The Bloodtruth Series (Box Set: Heiress of Lies, The Queen's Betrayal, Trials of Truth, A Heart's Deceit)

by Cege Smith

  The grizzled old soldier had blood running down the side of face and he looked like he had seen a ghost. “Princess, we must get you to safety,” he said, breathing heavily.

  “Rhone, what’s happening?” Angeline asked, trying to keep her voice under control. She had never seen Rhone look afraid. She thought the man was incapable of fear.

  “We’re being attacked, Princess. I think the men can hold them off so that we can make our escape.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Angeline’s father had also taught her in times of crisis, action was better than standing around asking questions. At the moment a million of them were swarming through her mind, but there was no mistaking the urgency in Rhone’s eyes. She nodded instead.

  “You know how to use that, Your Majesty?” Rhone gestured toward the dagger in her hand.

  “You taught me yourself, Rhone. You should know,” Angeline retorted.

  “It’ll be a lot different than sinking it to the hilt in a hay bale,” Rhone said.

  “I am going to be queen someday soon, Rhone. I wouldn’t dare disgrace the Robart name by going down without a fight." It hurt to think that someday was going to be much sooner than either she or her father had anticipated.

  Rhone nodded. “Good. I need to go see if any of the horses are still alive. Stay here until I get back. If anyone but me comes through that opening, you use that dagger and don’t think twice about it.” Rhone swung around and slid back through the flap seconds later, leaving Angeline alone again.

  Angeline could hear yelling and the clank of metal on metal as the fighting continued outside. It didn’t seem as close to her as it had before, but it was hard to tell. She wished she could go outside and see, but it was still the dead of night and without any light she was as likely to end up on the wrong end of one of her own soldiers’ swords by accident. She had to do what Rhone told her to do and pray that they’d make it out safely. There was nothing to do but wait.

  Long minutes crawled by and Angeline could do nothing but pace the tent. Several times it seemed like the fighting stopped and Angeline’s breath would catch, but then the clanging and yelling would continue. Several times screams were abruptly cut off. She wondered what was taking Rhone so long, and what he saw that scared him so badly. Rhone had been fighting since he was a young boy; Angeline thought for sure he would have seen all there was to see on a battlefield.

  She walked to the tent flap and considered. She could just peek and see if she could see Rhone coming. Then she’d drop it back. He’d never know, and she wasn’t disobeying him if she didn’t actually leave the tent. She was raising her hand to the flap when she heard a scrape on the ground right behind her. Then the lamp was blown out and the room plunged into darkness. Angeline opened her mouth to scream.

  Two hands encircled her, one covering her mouth and the other snaking up and easily sweeping the dagger out of her hands. Suddenly her body was spun around in that tight embrace and she found herself staring into a pair of emerald eyes that burned brightly even in the dark.

  “Is that a polite way to greet one of your loyal subjects?” The voice dripped with sarcasm.

  Her eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom, and she could make out his white face and full red lips. A black curl fell over his eyes. It was like her mind turned to mush and she was mesmerized by how beautiful he was. Then she saw the smudge of red running from the man’s mouth. The dominos in her mind fell over in quick succession: an attack in the middle of the night, the screaming horses, and Rhone’s look of terror. She was a Robart; she knew what that meant. An age-old enemy had reappeared in their midst.

  The man whispered a few words and Angeline went limp as she succumbed to the darkness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  As Angeline’s consciousness returned, she felt bumps across her upper arms from cool air. The memory of the last few moments in her tent came rushing back, and she sat up quickly, hitting her forehead on a hard surface right above her.

  “Ouff,” escaped her lips before she could stop it. She reached up. A hard, uneven surface was less than a foot above her. Her eyes were open, yet she couldn’t see anything. Before giving way to panic, she reached her arms out to either side. Almost immediately her left hand hit the same kind of surface, but there was nothing obstructing her right hand. She was in some kind of crevice. She started to scoot to her right and winced at the jagged edges that poked into her back through the fabric of her dress, but she didn’t want to hit her head again. After sliding over about a foot, she started to make out a faint glow in the gloom around her. She reached up and this time there was nothing above her.

  She heard a match strike and sat up as the room was lit in a soft glow. Now she could see around her and her rising suspicion was verified. Angeline was in some kind of cave.

  She knew that she wasn’t alone, and she felt the presence close to her before she saw him out of the corner of her eye. Her throat constricted and she felt like she was drowning. Her memory of the man paled in comparison to the figure who sat in front of her with his back against the wall. He was stunning. Black hair curled against his neck to just above his cloak, and Angeline could make out the outline of a powerful chest framed by his dark cloak. He was smiling at her. Then she saw his emerald eyes, and she knew that her mind was trying to play tricks on her. She hadn’t forgotten the blood. She was in great danger.

  The legends said these creatures could take on near human form when they wanted to, and she realized that this disguise would have allowed him to walk right into their camp. Who would suspect that such a lovely visage hid such an ugly predator?

  “Who are you? What do you want with me? Where are my men?” she demanded. Show no fear, her father’s voice whispered in her mind.

