by Melody Raven
Her fears were lifted when Aleksander calmly walked up the stairs. Anna breathed a sigh of relief. Neither of the two men looked as though they’d been fighting. This was promising.
Not as promising half a second later when Nicolas ran so fast she didn’t realize he’d moved until he had pushed her back behind him so she couldn’t even see Aleksander past his big frame.
It looked even worse when Aleksander let out a deep growl at Nicolas. Nicolas responded by baring his fangs. His eyes were jet black now, while Aleksander still managed to keep some of his composure.
Anna tried to squeeze between the two men to relieve some of the tension, but Nicolas kept her from getting past him.
Soon enough, the whole ordeal was over. Aleksander took a step back. “Remember what I said, Nicolas. Try to be on your best behavior, or I will give you reason to be scared.” Without another word, he turned and walked away.
“What did he mean by that?” she asked.
“He means he’s a dick,” was the curt answer Nicolas gave her. Before she could pester him for a better response, he said, “I’m the bait. He’s pretending to welcome me back to the palace and throwing a gathering of vampires most likely to want me dead. No one will believe that I have given up my need for revenge. If someone was trying to frame me, now that I will be living at the palace, they’ll have the perfect opportunity.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her along one of the long hallways of the palace.
“What are you doing?” She tugged at her arm.
“I’m trying to find my old room,” he said. “They’ve changed everything in here.”
She abruptly refused to move any farther, but his momentum had her tripping over her feet and she fell right into his side.
“What the hell?” he muttered under his breath.
“No. What are you doing, dragging me anywhere you feel like it?”
“It’s not safe here. We need to find my room as soon as possible.”
“I’ve been fine for almost a whole day. I don’t think I’m in immediate danger,” she reasoned. He did make her a bit paranoid, the way he kept looking behind him and over her shoulder, as if to make sure no one followed them.
“What even makes you think your old room is still free?” Surely after sixty years, someone would have taken up residence there.
“This is my palace,” he reminded her. “I don’t care who is in it. I’m sleeping there while I’m here.”
Anna rolled her eyes at his arrogance. “Anyways, you can’t just do things like this. You can’t tie me down when it suits you, or control me when you want me to see things your way, or drag me down a hallway.”
She ripped her arm out of his grasp but knew he was strong enough to have held on if he’d meant to. “You go find your room. This place is huge, and I plan on exploring every square inch of it.”
She turned and walked away, but after only a few steps, he was next to her. “I thought you were looking for your room.”
“I wasn’t joking. It’s not safe for you here. Many vampires have never fed from a human who willingly gave their blood. There are probably about twenty males here right now who cannot wait to get a moment alone with you.”
She shot a surprised glance his way. “You’re serious? Is that why you wanted me?” she asked, but immediately regretted it. She didn’t want to talk about anything remotely sexual with Nicolas. The two of them were too volatile. It almost felt as though sparks flew between them every time they touched, even if they weren’t talking about sex. When they did venture onto that dangerous topic, those sparks turned into flames.
While they walked, he said, “It’s one of the many reasons I still want you.”
She was flattered at the idea that there were multiple reasons he wanted her. Then she was mad at herself for getting happy about it. She tried desperately not to want this man and failed horribly.
She asked, “So how do the vampires get food all the way out here, anyway?”
“I mentioned that any vampires who are turned must feed off other vampires. These days, the majority of vampires are transitioned ones, so not many of them need to feed from humans.
“For the pure born, at the speed we run, it’s not too hard to get to the nearest town. We can also bottle excess blood supply now. Sometimes, humans will vacation nearby, and with compulsion, they never know their blood was taken.”
“Where is this bottled blood coming from?” asked Anna, skeptically.
“We set up blood banks in large city centers. We offer money for blood, and lots of people volunteer. Any clean blood we do donate to hospitals, but any with low iron or diseases is fine for us to drink.”
“That’s a relief. I thought you were stealing it from unwilling people or hospitals. So Evie can’t feed off of people? Does she feed from multiple vampires?” Anna had so many questions, and every answer she got opened up a lot more questions.
They turned into a hallway that led into the east wing of the house as Nicolas said, “I doubt it. Aleksander would get much too jealous to let his wife feed from anyone else.”
“Are all vampire men so possessive?”
“No,” he answered. “Any vampire is possessive of their mate, male or female. I have a feeling Aleksander is on a strictly male diet, and has been for the last fifteen years.”
“Vampires are monogamous? That’s interesting. I would think since you lived for so long, you would get bored of one person.”
“Maybe,” said Nicolas. “But when you live as long as we can, you have to find something to live for.”
They turned the corner, and Anna’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh my gosh,” she whispered. They were inside the largest ballroom she’d ever seen—or rather, the only ballroom she’d ever seen. She took off her glasses and put them back on again just to make sure she was seeing clearly.
The ceiling had to be at least one hundred feet up in the air. Massive chandeliers hung down in the center and each end of the room. Each seemed to have thousands of crystals hanging and dispersing the light.
