Mina fell silent as morning light filtered through a thin mist. The clump-clump of Willow’s hooves and the padding of Duchess behind them sounded loud in the tranquil dawn. A slight breeze shivered through the leaves of the black oaks. The rustling a soft whisper on the wind.
“I can feel it,” said Mina. “The magic.”
Puzzled, Arabelle glanced over her shoulder to find the princess paler than when they left Sienna’s cottage.
“It is said there is a place somewhere in Silvane Forest where the first vampire was made. King Grindal.”
“I have heard that tale, too,” said Mina.
“Have you met him? King Grindal. Your future father-in-law?”
“No. Have you?”
“Briefly.”
The memory of the ball swirled in her mind, the potent power rolling off of the supreme monarch with his glacial queen at his side. There was a palpable energy beating off of the two oldest vampires, which had made her tremble as well as flee their presence as fast as she could that fateful night.
“No one speaks of it,” added Arabelle. “The tales of how Grindal became king. Venturing into this forest where something unexplainable happened to him. Changed him. Then he killed his own brother for the crown afterward.”
And while there were many tales of royals killing royals for the crown in the ancient tomes, there was only one who had apparently given up his own humanity to rule.
“There are many subjects that vampires do not speak of,” interjected Mina.
“True. Can I ask you something?”
“Go on.”
“Have you ever made a vampire?”
Mina remained quiet for a moment. They both knew what Arabelle asked was a taboo topic. The making of a vampire was shrouded in secrecy—a subject humans weren’t privy to know.
“You don’t have to answer,” said Arabelle as they passed through the last grove of black oaks into Larkin Wood.
“Vampires are born, of course, to two vampire parents.”
Arabelle knew this already. She’d never heard of a vampire born of a human. Vampires never married humans, but their mistresses and bleeders were often saddled with out-of-wedlock children who were all human-born.
“But that’s not what you were asking,” Mina added.
“No,” said Arabelle. “It wasn’t.”
Sparrows twittered in the branches above their heads, the mist slowly evaporating with the rising sun.
“Vampires can also be made with the mingling of blood between a vampire and a human. But only a vampire of the Varis line holds that power. It is a coveted power.”
Arabelle’s pulse pounded faster. “I see. I’m surprised you would confess such a thing. Especially to me.”
“I like you.”
Arabelle laughed. “You like me? The one who abducted you and dragged you into the woods against your will?”
“You’re honest,” she said matter-of-factly. “And you fight for a noble cause.”
Arabelle twisted around again, confused by her response. Expecting defiance or at the very least, contemptuous silence, she received polite compliance and even admiration instead.
“You’re a strange vampire, Princess,” she said, facing forward.
“That’s not the first time someone has told me that. And call me Mina, please.”
They sloshed through Chance Crossing, nearly out of the woodlands.
“I suppose you are happy that your children will hold such power.” Arabelle’s stomach twisted, acid churning. “Your children with Prince Marius.”
“Hmph. It doesn’t matter what makes me happy or unhappy. That is irrelevant.”
Larkin Wood thinned as they crossed into the field bordering Sylus. Willow’s legs swished through the long grass, with Duchess behind them.
“What do you mean?” asked Arabelle, compelled to delve deeper.
“I am the last unmarried vampire princess not in the Varis line. My destiny was chosen the moment I was born. My feelings are irrelevant.”
Arabelle couldn’t imagine a mother being indifferent to her child’s happiness.
“Does your mother agree with this betrothal?”
“I never knew my mother. She died in childbirth. My father soon after. I’ve lived under the care of Steward Thorwald in Arkadia. And he follows the rule of Varis utterly and completely.”
A pang of sympathy struck Arabelle. Motherless like herself, it seemed she and the princess had more in common than she’d originally thought.
“I see.”
