Blood Crown

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  Seeing Domi—and now Tharell—reminds Julia how different all the supernatural species are. It was just great to talk about, in theory, making the trip here, cementing her promise to Faerie by negotiating terms or intermarrying.

  But facing them within their own realm, Julia feels a sense of the surreal.

  Scott keeps a firm grip on her hand, and she leans against him gratefully. She gains a lot from her soul-meld.

  Strength.

  Love.

  A sure sense of solidness.

  Julia feels as though she would’ve gone insane right at the beginning without his support.

  “Blooded Queen,” Tharell greets.

  Julia looks at where he’s being held. If she hadn’t been expressly told, she wouldn’t know he was in a prison.

  There are no bars, just the vaguest shimmer that somehow outlines four walls of clear, non-permeable material.

  An absence of function reigns supreme. She sees no bathroom, no plant, no door, no furniture.

  It is not a torturous existence, but it must be a boring one. Maybe that’s the torture. The absolute lack of contact with anything engaging.

  Julia sucks in her next inhale. “I’m here to fulfill my promise.”

  Tharell inclines his head. “Wise.” They stare at each other for the space of a heartbeat. “Did you come to gloat, Blooded Queen?”

  Julia gasps, nearly dropping Scott’s hand. Leaning forward, she feels her eyes slit on his dark violet face. “Why would you think that?”

  Tharell looks away as though seeing something in the distance they cannot. “My conduct...”

  “Was because you were getting Praile’s message,” she finishes for him.

  His chin gives a minuscule hike. “Nevertheless, I would expect nothing less.”

  “We want you and Delilah to be free. You can’t help that you’re vampires.”

  “Death-bringers,” Domi corrects quietly from behind them.

  Julia turns to study his face, which is unreadable, as always. “Whatever. The point is that Tharell and Delilah returned on their own, and now they’re being punished for something they can’t help. God—it’s like someone hating somebody else because of the color of their skin. How is this different?”

  Domi scowls.

  Exactly. Julia drops Scott’s hand and folds her arms.

  “Blooded Queen?”

  Julia turns away from Domi with a huff and faces Tharell again. “Yes.”

  Tharell tries to hide a smile. “Perhaps you should save some of the power of your arguments for the negotiation with the Unseelie court?”

  “That’s not a bad point.” Scott speaks for the first time.

  “He cannot leave Faerie.” Domi’s voice is filled with the heat of his indignation. “Tharell would compromise both groups.” He looks between Julia and Scott. “Now that it is our express understanding that Tharell is both a death-bringer and has the demonic as part of his genetic fabric, we cannot just release him into the wild, as it were.”

  Jacqueline places her hand on his arm and gives a slight shake of her head. “It’s enough that he lives in that place, as does my daughter.” A small shudder wracks her slender frame, and Hashna gives a sympathetic whimper.

  Temporarily subdued, Domi remains silent.

  “Okay, I know that Tharell screwed up big-time,” Julia admits. Feeling ridiculous, she restates the facts anyway. “You chopped off Domi’s head and deceived me—Praile almost had me.”

  Tharell lowers his bright icy-blue eyes from her gaze.

  “But...” This is where things get weird for Julia, because looking at Jacqueline, Julia sees how being in Faerie has taken the murderess out of her. She’s all motherly and stuff. So Faerie really is that powerful. “Maybe there’s a way that he can be... I don’t know... protected from demonic influence or something.”

  Julia’s agitation fades as Scott presses his hand to her nape, settling her with the skin-to-skin contact.

  “There is no precedence for this.”

  “But he’s in Faerie jail,” Julia counters, refolding her arms.

  “He is.”

  Julia drops her arms. “Where’s Delilah?”

  “She is next to me,” Tharell says.

  With a sort of slow, dawning horror, Julia looks to the right but sees nothing.

  “Come,” Jacqueline says.

  Julia hears the misery in her voice, and Jacqueline doesn’t seem to care enough to cover it up.

  With a last look at Tharell, Julia and Scott follow Jacqueline roughly five yards.

