“Fair enough,” Laila said. “She is the most beautiful of the bunch.” She smiled at the underhanded compliment she’d given herself, since Karina’s features were so similar to her own. “You’ll start your individual dates with the princesses tonight. Princess Karina will be the first.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” I told her, surprised to find that I somewhat meant it.
“Once your first round of dinner dates is completed, you’ll be expected to send one of the princesses home,” she reminded me, more serious now. “Choose wisely, and remember—the stake of the Vale depends on this alliance.”
“I’ll remember,” I said, since it was a promise I intended to keep.
Jacen
The dinner date with Princess Karina was going well so far.
The staff had set up a table in my sitting room with a white tablecloth, china plates, fine silverware, and the works. It was as elegant as dining in a fancy steakhouse.
The table was next to the glass doors leading out to the balcony, giving us a perfect view of the kingdom. But the choice to hold the dates in my quarters instead of the dining hall also had another purpose—to keep the princesses privacy in check in case the date progressed into the bedroom.
Karina wore a long red gown and white gloves up to her elbow, making her look like she was from a different century entirely. From what I’d learned from Laila, this was the typical way of dressing in the Carpathian Kingdom. King Nicolae enforced a strict dress code.
We were much more laid back in the Vale, but I’d worn a tux tonight, knowing that a princesses from the Carpathian Kingdom would likely show up equally as formal.
“You look beautiful,” I told her, standing as she entered.
“Thank you,” she said, situating herself into the chair I’d pulled out for her. She smiled at me shyly, and from the way she twined her fingers together in her lap, I had a feeling she was nervous.
As soon as we were both seated, our two waiters for the night entered. They each poured us a glass of wine and said they would return soon with our first course.
Karina was a skilled conversationalist. Just like during the ball last night, the talk between us flowed easily and naturally. She was smart, she was charming, and I respected her.
I didn’t want her to be one of my favorites—not when Laila approved of her so much—but I could envision myself being content with Karina by my side. If I were truly holding this selection for the reasons Laila wanted me to, Karina would make a logical partner.
But I wasn’t choosing a bride to make an alliance against the wolves. I was trying to choose someone who would help me overthrow the leadership of the Vale. As my sire, Laila owned me. She was grooming me to be a pawn in her political game of chess. I hated that. Eliminating her—the woman who’d turned me into a monster and forced me into this life I never wanted—was the only way I could be free.
These private dinners provided the perfect opportunity to feel out which of the princesses might stand by my side in a rebellion.
And so far, despite the pleasant chitchat so far this evening, I felt like I’d only skimmed the surface of understanding Princess Karina. There was depth in her soul—I could feel it from her thoughtful mannerisms and the careful way she spoke. I suspected it had to do with what Laila had mentioned to me before—about how Karina had already loved and lost. I didn’t doubt that the princess had been through many trials in her years. But I wanted to dig deeper and learn more about the person she was within.
“I want to know more about you,” I told her once our main course was served.
“What do you want to know?” she asked with a smile.
“What made you want to come to the Vale to vie for my hand in marriage?”
She chewed her steak slowly, as if she was thinking hard about her answer.
“I was in love once.” She placed her silverware on her plate, her eyes sad. “His name was Peter. We met before the Great War—on an ocean liner, of all things. The Olympic. Have you heard of it?”
“I haven’t,” I told her.
“Surely you’ve heard of its sister ship, the Titanic?”
“Of course,” I answered. “I’ve seen the movie.”
“As have I,” she said with a frown. “Anyway, the Olympic was quite the novelty in its day—it was said to have been the finest ship in all existence. When I heard of its maiden voyage, I was determined to experience it. I’d only been turned into a vampire a few years prior, and I had no intention of taking my immortality for granted. History was being made and I wanted to be part of it. So I asked King Nicolae for permission, and he didn’t have the heart to say no. Of course I needed to be accompanied—a woman traveling alone in that time was sure to raise gossip—so one of the other vampires of the Carpathian Kingdom who also had an interest in technological progress posed as my brother, and we set off on our way.”
“Was that vampire Peter?” I asked.
“Oh, no.” She laughed. “His name is Edward, and he’s a dear friend of mine, nothing more. Peter was another passenger aboard the ship—a human.”
“So you and Peter were the real life Rose and Jack,” I said with a wry smile. “Titanic with vampires.”
And without the whole iceberg and sinking issue.
“Not quite as dramatic as that,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Both Peter and I were traveling first class. We met when we were standing at the railing watching the ship leave the harbor. He was a gentleman returning home to America after a vacation in England, and he seemed to know everything about the ship—he had studied it even more than I had. His knowledge impressed me, and we were inseparable for the rest of the voyage.”
She paused to take a sip of her wine, a faraway, wistful look in her eyes.
“Are you all right?” I asked her. “You don’t have to continue if talking about him upsets you.”
“It’s quite all right,” she said with a sad smile. “I’m enjoying this, actually. Speaking of him keeps his memory alive.”