Arabelle noted the detached but somber tone of Mina’s voice. She was resigned to her fate, good or bad.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Marius is a good man.” Sucking in a deep breath and swallowing her own jealousy with a lump in her throat, she said the words anyway. Despite the fact it seemed to fracture her heart to do so. “He will treat you well. I can promise you that.”
By now, they’d meandered onto the gravel road where Deek awaited them, holding the reins of a stout horse. Pulling Willow to a stop, Sienna stopped on their right side, with Kathleen sitting quietly behind her. Deek stared at the hart wolf with a brooding frown.
“She won’t bite you,” assured Sienna. “She likes you.”
He pulled Kathleen down quickly from Duchess’s back then assisted her up onto the horse he’d brought.
“Thank you, Sienna,” said Arabelle. “You best return to the woods now.”
“And you best be careful,” she warned.
“I will.”
Sienna paused, examining Arabelle as if she were considering saying something else, then patted Duchess and whispered down to her wolf, “Let’s go home.”
A shadow moved on the edge of Larkin Wood in the distance. Luca was anxious for his mate, and Sienna seemed to sense it.
Deek saddled behind Kathleen and spun his mount toward the palace. Arabelle didn’t bother asking where he’d pilfered the horse. Most probably from another woman who owed him a favor.
“A line of Legionnaires begins just past the milliner’s shop,” he said in a grave tone.
There was no turning back just beyond the bend in this road when the Legionnaires would catch sight of them.
“Nate informed me that we are to deliver the ladies at the palace gate where the peasants will then be released.”
“Then we’d best get going.”
For the remainder of the ride through the village of Sylus, no one appeared on the path or in a shop window, and they were accompanied only by the crunch of hooves on gravel.
A troop of Legionnaires in silver-and-blue uniforms flanked the road as Arabelle and Deek exited Sylus toward the Glass Tower. Standing at attention, no one so much as flinched. Arabelle was thankful to Marius. She’d half expected to be attacked on first sight, but he’d kept his word and provided safe passage.
They approached the palace gate, where the village peasants clustered on the grassy lawn within. The blond lieutenant Arabelle knew to be Marius’s friend stood watching their approach with a grim countenance. The thin sergeant for the Arkadia Legionnaires stood at his side, red-and-gold uniform starched to perfection, fierce scowl in place. Hatred radiated from the man who’d lost to a peasant woman and her entourage.
Arabelle and Deek stopped before them. She thought she’d have to demand the peasants be freed before she turned over the princess, but the lieutenant waved his hand and called over his shoulder.
“Riker! Release them.”
The Legionnaires ushered the peasants on their feet and out of the gate. Arabelle examined them as they passed, searching for bruises or evidence of maltreatment. There was none. Only the weary and frightened faces of so many she knew and cared for—Maggie from the dressmaker’s shop, Hanz the baker, Winston from the Silver Crown.
Most ignored her, gazes cast down, but some glanced her way with disdain. Her heart sank. How did she not consider that her grand scheme might endanger the very people she longed to free? And now, they cast her looks of res
entment rather than gratefulness. Was her cause for naught? Did these people even want to be freed?
The scorning sergeant stepped forward. Willow tossed her head but didn’t move as he assisted Princess Vilhelmina down. He immediately escorted her past the lieutenant toward an awaiting carriage. The one called Riker—a sharp-eyed, dark-haired vampire—assisted Kathleen from behind Deek.
The blond lieutenant glared at Arabelle, addressing her rather than Deek.
“You may go. And are hereby ordered by King Grindal to never again attempt harm or abduction upon any aristocrat—vampire or human. If you do, the penalty will be death. Do you understand?”
“I do,” she replied, tilting her chin higher.
He snapped a tight nod then mounted a white stallion and escorted the carriage rolling up the hill toward the palace. Arabelle followed the path, noting the king, queen, and a line of nobles watching from an elevated terrace on the second floor.
“Let’s go,” said Deek, wheeling his horse back around.
She followed, glancing once more over her shoulder and up the hill to see the royal family reentering the palace. The queen touched Marius’s arm and said something, then he followed her.
