Spring's Vampires. Withered Rose: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (Soulmates of Seasons Book 3)

by Eva Brandt

  April’s eyes widened. Perhaps she had not expected me to have given the issue so much thought. “N-No, Your Majesty. It’s not like that. I would never take advantage of your kindness and generosity.”

  “Perhaps not on purpose, but people do things by accident or on impulse all the time.” I knew that better than most, considering that I was guilty of the same crime. “For what it’s worth, I do understand the inclination, and in a way, I don’t blame you for it, but I’m still a little disappointed.”

  Silence fell over us as April processed my words. I didn’t know what I expected her to say. Maybe not saying anything at all was better. To a certain extent, all of this was my fault and I had failed them by being so indecisive. It was in moments like these that I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made the right choice in my decision to become the queen of Tis Ánoixis. But I would get over it because I had to and my people needed me. The Realm of Eternal Youth needed to eternally bloom, and for that to happen, its queen could not wither away.

  I was so tired.

  A strange, sudden wooziness flowed over me, and my vision blurred. The bright blue of the cloudless skies seemed to turn grey. Weakness invaded my limbs, and my hold on the spring breeze faltered. The magic that had never abandoned me, not for centuries, dissipated like smoke in the wind, and I fell, unable to hold myself aloft any longer.

  April caught me before I could hit the ground. Her warm arms enveloped my body and her wings glowed so brightly it hurt my eyes. “Your Majesty!” she called out. “What’s wrong?”

  “I-I don’t know. Just... Please, land.”

  April obediently set me down on the ground, and I buried my hands into the grass, seeking comfort in the life and power inherent to the core of Chronikos. It came to me just as easily as it had this morning, and yet, there seemed to be some kind of barrier between us.

  An ethereal touch brushed over my cheek, icy cold, sending shivers down my spine. It was familiar to me, both comforting and not.

  Unbidden, a memory of the three vampires surged in my head. I remembered how it had felt like to have Baltasar feed on my blood, and I wondered if maybe I’d missed more about my undead guests than I’d originally realized.

  I had told Green that I knew what I was doing, but did I really? Once again, I had jumped into something without being prepared, and it looked like I would pay the price.

  No. No, this wasn’t their fault. Despite the somewhat complicated nature of our current relationship, I was confident that they would never hurt me. This was something else.

  “Shh,” an indistinct voice suddenly said in my head. “You don’t have to be afraid of that. You don’t have to be afraid of anything anymore.”

  My weakening magic responded to the sound of the voice. “W-What? Who are you?” Was it Snegurka? Had my sister’s enemy managed to come after me? It had to be her. Who else would have the power to attack me like this?

  “You know better than to ask that question, dearest Eranthe,” came the reply. “And you know in your heart why I’m here. It is not for petty revenge.”

  Not for petty revenge? This couldn’t be Snegurka, then. That invalidated my sole theory on the reasons for the voice’s presence. Fortunately, my attacker was talkative and elaborated on his train of thought without me having to ask. “You never wanted to be queen. It’s not in your character to make difficult decisions that hurt people. It weighs on you. That is why I am here, to free you from that burden, and to bring you to your real home.”

  It grated on me to acknowledge the fact that, in some ways, the voice wasn’t wrong. I did indeed occasionally resent the weight of the throne. But at the same time, I acknowledged that it was my duty to be the best queen I could possibly be. I had no desire to leave my crown to anyone.

  Also, what in the name of the gods was ‘real home’ supposed to mean?

  “Tis Ánoixis is my home,” I mentally replied, “and I am its queen. Nothing will ever change that.”

  The voice didn’t acknowledge my words. I tried to reach for April, to reassure both her and myself. I couldn’t see my lieutenant anymore. I couldn’t see anything at all. The world had darkened as if someone had stolen all the brightness from my life. For a few seconds, a flash of crimson light illuminated the obscurity that had swallowed my mind, and then, I knew no more.

