by Cege Smith
“I got it!” she cried out in delight.
“Good,” Caspian said.
Angeline thought that he sounded surprised.
“Now stretch it so that you can see inside it,” he said.
Angeline could feel the edges of the light and she could see the colors swirling around inside it. She held it like a letter and looked inside. She gasped. She saw her father inside. He was lying in his bed and his skin was so pale that she thought that he may be dead. She could hear crying in the background.
In her shock she let the light go and then opened her eyes. “What was that?” she asked Caspian, her heart in her throat. “Is my father dead?”
Caspian watched her carefully. Angeline saw a length of rope sitting beside him as well as a large thick stick. With a start she realized that he was expecting her to lose control, and for a sickening second she was about to. The surface of her consciousness rolled and it was like she was on a tiny boat on a lake in the middle of a torrential storm. Something wanted to capsize her little boat and smash her to bits, but she gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and screamed into her head, “NOOOOOO!”
Her mind settled instantly and she thought it was over when suddenly she heard a response. Laughter. Dark, gurgling, inhuman laughter. She looked at Caspian and saw her fear mirrored there. He had picked up the stick and was holding it at the ready as he watched her face.
“It…laughed at me,” she choked. “It knows I’m here.”
Caspian seemed relieved. “Of course it knows you’re there. You are the only thing that stands between it and what it wants, which is to get out and wreak havoc. And so we have a lesson in a lesson. The parasite waits for you to be distracted. It always waits and it has an enormous amount of patience. It will wait forever, so you can never lose focus for even a moment or it will spring.”
Angeline felt hot tears slide down her face. She felt overwhelmed, but she was keeping a tight rein on that. “Is my father dead?” she said with more calm in her voice than she felt inside.
“The sight shows the probable future. This is something that you will likely find invaluable when you rule. Eric Robart is not dead yet. That kind of word would have reached even my ears in record time,” Caspian said. But he hadn’t put down the stick.
Angeline felt a wave of relief course through her. “Thank the gods,” she said and raised a hand to her throat. “We still have time.”
Caspian leaned a few inches closer to her. “So when was it?”
Angeline wrinkled her nose. “When was what?”
“If you pay attention, you can see the when as well as the what,” Caspian said.
Angeline tried to remember as much as she could of the glimpse of her father, but she couldn’t remember anything in the image that would tell her when it was. She shook her head. “If it’s there, I can’t see it.”
She could tell that Caspian was annoyed. He put down the stick and pulled a small book out of his pocket. He grumbled as he wrote something down, scratched it out, and then wrote again.
“What am I doing wrong?” she said.
“Nothing,” Caspian said, shutting the book and stuffing it back in his pocket. “I’m trying to shove what is likely a decade’s worth of training into a few days, if we even have that long. If you didn’t have the bloodline you do, I wouldn’t even consider it possible.”
“That’s the third time you’ve mentioned my bloodline. What difference does that make?” Angeline asked.
“Bloodlines make all the difference,” Caspian said. “Weak, impure, watered-downed bloodlines make for weak immortal beings. We learned that a long time ago. The Master is quite selective about who is allowed into the coven. The blood has a long memory, and untainted bloodlines still carry the memories of our ancestors forward. Humans have forgotten such things, which over the years have made them weak. Few actively preserve the bloodline, but Alair Robart would have done everything in his power to ensure that his bloodline stayed strong forever.”
Angeline thought of all the whispered conversations that she had walked into after her father had decided not to take another wife after Angeline’s mother had died. She had always thought it was because he didn’t think he could love another woman as much as he loved her mother. She had never considered that he might not have considered anyone…suitable.
Caspian chuckled. “That man wanted a son. We both know it. But all of the noble families have forgotten the old ways and so their bloodlines with each progressive generation have become less desirable. He made a risky choice when he decided to make do with a daughter.”
“But he wants me to marry Malin,” Angeline said. “If all the noble families are so impure, why would he allow it?”
Caspian shook his head. “The Baford clan is almost as old as the Robarts and they have served the Robarts for years. A Baford would have been the most desirable choice, but that’s another family line that has grown smaller over the years. There would be no one else Eric would trust for you, especially if he was keeping secrets that he never intended you to know.”
The information was coming too fast for Angeline to take in. She felt anxious, and underneath that anxiousness she felt hunger. She watched as Caspian picked up the stick again.
“I suppose you are starting to feel a bit peckish. Good thing that your knight in shining armor isn’t disappointing.”
Angeline saw a blur of black fall behind Caspian and hit the ground with a heavy thud, kicking up a flurry of dirt. She jumped to her feet just as Connor landed beside her.
“Princess, I see you are still in one piece. Caspian as well. I am relieved.” He grinned.
Angeline was alternatively annoyed and delighted to see him. He had come back. She knew that he wouldn’t leave her here with this crazy vampire. Then suddenly she caught a whiff of something tantalizing, rich, and spicy. It was coming from the shapes that Connor had thrown down the wall that were hidden behind Caspian.