Surely they must meet the arriving carriage in the courtyard and greet his bride.
Nausea overwhelmed her, tears threatening to fall. Marius claimed he wouldn’t marry her, but that was before she’d rejected him and any hope of a life for them together. It wasn’t simply the fact that he was sure to marry her now or that her plan had failed miserably and she’d once more disappointed her people. It was the clear and resolute fact that she would never be able to stand by his side in his world. Seeing him on the palace terrace looking down from on high solidified that they were from two entirely different worlds. And neither belonged in the other.
“Yah!” she urged Willow into a gallop.
Deek sped closely behind as they tore straight through the village, out the other side and crossed into the field. They slowed to a trot as they entered Larkin Wood once more. Deek moved to her side.
“That was easy,” he said with a smile, gold tooth winking in the sunlight.
“Aye. Perhaps too—”
Slammed in the side, Arabelle flew through the air and rolled to the ground. Willow toppled away from her and squealed. Arabelle was lifted bodily off the ground, her arms pinioned with brutal strength by someone holding her from behind.
“We meet again, my sweet,” came a vaguely familiar voice close to her ear.
“What about him?” asked a savage-looking vampire hovering over Deek who was held to the ground by five others. His fangs were larger than she’d ever seen, protruding too far for him to close his mouth completely. And his hands bore claws curling at his fingertips. He even hunched over more like a beast, less like a man.
“Get your hands off her!” bellowed Deek, struggling to lift his head and glaring at the vampire holding Arabelle.
“You’re a brave one, blacksmith,” said the man at Arabelle’s back, clutching her tighter as she struggled. “But it will do you no good.”
“Please, please don’t hurt him,” she pleaded, her voice cracking with dark emotion.
Pinned down and helpless, Deek held Arabelle’s gaze, his expression softening, one corner of his mouth ticking up on one side. She focused on him alone, not the vicious beasts hovering over him, fangs bared.
“Mmm. I like to hear you beg, my sweet,” her captor whispered close to her ear. “But you must be punished. And so must he.” He shouted over her shoulder, “Kill him!”
“No!” she screamed.
The savage one grinned. His eyes darkened to black right before he leapt upon her dear friend, sinking into his throat with a grotesque snarl. The others growled and clawed at his clothes, tearing strips free to bare any portion of skin. All of them fell to his flesh, biting and feeding in a monstrous horde.
Sanguine furorem.
Tears streaming, Arabelle watched in horror as Deek kicked and bellowed, fighting for his life while she could do nothing.
“Stop!” she screamed in one loud, long wail. But there was no one to hear her plea for mercy. No one who cared.
Bile rose in her throat when Deek raised his head, catching her gaze one last time, the look of sheer terror shining bright as he knew he was about to breathe his last. She tried to reach out her arm, a hand, but was pinned too tightly. She wanted to at least offer what comfort she could, even a gesture as small as an outstretched arm, as helpless and useless as it was. She wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone. He locked on her gaze.
“I’m here,” she whispered. Then he closed his eyes and was dragged back down to the melee of the frenzied feeding, her own spirit sagging into dark despair with each sound of crunching bone and gnashing teeth.
When Deek finally struggled no more, his arms and legs falling limp, his murderers continued to drain the blood from his body, suckling and gnawing like the animals they were.
Her abductor chuckled. A cloth with a medicinal odor covered her mouth and nose. Again, she tried to resist and break free, but his strength was well beyond her own.
Black spots blurred her vision. A cold sweat spread over her body.
“That’s it. Just relax.”
The drug dulled and slowed her senses.
He pierced the lobe of her ear with his canines then sucked on the wound, but she could barely feel it.
“Mmm. So sweet.” He flicked his tongue over her ear again. “Can’t wait to taste the rest of you.”
His chuckle faded as her limbs grew heavy, then the darkness took her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“So, do you believe it is possible that the blood madness could be running through the northern region?” asked Marius.
