by Evie Byrne
Not likely. She’d ingested some of his goodness, but she hadn’t turned into a saint.
She went to her study and dug around for her old address book. There were other options. She dialed a number in Bali, hoping it was still good. Hoping Sevrin was sober. What time was it there? It didn’t matter. Sevrin never slept.
“Sevrin, I need you to counter a spell for me.”
The shrieking of his damned parrot collection almost drowned out his response. “Fuck me dead. Is that you, Alya Adad?”
“You know it is. I’ll pay you in gold.”
“What kind of spell?”
“A blood bond.”
“Break up destined mates? You can’t do it, at least not after blood’s been exchanged. Is that what we’re talking about here?”
She told him it was, and he belched long and loud. “Major juju, that. You got astrological forces, chemical adaptations, and nasty dark shit I don’t know half enough about. Don’t know of anyone who does.”
“This is important. I will pay you anything, just to try. What do you want, Sevrin? Just to try. I would do…anything.” She took a deep breath, knowing how many years he’d wanted her, and how decidedly she did not want him, and continued on, weaving both suggestions and compulsion into her words. “You know I’d be indebted to you.”
Her compulsion skittered across his Teflon defenses. “Tempting, but no can do. Don’t fancy frying my brains in the attempt, darling. No one screws with blood bonds.”
“There must be someone willing to try. Tell me. I don’t care who they are.”
“There’s no one. Believe me. But nice to know I’m on your mind. Next time you’re in Bali, we should get together, for old time’s sake––”
Alya threw her phone across the room. “Fucking git.”
She’d just debased herself for nothing. Sevrin was the most unscrupulous, reckless sorcerer in the world. If he wasn’t crazy enough to try the spell, she didn’t know who would. They knew all the same people, anyway. If he said no one would try it, she had to believe him. If she had years, she could search the world for a counter spell, but she didn’t have years. She had days. Hours, even.
Dominick appeared in the doorway. “Any orders?”
“I have to fight him.”
The words just popped out of her mouth. One of them could escape this curse and go back to their normal lives. They’d been destined to fight it out since he’d walked into her office. And if they fought right away, before Mikhail got weaker, the fight would almost be fair.
“With all due respect, sir, I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Then you marry him.”
“If only I could.”
He was joking—and not joking. “Don’t ever be telling me you have a crush on the lad.”
“Your Irish accent is execrable, sir. And yes, I think I do. I like him a lot.”
“Fantastic.” Alya buried her face in her hands. “He’s seduced you and my cat.”
“Faustin was up at first dark, not today, but the night after the rescue. Before I was up. He could scarcely walk, but he was restoring your defenses. He disposed of the bodies. He set everything to rights, not me. And you should see the mods he’s made to your security system.”
She raised her brow at the idea of Mikhail mucking with her security system, and hitched it higher at the idea Dominick would allow him to do so.
“We’ll go over all his changes, of course. But it’s not back door stuff. It’s just smart.”
“So he’s a good security man. A good housekeeper, even. I hire useful men. I don’t need to marry them.”
“He cares about you.”
“It’s an illusion, don’t you see? He has no choice but to want me.” After thirty years with a curse gnawing on his brain, he’d do anything to complete the bond. Even fancy himself in love with her.
“But it seems you have a choice in the matter.”
“I won’t submit to the bond.”
“In that case, how do you know he’s not exercising choice, too?”
That bit of logic made her brain twist. Her stomach grumbled, making her peevish. “I don’t care. I know what I want and what I want is not to be the wife of goddamn Mikhail Faustin!”
Dominick clasped his hands behind his back. “Sir, you’ve always listened to my opinions, which is more than most princes would do. All I’ll say, and it will be the last I say on the matter, is that it would be a shame for the two most promising princes in generations to kill one another when there may be alternatives.”
“Just suppose I do this. Say I marry him. What are you going to do when House Faustin moves west to claim its new territory? Ah, I know. Perhaps you’ll find a role in the civil war that breaks out as a result.”
After the wedding, she’d be nothing. In a legal sense, she’d hardly exist. All her property, including her territories, would go to him. The families who’d sworn fealty to her would not be happy about that. Behind closed doors, she’d reassured several patriarchs she’d never marry before signing treaties with them.
“Perhaps he’ll agree to let you keep some—”
“Stop. Listen to yourself. I don’t rely on anyone’s benevolence.”
“A prenup?”
“Human law? Right. That’ll hold water. And no matter what he agrees to, he’ll be squeezed on all sides by his council, his families, and his own father. Old Faustin is an acquisitive bastard if there ever was one. I can’t give an inch to those people. They hate me too much.”
Most of vamp society thought she was a freak, because she didn’t live by their rules. But they couldn’t deny her existence when she was ripping land right out from under their noses. She was already a legend, the only female prince in three hundred years. If she married, and began to breed Faustins, they’d get the ending for the story they wanted. Once there was this strange girl who called herself a prince, but she married and settled down. It took a Faustin to tame her, but tame her he did.
Dominick said, “He won’t fight you. He knows he just has to wait you out.”
Alya wasn’t worried. She wasn’t called the queen of the damned for nothing.
