So tonight was girls’ night. I’d given express instructions to everyone to leave us alone. Anyone or anything with testosterone was most definitely not invited. No, tonight was going to be about reconnecting with the one person who was closer to me than anyone on the planet, and we had lots to catch up on.
“It wasn’t fun sightseeing by myself,” Christa whined, her lower lip protruding in a pout as my cat, Plum, jumped off my lap and sashayed over to her, rubbing up against her and begging for a chin scratch. “You know I hate being by myself.”
If John hadn’t told her I was supposed to be her tour guide in Australia but had chosen to battle Bella’s legion instead, she never would have found fault with the situation. Yes, I believed in honesty being the best policy and all of those other poignant idioms, but come on, John could have thrown me a bone on this one …
“Well, to make up for it, I have a lot to tell you,” I offered and then paused, hoping Christa would go for the bait. If there was anything Christa loved, it was gossip.
She pulled the cork from our second bottle of wine—this one a Shiraz—and beamed a grin that told me all of my transgressions were forgiven. “Okay, that does make it better. Shoot.”
So I did. I told her about how I’d fought in the battle, and most important, how I’d killed the vampire Ryder, which had been one of my prime motives for joining the fight in the first place. Ryder was someone who just had to be killed. Not only had he betrayed Rand by pretending to be on our side, but he’d also kidnapped me and taken me to Bella, aka the Wicked Witch of the West. And that wasn’t his last or even his least offense—after kidnapping me, he’d fed on me, nearly draining me, and had then come even closer to raping me.
Needless to say, when I delivered the fatal blow and Ryder morphed into ashes at my feet, relief became my constant companion. That is, until all of this business of being appointed Queen was thrust upon me.
“Wow,” Christa said, shaking her head in wonderment before her smile vanished and was replaced by a curious expression. “But I thought your magic was useless against vampires?”
I nodded. “It is, but …” I wasn’t sure how to tell her the next part because it was top secret and, therefore, taboo. After another few seconds of wondering how to phrase it while watching Christa start to fidget, I finally blurted out: “I drank Sinjin’s blood.”
Drinking the blood of a master vampire, such as Sinjin Sinclair’s, had enabled me to even the odds when I battled Ryder. Without Sinjin’s blood, I would have been defenseless against Ryder’s extreme strength and speed. I knew this from past experience—prior to killing Ryder, the bastard had been teaching me self-defense, and to say I was helpless to protect myself against his attacks would have been an understatement.
“Sinjin let you drink his blood?” Christa asked in a tone of utter disbelief, her mouth open in a perfect O.
“Yes,” I answered and suddenly worried Christa might blab this information. She did have a big mouth. But, apparently, so did I. “You can’t tell anyone. It has to remain confidential. You can’t even tell John.” As a master vampire, Sinjin never should have allowed anyone to drink his blood. It still surprised me that he’d awarded me such a privilege. Truthfully, without Sinjin’s blood, I never could have killed Ryder, because Christa was right—my magic was effective on everyone in the paranormal community except for vamps.
“Sinjin must be in love with you.” Christa shook her head, apparently still shocked by the news.
“No, he isn’t,” I replied quickly as I contemplated the idea of Sinjin being in love with anyone, me included. Love or any emotional attachment seemed inappropriate to the six-hundred-year-old vampire. I couldn’t imagine him dropping his guard long enough to love someone. He was too concerned with his own well-being to ever allow himself the weak dependence of affection.
“Sounds like love to me. What would you call it?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what I’d call it, but definitely not love.
“Maybe just curiosity,” I said, thinking that was probably the best description. Even though Sinjin was a complete mystery and I constantly found myself second-guessing his motives, the one thing I did know about him was that he was motivated by his own sense of importance. He seemed to enjoy playing God—allowing circumstances to unfold while he stood back and watched like an unconcerned spectator. But if the situation ever became too heated or turned in a direction that didn’t suit his plans, he’d bring his thumb down and squash whoever or whatever happened to offend him, and he’d do it with the same cool, calm countenance in which he did all things.