  A slim, shimmering wall separates the two “cells.” And it’s clear to Julia that they can see each other through the partition, which is as effective as a solid wall. Another torture. To have human interaction without having it.

  Delilah lies on her side, apparently without any visible support, her long dark hair nearly reaching the floor.

  “Delilah,” Jacqueline calls out, clutching Hashna tighter against her bosom.

  Delilah doesn’t move. There’s no hint that she understands someone is there, and the part-vampire, part-Singer doesn’t even twitch.

  Julia and Scott turn to Domi. “What’s going on?”

  He lifts a muscular shoulder then lets it fall. Even in the low but glittering light of the sithen, nothing can mask the brilliant emerald hue of his skin. “We do not know. She has remained thus since she and Tharell entered the sithen.”

  Julia shifts her gaze back to Delilah. She understands that vampires are technically immortal. But even to her untrained eye, it looks as though Delilah is fading somehow.

  Jacqueline presses her open palm to the translucent wall. A shining tear carves a path down her face, and Domi catches it automatically. The clear drop crystalizes inside his hand like a diamond, and he slides the gem into a pocket of the tunic he wears. “Someday I will wear a necklace of the diamonds made by your tears.”

  Sorta morbid.

  “Don’t know if that’s a great thing, buddy,” Scott comments, his eyes never leaving his half-sister’s still form.

  “It is not a boast, but a reminder.”

  “Of what?” Julia asks.

  “My failure.”

  Jacqueline doesn’t move from the wall, silently watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her daughter’s chest.

  She’s breathing, but Julia’s not so dumb she doesn’t get it. This isn’t a life, but an existence.

  And right then, Julia makes herself the promise to loop Tharell and Delilah in her negotiations with the Unseelie.

  She can’t just leave them here.

  Not when Scott’s kin is being held in jail because she’s a vampire or because she killed Queen Darcel. Or because she saved Tharell’s life with the gift of her blood.

  Julia was saved just like that once. She empathized.

  There had to be some way that Julia could get Tharell out of the fey prison. He was clearly a scapegoat because he wasn’t pure sidhe and they had a thing about vampires.

  Of course, Delilah murdering Queen Darcel probably played into that.

  However, she sure as hell isn’t going to endanger her people for one life.

  Nothing’s easy.

  But first things first: negotiate. Then she can find out if there are ancient magicks that can make her wholly angelic again. Because the seed of the demonic isn’t dormant.

  It’s working on her. Julia can feel it.

  Scott

  The longer they’re in Faerie, the more urgently Scott wants to get them the hell out of there.

  The Combatant in him is struggling with Julia’s level of protection.

  A contingent of sidhe warriors has been tasked with her protection. And that should have made Scott have a case of the relaxed feels.

  But no. In Scott’s opinion, which comes from hard experience, they are sneaky bastards who would do pretty much whatever for political gain within their “courts.”

  As evidenced by all the unnecessary fawning over his mate.

  S
cott feels his frown. Currently, he’s holding up the wall, watching a bunch of Unseelie females flit around Julia, “preparing” her for the grand presentation before the Unseelie court.

  It’s all pretentious bullshit to Scott. Even among the standards of his people—he and Julia had a handfasted wedding, very informal. Julia wore flowers in her hair. It was ancient, traditional, and natural. More of a feeling of being organic than being “put on.”

  This shit, though? Wow. Just wow.

  The females back away from swarming his Singer wife, and Julia stands.

  Scott straightens. Holy shit. Okay, maybe a little fawning is okay. That’s his first impression, before the possessive male rises like a beast within.

  Mine, it growls.

  He mercilessly clamps down on that ancient directive.

  His eyes rake Julia from head to toe, and she is flat-out drop-dead gorgeous.

  They’ve done something to her hair, a natural strawberry blond, and turned it into a burnished tawny. Eyes like molten topaz appear as large jewels stranded directly above high cheekbones a lightly blushed pink. Her mass of hair is swept up at the crown of her head, and a few strands have been artfully excluded so wisps float around her temples, curling subtly to frame Julia’s heart-shaped face.

