by Mindy Klasky
Which, of course, was exactly what was happening. Vampire blood healed. And Jonathan’s injuries—despite his rage—were not dire enough to require outside medical attention.
Squaring his shoulders, Jonathan faced the other vampire with a deadly calm. “Nick,” he said.
Nodding to acknowledge the response, Nick turned to me. “And you are?”
I glared. I was a fae princess. I was under no obligation to answer the demands of a common vampire who didn’t have the basic courtesy to introduce himself first.
“She’s Titania Silveroak,” Jonathan said. “Fae.”
Hardly the work of a court herald, but I wasn’t in a position to complain.
“Fae,” Nick said, turning the word into a single tight question.
Jonathan responded in disgust. “And she’s not the only one. The son of a bitch who brought her here is on the other side of that wall.”
“No one brought me here!” Indignation made me squeak.
“They’re con artists,” Jonathan said, ignoring me. “The pair of them.”
“Oberon Blackthorne and I are not a pair!”
Jonathan made a rude sound before he shifted his weight, making it perfectly clear he wasn’t going to argue the point with me. “She claims to be some sort of princess,” he said to the other vampire. “I don’t know about that, but she’s definitely a pain in the ass.”
I was beginning to regret giving him back his wallet. Giving him his wallet, helping him find Abigail, and using my fae wiles to lure him away from Oberon’s wrath—those had all been mistakes.
Except it was my fault Abigail was being held hostage. If I’d stayed at the altar as my mother and father had intended, Jonathan’s human daughter would be safely asleep in her bed, dreaming of her own impending nuptials.
The other vampire eyed me shrewdly before he finally drawled, “Your Majesty—”
I interrupted him. “Highness. As a princess, I should be addressed as Your Highness.”
The ifrit nurse made a sound like sparks bursting from a bonfire. Jonathan snorted in disgust, but the other vampire nodded. “Your Highness,” he said. “What is the precise nature of the weapon you lodged against the walls of this hospital?”
“It’s not a weapon!” My voice was cracking again, as if I didn’t have the first vestige of royal control. I swallowed hard and tried another approach, drawing on my most formal diction. “Ye have me at a disadvantage, noble sir. Ye wist my name, but I know not how ye are yclept.”
My elocution tutor would be thrilled, especially because I remembered to draw myself to my full height as I spoke, to throw back my shoulders and to look down my nose. Well, as much as I could look down my nose, when I was staring up at a vampire soldier a full head taller than I.
“Yclept,” Nick repeated, rubbing a hand across his chin. “If you’re asking my name, it’s Nicholas Raines. If you want to know my right to question you, I’m the Director of Security here at Empire General. And if that’s not a weapon,” he nodded toward the ley-wall, “then why don’t you tell me exactly what it is.”
Director of Security. That explained his calm air of control. It probably even explained why Jonathan deferred to him.
The least I could do was explain fae magic. But he wouldn’t understand if I didn’t start from the beginning.
So I did.
The Seelie Court. The Unseelie Court. My betrothal to Oberon. Mabon Eve and fleeing the Thousand-Oak Grove. Airliners and glamour and gnomes. Ley lines and Empire General and the Vampire Ward. Abigail Weaver and the fae magic on the Mall and Oberon’s hound-led pursuit. My desperate bid to save my life and Jonathan’s, returning us to the hospital with ley lines.
“Ley magic is neutral,” I said. “I drew on all I had, using fae magic to protect us. To pull them out of true. They’ll stay where they are until the moon is split again. When it’s one quarter full, they’ll return to their rightful place.”
“One quarter…” Nick said.
But Jonathan pushed more directly. “When is that?”
“The fifth of October.” Of course I knew the date. All fae knew the phases of the moon, each and every month.
“The fifth—” Jonathan repeated in disbelief before he choked himself to silence. “That’s almost two weeks from now!”
I stared at him levelly.
“That animal will hold Abigail for two weeks?”
