by Eva Brandt
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was Pierce really trying to reason with King Sterling? Surely it wouldn’t work, not after everything.
I had wildly misjudged the situation as King Sterling did hear him out. “Who are you? Explain yourself, that statement, and this attack.”
“My name is Pierce Garnier. I am a twice-blessed, sworn to serve Louis de Hastingues. We have no actual quarrel with your people. We are only here to claim what is ours, the woman who goes by the name of Lucienne Hastings. If you will allow it, we will take her, our wounded and dead, and be on our way.”
Despite my precarious position, I couldn’t help but laugh at him. “You must be joking. Your leader killed the Alarian queen and ate several dozen Alarian soldiers. You were the ones to attack the wedding. You’re scavengers and none of this would’ve happened if not for you.”
“I beg to differ,” one of the Dames Blanches said. “This state of affairs is born from the actions of Mathias Vandale, who is the one who took over the body of Prince Darius Alarisson to further his own wicked interests. Most of us are not Accursed at all and those who are do not prey on humans. We wouldn’t have come here at all had Mathias Vandale not provoked us.”
She couldn’t possibly be serious. After all the damage they’d done, they couldn’t mean to blame it all on Mathias. King Sterling wouldn’t fall for such a ridiculous strategy.
He didn’t. In fact, the explanation made him even warier than he’d already been. “No matter what reasons you might have had, the fact remains that you attacked The Pure Kingdom of Alaria,” he said with a fierce scowl. “You cannot expect us to just let you go. If you were as concerned about Mathias Vandale as you claimed, you could have notified us through the regular channels and we could have worked together to remove the threat he represented. Your leader chose a violent, brutal approach, and because of that, countless are dead.”
“It is not my place to provide an opinion over the rightness or wrongness of his actions,” Pierce replied. “However, I urge you to keep this in mind. We’ve lost just as much. Enough blood has been spilled over this episode. End this. Give us Lucienne, Bjorn Hastings, and Malachai Braun. In exchange, we will assist you to eject Mathias Vandale from your son’s body and make sure he survives.”
That offer did make a difference. Sterling stole a look past Pierce’s shoulder, at Mathias’s motionless form. He was still in Darius’s body and possibly close to bleeding out. At this point, he might very well be beyond the aid of regular Alarian healing.
That naturally meant that the continuity of the Alarian line was in serious danger. Sure, King Sterling could take another queen, but that was only a hypothetical possibility. Without Darius, Sterling did not have an heir and the prospects of the kingdom looked grim. “I will allow you to take the woman if you can save Darius,” the king finally decided. “Bjorn Hastings and Malachai Braun must remain with The Pure Kingdom of Alaria to receive punishment for their actions.”
“They attacked my mother and sister,” Pierce protested. “It is my right as well to avenge my family.”
“The betrayal of their promises to Alaria takes precedence. We will punish them here.”
I suspected that Pierce had already known things would end this way. He had only tried to claim the right to punish me and Malachai so that he could pretend he was actually compromising. He didn’t continue with his little game for too long. “So be it. We have a deal.”
Pierce snapped his fingers and two Dames Blanches fished Lucienne from beneath Bjorn. I tensed, cursing my weakness and my inability to go to her aid. Think, Malachai, think. You’re better than this. You’re not helpless. You can still...
My train of thought came to an abrupt halt when Lucienne let out a low groan and opened her eyes. “What happened?” she whispered in French. “Ugh. My head.”
The Dames Blanches by her side went rigid, waiting for an explosion of temper that never came. Suddenly, I had a very bad feeling. The situation was already terrible, but no matter how bad you were doing at any point in time, things could always get worse.
What happened next was the clearest possible example of that motto.
“Aunt Augustine?” Lucienne asked, blinking dazedly at one of the women. “What’s wrong? Where are we?”
She appeared to know the Dames Blanches, but they were too befuddled by her change in demeanor to answer her questions. Pierce wasn’t. He dropped to his knees next to her and took her hand. “It’s all right, Lucienne. Breathe. We were under attack by a group of rogue scavengers, but they were defeated.”
