by E. M. Knight
“There is no us,” I say, in a tone harsher than I intended. “It’s just me and you at this point. Mother’s gone. James has fled. Only me and you, brother, and, no, I am not the one breaking the bond.”
“Your problem,” he says after a few moments of absolute silence, “is that you are constantly stuck in the past. You have no vision for the future. All that you do, all that you try to do, is determined by things that happened decades ago.”
“If we don’t learn from the past—” I begin.
“No.” He cuts me off. “This has nothing to do with learning. You are willfully blind to what is on the horizon, because you keep trying to live up to ideals invented and discarded yesterday. That makes you predictable, brother. And someone who is predictable… is in no way worthy of the title ‘Prince’.”
My anger stirs again. “What do you mean by that?” I demand.
He shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that Eleira deserves somebody stronger. Maybe I’m warning you that whatever attraction she may have had is about to evaporate. I’ve seen you two together. There’s nothing there.”
“Hey!” I grab him by the shoulder and spin him to face me. “If you want to tell me something, say it to my face.”
He smirks. “You think I am your biggest worry? You and I are still blood, brother. We are one and the same. Eleira will grow bored of you, if she hasn’t already. And while you wallow in your self-pity, somebody else is going to sweep in and scoop her up.”
“Don’t speak of her like property,” I growl.
He knocks my hand away. “Or what? You put this collar on my neck. You took away my abilities. But I can still fight you, Raul. And you know if it comes to that, I won’t hold back.” His eyes flare. “So do not tempt me.”
“I can hold my own against you,” I hiss. “You and I are equally strong.”
“Be that as it may,” he responds, “yet one of us is bound by morals. The other is not. I’m warning you, Raul. You keep pushing me, and eventually, you will get exactly what you’re asking for.”
“That sounds an awful lot like a threat.”
He laughs. “Unlike you, I am not scared to unleash the vampire inside. Even a rabid dog can take down a wolf, when it has nothing to lose.”
He lowers his voice. “All your life you’ve pretended to be the wolf, the alpha of the pack. While James skirted responsibilities, it fell upon you to do Mother’s bidding. And even as you did, you were never comfortable with the position. You always sought to deflect. Didn’t you?”
I look at him intensely but do not answer.
He chuckles. “Now we’re cutting to the very heart of the matter, aren’t we? You were pretending to be something you are not for the last five hundred years.”
“And what about you?” I counter. “What about your vow to never take human blood, to live weak and impoverished as the outcast of the Soren family?”
He shakes his head. “I did it for one person, and one person only. You.”
I have to laugh. “That is a stretch.”
“When I was first made, Mother told me the secret,” he says. “She confided in me that I alone hold the potential to raise our coven to the next level. That I alone have enough power, enough inherent strength, enough potential, to challenge her for the throne.”
I scoff. “The Haven has always been ruled by a Queen.”
“Because she was the strongest vampire among us,” he says. A sly grin creeps onto his face. “Why do you think I resisted for so long? Because I wanted to give you the opportunity to rise up. Because I respected you, Raul, because I looked up to you when we were kids. But seeing you struggle with yourself for five centuries tends to wipe away even the strongest sense of conviction.”
“What are you saying?” I ask, point blank.
“Isn’t it obvious? That I will be the one to marry Eleira, that I will be the one who holds more control, and that I will be the one who elevates The Haven to heights never even dreamed of!”
My patience snaps. The vampire inside me erupts.
I attack.
Fangs out and claws extended, I lunge for his throat.
But Phillip is sly. All this time, provoking me, he was expecting this. Deftly he moves out the way, and with a precise twist of his arms sends me sprawling.
Humiliation takes me when I hit the ground. It is immediately replaced by a white-hot pillar of rage, many times stronger than what I felt before.
I leap up, twist around, and discover him standing with an ivory knife in his hand.
The blade shines in a vibrant, intense blue.
He tosses the weapon from hand to hand as we begin circling each other.
My mind races, trying to figure out where he’d gotten the magical artifact and how he smuggled it past me. But all thoughts are trivialities compared to the sort of power I felt emanating from the blade.
It is a mix of the vampire strength, that inherent power contained within all of us, and the danger that comes from magic.
I am reminded of the knife Dagan wielded, that had a similar glow. Except, somehow, this one feels worse.
“Come now, Raul,” Phillip taunts. “Surely you are not frightened by this little thing.”
“When and where did you get that?” I demand. I fake a lunge, and he parries back effortlessly.
“Felix told me there were artifacts hidden in the mountain,” he says. “I picked this one up when you weren’t looking.” The blade comes to a stop in his right hand. His knuckles go white around the hilt.
“Put it down and fight me like a man,” I scowl. “Don’t be a craven coward, hiding behind the knife.”
He smiles in a cruel way. “Take the collar off my neck, and I will do you the favor of giving you this knife,” he says. “We will see how we fare when we are evenly matched.”
“You must think I’m a fool,” I say, and leap at him without warning.
