I thought immediately of the Challenge, of the lesson I was supposed to learn by getting my ass kicked … and how very accurate a lesson it really was. My humility was at an all-time high, my arrogance in check. I was on my way to becoming a powerful Alpha Female, but I was not a true Alpha Female just yet.
Aurora turned in a swirl of red velvet trumpet skirts and took off down another hallway, the stone walls fading to wallpaper and wood moldings that cost a pretty penny. But I knew it was for more than just show—that wood molding was designed to keep other vampires out.
'Are you guys getting déjà vu?' Anubis asked, putting a hand on my shoulder and peeking his head between me and Nic. 'Dark, underground, filled with monsters who want to eat us? This is just like the witches' lair.'
'Please don't say that,' Nic said, glancing over at me like he thought I might be upset.
But I didn't scare that easy.
'I'm better prepared this time,' I assured the boys, catching Nic's concerned stare and forcing a smile. 'I've got this.'
'And we've got your back,' Silas said from behind me, making my skin prickle with remembered passion, hot and burning, wild and fierce. God. I wanted more. These guys were going to be the death of me.
“Take a seat,” the queen said as the doors at the end of the hall swept open, and she sauntered through, gesturing at the various chaises, couches, and chairs around the room before sweeping herself into a throne made entirely of human bone. I knew it was human because I could smell it.
The boys and I paused in the center of the room, a thick cloud of cigarette smoke making our nostrils twitch and our throats burn. Half the seats in this room were already occupied. And the activities taking place on said seats? Sex and violence was everywhere.
Humans bled while members of Crown Aurora sucked their necks, their cocks, took blood from the femoral arteries in their thighs. The room was ripe with the coppery scent of blood and the warm, unmistakeable reek of sex.
I had to breathe through my mouth to maintain my composure.
“Now,” Aurora said as a human girl draped her head in the queen's lap, her red hair falling down the pale lines of her naked back. “What can I help you with? You know, it's been … fuck, well, almost a century since I had an official visit from Pack Ebon Red.”
I filed that information away for later.
A century? Majka's map? Interesting.
“Kingdom Ironbound,” I began, cutting to the chase as werewolf protocol dictated. But these were vampires and where we enjoyed pomp and circumstance with little chatter, they liked lazy sensuality and sin with lots of it.
“Please,” she said, and I felt her power roll over me like a wave. If I hadn't been the Alpha-Heir, hadn't been with my boys, she might actually have been able to roll me completely. Holy shit. “Have a seat. I can't carry on a casual conversation if my guests are uncomfortable.” The queen paused and spoke to a nearby vamp in a thick, eastern European tongue that I recognized right away was Croatian.
Like Majka.
Wow.
I was going to have to look my grandmother in the eye and ask her outright what the fuck was going on here.
'Let's find somewhere to sit that isn't drenched in blood and other … uh … bodily fluids,' I told my men as I took a look around the room and tried not to stare at undulating bodies and thrusting hips, red blood against white, brown, and black skin, flashing teeth, bare breasts. 'This should do it, I think,' I said as I moved forward and took a seat in a large chair near the corner, a spot that I hoped would give us the advantage in case things went sour.
We were near the door, against the wall, as far away from the queen as we could get.
I took the seat, folding the voluminous skirts of my Challenge dress under my thighs and waiting as my mates took up various positions around me. Nic and Montgomery went the serious route, taking up positions behind my chair with their arms crossed, gazes taking in the other people in the room like they were all threats. And let's be honest—they probably were.
Tidus and Anubis sat on the seat with me, Anubis stiff and formal and Tidus … looking around the room like he'd never seen anything this strange in his whole damn life. Couldn't blame him on that front either. This … bacchanalian affair was unlike anything I'd ever been a part of.
Yes, there were occasions when mates would pair off and well, mate, during certain pack functions, but it wasn't like this, this desperate, quiet greed.
