Vampire Royals 7

by Leigh Walker

  Before I could say another word, he was gone. The werewolf king disappeared, probably down the stairs and out onto the grounds, the full moon casting its bright light until he reached the safety of the dark forest.

  And there I was, alone, with thoughts and feelings I couldn’t begin to face.

  Who Goes There

  I tossed and turned all night, my thoughts wretched. Who tells the man they love that they should marry someone else? I mean, really!

  I rolled over, squinting at the slat of sunlight coming through my windows. First the moon had tortured me, and then the sun. I resolved to keep my expectations low for the day. If the planets were already showing me such disfavor, things would probably only get worse.

  Giuliana never came to bring me my tea; as the sun rose higher, I put the pillow over my head to block it out. But Elsa and Beast started whining.

  “I’m sure you want to go out. But can you just give me a minute? I need to sulk in private. It might be a moment before I can locate my game face.”

  They whined again, and I dragged myself out of bed. That was the thing about those gnomes, one of the blessings—they forced me to care about something other than myself.

  I threw on a pair of rarely worn trousers, boots, and a long cloak. I hoped the camera crews didn’t see me, because they would have had a field day with my appearance. Tamara Layne with frizzy hair, mascara under her eyes, and pants? I never left my room without a gown and flawless makeup. But it felt liberating to no longer give a crow about what I had on. Rhys didn’t care about me, not anymore—I’d seen to that—so it didn’t matter. Normally, I liked to get dressed for myself, but that sick feeling from last evening hadn’t left me. All I wanted was my pajamas, a decent cup of tea, and my bed.

  But the gnomes wouldn’t wait. They rolled inside my tote then peered at me with their big, worried eyes. “Everything’s all right,” I croaked. “Just a little werewolf allergy. I’ll get over it eventually.”

  Roger was nowhere in sight, the stairs were abandoned, and the kitchen was oddly quiet. I took Elsa and Beast out on the grounds, but we didn’t see anyone else. It was late morning, at least nine, and it was unusual not to encounter anyone at that time of day. The gnomes didn’t seem troubled by the quiet as they whizzed across the lawn. I wrapped my cloak around me. In spite of the sun, the air was still quite cold, the chill of winter settling in. I held still, listening for signs of life around the palace, but it was quiet, too quiet.

  Something was wrong.

  “Elsa, Beast, come quickly!” An odd sensation settled in the pit of my stomach, and my arms broke out in gooseflesh. The gnomes rolled to me, and I ushered them into my tote then went quickly back inside. “Ah, Nan.” I was relieved to see the vampire kitchen manager. “Where is everyone?”

  “Oh, there’s been some trouble, Missus. King Rhys has all the sentinels down in the basement. The advisors too. Some of the staff went down.”

  “Why’re they in the basement?” I’d never been down there before or heard anything about it.

  “I think they don’t want to be disturbed by any outsiders, if you know what I mean. We’re not to say anything if anyone comes to call, just that the men have gone out hunting.”

  I nodded. “Do you know where Mira is? Or the other girls?”

  “I think they’re in the library. Mira might be down with the pack, though.”

  “Thanks, Nan.” I hustled down the hall. The palace usually hummed with activity, but it was silent, and the sound of my footsteps reverberated against the walls. I burst into the library, finding Dae and Joely on the couch. Rose, Robert, and some of the production crew were spread out among the tables. “What’s going on?” I asked, closing the door behind me.

  Dae and Joely looked at each other. “Don’t do that,” I said, “please just tell me what’s the matter!”

  “We don’t know.” Joely looked as though she might cry. “Mira only told us to stay here. All the wolves and some of the vampires are downstairs, but we haven’t heard what’s going on. Mira rounded us up from the kitchen a half hour or so ago and told us to stay here. She said that if you came down, we were to have you join us. No snooping—that’s what she said.”

  “Have any of you seen Rhys this morning?” I wrapped my arms around myself. In spite of the fire roaring in the fireplace, I was freezing, still covered in gooseflesh.

