I walked quickly to catch up to her, running the last few feet as I heard the fight outside collide with the weak double doors. If that fight spilled into the sitting room, I didn’t want to be anywhere near it.
As Lydia and I burst into Queen’s chambers, Sebastian rose from where he had been sitting and quickly crossed the room to me. He placed a gentle hand on my face, looking deeply in my eyes and used his thumb to wipe away the blood drops that were already beginning to dry on my cheek.
“What happened?” asked Sebastian, sternly looking to Lydia.
“War,” said Lydia, breathless as her eyes met Sebastian's though she had been fine in the hallway.
My heart skipped a beat at what I didn’t want to believe I had seen. Did Lydia still have feelings for Sebastian? If she still loved him, I couldn’t blame her…but that didn’t mean I liked it, either.
Lydia recounted what had happened as I stood in Sebastian’s safe embrace, still processing what had happened myself. Sebastian’s guards performed a perimeter check to find 10 guards strung up in the trees, in similar style, all of them in the vicinity that Lydia and I had been practicing. My stomach turned at the thought of our safety net, the guards we thought were protecting us, being strung up and bleeding overhead as we had played our war games. What else could they have been but war games if the enemy had done something like this while we were enveloped in our false illusion of safety.
“It might be a warning,” said the Queen, “But I’m viewing it as an act of war. I’m calling in all members of the court.”
“How are a bunch of snooty vampire politicians going to help?” I asked.
“They may be politicians,” said the Queen, “But they are hundreds of years old. Every single one of them has fought for their lives at least once.”
“And lost,” I pointed out, “because, you know, they’re dead,”
The only one that snickered at my comment was Lydia.
“We need every body we can get,” said Sebastian.
“You will remain assigned to Prussia,” said the Queen to Lydia, “Do not leave her side for a second,”
“If they’re taking out the guards then I’m ordering a sweep of the entire castle and grounds,” said Sebastian, “and we need to move the arms in the catacombs underground to the castle immediately,”
Sebastian didn’t await approval or authorization. He was already mentally elsewhere, his face losing that calm worry he carried for me moments before and shifting into strategy and calculated risks. It wasn’t sexy on him. It was cold, calculating, and his stone face made me push away from him. Though I stepped away from him, he didn’t seem to notice. His mind and concern was elsewhere, I could see that.
“You don’t think they would bring the fight here?” said Queen Victoria.
“I think they already have,” said Sebastian, walking out of the room to oversee the activities and direct his soldiers.
“I thought we were going to fight in the open,” I said to Lydia.
Lydia didn’t answer me. But the atmosphere switched to a mode of war and with that I had seemingly disappeared, my voice unheard. My frustration at being ignored again surfaced but there wasn’t much I could do as preparations had to be made. War had finally come. And I was not at all prepared.
“I want you to take Prussia to the tomb if the walls are breached,” said the Queen.
Lydia nodded, no sign of her earlier smirk at all on her face.
“What then?” asked Lydia, “There’s only one exit from the royal tomb,”
“If the walls are breached there won’t be an exit for anyone,” said Queen Victoria, “But if we hold up in the Tomb…I have a weapon or two that might come in handy. You should stay with the other members of the court on the marble steps. I’ll try to have more answers soon,”
“This is really happening,” I said, “It’s happening now, isn’t it?”
“Lydia,” said the Queen with a concerned eye on me, “Remember, straight into the tomb,”
Lydia nodded in silence, meeting the Queen’s serious gaze with a hard seriousness of her own. The Queen gave me one last glance before she stormed out of the room to make preparations for war. No sooner had the door closed, the Queen gone, than Lydia turned to me quickly with fire in her eyes.
“We should run,” said Lydia urgently, “we should leave right now and come back when this whole thing has blown over,”
“We can’t do that,” I said in a whisper, “We would both be seen as traitors,”
Lydia pressed her lips together in disagreement and shook her head vigorously.
“No, we wouldn’t,” said Lydia, “I’d be praised for keeping you safe and-”
“It’s already too late,” I whispered angrily to Lydia, “We’re at war. Do you think we are going to make it out of here? Just walk right out? When there are guards hung up in the tree like morbid fucking Christmas decorations?”
“We have to try,” said Lydia, her voice hushed and defeated.
Lydia didn’t like what I said but she couldn’t argue it anymore. I knew I was right and she knew it too. With unknown dangers lurking around the property, we couldn’t venture even a few feet out of the castle. Our best chance, our only chance, was to stay put. We couldn’t run. That time had passed us by.
