by Jessica Gunn
Unease?
…Fear?
Was Kristian actually around and this was just a game?
I spun to search for him, dropping my guard in the process. If they were going to attack without warning, they would have already done it by now. Besides, even if I weren’t looking, I could feel Zezza’s body still tensed. She had my back, and I had hers.
Twelve hours ago, I hadn’t even known dragons still existed.
The head vampire leapt forward, landing fewer than three feet away from me. I could feel the weight of his predatory stare behind the sunglasses. “Our king would like to extend to you not only a position at court, but a life as an undead of the night. And he would like your dragon to join the court as well.”
“A vampire,” I said dryly. I lowered my right hand centimeter by centimeter toward Halley’s gun. “Just say ‘vampire.’” Wait a minute. “Why does he want to make me one of you?”
These five could easily kill me and take Zezza without breaking a sweat. Kristian could probably do the same alone. So why go through all of this trouble just to try turning me? Keir hadn’t seemed fazed at the prospect of taking Zezza alone. Why would the King of the Night Court? Keir needed to earn his place at his throne. Kristian already had his and had had command over it for hundreds of years.
My brow furrowed as I looked to the head vampire expectantly.
He nodded in a shallow motion that spoke volumes. He wasn’t a fan of the idea, either. Couldn’t say I blamed him. “I can’t speak to my king’s motivations,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” A tiny chill spider-walked down the hollow of my neck. Finally, my fingers brushed the handle of the gun. My heart was thumping so loudly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if my ribcage was expanding and contracting in time to accommodate it.
Zezza squirmed in my arms, growling even louder now. A flash of images from the train crossed my mind’s eye again. Wind building in and around my palm with her in my arms, pushing Keir away.
“Well?” the vampire asked.
I lifted my gaze from Zezza to him. “Wait, you need an answer right now?”
He looked at me as though I had all the intelligence of a tomato. “Kristian would like to begin the process as soon as possible.”
“Process,” I echoed. I wasn’t clear on the specifics, but I assumed most of the myths were true. They drink your blood, you taste theirs. Magic of some sort or at least a ritual is involved and Merry Christmas, you have a brand new fledgling vampire with ultra-sunlight sensitivity and an insatiable hunger for the red stuff.
Yuck.
But…
You also had a coven. A family. A community to belong to that, while I was sure had its own problems, couldn’t possibly be worse than the human world.
And in this specific case, I’d be joining the Night Court. Power and wealth would be at my fingertips. Where, though, did Kristian have in mind to place me?
Probably nowhere good.
But Zezza would be protected and so would I, assuming Kristian was telling the truth And I couldn’t deny that he was enthralling in every sense of the word. As an attractive man. As a vampire—as a predator.
Chills sprouted along my spine and slipped down to my toes as I remembered the feel of his hand beneath mine. His closeness and aura of power. Of the way his magic had captivated me, encasing me in a desire to do my job: to serve.
If I joined Kristian’s Night Court, I’d be able to do just that. And I would be a part of something that actually wanted me, finally, for the first time in my life. Zezza would be taken care of. I could raise her, however one raised a dragon.
Right now, I had nothing waiting for me back in the center of Boston. Working at the Lunar Royale had been a dead-end job. I didn’t feel connected to my family or the other humans of Boston. Back home, I’d worked, slept, and repeated the routine. I made enough money to live by. Working nightshifts also sort of killed your social life outside of hanging out with coworkers.
Back in Boston, I’d been a nobody. And now, I’d lost it all to a poker game. One I had intended to win. Gods, though… not like this. Everything that happened had been so far removed from my plan.
Now here Kristian was, offering me a place at his court in return for my cooperation.
Kristian wanted me. But what about Zezza?
I looked down to her and stroked her head again. I wasn’t leaving her—not now, not ever. For the first time in years, I felt connected to something and I was not going to let it be taken away from me by Kristian. Not when Zezza, still growling in my arms, seemed more ready to fight than me.
Little ferocious thing, she was.
Smiling to her, I finally wrapped my fingers around the handle of the gun at my side. In my mind, I tried to send images of Zezza breathing lightning on Keir in my head, hoping that whatever sort of weird telepathy she seemed to possess somehow worked both ways.
“I think…” I said, drawing out the vowels. “That you can all go screw yourselves.”
Then I drew the gun and aimed directly for the head vampire’s chest. I pulled the trigger, the recoil sending my arm jolting. Blood spurted as it connected below his right collar bone. I brought my arm up to shoot again, but Zezza had already pulled in a deep breath. She stood tall on her two hind legs, baring her wings, and shot a line of lightning directly through the head vampire and the vampire behind him.
The smell of burnt ozone filled the air as their vampiric flesh and bad outfits sizzled down to nothing. The vampires’ skin turned ashen grey as the lightning gave way to fire that burned them through.
Quickly, I spun on my heel and started running back toward the train tracks. I had to get out of here. Maybe Keir would still be there. Would help me fight Kristian’s soldiers? Was Keir a safer bet?
“Zezza, fire again if they start chasing us.”
She awkwardly shifted position on my left shoulder and trilled adamantly. A shadow swooped down from overhead, followed by a body landing on two feet in front of me.
