Kiss of the Rose (28 page)

“Did you think that by summoning me, you would be in control?” The Vampire laughed, her mouth a black hole surrounded by the thinnest red lips and the longest fangs Rosalind had ever seen.

Rosalind struggled to find her voice, not yet sure if the Vampire was truly there, or simply invading her thoughts. “I do not seek to control you, only call you to account for your actions. You have killed innocent humans and been found guilty by your own race. They have condemned you to death, not I.”

Rosalind tried to look around, but she could see nothing beyond the black whirlwind and the Vampire.

“Yet you are to be my executioner.”

“I serve my people.”

“Who hate mine.”

“With good reason.” Rosalind tried to inch her hand toward her dagger. If she could reach it, perhaps she could finish this once and for all. Then she screamed as the dagger was ripped out of its sheath and flung into the chaotic twisting darkness.

The Vampire laughed. “I can see your murderous thoughts, Druid. Do you really think I’d allow you to finish me off with your little silver blade?”

Desperately, Rosalind tried to reconstruct her shattered defenses. Sharing herself with Christopher had weakened them considerably. Could she reconnect with him? She needed his strength.

“Where is Christopher?” She didn’t mean to blurt out his name, but she couldn’t help herself.

“My kin?”

“Yes. Is he all right?”

“Do you think I care for him?” The Vampire’s face twisted. “He is an abomination, neither Vampire nor human. He was simply a means to an end.”

“What do you mean?”

“He gave me what I wanted, which was access to you.”

“And what do you want with me?”

The Vampire laughed. “You are a brave little thing, aren’t you? That’s why I have chosen you to do my work.”

Rosalind forced herself to hold the Vampire’s burning gaze. “I will not do anything willingly for you. I would rather die.”

“You do not need to die, Druid. If I wish I could simply turn you into a Vampire and order you to kill the king yourself.”

“No Vampire dares turn a Druid. Legend has it that combining the blood of both races again would create a being more powerful and dangerous than any of us.You would not risk such a thing.” Rosalind prayed the Vampire wasn’t insane enough to try just that.

“Foolish girl, do not bait me. You do not know what I am capable of.” The Vampire pointed into the darkness. “What of these three men who willingly gathered around the altar for you tonight? Do they mean nothing to you?”

It was hard not to let her voice shake. “If it is me you want, you don’t need them. Let them go.”

The Vampire leaned so close that the scent of decayed orange blossom almost made Rosalind gag. “But I do need them. They are my hostages. What happens to them next is entirely up to you.” She snapped her fingers and the mist dispersed to reveal the three men, each bound to one of the standing stones with the trailing ivy. Moonlight illuminated their faces, but Rosalind could see no sign of awareness. It was as if they were awake, but in a trance.

“What have you done to them?” Rosalind whispered.

“Nothing yet. They are merely deep in dreamland. Would you like to know what they dream of?”

The Vampire grabbed Rosalind’s shoulder and spun her around to face Elias. Sharp fingernails dug into Rosalind’s flesh and she winced. At least the pain proved that the Vampire was present in some form.

“This fool who has betrayed me to work with you— what do you think he fears most?”

Rosalind gasped as the Vampire forced her mind into Elias’s and made her experience the cold panic of his dreams.

“What do you see, slayer? What does he fear?”

“He fears you, even more than he fears the Council; fears he will fail to stop you. There is something else, something he hides so deeply that even he is afraid to acknowledge it.” Rosalind gasped. The Vampire had some kind of grip on her mind; she was unable to resist the compulsion to speak. She tried to fight it, and found only an ironclad power that entrapped her thoughts, turned them back on her, and laughed at her struggles.

“And what else?”

Rosalind moaned as she was propelled deeper into Elias’s mind, saw images of herself, felt tainted and consumed by Elias’s lust. He wanted her body and her blood, wanted her enslaved to him forever. Like a swimmer desperately seeking air, she forced herself upward. She tried to grab hold of the Vampire’s robes as she recoiled. “No!”

“Elias desires you. He’s fascinated by your beauty and your ability to kill. But he would not die for you. He is far too selfish for that.”

With a snap of her fingers, the Vampire extracted them both from Elias’s mind. He sagged against his bonds as if weakened by their invasion.