  “No.” Dae shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since last night, and neither has the production crew.”

  My bad feeling persisted. “Well, I’m sure everything will be all right. Otherwise they’d tell us something was going on, wouldn’t they?” I looked down at my disheveled outfit. “I’m just going to go back to my room to put some proper clothes on. I took the gnomes out and didn’t get dressed yet—I’ll be right back.”

  Joely and Dae nodded, and I left before they could remind me not to snoop. Because that was exactly what I intended to do. I crept down the hall to the front lobby and began looking for the entrance to the basement. There were several doors I’d never noticed before—one was a storage closet, another was a powder room that looked as though it had never been used, and the third concealed a staircase heading down. I took a deep breath. The stairwell was dark, only lit by a torch on the wall.

  I closed the door behind me, and it grew darker still. The gnomes whined. “Shh,” I whispered. “Mommy just needs to be certain that His Highness is all right.” Elsa whined again, and that time, I didn’t shush her. I felt like whining, myself. Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones.

  I snuck down one flight of stairs then another. I was going deeper below the castle than I’d expected. Finally, I saw the bottom. The ground was dirt, the smell earthy. I heard the murmur of voices coming from down a long, gloomy hall.

  I crept toward the noise, careful to stay in the shadows in case someone came out. But no one was near. The voices grew louder, and I finally saw a door that was open, torchlights blazing inside. I paused outside, eavesdropping.

  “It was the vamps that did this. I say we attack!”

  “But we don’t know what happened. We don’t know why they went after him—it’s most unusual.”

  “I’m telling you, the one we took captive wasn’t with the rest of them. I put the silver on her. She didn’t know a thing about it.”

  “Is he any better? He lost an awful lot of blood.”

  “Who?” I burst through the doors. “Who lost a lot of blood?”

  The werewolves turned to look at me, gaping. Mira rose from where she’d been crouched, talking to some of the advisors. “Tamara, you can’t be here.”

  “Where is he?” Suddenly, I knew why I couldn’t stop shivering—it was Rhys. He was the one bleeding. I knew it.

  “I said you need to leave. Trust me when I say it’s for the best.” Mira reached me, and I noticed that the vampire host looked paler than usual.

  “No, let her in.” Duncan came around the corner of an adjacent room. “She should see him.”

  Mira watched in sympathy as I practically ran for Duncan. The werewolf kept his voice low. “He’s in bad shape, I’m afraid.” He led me around the corner to a makeshift hospital room. Rhys lay on a cot, a thin blanket draped over him. His skin was ashy, his eyes closed. There were bite marks on his neck, his shoulder, and his torso.

  “Oh my God.” I rushed to him. “What happened?”

  “He went into the woods last night, looking for a certain vampire.” Duncan shook his head. “He found several other ones instead. They attacked him.”

  “Th-This is my fault.” I gripped Rhys’s hand, but he remained motionless beneath me, unconscious.

  “No, Missus, it’s actually my fault.” Duncan’s eyes were hollowed out. “I never should’ve told him about that vampire. He went out for her last night, ready to rip her heart out. But this other group found him instead.”

  “Who were they… Why would they attack him? It doesn’t make any sense.” Rhys had always been a friend of the vampires,
having loyally fought for them for years. “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s because you’re right—it doesn’t make sense.” Duncan’s lips were so pale they were almost white. “They ambushed him. Normally, vamps would use silver bullets to bring a werewolf down, but this crew bit him multiple times.”

  I clutched Rhys’s hands while I inspected the terrible bite marks that covered him. “I thought that vampires didn’t drink werewolf blood.”

  “They usually don’t—it makes them sick. But they can do it, if they choose. I think they didn’t kill him for a reason. They left him as a message.”

  “What sort of message?”

  Duncan shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. There are a couple of missing pieces that I have to puzzle out.”

  “So what happens now? What can we do for him?”

  “There is nothing to do but wait. Medicine does nothing for us. I might have Nan cook up some herbs to make a poultice—”

  “Do it. Please, we have to do something. He’s so cold.” I brushed the hair back from Rhys’s face.

