Chapter Four
Blair
The mages froze in front of me and bowed at the waist as I struggled not to lash out at them. I hid my fangs in my mouth and forced my hands to relax so I no longer appeared threatening. If I turned out to be making a mistake, then I would simply kill the three of them and we would deal with the fallout later.
“Princess Blair, please forgive us for what happened. We will do what we can to make it right. Khidell is part of a radical faction of mages who disagree with the majority on our dealings with other supernatural beings,” said the mage in long black robes trimmed with silver and gold. I eyed his sash where two short swords were held in their sheaths, and reminded myself again he wasn't a threat. Yet.
“Blair, these are the mages who were meant to give you a boon for your reawakening. This is Rupert, Sidney, and Philip,” my uncle said, gesturing first to the mage in black, followed by the one in navy blue, and finally the one in silver.
I inclined my head to each of them, trying to be respectful while also maintaining my rank as princess. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”
“The boon we have been authorized to give you is speed learning, so you can more easily adapt to the challenges our world will present to you,” Sidney said.
“Thank you, that is most generous of you,” I said, smiling as best I could at the three men even though the feeling of hunger was growing within me.
“If Your Highness is amenable, we would like to offer a chance to divert some of the damage our brother Khidell has done,” Rupert chimed in.
“The original boon we were going to give you would allow you to learn things instantly. You could understand how to speak and write Japanese within minutes, for instance, or how to use a computer within seconds,” Philip said.
“What’s a computer?” I asked.
“Just ignore that part for now,” Rupert said, shooting Philip a glare. “What we propose instead is that we make our gift a little slower by using the power of just two mages, while the third makes the addendum to Khidell’s so-called gift.”
“What kind of addendum?” my uncle butted in, as though the man had my wellbeing at heart. While I wanted the answer, I was willing to bet that the reasoning behind my uncle’s question was a lot more selfish.
“If two mages give you the learning boon, then the third can twist the boon that Khidell gave you so that you are still able to feed.” I started to smile at the mage’s words, but Rupert held up a hand and continued. “The only way we can twist it is to allow you to feed from someone you’ve fed from in the past. Obviously, you can still eat human food, but it won’t satisfy the hunger. Only blood will do that.”
“Thank you, it is most generous of you to go against Khidell,” I said, meaning every word. I didn’t know who the first mage was, but if he was part of an outlying group, then these men were clearly taking a chance in helping me.
“It’s the least we could do, Your Highness. I am sorry that this was your welcome into our current world,” Philip said.
“Well, get on with it, then,” my uncle said, making a shooing motion with his hands.
“Please, have a seat,” Rupert said, gesturing to the chair I had previously been occupying while Sidney moved my uncle’s chair.
I obliged the mages and sat back down, although I was starting to feel restless, as though this dinner had gone on too long. Ironically, even though I had been asleep for two hundred years, all I wanted was to take a nap.
Sidney and Philip came and stood on either side, their robes taking up most of the space in front of me, so all I could see was a small sliver of the audience watching the events unfold with rapt attention. It didn’t help that two of the faces looking at me were Gage and Drake. The blue and silver on either side of my view seemed to swirl together as the energy in the room shifted. I looked up. Blood dripped from their hands and hung in the air as though they were painting with it.
Their faces were covered in bright-white glowing lines as they spoke in a language I couldn’t understand. It sounded like the language of the mages, but none of the words they used were familiar. The longer I watched, the more it looked like the roots and branches of a tree were spreading out along their cheeks, noses, and foreheads, but each of them had slightly different markings. The glow from the lines only seemed to become more intense as they spoke, and the blood that had been hanging in front of me began to form different symbols, almost runic in appearance. The symbols twisted and contorted until they became curved and swirly. They were beautiful.
A moment later, the chanting stopped. When the two of them said one more word, the blood symbol flew forward and crashed into my face. I yelped in surprise and heard my uncle snicker to my left. The man was dead set on undermining me at any opportunity.
The two mages stepped away, and I felt an awareness creeping into my soul. Everything was much more complicated than I’d ever imagined. Before I could worry too much about this newfound appreciation for what was going on around me, Rupert stepped forward and knelt.
“You will need to drink from me while I twist the curse that Khidell put on you. I won’t taste good. I’ll probably taste rotten or sour, anything that would make you less likely to drink from me, but you have to push through that feeling for at least a couple of minutes while I work, okay?”
I nodded. My stomach was already responding to the curse, and to all the blood that I’d ingested before Khidell had come and knocked the whole thing on its head. Everything was threatening to come back up, which was something that couldn’t happen in front of all the noble families. None of this should be happening in front of them, for that matter.
“Ready?” Rupert asked as he pulled the wide sleeve of his robe away from his wrist.
For a second, I felt like I could see a whole other world within the fabric of his sleeve, like stars glittering in the night sky. As soon as he covered it, my attention was back on him, and I bared my fangs to him in response. I wasn’t sure why, if I was honest with myself, but something in me demanded that I show him whom he was dealing with.
