The Emerald Lily

by Juliette Cross

  “If the queen had made a point for her son to marry you when war was raging across the land, I knew there was another reason other than a merry wedding. Nefarious reasons.”

  “I see. And what did you discover?”

  “I found that a white witch visited you on your birth and proclaimed you would be Queen of Arkadia and would rule them all. That’s how I know you were meant to be queen.”

  Mina frowned and shook her head. “That’s not exactly what she said. Not according to Lord Petrov, who actually wrote the words down.”

  Smiling, something he was doing more than usual as of late, he asked, “Would you care to enlighten me?”

  Smiling at his teasing request, she thought a moment, remembering the words exactly as they were scrawled into his book. “You will drink fire into your soul and awaken the beast of vengeance, righteousness, courage, and hope. You will awaken the white queen with emerald eyes and smite the evil one with one bite.” She paused, hesitant about the last. “You will be the savior of them all.”

  “What frightens you?” he asked.

  She shrugged one shoulder, her hair slipping over her breast with the movement. “All of it, really.”

  In a blink, she was beneath him. He held himself up on his forearms and wedged a heavy thigh between her legs.

  “Being queen frightens you?”

  “No. Not exactly. What does all of that mean?” She let her hands wander to his shoulders. “Drinking fire? Beast of vengeance? Smiting with one bite?”

  He laughed, brushing a kiss on her pinched brow. “It’s a metaphor. The southern army will help us win against the Glass Tower.”

  “But I won’t be that kind of queen. I’m not that kind of person.”

  “What’s that? The kind who fights for what is good and right in this world?” When she opened her mouth to speak, he slanted his mouth over hers, silencing her protests with his probing tongue. His invasion caught her off-guard, melting her worries away. She clenched her nails into his muscular shoulders on a soft moan. When he broke the kiss, his eyes blazed starbright. “You will be the queen we need.”

  “I’m not a beast,” she whispered.

  “I’m not so sure.” He spread open her legs with his thigh and settled lower, pushing inside her with a slow roll of his pelvis. He held her gaze, his own mere inches above her. “I can see a queenly beast in there staring back at me.”

  She planted her feet on the bed and rocked up to meet each sinuous slide of him inside her.

  He grinned, fangs sharp and ready. “A she-vampire of the highest realm,” he grated. His gaze drifted down their bodies. He glided his hand down her outer thigh, crooking his fingers under her knee. “With a throne I long to mount every moment of every day.” Another languid roll of his pelvis. “I could worship at this throne forever.”

  “Stop torturing me, Mikhail—” she clutched a hand in his hair—“give me what you promised.”

  His brow pursed together in a frown as he paused in his too-slow tempo. “What promise was that?”

  “I believe you said four or five times. I’ve had but two.” She pulled his mouth down to hers, feeling as if there was indeed a beast inside her, yearning to claw her way out. “More, Mikhail.” She nipped his lips. “Love me hard.”

  He bent her long leg high, pressed a kiss to the inner side of her knee and hooked it over his shoulder. “Whatever you command, my queen.”

  Then she experienced the power of the man, the vampire, covering her body with his own, consuming her from the inside out, pressing home his masculine strength with such intensity she heard a whispering from the inmost part of herself.

  This. This was what was missing all her life. This feeling of being vibrantly alive. Of finding she loved the strength within herself that she’d kept hidden so long, too afraid to let her vampiric qualities rise to the surface. Mikhail awakened her most primal instincts in such beautiful, delicious ways. While the idea of being a less-than-genteel creature had once frightened her, Mikhail adored every part of her, including the animal within that had awoken on the night he gave her a blood kiss in the tower. The night the fates first joined them, divining this fierce, electric kind of love.

  And now, as he drove deep and hard inside her body, just as she’d asked him to, she could only repeat a mantra of “yes” against his lips, their gazes locked. Like their bodies, they were held fast and hard to each other, reaching for that moment of ecstasy together, and something else. Something more.

