by Aja James
All heads turned as the owner of that sinful voice slowly walked out of the shadows, followed by six fully armed vampire guards.
Ivanov frowned.
“You were not invited, Katerina. I have nothing further to say to you after your visit the previous week.”
The Countess of Ravenhell, Katerina Kingston, casually made her way down the length of the long table, her entourage in tow, three on her side of the table, three on the other.
One of her gloved hands skimmed the back of each guest’s chair, making the occupants stiffen in awareness, as if her touch carried an unpleasant shock.
When she passed by Seth’s seat, her hand lingered longer, drifting just above his shoulder, but not quite making contact.
Even so, he felt as if his shoulder had been blasted with ice, his entire right side turning numb, before circulation was restored as she walked away from him.
She was dressed from head to toe in a blood-red crimson cat suit with black accents in her elbow-length gloves and thigh-high boots. Her hair was piled high on her head in a riot of black curls, held together by several long pins stabbed into strategic places.
Only her neck and face were exposed, her skin ghostly pale, her dark eyes and brows punctuated with a bright blob of vermillion, the same shade of lipstick as her attire.
She tsked at Goran before she spoke.
“You know me better than that, Goran. You know I don’t take no for an answer.”
“Leave my house at once,” Ivanov commanded coldly. “Or I will have my guards throw you out.”
The Countess made a show of looking around her.
“Which guards? The only ones I see are the ones I brought with me.”
She rolled her eyes in thought.
“Oh! You mean the large, brutish looking vampires you had stationed outside? By the gate and the front and back entrance? I’m afraid they’re no longer where you left them.”
She had reached Ivanov by now and was slowly making a show of removing the fingers of her left glove.
The male tensed and reached for something behind his chair.
“Your saber is not there,” Katerina said casually. “Your Mate removed it earlier.”
Goran swiveled in shock to look at his female.
“I’m so sorry, my darling,” the small hostess said. “If I didn’t do what she told me, she would have done terrible things. I only wanted to protect our family.”
“But Ingrid, how could you?” Ivanov whispered furiously. “These are our friends—”
“Pure Ones are not my friends!” his Mate said in a surprisingly strong voice. “I am a vampire now!”
Before Ivanov could pursue the subject further, he let out a hoarse shout as Katerina grabbed his right hand with her left, turning it completely into ice.
With a hard yank, she broke off his hand at the wrist and threw it onto the dining table, where it shattered into jagged crystalline shards.
“No!” Goran’s Mate cried as he clutched his dismembered arm and fell back into his chair in excruciating pain.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt him!”
“I said I won’t kill him,” the Countess returned coolly.
“And I didn’t. You should be eternally grateful that I didn’t grab a different part of him. At least he will still be of use to you in bed.”
She summarily dismissed the Dark host and hostess and turned to address their Horde and gathered Pure guests.
“Listen well, my darling, misguided lambs, and open your eyes. You have just witnessed the fate that befalls a Dark noble who has lost his ever loving mind, talking of peace and alliances with Pure Ones.”
She gestured eloquently to the shattered limb.
“Weakness begets ruin. You,” she pointed to a large vampire male who seemed to be Ivanov’s second in command.
“This is your chance to take the Horde in a new direction. Join me now and show your allegiance by taking these Pure Ones as Blood Slaves. Together, we can sell them to the highest bidders, the most powerful Dark noble houses, to strengthen our cause.”
A flurry of frightened murmurs and shocked gasps swept the room, though they were quickly silenced by the six armed guards the Countess had brought with her.
Ivanov’s second in command looked uncertainly to his Master, who still held his injured arm to his chest, his jaw locked in pain, his face ashen and moist with perspiration.
He was a toothless tiger without his sword hand, without even his sword.
But before the vampire male could come to a decision, the Pure Ones’ Consul spoke up.
“Countess Ravenhell,” Seth said quietly, as if it was just the two of them in an intimate conversation, “allow me to offer a different scenario than the one you presented.”
“Even now, the Elite warriors are almost upon this establishment. You will not be able to subdue and move almost twenty Pure Ones with six guards, no matter their fighting prowess. We are not without Gifts ourselves, and you are still outnumbered three to one. If Ivanov’s Horde does not join you, but instead remain loyal to their Master, your odds worsen to five to one.”
The Countess moved closer to Seth’s seat and kept her black eyes riveted on him as he spoke.
“If you are here to make a point, you have made it with macabre flair,” he continued in the same calm voice.
“I’m sure all in attendance would think twice before engaging in such ill-considered peace talks again. If your aim is to not leave here empty-handed, if you wish to take with you an important bargaining chip, then may I suggest you take me. Leave the others behind. After all, I am much easier to subdue by six armed guards than the entire twenty Pure Ones in attendance. I even promise not to drag my feet.”
She narrowed her eyes and leaned down over his seat so that her face was mere centimeters from his.
“What makes you think I won’t take you anyway? I can have my cake and eat it too,” she hissed.
“You’re wasting time,” Seth said reasonably. “They’re almost here.”
The vampire female bared her fangs and growled with frustration.