  * * *

  Adrian

  Contrary to popular belief, blood magic wasn’t the same thing as necromancy. While the two branches of mysticism were often used together in spells, the former was far more related to life than the latter. For this reason, pure-blood vampires often had trouble casting complicated blood magic spells, and it was only the ancient and extremely experienced that could overcome the natural hurdle of their bodies.

  Living strigoi like me did not have that problem. I excelled at blood magic, although I also acknowledged that it was a very dangerous power to use. I also had not intended to use it in any way throughout this trip.

  For Eranthe’s sake, I would make an exception.

  She had kept her word when she had said that she would speak with her subordinates, as no one disturbed us while we made our way back to the guest rooms that had been our cells. As I had decided, we picked Baltasar’s room for our refuge. The mild scent of Eranthe’s blood still lingered in the air, sweet, alluring and teeming with power. It was the perfect place for a blood magic ritual.

  “All right,” I told my friends. “You know how this works. Get naked.”

  Baltasar and Cezar rolled their eyes at me. “Yes, yes,” Cezar said. “You’re so bossy.”

  “Look who’s talking.” I snorted. “Get a move on. The sooner we do this, the faster we’ll be able to find our answers.”

  Even as I spoke, I was already starting to remove my own clothes. It had nothing to do with sexuality. I loved my friends dearly, and I would have been willing to be burned alive for their sake, but the affection between us was platonic. They were like family, which was the only reason why I always included them in my blood rituals. Using such powers with someone you didn’t completely trust could result in dire consequences, but I had no such issues with them.

  The clothes, on the other hand, were a barrier and would get in a way during the ritual. If we wanted this to work, we had to go all out, especially since we were not in The Voievodat.

  Once we were naked, we stood in a circle and extended our wrists toward one another. I slashed Baltasar’s arm open with my claw, while he did the same for Cezar and Cezar reciprocated for me. As our blood dripped over the smooth floor, I began to chant, ancient words of power coming easily to my lips.

  “Blood of my brothers, blood of my bloodline, blood that we share, bring forth your power and show me your secrets. Let nothing be hidden from our sight. Answer the questions that are in our souls and give us the power of this realm’s heart.”

  It was dangerous to connect to Tis Ánoixis in this way, since it wasn’t my homeland and trying to channel its abilities could badly backfire on us. However, we had a huge ace up our sleeve, the fact that Baltasar had fed on Eranthe.

  While feeding was above all else, an act of intimacy, bonding, pleasure, and sometimes, survival, it also had a secondary side-effect. People who were very powerful could temporarily lend some of their strengths to a vampire through their blood. No vampire would be able to make flowers bloom with a thought or summon the spring breeze, but Eranthe’s connection to her realm’s center was so extreme that it had seeped into Baltasar and, to a lesser extent, Cezar.

  If Eranthe had given my friends this gift, it stood to reason that we had to use it for her benefit.

  Since I hadn’t drunk her blood, Baltasar had to share Eranthe’s power with me. I brought his wrist to my mouth, and the moment I pressed my lips to his flesh, an explosion seemed to go off inside my body. I could instantly taste her inside him. I’d drunk Baltasar’s blood plenty of times, usually for practical reasons, and it had never felt like this. Despite my complete determination to keep this exchange
from going out of control, my eyes drifted shut and I couldn’t help but let out a small moan.

  If this indirect feeding had such an effect on me, I could not imagine how good actually drinking from Eranthe must’ve felt. I had to admire Baltasar and Cezar for their restraint. They might have taken things further than they had originally intended, but in the end, they had held back.

  A cool, steady hand landed in my hair, anchoring me. “You’re here with us, Adrian. Breathe. Don’t let it control you.”

  Cezar’s familiar voiced slashed through the haze in my mind like a knife. I hastily gathered my scattered wits, ashamed that I’d lost sight of my goal so quickly. Taking a deep breath—one that I shouldn’t have needed—I shut down all distractions, focusing solely on my goal, to find the creature that endangered Eranthe.