I fly through the air, and we collide. All my attention is on the weapon he holds. If I can disarm him, I have him beat.
I have no idea what the exact danger is that is posed by the blade. But after my last experience fighting someone with a weapon of power, I am not keen to find out.
We struggle in a gridlock for a few dangerous moments. My hand is latched on to his wrist, forcing the knife away.
Phillip roars and shifts his weight. The move throws me off-balance briefly. It gives me just enough time to rip my hand out of his grip and clasp the hilt with both hands.
With a savage scream, he aims the point of the blade at my chest.
I manage to deflect the first blow. But Phillip is unrelenting. Some sort of madness has taken him way past what unleashing the vampire could be responsible for. Those horrid black flecks stream across his eyes in a torrent. He comes at me again, and again, and again, fueled by a frenzy, aided by the knife, and it’s all I can do to hold him back.
I feel myself running out of steam. Phillip’s eyes are consumed with visible hate. He attacks me again and again and again with the knife. I manage to hold him off, but before long, my shoulders hit the wall.
He snarls, triumphant, and raises the weapon for the killing blow.
Time seems to slow as the knife makes its arched descent.
In utter desperation, I try to twist out of the way. Phillip changes the direction of the strike to account for the move. But at the same time, I kick one foot out, catch him in the knee, and disrupt the entire flow of the movement.
The blade, which would have met my heart on its original trajectory, instead sinks deep into my shoulder.
Such pain seizes me. I scream out. It is like nothing I’ve felt before—nothing at all compared to Dagan’s attack.
My muscles tighten around the point of penetration, an instinctive defense from my own body, and snap the blade.
The moment that happens, Phillip falls back, gasping.
Pain consumes me. It’s all I can do to remain upright. I sag against the wall. It bears my weight. Slowly, my feet slide out from
under me, and I sink to the floor.
A trail of blood is left on the wall.
Darkness starts to creep into the corners of my vision. I fight to stay awake.
But all the strength has been seeped out of me. I feel the wound in my shoulder pulsate.
With one more tremendous effort I raise my good hand and clutch the fragmented blade. The edge cuts into my palm, but I barely feel that compared to the pain shooting through my shoulder.
With a gasp I yank it out.
I see the piece of ivory in my hand.
It is soaked in blood, most obviously, but that is not the most terrifying part.
No. The fact that the glow from the blade has turned into a corrupt, dirty, filthy, poisonous red is.
My will to remain conscious fails me.
I’m pulled under by currents of black, tainted with red, and what it reminds me of most is the description of the Demon Realm that Eleira gave me.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dagan
An underground chamber near the ancient coven
I pace the spacious bedroom, trying to make sense of what we’ve been told.
Beth looks at me with grave concern.
“You don’t think it’s me, do you?” she asks, tentatively.
“Well, of course, it’s you!” I growl, angry and frustrated, and yes—even hurt—at the same time. “Why else would he show us that? Why else tell us about the second woman of prophecy?”
“But we have no way of knowing,” she says. “I don’t know the circumstances of my birth.”
I glare at her. “You think that’s relevant?”
“Yes it’s relevant!” she explodes, all the meekness disappearing in a flash. “If we don’t know the time and place of my birth there’s no way we can confirm the theory!”
“Look,” I say, gripping the side of the desk hard. “Those vampires know. They would not have welcomed you here otherwise. They would not have helped me otherwise!”
“You assume too much,” she says. “Just because they’re old doesn’t mean they’re omnipotent!”
I have to laugh. “You sound like me, before I met them.”
She grunts in exasperation and spins away.
I start for her—and then I stop.
Beth is not the type of woman who would take well to comforting.
“They let us in for a reason,” I say. “Vasile showed us the truth of the prophecy, of the constellations, for a reason. You really think he would reveal so much if we were just a pair of random vagabond vampires in off the street?”
Her back tenses. “I never said that.”
I slowly walk around her, so I can look in her eyes.
“Listen,” I say. “We know you are Logan’s daughter. The prophecy has to do with The Haven, yes, but it touches vampires the world over. Why would it not make sense that the King is linked to it somehow, too? And what better link than through his own flesh and blood?”
“Again,” she says testily. “You’re assuming too much.”
“They want to make us their pawns, Beth!” I rage. “They want the two of us to be foot soldiers in whatever war they are planning.”
“Didn’t sound to me like they are planning any war,” she sniffs. “They’ve remained alive, unaccosted and isolated, for so very long. Why would they change the entire basis of their existence now?”
“I don’t know if you’re being purposefully obstinate or are just blissfully ignorant,” I mutter. “Come on. Think! The prophecy is the single biggest thing to transpire within the vampire world since the very beginning! They were waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“What do you think?” I ask. “What one, unifying thing do all creatures of the night crave more than blood?”
She stares at me blankly.
“…Power!” I explode. “They want power, they want dominion. But there are only four of them. Even with the hierarchy in place, if they made themselves known, weaker vampires would fight through that hierarchy and do anything for their blood. It’s how Logan keeps all the vampires of The Crypts absolutely loyal. He gives them tiny, piecemeal portions of The Ancient’s blood. But the blood from four of them, all of whom are even stronger…?”
