Shortly after my eleventh birthday, which went unnoticed by everyone, I was in a particularly bad mood. Turns out I was suffering from my first bout of PMS, but Anton who had just returned from a trip thought my mood was because I had been forgotten so he made a sad little celebration out of giving me the necklace he had brought back. I had loved him for it because even when we were apart he still thought of me. He was the only one who ever thought of me back then. After watching me push my dinner around my plate and snap at Vivian’s dessert, he had taken me by the hand and ushered me to his room.
“If I asked you what was wrong would you tell me Natasha?” He had asked.
“I am in snit over nothing. I cannot seem to help it.”
“May I hazard a guess as to the cause?”
“By all means.”
“Your birthday was last week and no one remembered.”
It had been a good guess, but I really had no idea why I hated the world. “Perhaps.”
“I believe I can help.” He then handed me a box. Inside the small leather case, was diamond necklace set in white gold. The rope chain was plain gold, but the pendant was a bee made of delicate gold work studded with diamonds. The wings actually looked like they had veins in them. The bee’s body was joined to the head with a tiny loop of metal that made it look like it was flying when it was moved. I had never seen anything so beautiful
“Oh, Anton!”
“It pleases you?”
“Very much. Put it on me please.” He had complied and we stood together as I admired it in the mirror. “Thank you.”
“Do you know why I chose a bee?”
“No.”
“It was to honor your mother. Her name was Melisande, very close to Melissa which is Greek for honey bee.”
In the reflection of the mirror, I had looked up at him and known that I loved him. I had never loved anyone before. That was when Vivian burst through the door.
“Come here you mongrel!” she had demanded.
I had started to walk towards her, but Anton put his hands on my shoulders to keep me with him. “What is the matter Vivian?”
“That trash insulted Daniel.”
Anton shrugged. “Your dessert? She out ranks him.”
“Before the war she out ranked him. If she had any use at all she would out rank him, but she does not. She will apologize to him and have her back lashed.”
“She is a child and you will not touch her. I will see to it that she apologizes to the dessert.”
“Stay out of this Anton,” Vivian said.
“You will not take your lingering jealousy of Melisande out on her daughter. Lucius will hear of this.”
We all knew Lucius would side with Anton if for no other reason than that he had a penis, just like we all knew Vivian hated to be reminded of that. Her eyes fixed on my new necklace and she said, “Then I shall have to punish her another way.” She ripped my necklace off in a blindingly fast motion.
The rage started as a knot low in my abdomen. The more it hurt, the hotter I felt myself becoming as if my skin would burst into flame. My pulse was racing. I could feel myself getting uncontrollably angry and I could not stop it. With my teeth gritted I said, “Give it back.”
She slapped me.
Someone was growling and I realized it was coming from my throat. Vivian’s eyes were huge and in the mirror I saw that my green eyes had gone blood red. The knot in my abdomen began to feel like claw digging into my insides. I could smell the blood that had begun to leak from between my legs. So could the vampires.
Anton said, “Natasha, I need you to look at me.”
“Give it back.”
“You insolent child,” Vivian said. “How dare you threaten me?”
“I have not threatened you yet,” I heard myself say. I was breathing hard with the effort to control the anger that was going to explode out of me at any moment.
Anton took notice of my eyes in the mirror. “Vivian, do not move a hairsbreadth. She is going to snap at any moment.”
“I am not afraid of Melisande’s bastard get even if she is finally coming into her powers.”
Those were Vivian’s last words.
With a snarl that sounded like it came from a wolf’s maul instead a human’s throat, I lunged forward in my first burst of vampiric speed and tore her throat out with my teeth. I was too small to drain her dry and even if I had been able to finish her off that way Anton recovered his senses too soon and pulled me off of her. But the damage had been done. I had spilled enough of her blood into my mouth and onto the floor that she could not heal the wound unless she drank the blood of another vampire. Anton was not about to help her and we watched her turn to dust at our feet. She looked so surprised.
“Mine.” I took the necklace from the pile of ash and put it back on my own neck.
Two hours later, with Lucius howling down the walls that I pay with my life for killing his consort, Anton had me bundled up and out of the house. That is how I wound up with the Elders.
When that story reached Rainor’s coven on the announcement of my pending arrival, they were all waiting to get a look at me. I think they were disappointed that I was not six feet tall and muscle bound. They said it had to be a lie because no one as quiet and reclusive as I was would have the audacity to kill the consort of a caste leader. They decided to test me and because I did not strike back, they said I was weak. Rainor, who knew the truth, warned them off but it was not his job to fight my battles for me; I had to find my own place within the coven. What they did not know was that I played a game of my own.
One thing living with the Elders and the vampires taught me was how to go undetected. When I was unsure of myself as a child, as I was when I entered the coven house, I held back and waited to see what would happen. Being a smart ass came with age and certainty of myself. They also taught me by sheer brute force how to behave properly so I conducted myself like a lady while I learned the weaknesses of my tormentors and stored them away for future use. As it turned out, it was mostly unnecessary to gather that information this time, but it lulled them into a false sense of security where I was concerned. Even other covens that visited us made mention of Rainor’s young guard dog that turned out to be a lap dog instead.