  This would be difficult since Snegurka had a deeper affinity to Chronikos than we did. However, I was nothing if not determined, and I’d done more difficult things with my friends by my side.

  When I opened my eyes, my vision was shrouded in crimson. It should have been unnerving, but instead, it gave me clarity, a focus I couldn’t normally reach. More blood dripped onto the floor, creating a perfect circle around our bare feet. I knelt and dipped my fingers in it, throwing my head back as more power exploded over me.

  It was so intense it hurt, but I embraced the pain. It tasted almost as sweet as the lingering flavor of Eranthe in Baltasar’s blood. It made me feel so alive, so connected to everything I had lost and I had gained.

  As my mind traveled through time and space, the song of our shared life essence guided me in the right direction, and I pulled my friends along on my journey. It felt like flying, except in some ways, better, because when we were like this, we didn’t have to brave the discomfort caused by sunlight. Everything was sharper and crisper, no matter what time of the day it was. Nothing and no one could stop us. Or so I thought.

  My ritual came to a screeching halt when I sensed a terrible disturbance through my recently formed connection to Chronikos, or perhaps to Eranthe. Was it Snegurka? Had the vengeful spirit finally made her move?

  This was not at all what I had expected to find through this enchantment. I had not believed our intervention and battle with Snegurka would come quite so quickly. Selene had said that the former queen was still stuck in The Realm of Eternal Ice, and judging by her general tone, I’d assumed we had a little more time at our disposal.

  Apparently, even vampires could run out of time, because we had not anticipated this.

  “Adrian, hurry!” Cezar shouted in my mind. “Something’s wrong.”

  That was the understatement of the fucking millennium. I realized better than anyone just how much trouble we were in.

  I pushed myself to the limit, willing my mind to find her, to use every single ounce of power I had to rush to her aid. I could sense her nearby, so very close to me, the light of her bright and beautiful essence guiding my path like a beacon. Unfortunately, that light blinded me and my haste proved to be detrimental. I didn’t see the astral wall between us and Eranthe until I ran into it.

  The recoil struck me with such intensity that I was almost propelled back into my own body. I lost control of the ritual, and I would’ve certainly ended up making quite a mess—of my mind and those of my friends—had Baltasar and Cezar not managed to stabilize us at the last moment. They didn’t have my skills, but they knew enough to keep us from spiraling into the nothingness while I recovered my composure.

  By the time I stopped shaking, though, I had almost completely lost track of Eranthe and the blaze of her essence had flickered away into a very distant flame. I cursed lowly. If we didn’t hurry, we would lose her.

  My friends’ efforts kept us from utterly failing the woman who had swept into our lives with the gentleness of the spring breeze and the viciousness of a hurricane. However, they did not provide us with a solution. We had not been banished back into our bodies, or worse, but we were still stuck unable to reach Eranthe.

  Over and over, we slammed into the shield. At first, it didn’t seem to work. We would have had better luck with making a vampire turn vegetarian than with bypassing whatever force blocked our path.

  I didn’t know what actually made the difference, what caused the change that saved us from disaster. Maybe it wasn’t anything in particular, just the sheer force of our combined desperation sweeping away the magic that was trying to hold us back. Either way, when the shield fell, we barely felt it. We simply stumbled forward, pursuing the fading light, hoping and praying that we were not too late.

  We should have known better than to hope for anything. Naive dreams were for mortals, not vampires who had seen too much to ever believe in anything except the immutable cruelty of fate and men alike. Even so, when our spirits reached Eranthe, the sight that met our eyes filled us with despair stronger than any emotion I’d felt in the past.

  Eranthe lay motionless on the ground, her creamy complexion already turning pasty, paler than that of most vampires I knew. A woman with sprite-like wings knelt by her side, trying to rouse her. When she saw us approach, she took one look at us and draped herself over Eranthe’s vulnerable form. “Monsters! Murderers! I won’t let you! I won’t let you kill her. Get away!”

  Fuck.

