by Ali Winters
He pauses and starts to pull back just as I bury the blade in his throat. Kerin stares at me in shock as I jerk the dagger then pull it out. Blood gushes from the wound. I can see his thoughts skitter across his face—confusion that his immortal body isn’t healing and then understanding as he his eyes drift to the night-forged silver weapon in my hand, and linger there.
He falls to his knees, collapsing to his side. His hands reach up to his throat as if that could stop what is happening.
I slide down, crouching. There’s the faint clatter of metal on stone as I drop the dagger.
Kerin stills, his hands going limp and falling away. I watch for the slight rise and fall of his breath, but it’s not there, not anymore.
I wait for guilt to hit, for sorrow at taking another life, but I feel nothing.
A piercing scream rents the air.
I slowly lift my head, dragging my gaze up to a group of vampires on the other end of the hall. Their faces move in and out of focus. Then one pushes forward. Blond. Familiar.
I’m too tired to think.
My feet slide out from under me, and I land hard on my butt. Black spots continue to dance, blocking out parts of my vision, growing in size.
If I pass out, I know I will never wake up again. I cling to the edges of consciousness, willing myself to stay awake. I’m quickly losing the battle.
A smile forms on my dry lips. At least I took this bastard out first.
“Clara.”
The name sounds familiar.
My name.
And the voice…
I try lifting my head but can only manage to lull it to the side, looking up at the man at an angle. I squint. Slowly, his features sharpen.
“Cassius?” I murmur. Or at least I think I do. I can’t feel my mouth anymore.
I think that should worry me.
He plucks up the dagger from the floor and wipes it off on his sleeve then sheaths it in my boot. I want to tell him that’s wrong, but I can’t seem to form words.
He hooks an arm around my waist, draping mine over his shoulders, then hauls me to my feet. I try to push away from him and walk on my own. My feet trip over nothing, and I almost fall.
“Stop fighting me,” he growls under his breath as he leads me away from the crowd of onlookers.
I try to get my limbs to cooperate, but they are loose and uncoordinated.
“Stop right there,” a woman’s voice commands.
Cassius obeys. I glare from the corner of my eye, willing him to keep going and ignore her. Instead, he turns us to face her.
The crowd parts down the middle, and a small figure emerges. The vampire queen storms toward us, furry twisting her features.
“What in the Otherworld happened here?”
I open my mouth to tell her exactly what I did, but Cassius cuts me off. “He drank from Clara when he knew that she was already claimed and marked.”
I wrinkle my forehead but keep my mouth shut tight to avoid saying things I shouldn’t. My head swims. I can’t keep my thoughts straight.
A shrill voice yells from down the hall, “She did it! She killed Kerin!”
Cassius’s fingers tighten, pressing into my ribs, a low growl rumbling from deep within his chest.
The feeling in my limbs gradually returns but not fast enough, but I am thankful for the warmth that accompanies it.
The queen snarls, drawing closer. She lowers her face to mine. “The sentence for murder is instant death.”
“Slayer,” Cassius mumbles.
My body goes cold, and I can feel what little blood remains draining from my face. His head snaps toward me, eyes wide with fear.
Elizabeth’s hand shoots out grabbing Cassius by the shirt and pulls his face within an inch of hers. The movement throws us off balance, and I barely avoid falling into her.
“What did you say?” Her words are whisper soft and deadly. There is a mix of rage and fear in her words.
“One more kill… and she will be a slayer.”
Licking my lips, Lawrence’s words from the day we left come back to me. “A third kill will make you a slayer.” I had pushed it from my mind, dismissing it as ridiculous.
I killed my third vampire that night at the theater. Too preoccupied with everything else happening, I never stopped to think about it. I don’t know what it means to be a slayer, other than the fact that I have killed several vampires. Kerin was my fourth.
Elizabeth releases him and turns her gaze on me.
I pull my arm from Cassius and stand on my own. I am weak, but I don’t want to appear helpless. She fears something in me. I can see it in her soft bright blue, almost violet eyes.
Blood trickles down my neck, warm and sticky.
Her pale skin grows blotchy with her rising anger, moving up from her chest to her neck and face.
“You will not get the chance to become a full-fledged slayer,” she says, and I almost admire the calm in her voice when there is a storm clearly raging inside. “It will not be a quick death for you, girl.”
Cassius is wrong, though. They both are.
I am already a slayer.
The queen snaps her fingers. There’s a blur followed by the whoosh of air as two guards, baring their fangs, appear at her side.
“Take her down to the lower levels,” she commands. Her words are barely audible but are coated in venom.
I am ripped from Cassius and dragged down the hall at blinding speed. The toe of my boot trails along the floor as they move too fast for me to keep up. The speed makes my stomach churn, and the ground seems to drop from under me as I’m taken to a lower level.
Metal doors screech open then slam closed behind us. The air turns stale and damp, smelling of mildew and rot.
I open my mouth to protest, but no sound comes out.
The guards come to a sudden halt. The world spins, and I wretch the entirety of my stomach’s contents at their feet.
