by Zoe Forward
Ehlena twisted the ring on her middle finger. “Did Kiera kill any vampires?”
“Of course, the Nightshade League attacked scores of us,” Viktor answered.
“Did she actually murder any of our kind?” the rocker asked.
“She murdered her husband,” Viktor said.
Ehlena’s eyes narrowed at Kiera. It wasn’t a solidarity moment. Instead, it was a warning and reminder of who had superiority.
“That took place long before this second war began,” Ehlena said without an ounce of regret for her daughter still taking the blame for her mother’s action. Now was the moment Ehlena could set history straight, but she didn’t.
Viktor said, “She poisoned our people. She attacked them.”
“I never killed any of our people.” Kiera stood to face Viktor. “You murdered many of our kind in the name of your war. You appointed yourself king, judge, jury, and executioner. Anyone who stood in your way or marginally annoyed you, you labeled a traitor and executed them.”
“Traitors in a time of war deserve death.” He shrugged, indifferent.
The strength of Kiera’s fury caused her to tremble. “You murdered werewolves by the hundreds. Your family single-handedly targeted them for two centuries. They are a noble species that sought dignity through freedom. One of them cut off your arm to end the last war. Looks like this war might require a bigger sacrifice on your part.”
“Ah-ha! She’s a sympathizer. Traitor!” Viktor pointed at her.
None on the council looked impressed.
“Kiera, sit,” Ehlena ordered in a tone that sent shivers down her spine. That was her furious timbre, one that triggered memories of her mother going off the deep end when she’d been young. She’d never been violent toward Kiera, but she did destroy things when in a fit. The oddest thing would send Ehlena into a rage back then—scraping her shoes on the floor or wearing the wrong article of clothing for the time of day.
Kiera planted her butt on the sofa.
“Enough,” Silas bellowed. “We have judged you a traitor to our species, Viktor, and therefore subject to the penalty of a vial.”
Ehlena said, “Kiera and Andrew both worked contrary to the dictates of the Foundry. That’s a crime.”
What the ever-loving hell?
Ehlena wasn’t on her side. Why had she ever believed Ehlena might have a conscience?
Silas said, “Both Kiera and Andrew did work in opposition to the designated vampire leader’s decree. So they’re both in violation and are hereby designated traitors.”
“All three should be punished,” Giles said indifferently. “Traitor to the species is punishable by ingestion of a vial. The bloodline decree to protect ancient lineages excludes Kiera from what is certain to guarantee death, but not the other two.”
“What? I’m also excluded by the bloodline decree,” Viktor screamed. “I’ve done nothing but work to do everything all of you wanted.”
Silas shrugged. “You’re a liability.”
“This isn’t fair. It’s about favoritism because she’s Ehlena’s daughter,” Viktor hissed, spittle dribbling down his chin.
Giles said, “She’s a Karpati.”
Over my dead body they’ll kill Andrew.
“I invoke Article Nineteen,” Kiera said. “I’ll take the vial for Andrew.”
“No.” Andrew grabbed her hand. “Don’t do this. You can’t. I won’t allow it.”
“I cannot rescind my invocation.” Article Nineteen was originally written to protect children who committed a crime. The parent could take on the child’s punishment. Usually, death wasn’t on the line. She whispered to him, “Told you I’d have to save your life.”
“So be it.” Silas rose. He opened a metal box sitting on the coffee table and removed two vials of blood. “Giles and Jaycos will serve as restrainers. Do it over there…the mess, you know. I don’t want it near the sofas.” Silas waved toward the exit doors.
Giles pulled her up.
Andrew grabbed her arm. “No. It should be me. Let go of her. Take it back, Kiera. I’ll drink it.”
Giles knocked Andrew away with a powerful backhand. She got a specific sense from Giles that if she hadn’t stepped up to take the punishment for Andrew, they would’ve killed her anyway. She wondered if they’d leave Andrew alone.
The other Foundry vamp dragged a struggling Viktor toward the oversize entry doors.