Twelve days. But I didn’t think he’d tolerate correction. And this wasn’t the time to tell him her bond to the Thousand-Oak Grove would become permanent if she slept till the full moon, till October 13. “She’s fine,” I said. “She’s sleeping. Her dreams are sweeter than lavender honey.”
“Forget about dreams—”
“Yes.” I looked up at the new voice. A slender blonde woman stood beside Nick. She looked as if she’d just been roused from a deep sleep. “Forget about dreams. What if an imperial has a medical emergency in the next two weeks?”
Twelve days. But that was beside the point.
Before I could answer, the woman said, “I’m Dr. Ashley McConnell, the Medical Director here at Empire General.”
I sensed the magic clinging to her like a scent. She was a wyrd woman. A witch, they’d say here in the Eastern Empire. I wasn’t sure what “Medical Director” meant, but she clearly held some position of authority. Everyone else deferred to her, even her vampire Director of Security. Especially her vampire Director of Security.
She repeated, “What if an imperial has a medical emergency?”
“They’ll be unable to enter,” I said, swallowing hard at the answering flutter of concern from the assembled medical staff. “I’m sorry,” I said, nearly as shocked as they were to discover I was telling the truth. “It never occurred to me… I mean, I never thought…”
A frown creased Dr. McConnell’s face. “Can we use our phones to get the word out? Texts? Emails?”
I winced with uncertainty. I’d never held a phone in my life. I didn’t have the slightest idea how they’d react to the energy of the twisted ley lines. I had people who handled electronics for me. “I— I don’t know.”
And that was another first. A fae princess always knew. No matter what the subject, no matter how limited the facts before me, I was accustomed to speaking with absolute royal certainty.
“Well, we’ll have to find out. And if the phones don’t work, we’ll rig up something else. Morse Code, maybe. Flashing lanterns. One if by land, two if by sea.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. We weren’t anywhere near a sea.
“Nick?” Dr. McConnell asked, summoning the Director of Security to her side. The expression on the dark vampire’s face gave away a lot of precious information. Mr. Raines and Dr. McConnell were bonded more closely than any fae couple I’d ever known.
That made Raines a perfect candidate for the Assignation Game, if I needed to establish dominance over him… My mind raced down the familiar path—I could seduce him, gathering just enough evidence to confirm our relationship. Then I could threaten to expose his infidelity unless he paid for my silence. Judging by his devotion to Dr. McConnell, he’d pay up quickly enough.
I’d end up with a nest egg substantial enough to get away from this hospital once and for all. Once the ley-wall was down, I could travel anywhere I wanted within the Eastern Empire. Farther, if necessary.
Oberon would surely release Abigail Weaver when he saw there was no chance of getting me back. And I wouldn’t have to face the damning look on Jonathan’s face, ever again.
Unaware of my scheming, Dr. McConnell continued to organize her troops. “Nurse Macon?” she said to the ifrit. “We could use your help too. Let’s coordinate an approach in my office.” The witch led her colleagues back to the hospital building.
That left Jonathan and me, alone on the gravel driveway. I wiped my palms against my sheet, suddenly conscious of just how strongly I’d cast my lure on the Mall. I cleared my throat. “How are your hands?”
He loo
ked down at his fingers, flexing them as if he’d never ripped out his fingernails. “They’re fine.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my belly awash in a cold, queasy sensation.
For a heartbeat, I thought I might have caught the flu. But fae didn’t succumb to human illnesses.
I’d heard about this feeling, though. I’d read about it in the mundane books that amused my ladies-in-waiting. For the first time in my life, I felt remorse.
I lowered my voice, afraid my next words would shake. “I only meant to protect you. To keep you safe.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make.”
I was a fae princess. I made whatever choices I wanted to make. But Jonathan was right. I’d had no right to drag him away from Abigail, no right to lure him with my sky-clad body. Not that he actually seemed to have noticed my going sky-clad.
Oberon won’t hurt her. I couldn’t promise that. But Oberon wasn’t likely to hurt her. Not when she still had value.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, and the words were every bit as useless this time around.