  An ornate dress with a deep bodice in true cream pushes her breasts up like ivory melons.

  Scott’s mouth goes dry as he thinks, Good enough to eat, and hears the dry click as he swallows. Hard.

  The dress reveals nothing, falling to the floor in a curtain of glittering fabric the same champagne-and-cream color as the upper.

  Scott had forgotten how old-fashioned the dress in Faerie is. Everyone always looks like they’re in costume. His eyes run over Julia’s figure once more, catching on her pinched waist and the flare of her hips.

  Those hips he’s held naked in his hands while driving into her body. Loving her body.

  He blinks rapidly.

  The Unseelie female closest to Julia watches Scott’s reaction and says simply, “See the effect?” She waves her palm at a dumbfounded Scott.

  Julia’s cheeks heat with deep pink color.

  Scott croaks out something stupid, making an ass out of himself. Then he clears his throat and tries again. “You are beautiful, Julia.”

  Julia places her palms against her hot cheeks.

  Scott strides to her.

  The Unseelie women move back to allow him to pass.

  She’s even more gorgeous up close. Scott can’t believe he’s lucky enough to have her.

  Dropping to his knees, he wraps his arms around her, pressing the side of his face against her waist. “I’ll never forget this moment.”

  Her fingers card his short hair.

  “What moment?”

  He tips his head back, Julia’s love blinding him through her gaze. Through their meld.

  “The moment when I realize that you’ve grown into the queen you’re meant to be, and I’m your kingly sidekick.” He cracks a grin, and she tugs his hair.

  Scott stands and carefully takes his queen into his arms. “I love you. Julia. If they don’t say yes to whatever you propose, I’ll eat my hat.”

  “You probably won’t have to go that far,” she murmurs against his chest. Her tone of voice is soft and pleased.

  “She is lovely,” the Unseelie who has skin that shimmers like crystalized nutmeg says.

  The woman seemed plain, but her eyes are a clear, light purple. Lavender without a hint of pink. They stand out within all that shimmering bronze skin.

  “I am Esmerelda.”

  The other two females introduced themselves, but Scott, who’s never been great with names, gives polite nods to both and goes back to staring at his mate.

  “You will also need to be attended,” Esmerelda tells him.

  Scott looks down at his denims, rough flannel shirt, and beat-up All Stars. It’s his normal uniform. He hates dressing up, though Marcus always made a point of dressing to his “station” and setting a good example for Region Two.

  His jaw clenches when he thinks about his father. He is missed, but now Marcus is gone, and Julia and Scott have to rule in their own way. And they’re just less formal people.

  His lips twist. “I’ll never clean up like Julia. Lost cause, guys.”

  Esmerelda blinks.

  Scott assumes that’s because of his manner of speaking. “You will not have to, you are merely a complement to Julia. The court will be directly addressing the Blooded Queen.”

  “I gotcha. I know my role is lesser.”

  Esmerelda doesn’t disagree, but keeps silent. Singers are one of the rare species where women are often the rulers and usually the Rare One. Though, there is Gabriel.

  Scott gets pissed just thinking about that asshole, and closes his direction of thought down hard.

  Julia says, “You’re not lesser to me.”

  “Thank the good Lord for that,” Scott murmurs, stroking her back.

  “It is time,” Esmerelda announces as she heads for the door.

  Scott follows. “Not interested in a bunch of dudes dressing me.”

  The corners of Esmerelda’s lips tilt as she gives him her amused profile. “Your affectation will be processed differently.”

  “And we have guards for Julia?” he asks for the eleventh time.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” He doesn’t like leaving her here, but he’s pretty certain that they want to negotiate terms more than they want Julia to come to harm.

  Still, Scott would like to keep her in sight. Just instinct.

  He looks her over a third time before he closes the dressing room door softly behind him.

  The image of Julia dressed in her finery and a flutter of fingers as she waves goodbye stays with him the rest of his life.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lazarus

  His arms and shoulders ache. As does his neck. Lazarus is nude. Though this is his normal state Below, in the realm of Between, he feels vulnerable. And he could be feeling that emotion simply because Lazarus is not among friends.