  Duncan nodded. “I’ll go up and see her in a minute. But there’s a couple of things you need to know first.”

  I didn’t tear my gaze away from the king. “What is it?”

  “King Black can’t find out about this. That’s why we have Rhys down here, and that’s why I’m sending the men back up in a few minutes so they can go on about their day. No one can know Rhys has been hurt. That includes Prince Austin and your friends, Eve and Blake. This cannot get back to King Black, and that’s final.”

  I glanced Duncan’s way. “Why are you hiding this from him?”

  The werewolf shook his head. “That’s the Realm’s business. You don’t need to worry about the why—just swear to me that you won’t tell.”

  He sounded so desperate, and the look in his eyes was so intense that I had to agree. “I swear it.”

  “Good.” Duncan’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Next, we found the little vampire you told me about. I have her in a cell next door, chained in silver. She swears that she had nothing to do with this, and I believe her—they’re not able to conceal things for long when they’re in agony. But I thought you might want to see her…”

  “Yes.” I squeezed Rhys’s hand and stood up. I needed to see the vampire girl. I brought my tote out to Mira, who promised to mind the gnomes for me, then followed Duncan through a short, dark corridor. We came to a door with a tiny window, covered in silver bars.

  “Who’s there?” the vampire cried. I recognized her voice at once. “Please, take these chains off me! I’m in so much pain!”

  Duncan unlocked the door, and a cloud of smoke rolled out. “You’re like a living shish kebob,” he said meanly, “except that you don’t smell so good.”

  The vampire cursed and struggled. She cried out in pain. Thick silver chains were crisscrossed against her chest, eating into her charred skin. Smoke wafted off of her. When the vampire saw me, she burst into tears. “Thank the gods! You know why I’m here, and that I’ve nothing to do with what happened to that werewolf!”

  I frowned. “I know no such thing. You need to tell us the truth about yourself, and quickly. What were you still doing on the grounds? I thought you were returning to the settlements.”

  Tears streaked her face, cutting a path through the grime left from the smoke. “I was only resting, Missus. It was a long journey here, and the forest was filled with creatures that I could eat. I was hungry and trying to regain my strength.”

  “What about Shaye?” I asked. “Wasn’t she waiting to hear news from you?”

  “N-Not exactly.” More tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “I need to know the truth.” I took a step closer. “Was it Shaye who sent you, or was it someone else?”

  “It wasn’t Shaye. It was another girl.” The vampire looked at me miserably. “She told me what to say, and then she arranged to have me paid.”

  “What girl?” I asked.

  “Maya. Maya Briones.” Her voice wobbled.

  “As in, Maya the contestant who was cut?” Duncan took a menacing step toward her.

  “Y-Yes.” The vampire nodded then turned her gaze back to me. “I knew her from when I was younger, from before I was turned. We’re from the same neighborhood—we went to school together. She knew my family needed money, so she sought me out. She said you were a great friend of hers and that she had to help you.”

  “If she was such a great friend, why did she lie about Shaye? How did she explain that to you?”

  The vampire shook her head. “She said that she really wanted to help, but that you’d be more apt to believe the message if it came from Shaye. She gave me a script to recite, those details about Shaye’s brother. And then the money. She made sure that I got half up front, so that I’d need to finish the job to get the rest of it.”

  “Was anything that she told you true?”

  “I don’t know, Missus.” The vampire shook her head. “I don’t know where the story came from, just that she said it was urgent to get the news to you.”

  Duncan shook his head. “I told you Maya was bad news—too twisted and fancy for my liking, to be sure. She was jealous of you, Lady Layne. There’s no way a girl like that has access to information from the royals. She was playing you. It was a lie, a trick.”

  “It might have been a trick. Maya has a vengeful streak,” the vampire girl admitted. “Once, when we were in school, her boyfriend left her for another girl. Maya broke into one of the classrooms, vandalized it, then told everyone that the girl had done it. She framed her, and the poor girl got expelled. Everyone believed it.”

