Natasha, queen of the vampires, studied her son with a critical eye. Even though the boy didn’t remember meeting his father—she’d killed the king just weeks after the boy’s birth nearly fourteen years earlier—he held so many of the closed-minded and now-dead king’s views. But where the boy might take after his father in disposition, he took after her in appearance. He was growing into a handsome young man, indeed.
She smiled. Attitude and disposition could be molded, but looks were inborn and everlasting. Especially for vampires who stopped showing outward signs of aging in their twenties, thus fueling the false rumors of their immortality. The boy might be misguided, but he was still young. There was time yet to sway his opinions before he became a full-grown vampire.
“Don’t be such a picky eater,” she said, pushing the carafe of human blood toward him. “Try it. You might like it. Blood never tastes as good from a jar as it does fresh from the vein, but even consumed this way, human blood is delicious and energizing. One sip and you’ll see what I mean.”
“You’ve fed directly from a human vein?” Her son tried to hide his shock and revulsion while she hid her disappointment and irritation. Her first act as reigning monarch, after killing her husband, had been to repeal the law against human blood consumption. But a law change couldn’t alter centuries of custom and most of her subjects still abstained. Even her son. But she could change that.
“Yes, I have fed from a vein.” She stood defiant. “Once or twice.”
“That’s disgusting,” he said. “Plus, humans are so weak. It seems unsporting to treat them as prey.”
“You’re too soft-hearted.” She pressed her nails into her palms to keep from slapping him. His tutors had turned the boy into a weakling, but if she were going to gain the adoration and support of all the vampires in Sanguinia, she had to start with her son.
She nudged the carafe toward him again. “You don’t need to kill a human to taste its blood.” Although without that thrill, what was the point?
“May I ask you a question, Mother?”
She nodded.
“I overheard your conversation, earlier. If there are vampires drinking blood from unwilling humans in Xandra, aren’t the generals right? Won’t it provoke war if we don’t do more to stop them?”
Rage rose inside her at the thought, threatening to burst out in a deadly strike, but she held back; she’d find someone to crush later. In a controlled voice, she answered her son. “If King Stefan declares war, it will prove what I already know to be true. Humans are brutal creatures with no morals or any sense of right and wrong. If they invade Sanguinia based on a few harmless neck bites, then they deserve to be drained.” If Stefan declared war, the vampire population would surely rally behind her, but her thirteen-year-old son wasn’t old enough to understand politics.
The boy leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. His relaxed gesture eased her fears that he might go to the generals behind her back, even though she’d caught him talking to that idiot Adanthas more than once. Many of her subjects did not yet trust her, since she’d been born human.
“Where did you get this blood?” He nodded toward the carafe. “It wasn’t brought back from Xandra, was it?”
She raised a hand to her chest as if his words shocked her. “Of course not.” She made sure to add a worried expression to her face to play up the charade. “It was a willing donation.” It wouldn’t do to raise his suspicions.
In truth, the blood had been brought back from Xandra, harvested by one of her minions from some weak human. Natasha was gaining support, and soon every citizen in Sanguinia would bow down at her feet. Then she’d order an invasion and Xandra would be crushed.
Those infernal fairies had paid dearly in ripped-off wings for barring her from entering Xandra and making her wait sixteen years to torture Catia and Stefan’s daughter.
But even though she couldn’t cross the border herself, it was delicious to know that each night bloodthirsty vampires terrorized Stefan and Catia’s precious kingdom and the throne that was rightfully hers. And in less than three years, her minions would be terrorizing something even more precious to the odious couple than their subjects—their daughter.
Then Catia and Stefan would suffer as they so richly deserved. If Stefan declared war in the meantime, so be it. Yet another way to see him crushed.
In time she’d rule Xandra, with its riches and strategic location. Soon after, she’d conquer the entire known world.
“Why don’t I get to take my own stakes?” Lucette asked Tristan as they stood near the door of the gymnasium, ready to go out into the night. Almost nine months had gone by since they started training, and she was ready to kill her first vampire. She hoped.
He shook his head. “Not a chance.” He pulled his black slayer hood over his short blond hair and zipped on his neck protector.
“But I’ve been training for nearly a year.” She reached for a quiver of stakes, but he grabbed onto her arm and shook his head.
“We aren’t going to get close to the action,” he said. “This outing is just about observation.” He leaned back against the wall, his long, lean body looking especially strong in his slayer uniform. “I shouldn’t even be sneaking you out. If anyone from the academy finds out I brought a girl along to the first-year slayers’ field trip”—he paused—“I’m not sure what they’d do. I’d probably get expelled.”
“I thought we were going with your class,” she said. Tristan was in his third year, and ever since he’d told her about his class outings to get real-life combat experience with the slayer army, she’d been pestering him to take her along. How else was she supposed to get experience?
Tristan slipped a hood over her head. Although she knew the hood and mask were because she was going out into the dangerous night, she couldn’t help feel as if they served another purpose: him wanting to cover her face so he wouldn’t have to look at her.
She chewed on her lip as he zipped her in. Then he strapped on her neck protector and checked the rest of her slayer uniform. It wasn’t as if Tristan ever said anything to purposefully make her feel bad or ugly, it’s just that he never seemed to notice she was a girl. In contrast, she sure noticed that he was a boy. Nearly seventeen, he was practically a man.
“That works.” He took her by the shoulders and spun her around. “No one will guess you’re not one of the boys.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. Her lack of girlish attributes might make it easier for her to hide in among the class of boys tonight, but her fourteenth birthday was coming soon and . . . She shook her head. Even if Tristan might say yes, it would be too risky to invite him to her birthday party. How could she explain meeting him to her father? And asking her mother to concoct yet another lie was out of the question. Plus, she couldn’t even tell Tristan who she really was. Taking him to meet her parents at the palace would blow her cover.
Tristan adjusted his weapons. “Ready?”
“No.” She took a step back from him.
He closed the distance she’d created and ran his strong hands from her shoulders down to her wrists and then her hands. The gesture was so protective, she nearly dove into his chest for a hug.
“Are you frightened?” he asked, his gloved hands still over hers. “We don’t need to do this.”
She pulled away from him. “I am not frightened. But I should have weapons. What if I’m attacked? What if you are? How will I save you?”
He swung one arm and punched her lightly in the shoulder, but hard enough that she tipped to the side. “My brave little slayer girl.”
Although she couldn’t see his expression under his mask, she felt sure he was mocking her, and she gritted her teeth. What would it take for him to take her seriously—as a slayer or as a girl?
“Don’t worry, little Lucy.” He assured her. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”