by Bella Klaus
I placed my hands on his broad chest, but my fingers wouldn’t stop trembling. “Please, don’t give up. There has to be something.”
“My people will storm this villa when the wards fall.” Valentine’s dark eyes glazed over, and his expression turned slack. “They won’t understand what’s happened and will blame you.”
I swallowed over and over, trying to digest his words, but I couldn’t keep them down. This couldn’t be happening. He must have made a mistake. King Valentinus Sargon de Akkad committing suicide… for me?
“My father used that dagger for years to poison others before he was finally caught. A mere scratch will kill even the strongest supernatural. There is nothing you can do for me. Go. Now.” Valentine’s eyes fluttered shut.
“No,” I whispered.
His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. Valentine couldn’t be dying, and even if I ran downstairs and entered a secret passageway in the sauna, the wards still surrounded the house. He was just saying this to make me give up on him and save myself.
“I’m sorry for biting you,” he whispered. “Despite everything that’s happened, I hold you in the highest respect.”
My tongue darted out to lick my lips, and I swallowed at the implication that he wasn’t just interested in my blood. “But Valentine…”
“In all my eleven hundred years, I hadn’t considered settling down with a woman until I met you. Please forgive my cruel words. If I had known your memories had been altered—”
“Make it up to me by surviving.” I squeezed his hand.
A choking laugh rattled in the back of his throat. “I love you to the very core of my soul, but not even love can conquer death.”
Heat gathered around my eyes, and my vision blurred. From the moment Valentine entered my mind in the hospital and revealed that fog, I knew that his love for me had been real. Someone out there was working from the shadows to drive Valentine and me apart, and they were too cowardly to confront us to our faces.
My heart pounded to the beat of a war drum and hot blood coursed through my veins. Now, because of them, a good man lay dying. Because of them, Valentine and I would never have the future together that we had always planned. Valentine wanted me to escape, to leave him to die alone in this attic, but it was impossible.
Furious breaths heaved in and out of my nostrils. I wouldn’t run or hide or recoil because our love was stronger than a dagger, and we would find a way to be together. I wouldn’t turn away from the man who paid the ultimate price to save my life. Dead or alive, we would never be apart.
My jaw tightened with determination. I had to see him through to the end… if that ever came.
“I love you.” I stared into his hooded eyes, trying to memorize his features and sear this moment into my mind. “Valentine, did you hear me?”
The corners of his lips curved upward into the faintest of smiles. “The past few days with you back in my life have been my happiest.”
I blinked, loosening a tear. “Even with me furious at you?”
“Just being able to look at you and have you look back at me has been a blessing.”
I gulped at the implication that he had visited London and seen me from afar. All those years I had thought he had forgotten about me and moved on. While I had wrestled with my grief and anger and resentment, Valentine had also suffered.
“Mera, my time is near.” His voice was so faint, I had to lean over him to hear. “Please, go downstairs and get ready to flee the moment the wards fall.”
One of my tears splattered onto his cheekbone. “I can’t abandon you, knowing that you never abandoned me. I can’t let you die alone.”
His eyelids fluttered for a heartbeat and then opened.
I sucked in a deep breath, wondering if this was the moment everything would turn around. Valentine’s eyes sharpened on me, and the corners of his lips rose into a sad smile. I smiled back and waited for him to speak, but he exhaled a long, rattling breath and stilled.
“Valentine?” I shook his arm. “Valentine!”
The air splintered, and shards of invisible magic fell around my body, sending tiny slicing sensations across my skin. I clutched at my heart. That had to be the wards. The wards just fell.
My gaze dropped to Valentine’s unmoving face, and his pleas for me to save myself slammed to the forefront of my mind with a painful jolt.
I scrambled to my feet, but before I could turn around and head for the door, a large hand wrapped around my neck and pressed me against the window at the far end of the attic. Three angry faces filled my vision, each one of Valentine’s bodyguards snarling at me for answers.
“Stop,” I rasped.
A large man emerged from behind the trio of guards and shoved them aside. By now, the vampires’ rapid movements had knocked down and extinguished all but one of the candles. When he stopped moving and glowered into my face, I flinched at features that mirrored Valentine’s.
My mouth dropped open, and a breath caught in the back of my throat.
“What did you do to my brother?” the man barked.
I fell back against the wall, finally noticing his pale hair and skin. It was Sylvester, one of Valentine’s four younger brothers. The vampire advanced on me with his eyes flashing and his fangs fully extended. I raised both hands and flinched.
Before he could attack, white magic filled the room, making every muscle in my body stiffen. I couldn’t even inhale a deep breath to scream. Sylvester froze several inches away, his face a rictus of rage. Only his pale irises seemed able to move, and they burned with hatred. Even the vampires he had shoved aside stood around us in unnaturally still positions, looking like somebody had stopped time.
My gaze darted around the darkened room. Our surroundings had gone quiet, even though the light streaming from the window shifted, and the unextinguished single candle where Valentine lay flickered in the draft.
Soft footsteps padded toward us. I glanced at the source of the sound and found a slender outline heading toward us through the gloom. I tried to force breaths in and out of my nostrils, but the enchantment only allowed the air to graze the tops of my lungs.