The room was bordered with large white columns, and the floor was a white marble with contrasting streaks of black. “What is this place?”
Anna looked up to see Nicolas stare at her. “You can’t be a king without throwing lots and lots of parties,” he said with a grin.
“So you have actually had parties in here? Dining, dancing, and the whole nine yards?” She walked over to one of the large columns to get a better look at some of the intricate designs carved into them.
“To stay in power, you have to keep your powerful friends happy. Powerful people love to party. No matter how rich someone is, they will always love the chance to drink for free.”
Anna smiled. “So is this what you lived for? The politics and parties?”
“It’s not as much fun when it’s something you have to do. I was helping people. Kirill and I led our people from hiding in caves and sewers to a place like this. That was what I lived for.”
Anna noticed that even the walls had delicate gold paintings all along the perimeter. She crossed the room to study them closer.
Nicolas walked up behind her. “I wish I had appreciated it as much at the time as you are now,” he said.
“Tell me about Kirill,” said Anna. “I’m hearing such different things from Evie and you about him. What happened?”
“She told you I was his son?”
Anna nodded.
“He was much older than me. I think I surprised him. He never felt strongly about anyone before me. He would tell me I was the reason for everything he did. He didn’t want his son to live in the world as a scavenger and monster.”
He continued to walk along the edge of the room so Anna could get a good look at all the details as he talked. “My mother was killed when I was just ten. Kirill and she were not close, so that wasn’t what set him off. I was almost killed. Mortals stormed the house in the middle of the day and dragged her out into the sun. There were too many for her
to fight them off.
“I only narrowly fit under the floor. They burned the house when they were done with her. It was only luck that the weather conditions were not right for fire and it faded out before burning my cubby. Because of the sun I couldn’t run, and because of the fire, I would have died if I stayed.”
A tear fell from her eye. “I’m so sorry, Nicolas. That’s horrible.”
Nicolas’s face was stiff. “Honestly, I was very young at the time and it was so long ago. My memory of the night is rather vague.”
Anna wasn’t sure she believed him. She had a feeling that if she ever lived to be half a millennium old, her memories of Charles would still be crystal-clear. “After that, it was just you and Kirill?”
“Yes. The three-hundred-year-old vampire was now a single parent. It wasn’t easy for him. He had a lot of anger in him over my mother’s death.”
“Is that because she was his mate?” asked Anna as they rounded the corner of the ballroom.
“My mother wasn’t his mate. They were good friends who accidently had a son. He was upset at how vulnerable we were to the very people who were supposed to be our food. We were stronger than them and had powers beyond their imagination. So with me at his side, he set out to give vampires the power to unite.”
“I don’t know,” said Anna pensively. “That sounds a bit like a vampire who wants to enslave humanity.”
Nicolas shook his head. “He wanted power, but not to enslave. It was when people believed we were real that there were so many murders of my kind. By staying smart and hidden, we could rule and not make an enemy of the mortals.”
Anna stopped walking and turned to face Nicolas. “Do you think less of me because of my mortality?”
He cocked his head at her question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, all this talk about you against the humans. All the things you do to me. Dragging me around, playing with my head. I know you’re older and stronger than me, but you aren’t better. You can’t treat me like that.”
“I want you safe.” He reached a hand out for her face.
Anna jerked her head from his hand. “I’m not safe. I’m human. I come with an expiration date.” She saw his jaw tense up. She didn’t want to talk about her eventual demise. She brought back the original topic. “So what actually happened with Kirill?”
Nicolas looked as though he didn’t want to change the subject of conversation but answered her anyway. “His age caught up to him.”
Nicolas started to walk again, and Anna had to take quick steps to catch up. “He was old and tired of the politics and fighting. He never found a mate. I think he had nothing to live for anymore. Aleksander thinks he lost his mind. I know that if we had patience, he would have been able to snap himself out of it.”
“How many mortals like me would have to die before he snapped out if it?”
“If you knew how many lives he saved, you wouldn’t be so quick to judge,” he shot back.
Anna stopped in her tracks. “So if I knew him better, I would be okay with him killing indiscriminately? I guess in the long run it doesn’t matter that much. They were just humans he was killing.”
Anna couldn’t continue this conversation without getting more pissed off. She turned and strode away. She didn’t hear his footsteps but felt his eyes on her until she was out of the massive room that had so fascinated her just moments ago.
What kind of monster was Nicolas? Was he really so nonchalant about murdering innocents? Maybe she was the stupid one for thinking a vampire would care about humans being killed.
She needed to talk to Evie. She needed someone to try to understand what she was dealing with. She couldn’t talk to Abigail, and she would never want to divulge all the secrets she’d learned to the Stakes.
Anna stopped at that. She really was all alone now. She now knew about this fascinating world, but she could never share it with anyone. The only person she could speak freely to was a queen now. She wouldn’t exactly have time to pick up the phone whenever Anna really needed to talk.
Anna would have to go home soon. She only had a few more classes she could miss before her job would be in jeopardy, and she thought she might have passed that threshold a class or two ago.
