disdain or a mixture o
f both, none could tell.
“I have thought over everything that’s been said and unsaid over the past few weeks. And really, over the past several years, if not decades.”
She speared each noble with a sharp look and cast her gaze wider to include their audience below the platform.
“I have not always been the most popular queen, I know. Unfortunately, none of you had the balls to Challenge me and take up the ruling mantle yourselves. But I see you have gathered strength in numbers, forming alliances against me.”
She looked particularly hard at Varna, who tried to stare back defiantly.
But the longer she stared into him, the weaker became his resolve. Until at last, he looked away, unable to hold her unnerving sapphire gaze.
She took her eyes off him and shrugged.
“I could be angry and have the traitors punished, but I honestly don’t care enough to bother. If you want another queen to head this Hive, just say the word. I am nothing if not democratic.”
“We do not wish it, my queen,” Mikail was the first to speak. “We simply have differences of opinion concerning certain aspects of your rule.”
“Let’s be specific,” Jade commanded. “You mean the decision I made to ally this Hive with the Pure Ones.”
“Yes,” Vanessa said with a hiss.
“Anything else?”
“Your lack of a Consort or Mate,” Jacob added.
“What else?”
No one spoke for many moments, so Jade spoke up herself.
“Let’s not forget my sordid background as a human and then a Pure One. And a nobody human at that. Goodness, I check all the boxes for lack of pedigree to hold my current position, don’t I?”
“And the fact that you’re ridiculously enamored of a Pure Blood Slave,” Andor Varna finally snarled with disgust.
“Everyone knows you’ve let the reins slip over the last couple of years because of him.”
Jade turned her eyes on him, and he visibly shrank back.
She curled her lips in a fearsome smile.
“Would you rather I was enamored of you instead, Varna?” she asked with quiet steel.