“I’m good. You don’t need to drag me, Giles.” She walked beside him.
“A lady to the end. I respect that, Kiera. I’ll have to force you to take this.”
“I know.”
Even though she felt ready, she regretted the decision to save Andrew. She had no clue if this vial of wolf blood would work. The lack of reaction to Michael’s blood might have had something to do with him being him, not that it made any sense.
The hammering of her heart grew heavier, harder.
Jaycos gripped Viktor’s jaw in a way that forced it open. He shoved the dark viscous contents of the vial into his mouth. Abstractly, she wondered if they used an anticoagulant to ensure the blood didn’t turn into a clotted mess inside its container. Probably.
Viktor entered the bleeding phase with blood pouring out his nose. Seizures set in until he stilled moments later.
Giles pressed on her shoulders, forcing her down. Giles pried open her mouth with a biting pressure on her jaw. The scent of werewolf blood filled her nostrils. Definitely not Michael’s blood. She wondered whose they kept in the vial. The liquid hit her tongue and trickled toward the back of her mouth. Giles closed her mouth and pinched her nose, which compelled her to swallow.
Her heartbeat rattled inside her head. Nausea rolled around inside. Is this it? It might work…
Pound. Pound. Pound.
Seconds ticked by.
“What the hell’s going on?” Silas asked. “Why isn’t she bleeding?”
“I don’t know. I gave it to her,” Giles said. “Maybe the capsule didn’t rupture?”
“Give her another one. No, I’ll do it this time.” Silas extracted a new vial.
She sought out Ehlena, and what rested in her mother’s gaze surprised her. She detected fear and dread. But she couldn’t interpret if she feared Kiera would die or wouldn’t.
She couldn’t think.
Silas looked homicidal as he stalked her way and kicked Victor’s dead body to the side. His shoes made a sticky noise as he stepped through the blood on the floor and tracked red footprints her way.
Help me, she thought to Isaac, hoping he was there. I’m scared.
I’m here. Don’t worry.
Thank God. She wasn’t alone. But why wasn’t he doing something before Silas…
Silas wrenched her mouth open, crushed the capsule against her teeth, and forced her mouth closed. Same vintage.
Again, nothing happened, at least not in the time frame expected.
Silas’s lips pulled back, exposing his elongated canines. He planned to chew her head off. Couldn’t breathe. Her heart thrashed her ribs.
His head descended. Her heartbeat thrashed in her ears. Black spots dotted her vision. She tried to hold up her arms to ward him off, but Giles still held her tight.
She flinched, anticipating the pain, expecting death. A scream tore out of her.
The pain didn’t come.
Everything around her froze. Andrew stood stone still with his mouth open as if about to scream. Ehlena, half rising from the sofa, looked horrified.
Isaac strolled to stand in front of her. He wasn’t even trying to hide how pissed off he was. “This can only end one way. You have to die.”
“What did you do?” She could see strange things frozen in time like a few droplets of Silas’s saliva hovering in the air outside his mouth. “How?”
“If you don’t die from the bl
ood, they’ll find another way.” He pointed at Silas. “Looks like a violent way. You know too much. They can’t control you. They barely control Ehlena. All the men in this room want you dead. They’d also kill Ehlena if they didn’t think they might need her at some point in the future.”
Isaac snapped his fingers.
Ehlena shrieked then composed herself, gazing around. “This is weird. Glad you’re here, Isaac. I didn’t know what to do… Shit, this is a mess. I’m sorry, Kiera.”
Her mother didn’t hate her? In fact, she actually looked like a mom who was freaked out about everything and worried over her.
“Ehlena…Mother, I can argue to work for them. Maybe be a liaison to the wolves for them. They need more information on the cure.”
“You think they’ll let you live when you don’t die by a vial? Oh, Kiera…” Ehlena touched Kiera’s cheek with a gentleness she’d never received from her. “These assholes don’t want to cooperate with the wolves. They don’t want peace, although they need to think hard about it. The wolves have had great restraint, but they’ve got weapons we don’t want to see used. Viktor was but the front man for their business endeavors. They want more money, which means increasing blood supplies to sell more worldwide. The more blood available, the fewer of us who choose to go into stasis to wait out the virus. They need what the wolves have—the cure, although it’ll never work on humans. Even if they end this war, the interspecies conflict won’t end. There’s too much hate.”
