by Carina Cook
“Liss!” exclaimed Tait after a too-long pause. “We were looking for you. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Liss stared at her brother with an expression as icy as her mother’s. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. Her fury was palpable.
“Look, I’m sorry if our joke didn’t go off as well as we intended. We just wanted you to understand how dangerous this whole queen thing was going to be.” Tait looked at the three of them beseechingly but found no sympathy there. So he turned to Chandra, nodding at her in encouragement. “Isn’t that right, Chandra?”
The courtier picked up the cue with ease, favoring them with a practiced smile. “Of course it is. We thought that it would be best if we took her. Someone would, eventually. So we staged a little kidnapping in order to help you realize what a mistake this whole engagement was. It’s just too dangerous for a human, you see? But we didn’t intend for her to get hurt.” She turned beseeching eyes onto Gregor. “You must understand that. I’m not so foolish as to hurt your fiancée in the building that you own.”
He didn’t care. He’d heard enough. His fangs slid out fully, dimpling his lower lip. The world narrowed. The scent of Liss’s blood filled his nostrils, blood that Chandra and Tait had spilled. Their intent was irrelevant. They had tried to harm his fiancée, and they would pay.
Chandra didn’t see him coming. While Viktor had possessed unparalleled vampiric strength—both mental and physical—Gregor’s strength had always been in his speed. He crossed the room in a blur of movement, too fast for even Chandra’s eyes to follow. Before she even realized what was happening, he had her pinned against the wall, his forearm at her throat. Her feet dangled in the air, and she struggled futilely against him. The more she struggled, the harder he squeezed.
“Liss… is…mine…” he hissed in her face. “An attack on her is an attack on me. You thought me too weak to retaliate, but you are about to find that you’re wrong. I was Viktor’s killer once, for all the wrong reasons. Now I will kill for a right one.”
He dipped his head toward her neck, fully prepared to rip out her throat and drain her dry. A vampire could survive such a wound, if they were allowed to heal in the dark, but it could take years. Or he could toss her husk outside, leaving it to turn to dust at sunrise. He wasn’t entirely sure which option he intended.
“Please have mercy, sire,” exclaimed Tait as Chandra choked and struggled. “You can’t believe we really meant it. I wouldn’t kill my own sister. You know me; I’m not that kind of monster.”
Gregor paused, taking a deep breath. He wanted so badly to end this. To tear Chandra to pieces so he wouldn’t have to be afraid any more. The possibility that he might lose Liss so soon shook him badly. The thought of Liss dragged his eyes to her. He looked at her, trying not to snarl. He didn’t want to frighten her after everything she’d been through, and he knew that now she was seeing him in a new light. It was written all of her face—fear and confusion and righteous anger, all tumbled together. He’d worked so hard to present a humane front to the court, and now that he finally found someone who deserved the best that he could offer, he could no longer maintain it.
“Liss?” he asked. But he didn’t know how to finish the question.
She thought for a moment regardless. Then she turned to her brother with a resolute expression.
“I thought you meant it,” she said. “If you were trying to teach me a lesson as you claim”—and her voice left no doubt that she didn’t believe that for a moment—“you succeeded. You taught me that you can’t be trusted.”
“But I can. I was just trying to protect you!” Tait protested.
Chandra started making a funny noise from the wall where Gregor still held her suspended. Curious, he loosened his grip just enough to see what it was. She was laughing.
“Trying to save your ass, are you?” she said. “What about me?”
“What about you?” demanded Tait. “We all know you really meant it. You would have done away with Liss in a heartbeat if you thought you had a claim on the throne. I was just going along with it to find out your plan. Then I was going to—”
“Tait, shut up.”
Dagmar’s voice cut across the room like a scythe. Her son shut his mouth with an audible click, looking at her with wide eyes. She stared back gravely.
“I still love you,” she said. “You are my son, and it’s my job to love you. But it’s also my job to teach you a lesson when you mess up, and you have done exactly that. You will shut your mouth now and let your sister speak, or I will shut it for you.”
