by Bella Klaus
“No,” I whispered. “Somehow she already knew.”
A flash of realization flickered across his eyes. My nostrils flared, and every muscle in my body stiffened, ready for a fight. If Valentine so much as suggested that the woman who raised me had engineered a situation that would leave me in so much pain, I would walk out right now.
He paused for several heartbeats, his eyes roving my face. Perhaps he was thinking of a more delicate way to tell me that Aunt Arianna had tampered with my memory.
“Are you sure she didn’t mistake your distress for sadness at having to leave Logris?” he asked.
Relief whooshed out of my lungs, and all the tightness loosened from my chest. This time, when I met his gaze, it was to see the beauty in his dark eyes and not the accusation.
Right now, they were an indigo so deep it was hard to differentiate the shades of red and blue. White flecks filled the irises, both reflecting the sunlight streaming through the hospital room’s window and shining with the light of the truth.
My throat thickened. Part of me wanted to cling to the notion that he had courted me under false pretenses for years until he’d taken my virginity, made love to me, and then cast me aside once he’d gotten what he wanted. Part of me wanted to believe that I’d been duped.
Holding on to those beliefs was what kept me safe, stuck in a continuous cycle of suppressing my pain. They were what stopped me from getting hurt.
Somewhere deep in my heart, I shed the last vestiges of numbness, and a question spilled from my lips. “How do I know this isn’t some elaborate plan to see how far you can dupe a stupid Neutral?”
Valentine’s brows furrowed. “In all the time we’ve been together, have I ever reveled in tormenting someone whose position in our society was weaker?”
“Is that how you see me?” I asked, my voice brittle.
“Focus, Mera.” The hands around my face clutched me tighter. “Our circumstances of birth are different, making me wield more supernatural power than most vampires. I’m wealthy, immortal, and was born into the Royal House of Sargon, but even that pales next to the beauty and strength of your soul.”
On the inside, my heart dissolved into molten metal, but I tightened my features into a scowl. “How do you expect me to believe that I would agree to such public humiliation?”
“It had to be terrible enough to convince the Council and its enforcers that you weren’t escaping Logris to hide your burgeoning fire,” he said.
A breath caught in the back of my throat. My humiliating rejection had been the reason why the Witch Queen hadn’t called me in for an interrogation when I’d applied to leave Logris. But only one thing plagued my mind.
“Why don’t I remember this?” I asked.
Valentine’s eyes softened, and the pad of his thumb caressed my cheekbone, sending a ripple of pleasure down my spine. “Please, will you let me look into your mind?”
My heart pounded so hard that I felt its reverberations in my toes, the tips of my fingers, and even against the outer layer of my skin. “I won’t let you have free rein—”
“Someone must have gotten to you before you reached the palace,” he said. “I want to search your memory for anything that might have happened between after we made love and then.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe he was right and someone erased that plan from my mind, letting me walk into a public rejection. But why?
“Alright,” I whispered.
“Thank you.” Valentine’s hands rose to my skull. “Open your eyes. I swear I won’t venture further than the time I specified.”
I met his gaze, making sure to focus on his expanding pupils. The ring of violet darkened and shrank until all that was left were deep pools of black. This was the power of a vampire. They combined smoke and ether to curl around the senses and beguile the soul. Creatures of seduction who could delve into a person’s inner recesses and emerge as exactly what they desired.
As promised, Valentine brought up an image of us walking hand-in-hand through the marble-and-gold hallways of his palace. It was three years ago, and the person I was back then felt a hundred times lighter than the person I had become. I recognized this scene because I wore a white sundress with a red sash that I now clutched between my fingers.
Valentine and I had just made love for the first time, and it had been bittersweet. The most pleasurable experience in my life, but also a goodbye. I wouldn’t see Valentine again until he and Aunt Arianna had found a way to control this terrible power that might one day get me executed.
He walked me down the palace’s external steps, and outside into the sunny courtyard, where a black car awaited to take me back to the cottage I shared with Aunt Arianna. There was a ballgown for me at home, and in a few hours, I would return to the palace to enact a performance to save my life.
The driver walked around the door and bowed, but my chest ached so much that I couldn’t keep my eyes from Valentine’s face. This was going to be the last time he looked at me with any semblance of love—at least until we had managed to find a way to suppress my power.
Valentine cupped my cheeks, not giving the driver any hint of our plan. His sad violet eyes implored me to go.
A lump formed in the back of my throat, and I swallowed several times to fight back a sob. Lowering my gaze, I turned to the car and let the driver open the door. As soon as I scooted inside and let the driver shut me in, I stared out at Valentine standing at the bottom of the palace steps, his eyes reflecting the pain in my heart.
As the car sped through the courtyard and down the long drive out of Valentine’s estate, a chill snaked around my neck, and a shadow crept into the edges of my vision until everything turned gray.
Flinching, I snapped out of Valentine’s gaze, nearly falling onto the floor of Beatrice’s hospital room. “What on earth was that?”
He cupped the back of my head, his eyes turning red. “It’s as I thought. Someone has tampered with your memory.”