“Then please, tell me more.” I nodded for her to continue.
“Where was I?” she said, the question clearly rhetorical. “Oh, yes. The first night. I wouldn’t have admitted it then, but I knew when we danced that night that he was the one for me. He felt the same, because on the final night of the voyage, he spoke to Edward in private and asked for permission to marry me. Little did he know that I actually held rank on Edward—since I’m a princess and Edward isn’t a prince—so Edward, of course, came to me immediately. He told me that the human’s infatuation with me had gone too far, and that I needed to put an end to it and compel him to forget me.”
My heart twisted at her words, since they reminded me of how I’d tried to compel Annika to forget me. If it had worked—if Annika hadn’t been wearing wormwood—perhaps she would still be alive today.
“I knew he was right,” she continued. “If I loved Peter, I would have allowed him to live out his life as a human. He would have fallen in love with someone else, had children, and been blissfully unaware of the supernatural world. But one thing I’ve learned about love is that it has the power to make those in its grips selfish. I couldn’t see my life without Peter. Compelling him to forget me would break me. But I also knew I would never forgive myself if I didn’t give him a choice.”
“Everyone deserves a choice,” I agreed, tensing at the reminder of how I’d been denied one.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Which was why I invited him up to my suite that evening, where I called in the maid and fed from her right in front of him. Peter was remarkably calm throughout the ordeal. I didn’t kill the maid, of course—I compelled her to forget what had happened. Then, once she left, I told Peter everything. A huge part of me expected him to want nothing to do with me. If that had been so, I would have compelled him to forget me, despite the pain it would have caused me. Instead, he told me he loved me. He proposed to me that night, said that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me… and that he wanted t
o become a vampire. I told him about all of the risks, but he insisted that this was what he wanted. And so, we took the Olympic straight back to Europe—we didn’t even disembark in America—and Peter returned with me to the Carpathian Kingdom. I told King Nicolae our story, and he was quick to grant my request to turn Peter into one of us. So I did, and we lived happily together… for the next eighteen years.”
“Until the Great War,” I said, putting the timeline together in my mind. It was easy to remember the year of the Great War—1929. The same year as the Great Depression. In times of great stress, the supernatural world had a way of rubbing off on the human world, as it did then.
“Yes.” She nodded. “The Nephilim broke through the boundary of the Carpathian Kingdom and it resulted in a massacre. Though we ultimately defeated the Nephilim, many of our own were killed in the attack. Including Peter.” She focused on her plate and blinked away tears, taking a sip of wine to steady herself.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I told her, although I was confused about how this story answered my original question. “But I’m not sure how this relates to why you’re here to seek my hand. While I have yet to experience it myself, I’ve heard that a great love like that happens only once in a lifetime.”
“Once in a mortal lifetime.” She raised her chin, her eyes sharp and focused. “It’s been nearly a century since Peter has passed. I mourned him for decades—my urge to enjoy life and experience the world vanished in my grief. I rarely left the Carpathian Kingdom. Then your invitation to the Vale arrived, and when I saw it, I found that I wanted to come here. I realized that I’d allowed grief to rule my life for far too long. And so, I took the invitation as a sign. As not just an invitation to the Vale… but as an invitation to let love into my heart again.”
“I’m glad of it,” I told her, although from the way she spoke of Peter, I could tell she would never truly be over him. He was ingrained into her soul in a way that could never be replaced.
In fact, each time I’d spoken with Karina, she’d treated me as a friend—not as a lover. While I liked her and respected her, I felt no spark of anything more with her. I was confident she didn’t feel one with me either.
Which might be ideal, since I needed someone who would work with me toward my end goal.
I needed to find out if Karina shared that goal.
“I think it’s admirable that you gave Peter a choice,” I continued. “I wasn’t given such a luxury. None of the vampires in the Vale are.”
“All of the vampires in the Carpathian Kingdom are given a choice,” she told me. “Well… all of them but me.”
Jacen
“Why weren’t you given a choice?” I asked her.
“Surely you’ve noticed my resemblance to Queen Laila?” She sat straighter, as if calling upon the personality of the queen.
“Yes,” I said. “It would be hard to miss.”
“As I’m sure you know, King Nicolae and Queen Laila have been involved in an on and off relationship throughout the past few centuries,” Karina told me.
I actually didn’t know. Laila had hinted that King Nicolae had an interest in her, but not that she returned that interest. But I nodded anyway, not wanting Karina to think that I was unaware of the goings on of my queen.
“He proposed to her once—back before I was born,” she continued. “But accepting would mean moving to the Carpathian Kingdom and giving up her throne, so she turned him down.”
“Of course she did,” I said. “Nothing matters more to Queen Laila than the Vale. She would never give it up.”