Jonathan’s teeth clenched. “The thought of that bastard touching my daughter—” He choked on his rage.
I had done this. I had placed Abigail in danger. By refusing to accept my fate, by dodging my own responsibility, I had endangered the daughter that Jonathan Weaver loved.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say or do. So, holding my sheet close, I turned on my heel, intending to retreat to my room on the Vampire Ward.
I barely took three steps before darkness swooped across my vision.
8
Jonathan must have caught me before I fell—caught me and carried me into the emergency room. I couldn’t have been out long. I was still clutching my sheet when I came to on an examining table.
However angry Jonathan was, he was first and foremost a doctor. His fingers were steady as he found the pulse point in my throat. Whatever he felt there twisted his lips into a frown.
He peered into my eyes with an uncomfortably bright light, then studied my ears, nose, and throat with the same device. His touch was dispassionate as he retrieved my right hand. He rotated my wrist, as if he could read my future in the pucker of fine lines on my fingertips.
“You’re dehydrated,” he said. “When was the last time you had anything to drink?”
I blinked, my eyelids suddenly feeling like sandpaper. I hadn’t trusted the carafe of water in my hospital room; it could have been filled from a local source, one that would bind me to the Empire forever. I hadn’t drunk on the plane either; there certainly wasn’t an open bar in the cargo hold. I’d been busy the day of my wedding, first visiting with all the functionaries at court, then dressing for the ceremony.
“Monday morning?” I guessed.
Glaring as if my neglecting to drink was a personal affront, he helped me to sit up. Before I could protest, he filled a paper cup at the sink in the corner and pressed it into my hand.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Small sips,” he replied with professional brusqueness.
“No,” I clarified. “I really can’t. If I drink that water, I might be bound to this place. The same way that Ab—” I cut off my words. I had no reason to drive home his daughter’s predicament.
“You haven’t eaten anything either?” he demanded, in the same tone he might use to ask if I’d murdered any puppies lately.
“I had some chestnut buns. Ones I brought from home.”
“When?”
I couldn’t meet his sharp green gaze. “Yesterday morning,” I whispered.
“And since then, you built that grass wall on the Mall? And you carried us home along, what did you call them? The ley lines?”
He didn’t comment specifically on the fact that I’d also vanished my clothes and seduced him into accompanying me back to the hospital. If he wasn’t going to say it, I wasn’t going to remind him.
I nodded, stopping short when the room started to spin.
He muttered a few choice words, ones no courtier ever dreamed of saying in the presence of a fae princess. Probably ones a doctor wasn’t supposed to say to a patient, either. “You have to eat something,” he said. “And drink too. What do you fae do when you travel?”
“We don’t travel,” I said. I couldn’t remember the last time my parents had left the Thousand-Oak Grove.
But that wasn’t the complete truth. I’d taken those field trips to London. Jonathan deserved the truth—at least this time. I amended my reply. “We don’t travel often. But when we do, we eat things that aren’t made in the land we visit,” I explained. “Packaged crisps. Chocolate bars, of course.”
“Of course,” he said, shaking his head.
For a moment, I thought he didn’t believe me. If he tried to force me to drink the glass of water, I couldn’t fight him off with magic. I’d have to sleep before I began to recover from my trick with the ley lines. I wouldn’t be at my full power until the night of the full moon.
But Jonathan didn’t intend to fight. Instead, he shook his head and said, “Wait here.”
I’ll go where I wish. I thought the words. Any fae princess would. But I didn’t say them out loud.
Instead, I leaned back on the paper-covered table. Without intending to, I closed my eyes. My head was so heavy… My legs felt like fallen oaks…
I didn’t sleep. No fae princess ever slept in public. And I most definitely wasn’t snoring. I just happened to startle my eyes open a few seconds before Jonathan returned to the emergency room.