Chapter Fourteen
Blood roared through my veins, and the pulse in my throat thrashed a furious beat. I stared into Valentine’s eyes.
The dark ring around his irises blackened and the white flecks flashed like lightning across the spectrum of violet. His eye color only changed so drastically under intense emotional strain, and he was probably thinking the same thing as me. Who could have tampered with my mind, and why?
Silence stretched out between us, broken only by the beeping of Beatrice’s monitors. She slumbered at the edge of my vision, still in a Valentine-induced sleep.
He smoothed a lock of hair off my face and tucked it behind my ear. “It’s no wonder you were so hostile when I visited you in the shop. Those words I said to you…” He winced. “They weren’t real.”
I nodded, my ears still filled with the sound of rushing blood. “Do you recognize the driver?”
Valentine nodded. “He has worked for our family since before I was born, but I will have his mind examined.”
My gaze dropped to the gray linoleum floor, and I swallowed over and over as though trying to digest the truth. Someone had violated my mind and condemned me to three years of heartbreak… Why?
I ran a trembling hand through my hair and blew out a long breath. This was unreal. I was a nobody. A nobody destined to marry the King of the Vampires. Was that why they’d attacked my mind or was it related to the fire magic?
Some of the pressure that had made a permanent fixture around my chest loosened. Knowing what had really happened felt like being reborn. Threads of self-doubt and recrimination that would weave through my mind in moments of silence turned to ashes in the fire of truth. I hadn’t been stupid and naive and hadn’t allowed anyone to dupe me over a period of years into falling in love, I hadn’t been the sport of a cruel vampire king.
Outside, the trundling of a passing trolley snapped me back to the present. Now that I’d eased the pain of the past, I still had to face the perils of the present.
Valentine placed a so
ft kiss on my forehead. “For everything you’ve suffered, I am truly sorry. The time we spent apart was going to be hard, but if I’d known you were suffering—”
“Stop.” I placed a hand over his chest, marveling at the way his heart reverberated against my palm. “It’s just a relief to finally have answers.” I still didn’t know who had tampered with my mind or why, but at least I could let go of all that hatred.
It had festered in my heart, caused me to hate myself for dreaming about Valentine, thinking about Valentine, doing anything but suppressing the memory of Valentine.
At least now, I could finally accept that he genuinely worried about my problematic magic. Now, I could stop resisting his attempts to help.
His violet eyes shimmered with hope. “Now that we know the truth, perhaps you will allow me to court you again?”
A rush of emotion made my chest swell. Of all the things I expected him to say, I hadn’t imagined him asking for a second chance. Could things work between us? My gaze dropped to his full lips, and a memory of how they had felt against mine drifted to the forefront of my mind.
I shook off that thought. Everything was happening too quickly. “We’ve got to find out who did this—”
“They will die for hurting you,” he said, his voice full of steel. “Regardless of everything that’s transpired between us, you are still the fiancée of a king.”
His words curled around my heart, seeming to repair some of the damage it had suffered since the night of the ball. Whoever had done this must have known we would carry out a pretend break-up but wanted me to believe it was real. I asked myself for what felt like the tenth time: Why?
I thought back to all the girls in my academy who had disparaged me for having no magic. Some of them had been vampires. Were they upset to see that their king had chosen me for courtship and not them? No one had made a comment, but then, they probably wouldn’t if they were planning on sabotaging our relationship.
Aunt Arianna had tried to warn me—I shook off those thoughts. She wouldn’t go so far to stop me from marrying a man I loved.
We stood at the foot of Beatrice’s bed, staring into each other’s eyes and drinking each other in. What manner of mind manipulation could have made me believe Valentine capable of such cruelty?
His magic lingered in my mind like tiny wisps of smoke, still making connections, still healing, still uncovering the truth. It would take time to undo the spell woven into my unconsciousness, but I had faith in Valentine’s power.
A knock sounded on the door, and Valentine stepped back to answer it.
“Porter,” said the same voice from before. “I’ve got instructions to send this patient to an upstairs ward.”
I turned to the monitors and checked her vital signs. Blood pressure 118/79 and temperature 36.4° C. Normal, if a little low from the cooling blankets. Healer Dianne’s enchantment had made her retain the coloring so the doctors wouldn’t be suspicious of her quick recovery.
We followed the porter through the hospital’s winding back-corridors, into a metallic elevator large enough to fit two beds, and through the double doors of the Emergency Medical Unit, where the porter handed the nurse at the reception desk some papers.
The nurse turned her gaze to us. “We can’t let you in just yet. Visiting hours start at five.”
“Then I will say goodbye.” Valentine placed his hand on Beatrice’s temple and removed the sleeping enchantment.
I placed a kiss on my best friend’s cheek. “Hang on, Bea. I’ll be back with snacks and hot chocolate.”
St. Mary’s Hospital was a half-hour walk from the villa, and Valentine waved away the offer of a car from a black-suited vampire employee who had been tracking our movements throughout the day.
We walked out into Praed Street and continued down the road toward Paddington Station. Black cabs and double-decker busses rumbled past, but warm sunlight filtered down through the gaps in the crowds, making it feel like September rather than the first days of November.