When I bit down, it felt like his arm crumbled under my touch, and thick, sticky liquid oozed into my mouth. I tried to swallow, but all I could do was gag.
“You have to drink, Princess,” Rupert murmured next to me.
My eyes flew open at his words, only to find Colt watching me. The man who had blood that tasted like chocolate and wine was watching while I tried to swallow even a mouthful of this rancid blood that tasted like the owner had died some time ago. The whole situation made me want to scream in frustration, but I had been raised in a time when women didn’t express their emotions in public, and if I did so now, I was sure my mother, wherever she was, would be shaking her head with disappointment.
I stared out across the sea of people, glancing past the skulls and pumpkins that I’d taken joy in a moment ago, but now seemed to be mocking me with their smiling faces. As much as I tried to resist, my eyes came back to land on Colt. He flinched as though he could see the pain I was in just from trying to swallow. I tried again, forcing my throat to relax, but the blood just burned as it went further and further into my mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut just for a moment as I fought the pain and the need to release Rupert’s arm.
When I snapped them open again, Colt was striding toward me, his serious brown eyes studying me. He didn’t glance away for a second as he squatted in front of me.
“You can do this. You’re the daughter of King Alexander Edward Berkshire. You can do anything, including rule all the vampires in the United Kingdom.”
I tried to swallow again and felt the burn of the blood all the way down my throat. I desperately wanted to cry out in pain, but I couldn’t. If I took my mouth off Rupert’s arm for any reason, the spell might not work, and I might not have the willpower to bite down again.
My whole body felt rigid with pain and fear. I had to persevere. If I didn’t, what choice would I have other than to walk into the sunlight? I wouldn’t live
for eternity starving and going mad with hunger; that was one thing I was sure of.
“Keep going. Just a little longer,” Colt said. His voice was a lure that kept my mind in the present as the pain started to become overwhelming. I couldn’t even see what the mage was doing, but I could feel the energy starting to peak. My body was screaming at me to get away from him, as if it knew that everything was going to get a lot worse before it got better.
When I looked up next, I saw Gage squatting next to Colt. My surprise must have shown on my face, because Gage smiled, and it warmed something within me.
“Don’t give up now, Princess. There are families back there betting on how long you’ll last,” Gage said in a voice that was so quiet, I knew that Colt and I were the only ones who could hear it. I would have thought I was the only one who heard it if it weren’t for the disgusted expression on Colt’s face.
“I bet on you lasting through the whole thing, and I could use the cash, so I need you to pull through.”
I made a very unladylike noise and tried to swallow another mouthful of the mage’s blood. There was nothing I wanted more in that moment than for the whole situation to be over.
“Don’t give those bastards what they want,” Colt said.
The energy in the room was reaching a fever pitch. I honestly wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to hold out, seeing as how it felt like I was swallowing acid. Before anyone could speak or breathe or move, the fever of energy in the room broke, and it all came rushing at me. I felt my whole body spasm and rock away from the mage’s arm while the blood I had ingested stopped threatening to revisit everyone.
“Did it work?” I gasped as I righted myself from where I had fallen out of the chair.
“If it didn’t, we should know soon enough,” Rupert said as he watched me, holding a scarf over his wrist to soak up the blood.
I swallowed thickly. If we wanted it to stop bleeding, then I was going to have to close the wound. The trouble was my fear that it would taste like acid and burn my mouth once more. The fear couldn’t be allowed to control me, though, so I took a deep breath and said, “Do you want me to close that for you?”
The mage simply nodded and unwound the scarf. Before I could show my fear in front of everyone, I grabbed his wrist and pulled it close, watching Colt and Gage as I licked Rupert’s wound closed. Everything about the contact burned, from my hands to my lips, and especially my tongue.
“Why?” I breathed, looking up at Rupert as I pulled away.
“You hadn’t fed from me before the curse, so I’d still be a no-go for you,” he said, weariness seeming to overtake him. Philip and Sidney were right there, though, coming to his aid, whereas I had no one. Kyra wouldn’t move without her father’s permission, and he certainly wasn’t going to help me.
“Well, this has been quite eventful, but if you’ll excuse me, I believe I need to go and clean up,” I said, trying to remain as polite as possible even though all I wanted to do was run out of the room and go back to my suite.
My uncle nodded his agreement with my departure, not that he made any attempt to help me. I stood and walked toward the door. The whole world seemed to tilt and shift as though I were being thrown around, smiling skulls swirling at the edges of my vision, and then, mercifully, everything went black.
Chapter Five
Colt
The look that Princess Blair had given me earlier in the day would haunt me for the rest of my very long life. Torture and pain were only just the beginning. The thing that hurt most about the look was the utter resignation and loneliness.