I skidded to a stop and lifted the gun. “No!” I shouted. I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like the right thing to say in that very moment.
Then my mind registered who was standing there.
Who was reaching out to grab the muzzle of the gun.
Who was crushing it like the weapon had been made of snow.
“Kristian.”
The hundreds-of-years-old vampire stood before me in the same outfit as the night before and grinned.
He lifted a hand. Dark tendrils of shadow magic swirled between his fingers and the next thing I knew, I was kneeling on the ground. Zezza whimpered beside me as she hopped down off my shoulder and also bowed on the ground. She growled.
“Leave her alone!” I screamed. “She’s a baby!”
“She’s a world-ender,” Kristian said. “All dragons are.” He stooped down so we were eye to eye, without his protective sunglasses shielding my gaze from his vampiric irises. Hunger shone there, and power. My hands shook.
His jaw locked tightly as he searched my eyes for… something. I didn’t think he found it because he stood abruptly and started to pace away. “I will not see either of you world-enders live to do the deed. Take them!”
The remaining three vampires rushed over and yanked both Zezza and me off the ground. The last thing I saw before Kristian’s face filled my field of vision again was them throwing a dog’s muzzle on Zezza.
Chapter 10
Kristian stalked close to me like a lioness guarding her kill from would-be scavengers. I wanted to run, to get out of here as quickly as possible, but that wasn’t going to happen even while we were on the move. Not while surrounded by Kristian and his friends.
Breathe, Vera, I told myself. Zezza looked up at me, worried, but a fight still in her eyes. She hadn’t given up yet. So neither could I.
At the very least, it was reassuring that Kristian didn’t appear to want me—or us—dead. He probably wanted Zezza for his own agenda like Keir. As for me… That one I coul
dn’t explain. Maybe he thought that since Zezza had imprinted on me like a baby bird that we were inseparable.
I smiled and stroked down her head and back again, trying to comfort her. Maybe we were inseparable.
When would everything stop being as crazy as this? As me looking into the eyes of a baby dragon who looked as ready to defend me as I was suddenly ready to defend her?
“You’ve become quite the celebrity overnight.” Kristian’s cool words broke the awkward, predatory silence.
I swallowed hard and steeled myself. He’d get nothing of value from me. “Apparently. It was your idea, too.”
He cast me a sidelong glance, his crimson eyes narrowing for a moment, before returning to look at the street ahead of him. “I suppose it was. Only after you showed interest first.”
I wouldn’t give him anything. But maybe I could learn a few things for myself. “Care to tell me why you invited me to the game?”
“For entertainment.” His words and tone were even. There wasn’t a hint of subtext in them. Or maybe his calmness was the subtext.
I studied the way he walked, examining his expression for any suggestion of the real answer. I assumed it was because I had proved myself knowledgeable about the other players. As he had said to them, that was what made the game interesting.
But did Kristian know the underlying reasoning I’d had to take those risks and join their game?
Zezza growled low again.
“Shh,” I said to her before asking Kristian, “Entertainment, nothing more? It’s almost boring, really.”
“Mmm.”
Not a single inch of his expression gave away his thoughts. Not the way he held himself, nor the neutral mask he refused to drop. He didn’t even sound like he thought me foolish as Keir and the others had. Everything about Kristian was some vague and twisted enigma.
I rolled my eyes, purposely melodramatic. I needed an out, fast. A plan—a poor one, mind you—could be to go with them to Kristian’s mansion on the edge of the city. The journey there should buy me enough time to make a better plan or glean more information from Kristian.
I was confident the Night Court’s mansion was where they were taking Zezza and me. Although I had never seen it in person, over the years since the meteor had hit, I’d seen hundreds of photos, like most other humans in Boston. There was this blog: Supernatural Spotters. Most of the time the blog site acted like the tabloids but for supernaturals of importance inside the United States. But many times, there’d been bloggers who’d gotten pretty close to Kristian’s Gothic mansion and snapped photos. It was a beautiful house on a few acres of grounds along the ley-line. Often, Supernatural Spotters had caught glimpses from afar at the extravagant parties Kristian was known for throwing, complete with ballgowns and string quartets.
We were likely heading there right this minute, although probably not on foot as the mansion was a few miles away. Kristian might have had a car waiting around the corner. That had to be how he’d gotten here so quickly.
I was running out of time.
“Why make me one of you?” I blurted out as I wracked my brain for an escape route.
We were walking by a few convenience stores now. A few onlookers glanced at us curiously in the early morning sun. None acted. A few men walking around in a secure formation around a woman was weird enough. The fangs, goth outfits, and power-stances only worsened the situation. I couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to confront vampires out in the daytime who didn’t shrivel beneath the sun’s rays.
Kristian kept walking. “Do you really want to know the answer to that, Vera?”
“I asked it, didn’t I?”
For a moment, a flashing screen caught my eye in the large front window of a coffee shop. The owners had the morning news playing and—
My stomach dropped. Dread spread down my spine and I stopped dead in my tracks. My face was plastered all over the screen, including CCTV video footage of me walking out of the casino last night with Zezza’s egg in my hands. The video followed me around the corner before I disappeared, heading into Boston Commons. The words “wanted” and “criminal” were put beneath my photo on the screen. The newscaster looked shocked and angry, his brows twisted.
