The Vampire Queen
Page 21
His lips touched my skin and I had to make myself not moan or show any kind of pleasure. At last he pulled back from me, his tongue licking the blood from his lips. Something was happening. Perhaps it was the marriage contract taking place but I was betting it was us sealing the mating bond. I felt as if I was one with him. Our souls were combined. Despite all this emotional happiness, one thing was for sure—my energy was depleted. I closed my eyes, praying that everyone would mistake my grimace for disgust. In reality, I was in pain. My body felt like I had been ran over by a train. I wobbled on my feet.
Stephan reached out to steady me while he gave a menacing look to both guards. “I’ll take it from here.”
He put a strong hand underneath my elbow and I was grateful. All for show he forced his blood into me two more times.
Our plan was to leave with the crowd. When Akeldama tried to use one or both keys and found out that they were fake, she would blame Cecil. We hoped since he had handed the key to her guard, she would believe that not only did he plant a fake, but he stole the first key. Stephan said it would start a war between Akeldama and Cecil’s people.
Akeldama looked at the gathered vampires. “You all may leave.” She turned to Dakin. “I haven’t seen Stephan. Find him and bring him to me. He might want to leave, but it won’t be with his pet.”
Dakin was right: that heifer did plan on killing me. Man, I hated her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The vampires who had been stuck at the estate for days were in a hurry to leave. Now was the chance to make our great escape, and we would have if Akeldama didn’t stop us with her next words.
“Do not leave yet. You must stay and enjoy the festivities.”
Well, wasn’t that just fan-flipping-tastic? And when Dakin showed up with no Stephan, then what? Life was so much simpler when all I had to worry about was if my jeans made my butt look big and if they did, was it in a Kardashian kind of way? I realized that I was well past the fatigue stage and going into the delirium stage when my brain started thinking about my ass.
“Stephan. I can’t hold on much longer. We need to go.”
“I know, love. Just hold on.”
Dakin came back in the room that was now empty except for a few guards and a terrified-looking Dani, who was hopefully being ignored by Akeldama.
“Well, where is he?” the queen demanded.
Dakin said, “Some very important business came up, and he is on the phone right now trying to work it out. He told me to tell you that he would be down momentarily.”
“Good. I think I have found a way to make him stay this time. We won’t let him leave us again.”
“Yes, Queen.” Dakin nodded his head towards us. “Shall I escort them to the feast hall now?”
I didn’t know what Twilight Zone I was in, nor did I care. I could tell by the emotions coming off of Stephan that he was just as confused as to why Dakin had covered for us.
Already lost in thought over what plans she had for Stephan, Akeldama shooed us with a hand. “Yes, yes, be gone.”
The guards came over to unchain me, and Akeldama piped up, “No, leave them on her to make sure she is not able to escape. After they leave here, she will be his burden. He will have to watch her closely if he aims for her to do his dirty work.” Her eyes glanced over me and then widened. She pointed a finger at my neck. “What is that?” she squealed.
I looked down at the golden necklace Stephan had given me. Of all the things that the glamour could have faded on, why the heck was it that? My chained hands tried to cover the necklace, but it was too late.
“I recognize that necklace. It was one that Stephan’s mother used to wear and when she died, it became his most prized possession. He would have never let anyone steal it. Why is my daughter wearing it? How did you come by this?” she demanded from me.
I started to shake. I couldn’t hold on to the magic any longer.
“Let it go before it kills you. You need to release it now. To hell with the consequences.”
As my knees hit the ground, the magic disappeared.
Akeldama floated towards me, her hair flowing behind her with a murderous expression on her face.
“You have tricked me!” She stopped a foot in front of me, and I somehow found my way back to my feet. “You used glamour. Who are you really? Answer me now.”
Stephan shifted his body in front of mine, trying to get her to redirect her anger. “She is my wife, Dama.”
“You.” She pointed one long fingernail at him. “How could you do this?”
One of the guards thought that it was terrific timing to show her the key. “Your Majesty, the key is no longer here. In its place is an… apple.”
Her head whipped around to study the apple, and when her gaze came back around, I knew we were all dead. With one hand, she backhanded Stephan so hard he hit the wall and slid down with a sickening thud. Dani ran to him to help him back up. Before Akeldama could tear my head from my shoulders, Dakin appeared in front of me.
Her hatred turned towards him. “And you. When did you know of all of this?”
“If you weren’t so blind, Akeldama, you would have noticed that they are not just married, but mated.”
“Mated,” she screamed. “Is this why you covered for him? What have I told you about that heart of yours?” She shoved her hand into Dakin’s stomach. For the second time within minutes, my knees hit the ground as she held one of Dakin’s organs in her hands. His body collapsed to the ground.
“No. No!” I cried. He couldn’t be dead. I crawled over to him, my chains dragging on the ground.
“Oh, rest assured, pet, he’s not dead.” She squeezed the organ in her hand. “This is like a body part. Vampires can regenerate, but once I decapitate him, well, let’s just say that he won’t be bouncing back.”
“Don’t you touch her.” Stephan was on his feet and running towards me. “I will kill you.”