“We have to try not to get caught,” I said, no longer whispering, “Staying…it’s our only option now. It’s our only chance of making it out of here in one piece. We fight,”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Night fell quickly but the hours stretched on as Lydia and I waited on the marble staircase. The Queen had called together the royal court but preparations for war had kept her from informing everyone what was going on. People were getting restless and scared. It was only a matter of time before the members of the court became completely panicked as guards began transporting weapons into the main areas of the castle. The guards were moving things quickly and they weren’t answering any questions which did nothing to calm the rising state of panic around the castle. If the queen didn’t present answers soon there was going to be a riot.
Having stood for too long, Lydia and I sat on the marble steps near where the Queen’s podium usually stood to address the court of vampires. After a while I began to wonder if there was going to be a war at all. Perhaps it was just a warning. I heard murmurs go up throughout the gathered court and the sharp footsteps of someone approaching. When I looked up from where I sat on the steps I saw Sebastian towering over me, a concerned look on his face as he looked down at me. But his attention shifted to Lydia. As soon as his eyes fell on her she stood up without hesitation.
“If anything happens to Prussia, you will be dead to me,” said Sebastian, “Forever. I hope you understand that,”
“You have more important things to worry about,” said Lydia, “I’ve got her covered. Don’t worry about it,”
Sebastian growled at Lydia. Her mouth snapped shut quickly. She raised her chin defiantly and her back straightened. The tension made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I placed a reassuring hand on Sebastian’s arm and he looked down at me with soft, kind, sad eyes.
“I’ll be protecting the Queen,” Sebastian said, “Overseeing the soldiers, the strategy. I want you to stay safe,”
“What’s your exit strategy?” asked Lydia, licking her lips eagerly as she listened to Sebastian detailing his role in what was to come.
“There is no exit strategy,” said Sebastian with mild irritation.
I couldn’t tell if that irritation was for Lydia or the fact that there was no exit strategy.
“What?” hissed Lydia.
“They won’t make it in to the castle walls,” said Sebastian, “We’ll pick them off one by one as they make their way out of the more heavily wooded portions of the estate. They won’t make it anywhere near the castle,”
“Who won’t make it near the castle?” someone asked, someone behind Sebastian.
Sebastian turned around to see who had asked him but the ar
rival of Queen Victoria had the crowded stairs parting to allow her to make her way to the platform where Sebastian, Lydia and I stood.
“The court of my estranged sister, Patricia,” said Queen Victoria, turning around to face the court as she reached the platform of the stairs that looked over the pale and worried faces of the royal vampire court.
Murmurs rose up in a churning echo that gained power as whispers and murmurs became more hurried. I looked out at the 400 or so vampires that had gathered. They were dressed in expensive clothes suited to royal events. Silk blouses, beautiful evening gowns, and ornate accessories. I couldn’t imagine this as a very strong first line of defense. I tried to tell myself not to underestimate them but my gut told me that I should have taken my chances with Lydia and ran when we had the chance.
“When?” asked a woman in the middle of the mass of vampires, shifting and moving like a living organism, her voice loud and clear.
“Now,” said Queen Victoria, her voice ringing out crisply, with authority.
What had been murmurs burst to life into a roar of talking, objections, and exclamations of surprise. I didn’t blame them, I wouldn’t have been thrilled to mill about for hours at what I thought was a casual socializing event in an evening gown to find out that not only was I overdressed but I had a good chance of dying. I looked down at my own clothes, the tattered cloth that had grass stains, smeared mud, and the occasional drop of blood that for once didn’t belong to me.
“We need a working party put together,” said Sebastian, shouting over the loud gaggle of vampire aristocrats, “We need to move weapons and supplies from the catacombs to the main areas of the castle. The more hands we have the faster we can proceed,”
“How long is this going to last?” one voice shouted out from the crowd.
“What does your sister want?” I heard a woman ask from the front of the crowd.
“The throne. She wants the throne,” said the Queen with a grim note, “And it will last as long as there are fangs enough to fight them off. If she wants this throne, it will be over my ashes,”
Sebastian headed down the marble stairs and Queen Victoria headed upstairs. I began to follow Sebastian only to have Lydia’s hand grab my arm, stopping me.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Lydia.
“To help,” I said, trying to pull my arm away unsuccessfully, “I can’t fight but I can carry stuff,”
Lydia rolled her eyes, “You stay in this area. You don’t need to go anywhere near the catacombs. If something happens, I could lose track of you and then Sebastian would kill me,”
“Is that all you care about then?” I asked.
Lydia began walking up the stairs, following the way that Queen Victoria had gone. She rolled her eyes and scaled the steps slowly, a half smile on her face but no words, she said nothing. And that worried me more than anything.
I started to wonder if I had placed my trust in the right person. I believed Lydia would keep me safe, as she had assured Sebastian. Call me crazy, but I believed her. I also believed she could be slippery. What did her smile really mean? Had she seen something that I hadn’t? Had Sebastian given her a moment of pause, a reason to hold out hope for them to be reunited? She had spent decades with him where I had only spent a couple of years. Lydia knew his quirks, his habits, his idiosyncrasies. I had barely cracked the slight upward bend of his brow and the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.