Understandable. I’d be confused and angry about a casino waitress stealing a freaking dragon’s egg as well. Least of all one connected to a powerful family at the heart of Boston’s finances.
“Because you’ll need protection,” Kristian said coolly as he gestured to the television. “I’d like to think that given the situation you’ve found yourself in and how apparently even the humans have turned on you, my court would be your next best pick.”
I wanted to laugh. Sarcastically, of course. None of this was funny. “And why would you think that? Because I accepted your invitation to join the game?”
“Because you teased it out of me, and then you won because of it.”
“I won because luck was on my side for a prize I hadn’t even wanted in the first place.”
“You purposely got yourself into the game and I invited you to stay past you losing the only bargaining chips you had.”
My eyes narrowed. “I still don’t understand your point.” Perhaps he didn’t have one. Maybe they couldn’t accept humans amongst their court, and if he wanted to steal Zezza and keep her alive and needed me, then maybe I’d have to be made into a vampire.
It was simple reasoning. So why didn’t he just admit it?
Kristian stopped walking. I paused as well, not fond of having yet another one of these predators at my back. Zezza swung her head to keep Kristian in view, still growling occasionally.
His ruby gaze slid over me, sending chills spiraling down my spine. “Others will come.”
“One already has,” I told him. “It’s just a dragon. Nothing to get up in arms about. A singular dragon won’t cause a war.”
But if Keir was after Zezza, other fae might be too. And clearly Kristian wanted her. While supernaturals had positions amongst government, media, and other businesses, Treya had access to the goldmines. She was after me too. This media coverage of my face had to have been her doing.
Kristian’s serious expression softened for a moment. A single second long enough to let some other emotion cross his face. Was it… anxiety? Curiosity? Whatever the emotion was, it didn’t make sense in this conversation. Kristian was on a whole other page of the book and expecting me to follow along. He lifted one hand from his side, as if he were going to reach across the distance between us and caress my face, and then stopped.
I lifted my eyebrows, trying to draw a verbal response from him.
Kristian sighed heavily, closing his eyes for a moment. Although he didn’t need to breath, his chest rose and fell in deep breaths.
Frustration. Where had that come from?
Kristian dropped his hand and started to walk again, his serious expression returning. “We need to keep moving back to the compound.”
I sighed and shoved my hands into my pockets.
Zezza nudged my cheek with her muzzle-covered snout.
I reached up and thought as loudly as I could, I know, Zezza. I’m trying to come up with a plan. Stay with me.
She blew out a puff of lightning, clearly frustrated, and I understood why.
We were walking right into what was very obviously a trap. Even if Kristian had been honest and wanted to protect us, and even if they weren’t planning on killing me but actually turning me into a vampire, life as a vampire was still death. Or undeath as the case may be. And the first few years would be an undeath full of insatiable, unrestrained bloodlust and a severe case of “sunlight is going to kill you.”
No, thank you. No matter how much protection that might afford Zezza and me.
Kristian had to know that. He couldn’t be stupid enough to believe I’d willingly go with him like this, fall into his arms, and give away my life like some sad wannabe heroine in a fantasy romance movie.
I peered over at him, taking full stock o
f the vampire king. He was smart. Powerful. In total control. So why bother with a fragile little human like me?
“What is it, Vera?” Kristian asked, as if he could sense my eyes on him.
“You still didn’t answer my question.” Ahead, a black Escalade pulled to the side of the road. This is it. “One lone dragon won’t start a war. So why keep us alive and offer me help?”
“You’ve already lost allies amongst the humans,” he said, his voice even. Factual. Like this was the only thing that mattered despite me witnessing his cool exterior crack for half a second. The king of vampires had a heart. Or fears. Or both. “The werewolf clans are aggressive and territorial, and they border this area. If you’re not careful, you’ll walk right into their land and I have no idea what Milani will do to you, assuming there’s anything left of you for her to find. The only way both you and your dragon survive being this far from the center of the city is to come with me.”
As we approached the car, Kristian’s vampire friends surrounded it in a defensive maneuver. What were they really afraid of in their own territory?
I stopped short of the car and turned once more to Kristian as he strode behind me. Zezza’s tail, swishing in the morning breeze, lightly banged against the car’s door. She leaned forward, her eyes level with mine, snout extending out past my head. My guardian dragon.
I smiled.
“What is it, Vera?” Kristian asked, sounding almost annoyed.
Good. This whole thing was annoying to me too.
“Why me?” I asked. This line of questioning had given him pause before. Cracked his façade. Maybe I could get it to happen again. The more human Kristian looked, the easier all of this insanity was.
Keir had no humanity. Yet he was closer to being human than the centuries-old vampire in front of me.
Kristian’s eyes met mine in a molten gaze that turned my insides into liquid. Butterflies leapt in my stomach from anticipation as he leaned in close to me, ignoring Zezza. He stopped when his eyes and lips were only inches from mine.