Rosalind tore her gaze from Elias and tried not to look at Rhys, used all her remaining strength to painstakingly rebuild her defenses for the ordeal she suspected was to come.

“And then we have the Welshman.”

“Please don’t.” Rosalind licked her lips. “Rhys has done nothing to warrant your anger.”

“Except try to kill me and my followers!”

Rhys strained against his bonds as Rosalind and the Vampire invaded his mind. Rosalind tried to hold back, but the Vampire was relentless, forcing her through his memories of her. She felt his love, his longing, his utter devastation and growing anger at her joining with Christopher.

“Stop it!” Rosalind found her voice and shoved her hands over her ears to shut out his anguish. “I don’t want this!”

“Why should you be spared? You have betrayed his love,” the Vampire whispered.“You have destroyed him with your unnatural lust for a Druid slayer.”

“I know!” Rosalind found herself glaring into the Vampire’s cold burning red eyes. “I know what I’ve done to him.”

“And you don’t regret it, do you? Because you’d prefer to spread your legs for my kin, a man who kills your people and mine, a man who cannot be trusted by anyone.”

And then Rosalind was screaming as the Vampire threw her into the chaos of Christopher’s thoughts; his fear for her bundled up with his fear of himself, that he’d become a Vampire, that he’d be forced to kill for her love.

Rosalind fell to her knees as tears streamed down her face. She was surrounded by pain, by yearning, by the needs of all three men, and she was trapped in the center, a conduit for all of their emotions.

A conduit… Beneath her fingertips, the stone undulated and started to warm. Her gods were stirring; she wasn’t entirely alone.

Vampires were descended from the Druids; surely like called to like? But how could that help her? The men were tied to the upright stones. Could they feel it too? The ebb and flow of energy? She wasn’t yet sure, but at least it gave her hope.

“See what you have done, Vampire slayer? You have taken three good men and destroyed them. Now what do you intend to do about it?”

“Make it stop!” Rosalind cried.“Take me out of their minds.”

The Vampire grabbed Rosalind’s braid and forced her to stand upright. “I can make it stop. I can kill them all for you. Is that what you want?”

“No!” Rosalind tried not to scream her denial. “You have caused this, not I!”

“How very selfish of you, my dear.”

Rosalind sagged as she was suddenly freed from the others’ minds, but the Vampire continued speaking.

“But it only makes me more certain that you are indeed the person the prophecy speaks of. The one who will help me rid the world of this king.”

In the very recesses of her mind, Rosalind felt something stir, some sense of Christopher searching for her beneath the fear. Even as she sought to protect him from the Vampire, she tried to send him strength, strength that she didn’t even have, strength that she needed to protect herself.

The heat building up in the stone intensified, and she wondered if the Vampire was aware of it.

“Why do you hate the king?”

The Vampire raised her chin. “You should know why. You attend the queen and appear to care for her.”

“I do care for the queen. I’ve known her since I was a child.”

“And I’ve known her since she was born. I’ve protected her and her family from vermin like you for generations. I don’t need to wait for permission from the likes of Elias Warner and the Vampire Council to kill my enemies!”

Rosalind licked her lips as Christopher tentatively touched her mind. “But why now?”

“Because the king is determined to set the queen aside— to betray his true wife with that upstart whore, with that…”The Vampire shook her head, her attention focused completely on Rosalind. “I decided it was time to use the prophecy for my own ends. Because of what will come next. Because of you.”

“But I had no part in the creation of the prophecy,” Rosalind said desperately. The Vampire kept speaking as if she hadn’t heard her.

“It was time for the prophecy to come to fruition. I arranged for a few corpses to turn up close to the king and queen to garner the interest of the Druids and the Vampire Council. I needed a reason for them to think the king was in danger and send for those they thought best to fulfill the terms of the prophecy.”

“You wanted the prophecy to come true?”

“Of course, Vampire slayer. I needed you and my kin to come together and serve me.”

“Serve you?”

“Indeed.” The Vampire smiled and Rosalind fought a grimace. “And you have amused me greatly.”