“But, mother,” said Tait, aghast.
“If you speak one more word, I will not advocate for you,” she said.
If her expression was any indication, she meant it too. She stared at him a moment longer and then, satisfied, she looked back at Liss.
“I’m sorry, dear. Continue what you were saying,” she said.
Liss blinked. But she recovered quickly.
“I don’t know what else to say,” she said. “I don’t want anyone dying on my account. But I’m not going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to try and stuff me in a laundry bag and cart me off with the sheets.”
“You are too merciful,” Gregor growled. “The easiest way to insure your safety is to end them now. Or her, at least.” He shook Chandra for emphasis.
But Liss shook her head. “No. That just makes us look scared and weak. Besides, I’ve figured out the blood magic now. I’m not scared to use it. If either of them comes for me again, I won’t hesitate to defend myself. To the death, if that’s what it takes. You understand that, right?”
She looked from Chandra to Tait and back again. Tait scowled but nodded. Chandra couldn’t move her head. She blinked instead. But somehow, that seemed to be enough for Liss. She nodded.
“Gregor, put her down,” she said, gently touching him on the shoulder. He shook his head once, angrily. “Please. For me.”
He turned to look at her, anguish in his eyes. “But they tried to hurt you. I can’t just let them go. I have to make this right.”
“This is right,” she insisted. Then she looked at Chandra. “Don’t you see? They wanted to keep me from the throne. My first action as queen will be to pardon them. But only so long as they serve us. Any hint of rebellion, they’ll bring to us. Any discontent, they’ll report. And if they don’t…” She shrugged. “There will be consequences.”
“Consequences?” he asked.
“I’ll need a lot of blood to work on developing my magic,” she said. “I could always use donors.”
Gregor watched as horror dawned in Chandra’s eyes. He imagined that to someone like her, feeding a human’s needs with her blood instead of the other way around would be torture. Although he still wanted to tear her head off, he found that he could step away. As soon as his arm was off her throat, she sagged to the ground. Although she didn’t need to breathe, he expected that his grip had hurt her. That didn’t bother him one bit. In fact, he was rather happy about it.
There was one thing that didn’t make him happy, though. He looked at Liss longingly.
“I wanted to save you,” he said. “I thought maybe then you’d know that I really do care.”
She smiled at him, the first smile he’d seen since all of this had started. “You let me save myself. I think that proves it just fine.”
CHAPTER 17
After her ordeal, Liss felt more than a little justified in treating herself to a nice long bath. It felt good to scrub the blood and grime off. Those piles of napkins had helped, but not that much. She thought she’d never look at napkins the same way again. As much as she kept trying not to think about it, her mind kept circling back around to the strangest details—the wild look in Gregor’s eyes as he held Chandra up off the ground, the piles of napkins on the ground, the cold metal of the handcuffs against her skin.
Everything that had happened felt strange and almost unreal to her, and if not for the mark
s on her wrists, she would have thought she’d imagined the whole thing. She’d been able to deal with the blood magic. She’d eventually managed to go to sleep after Viktor had killed himself at court. She felt like she’d dealt with finding herself unexpectedly engaged to the king of the vampires with aplomb. But Tait’s maybe-betrayal shook her worldview in a way that these things did not, and so she put it out of her mind as best as she could.
Finally, after the water grew cold, she let it drain out of the enormous circular tub in her parents’ bathroom. As a child, she’d gone swimming in it, during breaks from boarding school. Now she was too big, but it still felt luxurious to soak in bubbles up to her chin. She didn’t want to get out, but she did, folding herself into a plush white robe and tying it tight around her waist.
When she opened the door, she found her mother sitting on the bench at the end of her parent’s gigantic bed. A stake and a wakizashi sat on the bench next to her. The blade was sheathed, but both weapons were positioned at just the right angle to make them easy to snatch up if someone should come charging through the door. Dagmar had been keeping watch. Liss wasn’t surprised.