“No. No, I don’t think you will.” She pointed to her crown. “How quickly you forget.”
Akeldama flung out a hand and froze Stephan and Dani in their tracks. Stephan’s neck muscles were bulging as he fought whatever hold she had on him. It looked as if this fight would be just between the two of us. Oh, goody.
She pulled me up to my feet by my chains. “If I can’t have Stephan, neither can you. They say if you kill a true mate, the other one dies, too. Let’s test the theory, shall we?”
“Oh, bite me!”
Her eyes narrowed with malice. “I think I will.”
Her teeth tore into my neck with none of the gentleness Stephan had shown. A spotted beast flew at her face, digging its claws and releasing a fierce howl. She let go of me in order to throw Tracker to the floor, where he now lay, whimpering.
“What has been going on under my roof?” Giving no more thought to the animal, she took a step closer to me. “Now, where were we?”
She reached out to grab me by the shoulders, but seemed to confused by the smile on my face. I couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out. She stared at her hands that were gripping my shoulders. There were black lines traveling down her arms to her palms. “What is the meaning of this?”
I knocked her hands off of me and took several steps back. “If you think that’s bad, you should see your face.”
“What?” She patted her face. “No, what is happening?”
“I think you are dying, at least I’m hoping.” She fell onto the floor and started crawling to her throne. Guards that had been quietly standing in the corners started to run towards me with their swords drawn. I said in a lethal voice, “Leave this room now or suffer the same fate.”
They looked at each other and then slowly backed out of the room. They didn’t know exactly what I was, and it looked as if they didn’t want to find out. Good. I went over and knelt by Akeldama.
Her hold broke on Stephan and Dani. Within seconds, I could hear both of them standing behind me.
“You know, it’s always so funny to me ho
w the mighty fall. You should have never killed my friend Greta. I hope you rot in hell for your misdeeds.”
“I will kill you for this,” she croaked.
I shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I like how optimistic you are. Would you like for me to tell you what is happening? You now have ghoul blood in you, and soon you will be dead because of it. You really shouldn’t ingest that stuff—it’s not good for you.”
“But… but, Stephan, he—”
“Yeah, I know it all gets a little confusing to me, too. But apparently, the fae in me likes him enough to control the poison in my blood. Cool, huh? I mean, obviously not for you, but you can’t please everyone.”
Stephan looked murderous as he knelt down beside her.
“Stephan, please help me,” she gasped as she clawed the floor.
“There is no help for you, Dama. When you die, I will melt that crown you have so lovingly worn, so no leftover power affects me or anyone else. With your death, we will truly be free from you. When people remember you, it will not be because of your power, wealth, or beauty, but because of your tyranny.”
With his last word, her lips parted in her final death. We all stood and said nothing until Tracker came strolling up, looking none-the-worse for wear. “I totally knew this was going to be a horrible plan, but one hell of a tell. Let’s pretend that there is a suggestions box. My first suggestion would be to behead her, and then after that gruesome task is done, I would light her on fire. This is totally based on personal preference. But if it were me, I would scatter her ashes in every continent just to make sure that she didn’t come back looking all Freddy Krueger.”
Dani flipped her short hair. “He does have a point.”
Tracker wound his way through her legs. “Gurl, me and you, we are like peanut butter and jelly. Cornbread and chicken. The feathers to my down comforter.”
“What?” she asked.
“I was running out of things. Just go with it, baby.”
Yeah, she was rolling with it all right. She was rolling her eyes.
I looked over at Dakin, who was still unconscious on the floor. “Will he be all right?”
“He will wake up some time tomorrow, starving and in extreme pain, as his spleen starts to regenerate, but other than that, yes, he will be fine,” Stephan said. “I’ll take care of Akeldama’s body and the crown as soon as I get these cuffs off of you.”
“I don’t want to stay here a minute longer,” Dani said. “Whoever kills the queen becomes the queen. Tandi just got herself a whole line of vampires that I have a feeling she doesn’t even want, but that doesn’t mean that she has to rule them from here.”
There was no way I was signing up for all of this. “Nope. Not going to happen,” I said. There were things I wanted in life, but overseeing Akeldama’s group of malicious vampires was not one of them.
“You know, you could weed out the bad. They would either follow your rules or you would force them to go rogue, and then they probably wouldn’t last long,” Stephan said. “Plus, I have a hard time believing you would turn down the chance to wear a crown.”
He retrieved a key and unlocked my chains. He did have a point. I loved crowns. But there was no way that I would take on this crazy role without someone who knew how the vampire community worked. All of the ins and outs. I wasn’t stupid. I would need qualified people around me. Stephan, Dani, and Tracker—if I could convince him—would be a good start. Maybe I would be a good queen. The last queen didn’t set the bar too high, so at least I would be better than her.
My chains hit the ground. “Would you rule beside me?”
He pulled me into his arms and gave me a hard, swift kiss. “Of course. We make a good team.”
“Jeez. Not in front of the kiddies,” Tracker gagged. “Gross.”