A smoky presence moved several paces behind us, and another across the road. His vampire guards. I edged toward Valentine, secure that I’d be safe from potential shadow assassins.
“How many of your people are out here?” I asked.
“Dozens.” He wrapped an arm around my back and tucked me under his arm the way he used to while we were courting. “Someone will watch the healer to make sure she behaves, another group is still in the hospital, and there are six walking the streets.”
Warmth filled my chest, making my heart swell. This was strange yet so familiar, dangerous yet safe. “I can’t believe how one memory can unravel three years of confusion.”
A growl reverberated in the back of his throat. “We will get to the bottom of this. When this is over, I will present to you the culprit’s heart.”
“Right,” I murmured.
More concerning was the illegal magic festering beneath my veins. Everything Istabelle had said about firestone suddenly made sense. If supernatural nations used it to store firepower for weapons, I supposed that Valentine and Aunt Arianna had intended the bracelet to lock away any magical flares in case I had an outbreak in front of whoever had been watching me.
As we passed under the burgundy awning of a Costa Coffee, I stared up into his chiseled features and asked, “What are we going to do now? I guess the firestone bracelet was supposed to contain my magic. It didn’t work.”
Valentine hummed his agreement. “Arianna assured me that it would have been enough to keep you hidden, but perhaps she underestimated the extent of your power.”
The clouds thickened, taking away the warmth of the sun. My feet ground to a halt. “Is Kresnik my father?”
He paused and stared at me with wide eyes. “Why would you ask such a question?”
“It took you ages to tell me what was happening, and if I’m more powerful than you both thought—”
“No.” He placed both hands on my shoulders. “That man died five centuries ago. There is no possible way he could have risen from the dead to father you.”
“What if he didn’t die?” I gulped. “Aunt Arianna said she didn’t know my father, and my mother didn’t have any relationships in Logris…”
Valentine shook his head. “When Kresnik killed my father, my brothers banded together to release him from his slavery.”
My mind flitted to the four vampire princes I’d met during my relationship with Valentine. Ferdinand, Sylvester, Constantine, and Lazarus seemed more interested in pleasure than in war. “Those four went into battle?”
“Not them,” Valentine said with a chuckle. “I had two older brothers.”
“What happened?” I frowned. He’d never mentioned them before.
Valentine inhaled a deep breath. “By the time Kresnik had killed my father and taken control of his corpse, he’d already entered the Supernatural Council and slaughtered the Wizard King, Mage Queen, and Shifter King. My brothers and two uncles tracked him across the country to destroy his body and put his soul to rest, but they lost their lives freeing my father from Kresnik’s magic.”
I squeezed Valentine’s hand. “They didn’t tell us that at school. I’m so sorry.”
“Nobody in the Council is proud of how Kresnik took control of over half their number,” he murmured. “Least of all me.”
A wave of lightheadedness swept over my body, making me cling to Valentine to stay upright. The healer had described my power in similar terms.
It was no wonder the Supernatural Council wanted to destroy fire wielders before they came into their power. That didn’t mean I agreed with them. Killing hundreds of innocent people in case they turned out like Kresnik was still barbaric.
Valentine’s features seemed to sag with remembered grief, but warm gratitude filled my chest. Despite losing over five family members to the Light Lord, he still wanted to protect me from the Supernatural Council’s wrath.
I resisted the urge to lean my head against his shoulder, wrap both arms around
his waist, and melt into his hard body. There was still so much to puzzle out, and I still needed to work through my feelings.
“It must have been a terrible time,” I murmured. “Was that when you became the King of the Vampires?”
Valentine shook his head. “My uncle Draconius stepped in as the regent until I reached my sixth century.”
His uncle lived in New Mesopotamia, a small kingdom between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. Unlike Logris, New Mesopotamia had been ruled by the Sargon Dynasty of vampires that dated back over five thousand years.
I had only met Prince Draconius a few times, and one of those times had been outside that terrible ball. The man was always polite enough, but the seriously old vampires had an uncanniness about them that could make the flesh crawl. It was something in the way they stared at a person for minutes without blinking, making one feel like prey.
My phone buzzed.
“Answer it.” Valentine paused at the junction of Praed Street and Eastbourne Terrace to let a black cab trundle past.
I pulled it out of my pocket and examined its screen. The number came from the crystal shop. “Hello?”
“Mera?” The sharpness in Istabelle’s voice made me startle. “Where are you?”
“Walking the streets of London,” I said, trying not to sound wary. “Why?”
“A group of people in black knocked on the door, asking for your whereabouts.”
A boulder of dread dropped into my stomach, and I clutched at Valentine’s arm. “What did you tell them?”
“The truth,” she replied. “I’ve never kept track of my apprentices after work hours and I don’t intend to start on their account.”
“Did they give their names or say where they were from?”
Her snort filled the speaker. “No, but I know the look of an enforcer. Even if they pretend to be delivering a gift from His Majesty.”
I glanced at Valentine, meeting his worried violet eyes. With his vampire hearing, he would have heard Istabelle’s every word.
“They’re heading toward the apartment,” she said. “I can’t promise they’ll not be there when you return from your walk.”