“Where is Sinjin, anyway?” Christa asked while pouring herself another glass of wine. She glanced up at me and held up the bottle in a charade of Want more?
I shook my head as I returned to the whereabouts of my favorite vampire. Worry began gnawing away at my stomach again. “No one knows where he is.”
“Did he die in the battle?”
“No.” I then explained how Varick was able to feel Sinjin in his veins, which made me believe he was unscathed. Before I knew it, I’d spilled my guts about time-traveling back to 1878, Mercedes, falling in love with Rand, and, finally, how I’d been chosen to be Queen.
“So Rand doesn’t want you to be Queen?” Christa asked, her left eye beginning to droop like it always did whenever she got drunk.
“No,” I said, settling my gaze on a willow tree that was swaying outside my living room window, its leafy foliage dancing almost playfully. “He doesn’t believe in monarchy, he’s made that much crystal clear.”
“He’ll have to come around,” Christa said with a smile before gulping the last drops of her wine and wiping her forearm against her lips. “I mean, if the prophetess exists, which she obviously does, and she says you’re supposed to be Queen, Rand sort of has to get on board, you know?”
I nodded, even though I knew it wasn’t that simple. “Yeah, but you know how Rand is. If he doesn’t believe in something, he won’t support it.”
“You gotta do what’s right for you, Jules.” Christa patted my hand consolingly. The cat apparently became irritated, because she hopped off Christa’s lap, plodded into her cat house, and fell back to sleep.
“You can’t let other people hold you back,” Christa finished. Her compassionate expression coupled with the facts that I was holding on to an empty glass of wine and there were two empty wine bottles on my coffee table made me feel like I was on the receiving end of an Alcoholics Anonymous intervention.
“But!”
“It sounds like you’re meant to be Queen, Jules,” Christa interrupted. “This is your calling.”
“What if it’s a mistake, Chris?” I asked, placing my empty glass on the side table. “What if Mercedes has the wrong person? What if I’m not really meant to be Queen?”
Christa shook her head. “I’ll bet the prophetess made sure you were the right person before she announced it to everyone. I mean, think of what a disaster it would be if she realized you were a total loser or something? Besides, one of the things I learned in Australia is that when something feels right, you just have to go for it.”
I couldn’t help but smile. And Christa did have a good point—I couldn’t imagine Mercedes making a mistake on anything, let alone something this huge. “You learned that in Australia?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I was walking down Market Street in Sydney just doing my own thing and minding my own business”—she eyed me with an expression that implied, Since you left me on my own—“and I was suddenly overcome by this crazy feeling that I should glance over my shoulder. So I did, and would you believe it, I saw the cutest pair of red stilettos right there in a shop window. You know how I’ve been looking for a pair of red ones forever?” I nodded just to placate her and she continued. “Yeah, well, now I own a pair.”
“Seriously, Chris?” I asked incredulously. “You’re comparing a pair of shoes to me being Queen?”
She frowned and stuck her tongue out at me. “
I’m just using the stilettos as an example, Jules. You have to be ready for whatever life throws your way. When you don’t take risks, you don’t find red stilettos.”
I laughed and shook my head at the absurdity of this whole conversation. If only my life could be as simple as buying a pair of shoes. “You have a very unusual way of looking at things.”
“I’m an unusual girl,” she said with a candid smile, her eyelid’s droop now increased by another thirty degrees. “What were we talking about again?” she asked, reaching for a third bottle of wine. “Ah, I remember. So Rand is having a little conniption about the thought of you being Queen?”
“No, not so far,” I said and sighed as I thought about Rand’s general discouragement about the whole Queen bit. He hadn’t asked me not to accept the role, but I knew that’s what he wanted. “In fact, I haven’t seen him at all yesterday or today.”