  When she opened her mouth in a soundless scream, her orgasm crashing through her like a violent tidal wave, he melded his mouth to hers, groaning as he spilled inside of her. She dug her nails into his back, relishing the heaviness of him buried deep as he found his release, growling his satisfaction.

  Even as he kissed her down from the pinnacle of orgasm, the burning need remained. An unquenchable fire.

  She broke the kiss, panting. “Will it ever go away?”

  His mouth quirked up on one side. Not exactly a smile. More an expression of acceptance. “No. I don’t think it will.” He brushed away a strand of her hair sticking to the dampness of her neck. “Not for me.”

  She cupped his sharp, angular jaw gently, sweeping her thumb to the corner of his mouth. “What will happen to us? After the war, will we—I mean, you are the great-grandson of Rodin Varis. You are a prince yourself, the highest rank I could marry.”

  She couldn’t keep the hope from her eyes, wishing he’d make that sacrifice for her. She couldn’t bear the thought of ruling alone, for she’d never take another man but him at her side.

  Angling his head just enough, he pressed a kiss to the pad of her thumb. “Hush now, Mina mine. Let’s not worry about tomorrow.” He hovered close, sweeping his lips across hers, gliding his tongue across the seam as he rolled his spine, stroking inside her. “You just relax and let me keep my promise.”

  She laughed, her breath catching on a gasp when he pounded once, deep and hard. “Yes, Captain.”

  He pressed a desperate kiss to her lips, sweeping his tongue in swiftly before lifting away. His expression transformed to one of storm and midnight, a dark gravity hovering over him as he expressed himself with his unearthly eyes and magnificent body. She couldn’t hear the words, but she felt the emotion with her empathic senses and with her own heart. The most deep and reverent emotion of all pouring from the man thrusting deep inside her.

  She closed her eyes and whispered her mantra of “yes,” accepting his wordless vow that there would be a future beyond the veil of blood and death that loomed ahead.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Standing at the top of the stone steps leading into the Grand Forum—a circular building made of white stone, the floors of white marble—Mina exhaled a deep breath.

  “As we said, I’ll go in first and call the House to order,” Lord Rathbone said, leaning close to her ear. “Then I’ll relate there has been a new proposition put to the House, one not in their current registers. That’s when you will enter.”

  “Right.” She nodded.

  “Smile, Your Highness.” He stood tall, smoothing his waistcoat. “All will be well.” Then he winked and walked with long, commanding strides into the hall where the overlapping voices of the many lords fell to a hush at his entry.

  “Don’t be nervous,” said Friedrich on her right.

  “I’m not nervous.”

  And that was the truth, strangely enough. She’d always been nervous upon her annual visits to the Grand Forum. But now she understood why. Steward Thorwald paraded her in as an ornament, for her to show her face and never open her mouth. She’d always felt out of place because she’d had no place there. But not today. Today, she would be seen and heard.

  “We’ll be right behind you. To be sure they understand you’re not alone.”

  Mina turned to Friedrich and gave him a warm smile. “I’ve been alone all my life, Your Grace. It was what I was taught at an early age by Thorwald. A princess is a solitary entity who must
live a solitary life. Not until I awoke from the bloodless sleep did I finally come to understand the truth.”

  “What truth, Your Highness?”

  “That a princess alone is a dying flower on the vine.” She shifted her gaze forward, hearing the staccato wrap of a gavel, bringing the House to order. “And a strong queen is never alone.”

  “Quite right, Your Majesty.”

  She smiled at his slip of a queenly title. “Not yet, Friedrich. Let’s get through this first.”

  She marched forward, feeling the presence of her entourage at her back, sensing Mikhail closest on her left behind her.

  “What new proposition?” She heard the blustering voice of Steward Thorwald as she crossed from the shadows of the arch into the light of the amphitheater. The oculus at the center of the dome let in sunlight, the rim of the dome ringed with large windows as well, bathing the white marble room in a vibrant air.

  Rathbone arched a superior brow from the helm of the hall on the raised bench, gesturing toward her. “One that I believe Princess Vilhelmina Dragomir will present to us.”

