Janna nodded for me to continue further into the room and then slipped away, leaving me to walk down the aisle toward the group of people at the end of the room. As I walked, I was aware that every eye turned toward me, so I straightened, walking with purpose and the remnants of dignity I still clung to, smoothing the skirt of my dress. It wasn’t until I stopped just before them all that the man in the middle seat looked up at me.
In that moment, I realized what Janna had meant about the king being more tolerable than his sons, for I recognized his sparkling eyes, a feature he’d passed onto Janna. More astonishing, however, was the consideration there. It was not a look that burned with hatred, but one that appraised me with simple curiosity—one that seemed almost peaceful. “Well,” he spoke, and to my surprise his voice was strong, not weak and rickety as his body would suggest. He smiled, though I couldn’t decide if it was for his benefit or mine. “You must be our guest.”
“Lilith.” My voice was terse. I didn’t like being referred to as a guest, as if it were commonplace to invite friends over for cocktails and then chain them up in the dark. For all I knew, they did.
“You possess the name of a demon.” He informed me. “But surely not the qualities of one?”
I ignored the question, considering his gaunt face and relative pallor. Of course I knew I was the namesake of a legendary demon. Lilith the evil one, the demon who refused Adam, tempted Eve with the apple and birthed original sin. No doubt my father had hoped I would have a legacy as warped as hers.
Janna stood on the opposite side of me, with her hands clasped neatly before her. I noticed the gold bracelets glittering at her wrists, the understated way the boys stood together in attire that was an odd combination of formal and casual. They were royalty, though who had bestowed that title upon them, I couldn’t imagine. It explained why they felt they could treat me as they did.
I danced around the question, uncomfortable with the presence of so many people watching me, their dark eyes passing judgement. The king nodded, seemingly letting my silence answer his question. “What brought you here?”
For a moment, the question caught me off guard. "What brought me here?" In case he couldn't detect it in my voice, my face must have shown my confusion. Though there was nothing funny about the question, I laughed. "A werewolf. That one, actually." I jerked my thumb in the direction of his sons, waiting for the cynical look.
Instead, his eyes shifted and he looked at the men, standing together on the side of the room, observant. Julius’ arms were crossed, the epitome of casual. James, however, looked uneasy, wringing his hands before him. "Why did you bring her here, James?"
His discomfort gave me a tiny bit of satisfaction. At least I wasn’t the only one under fire; every eye in the room turned to James.
"Father?" James asked, confirming what I had suspected. But the fleeting triumph that his persecution had given me evaporated instantaneously. If he was the son of the King (whatever he was the King of), he most certainly wouldn’t be held to this level of scrutiny long. Whatever he planned to do, no matter how sadistic, could probably be dismissed with a wave of his father’s bony hand.
"Why did you bring an enemy into our home, James?" The king’s voice was firm but fair, equal parts discipline and reason. But it didn’t mean much to me as I realized just what this man was the King of.
I’d made a very grave mistake in thinking that the werewolf who’d attacked me would be alone in his curse, the favored son of a man who’d used his wealth and affluence to make excuses for him. This wasn’t just a man with a dark secret that his family guarded. James, and I suspected Julius, were merely two werewolves of an entire coven, the children of the alpha…the king who sat at the forefront of the room.
I’d never particularly thought of werewolves as a viable threat, the way that most girls don’t think they will ever be trapped by strangers or taken from an empty street. I simply hadn’t considered that running into a werewolf was something that would ever happen to me, and yet in the past week I’d not only been cornered in a dark alley, but also kidnapped. I’d never thought I would have to worry about something so seemingly simple as that, no less something as unrealistic as running into a pack of werewolves. I considered the people before me with a new respect born of intimidation, wondering if they were all werewolves, then looked to Janna and received affirmation. As quickly as the fear had set upon me, I shoved it back, refusing to let them notice my weakness.
"This creature...she's entirely different from anything we know.” James spared me a quick glance, but his expression was unreadable as ever. “I brought her here, not as our enemy, but as a human."
"Please, James, she is a woman all the same. We will treat her with the same respect you dedicate to your mother and sister." The king's face was stoic, but he glanced my way before turning back to his son. He leaned forward. “Tell us what happened.”
James looked uncomfortable under the weight of everybody’s questioning eyes, but he stood straight. “When I bit her, it was…different.” He looked at me as though he were trying to see through me, understand how I had deceived him. I didn’t want to be transparent, least of all to him. “Though she had the very distinctive qualities of a vampire, it was immediately obvious that she was not.” James didn’t look away from me when he spoke, so I didn’t either.
The king tilted his head to the side. “But we do not bring humans home."
James looked calmly at his father. "No." I could see the muscles locked in his jaw. He seemed composed but for that one tense gesture, which offered me an inordinate amount of satisfaction.
"Nor do we bring vampires home."
"No."
"So why, then, would you bring home a hybrid of the two?"