It had been two days since our little discussion in his dining room and in true Rand form, he’d vanished for a couple of days, probably tending to the legions stationed at Pelham Manor. Hopefully he wasn’t just avoiding me. “So, what, is he pissed again? He always seems to disappear when he’s mad at you,” Christa slurred.
“No, I think this time he’s honestly busy.”
Christa nodded and took a sip of her nth glass of wine, arching her eyebrows at the bottle in what appeared to be silent appreciation. She poured the remaining wine from the bottle into my glass and handed it to me. “What was he like back in the, what was it, sixteen hundreds?”
“Um …” I tried to hold back a giggle but failed miserably. “Rand wasn’t alive in the sixteen hundreds, Chris.”
“Whatever.” She waved me away. “The eighteen hundreds, then. What’s the difference?”
“Aside from the Industrial Revolution, you mean?” I replied with a smile.
“Blah, what year was it that you met Rand?”
“Eighteen seventy-eight,” I answered and then took a second to think about what Rand had been like back then. “He was wonderful,” I finally admitted, sighing. “He didn’t trust me at first, but once we got past that, he was amazing, Chris. He allowed himself to love me and he even asked me to marry him.”
“He asked you to marry him?” she squealed. “So are you engaged or did you actually get married?”
I shook my head and suddenly felt sick—I wasn’t sure if it was from the thought that I missed out on marrying the love of my life or if all the wine was finally making a statement in my gut. I leaned back against the couch and closed my eyes. “No, I mean, I said yes, but he knew I’d have to return to my own time. He just made me promise that he and I would be together again in the here and now.”
“But you aren’t?”
I sat up straight again and opened my eyes, not feeling any better. “No.”
She shook her head and offered me an expression of annoyance—like it was my fault that Rand and I weren’t together. “So you need to make it happen—to keep your word to … ancient Rand.”
“Ancient Rand,” I repeated with a laugh before returning my thoughts to the subject at hand. “It’s not as easy as it sounds.”
“Rand will get over this whole Queen thing. I mean, otherwise, off with his head, right?”
“There’s a lot more to it than that.” I took a deep breath. “Remember when I told you that Rand had bonded with a witch in his past?”
She nodded and glanced at the empty bottle of wine, then started exploring the perimeter of my living room with her eyes, probably in search of more bottles. Not finding any, she faced me again with a sigh before apparently remembering that I’d asked her a question. “Yeah, and her death nearly killed him?”
I nodded but didn’t say anything for a few seconds, not really sure how to say what I needed to. “That was me, Chris.”
“What was you?”
“The witch he bonded with.”
She looked perplexed. “How can that be? You aren’t dead.” Then her face paled. “Oh my God, are you dead, Jules? Did you die in the battle?” She stood up and gawked at me. “Are you a ghost?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Because if you are a ghost, I don’t think I can handle that. I’ve been afraid of ghosts my whole life.”
“No, Chris, I’m not a ghost.” I glanced up at her and frowned; the color still hadn’t returned to her face. “I’m not dead, Chris! Jeez.”
She sat back down next to me, but at the far end of the sofa. “Well, what did you expect me to think?”
“I didn’t expect that!” I announced before returning to my story. “The woman Rand bonded with never died—she just time-traveled.”
It took her a second to compute the meaning of my sentence—I think she was still stuck on the ghost thing, and the haze of alcohol wasn’t helping. Once my words sank in, she stared at me in total shock.
“No freakin’ way, Jules,” she said, shaking her head at how crazy this whole situation was. “Rand bonded with you!”
“Bingo.”
“So what did Rand think about that? The look on his face must have been priceless.”
I sighed again and couldn’t escape the feeling of guilt that immediately descended upon me. “That’s the other part of the story … I haven’t told him yet.”