“Rogue scavengers?” she repeated, her eyes wide with alarm. “But why? Pierce, where is Father?”
“Wounded, I’m afraid.”
His grim tone frightened her further. She shot to her feet, swaying slightly because of the lingering side-effects of the blood loss. “Where is he? Take me to him!”
What was this madness? Lucienne didn’t know her father. I was sure of it. She had been raised as an orphan, right here in New York, and she hadn’t been aware Louis de Hastingues existed. Less than ten minutes before, she had attacked him herself using her magic.
Then why was she showing such concern for him? Why had she called the Dame Blanche by her name? This wasn’t right.
The Dame Blanche Lucienne had identified as her aunt grabbed her arm and squeezed it tightly. “Lucienne, calm down. He’s receiving medical attention right now. You will see him once he’s better. I promise you.”
“That’s not good enough! You can’t just expect me to stand here and do nothing.”
I would’ve deemed Lucienne’s angry demand calming, as it reminded me of the way she refused to accept the notion that the Accursed Syndrome could not be fought. Lucienne was always a rebel, always brave and stubborn. No matter what happened, that would never change.
Unfortunately for us, her defiance was not enough to protect her. Pierce took shameless advantage of her confusion. “It will only be for a little while, my love,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “Just until we finish the arrangements with the Alarians. And then we can go home and focus on getting better.”
My love? Oh, hell no. That fucking bastard! He’d used her as a glorified battery, and then attacked Bjorn while the incubus had been healing her from a gunshot wound. And now, he was calling her mon amour and pretending everything was peachy keen between them?
Lucienne didn’t push him away and seemed to believe he was telling the truth, so something had gone very wrong after she had been shot. It might not have been her wound at all, but a reaction to the shell shards. As far as I’d seen, she hadn’t gotten hit, but neither had Bjorn and he’d been unconscious and later, very weak.
Either way, I couldn’t allow this. I couldn’t allow the Garniers to use her again.
“Lucienne, don’t listen to him. He’s not—”
“Be silent, wretch,” Valerian cut me off, kicking me in the head so hard I saw stars. “Your opinion of the matter is irrelevant.”
I hadn’t realized he was the one holding me down. Ungrateful bastard. I should have just left him to die at the hands of the Dames Blanches. One less Alarian would’ve been a gift to the world. With the exception of Darius, they were all trash, and if I survived today, I would make it my life’s mission to rip them all to pieces, slowly and painfully.
My words had an unexpected side-effect. Lucienne turned and looked straight at me. When our gazes met, I saw no recognition in her dark eyes. “Who is that, Pierce, and why is he talking to me like he knows me?” she asked.
The realization that my soulmate didn’t remember me was more painful and toxic than the silver poisoning still affecting my body. I wanted to reply, to explain, to shake her and make her see sense, but the words didn’t come.
Realistically, I realized all too well that Lucienne and I had only known one another for two weeks. Pierce, on the other hand, had known her for years. If something had indeed happened to her mind, it was far more likely that she’d remember the person
she’d been friends with for so long and not the guy she’d had a handful of conversations with. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a bitch.
Once again, Pierce embraced the opportunity he had been given. “His name is Malachai Braun and he is a former Alarian guardian. He works for Mathias Vandale now and he used a form of dark magic to weaken your father and lower his guard. You don’t need to worry about him, my love. He will be tried by the Alarians and undoubtedly executed.”
Lucienne freed herself from Pierce’s hold, never looking away from my face even as she replied, “Like hell, he will. If he hurt my father, I want him to pay, right this moment. I want to see him burn.”
She meant that literally, in the same way Mathias had meant his own earlier threat. I could see it in the way her eyes lit up with an inferno of anger, in the sudden glow of her hands, no longer purple, but a fiery red. Without looking at Pierce, she started to walk toward me, just as calm and collected as she had been when she’d faced off against her father.