“Understandably so,” Karina said. “I think that was when King Nicolae realized that he and Queen Laila could never be. It was only a few decades later, when he was visiting a city near the castle, that he saw me. He was the last memory I had as a human. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the Carpathian Kingdom as a vampire.” She shuddered, as if she wanted to forget the memory. “Luckily, King Nicolae quickly learned that despite my physical resemblance to Queen Laila, our personalities were not the same. The relationship between the king and I has only been that of family. But the change had been done—I could never return to my human life. My family was extremely religious, and they would have never accepted me for what I was. They would have seen me as a demon. The Karina they knew and loved had died the moment I’d become a vampire.”
“You deserved a choice.” I reached across the table and placed my hand atop hers, wanting to offer what comfort I could. “I’m sorry you weren’t given one.”
“I’m sorry you weren’t given one, too.” She managed a small smile, and I felt closer to her, knowing we shared this common bond.
With this connection in place, it was time to find out where she stood politically. But I needed to tread carefully. My gut told me to trust Karina, but it was impossible to know where her true allegiances stood. I couldn’t risk saying anything that might be construed as treason. After all, my compulsion didn’t work on other vampire princes and princesses. Once I said something, it would be permanent. There would be no compelling her to forget.
“All of us deserve a choice.” I pulled my hand back, returning to my meal. “Including those of us in the Vale. Just because something’s always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it should continue being done that way.”
She raised an eyebrow, seemingly interested. “Do you think Queen Laila agrees?” she asked.
“She certainly doesn’t think humans deserve a choice on if they get turned into a vampire or not,” I said. “She doesn’t think humans deserve any rights from the supernaturals at all.”
“The original vampires were born as witches,” Karina reminded me. “They’ve never known what it is to be human.”
“They’re different from us,” I said. “And yet they rule us.”
I was treading on dangerous ground, but I watched Karina carefully, awaiting her reaction.
“It hardly seems fair,” she said slowly. “But incredible advancements are being made in the world every day. I do believe change is possible, if the right person tries to bring it. I actually believe it’s more than possible. It’s necessary.”
I raised my glass in a toast. “To bringing change?” I asked, keeping my gaze on hers.
“To bringing change.” She clicked her glass with mine, and together, we drank.
Karina
All in all, I thought the date with Jacen had gone well.
Talking with him about Peter had been difficult, but I knew from my over a century of living that one of the best ways to get someone to trust you was to make yourself vulnerable to them. My grief for Peter was something I tried to keep guarded—especially in the Carpathian Kingdom, where emotions were viewed as a weakness—but I wasn’t in the Carpathian Kingdom right now. I was in the Vale. And while Prince Jacen may be one of the physically strongest vampires ever created, his soul was still so young.
As expected, he’d relaxed significantly around me once I’d opened up about my past.
He’d even gone so far as to critique the way Queen Laila ruled.
He truly thought he would be able to change the way things were done in the Vale. It was so typical of one so young—to be bright-eyed, thinking they could change the world.
Of course I’d gone along with it and said that I supported his ideas.
But that’s all they were—ideas. I knew enough about Laila to know that she enjoyed turning humans into vampires against their will. She picked the ones she thought had the most potential—sometimes even researching them for years—and then she kidnapped them and turned them. Many sudden deaths of high profile humans were the doings of Queen Laila. She was an expert at covering up her tracks.
She had no intention of ever giving humans a right to make the decision on their own.
There was only one way that change could happen in the Vale—if Queen Laila was killed and another vampire took her place. And no matter how physically strong he was, Jacen couldn’t be foolish enough to think he c
ould kill the queen.
Original vampires could only be killed by the Nephilim—and there were no more Nephilim left.
But I would give into his childish dreams for now. After all, it made him happy to think that I believed he could bring change to the Vale. And I needed him to be happy with me so he would keep me here for as long as possible.
It would take more than a bright-eyed prince to bring down the Vale.
Once I returned to my quarters, I checked my phone and found a message from Noah—the wolf contact Nicolae had told me about.
We need to meet. ASAP.
I stared at the message, my heart jumping into my throat. I’d been avoiding thinking about meeting with the wolf since arriving to the palace. Shifters were crazed, animalistic creatures. I fought them. I didn’t converse with them. The thought of a civil meeting with one put me on edge.
But this wasn’t about me. This was about Peter.
It was about the chance to bring him back.
To get the sapphire ring that would give me that chance, I needed to work with the enemy.
I can meet after sunrise, I texted him back. Where can I find you?
Daytime was the only time when I would be able to sneak out of my quarters, since no vampire in his or her right mind would want to go outside in broad sunlight. While the sun didn’t kill us outright, it was painful and it weakened our powers. I would survive, but the experience wouldn’t be pleasant.
The wolf replied with the coordinates—a location in the forest at the boundary of the Vale. It would be simple enough to run to.
In the meantime, I entered Elena’s room, not wanting my lady’s maid to have to be a part of this. I didn’t intend on getting caught, but if I did, I wanted her name to be clear.
The Vampire Wish: The Complete Series (Dark World) Page 28
