Blood Slave (Ruled by Blood Book 2)

by Izzy Shows

  That was all I could do right now. Put one foot in front of the other.

  So I did. I walked up to the gates and pushed them open, and my boots crunched on the gravel as I strode up to the great door. I hesitated, thinking of knocking, but decided against it. I had never knocked on these doors in my life. It was my home. I could come and go as I pleased.

  To an extent.

  What welcome would I receive, though? I had been cast out the last time I was here, told to go away and never come back. Conall had been done with me; there had been no safe haven to find with him when the vampires had found me out. That hurt more than I could say. All I had ever wanted was to impress Conall, to make him proud, to make him think that it was worthwhile that he'd rescued me instead of another.

  He had been so disappointed in me. I couldn't bear the thought of disappointing him, and even now, after the way he'd treated me, I wanted him to welcome me back with open arms. I wanted to belong here again.

  You're not here to belong. You're here to get information for the vampires, remember? It's a new life for you, so you'd better adapt fast.

  But that was what I was good at--adapting. I could change who I was in a heartbeat if I needed to, because that was the only way I had survived up until now. If this was the new normal, I would just have to deal with it.

  Feeling a renewed sense of confidence, I pushed open the door and walked inside.

  There were several wolves in the hall the doors opened up to, clearly in the process of coming and going, and they all paused to look at me. To judge me.

  I could see the curiosity in their eyes--curiosity mixed with something that wasn’t quite hatred, more like a strong distaste. They didn't want to see me there. No doubt they'd all heard that Conall had kicked me out, and it wasn’t hard to believe that they had all celebrated that.

  None of the wolves had ever accepted me, not after Lisa.

  You killed her. Like some kind of freak, you killed her without even realizing it. Murderer.

  The memory threatened to consume me. Lisa had been the only wolf who had made an effort to reach out to me, the only one who had seemed to be interested in friendship, and I had killed her. I hadn't done it on purpose; she'd gotten in the way of my spell, but I'd done it all the same.

  The sight of her, lips open in a soundless scream, her features twisted in agony, haunted me to this day. I still had nightmares about it.

  No, you can't think about that. There's no room for weakness in this life. That’s what Conall told you. If you want to survive, all that matters is the hunt. You have to survive.

  I pushed the memories back down, lifting my chin, glaring back at the accusatory stares of the wolves who dared to meet my eyes. Yes, they all hated me because of Lisa, and they'd been happy to see me gone, but they were going to have to deal with this now.

  I walked farther into the hall, until one of the wolves, Ian, stepped into my path.

  "You don't belong here anymore," he said, and a low growl followed his words.

  "I belong wherever I want to," I shot back, arching an eyebrow. "And that isn't up to you."

  "Conall got rid of you."

  "That was a misunderstanding, and not one that concerns you. Get out of my way."

  The only way to deal with wolves was to assert your dominance--any show of weakness would get you killed. If I gave them any reason to think they could best me, they'd be on me in a second. I'd learned fast when I first came here, when Conall had thrown me into training sessions with the wolves.

  It hadn’t been a fair fight at first--a human against a freaking werewolf is a doomed fight to begin with. They're supernaturally strong and fast, and they beat my ass more times than I could count. But that had only taught me that I had to be faster, that I had to be better. And once I'd gotten the hang of my magic, they'd been no match for me.

  I knew they knew that, but it seemed that Ian was willing to take the chance.

  He wasn't backing down.

  I lifted a hand, holding eye contact with him, and held up three fingers. "I'll give you to the count of three."

  His only answer was a growl, and the rest of the room was so silent, you could hear a pin drop.

  "One."

  He kept glaring at me.

  "Two." I waited, but not a second longer than I had between one and two. "Three."

  He lunged for me, but I danced out of the way, tapping into his biorhythm at the same time. The chant flowed rapidly from my lips, the words that would cause the blood vessels in his brain to explode over and over again. That damned supernatural healing speed would save him from dying, but the pain would be enough to incapacitate him for as long as I kept it up.

  He fell to his knees with a loud howl, clutching his head as he went on screaming.

  "Yield," I said, my voice flat, as if nothing of interest was happening. As if I weren't torturing someone right now.

  He kept howling for what felt like an eternity before he gasped out the words, "Yield! I yield! I yield!"

  Immediately, I stopped the spell, dropping my hand to my side. I watched as he curled in on himself, gasping for air, and looked coolly around the room.

  "Anyone else have a problem with me?"

  No one spoke, and slowly, they all shook their heads, averting their eyes.

  That's what I thought.

  I continued through the compound, making my way to Conall's office. There, I did knock. I might be willing to assert my dominance over the others, but I respected Conall. And right now, I needed him.

  I couldn't afford to piss him off.

  He opened the door, but true to form, there was no sign of emotion on his face. He always was the best I knew at hiding them.

  "Nina," he said, opening the door farther and stepping back as he gestured me in.

  I walked in and took a seat, then waited for him to shut the door and sit down at his desk before I started.