Several Alarians reached for their weapons, but King Sterling discreetly shook his head. If I hadn’t known any better, I could’ve sworn he was enjoying this mess and this spectacle.
“Did you really think you would be able to get away with harming me and my family?” Lucienne asked. “Did you really think I wouldn’t make you pay?”
The heat she emanated was so intense that the Alarians holding me down flinched. They were too good at their jobs to let me go, which meant that I was very close to being turned into a crispy version of myself, at the hands of my own soulmate.
Whatever had happened to her, she was still unstable, and her condition was only worsening with every second that passed. “Lucienne, don’t do this. You’ll regret it all your life if you hurt me.”
“Oh, will I?” she asked with an unpleasant smile. “I don’t think so. In fact, I think I would regret not ending your miserable life here and now, before your little Alarian friends can hide you in their comfortable palace.”
She sounded so different from the woman I’d come to know and love that it hurt. I remembered my first exchange with Pierce at her apartment, when he had shouted, “You don’t know anything,” in my face. Had he been telling the truth? What had I missed when it came to the past of my beautiful soulmate?
The question was on my lips, but I didn’t have the courage to utter it, not when the hatred in her stance and her gaze drained me of all desire to fight. On some level, I knew I shouldn’t be giving up. On the contrary, I should be fighting this, continuing to try to talk her down, to reach out to her. Lucienne, my Lucienne, was still in there.
But the sight of the beast hiding inside her reminded me of my own savage nature, of the day she had offered herself to me with trust and openness and I’d almost repaid her with betrayal.
Maybe this was punishment. Maybe it had always been meant to end this way. Maybe I didn’t deserve happiness, not after everything I’d done.
“Maybe you’re an over-dramatic idiot with no sense of self-preservation.”
I jolted at the now familiar sound of Alois’s voice. “Seriously, I’m gone for a handful of days and this is what happens?” he asked as he stepped into my line of sight. “How did you get by when I wasn’t around? Never mind, don’t answer that. I already know how.”
He was right next to Lucienne now, and I didn’t know if I was supposed to look at him or at her. The dilemma became a non-issue when Lucienne turned toward him, her eyes even brighter and fiercer than before. “Who the hell are you?”
Alois let out an exasperated sigh. “You know, Lucienne de Hastingues, you really should stop making rushed decisions. In the long run, they’re detrimental for everyone’s health, including your own.”
“That’s not an answer. I’m not in the mood for playing games. Tell me who you are, now, or I will make you regret it.”
Alois must have realized she meant it because he actually provided her with a real reply. It was cryptic, but it was more than he’d ever told me. “I’m no one special. Just the son of the man you’re planning to kill. Sort of.”
Lucienne blanched at his words, obviously not knowing how to handle this. “Ah. Err...”
“Not to worry. I can understand why you’re feeling conflicted. A lot has been going on that you haven’t had the time to process. As such, I think it would be best if we ended this little argument here.”
He smiled at me, and the pendant still in my jacket started to vibrate. “It’s time to go, wouldn’t you agree?”
Wait, what? Go where?
Never mind that. I didn’t care about our destination, as long as it was anywhere else but here, and we could bring Lucienne, Bjorn, and Mathias along.
Naturally, King Sterling wasn’t very happy with Alois’s intervention. He hadn’t stepped in to stop Lucienne’s outburst, but he decided to handle Alois differently. “I do not know who you are and how you got here, young man, but Malachai Braun is a criminal in the custody of The Pure Kingdom of Alaria.”
Alois ignored the Alarian sovereign and shot me an apologetic smile. “Sorry about this. It’ll be a rough ride. Long-distance transportation really isn’t my area of expertise.”
That was the only warning I received before the world went white and a power very similar to that of the pendant engulfed my body. I lost track of all sense of time and space as conflicting emotions assaulted my consciousness. I felt safe, but also more lost than I had been in my life. My physical form threatened to split into individual atoms and drift into the distant void, but I wasn’t in any pain. I could see, but at the same time, I couldn’t.