At the end of my first month at the house, all of the young half-castes were taken on a routine visit to one of the other covens to see how negotiations worked. It would be held at a half-caste run restaurant since all negotiations took place over a meal. They had weapons, we had direct and easy access to a caste of vampires they wanted to take out, seemed like an easy deal to show the young pups how it was done. Five of us went along with Rainor and his enforcer at the time, Bernard, although the adults road in our new automobile leaving Kain, Rebecca, Nathan, Francis and myself to follow in the carriage. I had situated myself in the corner so I only had to be next to one of them. Kain, who in general left me alone, took the spot next to me, but Rebecca sat across from me and she loved to get under my skin.
“I do not understand why Rainor brought her along,” she said to Francis while staring at me. “She is utterly useless.”
Francis laughed. “There is no possibility she killed a vampire on her own.”
Kain interrupted them. “Rainor said she did so it must be true.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “If she drank vampire blood then she would have to be in the Order and that is no Soong even if she looks like a vampire.”
Nathan, who liked being right more than he disliked me said, “The Soong drink blood for sustenance on a daily basis, drinking it once does not make you part of the Order it means you are eligible to join if you survive the tasting of it.”
“Thank you professor,” Rebecca snipped. “Either way she is not Order material.”
“How would you know?” I asked. It surprised them because I normally ignored their barbs.
“My mother-”
“Was a red light worker who got pregnant by accident and sold her unborn baby to our coven to be
caste to earn money while she was too fat to be used under a man,” I said.
Kain gave me a look and laughed. “She has you there, Rebecca. It would appear being quiet and listening pays off nicely. While we are on the subject of silence, be quiet all of you we are there.”
The rules for coven meetings stated that everyone had to come unarmed although the leaders could bring their enforcers who were the most deadly half-castes the coven had. Bernard went in first with Rainor behind him and the five of us brining up the rear. I heard a scuffle, a gunshot and the outraged cries of those my age. I rushed inside and saw that we had been set up. The other coven had not simply wanted access to their enemies; they had wanted an all access pass, which meant my coven needed to be gone. They had killed Bernard. Rainor, taken completely by surprise, was in custody. Rebecca was crying, Kain was shaking with fury, the other two were standing there like statues and I, well I calmly pulled the door shut behind me and waited to see what happened next. This sort of violence had been considered light dinner entertainment with Lucius.
Rainor struggled against his captors. “This is against all our laws. When we do not return my coven will retaliate. It will be civil war and divide us when we need to stand united against the vampires.”
“I do not want a battle,” said a man sitting at a nicely set dining table. “That is why we are going to discuss the terms of your surrender over our meal with the presence of my ambassador.” A taller man stepped forward and gave us all a once over.
“Are you Gideon?” Rainor asked the man at the table.
“I am.”
“You are making a mistake.”
“How can I be mistaken when I am not the one being held prisoner? Bringing us to a ticklish subject. Our laws say that one being restrained in any manner cannot handle a negotiation, but if I free you, Rainor, I suspect you will start a fight. Since your enforcer is no longer available, you will need to select one of your brats to speak for you.”
“That is absurd!” Rainor said.
“Yet it is legal. Choose.”
Kain was the oldest out of all of us at seventeen. Rebecca and Francis were fifteen, and Nathan was the same age as me at fourteen. Kain would have been my choice since he had a level head and was the biggest person in the room. But I heard Rainor say, “Natasha.”
“The lap dog?” Gideon asked. “Very well.”
I took a seat at the table with Gideon and waited for the food to be served. Glancing down at the table, I noticed the pieces of silverware I had not paid much attention to were all spoons. It was on the tip of my tongue to question it, when I remembered the rules Rainor had explained to us before we left the house. We could not bring any weapons with us, but anything we were given once we went inside was fair game. They had cleverly not given me anything sharp like a knife or a fork. Until the first course came out, Gideon and I had a staring contest with the ambassador as a silent spectator. I had passed whole meals in silence since to the Elders I was a child and children did not speak until spoken too. I was not going to be unnerved by silence now. Although I was uncertain how I was going to manage a salad with only a spoon.
The first course was caviar, a staple for the humans in Lucius’ house. Gideon seemed disappointed I did not gag at the taste. I smiled and finished my portion. We were three courses in before he began to lay out the terms for turning our city over to him. Instead of listening to what he was blathering about, my attention was on a curious thing. The servers were serving the ambassador first. They should have been serving Gideon first since he was their leader. In fact, they were being much more attentive to the ambassador on the whole. His glass was never half empty as mine was and when wine was accidentally sloshed onto his plate, the pourer bowed and scraped as if the ambassador might have him whipped to death, which an ambassador would never do at a meeting such as this.
