New Blood

by Everly, Faith

  I whimpered. The sound cut through the silence, unnerving me even though I was the one who did it.

  “What pains you?”

  I gasped, frozen solid. Somebody was in there with me. How had I not heard them? Their breathing, slight movements, anything?

  Because they’re vampires, dumbass. Stop acting like there’s anything normal about this entire situation and figure out how to get out of it. Somehow, that scolding voice in my head centered me. Calmed me. Put me on track.

  I had to get out of this place, period. I had to get back to the cabin. Then, I would drive the hell home and never come back. I would hide myself. How had I managed to hide before without trying?

  First thing came first. I swung my legs over the bed, leaned over to where I remembered the nightstand being, and flipped on the light.

  Kristoff sat in one of the leather chairs in front of the dark fireplace. He held his chin on one palm, his fingers tapping his smooth cheek. “You all right?” he asked. I had never heard anybody sound so bored.

  Maybe Jessabelle. She was good at that. Like she’d majored in boredom in vampire school or wherever.

  “You tell me.” I rolled my head back and forth on my neck. “I can only stand so much of that ‘one touch and you’re unconscious’ shit.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Why? You’re not the one who did it to me this time.”

  “Even so, I imagine it would be unnerving.”

  “That’s a word for it. I find it a real pain in the ass, personally.” I held the back of my neck in one hand as I moved my head back and forth again. “And in the head.”

  “You’ve been put to sleep several times in the last three days. I imagine that has something to do with it. We don’t go around freely placing humans under a sleep state for fun, and we rarely have a reason to visit the same human more than once. If anything, your blood probably makes it easier for you to bear up under it.”

  “The blood I drank, you mean?” I knew I probably shouldn’t look and sound so completely disgusted, but there was no helping that part.

  I drank blood.

  It saved my life.

  Damn it. There was no making sense of it.

  “No.” He gave me a tiny smile that brought to mind an adult humoring a stupid kid, wanting to be gentle but wanting to laugh at the same time. “I mean your blood. The blood you were born with. It makes you special and always has. You cannot change that, no matter how much you might wish to.”

  I shivered a little under his intense stare. The way he looked at me. It was like being looked through, or like he could see inside me. I wanted to cover myself up somehow but knew it was stupid, so I held myself in place.

  “That’s something Dominic didn’t explain. My blood. What does that mean? Who do you think I am?”

  “Who we know you are is someone descended from the ancients. From the first Blood Queen.”

  “The who what?”

  “The Blood Queen. Each species has its king or queen. The Lycan King, the Fae Queen. Naturally, our kind live long lives, so there isn’t a revolving door policy. When a king or queen takes power, they remain in power for the duration of their life. The original Blood Queen ruled for three centuries, starting in the early thirteenth century.”

  “Whoa.”

  He grinned. “Whoa. Yes.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She was put to death by her own kind.”

  “That sounds harsh.”

  “She broke the law, and of all vampires, she was the one held to the highest standards of the law. An example had to be made. While Aurelia is considered the greatest Blood Queen to ever reign, she was put to death for falling in love with a human man and bearing his child.”

  I gulped. “So you’re saying… I’m a descendant of that child?”

  “You’re very quick when you stop putting up blocks between yourself and the truth.”

  “You’re starting to sound a little too much like Dominic.”

  “Just the same. That is the truth of it. You are her many-times-over great-granddaughter.”

  “But I’m not a vampire.”

  “The marker is in your blood, clear as crystal. Even with so many centuries having passed. You can live as a human because the bloodline has been watered down, granted, but there is still enough of Aurelia in you to be detected by our kind.”

  “Which is how you all know who I am.”

  “Correct. And that is why you have to claim your rightful place as our queen.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I got up from the bed, waving my arms. “No way. I’m not a queen. I’m not even a princess. I’m just me. I have a life. I have friends. Okay, one friend, but she’s important to me. And my uncle. I mean, do I talk to him every day? No, but still. I can’t just leave him.”

  “You have a responsibility.”

  “Fuck you! I don’t have a responsibility to you or anybody in this mansion or whatever it is. Just because I have a very, very distant vampire relative who got herself knocked up by a human guy, that means I have to take my place as your queen? You can forget it. I’m not a vampire.”

  “You are more vampire than you know. How else would vampire blood have healed you so quickly? So painlessly? Humans—real, true humans without a trace of us running through their veins—would experience excruciating pain upon drinking from us.”

  He snorted softly, looking down at the hand resting on the chair’s arm. The hand where his silver ring shone. “I can tell you from experience that it is a hellish sensation. Like fire spreading through the body, burning you up from the inside out.”

  “Is that how it felt for you?” I whispered, feeling more than a little nauseated.

  His face crumpled a little, like he was in pain or remembering it. “To put it mildly.”

  “So you were… turned? You weren’t born this way?”

  “That’s what you need to understand. None of us are born this way.” His eyes locked onto mine. “None of us but you. Your mother was no longer in her younger years when we were successful in locating your family, so you became the natural choice to be named queen. You are the only vampire descendant in existence, as far as we know.”

  “As far as you know. So there could be others.”