They drop me. I barely manage to catch myself before my face connects with the stone floor. A boot collides with my ribs, knocking me to my side then again, rolling me onto my back.
Straw pokes through my clothing, but I don’t care. I pant though I don’t attempt to get up. I don’t have the energy. I can still feel the warm trickle of blood down my neck.
“Should we kill her?” one guard asks.
“No, our queen will make an example of her.”
Their footsteps echo in my ears. Then, a door slams, followed by the click of a heavy metal lock rattling into place.
I take a deep breath and instantly regret it. My head pounds, so I lay still until the world stops moving.
Closing my eyes, I take several deep breaths then roll onto my belly. I inch my way up to my hands and knees then sit back on my heels and take in my prison.
A thin layer of straw is scattered across the floor. In the far corner is a bucket I assume is for waste. And from the smell, I don’t think it has been emptied since before the last prisoner stayed here.
I stumble to my feet and make my way to the nearest wall. It’s not far, but even that exertion has winded me. I use the damp stone and lower myself, bringing my knees up to my chest.
There’s nothing to do but wait for Alaric to come.
Chapter Twelve
Alaric
Rubbing my head, I step inside my room. “Clara, I—”
My head whips to the side as a resounding slap echoes through the quiet room. Snarling, I turn on the offender. Elizabeth stands before me, nearly panting with anger, face both pale and flushed.
“Be the prince you are meant to be and stand at my side.” She grinds the command out between gritted teeth. “Give me your power.”
The pretense of seduction has dropped entirely. This may be the first time in one hundred and seventy-four years that she is honest with herself and me. It was my power she craved, a truth I have always known. When I rejected the throne she offered, she somehow got it into her head that I would fall for someone who pretended to love me and
that I wouldn’t notice there was nothing real about it.
But she was wrong about that, too. Elizabeth had dismissed the one thing I cared about—keeping Rosalie safe. I never even wanted to be a vampire, something she could never understand and refused to believe.
“No,” I say simply then walk around her, ready to enter the bedroom and close the doors on this conversation. I am tired of being used for what someone else might gain.
“You brought a potential slayer into my domain,” She snarls. “You’re lucky I didn’t rip her head off and leave it as a present for you on the bed.”
I freeze, my hand hovering over the door handle as her words sink in. Potential slayer?
She doesn’t know.
I spin to face her. Elizabeth crosses her arms over her chest and offers me a smirk. Her eyes flick to the closed door at my back. For a heart stopping second, I expect Clara’s head to be waiting for me on the bed. The longer Elizabeth looks at me like that, the more I believe it.
Turning from her, I throw open the door, heart in my throat.
For several seconds, I stand unmoving and staring at the sight before me. It takes several heartbeats to understand what I’m seeing.
No head.
But the bed has been remade. The sheets, blankets, and pillows have all been replaced with pristine white versions.
Elizabeth stands by my side, quiet and amused.
“What have you done with her?” I ask.
Instead of answering, Elizabeth takes my hand and unfurls my fingers, holding it up to her face. Her long nail slices across my palm. I hold back a hiss at the unexpected cut. Her nail feels like acid. A thin line of blood wells up. Smiling, she watches me as she brings her mouth down and licks the blood off.
The shallow wound is already healed. Pulling my hand from hers, I wipe it down the side of my leg.
“The better question,” she purrs, her voice soft yet deadly, “is how the fuck can she be one kill from being a slayer when she’s only killed one vampire while she’s been here? How, when you have complete control over her, has she managed to commit such an atrocity, not once… but twice?”
I press my mouth into a thin line and say nothing.
“She is marked?”
I don’t even dare to breathe. Finally I say, “I am in the process of marking her. It is nearly complete.”
On the outside, Elizabeth is calm, and to the world, she would appear so, but it’s when she’s as still as death, with her face pleasant, that she is most volatile. Raging anger courses through her like wildfire. It’s in the tightening of her hands clenched at her sides and in the slightest narrowing of her eyes.
After ten heartbeats, she lets out a sigh, the tension releasing from her muscles. “We were lovers once, you and I,” she says. “We shared a life, a bed… We had no secrets. You lived to please only me. You loved and worshiped me.”
I refrain from showing any emotion. She obviously remembers our time here together differently than I do.
“You were nothing to me,” I say flatly. “It was nothing more than sex. You could have been anyone else, and it wouldn’t have mattered to me.”
Elizabeth doesn’t acknowledge my words. They have lost their effect on her long ago.
“What happened between us?” she asks.
I glower. “You know exactly what happened. Now, enough of this—what have you done with Clara?”
She blinks rapidly several times as if coming out of a reverie. Elizabeth’s head snaps up and purses her lips.
I have every right to know, yet she debates if she will tell me or not.
The door bursts open before she can answer. My glower at the interruption morphs into a frown as I see the worry on Lawrence’s face. He skids to a stop as his eyes land on Elizabeth. He looks between us, taking us in to decipher the energy between us.