Isaac said softly, “They don’t want it to end. It distracts everyone from what’s going on beneath the surface in this room. The evil in this place is intolerable. There isn’t just blood banks and cash flow. They’ve infiltrated governments and control world leaders, even if they prefer not to reveal themselves to humans. At least, not yet, although that’s coming. It’s about world power and dominating all species.” The wrinkles around Isaac’s face deepened. “I can’t hold this much longer. Ehlena, go back where you were and don’t move.”
Her mother said, “Go with Isaac. Stay in his world. Don’t come back until…for a long time. It may not be safe for a century or longer.” As she passed Isaac, she leaned in and whispered, “Thank you. Someday…perhaps.”
So many questions for her mother, not enough time to ask any. She called out, “What about Andrew? I can’t let them kill him. Please, Mother. Can’t you do anything?”
Ehlena nibbled a nail. “I have an idea. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you.” Then she turned to face Isaac. “Aren’t you breaking your own rules by changing destiny and not letting him kill me?”
“You’re coming with me alive. I can make you disappear right now or we can make them believe you died. I recommend fake death.”
“Why are you breaking the rules after that whole dissertation on how you wouldn’t help my sister or Michael?”
Emotions skittered through his face. “You’re my daughter. Once I knew…I won’t let you die, not if I can prevent it.”
“So you can break the rules.”
“Only for you. There’s a price, but I’ll pay.” He waved at the frozen room around them. “Time crunch here. Do you want to die like this?”
“Not really.” She glanced at Silas coming at her with his open mouth. “No. Really, really don’t want my throat chewed out. But…I’m trying to understand you.”
“What do you want from me, Kiera? I’m doing the best I can at this father shit. I’m the worst at interpersonal stuff. Ask Ehlena. Fucked that up colossally.”
“You do suck at communication, but you’re improving. I love you, too.” She smiled. A glance at Ehlena and oh my freaking God. Her cold-ass mother was giving Isaac a loving, almost adoring look. Never had she seen that on her mom’s face.
She whispered to Isaac, “I think you might just be her once-in-a-lifetime, too.”
Isaac’s cheeks flushed. “You trust me to get you through this alive? We’ll give them a show of you dying. Not real death, but fake death. It might hurt a bit, but I’ll get you out of here. Afterward, I want you to give all this up for now. The being a vampire, the Nightshade League…all of it.”
He meant Michael.
“Why do I have to give everything up? I’m good at evading vampires.”
“No way you’ll stay holed for the next few years. You’ll do sneak visits to that wolf. You have a little too much impulsive passion, which you get from your mother.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Things are going to get much worse before they get better. They’re going to go after your people, though we’ll do all we can to keep them safe. You can’t go into hiding with Michael, even though you now know his blood might not kill you. His people will need him to lead them through this. They aren’t ready for their war general to take a vampire as a mate. And if he disappeared to be with you, the Foundry might wonder why and follow—leading them to you. Maybe later…in the future when the time is right, you can sort out what’s between you two.”
She exhaled unevenly at the weight of giving up her life. “Let’s do this.”
“Eat this.” He handed her a small brown nut. “It’s an enchantment to fake death. But remember for every powerful spell to work there is a cost.”
“I’ll pay.” Before the frozen world moved again, she scooted a few feet away from Silas and his scary teeth. She chewed on the nut, which tasted like a walnut.
The world resumed normal time. Pain wracked her to the point she fell at the same moment Silas’s mouth gnashed toward her, teeth clicking together near but not touching. She wiped her nose, coming away with blood. Spasms contorted her body as she collapsed. This hurt far more than a “little bit.”
Silas backed off and cackled above her. “’Tis done.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
When Kiera came awake, her first instinct was to sit up.