Nicolas wouldn’t be coming back with her. Aleksander might not even let him leave at all. Even if he made it out of this place alive, he wouldn’t want to come back with her.
They had never talked about the future, but Anna wasn’t naive. Nicolas had never said or done anything to lead her to believe what they had was more than sex. Even if she wanted more with him, she knew how he felt about humans. Besides that, Anna wasn’t even sure she wanted him.
He was fascinating, beautiful, and in bed he was the definition of the word animal in the best way, but he was also horribly controlling. How could she submit herself to another controlling man? It would only be a matter of weeks before she would bolt from him.
No. When she left the palace, she would be more or less alone. Might as well get used to it now.
Anna walked to the wing of the palace Evie and Aleksander occupied. She probably passed about five vampires on the way. None of them spoke to her, but they were not too shy to stare.
It was uncomfortable for her to be the center of attention when she was so used to blending into crowds. She wanted to know what they were thinking as they looked at her. Were they thinking how funny it was that a human thought she belonged here? Maybe they were imagining how she would taste.
Her feet carried her a bit faster to reach Evie. When she reached her door, she wanted to pound on the wood until Evie answered but forced her hand to calmly rap on the door.
It must have been nearing dawn, because Evie was dressed in a beautiful silk nightgown. Even her sleep clothes put Anna’s normal clothes to shame.
Still, Evie looked so beautiful and happy that Anna couldn’t help but smile. “Hey,” she said. “You want to take a little walk with me?”
“I would love to, but,” she looked out her window at the dark sky, “I don’t have much time.”
Anna looked over Evie’s shoulder at the same window. It still looked pitch black. She wondered whether it was just Evie’s internal clock that told her the sun was about to rise or whether all vampires could sense when the sun was coming.
“It doesn’t have to be long,” said Anna.
Evie quickly grabbed a robe from inside her room and came out to Anna. “So what did you want to talk about?”
Anna looked ahead and tried to make sure she could actually remember how to find her way around if she ever got lost in the maze of rooms. “Nothing specific. I wanted to see you.” Anna figured that sounded better than “I’m feeling really lonely and like an outcast here, but I don’t want to go home because you won’t be there and I will have to sort out feelings I may or may not have for a vampire who may or may not be evil.”
“Has Aleksander been treating Nicolas okay?” asked Evie.
Anna inwardly smiled at how Evie zoomed in on the subject that she really wanted to avoid. “Aleksander freed him, although I think he did it more for him than for Nicolas.”
“I heard about that. How is Nicolas?”
Anna looked over at Evie. “If you’re asking if he plans to murder Aleksander in his sleep, I don’t know. He hasn’t mentioned it to me.”
Evie turned a corner to a hallway that Anna had never been down before.
“Can I ask you something, Evie?”
“Ask me anything,” she said. “You already know all my darkest secrets anyway.”
“How did you cope with Aleksander?”
Evie stopped for a moment. “Well, transitioning was hard, and getting used to feeding took a while, but after that, things started to work themselves out.”
Anna shook her head. “Not that. I meant him. Isn’t he a bit controlling? And does his past ever get in between the two of you?”
“Is this about Charles?”
“Everything is about Charles, Evie. My wh
ole life is based around the years I spent with him. I know Ray did the same to you. How could you and Aleksander get past it?”
Evie reached out and clasped both of Anna’s hands in her own. “You have to remember that you’re living your own life, not one for Charles. If you’re living to spite everything he ever said or did, that’s not a true life.
“Aleksander is a lot to handle at times, but so am I. He does try to control me, but try is all he does. He doesn’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.”
Anna pulled her hands away. Evie had respect from Aleksander. That was what a relationship could be based on, and Anna didn’t know whether she could ever get Nicolas to respect her.
“How exactly does Aleksander plan on using Nicolas?” asked Anna.
“Nicolas didn’t tell you?”
Anna remembered that she’d snapped at Nicolas almost as soon as he’d run up the stairs. “We talked about some other things,” she said.
“Well, the basis of the plan is to make it appear that Nicolas and Aleksander have become allies. To prove that, they’ll have to appear in public together a lot in the next few days. Next week, we will have a homecoming party for Nicolas, and hopefully, if there is someone after Aleksander, he will strike at the party. We are sending word that there is trouble in the south and that some of the guards are headed down there now.”
“Is Aleksander worried about your safety?” asked Anna.
Evie gave Anna a mischievous smirk. “I’ve been a vampire now for fifteen years. That might not be a long time in vampire years, but I know how to handle myself. I’ve been trained personally by Aleksander and his best guards. I’m a very dangerous woman.”
Anna laughed. She would love to see this petite blonde take down some big bad vampire in a fight. Evie continued, “Besides that, I will have guards watching me at all times. I would be more worried about yourself if I were you.”
“But I’m no one,” said Anna.
“You’re someone important enough to track down. Besides, you have heard this man. He might be afraid you’d recognize him.”
“That’s ridiculous. He could’ve disguised his voice.”