'I may never have sex again,' Silas said as he leaned against the wall and took up a characteristic bad boy slouch, arms crossed over his tattooed chest as he watched Jax crouch near the door, his face shuttered and unreadable.
'The only person that would hurt would be me,' I joked back, trying to lighten the mood. Silas gave me a sorry half-smile, but that was about it. I was also careful to project my words to the entire group, trying to make sure everyone felt inclusive in our new pack within a pack.
Juggling these men, I thought as the vampire queen pulled the redheaded girl into her lap, tilted her head to the side and sunk her teeth into the woman's pale skin, is going to be the hardest part of the whole damn year.
Seven alpha males. One alpha female. Love would be my greatest weapon.
'Sorry, Zara,' Che said as he unfurled his body across the floor in front of my feet, propping his head on his hand, 'but I might be in agreement with the traitor on this one—the smell in here is fucking awful.'
'Call me traitor again,' Silas growled, his entire body going tense, 'I dare you.'
“Traitor,” Che whispered aloud, and I had to raise a hand to keep Silas from going after him. My fingers curled around Silas' wrist and dragged him over to the chair. Using the force of my grip on his arm, I made him sit in front of me.
'Enough,' I told them before their fighting could escalate. 'If you want our people to go extinct then keep at it. You can rip each other apart before or after the witches and the vampires have their turn, take your own pound of flesh.'
The two boys still sat stiff and angry, but at least they refocused their attention back to the matter at hand.
We were literally sitting inside the Blood Queen's lair.
Surrounded by blood and sex and vampires.
Aurora smacked her wet, red lips and smiled at me.
“Much better,” she said, as my stomach roiled and I tried not to react to the overwhelming number of smells in the room. Mint and apples, copper, sweat. “Go ahead, Wolf. I'm listening. You walk into my home and speak the word Ironbound. I hope you have a good story to go with it.”
“Kingdom Ironbound,” I began, projecting my voice into the small, dark room. The walls and ceiling were covered in wooden panels; a chandelier dripping dark crystals gave off little light. The entire place was decorated in rich, dark colors like aubergine and crimson, black and charcoal gray. “Has found a way to daywalk.”
The entire room went still, so utterly still that I had to blink a few times to make sure I was really seeing it, that eerie stillness of the dead. Because in this room, there were no living vampires, just the Ageless undead.
“Daywalk?” the Blood Queen said, throwing the redheaded girl to the ground in front of her throne of bones. “They walk in the sun?”
“Unscarred and free,” I told her, keeping my hands in my lap, my body language neutral and easy. She was getting angry and fast. I had to make sure none of that rage was directed toward me. “They've made a pact with Coven Triad, and drench themselves in witch hazel.”
“Why are you telling me this?” the queen purred, standing up, her hair moving like a live thing, the skirts of her dress rustling in an unnatural breeze. I could see the dark pits of her pupils dilating, shrouding her pale eyes with darkness. “How do you know these things?”
“They've been kidnapping and killing members of my pack,” I told her, paused, rephrased. “Our packs. I don't know why and I don't care. I just want it to stop.”
I took a long, deep breath.
“Ironbound is purpos
ely seceding territory to your Kingdom and they've introduced a new Kingdom into Oregon, the Kindred.”
The Crown Aurora Blood Queen moved across the room like sensuality perfected, a curvy hourglass figure with generous hips and bosom, a face carved of alabaster, and she paused two feet in front of Che Nocturne.
“Kingdom Kindred,” she said, tilting her head at me like she expected I'd give away all my secrets. “What about them?”
“For whatever reason,” I began, trying to keep my breathing even and my gaze level with hers. It wasn't easy, looking into eyes as black as pitch, no white to be seen, just bottomless darkness that stretched into forever. “Coven Triad doesn't want anyone to know about them.”
“Coven Triad,” the queen repeated, and with each crumb of information I fed her, I saw her rage amplify into a terrible, palpable thing. I could taste it on the back of my tongue, the inhuman violence, the fury of the dead.