She moved to step around Caspian to get a closer look and Caspian moved with her; blocking her. She went to step in the other direction and he blocked her again.
“It’s time for your second lesson, Princess, and I need you to focus,” Caspian said.
“Hungry,” she said. It wasn’t her thought but she could tell that her body was definitely hungry.
“I know you are,” Caspian said soothingly. “But Connor told me about the last time you ate. Do you remember?”
She flinched. She did remember. But the pig’s flesh had tasted so good. She felt a bit dizzy remembering how good it had tasted. She could see now that the shapes were animals. They were very big cats. And their chests were moving up and down. They were still alive. Her mouth started to water.
“Angeline!” Caspian said sharply.
Her eyes shifted back to him. She could feel that dark presence trying to peel away from her consciousness. It knew that Angeline didn’t have the stomach for this kind of thing. I will do it so you don’t have too, it whispered to her. Let us feed.
Angeline moaned. Then she felt Connor behind her. He rested his hands on her arms. There was no pressure, yet. But she knew if she moved without Caspian’s permission, he would try to hold her back. The dark presence found this amusing, and Angeline could hear its giggles again.
“Hungry,” she said again. Her voice sounded strange. She was wrestling with the parasite, but it was difficult because they wanted the same thing. To feed. “Please,” she said.
“I will let you eat in just a moment, Angeline,” Caspian said as he drew the stick up into his hands again. “But first you must listen. How you eat your food will dictate who is in control. You do need sustenance to keep your strength, but you do not need to let it be in control to feed. You do not need to drink blood to survive no matter what it tells you. Civilized humans do not shred their food to pieces or revel in a bath of blood. This is a test, Angeline, a test of your ability to control your mind.”
Hungry hungry hungry hungry, the voice whispered to her.
“What am I supposed to do?” she said through clenched teeth.
“I will cook dinner for you. And you will wait, over there.” He pointed with the stick to the corner of the clearing. “If you give in and let that monster inside you loose, I will beat you with this stick and tie you back to that tree until you are in control again. And we will start again.”
She saw a flash in her mind. In the image, she slid out of Connor’s grasp, shoved Caspian aside, and jumped on top of the closest mountain cat. Then she knelt down and ripped its throat out with a shriek that could be heard for miles. With that victory achieved, she grabbed the corpse and jumped to the top of the cliff wall and ran away with her spoils. She’d run so far that they’d never be able to catch her.
Although there was a part of her that wanted to do whatever that voice told her to do, she knew that woman could never be queen. That woman would never be able to go home. She turned into Connor’s chest.
“Help me,” she said softly, but she knew that he had heard her.
“What do you need me to do, Princess?”
“Sit with me. Help me keep a grasp on who I am,” she said.
He placed his arm around her and walked with her to the spot that Caspian had indicated. She sat down facing the trees. She couldn’t watch what Caspian was doing. It was bad enough that she could smell it. The smell was intoxicating.
Connor sat down beside her but didn’t say anything. She shivered and he put his arm around her again. She leaned into him and they sat to wait.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Connor felt the waves of heat coming off of Angeline’s skin, but she was shivering violently nonetheless. Her anxiety level was high, and he could tell that she was barely holding on against whatever her internal demon was pressuring her with. He was amazed at how much control she had at such an early stage. The stories said that most often, newly born wraiths had no sense of their previous lives or memories for days or even weeks. They had no motivations at all other than to feed.
“Talk to me,” Angeline said through chattering teeth.
“What do you want me to talk about?” he asked.
“Tell me about what you have done with your afterlife,” she said. “Is it as wonderful as you thought it would be?”
The comment rankled Connor, but he knew that part of what he was hearing in her voice was the other one, the one that would taunt him so that he would get angry at her, and give it a reason to take over.
“My sire is the Chief Deputy to the Master,” he said. “He made me when he was creating a private guard for the Master’s safety.”
“You’re the Master’s bodyguard?” she said, looking at him in surprise.
“Not anymore. Not for a long time actually. I wasn’t very good at it,” he said. He had been terrible at it. His anger at Monroe meant that he had gone out of his way in his early days to do the opposite of whatever Monroe told him to do. He was constantly getting thrown in the seclusion chamber and was regularly denied blood until he was so weak from hunger that he couldn’t stand. But he didn’t bend. He didn’t want to be what he was, and he certainly had no desire to guard the one that ruled his afterlife. Luckily, or unluckily, however he looked at it, the Master had found his insolence more of an amusement than anything.
“The Master finally told Monroe that clearly my interests lay elsewhere, and he released me from his service,” Connor said. “Monroe said that I had to make myself useful to the coven somehow. So I tended to the library and read everything I could get my hands on about how the vampires came to be.”
“If you hated what you had become so much, why would you go through the trouble to learn something like that?” Angeline asked.
“Know thy enemy,” Connor said with a wry grin. “And I wanted to know if there was any chance that I could be cured.”