  A wave of gasps and murmurs echoed in the large chamber as she made her way across the hall with Friedrich and the Bloodguard at her back. Grant filed in as one of the Bloodguard. Mina took in the gaping, awestruck steward who had abused his position as her keeper all her life, then stepped up to the podium facing the amphitheater.

  The tiers of lords all turned their eyes on her. They were separated by province. Their unique banners and scepters marked the first row of each province. She scanned them all, recognizing the leaders of the provinces, their eyes fixed on her. She nodded to Lord Grable of the Pierson Province, known as the greatest breeders of the fine Arkadian horses. She looked to the right, catching the eye of Lord Steele of the Creed Province, known for their superior craftsmanship in armor and weaponry.

  Reaching out with her empathic gift, she sensed no menace—excepting the steward at her back on the bench with Rathbone and Lord Maksim—but felt pinpricks of surprise and curiosity. And perhaps a little fear as a few heads turned nervously to the entrance, many glancing at the black-clad Bloodguard standing in two lines facing opposite sides of the hall. Rumors had surely spread far and wide that she’d been a captive of King Dominik and that he was now on the warpath to recapture her.

  “Greetings, my lords.” Her voice lifted to the domed ceiling easily in such an acoustic chamber. “I come today with a royal petition, but first I must digress to dispel any erroneous reports circulating throughout my kingdom.”

  Thorwald huffed out a blustering protest at her mention of ownership of Arkadia. For she never had before. “This is preposterous. What can she possibly—”

  “Close your mouth, Thorwald,” said Rathbone with such malevolence that Mina turned to find him staring daggers at the man. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”

  Thorwald glanced away, his face mottled red.

  Mina faced forward, inhaled a deep breath, chin up, back straight. “I must also confirm the truth of some of these reports.”

  She waited while a few lords muttered to one another, but most of them remained riveted upon her.

  “It is known that my father King Holland was a good and just king. He was the one who unified the provinces under the House of Arkadia and built this Grand Forum so that every lord might have a voice for his people.” Nods of approval. She waited till all was silent again. “If you were at the celebration of my birth, then you are aware he rejected Queen Morgrid’s demand that I, his only child, be betrothed to her son, Marius.”

  No one made a sound. Not even Thorwald at her back, whose seething anger she felt like a burning fireball.

  “Interestingly, this truth was kept from me till quite recently. All that I ever knew of my dear father was that he’d loved me. And he was killed by the hands of brigands when I was far too young. I never knew that love after he died. I was put under the care of Steward Thorwald.”

  She flicked a hand over her shoulder without turning.

  “He made sure I had the best of nursing care and I was kept far…far away from the rest of my kingdom. For my protection, he assured me.”

  She heard the cynical twist of her words, but she cared not. They would hear it all. Right here. Right now.

  “And so I was raised to be the perfect princess. Obedient. And silent. Awaiting the time when I would marry Prince Marius, since Steward Thorwald upheld the queen’s wishes that I should marry her son. Reminding you that this was against the wishes of your king before he was murdered.”

  She couldn’t help but let her gaze flick to Mikhail. He remained steadfast, his gaze straight out toward the right of the hall, but his mere presence strengthened her still.

  “I understand why none of you defied the placement of Thorwald at the helm of Arkadia. Queen Morgrid is a powerful force, the empress of our land. But I want to remind everyone here that your proper and true king did not want an alliance with the Glass Tower. Why? Because my father knew her evil would infect our land as soon as she held power over it.”

  She paused, sweeping her gaze across the quiet auditorium.

  “And so, understandably, you all accepted him as your ruler.”

  She gestured a regal hand over her shoulder again.

  “Even though he was in alliance with Queen Morgrid. When Prince Marius fled the Glass Tower to marry his human wife, Arabelle, of the Black Lily, defying his mother because he discovered she was the one infecting the land with sanguine furorem, the blood madness in the vampires killing rampantly at will, she blamed me for his betrayal. My punishment?”

  She swept her gaze from one side to the next. No one moved.