  “So why did you do this errand for Maya, when she has a history like that?” I cried.

  “I told you—my family’s in a bad way. It was either steal the money or do this, so I chose the lesser of two evils. And Maya told me, over and over, that she was trying to help. I guess I heard what I wanted.”

  “I guess you’re a bloody idiot,” Duncan said, “not to mention a smoky one. Why didn’t you just bite the wench?”

  “I’m a new vampire. I didn’t choose this life, and I’m not used to…hurting people.” The vampire sighed then winced from the pain caused by the sudden movement. “I was trying to help my family. Draining their semi-famous neighbor didn’t seem like the best idea.”

  “Are you telling me the truth, now? The whole truth?” I asked.

  “Yes.” The girl’s eyes were wide in her grimy face.

  “I believe you.” It was true that Maya hated me, and the last thing she wanted was for me to win the competition. She’d likely spun the tale to put whispers into my head and doubt into my heart. “Maya Briones is bitter, a liar and a cheat, but she’s the least of my problems right now. I’ll deal with her later.” I took another step closer to the prisoner, despite the smell. “Tell me what you know about those other vampires in the woods. The ones who attacked my friend.”

  “I don’t know anything about it, I swear to you. I encountered no one in the woods on my travels from the settlements—there were a couple of abandoned camps along the way, but I figured they were from vagrants or left over from the rebels. I saw no one in the woods, I swear to you. Please take the silver off me! I’m growing weaker by the moment.”

  “Go on, then,” I said to Duncan. “Remove it. She didn’t hurt him.”

  But Duncan didn’t move. “I’m not inclined to assist any vampires at the moment.”

  “It’s an order,” I snapped. “All she’s guilty of is taking a job from a crazy ex-contestant. We’re not in the business of harming innocent creatures, last time I checked.”

  Duncan shot me a look as he dug the heavy chains out of the vampire’s skin. “Sounds like somebody’s taking charge.”

  “Do not give me a hard time, Duncan. You know as well as I do that Rhys wouldn’t want to harm her further. But keep her locked up—we may have use for her yet.”

  “But Missus…” The vampire started to beg
for help, but I left before she could finish her sentence.

  I needed to get back to the king. He was in mortal danger, and it was all my fault.

  Vigil

  Sometimes the mind plays funny tricks on us. That morning, mine recalled a lullaby my mother used to sing to me. I hadn’t thought of it in years and could only remember a snippet:

  You’ll never know dear, how much I love you

  Please don’t take my sunshine away…

  Rhys lay cold beneath me. His wounds had scabbed, thick blood congealing over the various marks. I smoothed the blanket over him, fussing. When Duncan brought the poultice, I held it against Rhys’s neck. Then I kicked Duncan out, and I wouldn’t let anyone else in the room.

  “She wants to be alone with him,” I heard Duncan telling one of the other wolves. “Let them be. You need to get upstairs with the others and act like everything’s fine. I’ll stay down here and keep watch.”

  I kept brushing the hair back from Rhys’s face. His eyes remained closed. There was no movement except for the shallow rising and falling of his chest. I wished there was something, anything, I could do for him. All I had was Nan’s poultice. “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” I whispered to the king. “And more than that, I’m sorry that I got you into this mess. I was tricked, you see. The little vampire just confessed—Maya filled her head with lies and her pockets with coins. She sent her up here to tell me that you were pretending to love me, so that I might throw the contest.”

  I rested my forehead against the cool skin of Rhys’s shoulder, careful to keep far away from his wounds.

  “But I can’t even blame Maya, because this is all my fault. You went out into the woods because of what I told you. You went out there because you knew it wasn’t true, and you wanted to prove it.” My head throbbed. “All because I believed their lies. You were right, Your Highness. You asked me to have faith, and I didn’t. You asked me to be patient, and I couldn’t. You asked me to believe in you, and I doubted. I could say I’m sorry a hundred times, but it will never undo the wrong I’ve done.”