We were still at the estate even though I had expected to leave as soon as the reawakening ball was over, especially after all the commotion with the mages. We had been lingering around the estate for the last decade, hoping the princess would fully awaken, not to mention donating blood to the cause. Living under the regent’s thumb wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. I’d been hopeful that after the Halloween masquerade we’d be free of this place.
For the thousandth time, I banished the look on Blair’s face while she fed from the mage from my mind. I wished that we didn’t need to have anything to do with the magic-wielders, but unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. Even I knew that. Although, it was interesting to know that there were mages with similar opinions.
The grounds of the estate were well kept, and as I walked around the hedge maze that had become my area of solace, I couldn’t help but feel slightly reminiscent of my childhood. My parents had fought tooth and nail to give us every advantage, which, in a world like ours, was more than a little challenging.
When my parents had made their first million, other vampires had still treated them like trash, but it didn’t mean that they thought of themselves that way. Alliances were forged with some of the wealthier families, and while that was happening, I spent time growing up around estates like the one I wandered in the moonlight.
We had our own estate eventually, but none of us felt as though we fit in there, so we sold it and downsized to something big enough to show off our wealth but small enough to feel like people actually lived in it. I had always been happy with the move. Edward not so much, but I sometimes wondered if there was anything that made him happy.
As I rounded the corner of the maze, I was always stunned by how complex it was. Knowing my luck, even though I’d walked it time and time again, I’d end up wandering around in it for hours. A soft melody pricked at my ears, and I followed it around corners and dead ends until I wound up in the center of the maze. The tree that stood tall and strong next to a wire-roofed gazebo was a familiar and welcome sight.
Blair sat humming an unfamiliar melody under the tree surrounded by a sea of night-blooming flowers, all whites, pale pinks, and pale yellows. I wasn’t sure whether to approach, until I remembered the loneliness I’d seen in her eyes earlier that day.
“Your Highness, forgive me. I didn’t know you were here,” I said quietly as I bowed.
“It’s Colt, yes?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” I said as I stood straight once more.
She studied me for a second, and I studied her right back. The woman was stunning. High cheekbones and a strong jaw were paired with delicately curved eyebrows that sat over eyes that were a deeper brown than any I had ever seen before. Her hair looked so silky and soft, I had to clench my hands to try to subdue the desire to go over and run my fingers through it.
“Would you like to sit with me for a while?” she asked as she moved to one side, making room on the bench that wrapped around the tree. I hadn’t even noticed it, being so focused on her. It was only after her question that I even remembered it existed.
“It would be my honor, Your Highness.”
“Please, call me Blair,” she said as I sat down next to her.
“I have no right to be so informal with you, Your Highness,” I said, trying to remain respectful and resisting the urge to take her up on the offer at the same time.
“You have every right. You were one of two people who helped me today, and I will be forever grateful for that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
I felt the shudder that ran through her even though there was a small space between us. Her whole being was tense and seemed on edge. “It was my pleasure to help you,” I said.
“You are a brave man, coming to my aid when not even my uncle would twitch to help me.”
“That’s because your uncle’s a wanker,” I said a second before realizing my mistake. “Your Highness, I didn’t mean—”
She cut me off. “You did, and it’s true. He wouldn’t help me, and he’d gladly see me burn in the sunlight that will crest that rise in a few hours. My cousin, my best childhood friend, wouldn’t help me, but you . . . you did. Like it or not, that means something to me, something I won’t soon forget.”
“Your uncle wishes you dead?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around drama that the royal family usually kept to themselves.
“Yes, it seems
so. My cousin told me how long I had been in the black sleep. I’m afraid that after being regent for so long, he’s gone mad with power. Doesn’t want to give up the throne, you see?”
“But you’re family.”
“That doesn’t seem to matter to him anymore. When it’s my father’s turn to rule, I am sure that he will be shocked at the events that took place here today. But you weren’t meandering through the maze to hear my family turmoil. I apologize.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Your Highness.”
“Blair, please.” Her gaze was sharp on my own.
“Blair,” I acquiesced finally.
“So tell me, why are you wandering around my garden?” she asked innocently.
I struggled not to snort with laughter at the double entendre.
“Did I say something funny?” she asked.
Evidently my trying to cover it up had only drawn more attention to it. I sighed and said, “Garden is often a euphemism for a lady’s private area in today’s society.”
“You mean her bed chamber?” Blair asked.
“Not quite,” I said as I looked pointedly at the apex of her thighs. The tight sweatpants and tank top she was wearing had not escaped my notice. Her lithe form looked even sexier than it had in that dress she’d been wearing for the reawakening ball this evening, and that had been the color of a fresh goblet of blood with black lace on it. There hadn’t been a single male eye in the place that didn’t eat up the sight of her.
“Oh my,” she exclaimed as she finally understood my meaning. After a beat of silence, she muttered, “There’s so much about this world that I’ll never learn.”
“Blair? What do you mean you’ll never learn?” I asked, dread coiling in my stomach as the scent of jasmine overwhelmed me.
A Cursed All Hallows' Eve Page 8