  Seven

  Determination

  Baltasar

  Being called a murderer was not in any way new to me. It sort of came with the territory for a lamia, since we were among the most vicious types of undead in The Voievodat. I might not eat babies for breakfast like my mother, but that didn’t make me any less dangerous. I was used to the consequences.

  Sometimes, the accusations had been true. Other times, they had been false. But I was undead, and in the big picture, these things did not matter to me.

  However, there were exceptions to every rule, and it looked like Queen Eiar of The Realm of Eternal Youth—or Eranthe, as her mother had called her—was the exception for me, in every way.

  “Monsters!” Eranthe’s companion shouted. “Murderers! I won’t let you kill her! Get away!”

  The words would’ve had no effect on me had I not taken in their reason, had I not looked at Eranthe’s still form and seen the extent of her pallor. I’d seen other people look like that more times than I could count and it had always been because one of us had lost control.

  Just two weeks before our departure, I’d witnessed one of the emperor’s blood slaves being ushered to receive medical attention. I didn’t know what had happened to her, but I surmised her fate had been unfortunate. The zombie who had been carrying her had displayed more signs of life than she had. And Eranthe looked worse than the blood slave and the zombie put together.

  What had I done?

  Cezar and Adrian both looked at me. There was no accusation in their eyes, but that didn’t make me feel better. If anything, their compassion added to the oppressive guilt already threatening to crush me, making my head spin and my hold on the ritual flicker.

  Adrian’s ethereal hand landed on my shoulder, more solid than it should have been when we were in this in-between state. “We can still help her,” Adrian said. “Breathe.”

  That was stupid advice. Breathing had never helped me that much. “Adrian, we’re not even here.”

  Adrian clenched his jaw so tightly I was shocked he didn’t snap his fangs right off. “We don’t need to be. Get out of the way.”

  The latter sentence was not directed at me but at the green-winged woman. She opened her mouth, obviously intending to protest. Magic already glowed at her fingertips and her wings started to emanate a cloud of luminous dust.

  “Never!”

  The word ‘never’ didn’t mean anything to a determined vampire. Perhaps this sprite-like woman was right in that having us approach Eranthe would not help her now, but on the other hand, I trusted Adrian’s assessment. If he said that we could help her, then we could.

  Besides, the sprite certainly hadn’t done anything until our arrival.
Practicality dictated that we needed to at least try.

  Despite the sprite’s attempts to stop us, it was easy for us to literally ghost past her. Well, Adrian did that. Cezar shoved her out of the way, pushing her to the side with a strength that belied his spiritual form.

  I followed him and dropped to my knees next to Eranthe. This was more of a challenge than it should have been since sitting down on something solid didn’t come naturally to a spirit.

  I had a lot of experience doing things that didn’t come naturally, though, and I didn’t let my anguish change that. I had to believe that Adrian was right and we could still turn this around.

  It would have been better if we’d been here physically. If that had been the case, I could have simply offered her my blood, which, in theory, should have fixed the problem. But we were nowhere near Eranthe’s location. In fact, I had no idea where we’d actually ended up during Adrian’s ritual. We could not rely on anyone else for help, as the only person nearby was the sprite-like woman and she had yet to do anything of significance. Since it was up to us, we’d find a way to fix this.

  “What do we do?” I asked Adrian as I brushed my fingers over Eranthe’s cool cheek. “What is wrong with her?”

  “I can’t be sure, but it looks like her magic might have been drained in some way.”

  Some way. They all knew how that had happened.

  “All right. So I give it back. Any suggestion on how to do that from the distance?”

  Adrian shot me an unimpressed look. “Magic isn’t strictly tied to one’s body. You know that.”

  I glowered at my friend. “Maybe not for you, but I’m lamia-born. It’s not—”

  “It is the same,” Cezar cut me off, obviously guessing my thoughts. “We’re different, but the same. Self-deprecation, anger, guilt, or accusations won’t help us right now.”

  Despite his words, his voice was tight with almost physical pain. I wondered if it was me, or himself he was trying to convince.