  "I want to apologize for the way I came in earlier," I said. "I overreacted."

  "Is that so?"

  "I thought they'd figured me out, but it was just my paranoia. Everything's fine--in fact, better than fine. I've actually been given my own private suite, something no thrall has ever been given, and my position in the court has only accelerated. There's nothing to worry about."

  "I'm heartened to hear that," he said, gracing me with a small smile for once.

  "In fact," I went on, "I went so far as to do a little fact-finding for you, as an apology for upsetting you. I found out that there was an attack on the castle a few nights ago, which is strange, because no one inside even heard it. And no one's talking about it. But, apparently, a bunch of creatures attacked out of nowhere, and the vampires have no idea what they are or what to do about them. From what I can tell, they're scrambling to figure anything out right now, and their numbers have dropped. They're in a really bad spot at the moment."

  "Well done. But no one's on to you, even after that?"

  I beamed at him. "I got all of that from the King himself. He's the pillow talk type."

  "I'll bet he is," he said, and I thought I might have seen a flicker of something in his eyes. "I want you to know how sorry I am for the way things ended. You should know that I never wanted to turn you away. It's just that if I didn't treat you as I do the other wolves, there would be anarchy here. But you've always held a special place here, and I hated to see you go."

  My heart leapt into my throat. Did he mean it? Did he really mean he hadn't wanted to do that? All I wanted was his approval, and now it seemed I was getting something like it. I'd never thought I’d hear an apology from him, of all people.

  "Do you think we can put it behind us?" There was something in his eyes as he spoke, something I couldn't quite figure out, but it warmed me all the same.

  I felt conflicted at first. He'd turned me away, after all, but it seemed he'd only done that out of necessity. And this was what I wanted: to be welcomed back. To belong here, with the only people who had at least treated me as e
quals.

  I can change sides again, return to what’s right and true. The vampires are evil, after all; everyone knows that. I'd be a fool to forget that because of some pretty words. Gray's no different from any of them, after all. He threw me in a cage, and he didn't have a problem enthralling me or taking advantage of the situation. He's just as bad as the rest of them are.

  "Of course we can," I said, smiling. "All I want is to be with all of you."

  "Fantastic," he said. "And it's good that your position hasn't changed at court. We still need you there, and it will make it easier to explain to the others why you're back. Well, not exactly back, because of course you'll need to go straight back to the court."

  "Of course."

  But a part of me didn't want to go back to the court. It was so confusing there. It challenged everything I'd been taught to believe, and I didn't like the conflicting thoughts and feelings that came with being at court. I wanted to come back to the compound, to the life I'd had before, when everything had been simple.

  And besides, my position at court wasn't going to last long. The Council would get rid of me as soon as they no longer found me useful. I just had to hope that whatever Conall was planning would be finished before that time came. I'd have to be careful what information I gave them, to make sure I could keep things going as long as possible.

  Really, this was the only sensible course of action, the only way to make sure I would be safe in the long run.

  "I'm glad to hear you're able to get information while you're in there. In fact, that's what I want you doing from now on, now that your position is so secure. Get closer to the King. He's our prime target."

  That left me with a sick feeling in my gut, for some reason. I didn't like the idea of that at all--of 'getting close' to Gray, of lying to him again.

  But you're already going to be lying to him, now that you're back with the wolves. You're betraying him the same as you did before, and that's the way it's supposed to be. You're not supposed to be nice to vampires.

  Regardless, I couldn't do that. I couldn't bring myself to do it.

  "Of course I will," I said, a placid smile on my face as I stood up. "I'll take care of everything."

  Everything except Gray. I didn't understand my own reasons, but I wasn't willing to do that to Gray.

  I would just have to walk the line very carefully.

  10

  Grayson

  It might be hard to get drunk, but I was doing my damnedest. Our metabolisms were far superior to the average human’s, so alcohol was almost an exercise in futility when you drank it, but sometimes you could get close to what the humans called 'tipsy'--if you drank enough, fast enough.

  And that's what I was trying to do right now, with Alex: trying to drink myself into some sort of state where I could forget what was going on, since painting hadn't helped me like it always had.

  That frustrated me more than words could say, but I didn't trust myself with my easel right now--not when I'd painted Nina without even realizing it.

  "What have you been up to?" Alex asked as he reclined on the couch, one arm thrown over the back of it, his drink in his other hand. He looked perfectly at ease, for which I was thankful.

  Alex and I hadn't been on particularly good terms the past few days, and all I wanted was for us to go back to the way things used to be. I needed my friend right now.

  "Everything I don't want to be doing," I said bitterly before I took another sip of my drink.

  He clucked his tongue. "Sorry to hear that. Anything in particular you want to talk about?"

  "I don't want to even think about any of it--but this damned mating thing won't go away. My mother keeps pestering me to give my opinion on this thing or that thing, and the Council is barely listening to me about the creatures that attacked us because they're so focused on me finding a mate."

  "Mmm. I'm sorry you're having to deal with that right now. I know you haven't been particularly...interested in taking a mate."