  “We would know. Trust me. The fact that Aurelia’s child lived is in itself a miracle. That she survived the delivery is another miracle. You must understand, this is the most unusual situation our kind has ever known. Aurelia hid her child well enough that the baby was never discovered and was presumed dead. She may have used a witch, might have cloaked the baby that its blood couldn’t be sniffed out. Everything from that time is legend, as even the most ancient of the seers who lived in those years have different theories on how she managed it.”

  “Wait up. There are people still alive who lived back then?”

  His lips twitched. “People is an interesting word…”

  “You know what I mean,” I huffed. “Creatures. Beings. Who cares?”

  “They would care, just as you would care if they spoke of you so dismissively.”

  “Right. Of course. Sorry. There’s a lot to absorb all at once here.”

  “Too right.” He loosened his jaw, which was a good thing since he was pretty freaking terrifying when he got serious and tense. Knowing he was a vampire took every little gesture and multiplied it. I could’ve handled myself better against a human guy.

  I had already seen what these vampires were capable of so no, thanks.

  “So there are ancient seers who lived six hundred years ago and knew my ancestor. She was the Blood Queen. And because I’m descended from her, I’m supposed to be your Blood Queen. Is that it?”

  “In essence.” His lips twitched again, and I decided I liked him much better when he was laughing at me than when he looked like he wanted to tear my throat out. “Simple, right?”

  “Sure. Simple. I don’t want this.”

  “I don’t recall anyone asking whether
you wanted it or not.”

  “And that’s not supposed to upset me?”

  “That isn’t our problem. Our problem lies in the fact of our missing queen—meaning you, Sophie—taking her place and leading us. Not since Aurelia has there been someone possessed of the same sort of power you hold.”

  “Power? What power? Do I seem powerful to you?” I threw my hands up. “I got kidnapped, basically, which is the reason I’m here. I have no idea where I am and no idea how to get home. I don’t even know why I’m wearing this dress, even if it’s pretty.”

  “Lucian prefers a certain level of sophistication. All of us do. And the rest of our tribe is set to gather here this evening, prior to the start of the Summit. He wanted you to make a good impression.”

  “So your uncle assumed I would just, like, fall in line and not put up an argument? Like I have no will of my own?”

  He stood slowly, unfolding his tall body. Even with my ridiculous heels, he towered over me. “You don’t seem to understand your situation. There is no will involved here. Was your will involved when you were born? Did you determine who bore you? Where you were born? No. It was laid out for you, and as with all humans it is up to you to make the best of the hand you were dealt.”

  He looked me up and down with his nostrils flaring again. I didn’t know how to take that. Did he want to kill me or fuck me? If it was the latter, would I even live through it? For all I knew either activity would end with me being dead.

  “You can’t will your way out of this, so stop wasting time and energy believing you can.” He went to the door, but paused with his hand on the knob. “I know my cousin told you about the danger you were in at the cabin. How there are others who would rather see you dead. How this is the only place you can hope to be safe.”

  He froze me in place with a look over his shoulder. “That wasn’t hyperbole. Dominic can fall into it from time to time, but you can take him at his word on that. There are some who would rather you not be our queen. They would rather seize power for themselves. So don’t even think about escape or return to your world. It would only end horribly for you, and I would hate to see that happen.”

  He lowered his brow, lips pursing a little. “You have a great deal of potential.” His words poured over me like warm honey and made my lady bits quiver even though I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about sex. Maybe.

  “Thanks,” I whispered as he left the room. I didn’t even think to try to follow him.

  I was too busy trying to comprehend a bunch of supernatural creatures wanting me dead.

  What a super fun vacation this was turning into.

  Fifteen

  SOPHIE

  Thinking was easier when I was barefoot. Strange but true.

  I walked the length of the room, which now struck me as being more of a gilded cage than a bedroom. There had to be a way to get out. How did they all get there from the cabin? How did they get me to this place?

  After what might’ve been ten minutes or two hours—having no clue what time it was unnerved the shit out of me—I came to one conclusion.

  If I was getting out of there, Graziella was my best chance. The most sympathetic. She liked me. She felt sorry for knocking me on my ass, so she would probably want to make it up to me.

  Right? It was all I had to hold onto. The last scrap of hope.

  Otherwise, I was stuck for the rest of my life with a bunch of vampires who would probably want to change me into one of them. That didn’t exactly thrill me.

  And there was still the question of Poppy and John. I couldn’t disappear with no explanation.

  I especially couldn’t do it to my uncle. He had been through enough when Mom and Dad died. I knew he’d worshipped his big brother and losing him had come as a huge blow. One of those before-and-after sort of things, the way it was for me.

  My entire life was split into Before That Night and After That Night. The direction of my life had completely changed. No more studying, no more looking ahead to college and internships and high school activities that would look good on my applications.

  All that mattered after that night was protecting myself. Learning how to kick the shit out of anybody or anything that tried to hurt me.

  And numbing the pain. The sort of pain that never ended, never dulled. There were still times, ten years later, when it would come back to me all at once and that fresh, breathtaking wall of pain would slam into me all over again.