I chewed my lip as I took my place in the line of vampires that handed supplies along the chain they had created. I passed along crates but didn’t see what my hands helped to move. My mind was elsewhere, away with my worries. And the image I kept coming back to was Lydia and Sebastian together. No matter how quickly I passed crates or how carefully I concentrated on not dropping any boxes, my mind kept going back to them. And I was beginning to chew my lips raw with the worry.
I heard the third click of radio static in a row coming from the guard that stood next to me, diligently handing me two assault riffles with a look of hesitation as though I were twelve and handing me assault riffles might be a bad idea. When I didn’t take the riffles from his hands but instead stared at the radio attached to his shoulder, he looked at it too. The fourth time the radio static clicked off I had to sit down. Because instead of silence, there was a very clear sound of growling and screaming. Panic, pain, despair and horror gripped inside of each of those screams with the echo of rapid gunfire in the distance. I looked up at one of the windows, the blinds partially open still, and saw the bright burst of gunfire from within the depths of the garden. The static returned and the same clicking sound came back. Then came a soft voice filled with pain that finally sounded on the radio following the terrifying screams. I sat on the cool marble floor and looked up at the guard that had stopped moving, listening very intent for any other sounds that might come across the radio.
“Perimeter breach,” came a youthful voice, a man clearly in distress, “Assistance! Assistance!”
The static returned without any clicks or pops. The room had become completely silent, the transport of weapons grinding to a complete halt. The guard looked at me, a solemn look of fear on his face. We both shared knowledge in that look without a single word spoken between the two of us. It was too late to save whoever had sounded the alarm. But he had sounded the alarm. And in the blink of an eye the complete stillness of the castle transformed into a war zone in overdrive.
A panic hit some as lords and ladies ran different directions, no real place to run, the slick marble floor offering no mercy for anyone that might fall in their haste to secure an illusion of safety. The entire castle burst into frenzied panic and I sat completely still, unsure what to do next, holding an assault riffle and a box of grenades. After a few moments, even those things were whisked away from my grasp. I sat still and let the castle move around me, like a rock in the middle of a raging river.
I watched silently as guards were sent to help secure the perimeter. Dozens at a time trickled out of the front door of the castle. Dozens at a time left but none returned. I became cold as I watched the motions being made, fear settling into the atmosphere around me as a steady undertone among the panic. As cold as I felt, I still didn’t move. I kept my eyes fixed on the front door and the view I had out of the front castle windows. The occasional explosion, the rapid fire of assault weapons lighting up the darkness spread among the tree trunks, but still nothing could really be seen. I stood up slowly, transfixed as I watched bursts of bullets and the explosions among the trees steadily get closer to the castle. What had started as a chill up my spine had settled into a cold sweat over my shoulders and down my back.
“Kill everything that moves on sight,” I heard Sebastian shout, “No prisoners, no mercy,”
I turned to see Sebastian. He had changed clothes. He wore all black now, from head to foot, including a bullet proof vest. He had tactical paint smeared under his eyes and his hair looked disheveled. How long had it really been since I had seen him on those marble steps? Had he been outside of the castle? My heart fluttered into a frenzy of worry as I considered the danger involved. I didn’t consider the likelihood that Sebastian would find himself in the thick of actual combat. I had assumed he would defend me and that he would command things from a point of safety, but I had watched the explosions and gunfire get closer. In my gut, I knew there was a chance we would both be up to our elbows in blood. The only difference was that now, knowing Sebastian could actually die, I didn’t want to risk losing him.
“Where the hell is Lydia?” asked Sebastian as he walked over to me where I stood in the middle of all of the traffic that ran through the castle, “She’s not supposed to leave your side,”
“She was with me,” said the Queen, stepping off the bottom step of the grand staircase with Lydia not far behind, “I needed a better vantage point but now…they’re close. They’re nearly upon us,”
My eyes went wide and I looked to the window out of the front of the castle. I only had to wa
it a few seconds before the shots rang out a mere fifty feet from the windows. The noise had become substantially greater.
“Deploy the second wave,” Sebastian ordered into his radio, attached at his shoulder as the other guards wore theirs, “No mercy. No prisoners,”
Before my eyes nearly 200 guards sprint out of the front door of the castle, the door slamming firmly behind the last guard as he ran into the fight. I blinked in amazement as I turned back to Sebastian, thankful that he hadn’t gone with them, that he remained safe in the castle walls.
“I thought…a few days at least,” murmured the Queen as we stood there, waiting for any report that the guards were making ground, were pushing back the attacks, but the radio stayed silent, “but to attack before even nightfall…I misjudged her. I underestimated her completely,”
Deadly Lovers (The Prussia Series) Page 11