Friedrich ran a hand across his two-day-old shadow of a beard. Marius and Nikolai had greeted him at his arrival and welcomed him to Marius’s parlor, offering him a glass of liquor to wipe away the anxiety of travel. His cousin appeared worse for wear than he had the night of the ball. Most of the long-distance royals had remained after the ball, with the wedding so closely to follow. However, Friedrich had insisted upon returning to his estate near Terrington following the ball.
Friedrich typically wore his polite and charming expression as if it were his daily overcoat. But now, his creased brow and bedraggled state, besides the fact that he was pouring himself his third glass of liquor, told Marius something was amiss.
Marius had often enjoyed a good strong glass to wipe away his worries of the day, but there was nothing that could take away the anxiety on his mind.
“It may very well have spread to Terrington. As I mentioned to you before, I’d heard a rumor or two about the Black Lily recently.”
Nikolai remained quiet, propped against a window frame. Friedrich paced slowly by the fire, swirling his tumbler.
“Yes. You told me. Have you discovered anything new?”
“Unfortunately, I have.”
He paused again, lost in his own reverie.
“Go on. Please,” urged Marius.
Friedrich gulped down the last of his drink. “I went back to return to the schoolhouse. Do you remember the story I’d told you of the young schoolgirl who’d drawn the black lily?”
Marius nodded, his shoulders and back stiff with strain, having remained in the same position in front of his desk since they’d come into the parlor.
“I thought I’d ask the schoolgirl’s parents a few questions. When I approached the schoolteacher, who is—”
He broke off with a scoff, half laughing as if remembering something.
“She is what, Friedrich?” asked Marius impatiently.
“Pardon. She is unique, but never mind about that. The teacher informed me that the girl was an orphan. She offered with no apology at all that many of the children were orphans and that if the royal family would take a keener interest, they would know the poor were in need of their attention. Specifically the children.”
“I d
on’t understand,” said Marius. “How does this—wait, are you saying the parents of these children are victims of vampires?”
“Possibly. She could not say one way or another. Only that more and more peasants had been going missing. However, she certainly implied that it was our fault, no, that it was my fault the people were suffering.”
“Sounds like someone else we know,” interjected Nikolai.
Marius ignored him, though he certainly agreed.
“I wish I had more to tell you,” said Friedrich, setting his glass on the settee as he walked toward the door. “I plan to do my own investigation of these disappearances when I return home. As for now, I need a long bath. And you, my cousin, need to prepare for your wedding night. Cheers, Nikolai.”
With a quick nod to them, he was out the door. Marius adjourned to his parlor window overlooking the gardens.
Nikolai joined him. “There is no conclusive evidence that the blood madness has spread. A few missing peasants could be nothing at all.”
“True,” agreed Marius. “Or it could be something quite diabolical.”
“True.”
They remained quiet for several moments, watching the view below.
Marius stared down at the gardens where Princess Vilhelmina walked alongside the queen, her lady-in-waiting following a few feet behind. No telling what his mother whispered in her ear about the duties of becoming a queen. His mother still had visions of a lavish and traditional midnight ceremony, then their consummation of the marriage in his own bed, and afterward they’d whisk away to Arkadia, where he would be the rightful king and she would be his new queen. But none of that would happen.
Princess Vilhelmina’s steward, a loathsome man, had arrived within the hour, demanding the princess be given a reprieve of a week before the wedding ceremony, to recover from her abduction. But Marius’s mother would have none of it. All would go forward as planned. Mother’s plans were unbreakable. Until Marius broke them.
“Did she say anything?” Marius asked.
“Who? The princess?” asked Nikolai. “She said nothing to me.”
“Not her.”
Nikolai stepped up beside him, arms crossed. “What is it you think Arabelle would say in front of an army of Legionnaires? Did she send a message to her lover, the prince? No. She didn’t.”
The Black Lily (Tales of the Black Lily) Page 21