  Only now I was clean, sober, and had to face the pain instead of turning away from it.

  Damn it, if there had ever been a time I wished my parents were still alive…

  When soft footsteps sounded outside the door, I scurried over to the bed and sat down, hands folded. It had to be Graz. I knew she’d come back.

  She was interested in me for some reason. Normally, I would’ve been more than a little pissed knowing somebody thought about me like I was a zoo animal, but these were difficult times.

  The door opened slowly. Like, excruciatingly. I fought to compose my face so it wouldn’t show how anxious I was.

  “Hi.” Graz leaned in, chewing her lip.

  “Hey. You can come in. It’s okay.” I dug my nails into my palm to stay focused. I needed her. I couldn’t afford to freak her out or, God for-fucking-bid, make her scream. Again.

  “I’m sorry about before. And about the other time, after that.” She closed the door behind her and stood against it, like she was blocking me in. No big deal. I wasn’t about to rush her, not when she was so high-strung.

  “Yeah, what happened before? I heard you screaming when I was talking with Dominic and Jessabelle.”

  She lifted a shoulder, staring at the floor. “I got upset. Lucian was saying bad things about… somebody.”

  “Me?”

  “No.” Her head snapped up. “No. Not you. You’re important.”

  “I don’t feel so important.”

  “You are. You’re ever so important.”

  “So who was he saying bad things about?” When she looked at the floor again, I remembered the whole instinct thing. The way I knew things I shouldn’t technically have known.

  I decided to take a risk, using those instincts. “Was it Gabriel?”

  “Shh!” She held a finger to her lips. Her eyes were so wide, they practically took up half her face.

  “He’s going to get in trouble for what he did to me, isn’t he?” I whispered. Yes, let me earn her trust. Let her remember what happened to me, how I was almost killed by him. Let her feel sorry for me.

  “I’m sure he didn’t do it.” Her chin quivered. “Gabriel would never do something like that. Not to you. Not to anybody. He’s good. No matter what they say, he has a loyal heart. He always has.”

  “He means a lot to you, I guess. Did he ever live here, with you?”

  “For a long time. As long as I’ve been part of the family. Until he left.” She ran a hand under her eyes, sniffling. “I wanted him to take me with him, but he wouldn’t. He said it was safer for me here.”

  “Do you know why he left?”

  “Why do you care so much?”

  Why did I care? Because he had tried to kill me, and it stood to reason that he still wanted to. Everybody had told me so, hadn’t they? Vampires had been on their way to the cabin to kill me. Considering that he had already done a pretty damn good job of his attempt…

  “Because you seem so sad,” I murmured while running my hand over the silk blanket next to me. “Come on. Sit down. I won’t bite.”

  She giggled at the joke I didn’t mean to make, then took a seat beside me. What a mindfuck this was. She could’ve been five times my age, but she could’ve passed for a tween with a special affection for pinafores and patent leather.

  “Gabriel is like my brother,” she explained. “He protected me when I first came here, after I left home.”

  “Your home you lived in when you were… I mean, before you were turned?”

  She shook her head. “No. Lucian didn’t
turn me. It was his brother who did it. Augustine. I escaped him, but now… Now Gabriel’s with him and that crowd, and I don’t understand why. Why would he want to be with them when he helped me escape them? Nobody tells me anything, and no matter how I’ve tried, I cannot get in touch with Gabriel.”

  She sniffled, ducking her head. “I miss him. He called me little sister. He understood me better than anybody ever has.”

  I took yet another risk by patting her back. “I know how it feels to lose important people. My parents died ten years ago. Horribly. I never got a chance to say goodbye. I was with a friend in another cabin nearby. We were… well, we were smoking marijuana. It was my first time doing that. All I could think the whole way back to our cabin was how I could get around my parents so they wouldn’t know I was on drugs. It’s ridiculous, looking back on it. They were lying in the cabin, dead in a pool of blood with their bodies torn to pieces, and I was so scared they would be mad at me.”

  “I’m sorry that happened.” She looked at me from under her thick, black lashes. “And now you’re stuck here.”

  “I could do worse.” I patted her back again and forced a smile that was probably closer to a grimace. “I’m just saying, I know what it’s like to lose and feel lonely. Like nobody understands.”

  “It hurts.”

  “I know it does,” I sighed, sincere. “I did find one friend. Her name is Poppy. She helped me through some of the worst times. She’s like my sister.”

  Graz’s mouth pulled down at the corners. “You must miss her, too.”

  “I’m more afraid of what will happen if I never see her again. If I just disappear. I mean, let’s look at this like she will. I vanished from the cabin. My phone and clothes and car are there. What happens if I never come back? She’ll keep looking for me and she’ll never find me, and I’ll have to carry that in my heart for the rest of my life. I’ll have to feel guilty for making her worry about me.”

  I didn’t realize until I finished that I wasn’t pretending anymore or trying to earn Graz’s sympathy. Tears rolled down my cheeks and dripped into my lap, soaking into the satin dress. Gee, I sure hoped Lucian wouldn’t think a tear-stained dress was uncouth or whatever.