The way he questioned him was how I imagined scenes in court, which is what I gathered this was supposed to be. But who was the offender here? I was the prisoner, though I wasn’t necessarily in the wrong. Did the King suspect as much, and would he admit it?
"I didn't know what to do." James admitted, casting me a side-long glance. "These are unusual circumstances. When a vampire is bitten by one of our own, they’re not alive long enough to suffer any consequences. There’s no precedent for a human being bitten by a werewolf, so I could only assume they would be brought back to be restored to health. Lilith is neither, and so neither option seemed like the right one. Ultimately, I brought her here seeking the advice of the council."
"Neither option was the easy one.” The king contested. “But there was a third choice, wasn't there?"
James was silent for a short spell, and then spoke hesitantly, as though he almost didn't dare give voice to his thoughts. "A third choice?"
"One that was much simpler, which would have saved you both from the mess you're in now."
"Which was what?" James asked seriously. It had a skeptical undercurrent, but I could tell his faith in his father was such that he believed his words to be gospel.
The king was in no rush to answer, apparently hoping his son would come up with the solution on his own. James waited calmly, but he didn’t seem to know what his father was alluding to.
"You could have let me go," I suggested. For the first time, I wasn’t scared of him, not when we were surrounded by all of these people, and not when the King was able to speak with such a sound mind. "You could have walked away."
James shook his head immediately, scoffing my idea. "That was never an option."
"Why not?” The King frowned.
James' face flushed. “How was I to walk away, when that was the most damaging choice of all? To leave a vampire running loose among humans, all the while changing into one of us with no sense of how to cope with it? It would have been not only dangerous, but also cruel.”
“So you’re sticking to that pathetic excuse?” I couldn’t bite my tongue, even in front of all these people who were as likely to explode as live ammunition. “That you did this to help me?”
“I was backed into a corner,” Jam
es turned to face me now. “I had to make a choice, and I did.”
“I was the one backed into a corner! You didn’t give me a chance to explain anything before you attacked.”
“You were poised for attack…” James said, though he didn’t seem too convinced now.
“Those men had me against the wall!” I practically shouted. My voice echoed through the expansive room, but I didn’t pause long enough to be embarrassed about that. I had no mind for anyone but James.
“Oh, enough!” The red-head slammed her hand upon the table and looked to the boys with those piercing eyes, although when fixed upon them her gaze seemed softer. “James, please tell the council, from the beginning, what you witnessed.”
James straightened a little. “Julius and I were on patrol when we heard a scuffle in the alley. What we saw was a couple of men with a girl pinned against the wall outside a bar. We saw a woman in danger, so we acted. But when we got closer, I realized she wasn’t a human. Julius sent the men running, and then cornered her before she could run too.” It sounded rehearsed, until his voice faltered. “I just…reacted. I bit her, because I thought it was a trap for those two humans.” He dared glance at me, looking rightfully ashamed, to catch the withering way I glared at him.
“And?” The King prodded.
“And as soon as I realized she wasn’t a threat, I released her. She wasn’t conscious, and Julius and I discussed what we should do. We decided it was wrong to leave a human in pain and dangerous to leave a vampire running wild, so we brought her here. I alerted Delilah, who tended to her immediate care, and then deposited her in the training block before seeking the advice of the council.”
The woman appraised him coolly, and then turned to his brother with a delicate raise of her eyebrow. “Julius?”
“Exactly as James said.”
“So then you were caught hunting on human territory.” The woman announced, cutting through me with that acidic stare. She harbored a very obvious dislike for me, one that was unrivaled except perhaps by Julius. And just like that, I realized this was their mother, or at the very least it was certainly Julius’ mother, judging by the shared narrow shape of their eyes and their mutual hatred for me.
The revelation made me angry. “Is anybody going to give me a chance to explain, or do we just condemn people without a fair trial these days?”
“Rest assured,” The Queen said in a bitter voice. “That this is not a trial. Your guilt has already been determined. What we have gathered for is the determination of your fate.”
My face burned with anger. “Your sons go out on the one night of the month designated for the Vampire’s hunt, and you’re calling my actions into question.”
“Nonsense.” She shook her head. “The night was over and so should the hunt have been. It was a new day.”
The stunned silence offered me no answer, but it gave me all the explanation I needed. The eyes of everyone in the room (save for the queens which were still trained on me with an intensity that would suggest she was trying to slice me in half) turned to the brothers.
“Lilith has a point,” The King said softly. “Perhaps you’d like to explain to the council, and to your parents, why you would both break something we hold as sacred, the simple laws that govern our existence?”
Julius looked at James, who remained impassive and silent. “No, not really.” He grinned, as though he could resort to a charming negligence.
“It wasn’t an option, Julius. James,” Though I didn’t know them or anything about their less-than-usual family dynamic, I could see in the way he looked at his son that he expected James’ honesty. “Why were you out so early?”