It was all very confusing, and I was very relieved when the brightness faded into a landscape I could actually acknowledge as real. I was less grateful when I realized I’d materialized mid-air and I was falling toward the ground at an alarming speed. Sometimes, being an Accursed really sucked. Our bodies were far heavier than human ones, so gravity could become an issue if we weren’t careful.
Unfortunately, all attempts to stop my collision with the ground were doomed to fail. The silver poisoning had hindered my already shaky ability to fly and the strange trip courtesy of Alois’s magic hadn’t done me any favors either. I could do nothing but snap my eyes shut and hope I didn’t break every bone in my body.
As it turned out, I’d underestimated Alois and the preparations he had made. Seconds before I was supposed to hit the ground, a swirl of air currents surrounded me, slowing down my fall and turning it into a controlled descent. I instantly recognized the feel of the magic that had come to my assistance and opened my eyes once again.
I wasn’t surprised to see Declan and Darius waiting for me down below. Darius had obviously adjusted to using Mathias’s body, but even so, something in his demeanor made his true identity obvious to me. It was nice to know that Mathias had been honest about their condition, although I’d have been happier to find this out under different circumstances.
Not knowing how to address Darius, I decided to focus on Declan. “Hi, Declan,” I greeted him as I landed. “You look well.”
“I wish I could say the same,” he replied. “What the hell, Malachai? What happened to you?”
I wanted to ask him the same question, to know how he’d ended up allying himself with Mathias Vandale. I decided that would have to wait, though, when I caught sight of Bjorn and Mathias landing next to me. “I think that what happened to me isn’t all that relevant,” I told him. “It’s everyone else who is the problem.”
Bjorn let out a low groan, apparently close to awakening from his daze. Mathias, on the other hand, lay on the ground as motionless as a corpse. His face was pasty white and his chest wound had yet to close. If I hadn’t been a vampire, with the convenient ability to hear his faltering pulse, I probably would have thought he was dead.
To make matters worse, Lucienne was not there at all and when I looked around for Alois, I found him transparent and barely visible. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking and frighteningly we
ak. His customary teasing smirk was nowhere to be seen. “I did my best, but I can’t force her to come if she resists it.”
“It’s all right,” I automatically replied. “It’s not your fault. We owe you our lives. You saved us.”
“I-I didn’t,” he stammered. His figure was fading more and more, and his eyes shone with a panic that chilled me to the bone.”I can’t... I’m sorry. Y-You need to tell her...”
Alois never got the chance to finish the phrase. His body dissipated altogether, leaving no sign that he had ever been there. His disappearance was like a physical blow, one that left behind a wound I couldn’t hope to mend.
With shaking hands, I extracted the pendant from my jacket, only to find in dismay that it wasn’t glowing anymore. Somehow, that scared me almost as much as Lucienne’s memory loss did.
It was Darius who snapped me out of my shock. He pressed his hand to my shoulder and said, “Come on. We can’t stay here any longer. We will regroup at HQ and discuss what happened. Whatever it was that brought you here in this state, I’m sure we can still fix it.”
I remembered the hateful look on Lucienne’s face and couldn’t muster the same degree of confidence. Still, I wasn’t willing to give up, not after Alois had saved us all from certain death and possibly killed himself in the process.
Pocketing the pendant, I nodded. “Your wish is my command, Your Lordship. Lead the way.”
Sixteen
Epilogue
Lucienne
“There’s no sign of them, then? They just... disappeared?”
“It certainly looks like it. But don’t lose hope, Lucienne. We’ll find them and get to the bottom of this. We’ll avenge our fallen.”
I stared at my father’s pale form and clenched my hands into fists, struggling to suppress my anger and frustration. It was so difficult to see him this way when I’d always known him to be so full of strength and vitality. But lashing out at Pierce over it would not help me. None of this was his fault and he was suffering just as much as I was, if not more.