“Feeling a bit better now?” asked her mother.
“Yes, thanks.”
Dagmar reached into the pocket of her light sweater and pulled out a roll of gauze. “Do your wrists need wrapping? I expect it would be awkward to do yourself. I have antibiotic cream too.”
Liss almost protested. Ingesting Gregor’s blood on a yearly basis gave the entire family incredibly efficient immune systems. The likelihood of her wounds getting infected was somewhere in the range of slim to none, and Dagmar knew that. So why was she offering? When Liss took a closer look, the answer was obvious. Her mother was stressed. She couldn’t protect both of her children, and it had to be eating her up inside. Liss wondered if her father knew yet, and what he would say when he did. He’d always been closer to Tait, while Dagmar and Liss herself had been inseparable. The news would hurt him too.
So Liss pushed up her sleeve and held out her arm toward her mother. If Dagmar wanted to do something, Liss owed her that much. “If you wouldn’t mind taking care of them, I’d appreciate it,” she said. “I don’t want scars.”
Dagmar didn’t wait for her to ask twice. She oh-so-gently dabbed antibiotic ointment on the ragged cuts circling Liss’s wrist, and then wrapped it in gauze, securing it neatly. Then she took a moment to examine her work.
“There,” she said with something approaching satisfaction. “That’s better.”
She began to put the things away, but Liss stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Mom, are you okay? I’m…I’m really sorry about what happened with Tait. I don’t know how to make it all better. I would if I could.”
Dagmar sighed, fiddling with the gauze. “I know. And it isn’t your fault in the slightest. I wish I was more surprised by your brother’s behavior, but he’s always had these chameleon tendencies.”
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
“You’re not?” Dagmar met Liss’s eyes squarely. Liss could see her mother’s sorrow, but beneath it ran the familiar strength that would not let her bend. “I think if you spent a moment to consider what I said, you’d know.”
So Liss did. She thought of the summer vacations where Tait managed to charm whatever girl he’d set his eyes on, becoming the perfect guy for her, if only for a few weeks. For some girls, he became a cool and social type; for others he was aloof and enigmatic. She’d always envied him for it. He could fit in anywhere, while people seemed to find her standoffish despite her best efforts. She just had never learned to talk to normal people, because she had so much to do and learn. But Tait had always been able to talk to anyone. Moreso, he could wrap most people around his little finger.
“I suppose I get what you mean,” she said slowly. “But I’m still not sure how it got us here. It’s a big leap from charming all the girls to conspiring to do away with your sister because she won’t teach you magic like you want her to. Or maybe…” She trailed off but felt obligated to add: “Maybe he really didn’t mean it, like he said.”
Dagmar let out a delicate snort. “We both know that he did.”
“Yeah.” Liss sighed.
“I suspect he acted without thinking. When Tait sees something, he goes after it. When those tendencies are checked by your father’s natural caution, they become a force to be reckoned with in the business world. That success has led Tait to believe that he deserves more power than he has. He’s tried a few times to take over your father’s position.”
“No!” Liss was astonished. That kind of thing simply wasn’t done—not in the vampire community and not anywhere. “He did not.”
“It’s true, I’m afraid. And then you came along. At first, I assume he thought you’d be a follower, the way you sometimes were when you were both children. But then, you pulled off a glyph in plain view of the court. Now, you had power, and he wanted some of it. So he tried to get you to share. But you wouldn’t.”
“I wasn’t trying to be selfish; I swear. I don’t know how to teach this. Or how I can do it in the first place.”
Dagmar tilted her head. “You don’t? Liss, Viktor’s blood mage—Etienne—was our ancestor. Blood magic quite literally runs in our veins. Of course, the talent is recessive, or at least I assume so. We haven’t had a blood mage in the family since Etienne, although I think there were a few before him. Viktor used to have our ancestors try out some glyphs once they joined the court, but after my mother and father were tested, Viktor suddenly changed his mind. He was so erratic that it was hard to say why he did anything. At least in recent years. I hear he wasn’t always that way.”