Rainor had waited until Gideon was busy talking to enact his plan, which had required Kain to be free from the political front to fight. He gave Kain the signal to attack and Kain struck at one of the men holding Rainor so that our leader could break free. The other novices joined in the fray with Gideon’s people, but I was too focused on my situation to pay attention to what else was going on. Those at a negotiation table were not allowed to leave it until talks were over or the other side automatically won. Gideon had planned this well, but not flawlessly.
I looked at the ambassador and asked, “May I suggest a simpler solution to this situation?”
“I will hear it.”
“If I can kill the opposing leader can we end this now with our city as it is?”
The ambassador laughed. “Sweetheart if you can kill the leader of this coven you can have anything you want.”
“We have a deal?”
“Yes.”
I grinned at him and as fast as I had lunged at Vivian, I had my entrée spoon pinning one of the ambassador’s hands to the table and my dessert spoon embedded in his forehead. The room fell silent. Gideon was staring at me as if I had two heads.
“Natasha,” Rainor said, “what have you done? You killed the ambassador.”
“No. I killed their leader. Didn’t I?” I fixed my gaze on “Gideon”.
The unnamed half-caste swallowed hard. “Yes you did.”
“Then here are my terms, which your leader agreed to when he said if I killed him I could have whatever I wanted. I want my coven leader to have what he is about to request or I will see that you join the real Gideon on the floor.”
Rainor took my seat at the table to set out some excruciating terms while I went to see to my traveling companions. Francis was dead and Nathan had a broken arm from where he had been thrown against the wall. He was not a rapid healer so he was going to have to suffer with it for a week or two. Kain had a cut healing on his face and Rebecca was unharmed because she had wound up hiding under a table. They all wanted to know how I knew the ambassador was really Gideon.
“I pay attention to things. The servers were treating him better than the man who was supposed to be their leader. I merely sat back, played along and waited for the opportune time.”
“You are a devious little one,” Kain said. “Sitting there calm as you please, eating steak with a spoon, all the while setting a trap.”
Three things came out of that day for me. One was Kain’s nickname for me, Little One. The second was a saying that no one really used much anymore. Whenever there was a mission where we appeared to do nothing or to be going down the wrong path to set someone up, we called it “using a spoon,” but with transfers and deaths in the coven, the saying died away because those who had seen it first hand or heard about it when we returned home were gone expect for Rainor and Kain. The third thing I got out of that day was the fearful respect of everyone in that house and they all left me alone.
Here I was, alone again.
Chapter 17
I had been waiting on the corner of Main and Hyacinth for ten minutes when Marcus appeared at my side, leaning against the signpost. Apparently he was my hunting partner for the night. I think he was disappointed I did not jump.
“What’s with the leather?” Marcus asked. “You wore it to meet with Anton that first night too.”
I had not noticed him that night, but then I was focused on butting heads with Anton at the time. “What’s with the leaning? Last time I saw you at Anton’s house you were leaning in the hall after you used me to set up that brat.”
“Still haven’t forgiven me for that huh?” He grinned.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“Forgive and forget.”
“At your age you should know that theory could get you killed quickly. I’m a baby compared to you and even I know that.”
“You’ve been around long enough to have a reputation. Our paths haven’t crossed but I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“I know, I know. I irritate people to amuse myself.”
“I was not talking about Anton. I heard about you long before I stepped
foot in this town.”
“Is that so?”
“All very intriguing.”
I think he wanted me to ask who specifically had been talking about me, but I wasn’t in the mood to play cat and mouse. I went back to his first question. “About the leather, old habits die hard.”
I was about to say I disappointed him again when he zinged me with, “You really only take the bait with Anton. A pity.”
“This was a test?”
“I wanted to see if I could make you get worked up too, I was hoping you would take it out on-”
“Good evening,” Tristan said.
I looked at Marcus with a scowl. “And they say I like to stir up trouble. I need to watch out for you. What is he doing here?”
Tristan looked down his sharp nose at me. “When the Master said he had agreed to this plan I informed him that I wanted to observe the situation closely. We could open ourselves up to a lot of trouble with this.”
“Don’t tell me. Your caste thinks it is my plan to pick you off one by one and say it was part of the night’s difficulties?”
“That’s a good guess,” Marcus said.
“It’s the same wall I spent the morning banging my head against.” I turned to Tristan, “Let me be clear. If I wanted to kill off members of your caste, I wouldn’t use some Machiavellian plan that would take forever to complete. I would let myself into your house, maybe alone or maybe with some friends, and let the fun begin.”
“All about the slaughter,” Marcus said with a laugh. “My kind of woman.”
“Our Master has declared her his,” Tristan said. “Watch yourself.”
“I am not Anton’s property! If I want to do Marcus in the middle of that street I will.” When I saw Marcus cover his mouth with his hand I knew I had fallen into his trap. He couldn’t rile me up to set me on Tristan, so he set Tristan up to rile me by bringing up the jerkier side of Anton. “Tell me Marcus, does Anton know what a conniver you are?”
Heir to the Coven Page 13