She gives him a passing glance before returning her full attention back on me, heaving a sigh. Elizabeth’s lavender jewel eyes are flat and lack the depth emotion brings. It only furthers my suspicion that she is incapable of feeling anything at all, and everything she does is a careful calculation of getting what she wants. I can’t imagine what happened to strip her of the ability to feel more than an endless lust for power.
“The two of you will be separated from here on out.”
I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off.
“You are forbidden from seeing her again. However, you will be present at her interrogation. You will stand at my side—not at the side of a would-be slayer,” she spits the final word.
I swallow down a growl. According to her laws, I am permitted access to the human I claimed. However, no human who’s ever killed a vampire has ever been claimed before, and I have no doubt that she would use that as the reason to break the rules she created.
“And make no mistake, Alaric, when you judge her with the rest of my court, you will vote exactly how you are expected to. You will not go against me in this.”
Pushing my protests down, I keep my face in a neutral mask. There is no use arguing with her.
The corners of Elizabeth’s mouth quirks up. She has me exactly where she wants me—uncertain and unable to do anything about it. The trial could be hours or days or even weeks from now.
Or never.
Clara is alive and in the dungeon. All the vampires in the castle will know of her crimes by now. Clara’s chances of making it to the trial alive are slim.
“When is the trial?”
She regards me with a soft hum, tilting her head and pressing the tip of her tongue to a pointed fang.
“When I am ready to deal with the filth you brought into my domain.” With that, Elizabeth saunters out of the room.
How hypocritical of her, to find Clara’s presence here so offensive when she sent Victor to my house knowing he was cursed. Whether he knew it or not, his mission was to kill my claimed human or be killed by her. Either way, Elizabeth’s motives were to place Clara in this very situation.
Lawrence closes the door quietly.
I grab a decanter of fresh blood, sitting on the table at my side, and hurl it into the fire. The glass shatters, and the scent of hot blood fills the room before it is burned away. For decades, she urged me to claim a human, and when I do, she sets out to destroy her.
He turns to me and says, “I had hoped to be the one to tell you.”
“Elizabeth didn’t tell me the details of what happened, but she knows this isn’t her first kill.” I massage my temples as a sharp, throbbing pain forms. “I don’t know how she found out, or who told her, but she knows.”
Lawrence pinches the bridge of his nose. “Demons and saints…” There’s a long pause. Then, he drops his arms back down to his side. “But, she doesn’t know about…”
I shake my head as he trails off. “She called her a potential slayer, but she didn’t name the vampires.”
Clara defended herself, as I instructed, and now she will pay the price. She knew the dangers and would not have done so lightly. This way, at least, she will live a little longer, and that will give me time to figure out how to undo this mess.
But that doesn’t stop guilt from souring my soul.
I never should have left her alone. I should have escorted her back here before meeting with Elise.
“I need to ask a favor of you.”
Lawrence eyes me as if he knows he won’t like what I’m about to say. “What?”
“Will you check on Clara when you can?” He opens his mouth to protest but clamps his mouth shut. “Please,” I add.
His face softens. “I will see what I can do, but you and I both know I can’t make any promises where Elizabeth is involved. It might take some time. I may not even be able to get to her before the trial.”
“I know,” I say. “Thank you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Clara
Hours pass, but Alaric never comes. I strain, listening for any sign of footsteps or voices, but the only sound in this dungeon is the dri
p, drip, drip of water, and the occasional rattle of chains from what I can only assume are other prisoners.
I count the seconds and minutes by the incessant drip. Not even a single guard enters this level, not since I was dumped in this cell. I wonder if Cassius has told Alaric what happened by now. If not, he’s probably wondering where I am.
The light filtering through the cell door remains constant. I have no way of telling time. After a while, my eyes grow heavy from being drained of so much blood and being locked away in the dark for hours on end.
I don’t know if I’ll make it out of this cell alive, let alone out of this situation. I knew killing the vampire would be a death sentence, but there hadn’t been much of a choice. Swallowing hard, I wrap my arms around my legs and rest my chin on my knee.
There’s a lump in my boot. I reach in and pull out the dagger.
Holding it up in front of me, I contemplate how I might use it to escape. The blade glints in the low light. I could pick the cell lock, but if I manage to do that, I would still need to get out of the dungeon, make my way through the castle, and… and an entire list of things that would be near impossible, even uninjured.
I slide it into the sheath along the inside of my arm. Reaching up, I press my hand to the wound at my neck. My fingers come away damp, but my skin is whole though still tender. I’m healing faster than any human should. Vague thoughts of the mark come to mind—there really isn’t another explanation for it.
I lean back against the stone and stretch out my legs, exhaustion thick in my bones. I relax as much as possible, given the uneven ground.
My eyes snap open and I draw in a sharp breath. I jerk upright, hissing at the stiffness in my muscles—especially my neck. I stare into the dark, searching for whatever woke me.
A shiver works its way down my spine. I’m cold. It’s hard to tell if the shock of being injured finally wore off or if this cell is colder now than before.
Once more, I listen for any sign that something has changed, but again, there’s nothing. My mouth is uncomfortably dry. I need water.