Liss frowned. “So we’re descended from the man who put Viktor on the throne?”
“And you’re the one who took him off it.” Dagmar patted Liss on the hand. “Never let anyone tell you that humans are too weak to effect real change. The Lorenssons have repeatedly proven otherwise.”
“And Tait knew this?”
Dagmar nodded. “I think your father let it slip. He came to me to ask about it, and I told him to let it rest. I only wish he’d listened.”
Now it all made sense, but Liss didn’t feel any better. She looked down at her wrists, one bound in pristine gauze. “Mom? I don’t know if I want to be queen. It’s just so much, so fast. And I expected to be working for Gregor, not married to him.”
“Do you care for him?” asked Dagmar, watching her intently.
“Well… I…” But Liss couldn’t form a coherent sentence. She took a deep breath and collected herself. Some people might think that confiding in her mother about her love life was strange, but to her it felt completely natural. “I don’t know if what I feel is real.”
“Because of the pheromones in his bite?”
“No.” Liss blushed. “He’s attractive for sure. That’s no problem. But that’s not enough to build a marriage on, and I don’t know… am I really supposed to be his wife? Or is this a political thing? And am I still his thrall if I’m his wife? I could handle it if I knew what to expect, but I don’t, and it’s driving me crazy.”
“Well,” said Dagmar, a smile playing over her lips, “I suppose you could do something wild and crazy and just ask.”
Liss threw up her hands. “Now you’re just making fun of me,” she protested.
“Not at all. I don’t envy your situation. Konstantine and I were equals when we married, and we both knew we brought something important to the table.”
“But didn’t you love him?” asked Liss, scandalized. She’d never really thought about this before, but of course, thralls were expected to pick their spouses from within other thrall families. Her father’s family had come from Sweden when he was just a baby, and new blood was always in high demand in such a small community. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized up until this moment that theirs was really a political union too. Now she felt a bit silly for complaining about Gregor.
But D
agmar just smiled. “Our parents gave us many opportunities to fall in love. They didn’t exactly push us together, and I imagine if we hadn’t clicked, they would have looked elsewhere. But we did. It just takes time.”
“But I don’t have time,” said Liss, scowling.
“Then I guess you’d better go talk to him now, hadn’t you?” suggested Dagmar gently.
“I hate it when you’re right, you know that?”
But her mother just hugged her, a tight embrace that said without words how happy she was that Liss was safe and sound. No matter what happened with Gregor, she had that. Still, she would go and talk to him. Not just because her mother wanted her to, or because it would help her family. But because for the first time, she was willing to admit to herself that she wanted to know what Gregor thought of her. She wanted him to care. Because she cared about him, more than she wanted to.
CHAPTER 18
Once Liss was dropped off safely at home with her mother and Chandra had been deposited in the specially-built vampire cells under the library, Gregor found himself feeling very restless. He gave Antoine the all-clear and sent him home. Then he made an attempt to look through the casino reports, but he couldn’t focus. The reports needed his utmost attention. Tait had compiled most of them, and in light of his erratic behavior, Gregor felt the need to review everything himself. He’d have Konstantine do the same. It would be a conflict of interest, but Konstantine was at heart a businessman. He put logic over emotion every time, although if a situation could break through his emotional barriers, this was probably it. Konstantine might be hurt by recent developments, but having some piece of business to attend to might help him work through it.
It would have to wait for another night, though. Gregor simply couldn’t focus on the numbers before him. They swam in his brain, and five seconds after he read them, he’d already forgotten what they were. He was too busy thinking over what had happened with Liss. Wondering if she was okay. If she resented him for bringing her into all of this. Of course, she was the one who had killed Viktor, but maybe he could have avoided that too. He’d known for years that Viktor was out of control, but he’d talked himself into playing it safe, and look where it had gotten them. He could have taken Viktor out years ago, and then Liss would be safe.