It took a long time for Mikhail to staunch his nose, so long he fell asleep with the ice pack on his face. He woke with a start, his stomach twisting, his head aching. Under normal circumstances he never napped, but he was running on empty. The longest he’d ever gone without feeding had been a week, but he hadn’t been tapped when he did it.
He lifted Lulu off his chest and changed into a black shirt and a black pair of pants, identical to those he’d been wearing before, which were identical to all the other shirts and pants folded in his bag, which were identical to those hanging in his closet at home. Madelena said he had the wardrobe of a morbid obsessive compulsive. He called it functional.
His nose had acquired a decided leftward slant. Grimacing into the mirror, he popped the bone back into place. Better. He washed his face and straightened his collar and cuffs. It was time to continue the conversation, whether Alya liked it or not.
The bond led him straight back to her bedroom. As he neared her door, he stretched his senses, listening for her thoughts or any hint as to her mental state. What he picked up was too muddled to understand, and it didn’t begin to prepare him for what he saw when he walked in.
Alya was lying on her bed, splendid in a voluminous crimson robe. Two lithe bodies twined around her. One was the female feeder he’d met the day before. Maya. The other was male. Not Christian Rider, but another of the same type. Alya had her face buried between the girl’s full breasts. The boy was nuzzling between Alya’s thighs.
Maya rolled her head his direction, her eyes fogged with pleasure.
Alya turned toward him and smiled. Blood smeared her mouth. She put her hand to the boy’s head, stilling him.
“Mikhail,” she purred. “Come try a sip. Maya is the sweetest feeder I’ve ever found. Maybe you’ll be able to drink from her.”
Impossible. It wasn’t possible
for her to eat anymore. And why were these creatures in her bed, touching her…
Struggling for control, he made himself speak. Speak instead of explode. “You’re not bound?”
“I don’t know what I am—” she paused to lick her lips clean, her eyes bright with mockery, “—but I know I’m not going hungry.”
No hunger. No leverage. No hope.
In that moment he understood with cold certainty that he’d never win her over. He snapped his fingers at the feeders. “You. You. Out.”
They both cringed. Alya gestured for them to stay and left the bed to confront him, equal parts scornful and defiant. Her mind was closed tight, but she knew as well as he did what this meant for them.
In fact, she must have arranged this little viewing for his benefit. “You want me to be the aggressor.”
“Whatever are you talking about?”
“Damn you to hell, Alya Adad. I challenge you to a combat before witnesses. Weapons of your choice.”
She put her hand to her heart. “But I thought I was your lady love.”
Mockery. She was deliberately destroying any possible future for them, and she was laughing as she did it. He backhanded her. The feeder girl shrieked. The bedroom lights flickered.
“You disgust me,” he said. Killing Alya would violate all the laws of love and nature. And he looked forward to it with all his heart.
The blow staggered her, but she didn’t return it. She didn’t say anything, either. Just closed her red robe tightly around her throat.
Mikhail growled through locked teeth, “Give me your throat or name your second.”
Ghastly pale, she raised her chin. “Dominick, of course.”
“Gregor will second me. There will be no retaliation from my family if you should win. I’d like to do it as soon as he can fly in from New York. Do you need more time than that?”
“Oh no. I’m quite at your convenience.”
They exchanged bows.
The moment Mikhail left, Alya bolted to the toilet and vomited until she thought she’d damage herself. The regurgitated blood scalded her throat and tongue like vitriol. It didn’t hurt half as much as her conscience.
Jared retreated downstairs, but Maya stayed with her, holding her hair out of the way during the worst of it, and staying to dab her face with a damp cloth. “Poor Alya! What’s wrong?”
Alya fought a bad case of the shakes. “Nothing, love. Just something I ate. I’ll be better soon.”
Mikhail stalked into the garden. He visited the place he’d pinned her down and sucked the honey from her veins. He should have drained her then and there and saved himself a lot of trouble.
Coming into this, he knew her character. He knew she could not be made into a wife. If he’d followed his common sense he would have finished her off that night. But he’d followed his so-called heart, only to end up at the same place but with worse odds.
Reaching up, he grabbed a stout branch of her old olive tree and swung up among branches bobbing with unripe fruit. Trees calmed him. Always had. He had several favorites in Central Park, but he’d never sat in an olive before. Resting his back against the trunk, he called his family. Gregor first, not only because he was his second, but because Gregor could be trusted to be pragmatic. Alex would be worried. His parents, disappointed.
“I knew it,” Gregor said when he’d told him. “I knew all that ‘gift of the angels’ talk from Ma was crap. The woman is a freak.”
“Alya’s no more a freak than me.”
Gregor heard the threat in his voice and backed down. “Okay. Whatever. The challenge is on the table. How strong is she?”
Mikhail rolled a velvety green olive between his fingers. “She’s ex’d six princes. That I know of. Halverson two nights ago.”
“Halverson? What was he doing in LA?”
“I’ll explain later. Point is she’s amazingly strong. Fast too.”
“But you’ve got height on her, and weight. Longer reach.”