  “I was dragged back to Briar Rose, where my lady-in-waiting, my lifelong friend and blood host was murdered before my eyes. My only friend up till that point in my life. Her throat cut by Queen Morgrid’s right-hand man, Radomir. Then she was fed to his men like cattle.”

  Her voice cracked with grief for Kathleen, but she held back all tears, wielding righteous anger in its stead.

  “I was locked in my own tower in my own home and starved into a bloodless sleep.”

  A few lords glanced and whispered low, nodding. Many had heard this rumor. It was nothing new. But they didn’t know what it was truly like.

  “Being in a bloodless sleep is beyond any of your imagining. Beyond any nightmare you could possibly conjure. The constant gut-ripping pain in my abdomen from starvation wasn’t the worst of it. The paralysis wasn’t, either. The times where I could hear officers moving and talking in the chamber struck a new kind of fear in me. Can you imagine hearing men talk about the vulgar ways they could and would like to use your body while you lay prostrate and helpless? Never mind me. Can you imagine your own wives being in this helpless situation? Your daughters?”

  Nervous shuffling and movement rippled along the rows of men. Mikhail’s shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t swivel or move his head an inch. Mina softened her voice but not the strength of her words.

  “Thankfully, their fear of the queen’s command kept them at bay from using me unlawfully, but only because I was apparently to be saved as a prize for her son, King Dominik. Otherwise, I’m sure there would have been little left of me to save when the Bloodguard came to my rescue.”

  Mina swept a hand toward the line of twenty men who’d accompanied her on this mission. The lords examined them more closely, realizing these were the mercenaries spoken of in many dark corners, but few had ever seen with their own eyes. They were indeed a formidable force, even when only half were standing here. Their expressions and demeanors fiercer than any troop of Legionnaires.

  “Yes. Five of the Bloodguard saved me and killed all but a few of King Dominik’s Legionnaires.”

  Gregoravich turned to her and held up three fingers, winked, then faced front again. She smiled.

  “Correction. All but three men. From there, I was taken to safety in the home of Sienna of Silvane Forest.”

  “She’s a witch! Bur
ns men alive!” yelled Steward Thorwald.

  A sharp crack. By the time Mina turned her head, Rathbone stood over Thorwald, slumped forward on the bench, Rathbone palming his fist.

  His glare swept up the rows of lords. “I declare Steward Thorwald, who is in service to Queen Morgrid and not in service to this realm of Arkadia, to be unfit for his position as lead counselor. Do you agree, Lord Maksim?”

  The gruff reply was swift from the steely-eyed man at Rathbone’s right. “Agreed.”

  With a stiff bow, Rathbone said, “Please continue, Your Highness.” He straightened his waistcoat and resumed his place.

  Mina swallowed hard, realizing what Rathbone had just done for her. He’d publicly denounced the steward of their land, not to mention punched him unconscious. He, the man whose voice and opinions everyone respected above all others, had just declared the steward no longer trustworthy. And the second high counselor, Lord Maksim, had concurred, removing the steward from their trust and their counsel. This meant any allies Thorwald held in the room would be committing political suicide to stand with him now.

  Clearing her throat, she continued. “Sienna has been bestowed with a gift from the hartstone, it is true. And she’s not burned one innocent man alive, only the vampires set upon her forest to do her harm along with those she loves. That includes Nikolai, former lieutenant to the Glass Tower’s Royal Guard. I was also under the protection of the Black Lily. They’ve all allied together against the army the queen and her son are amassing.”

  “Your Highness,” said the deep, gravelly voiced Lord Maksim at her back. “We are thankful for this information, but what petition do you have?”

  His countenance was as dark and stormy as his voice. He and Lord Rathbone were dear friends besides being high counselors together of the House. He was a no-nonsense kind of man, which also made his loyalty invaluable. He wasn’t a man to be persuaded to anything other than what was right and best for the land of Arkadia. She couldn’t be sure, but she hoped Rathbone had apprised him of today’s proceedings and that he was fully on board.