The way she looked down at me, it was like I was responsible for it all.
I made sure to clarify.
“I decided to bring this matter before you in lieu of taking action. Blood business is only my business when it involves the packs. As the reigning queen of this region, it's your job to police the area. A new Kingdom, new magic. I'd hate to see you burned in your sleep.”
With low, easy breaths, I fought to keep my heart rate from picking up speed and giving away my anxiety. Sitting trapped in this room with an angry vampire queen, her closest confidantes, and their food? Not my idea of a good time.
“Daywalking …” Aurora said, her voice trailing off as she turned and snapped her fingers. “Bring me Harlem,” she said as she turned and moved away from me, splashing through a puddle of blood that was draining across the floor.
The bright wet scent of blood was making my stomach roil, but I couldn't show my disgust, not here. I stared across the room at the human whose blood it was, a young girl that was probably around my age. She bled from the thigh and didn't seem to give a shit that her pallor was poor, her head resting in the lap of a male vamp with long dark hair. He stroked her short blonde waves with his fingers, his lips set in a permanent frown, and glared daggers at me.
Most of the humans here were probably eternity chasers, people who wanted to become vampires. In exchange for willingly offering themselves up for both sex and blood, they were promised that true immortality lay in their futures.
It wasn't always a lie.
Every once in a while, the vamps might find a human they liked enough to turn.
Usually, though, the humans just hung around until one day, they bled a little too much and never woke up. It was sad, but it was the way things were. I couldn't change any of that in a single meeting.
If I wanted to make a difference in the world, I had to become Alpha first.
If I took care of my people, made sure we were whole and happy and well, the rest would follow suit.
Aurora disappeared out the door we came in, one of the other female vampires following along behind her. They left us there to watch them fuck and feed and frown, cigarette smoke dancing like fog in the still, warm air.
'I don't know how much more of this I can take,' Tidus said, and I felt his gag reflex through our pack connection it was so strong. 'The smells in here … it smells like death, blood, and sex. I can't take it much longer.'
'Hold strong,' I told him, reaching out to take his hand, curling my fingers through his. 'We need this meeting to go well; Crown Aurora is the only vampire Kingdom we can count on to wipe out the daywalkers instead of join them.'
In that regard, Julian had been extremely helpful, confirmed that this risk—trusting what I knew to Aurora—was worth it. If she'd slaughtered an entourage of witches and Ironbound Bloods, she wasn't likely to join them. Besides, I'd seen Julian's true fury toward Crown Aurora mirrored in his body language.
'Harlem,' Anubis said after another few moments of silence, 'isn't that the name of the Blood Princess?'
Not ten seconds later, the doors reopened and a blonde girl stood staring at us, her eyes the same color as the queen's, her hair the same white-blonde. The only biological child of Queen Aurora stood staring at us from the entrance to the room. She looked eighteen, but I had no idea when the queen had gone from a living vamp … to an undead one. This girl could be as old as my mother for all I knew.
“We're well aware of the fact that werewolf blood gives us the ability to daywalk,” she blurted, and the entire room went still and silent. I rose to my feet and Silas rose with me.
“Come again?” I said, my voice an icy chill that even Nikolina would be proud of.
“We know,” the girl—presumably Harlem, the Blood Princess—said carefully, her white-blue eyes boring into mine. Now that I really looked at her, I could see the dancing of her pulse beneath pale, pale skin. She was alive, so perhaps she really was the age she looked? And the Crown Aurora Blood Queen, she can't have been dead all that long.
I wondered who might've killed her.
“We don't drain wolves,” she said after a long moment, lifting one arm up and using a steel knife from inside the folds of her cloak to slice a nice, long gash down her wrist. “Come and see for yourself.”
'Careful, Alpha,' Anubis warned, and I felt the other boys tense as I made my way toward her and paused, lifting her wrist to my nose. As soon as I got close enough, I smelled it.
Wolf.
The smell of wolf deep inside this girl.