Bad, terrible, horrible mistake. Her head thundered with pain so brutal that she blacked out again.
The second time she woke up, she remembered not to move. One breath. Two breaths.
Pain started in the back of her neck and scorched a path up to her frontal lobe. She moved her eyes right and left to scan for anything familiar in the surroundings. A solitary bedside light lit the bedroom. Its base had been formed out of two bent horseshoes. The wood-paneled walls with one Navajo woven blanket conveyed a cowboy-era theme where minimalism ruled. It smelled like a mixture of old sweaty socks, wood burning in a fireplace or furnace, and untainted human blood.
An IV line trickled blood into her arm at a slow drip rate, which explained why the smell of blood didn’t trigger immediate hunger.
Someone sat in the shadows.
“Where’d you bring me?” Her voice came out far hoarser than expected.
“Montana.”
So far away from Michael, but he was safe in his world. He had to be. She needed to believe it even when she ached from the loss of what almost had been but could never be between them.
She cleared her throat and rolled her head toward his voice. “How long was I out?”
“Ah…well…a while.” As if commanding the light, his face unexpectedly became visible.
Him being vague meant the real answer might be bad. “I need exact days here. One? Three?”
He sucked air through his lips, which made a high-pitched squeaky noise. “Yeah, well…the spell was a modified Sleeping Beauty in a poison nut. Modified in that no Prince Charming kiss was required to wake you up. I had to wait for the magic to work itself out before you could wake up. That took a lot longer than I anticipated. When I detected the magic waning, I gave back what you gave up. Blood.”
Her heart kicked up its rate. She might’ve been asleep a year, maybe even ten years or a whole century. This time, she did push up with her elbows to a seated position. Her head roared in distress. “How long was I asleep?”
His gaze drifted upwar
d as if calculating. But he did answer.
“For fuck’s sake tell me!”
“Four and a half months.”
Whoa. Between her high heart rate and the increasing pressure in her skull, she blacked out again.
When she came to, she remained prone. He was still there.
“Why am I awake now and not four months ago?” She evaluated her arm where the catheter’s pressure and the tape holding it in place irritated her.
“This type of magic is unpredictable. When I formulated it, I was in a hurry and forgot to put a timer on it. Amateur move to neglect it, but…” She could hear him blow out a long sigh. “Kiera, that asshole was going to chew out your throat. I panicked. I’m not fucking perfect, okay? Ehlena refused to let me grab you and run during that whole event. She made me swear to her I wouldn’t. She wanted it to play out. To make it seem like you actually died, so the Foundry wouldn’t hunt you later. Swear to God, it killed me to do it that way.”
She probably wouldn’t have gone willingly but had no doubt he would’ve knocked her out. “What happened after I died?”
“When your body disappeared before they could do the ceremonial ash at dawn, the Foundry instigated a hunt. I don’t have a spell to fake a vampire ashing into nothing when exposed to daylight. That’s not in my wheelhouse.”
She bet they did more than a hunt. Silas probably went insane tearing up households and anyone whom she’d ever associated with. “Would I have ashed at dawn if I’d really been dead?”
“Probably not. You have too much druid in you. That could’ve been problematic for Ehlena. There would’ve been questions.”
“They’ve stopped looking for me?”
“They didn’t end the war when Viktor died but used your body’s disappearance as an excuse to attack elder wolf strongholds. In the end, Lexan resorted to launching chemical weapons that he, in his remarkable restraint, hadn’t used until that time. A few strategic hits and peace was called for. The catastrophic results of those weapons on vampires were horrendous. I wish the Foundry would’ve considered peace, but they needed the fighting. It was a distraction to divert funds from the money they forced all vampires to pay to support the war into their worldwide conspiracy to control governments. Now they’ve had to accept a ceasefire, but the intelligence and wealth of wolves scares the shit out of them. I fully anticipate a new offensive in the next ten to twenty years.” He lit up a hand-rolled cigarette and took two long draws before blowing out a long line of smoke.