“What?” she squealed. “What do you mean, you haven’t told him yet? That should have been the first thing you said.” Then she stood up and faced the wall, her arms extended before her until she looked like she was about to deliver Hamlet’s soliloquy. “Um, hi, I’m back from time-traveling the world, and by the way, you and me got it on like Donkey Kong and I was the chick you bonded with, capiche?”
She looked at me while I clapped. Well, it wasn’t “To Be or Not to Be” but it was a close second. “Got it on like Donkey Kong?”
“Well, you did, didn’t you?” she asked as she eyed me approvingly. If there was one subject besides gossip that Christa loved discussing, it was sex. And due to the fact that my sex life had been anything but interesting, she had to be eating this up.
I nodded as thoughts of sex with Rand infiltrated my head. “Yeah, we did, and it was amazing.”
“And it can be amazing again, Jules. You just have to tell him the truth.”
I nodded but it was unconvincing. “I’ve decided not to tell him.”
“Why?”
“Because I think it’s better that he doesn’t know—I mean, it’s not like we’re bonded anymore … and, besides, I think the news could really hurt him.”
She shook her head. Suddenly noticing that my glass of wine was still full, she reached for it, the expression on her face saying she needed it. “Why would bonding with you upset him? It just means you’re meant to be together. That’s like a better love story than The Princess Bride.” The Princess Bride just happened to be Christa’s favorite movie of all time, so she was really saying something. “Jules, that is seriously romantic.”
Look out Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, because here come Rand and Jolie. Somehow I just wasn’t feeling it.
“Well, I guess Rand could take it well,” I began, but I couldn’t say I believed it. It was really more of a concession to Christa. “Or he could just freak out when he realizes that he nearly died because of me.”
She was quiet for a second or two. “Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that angle.” Silence for a few more seconds. “But you didn’t know you were going to bond with him, right?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“But as soon as you saw his hot, naked bod, you must have been like Bond, what bond? Oh, you mean bondage?”
I laughed, suddenly feeling so grateful. Yes, Christa had her shortcomings, but she was the greatest friend in the world and I loved her. “Yeah, it went something like that.”
She nodded and swigged the last of her wine, er my wine, before facing me again blankly. Then a smile spread across her lips. “Well, when you tell him, just leave out the part about you guessing you two m
ight bond. Just make it sound like it totally took you by surprise and you never expected it.”
“I don’t know, Chris, I think it’s better to just avoid the whole thing …”
“You’re just going to have to spit it out, Jules. The longer you hold it in, the more upset he’s liable to get because he’ll want to know why you didn’t tell him sooner.”
I woke up and I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like I’d been having a nightmare. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times, trying to adjust them to the light of the yellow moon that was beaming through my bedroom window, interrupting the monotonous dark of night. I loved the feel of the cold air as it tried to breach the warmth of my covers.
The mischievous breeze ruffled my curtains, allowing them to billow out in a sensuous dance. Finding the visual reassuring, I started to close my eyes again. But something in my peripheral vision stopped me. There was a darkness at the far end of the room—a blackness that hinted of something more sinister than just night. I opened my eyes in alarm as I watched the darkness that was too dark twitch.
I bolted upright and didn’t have time to scream before I felt a cold swish disrupt the air. Then within a split second he was directly in front of me—a speed that characterized his race. Just as suddenly the fear pounding through me faltered and was replaced by a calming ocean of relief.
“It is true, then,” he said in a hoarse voice, his English accent thicker than I remembered it.
“Sinjin,” I answered, and before I could even fathom what was happening, the vampire’s mouth was on mine, his arms around my shoulders. His smell, which was somewhere between the clean scent of soap and the spice of an exotic aftershave, hit me like a truck. Memories of another kiss we shared while en route to Culloden Battlefield in Scotland hijacked my mind.
I cared for Sinjin—it was as obvious as the fact that I was finding it difficult to pull away from his embrace. But I had to pull away because even though there was a part of me that could recognize my attraction to Sinjin, kissing him didn’t feel right—not after what I’d been through with Rand.
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