Rosalind sensed Christopher trying to escape his bonds. The Vampire’s gaze flicked to the circle of stones and Rosalind willed him to be still.

“The king needs to die.”

Rosalind shuddered at the Vampire’s flat tone.

“I once thought to turn him and use him as my vessel. But he has a stubborn mind and a devout faith. And despite his wickedness, the queen still loves him. I would have to dispose of her to gain true power, and that I would never do.”

Rosalind tried to think through what the Vampire was telling her. There was something she was missing, something obvious, but trying to keep the Vampire occupied while protecting Christopher was tearing her mind apart. “So you wish to murder the king and rule in his stead?”

The Vampire fixed Rosalind with her empty stare. “If he insists on annulling his marriage to the queen, it is the only solution. And through your unnatural bond with my kin, you will help me achieve my aim. Your family is the only one granted instant access to the king. No one will question you when you come to kill him at my command.” She smiled, displaying her fangs.“And when he’s dead, you will be put to death as well, and the Vampire Council will thank me for ridding them of the last of the cursed Llewellyn family.”

Rosalind backed up a step and realized she was close to the edge of the altar. “I’ve already told you I will not do it.”

“Then you don’t care about the fate of these men?” The Vampire gestured at Elias, Rhys, and Christopher. “If you do not aid me, I will kill them all.” She laughed and clapped her hands together.

“I think you are insane.” Rosalind flinched as the Vampire’s fangs snapped a whisker away from her throat. It was hard to breathe, let alone frame words. “Let them go and I’ll consider what you want me to do.”

“You think me a fool?”

“Leave them alone!” Rosalind gathered the power the stones were channeling through her and threw herself at the Vampire. Energy and exultation shot through her and she grabbed for the Vampire’s throat. But before she could reach her, she felt herself falling. She had a sense of time blurring, of the stone circle distorting until it swallowed her up and she lay in the darkness underground. The only sound was that of her frantic breathing.There was no sign of any of the men or the Vampire, and her dagger had miraculously been restored to her hand.

“You may choose one, Vampire slayer.” The voice of the Vampire echoed inside her head. “Choose one to save— the others are mine to kill.”

Cautiously, Rosalind sat up and looked around. Had the stone circle freed her from the Vampire or not? It seemed unlikely. She was surrounded by tunnel entrances made of a shining black rock that gleamed like burnished steel. Although there was no natural light, Ros alind could see perfectly well. She took a deep, steadying breath. She only knew she had to find the others and free them from the Vampire’s clutches.

She closed her eyes and thought about Elias, found her feet moving in the direction of one of the tunnels before she even questioned the impulse. Her boots sounded loud in the confines of the circular space and she slowed to a walk.At the end of the tunnel, Elias was leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest, his fixed silver gaze seemingly unaware of her presence.

Rosalind studied him for a long moment. She tried to think like the Vampire. Surely Elias was valuable? He was the Vampire’s link to the Council and she was unlikely to dispose of him. Elias also meant the least to Rosalind, so she calculated that the Vampire would not enjoy killing him.

“I’m sorry, Elias,” Rosalind whispered, even though she didn’t think he could hear her. “I can’t save you.”

She turned back and left him standing there, her heart thumping hard in her chest. That had been the easiest of the choices she had to make; now she had to decide what to do next. She returned to the center of the maze and took a moment to compose herself. Her panicked thoughts swirled around in her head, making it almost impossible to breathe, let alone think.

Whom should she leave, and whom should she save? The Vampire obviously thought she would be unable to make a choice, and it was possible that she was right. Rosalind sought for calm. Rhys was her dearest friend and her future. Christopher was…

Rosalind closed her eyes as a sob tore from her throat and she pictured the man she had to find.

Chapter 20

C
hristopher regained consciousness and tried to open his eyes. He knew something was terribly wrong.Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to move his limbs. It felt like one of his old nightmares, when he lay paralyzed in bed as his mother returned for him, fangs extended, intent on turning him.

He licked his lips and tasted blood, felt a familiar but growing excitement run through his senses. He inhaled slowly and his heart rate increased. Where was he? He only knew he was no longer at the stone circle, but underground. He tried to focus, aware only of his heart pumping away, of his senses sharpening as his fangs elongated…