Blood Prophecy (13 page)

“But you smell like sugar and pepper. Just a taste.”

I held up my fists. “I belong to Nicholas Drake.” Usually I would have rolled my eyes at a ridiculous statement like that. Right now, it seemed my best defense.

He didn’t come closer, but he didn’t back away either. He just kept staring at me with that creepy hungry glint in his eyes. Stay focused, I ordered myself. This is just a minor setback.

Someone rattled his chains suddenly on the other side of the post, and shouted obscenities. He jerked at his chains so frantically I heard the pop of his wrist dislocating. It didn’t stop him. One of the girls nearby tried to hush him. He finally stopped fighting when a guard wearing the royal insignia punched him in the face and then walked away, looking irritated. The guy crumpled silently, dangling from his short chains.

Hell of a setback.

And then just to prove that things could always get worse, they did.

Chapter 11

Solange

Now I knew why Viola hated Madame Veronique.

I could still feel the visceral bite of her hatred for her, from that night in the tent when I’d challenged Veronique. I hadn’t realized why I was doing it at the time. I’d been stewing in frustration for so long I’d just lashed out. But now it made sense. Madame Veronique knew Viola and tried to keep her apart from her beloved.

Constantine.

He was going by his last name now but I’d have known those eyes anywhere. Even for a human they were an odd blue. They’d have gone violet over the years, as he waited for Viola to somehow return. That must be why he’d sought me out, why’d he’d been the only one who “understood” me. He’d orchestrated my entire coup. All while staying carefully concealed from Madame Veronique.

I kind of wanted to stab him.

Mom would be so proud.

And Viola and Madame Veronique hadn’t just known each other. They’d been related. They were grandmother and granddaughter.

Which made Viola Drake the first daughter born to the Drake family. The first of only two daughters, of which I was the second.

Little parts of the puzzle began to fall into place: Madame Veronique hiring an old witch woman to look into the future. She’d defined me with that damn prophecy, hundreds of years before I was even born.

And the reason the dragon had attacked Viola’s knights as well as me was because it was the emblem of our family. Lucy’s father would have called it our totem spirit. Viola had incorporated it into her subconscious, the same way she’d kept a piece of Gwyneth and me. She still feared Madame Veronique.

With good reason.

Memories shifted in my head until they started to make some semblance of sense. None of which I really had time to consider at the moment.

Because I’d slammed back into my body at the exact moment one of Madame Veronique’s creepy handmaidens threw a stake at me. I recognized her by her medieval style dress and the heavy pendant in the shape of the Drake dragon holding ivy in its jaws.

Viola had only let me back into my own body in Violet Hill long enough to help her. I knew my body and what it could do better than she did and she knew she’d die without me. I couldn’t do anything but react.

My mother’s training had me flipping sideways, like a corkscrew. The cold air whistled around my ears and stung my eyes. I was already considering my options, even as I spun and spun, my hair lifting into the air as if I were underwater. Escape wasn’t immediately possible. I’d have to fight. For that I needed weapons.

I was cataloguing what I could use as I landed lightly on the balls of my feet. Trees for height, branches for stakes, pheromones, speed.

They weren’t going to be enough.

My left foot slipped on a bit of ice. I was still getting accustomed to being corporeal again and it made me clumsier than usual. The fact that for some reason I was wearing a white silk slip didn’t help. I was practically naked.

The stake whistled past my head, showering me with splinters of wood when it landed in a nearby tree. The handmaiden snarled and advanced on me, another stake already in her hand. Three more of her sister handmaidens fanned out behind her. I ducked another stake, but only barely. It sliced through my sleeve and my upper arm, leaving a burning trail of blood to my elbow. I backed up, yanking the stake out of the tree. It was splintered but better than nothing.

Another stake whistled my way. I caught it and flung the splintered one back at the same time. It missed its target but at least the other two handmaidens had to jump out of the way. The third one leaped at me, snarling, fangs bared. She was pale and deadly as mistletoe berries. She caught me in the shoulder with the heel of her palm, hard enough that I heard the grind and pop of it dislocating. Pain seared through me and I hurled myself backward, cracking it
against a tree. My shoulder popped back into place just as painfully as it had popped out.

She closed in, a dagger in one hand and a rapier in the other. The hem of her long embroidered gown flared out, like the petals of a poisonous flower.

“Viola, love, where are you at? We’ve barely started.” Constantine sauntered into the clearing wearing nothing but leather pants and a lazy, intimate smile. It died as soon as he saw the handmaidens. There were leaves in his tousled hair and he was barefoot.

I suddenly knew exactly why I was running around the forest in my underwear.

He tackled the handmaiden who now had me by the hair. They staggered, landing several feet away in a patch of withered ferns. I whirled, preparing to meet the next two handmaidens. They moved slowly, patiently, like icebergs drifting in an arctic sea. I looked from one to the other.

“Stop,” I commanded, trying to exude pheromones, gathering the power inside of me and pushing it out like wavering blasts of heat.

They paused.

Constantine and the other handmaiden were still fighting in the bushes, too far away to be affected by my compulsion.

“Drop your weapons,” I ordered the other two, who were still frozen in place, glaring at me. Seven stakes, a mini crossbow, three rapiers, five daggers, and a set of silver handcuffs landed in the snow. I reached cautiously for one of the rapiers. The weight was familiar and comforting in my hand. “Now go away and leave us alone.”

They turned and walked away, leaning as if they were fighting a wild wind at their back. They tried to fight the compulsion but couldn’t. I had a tiny delicious moment of smug satisfaction.