A tall woman in black stepped into the light. It was Captain Zella, the enforcer who had hidden herself in the taxi.
The woman paused at the vampires crowding Valentine’s body, reached into the inside pocket of her jacket, and pulled out a device the size of a remote control. Red light flashed across the space, making my insides cringe.
This was the supernatural equivalent of a forensics team taking photos and samples from a crime scene. The enchantment would record everything in the room, recording magical signatures, DNA, natural-occurring phenomena, and any lingering spells.
It would even determine the murder weapon or lead a trail to whoever last wielded it.
A tight fist of terror clutched at my already restricted chest, and the attic suddenly became too small. Would the wards register now that they had disintegrated? If Captain Zella caught a trace of Aunt Arianna’s magic, they might investigate her as an accomplice.
Something glowed from Valentine’s side. Captain Zella extracted a transparent bag from her pocket and shook it out, letting it expand into a plastic box with a hinged lid. She stepped around the kneeling vampires, reached between the two trying to revive Valentine with CPR, and extracted the dagger with her shadows.
She turned to me and frowned. “Miss Griffin, if I were to ask you whose energy I would find on the murder weapon, what would be your answer?”
It was a rhetorical question. Valentine might have taken it out of my pocket, but I had carried it around with me for longer. I tried to move my tongue to utter a denial but I couldn’t move. Not against an enchantment strong enough to disable numerous vampires.
After placing the dagger in her evidence box, Captain Zella turned away from Valentine’s body and continued toward us. A shudder ran down my spine, and I thrashed against the magical restraint, even though the effort would be futile.
/> She walked around the trio of bodyguards and stopped at Sylvester’s side. Her gaze dropped down to the blood on my neck, and she pressed her lips into a tight line. The captain probably thought I had killed Valentine in self-defense. Because of the scandal it might cause for the vampires to have their king murdered by a lowly Neutral, she might even let his brother execute me on the spot.
Captain Zella placed the remote on my head. “Hemera Griffin, by the power of the Seven Monarchs of the Supernatural Council, you are hereby detained on suspicion of regicide and the possession of fire. Do you understand the charges?”
It wasn’t like I could nod or protest or shake my head. These enchantments could last days and were often not released until a higher-up gave authorization to clear up the murder scene.
The captain withdrew the device, pulling me from the wall and away from Sylvester’s flashing eyes. She turned on her heel and floated me through the attic.
As we reached the single candle, I strained my eyes to catch one last glimpse of Valentine, but the vampires surrounding him blocked my view. A dull ache spread across my heart, filling me with a grief so crushing that I could barely breathe.
Valentine’s people lined the stairs, their pale faces displaying disbelief and hatred. Kain stood at the end of the procession with a look of shocked betrayal that shattered my heart. They all thought I had killed him, and they probably all wanted me dead.
They didn’t need to wait long because I would soon join him. Even if the enchantment worked out that Valentine had died at his own hands, the Supernatural Council would execute me the moment the enforcers uncovered my fire magic.
When we reached the ground floor, Captain Zella turned to me, her features grave. “It’s customary to render our most dangerous suspects unconscious.”
I inhaled a sharp breath through my nostrils, wanting to protest, but she tapped a button on her device, and the edges of my vision turned dark.
My last thoughts were the hope that they would execute me painlessly in my sleep, and I would awaken with Valentine waiting for me in the afterlife.
Chapter Twenty
The pounding of my head forced me awake, and my lips parted with a groan. Somehow, I’d survived the arrest. Light shone through my eyelids, and I cracked open my eyes, only to stare into an overly bright beam that burned my retinas. Flinching, I squeezed them shut and let out a low moan.
“You’re awake,” said a female voice.
“What’s going on?” I asked through a throat that felt scrubbed raw with steel wool.
The speaker removed the beam from my eyes, and set it down with a clunk. I raised a hand to rub my aching throat, but a restraint held me in place. As my memories flooded back, pain radiated from my chest, a searing, burning despair that felt like acid. Poor Valentine had sacrificed himself for me. I slumped forward in my seat, choking back a sob.
“They’re going to need you alert,” hissed the female voice. “Don’t make me inject you with a stimulant.”
I leaned back and tried to blink the harsh glare from my vision.
A six-foot-tall wood-paneled dais stood thirty feet ahead of where I sat, emblazoned with the Seven Crowns insignia of Logris. I wasn’t sure what to think or feel beyond the overwhelming sorrow. It crushed my lungs, and filled my eyes with an unending torrent of tears.
I would give anything to reverse what had happened, but vampires were only immortal unless killed. I glanced down at my seat, a mahogany armchair with leather straps that wound around my wrists and biceps and shoulders.
My outfit was a gray prisoner’s jumpsuit, with leather straps also restraining my chest and waist with a loose one around my neck. My pulse fluttered in my throat as I glanced from side to side, taking in the rest of my surroundings.
We were in a tall, windowless chamber of about two stories in height, covered in wood panelling. It was hard to tell its exact size, because I couldn’t see much beyond the tall backs and sides of my chair.