Stephan rested his forehead on mine. “Now that we have the key and have defeated Akeldama, tell me that Garfield will be packing his catnip up and going back to whatever cesspool he came from.”
Tracker jumped into Dani’s arms. “Actually, I’m thinking of commuting back and forth. I feel like your wife was born to amuse me and in return, I shall share her stories for a small price to any fae who would like to listen.”
Dani put the cat back onto all fours. “Capitalism at its finest. Let’s all meet at the car in fifteen. Anything you can’t pack up by then, just leave it here. I’m so ready to get the stink of anything Akeldama out of my nostrils.”
I glanced over at Dakin’s still form. “Could we carry him up to a bed? He just looks so vulnerable. I don’t want to leave him like that.”
Stephan let out a sigh. “Sure, why not? I’ll come back down and do that as well. First, let me walk you to your room.”
I needed to go collect my things along with the other half of the key that probably didn’t resemble a hairbrush anymore. Stephan held my hand as we walked up the stairs. All these steps was another thing that I wouldn’t miss.
“I have to go destroy the crown,” he said, as I stopped in front of my guest bedroom door, “and take care of your friend.”
“With the way Dakin helped us out, I’m thinking he might be redeemable. Would it kill you to call him your friend again?”
“You ask too much of me, little one.” He snaked an arm around my waist and gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Before he could leave, I asked, “What will we do with the other half of the key?”
“Whatever you want, my queen.”
“You know, that does have a nice ring to it. The key… we can’t just destroy it, can we?”
“Afraid not,” he said. “But breaking up the key and giving part of it to your grandfather was brilliant. We will guard the other half together.”
I started to collect my belongings, but he stopped me with one hand on my arm. “Tandi, I want you to know that… that I love you.”
“Stephan, I think somewhere along the way I figured that out. Maybe it was in between my disappearance into the fae world and you fighting the ogre because you didn’t want me to. Our story hasn’t been easy, and if I’m being honest, there were times that I wanted to strangle you. But I can’t imagine not loving you.” I placed a hand over his heart. “And I do love you. Promise me from here on out, we won’t hold anything back from one another, and we will be a team.”
“We are going to be an unstoppable team, and now that you’re mine, and I know that I won’t scare you off, I promise to tell you right away everything that I learn. No matter how boring or insignificant I think it is. We are going to change the way things have been done in the past. The Vampire Nation will never be the same. We are going to rule in a way that is very different than the way Akeldama ruled.”
“Well, duh. That woman was cray-cray. Plus, she wore too many ball gowns. I will be ruling our vampire community with yoga pants and a tiara, and Lord have mercy, there will never be so much gold in one room that we look like a discount pawn shop. We will rule with less gaudy knick-knacks and more sophistication. Well, as sophisticated as someone can be in yoga pants.” I tried to keep a straight face as I added, “Oh, and of course, the policies will be different, too. No more opening portals to let bad guys in.”
He was laughing as he went downstairs to take care of business. I had a feeling that I would never get used to that sound. Every time that man smiled at me or laughed would be like magic all over again. If this is what love felt like, I was game. We would rule the hell out of some vampires.
His voice sounded in my head just as I was gathering my bags to go down those hellacious steps one last time. “Little one, will you hurry?”
“Jeez, what’s the rush?”
“Our honeymoon awaits us. I know we don’t have a lot of time with us having to hold court and reassure everyone that—”
“Speak no more; you had me at honeymoon.”
“That’s my girl. Does a quick trip to Paris sound good?”
“Will you take me shopping?”
“After we make lo
ve multiple times in many different ways, then yes, I will.”
I felt a blush creeping up my face, but I was so going to be nonchalant about all of this. I was now a queen. Queens didn’t get giddy. They were super cool. Just because the thought of me and Stephan making love made me want to have heart palpitations didn’t mean that I would. The pesky memory of when we had stayed in that hotel, and I’d seen him in his towel popped back into my head. I squeaked out, “Deal. It will be like I’m Pretty Woman and you’re Richard Gere.”
He chuckled in my head. “Please, tell me that you haven’t forgotten that I can feel your emotions.”
I shoved my luggage down the stairs and watched it tumble to a stop. There was no way in hell I was carrying that crap all the way down.
“Can we just pretend that you can’t? We can just be a normal boy and girl.”
“That sounds absolutely boring, but as you wish. I don’t know how you feel, but I am very anxious to get you alone, so please hurry.”
I smiled all the way down the steps, which was a miracle in itself.
It wasn’t until we were back in Stephan’s home, which was now our home, I realized that this was who I was meant to be. Maybe I wasn’t conventional, and maybe I was an anomaly, but what made me different was also going to be what made me a great ruler.
The Demon Queen
Book 4 in the Wheel of Crowns series
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Ruling demons has never been easy. But it’s about to get a lot harder.
Carmen is finally free from years of torture. And with her evil daddy—the Demon King—dead, she’s also wearing the crown and ruling with sass, even if she still doesn’t have her own body back. But being a Queen isn’t as easy as she thought it would be. Not when she has a weakness. One she must keep secret.