  The man’s smile got bigger. “I believe you have injured yourself, Princess,” he said, ignoring her questions.

  At that moment Angeline felt a tendril of liquid run down the side of her face. She brushed it away and tried not to think about the fact that it was indeed blood on the back of her hand. She felt her stomach clench.

  “May I be of some assistance?” the man asked. A white handkerchief had appeared in his hand although Angeline hadn’t seen him move.

  “I’m fine,” Angeline snapped. “If you want to be of assistance you can return me to my escort.”

  “I’m afraid I am unable to do that.” The man seemed amused. “But the good news for you is that I am willingly going to escort you safely to your new destination.”

  “I am going home to Brebackerin,” Angeline said. “I have no other destination.”

  “A slight…detour, if you will, Your Majesty,” the man said. “There is someone who would like to speak to you on this eve of your Ascension. If that meeting goes well, there is no reason to believe that you won’t be returned to Brebackerin in short order.”

  As the man spoke, Angeline surveyed the room. She saw a small tunnel behind him, but that appeared to be the only way out of the room. Without her escort to rely on, she’d have to use her own wits to escape. The first thing she needed to know was if there were more of the creatures outside. She realized the man had stopped talking and the corners of his mouth were twitching as if he was trying not to laugh.

  “For someone who was asking so many questions a moment ago, you don’t seem to be very interested in listening to the answers. So I will help you out with the one I can see running around in that pretty mind of yours. There is no one else here, only me. But I wouldn’t put any energy into trying to escape. If you don’t give me any trouble it will make this easier for both of us.”

  Angeline refused to be intimidated by someone who wasn’t supposed to exist anymore. “You cannot make me stay with you against my will.”

  “I can and you will,” the man said softly, but Angeline heard the threat in his voice. “Now let’s stop being cross with each other. We have a bit of a journey ahead of us and we might as well make the best of it. So let’s start things off properly. My name is Connor.
Connor Radwin.”

  “I don’t care who you are,” Angeline spat.

  She was out of the crevice, on her feet, and pressed up against him so fast she couldn’t believe it. His fingertips bit into the soft flesh of her upper arms and his face was inches away from hers. He stared deep into her eyes and then it was like all thoughts flew right out of her head. She felt her limbs go slack, and time stood still. There was nothing but his eyes and his mouth. Then he pulled her closer and she heard his deep inhale as he smelled her hair and top of her head. Even though the small part of her mind that was still functioning screamed that it was wrong, she felt another part of her, a much larger part, that didn’t care what he did to her.

  Then his hands unlocked from her arms and Angeline slid to the ground. As her senses returned, she found herself staring at his boots. She felt drunk. He had not moved. She looked up at him.

  “I could make you more pleasant if I chose to, but it has been a long time since I’ve been in the company of someone who I thought could carry on a sophisticated discussion. I understand that you’ve been studying the arts and science up there in your closeted convent. I was a student once too.” Connor’s tone was tinged with regret. “Right now, I am merely following my orders, Princess, which are to bring you to the one who wants to speak with you. I am not your enemy. If I wanted to harm you, believe me, I would have done so already. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  Angeline watched him turn and walk down a stone passageway that led away from the room. Her anger was gone. It was all too much to process. She had met a man who was a vampire, and contrary to every legend she had ever read, he hadn’t killed her. In fact, it felt quite the opposite. She sensed in him a deep desire for companionship. But her father was lying in his bed far away and he was dying. She had to find a way to get back to Brebackerin before that happened. The roots of a new plan started to blossom in her mind.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As she paced the small cave, Angeline tried to recall everything that she knew about vampires. The histories had turned into folklore that eventually became the ghost stories commonly told to children to keep them from misbehaving. That was because most people didn’t believe anymore that vampires ever existed, and although over time the Robarts had been content to leave it that way, Angeline knew better. Of course, the version she had been told was that her ancestor exterminated them. The last epic battle between humans and vampires had been fought by her great-great-great-grandfather, Alair Robart. She grew up listening to the stories of his bravery and valor in wiping out the remaining nests of the vicious beasts who threatened harm to the people of Altera.

  So the last thing that Angeline would have expected was the civilized nature and volatile emotions that appeared to be coursing just below the surface of the vampire who called himself Connor Radwin. Although he would have begun his life as a human, nothing in the legends gave any indication that those qualities remained after the transition into a vampire. Now that she had her wits about her, she didn’t understand why she was still alive.

  But one thing she couldn’t deny when she thought about everything that had happened so far was it felt planned and organized, a far cry from the tales of mauling bloody vampire clans that attacked villages and left everyone for dead.

  She had been sequestered in the convent for far too long to know if there had been any recent outbreaks or infestations. News of the kingdom seldom reached her ears until unless it was included in letters from her father. She frowned. The vampire had known about her studies in the convent. Angeline felt a sinking sensation. The only way he could have known that information was if someone within the convent walls told him. That same spy would have been able to alert him to Angeline’s imminent departure.