A moment later, she jerked her head to the three guards closest to Seth and sent a look across the table to the others.
“Remember what happened here tonight,” she threw out the ominous parting words as she strode to the nearest exit.
“And tell your friends to make smarter choices. There will never be peace between our Kinds. Spread the word.”
Seth was “helped” out of his seat by two vampire soldiers, then swiftly escorted out of the mansion and into awaiting armored vehicles, he in the same SUV as the Countess, accompanied by three guards, the other three getting into the second SUV.
Without turning the headlights on, the two black vehicles roared to life and sped into the pitch black night.
A minute into the drive, Seth surreptitiously let out the breath he’d been holding.
It had all been a bluff, the Elite warriors coming to their aid.
He’d sent a distress signal the moment he sensed danger, but it would take much longer than five minutes for Cloud, Aella and perhaps Morgan, to mobilize to their location, leaving only Tristan to guard the base and Sophia. Ivanov’s estate was on the outskirts of the City, more than thirty miles from the Shield.
Five minutes was all it took for the Countess to inflict permanent damage on Ivanov and drive a sizable wedge in the peace talks. If they’d stayed longer, perhaps Ivanov’s second would have capitulated and turned over the Horde.
Seth could not let that happen.
Nor could he let twenty heads of important Pure households be rounded up and sold into slavery.
So he sold himself instead.
The ploy had worked. The Pure Ones and Ivanov’s Horde were safe for the time being, despite the peace negotiations having fallen apart.
Seth looked straight ahead, out the front window of the SUV.
He was squeezed in between two heavily muscled vampire guards, though he wasn’t shackl
ed or otherwise restrained. If he wanted to make a kamikaze break for it, he probably could. Even if he didn’t escape with his life, he’d at least be able to take down the occupants of the SUV with him when they crashed and burned.
One of the benefits of being a diplomat and wearing the trappings to look like one was that he was constantly underestimated as a fighter. Aside from some advanced hand-to-hand combat maneuvers, he had a few other Gifts up his sleeve to distract and confuse.
But part of him was curious where this would lead.
He wanted to see who the Countess of Ravenhell was working with. Was she directly in league with Medusa or was there a larger contingent of would-be usurpers in Jade Cicada’s Hive?
He wanted to hunt down the fuckers who tried to assassinate the vampire queen.
And if it was a suicide mission to go it alone, Seth was frankly beyond caring.
He needed to ensure Jade’s safety. It was a much stronger imperative than his own will to live.
A sharp careening and clash of metal sounded directly in front of them when the second SUV flipped forward into the air and crashed twenty feet away onto its head, wheels still spinning and smoking.
Seth’s vehicle pulled an emergency stop with a desperate turn to stall the momentum, propelling everyone in the back seat into whatever was in front of and beside them.
The vampire guard sitting on Seth’s left shattered the side window with his head when the SUV teetered ninety degrees. The other guard was momentarily knocked out from an awkward impact with the seat in front of him.
Thankfully, Seth had braced himself just in time and managed to prevent getting propelled out the front window in a mangled mess of broken limbs, but he too was shaking his head to clear it, still reeling from getting knocked around in the back of the vehicle.
A loud explosion boomed before them as the other vehicle went up in flames, catching at least one vampire in the conflagration.
The remainder who dragged themselves out in time to avoid the blast were picked off efficiently by Maximus, the Commander of Jade’s personal guard.
A loud thud sounded on the roof of Seth’s vehicle, followed by the swipe of a large, sharp-clawed paw that shredded the neck of the vampire guard in the driver’s seat.
Instant disintegration.
Then, the door opened to Seth’s left, and Devlin Sinclair, the Hunter, made short work of the disoriented vampire guard with his long daggers, while Anastasia Zima sent the other guard flying out of the SUV with her telekinesis, ramming him a couple of times against a nearby tree and finally ending his life with a clean slice through the neck.
Finally, when Seth alighted from the vehicle, dizzy but conscious, he saw that Jade was standing almost toe to toe with the Countess of Ravenhell, the other female leaning against the SUV as if for support.
Her Chosen gathered around her but remained a few paces back, as if understanding that she wished to deal with the traitor herself.
“You should have taken the other Pure Ones, Katerina,” Jade said in a low, measured voice. “Your success rate would have been higher, though the result would still have been failure.”
The Countess dared to scoff at her.
“I knew you’d come for him. They were right about him and what he means to you.”
Jade tilted her head in consideration.
“Of what use would this information be now? When none of you will live to tell about it?”
“Our death is proof enough,” Katerina said. “They would know that you sent your personal guard to intercept us, for only the Chosen can carry out this mission.”
Jade nodded at her logic reasonably.
“Any last words before I turn you into ‘proof’?”
Katerina bared her fangs and hissed.
“Now that they know your weakness, now that all your enemies know, they will never stop coming for him. They will tear him apart to get to you. He will pray for death before they’re through. He will—”
Her tirade ended in gurgles when Jade’s hand shot out to clamp around her neck.