He felt Angeline move against him and he looked down. She was staring up at him with gaunt eyes. She was there and she was in control, but something else lurked behind her gaze.
“A cure?” she said.
“Sure,” he said lightly. He didn’t want to say too much, but his story seemed to be helping her stay focused. “Just because this is the way I am, I refused to believe that this is how I had to be forever.”
“Did you find one?” she asked. He could hear the unspoken question in her voice.
“No,” he lied. “There is no cure for what ails me.”
She fell back against him. “That’s too bad.”
He liked how her body curved against his. It made him feel almost human again. “Yes, well, what I did discover is that despite what my human father always told me, I am inclined toward scholarly pursuits. Once the Master noticed, he gave me special projects to research and both he and Monroe pretty much left me to my own devices.”
“Hmm,” she mumbled.
Connor looked down again and saw that her head was nodding. She was falling asleep. He knew that her mind was working overtime trying to absorb everything and learn as fast as she could against the backdrop of a sneaky, devious demon. He wasn’t surprised that she was exhausted.
“She’s strong,” Caspian said inside his mind. “But I don’t know if it’ll be enough. That one inside her is strong too. I could feel its hatred of me and of us.”
“It has to be enough. I’ll help her,” Connor replied.
“You can’t help her. No one can,” Caspian said.
Connor hoped that he was wrong.
Angeline shifted against him again and her eyes fluttered open. In that moment Connor saw it there. The demon. Her lips curled into a sneer. “Silly vampires,” she said.
“Caspian!” Connor yelled as he tried to grab her.
She shot through his arms and was across the clearing in two bounds. The screech she made raised the hair on the back of his arms. Her mouth sunk into the mountain lion’s neck just as Caspian plunged a sharp bone into her arm. She howled and then her face went slack and she rolled off of the cat and onto the ground.
Connor was at her side a moment later. “What did you do?”
Caspian looked at the bone in his hands with a satisfied smile on his face. “Never give away the element of surprise. Just a little potion I concocted when I first started working with wraiths. I hate bludgeoning them into submission as they do take so much longer than we do to heal, what with their frail human innards. This is much more effective.”
Connor took Angeline into his arms. “She was in control. What happened?”
“You let her fall asleep,” Caspian scolded.
“This was my fault?” Connor said.
“She is most susceptible to the demon when she is on the edges of consciousness, when she is waking or falling asleep. I haven’t taught her yet how to set the proper safeguards to keep the demon at bay, so yes, at the moment we can expect to see that parasite a lot more often. C’mon. Help me tie her back up.”
“Do we have to?” Connor said. “She’s going to wake up hungrier than before and she’ll be even less likely to be able to fight it off.”
“Let me worry about that,” the old vampire said. “Now then, the potion doesn’t work for long against newborns. For some reason I haven’t been able to figure out yet, they burn it off much faster than more mature wraiths.”
Connor reluctantly helped Caspian bind Angeline to the tree. Then Caspian returned to the first mountain lion’s corpse. “You’ll want to go into the cave and get the bindings you find there for the other one. You can tie it to the tree on the other side of the clearing.”
As Connor did as he was told, he watched Caspian quickly skin the other one and throw several chunks of meat onto the fire. He also gathered a small amount of blood into a cone-shaped bone and, holding the smaller end, he approached Angeline. He put the small end into her mouth and raised the other end high.
“Neither one of them is h
ome right now,” Caspian said. “The potion perfectly relaxes all the muscles so the blood is traveling right down her throat into her gullet. This little bit should give her just enough satiety that when she wakes up, Angeline can take control again.”
“So much for civility,” Connor muttered.
“She needs to be reminded what will be expected of her in normal human society. Her desires are going to be much darker, but as long as she can maintain the proper etiquette in front of the people that is what matters,” Caspian said.
“And when she’s not in front of people?” Connor questioned.
“Royals always have their intrigue and their secrets. Why would she be any different? She will quickly be able to determine who she can trust and who she can’t. That’s the third part of her training.”
Connor finished tying the cat to the tree and tested the bindings. The cat may be strong, but it wasn’t going to get away. This close to the boundary, he could hear that the buzz there had gotten louder.
“I hope you have an idea of how I’m supposed to get her out of here,” he said, looking out into the night. “There are more out there all the time.”
“Yes, I know,” Caspian said. “You are lucky that I found you when I did for many reasons, not the least of which those spirits would have torn her limb from limb.”
“That’s quite reassuring,” Connor said, turning to him.
“It’s not my fault that Alair Robart decided to annex half his kingdom in exchange for peace, or that you decided to create a wraith out of his last descendent,” Caspian said. “I’d be pretty upset myself if I was one of them. They were left like lambs outside the butcher’s door.”
“He did what?” The hiss was clear all the way across the clearing.
Connor looked over. Angeline was awake. And she was furious.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
She tasted rust and a slight tanginess in the back of her throat, and her stomach didn’t feel so empty anymore. But as she had come to, she felt the clench of a strong grip trying to push her down and pull up over her consciousness.