  The tips of his toes brush the ground. A tired smile curls his lips.

  Drek, prince of the Lanarre, stands just a few yards away. But his reach is powerful, for the whip the Were holds will bear lashes. No bit of Lazarus’s skin will be exempt from the stinging bite of his powerful swing.

  It is their only way to be finally free.

  Lazarus knows to his marrow that the Dark Master himself will eventually investigate Praile’s lack of communication—as there cannot be one between the Dark Master and Lazarus. His mixed heritage disallows that.

  The stain of Praile’s body can still be scented in the little cottage they were held in when Lazarus lay with Tessa. No amount of bleach or cleaning will expunge the foulness of what perished there.

  His eyes sweep those of the accusing, hate-filled crowd.

  All but one set of eyes loathes him with tangible weight.

  Tessa’s tears litter the ground at her feet, creating mud where dirt was before.

  Lazarus mourns his Redemptive having to witness his lashing.

  He can bear it, though. He has borne far worse from the Dark Master’s hand. A finer torturer could not be found within all three realms.

  “Hold the female,” Drek says in a terse voice.

  “Don’t touch me!” Tessa screams, giving a defiant lift of her chin. “I won’t interfere.”

  Lazarus tenses. He can bear the lashes if Tessa remains calm. If the Werewolves hurt or threaten his Redemptive, then, as the humans say, all the bets are off. Lazarus hears the lie his brave female tells. He sees the deceit on her face—her intent to interrupt the Blood Sacrifice he must make.

  Someone must pay for the Lanarre deaths, for the assault against their prince.

  It must be he.

  Laz gives a minute shake of his head in her direction.

  Tessa catches his subtle instruction, and covers her face with her hands as a male Were takes each of
her arms.

  “Hurt her, and I will roast the blood flowing in your veins.”

  Neil, the Were who seems to have a personal vendetta against him and Tessa, smirks, gripping her arm even more tightly, and she flinches with pain.

  Lazarus feels his brow dump low above his eyes. Steam hisses as it escapes his nostrils, mouth, and ears in a wet spiraling vapor.

  “You’re not in a position to do anything, flame boy.”

  It’s always an interesting phenomena when creatures from Between think they stand a reasonable chance against a high demonic from Below. Yes, angelic can absolutely go toe to toe with the likes of the high demons. But a Were? Though he is Lanarre, the only thing that has afforded him is arrogance.

  Not enough to truly best me.

  On occasion, though Praile was a loathsome creature, Lazarus finds he enjoys channeling him.

  “Those from Below do not speak to hear themselves talk, Lanarre.”

  “Whatever, I’m going to hold on to your female and watch you bleed.” He bares his teeth.

  That type of male, regardless of species, is inherently interested in his own boorish behavior. Laz ignores him, training his eyes on Drek. His second, Bowen, says something with obvious reluctance in a low voice. Drek brings the end of the barbed whip behind him. The barbs make a many-pronged trail as they slide along the dirt.

  Drek gets into position.

  Their eyes lock.

  The first lash whistles through the air then the barbs find brutal purchase on his exposed flesh, stealing Laz’s breath.

  Because Laz can survive it, does not mean persevering is a simple matter.

  There is nothing elegant about allowing his own torture, when he fully understands that he possesses the strength to flatten half the Lanarre from this plane.

  But Laz never wants to deal with them again. Some assurances come at a high cost.

  So the lashes rain down, and steam pours forth from the holes of his body, furiously attempting to heal damage that’s continually meted.

  Laz bleeds, and Tessa wails her anguish.

  Far off, the lone cry of a bird can be heard.

  Tahlia

  Tahlia has a dream she is falling but never lands.

  Then she does.

  Hard.

  The ground robs her of breath, and she lies on top of fragrant pine needles, gasping like a fish tossed out of water. Moon. She fell asleep in bird form and fell out of the tree. Again.