James looked at the ground for a few moments before finally opening his mouth to speak. It was Julius, however, who did the speaking. “We weren’t on official assignment,” Julius said, the first time I’d heard him speak in a formal tone. “I ran off to investigate a rash of disappearances downtown, and James chased after me. He dragged me out of the diner I’d been frequenting as part of my investigation, and we were headed home when we stumbled across that one.” He nodded at me, and as he did I remembered Larissa, telling me about the troublemaker named Julius. Perhaps there was some truth to this story he was telling now.
The King said nothing as he eyed his son thoughtfully for a few moments. The tension was so thick, a butter knife couldn’t have cut through it. A handsaw probably could have. He looked at me, thoughtfully. “So we have two offenses, of the same nature, each equally severe. I see two choices. Both crimes can be acquitted due to the simple fact that they cancel each other out, or both crimes can be punished.” He turned to look at the other people sitting at the table with him, his council. They nodded their agreement. Only the King’ wife sat stoic. “Due to the violent nature of these events, I believe punishment would be excessive, and so we will absolve both violations. All those who would agree?”
Five hands went up at the table, including the king’s. Julius, off to the corner, raised his hand with a smile. The queen was the only one who didn’t move. She sat with her arms crossed, trying to burn a hole through me. But she was the focus of everyone’s attention. “Calista?” The King prompted. “We need a unanimous decision.”
The queen ground her teeth together, her eyes never leaving me as she raised her hand.
“Well, then, the offenses are dismissed. Today they’ve been put to rest and will not be mentioned again.”
Relief surged through me, though I didn’t know exactly what it meant. They didn’t believe me when I said I hadn’t been hunting, but they weren’t going to kill me for it. I wondered if this pardon only existed because it was the King’s own children who were embroiled in this mess.
“Lilith, you are a guest, despite the unhospitable first impression.” He smiled apologetically. “However, I hope you understand the gravitas of your situation with my son. Your paths have crossed, and no matter how inadvertent that was, I believe they are twined for a reason. Further, I hope you recognize that what James said was truth—it would be remiss of us to toss you out into the world, at least until you’ve learned control over what’s happening to you.” He looked at his son. “James, you will help her down this path as you would any of us. Should Lilith leave before she gains an understanding of the road ahead, you will share in the responsibility of whatever may come. Are we understood?”
James and I spoke up in perfect harmony, our incredulous tones almost melding into one. “What?”
The king managed to stay calm, unprovoked by our shared disbelief, and on my part, anger. “I see no reason to turn loose an unarmed girl in the woods, particularly one not yet eighteen, as I suspect you are not. There are many changes in your future, Lilith, and until we’ve taught you how to handle them, it’s best for us all that you stay here.”
I was quiet while his words and their meaning resonated within me. And then my horror rose to the surface, too poignant to be restrained. “You can’t keep me a prisoner!”
“Do you know what makes a prisoner, Lilith?” But he must have meant it to be rhetorical, because he answered, “It is a willingness to accept one’s circumstances. You keep fighting those circumstances and you are no more a prisoner than I.”
His words fell like splintered glass at my feet, fragments of my disbelief glimmering up at me. Was it a joke? He was making me stay, but he wanted me to fight? It made no sense. It was twisted.
“Please consider yourself a guest. You can have your own room, your own freedom, but I can’t allow you to leave until we have the utmost confidence that your release will not pose a risk to others… or to yourself.”
My throat threatened to close around the tears, but I fought them off. I was stuck there until I wasn’t a risk to others…I suspected it meant until whenever they got the whim to kill me, or traded me for whatever they could get their hands on.
“And what exactly, do you think is going to keep me here?”
“I rather hope you’ll learn to like it here.”
The King smiled, a sincere gesture.
“You’re going to regret this,” I warned. They were just words, with nothing to back them up, but I would not go out quietly.
“That’s enough!” Julius said. His voice was clear and loud, firm enough to stop me in my tracks. I glanced at James, curious as to how he felt about all this, and saw the look that I undoubtedly wore on my face mirrored in his. He actually seemed in danger of being physically ill.
The King, pretending that my outburst had never happened, looked to the back of the room, his dark eyes indicating that his mind was in a seemingly far-off place. “Janna,” He addressed his daughter with a smile and the light began to return to his eyes. I turned around to see Janna come forward, taking the spot next to me. James’ father smiled, his eyes shifting between his daughter and me. “Will you show Lilith to her room?”
“Of course,” She smiled, as though it would be an honor. Her eyes turned on me and I almost stumbled backwards in the wake of their intensity, her disappointment, so drastically different from the gentle way she’d looked at me earlier. I was no longer fragile to her; something I’d done had provoked her, and while I couldn’t imagine what it had been, it gave me hope that I could exploit that. “Let’s go.”
I followed her from the room, glad to be away from the council, away from the king and his sons, away from the puppeteers pulling the strings of my life. But Janna’s anger put me on edge.
“I can tell you’re really thrilled with this decision,” Janna said. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I almost didn’t recognize the sarcasm. But then, that’s not saying much since Janna didn’t seem to speak it fluently. I suspected this was uncharted territory for her.
The Celestial Kiss Page 5