More to the point, this time he’d honestly be trying to kill her. She hadn’t seen him determined yet, so she’d be overconfident. Still.
“I’m fasting. She’s still eating. We have to do this before I get much weaker.”
“Understood. I’ll be there at sundown tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“What are the weapons?”
“She’s choosing. Her second is named Dominick. I’ll get you his number.”
He heard Madelena’s voice complaining in the background. Gregor muffled the phone, then said, “Maddy says she has to talk to you.”
Mikhail rolled his eyes. He’d ask Gregor not to give the phone to her, but he knew Gregor couldn’t refuse his wife anything.
Maddy said, “Talk to me.”
“Talk?”
“Talk. It’s when you open your mouth and let other people know what you’re thinking. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me how you feel.”
Feel? At this point all that mattered were facts. “She’s fed from me, but isn’t bound. And she’s made it clear she doesn’t want anything to do with me. It’s hopeless. Only one of us can live now, and I’m going to kill her to get my life back.”
“Wait. Just wait. Something is wrong. That woman could not taste you and remain unmoved. I promise. Your blood ran through me when I was on that hospital table. I’ve never told you, but I do remember every moment of it. I know you inside and out, Mikhail Faustin. You’re a good man. She’d have to be crazy—”
“It meant nothing to her.”
“That’s complete bullshit. She’s your destined bride. Your blood should mean everything to her. You should mean everything to her. She’s lying to you, pretending she doesn’t like you when she really does.”
“This isn’t high school. I’ve just offered her a formal challenge. She’s accepted. That means she’d rather die than be with me. That’s not ambiguous.”
“Something’s up. Count on it.”
Mikhail grunted. She’d had her chance. He’d given her everything, up to and including his life, and it wasn’t enough for her and he was tired of playing her games.
Madelena’s voice tugged him back to the moment. “…sure everyone hates her, but everyone hated Catherine the Great and Cleopatra, too. You and your brothers are pretty open minded, but you know vamp society isn’t exactly progressive—”
“I have to go.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“No. Absolutely not. I forbid it.”
“Mikhail, I have to. You sound like you need a hug.”
Chapter Twelve
The feeder, Maya, stopped him before he got in the cab.
“Where are you going?”
“I left a note for your mistress.” It was inappropriate for him to stay in the house before the challenge—and intolerable.
“But she wants to talk to you. She sent me to find you.” The girl’s doe eyes were guileless, but he’d just seen her writhing under Alya’s mouth. Even though she was just a feeder, he hated her.
But she was brave, because he knew his dislike showed on his face, but she took his hand anyway and said, “Come. Please.”
He told the driver to wait and the girl led him through the house to a door padded in burgundy leather and studded with brass tacks. It led to the cellar. He knew that from studying the house plans. The cellar would be the most secure room in the house, light proof, defensible. Mikhail nodded to himself in approval. Considering the likelihood of retaliation for the slaughter of the Halversons by the Northern families, she would be smart to conduct her business in a safe place. But there was one problem—she wasn’t down there. He could tell.
“She’s not down there. She’s…” He spun on his heel like a compass needle and pointed to the northwest corner of the house. Upstairs.
“You’re right. She’s coming right down. She told me to bring you here.”
He consented to go down. They rounded the corner of the stairs and he walked into a torture chamber. The hairs on
the back of his neck stood on end.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Maya said.
Mikhail scanned the sumptuously finished, low-lit room. He’d heard of such places, but had no experience of them. The room was not big, but it was packed with exotic objects. A tall, person-sized cage, a padded wall fitted with many hooks and rings, something that resembled a gymnast’s vault, and a towering ebony chest of drawers. That he went to first, perhaps because it reminded him of the little black chest that held her pearls. The upper part of the chest was topped with a cabinet, and in that were prosaic items like bottled water, lubrication, cleansing wipes, folded towels, rolls of tape and, most strangely, an enormous stock of cling wrap. He shut the door with a snap, feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur.
But that didn’t stop him from going on to open the drawers. The first one was long and thin with delicate silver pulls. It held a row of paddles on a black velvet bed, one a heavy wooden rectangle, a second a soft oval of red patent leather, a third studded with steel knobs.
The next drawer held coiled lengths of rope, some rough, some slick. Among them sat his bride rope. At his touch, it stirred and crawled up his arm like a fond pet. If he died, at least this could be returned to the family. Maybe his brothers’ sons would find better use for it.
The next drawer held a selection of flails.
Alya was a complicated woman.
Maya peeped around his shoulder. She reached over his arm and pulled a small buckskin flail out of the drawer. Sighing, she drew it across her throat. “This is my favorite.”
“You let her beat you with it?”
“It’s very nice, really.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. It’s like…have you ever had a fever so high you felt like you were floating?”
Mikhail had never been sick, not as humans became sick.
“It’s hard to explain. I like the rush. I like letting her take care of me—”
“With a whip?”
She returned his gaze frankly, very bold for a feeder. “Yes. With a whip. Or a paddle. Or a length of rope. She takes me to new places. When it’s over, I feel relaxed, clean inside.” She tapped her temple. “It’s like being rebooted.”