His hands were full of brightly colored packages. Cool Ranch Doritos, said one blue bag. M&Ms shouted a yellow packet. Gaudy square crackers labeled Toast-Chee matched the orange chairs in the waiting room, and I recognized the brown-wrapped Snickers bar that threatened to slip free from his grasp. Three beaded bottles were tucked under his arm—Coca-Cola and something called Dad’s Root Beer and a disconcertingly chartreuse concoction called Mountain Dew.
“There are other options in the machine,” he said, depositing the bounty on the bed. “If you don’t like these.”
He cracked open the cola and passed it to me. “Drink it down,” he said.
I’d had Coca-Cola on one of my trips to London. There, a café had served it, pouring from a glass bottle the length of my hand. The drink that Jonathan handed me was nearly three times the size. There was no way I could finish the beverage.
I took a tiny sip.
The liquid flooded my tongue. It was sweet and sharp at the same time, and tiny bubbles ignited in my mouth. The soda coated my throat, sizzling all the way to my belly. Impossibly, I could feel the drink infuse my fingertips, my toes. It set my hair a-tremble.
More. I needed more. I tilted the bottle, taking a healthy slug. Ice-cold, the Coca-Cola burned as I drank it down. Swallow after swallow, I drained it all, only stopping when the drink was gone.
The bubbles tickled my throat, and I covered my mouth with my palm to hide a discreet belch. No fae princess belched, especially in public.
To hell with what fae princesses did.
I tore open the bag of Doritos and shoved salty triangles into my mouth. The flavor shot across my tongue like quail flushed from brush. My teeth tore through the crisp treats, each crunch vibrating every cell in my body.
Starving, I devoured the contents of the bag. When only crumbs were left, I moved on to the orange crackers. The sweet paste between the squares launched a knife-sharp memory—peanut butter fancies I’d discovered in a London sweet shop. But this peanut butter was salty and crunchy, accented by the bright orange crackers.
I was thirsty again, desperate for drink. I grabbed the closest bottle, the green one, and I gulped at the elixir. It was sweeter than Coca-Cola and lighter. It tasted like sunlight reflected from a tumbling brook.
The Snickers bar next; I’d had one before. I gulped down the chocolate and peanuts, the caramel and nougat, each bite ricocheting through my blood stream with renewed energy.
More. More. I
needed more.
I tore open the M&Ms, barely seeing the riot of color as I poured them into my palm. I closed my eyes before they crunched between my teeth. Candy shells shattered, releasing another blessed blast of chocolate and nuts. I moaned as I swallowed the last delicious candy.
I licked my lips. Moaned again.
And when I opened my eyes, Jonathan was staring at me.
His predator’s gaze was focused on my lips, wired as tight as a fox studying a mouse’s bolt-hole. He followed the trace of my tongue as I licked away a stray wisp of salt. He studied my throat as I swallowed.
I knew that expression. I’d seen it in my father’s eyes as he watched my mother dance beneath a full moon. I’d spied it on the swains who courted my ladies-in-waiting.
My cheeks flamed, and I fumbled for the third bottle amid the brightly colored wrappers on the chair between us. Dad’s Root Beer. Perhaps it would serve as a nostrum to cool the man.
“Drink?” I asked, offering him the potion.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes back on my lips. His fingers reached out, as if he’d given them permission, and they curled around a lock of my hair. His knuckles brushed against my cheek, and I felt every one of the fine hairs on his skin caress mine.
One hunger sated, another stirred deep inside me.
That was impossible, though. The man who sat across from me was a vampire. A citizen of the Eastern Empire. Totally and completely inappropriate for a fae princess.
I raised the bottle. “Please,” I said. And I couldn’t say if I was begging him to drink, or to drop my hair, or to pull me close amid all the glorious detritus between us.
He blinked hard and backed away, dropping my hair as if it were spun from silver threads. Now, I knew—that wasn’t what I wanted.
He cleared his throat and said, “I don’t drink…soda.”
He drank blood. And for one mad moment, I considered sweeping my hair to one side and offering him the jugular that burned beneath my jaw. I could beg him to take whatever he desired.
He looked away before I could debase myself. Wiping his palms on his trousers, he said, “I need a Source.”