  She couldn’t deny it. The attack wasn’t random; it was because of her. This vampire attacked her camp and kidnapped her for a definitive reason. Angeline knew that she was in great danger. She had to play this game very delicately. The future of her kingdom was at stake. She wondered if it was a ransom the vampires were after, which brought her to another thought that gave her pause.

  If a ransom was requested, would her father pay it?

  If she was a man, she would have unequivocally said yes. But given her gender, there were already rumblings about the future of the Robart line. She was the last of the bloodline, and no matter who she married, hers would no longer be the dominant lineage. If her father believed for even a moment she carried a vampire taint, he could decide to bypass the formality of Angeline’s birthright and hand the throne directly to her betrothed, Malin Baford. Her father treated Malin like the son he never had, so the idea wasn't completely outlandish. The thought made Angeline see red. She cursed the day she had been born a woman.

  “Are you still angry with me?” Connor reappeared at the entrance to the room. Although his mouth was turned up in a smirk, there was a glint in his emerald eyes that she couldn’t read. “I can feel the heat of that storm in your head all the way outside.”

  That drew Angeline up short. It was yet another thing to add to the growing list of historical discrepancies about vampires. “What do you mean? Are you reading my mind?”

  Connor stepped into the room and drew closer to her. Angeline wanted to step back, but she needed to get him to trust her if she had any possibility of escaping. If he believed that she wasn’t going to run, then he may not watch over her as closely. That would give her time to find a way out. Her plan, flimsy as it was, would require her to walk a dangerous line, but she needed to know what she was up against before she made her move. She needed to uncover more intelligence about these vampires to take to her father. That meant that she needed to get to know Conner better.

  Connor looked like he was going to say something, but then reconsidered and shrugged. “Your father has gone to great lengths to keep you out of harm’s way over the years. I can tell from the way you’ve reacted to me that you understood right away what I am and the danger you are in. Yet you are more angry than afraid right now. I find that interesting. But perhaps it’s because you are anxious to get home to your betrothed.”

  The official announcement was supposed to be made on her twentieth birthday, but it was common knowledge that her father intended to marry her off to Malin Baford, his Chief Advisor. A Baford had served in that capacity as long as a Robart had been king. It was the position that Malin's father held until he died when Malin was seventeen. Angeline's father took Malin under his wing, and this was the primary reason that she felt Malin was chosen above other possible candidates. Angeline suspected the engagement announcement had already been made in Brebackerin given the recent circumstances, but still it was unsettling how knowledgeable the vampire seemed to be.

  “I have nothing to be afraid of. My father will stop at nothing to get me back once he discovers what happened. And if you left Rhone alive I know he is already searching for me as we speak. As you already mentioned, if you planned to kill me you would have done so already. So it’s just a matter of time until I'm returned home as far as I’m concerned. This is merely a disruptive inconvenience,” Angeline said coolly. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking that he had the upper hand, even if for the moment he did.

  Connor took another step closer. “Perhaps you should be afraid, Princess. You may find my company so pleasurable that you will never want to leave it.”

  His silken tone reminded her how easily she had succumbed to him earlier, and she flushed. “Are all vampires so arrogant?” She crossed her arms and turned her back to him. The fact that he would be so bold infuriated her. He was treating her as if she was some common wench who would look into his eyes and melt into a puddle.

  She heard a soft chuckle. “Princess, I told you earlier that I fear we have gotten off on the wrong foot,” he said evenly. “I meant what I said that I mean you no harm. Just as you have a king to answer to, in a way so do I. If you do not fight me, you will find yourself safely ensconced within Brebackerin with your b
eloved betrothed in no time at all.”

  He sounded sincere, and Angeline turned her head slightly so that she could look him in the eye. “Why should I believe you? For all I know, you killed all my men and are playing some cat and mouse game with me.”

  She was shocked when he threw his head back and laughed. It was a hearty belly laugh and the sound bounced off the walls in every direction. It was the kind of laugh that made you join in. She felt a smile tugging on the corners of her mouth, despite the seriousness of her allegation. What was the matter with her?

  “I admit that I had a bit of fun with your escort, Princess, but I didn’t kill any of them. You humans have forgotten much about my kind, which I simply used to my advantage. As for what I did tonight; a little misdirection was all that was necessary and then they were spending more time bumping into each other than anything else.” Connor wore a big grin on his face.

  “I heard fighting and screaming,” Angeline said quietly.

  “Smoke and mirrors,” Connor said.

  She turned to him fully then. “In my tent, I saw blood on your face.”

  Connor winced and then sighed. “I said that I didn’t kill any of your men. Unfortunately, a few of your horses were not so lucky.”

  The image in her head made her stomach clench. Of course he would have fed on something during the attack. Angeline was glad that he had given her cause to be reminded that he was little more than a vicious animal that needed blood to live, regardless of how polite his manners. She dropped her head so that her hair fell down and hid her face.

  “I think I’d like to be alone now if you don’t mind,” she said.

  There was a pause as neither one of them moved. Then she heard him sigh again. Just as she saw his feet turn to go, Angeline’s stomach let out a loud growl. Her hands flew to her abdomen and she remembered that she had skipped dinner.