Beth’s eyebrows rise. “They are stronger?” she asks.
“Oh, yes,” I say. “By a wide margin.”
She shivers. “So what do we do?”
“We have two choices.” I glance at the locked door, sealing us in. “Either you and I try to escape… or we strike a deal.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Phillip
Under the mountain in the Yukon
I stare, not knowing what to do, as Raul’s shoulder keeps leaking and leaking blood.
The wound isn’t healing. I thought it would! Dammit, I have no idea what came over me. In the end, I was completely lost, fully a victim of my rage.
I could not stop. I could not control myself. I thought, with the collar, the poison aspect of the Elemental Forces would also be locked away.
Apparently not. Apparently it’s always there, working the shadows of my mind, just waiting for the opportune moment to be unleashed.
I hate the unpredictability of it. The aggression, the anger, the rage, I do not mind. In fact, I savor them.
But when I can do nothing to cut it off, when my behavior is determined by something in me I cannot control… that is when things go bad.
I look at Raul again, then cast my gaze around the god-forsaken cave, trying to think of a way to help him.
I will not give him my blood. I cannot. For one, I am unsure if it will heal him. Since I am blocked from sensing the Elements, I cannot tell what powers the blade had.
The piece he pulled out of his shoulder slips from his limp hand and clatters to the floor, somewhat muted by the blood that coats it.
I curse. Despite my rhetoric, I never wanted to kill him. Yet I can feel his vampire essence growing weaker. His body is incapable of repairing the damage that’s been done.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I snarl, hating myself for what I’ve done. If I return to The Haven carrying Raul’s corpse, there’s no way Eleira will forgive me. Already we’re on rocky ground. That is fine, because it adds a certain bit of spice to the seduction I intend.
But showing up with the body of her first lover will set me back so far, that I am not certain I will ever be able to recover.
I curse, spit on the ground, and do another pointless circle of the space.
Nothing at all prepared me for this.
I stop in front of his slumped form. I watch the blood as it bubbles out. His entire arm is soaked in it.
I look at my wrist. I hesitate.
If I feed him mine, I risk bonding us in a way I would never have wanted. And I don’t even know if my blood will help him. It’s not strength that he needs. By all outward appearances, it looks like the vampire essence simply cannot overpower the damage that was done.
Making his body stronger by giving him my blood would be pointless, if that is the case.
I rip my eyes away from my wrist. I will not bite two holes in my skin and feed it to him. He is already drowning. Absolutely idiotic to go in after him, if I know it would be a death sentence for us both.
But I cannot just stand there and watch as the life seeps out of him. No matter what happened between us, he is still my brother.
And I do not hate him.
In a desperate, pathetic, last-ditch effort, I rip the sleeve off my shirt and wrap it tight around his shoulder. The pressure helps stem the blood flow.
At least I bought him a little time.
For a third time, I look around the room. I know the way to the tombs of the Forsaken Sisters. The whole ”few weeks” journey was a crock of shit. I just kept that up in case something unexpected happened on this trip.
Almost exactly what I’m faced with now.
I take another look at Raul. He looks so pathetic, so helpless, lifeless on the floor like that. A part o
f me is absolutely disgusted by the sight of him. Vampires should be strong, we should always be whole and mighty.
Seeing Raul succumb to physical affliction like this, time and time again, makes me respect him less.
Maybe he finally got what was coming.
But—even so—I have to think about my own skin, first and foremost. I already know what would happen if I showed up to The Haven with the announcement that the Prince is dead.
I would be blamed, I would take the fall—rightfully or not, it doesn’t matter, it’s not my fault my brother is so damned weak!
Anger grows inside me in a hateful spire. Why couldn’t he have defended himself better? Why couldn’t he have knocked the blade out of my hands? For crying out loud, he was always the better combatant! Why is he so restricted now?
With a growl I spin away. I’ve done all that I can for him. If he survives or not—well, that is up to the fates.
I need to get to the Forsaken Sisters, and I will not do it while hindered, carrying baggage.
So I make the decision to leave him and hurry down the path.
The map Felix drew for me is imprinted perfectly in my mind.
I could have taken the long way, which is exactly what I intended to do before. The paths are so convoluted that Raul would have had no way of knowing I was leading him astray.
But that doesn’t matter now. So, I take the most direct route, the one that will lead me to the preserved tombs of the three sisters.
I don’t know what Eleira told Raul while I was meeting Felix. Presumably, there is a very real reason she sent us here. Maybe there is some artifact that we have to retrieve, maybe something else.
Just like I kept the way to them close to my sleeve, Raul did not reveal the final purpose of our trip to me.
Either way, I will see what I find when I arrive.
I accidentally take a wrong turn and am halfway down the long tunnel before realizing it.
“Goddammit!” I curse, snarl, spin around—
And freeze when I see an apparition before me.