And then the handmaiden fighting Constantine whistled shrilly through her teeth signaling to the others, even as she dodged a vicious jab to the jugular.

The handmaidens were bad.

Being possessed was bad.

But this was so much worse.

Chapter 12

Lucy

It was my experience that when vampires start bowing and looking all formal, it’s best to get the hell out of the way.

Which I would have done if I wasn’t chained to a post.

There was more bowing and murmurs of “My lord” and “My prince” and two of the female donors strained at the end of their chains, smiling and showing cleavage. One of them actually sighed, like she was meeting someone from a boy band. It was embarrassing. Which could only mean one thing.

A Drake brother.

And since all but one of them were exiled on pain of death, it could only mean one person specifically.

Nicholas.

My palms went damp. I wasn’t sure why but I felt nervous and
exposed, and it had nothing to do with the chains. The crowd parted and suddenly Nicholas was there, stalking toward me, his serious face cut in hard, uncompromising lines. His gray eyes flared silver, like jagged pieces of mirror sharp enough to slice through your skin. I half expected blood to be running down my arms.

“What is she doing here?” he asked. He sounded lethal and dark. It was hard to remember that this was the same seventeen-year-old Nicholas who’d given me a mix CD just last week. He stood like a man, not like a younger brother or a youngest son or any of the other things that defined him. They were still part of him, but the pieces now fit into a more complicated puzzle.

“She said she was here on your orders,” a guard replied, glaring at me. I lifted my chin and glared back.

“I mean, what is she doing chained to the tree,” Nicholas continued, so evenly the guard swallowed.

“Queen’s orders,” he replied quickly, defensively.

My boyfriend made a vampire guard at least twice his age nervous. I was kind of proud. Also? Really freaking nervous.

Because the truth was, I still didn’t know if he was broken.

“Unchain her,” Nicholas ordered while I tried to interpret his expression. He looked stronger and older.

“Beg pardon, but she hasn’t been vouched for,” the guard said.

Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “My sister isn’t here,” he said. “But I am. So Un. Chain. Her,” he repeated, slowly and emphatically, his fangs lengthening to killing points.

I actually shivered. My animal self, the one who reacted to lightning and strange sounds at night, urged me to
run run run.
My animal self was forgetting the cardinal rule with vampires:
don’t run.

The clamp of iron around my aching wrist was replaced by the clamp of Nicholas’s pale fingers. It wasn’t any less confining or unbending. I grabbed his arm with my free hand. “Nicholas, what—”

He spun so fast, I got dizzy.

“You will address me as ‘Your Highness,’ ” he demanded, his voice like a whip slicing the air, or the tail of a poisonous snake. He backed me into the post, until the dangling empty chain pressed into my side. The bloodslaves parted around us. Nicholas’s hand slid up my bare neck, tilting my head forcibly to the side. He dragged his lips along my jugular, pausing with his lips over my ear. I swallowed, my throat so dry I could barely form words.

“Be scared.” His voice was barely a breath, tickling my ear, sending shivers over my skin.

I had to hope he was asking me to play along.

That he wasn’t actually serious.

He pulled away just slightly, his pupils wide and black as a pond at night, edged with pale fog and moonlight. I could almost, almost, catch a glimpse of the real Nicholas.

And then he yanked me along behind him until I was stumbling and tripping over my own feet. One of the bloodslave girls started to weep when she realized Nicholas wasn’t picking her. She made me irrationally angry. “Oh, grow a spine,” I snapped at her when she tried to touch Nicholas’s boot. “You’re giving all girls a bad name.”

Said the girl who was currently allowing her boyfriend to pull her about like a rag doll.

“I’m so going to punch you if this is a trap,” I muttered.

Nicholas didn’t even glance back at me and he didn’t pause until we approached the Drake tent. There was a tiered table full of burning candles and flowers on a rug out front. There were wine bottles of blood, pomegranates, and baskets of silver jewelry, all at the foot of a painting of Solange. I gaped at it.

“She likes the attention.” Nicholas yanked me through the opening to the tent. Except for the wooden furniture and the rugs and lanterns, it was empty.

I reached out and yanked his hair as savagely as I could. “Okay, what the bloody damn hell—”

He put his finger over my lips, silencing me. He shook his head once.

I narrowed my eyes. “It’s like you think I won’t bite you,” I muttered, but I nodded my head to let him know I understood. He kicked a Persian rug over to reveal a wooden door leading to what I assumed was one of the tunnels. I followed him down the stairs, into the cold damp darkness, hoping I wasn’t being one of those stupid girls in a horror movie.

My fists were clenched and I was getting ready to fight when Nicholas pivoted to face me. “Lucky,” he said, his voice breaking.

I lowered my fists. “Are you
you?
Really you?”

He caught me up against him. His hold was just as strong as before, but it was gentle, restrained, and honest.

Nicholas.

“I missed you,” he said hoarsely.

I wrapped my arms around him, not nearly as gentle. He dipped his head, slanting his mouth over mine. The kiss didn’t meander or
hesitate, it went straight to fire. I was a drought-dry field and Nicholas was the spark. Our tongues touched and I felt it all the way down my thighs and into my toes. He backed me up against the wall, one hand on my waist, the other flattened on the stones by my cheek. I couldn’t get close enough. I finally had Nicholas back, and he wasn’t lost or missing or broken. He was right here, kissing me, as desperate to touch me as I was to touch him.