  "I just don't see the appeal," I said, vaguely aware that I was lying. I took another swig of my drink and found my mind starting to get a little hazy around the edges. Good. That was what I wanted.

  You do see the appeal--if it was the right woman. If it was a particular woman...

  That was not what I wanted to think about. That was exactly what I was drinking to forget.

  "Are you sure about that?"

  "What?"

  "That you don't see the appeal. Surely, you have to appreciate that there's something to the whole 'other half' nonsense everyone keeps spouting on about."

  I grinned. "You never did buy into it any more than I did."

  "I did and I didn't. I don't think there's someone like that for me out there--but I do believe that's what mating is like."

  I frowned down at my glass, pondering what he'd said. How could he think there wasn't someone like that for him out there? It was the belief of all of us that we had been created as two halves of one whole, and that it was just a matter of finding your other half to be completed. I had never come across anyone who didn't believe their other half was out there.

  It's not so different from the way you viewed it.

  A fair thought, but not entirely accurate. It wasn't that I hadn't believed my other half was out there, more that I hadn't been interested in looking for her. I hadn't believed I would find her, not that she wasn't out there.

  "You really think you were created incomplete?" I asked, looking at him again.

  He shook his head. "I think I'm fine the way I am. I don't need someone else."

  But there was a bitter note in his tone, as if he knew he wasn't telling the truth. I decided not to press him on it further. He'd never talked like this before, and it felt like a sensitive issue.

  He solved the problem for me when he redirected the conversation.

  "We were talking about you," he said. "Why don't you see the appeal?"

  I shrugged. "Think about it. You meet this person, and suddenly, they're the most important person in your life. You’d lay down your life for them. You care about them more than you do your own life. Isn't that inherently terrifying? It makes me feel like I'd be losing myself in someone else, and I don't want that."

  "That's not how it is, and you know it. Look at all the mated couples we know. Raoul and Kira weren't like that, were they? Raoul still loved to hang out with us. He enjoyed tracking and the hunt just as much as he always had. But he also loved Kira with every bit of his heart, and he would have done everything for her."

  I sobered somewhat at the mention of Raoul. We had lost him some years ago on a hunt. The werewolves had killed him, and I had been too slow to protect him--though that wasn't how the others saw it. Everyone saw it as him sacrificing himself for his King, which was right and proper to them.

  But I saw it as having failed one of my best friends. I couldn't forgive myself for that, and maybe it played a part in my reluctance to take a mate. I hadn’t been good enough to protect Raoul, so why should I think I was good enough to protect anyone else? Especially someone who might mean so much to me, if the stories were to be believed.

  "It's not all it's cracked up to be," I said at last, refusing to acknowledge the mention of Raoul. "You saw the way my parents were with each other. They couldn't stand to look at one another. They were cold. They didn't love each other."

  "Have you considered that your parents might not have been true mates?"

  I jerked back a little, gaping at him. "What?"

  He shrugged. "Come, now. You’ve told me what the Council threatened you with, making you nothing more than a breeder for the next generation, to produce the heir they all want so much. Perhaps your parents’ mating was one of convenience, because a proper mate couldn't be found in the amount of time the Council allowed. No one would talk about such a thing. Your parents certainly wouldn't have told you about it, so there's no real way of knowing. But it would explain why they had such a hard time conceiving, and why that drove th
em away from one another."

  I took another sip, absorbing the information, considering it.

  He made a great deal of sense, perhaps too much so. I didn't like the idea of it any more than any child would want to hear that their parents had been forcibly joined, but I couldn't deny the logic he’d presented.

  "It's blasphemy," I said flatly. "Something like that should never happen. The fact that the Council even implied it about me... If they had said it outright, they would have been reported to the priests and terminated."

  "Let's not pretend that the Council doesn't have enough power to stop such a report from happening," Alex said dryly.

  "You're not making me feel any better."

  "I'm not trying to. I'm just trying to offer a possible explanation as to why you didn't have a particularly good example of a mated couple growing up."

  "It would certainly explain why my mother has always pushed so hard for me to find a mate. She wouldn't want that for me, especially if she'd lived through it."

  In fact, that was what clinched it for me. I'd been wondering why my mother would agree with the Council's demands for me to find a mate. It went much further than her wanting grandchildren. If she saw it as the only way to stop me from ending up in an unhappy mating like she'd had, she'd only see it as looking out for me.

  "I don't know what I'm going to do," I muttered. "I won't find a true mate. I know it in my heart."

  "Now you sound like me," Alex said, and I could hear the attempt at humor in his voice, but it didn’t reach my soul. "Let's talk about other things. This isn’t what I wanted to spend my time on."

  "No, indeed."

  I had hoped for much better conversation with Alex. I had missed him a great deal during the few days we had spent isolated from one another. Our disagreement over how I had treated Nina had driven something of a wedge between us, no matter how much I wished it would go away.

  I wanted things to go back to the way they had been, though I knew that was impossible.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping our drinks, before Alex broke the silence.