Immediately, the area where their skin touched turned from pale white to diseased black, a black that spread rapidly in meandering streaks to Katerina’s face and where her clothes hid the rest of her body from view.
In a feeble attempt at self-preservation, she reached up to grasp Jade’s arm with her ungloved hands, causing ice to form over the area.
But the speed at which her life force was being sucked out of her by the vampire queen was much faster than the effect of her own Gift upon her executioner.
Katerina’s eyes soon rolled into the back of her head, all but bulging out of their sockets. Until a deflated breath seeped out of her gaping mouth, and she collapsed like a popped balloon before disintegrating into dirty ashes.
“My queen,” Ana said with concern in her voice, stepping closer toward Jade.
Jade halted her with one hand.
“I’m fine. She was too weak to do any real damage.”
“It would have been helpful if you left her for us to interrogate,” Devlin inserted with his usual nonchalance, as if he didn’t really care either way.
Jade shifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug.
“Katerina is a viper, but she’s strong. She wouldn’t have given us any new information.”
She slid a brief glance to Seth, standing a few feet away. The only indication she gave that she was aware of his presence.
“Besides, I needed the satisfaction of ending her myself. Come. Let us return to the Cove. There are plans to be made.”
Without any further notice of the male she’d spent significant resources and energy liberating, Jade disappeared into an awaiting vehicle with Maximus and Simca, driving off in the direction of the City.
“We meet again, Consul,” Devlin greeted amicably, thrusting out a hand to shake Seth’s.
“My thanks for the timely rescue,” Seth returned in the same vein. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me a ride…”
“Of course not, Pure One,” it was Ana who replied, “But you’ll not be returning to the Shield, I’m afraid. You’ll be coming with us.”
Seth released Devlin’s hand and kept his expression neutral.
“Why would I do that?”
“You heard our queen,” Devlin said. “Our enemies now have you as a target to get to her. The safest place for you to be until we figure all this out is to be with us, where we can keep some control over the situation.”
“Where you can control me, in other words,” Seth elaborated on his behalf.
Devlin shrugged.
“If you weren’t our guest at the Cove, we wouldn’t be able to anticipate and track your whereabouts as easily. If something like this happens again, and our queen flies off the handle and goes after you, she’d put herself in danger and we’d have a hell of a time trying to protect her. Protect both of you.”
“First, I don’t need protection,” Seth retorted.
“Second, I doubt I’ll be simply a ‘guest’ at your stronghold.”
“That is between you and Jade,” Anastasia said in response to the latter of Seth’s objections.
“Our orders are to bring you in. I’d rather you not fight us on this. But I’ll drag your knocked-out ass back with us if I have to.”
Seth looked from Ana’s determined mulishness to Devlin’s sheepish agreement, as if he were communicating, I’m just doing what I’m told, mate.
After thousands of years, Seth knew when to pick his battles.
Besides, if he stayed close to Jade, perhaps he could find a way to help her.
“I accept your gracious invitation to be a guest at the Cove,” he murmured with perfect equanimity.
Even as his blood pounded in his veins, his heart thundered in his ears, and white hot longing speared through his soul at the thought of being near her again—
Jade.
*** *** *** ***
3 years ago.
“You know about my human life, from w
hat I’ve told you and your own reconnaissance,” Seth said agreeably over hot chocolate at Serendipity on 60th Street.
Even though it took almost an hour of waiting in line to get a table in the popular dessert shop and tourist hotspot, Seth decided that it was time well spent when Jade’s delight was written all over her face and sparkling in her eyes.
They’d spent the morning walking everywhere around Central Park, enjoying the brisk but sunny winter day. Conversation had been sparse, though their silences were contented, as if they simply enjoyed being in each other’s company. Words were not necessary.
Now, close to lunch time, they decided to skip straight to dessert, realizing on a burst of inspiration that they both liked chocolate—a lot. And could consume it by the kilo given half the chance.
“Tell me something about you,” Seth coaxed. “Something no one else but your… husband would know.”
“Why would I tell anything to my husband?” Jade asked seriously as she sucked slowly on a chocolate covered strawberry, making certain unfulfilled parts of Seth clench in envy.
“Do married or Mated couples tell all their secrets to each other?”
“Not all,” Seth replied, “but my wife and I shared ourselves with each other openly.”
Jade regarded him with a strange mixture of curiosity and something darker, something violent, the look she got when she wanted to stake her claim on him.
“Your human wife knew everything about you?” she asked silkily, though Seth was not fooled by her soft voice; there was a sharp edge of danger within the softness.
He took some time to give her question full consideration.
“No,” he finally answered. “She didn’t know everything.”
“What did you keep secret from her? Tell me now,” Jade demanded directly, without her usual finesse and practiced nonchalance.
“I asked you first,” he reminded her gently. “Tell me something of yourself.”
Jade took the whole strawberry into her mouth and chewed in consideration, staring unblinkingly into Seth’s eyes.
After she swallowed and took a sip of hot chocolate, she said,” Very well. I suppose I can always kill you if you betray my secrets.”
With a straight face, Seth commented, “Wives don’t usually threaten to kill their husbands.”