Three-tier chandeliers hung from an ornate ceiling of gold leaf depicting the seven Royal Crests of Logris. I tilted my head up to take another look at the dais to find seven golden thrones, each empty.
All the moisture left my throat. This was just like the Witch’s High Court Room, only much grander. I leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman who had spoken earlier. I had to ask her if we were in the heart of the Supernatural Council.
Captain Zella stepped into my line of sight, clad in a white version of her enforcer’s uniform. Instead of the leather cap she’d worn the last time I saw her, she’d donned the white brimmed hat enforcers wore to formal events.
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
Her gaze flickered up and down my form as though checking that I couldn’t escape my restraints. She disappeared out of sight and emerged, holding a metallic device the size and shape of a remote control. It was a counter, which measured a person’s magic.
“We’ve kept you unconscious for forty-eight hours,” she said.
“Why?”
“After replacing over half your blood, your body was completely devoid of magical power. We needed to give your magical core enough time to convert the donated Neutral blood into your innate magic.”
My throat dried. There was another feature about being a Neutral. Because our magic was devoid of character, it also made us the universal blood donor. I gulped several times in quick succession.
“What did you find out?” I rasped.
Captain Zella’s eyes softened. “The results are inconclusive, and we’ll probably need to wait another day or so to see if the nature of your magic changes. In the meantime, the Council has asked me to ensure you’re fit to stand trial.”
“For what?”
She shook her head and stepped back several paces, removing herself from sight.
I blew out a long, shuddering breath, sifting through my mind for potential wrongdoings, and a boulder of dread dropped into my stomach. This had to be about Beatrice.
Healer Dianne must have worked out what Valentine had done to her mind and remembered that Beatrice had been attacked by a wielder of fire. It wouldn’t take much of a mental leap for the Council to work out that the perpetrator was the girl sitting in the hospital room.
I wanted to wrap my arms around my middle, but they were strapped to that infernal chair. Bloody hell, I was as good as dead.
A vampire herald wearing white livery marched into the middle of the courtroom and banged his official stick on the ground with seven sharp raps. Several sets of doors opened, and footsteps echoed across the vast space.
I twisted around in my seat, watching streams of supernaturals step through the doors and take their seats up in a mezzanine. Multicolored faces peered down at me as though I was a figure in a spectacle.
Anxiety roiled through my stomach and spread up to the back of my throat, making my lips tremble. They had probably waited until now to test my magic in full view of the spectators. I might even have a public execution.
“All rise for the Supernatural Council,” shouted the herald.
A door within the high dais’ wood paneling opened, and the Witch Queen stepped out, wearing a high-necked robe of white silk. She was tall, a white-haired woman with mahogany skin and eyes as bright as stars. I had never spoken to her directly but Aunt Arianna always described her as kind and compassionate. Today, her stare was as sharp as daggers.
Following her was the King of the Shifters and Weres, a burly man with golden skin, amber eyes and dark sideburns that took up the left and right of his face. Thick, ropey muscles bulged from his white robe, and he moved with the confident swagger of a man who had beaten every other shifter to earn his position. He bared sharp teeth at me and snarled, making my heart jump into the back of my throat.
The Fae King was next, a long-haired male whose athletic build made him look slender compared to the Shifter King. Silver hair curled around his beautiful features, highlighting his sharp cheekbones and pointed ears. Mischief
danced in his quicksilver eyes, and he offered me a smile devoid of warmth. The gleeful malice in his expression said he would look forward to my execution.
Shuddering, I snatched my gaze away, only to meet the coal-black glower of the Mage King, a thin man with chiseled features and an expression as fixed and stern as a statue. He ruled all the elementals—those who manipulated forces of nature, such as water and light and shadows. Shadows danced around his hairline, reminding me of the curse that had gotten Valentine killed.
Out of all the Supernatural Monarchs, only one of them showed an ounce of compassion. That was the Angel King, a golden-haired male with iridescent wings folded behind his back. He appeared about my age with ivory skin and strong, handsome features, but he was probably the oldest of the entire group.
One friendly face wouldn’t save me. Not when the Demon King trailing after him offered me a broad smile that actually reached his eyes. Terror skittered up my spine. He was the most unsettling of them all. While every supernatural on the dais looked powerful, the Demon King appeared like an averagely handsome human in his thirties and was the only one not wearing a robe. Instead, he wore a suit of white silk.
My pulse fluttered in my throat. Even though angels and demons were officially members of the Supernatural Council, and their subjects were free to travel through Logris as they pleased, they often remained in their own realms. I’d heard a rumor that all the dead fire wielders were offered up to the Demon King as a sacrifice to keep the peace. Perhaps that was why he looked so delighted.
I stared at the door, waiting for the final Supernatural Monarch to arrive, but it clicked shut, leaving the space between the Fae King and the Mage King empty.
A tight fist of grief squeezed my heart.
The Mage King leaned forward. “Captain Zella, please introduce the prisoner.”
Captain Zella stepped forth, her heels clicking against the courtroom’s stone floor. I swallowed. Earlier, before the doors had opened to let in the spectators up in the mezzanine, she had moved as silently as a wraith. Was this some kind of courtroom theatrics?