My eyes flicked up in surprise.
She didn't smell like pack, not exactly, but there was a hint of werewolf in there, something old and deep and ancient.
“My mother has a werewolf as an ancestor, and it's her blood that fuels our kingdom, her power that runs through our veins. Ever since my mother formed this kingdom, we've had the power to daywalk.”
My mind reeled as I stared at her.
I wasn't sure which part was more surprising … the fact that there'd been daywalking vampires all along … or the fact that a werewolf and a vampire could have fertile offspring together. In living history, that'd never happened.
I supposed the princess was proof it could. I could smell the wolf in this girl's veins, pure and clean, organic. It was a part of her. Faint, but apparently even a faint kiss of our earthly magic was enough to provide protection from the sun.
I could see now why they'd kill to protect their secret.
“We've heard rumors of strange attacks on kingdoms in the South, near Kindred territory,” the girl said, withdrawing her arm and lifting it to her lips. She ran her tongue along the wound, nice and slow, maintaining eye contact with me the entire time. “We suspected demons, but with the information you've just given us, we have a better idea now. The type of attacks that were launched … they spoke to an intimate nature.”
“And the queen?” I asked, wondering where she'd gone and why she'd sent her daughter in her place.
“We can fight Ironbound, but if they have witch support, we'll need backup.”
Ah, now I could see where this was going.
“I will go with you and help coordinate a daylight attack on Kingdom Ironbound,” the girl said, throwing a glance in the direction of my boys. Her blue-white eyes opened in surprise and appreciation, lashes batting as she took them all in, their leather pants and furred cloaks presenting quite the pretty picture.
A low growl escaped my throat and brought the vampire princess' gaze back to my own.
“Mine,” I told her, nice and low and quiet. But everyone in that room was a Numinous; they could all hear me.
“I will go with you as a liaison,” the girl continued, ignoring me and throwing the hood of her white and silver cloak up over her hair. “I'll also serve as collateral to ensure there is no confusion of loyalty.”
Her smile made my chest feel tight.
“The queen asks that you do the same: leave one of your males here for the time being.” The girl stared at me with that smirk frozen in place, her eyes the shape of sideways
teardrops, her nose tiny and pert. She was gorgeous, flawless, like a porcelain doll made of bone and blood and death.
“No,” I said and I felt the room ripple around me. “My mates are not collateral. A wolf is only as strong as their pack; I won't leave a male here.”
“Then you'll give us blood,” the vampire girl said, looking me hard in the face. She knew what could be done with just a drop of blood, let alone a pint or two. “From you and each one of your males.”
“Blood is a big gift—especially to a vampire. Especially when we know some of the local vampire kingdoms are working with witches.” I crossed my arms over my chest, glad to be wearing the dress with my grandmother's black bear fur trimming the edges. It made me feel powerful, in control. I needed that here, the strong scent and feel of pack.
“A living daughter is a big gift—especially to a sea of revenge hungry wolves,” the girl said, licking her lips. There was something else dancing in her eyes, a want, a need, a secret barely kept. “We don't do binding agreements like the witches or fools' bargains like the fae. If that's what you're looking for, you'll be sorely disappointed. We need you and your mates to fight with us against Kingdom Ironbound.”
“What sort of support are you looking for?” I asked, studying the delicate features of her face. Harlem was a girl made of bone and shadows, too pretty to be real, too dangerous to be trusted. “I don't want the Convocation to know about any of this.”
“You will do, Zara Wolf. You and your seven mates.” Harlem smiled at me, the skin around her small nose crinkling slightly. “But be prepared to wield that big magic of yours.”
'How does she know about that?' Nic asked, a thread of alarm in his voice.
Good question.
“The wolves have been without magic for decades. I'm sure you're well aware of that,” I said as Harlem stepped around me, her long cloak dragging across the bloody floor. She didn't seem to mind that she was soaking it up as she went.
I turned around, following her with my eyes.
Pack Violet Shadow Page 18
