Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (22 page)

My father sagged forward. Only Avery and me holding his arms kept him from collapsing on to his own legs. I eased him backwards, toward the mountain of pillows. He stiffened, back arching. Bloody and blackened lips parted to emit a horrible sound – like the screaming of a wild animal caught in a trap. The wounds he had suffered returned, slowly tearing open his flesh, exposing raw tissue and muscle beneath. Blood ran from him in tiny rivers, quickly soaking the bed.

And then his head snapped back and a torrent of blood and gore erupted from his mouth. It shot toward the ceiling like a geyser, raining hot wet clots down upon us in a blood storm.

Vex was on his rotary, ringing for medical assistance even as he shouted for help from the pack.

Avery and I were silent, staring at each other through the crimson shower. I held my father with one hand while the other reached behind him and took hold of Avery’s. Her wet fingers slipped over mine, but we held fast, blood forming a glue between us.

We didn’t have to speak. It was a few minutes to dawn, and we both knew that time was not on our side.

Avery’s fingers tightened around mine as the blood pouring out of Vardan lessened to a trickle. The three of us were covered in it – foul-smelling and thick. Our father crumpled like a rag doll against our joined hands. He was a mess – ripped, torn and depleted of blood, yet drenched with it.

My sister bit into her wrist, hard and without a care, and pressed the ruin of her arm to Vardan’s mouth. His lips didn’t move.

“Drink!” she commanded, practically pouring her life into his mouth. Nothing.

I stroked his throat, trying to make him swallow the fresh blood, but it was too late.

The Duke of Vardan was dead.

Someone called Val – I think it might have been Argyle, Vex’s secretary. Argyle was the halfie son of Vex’s first cousin, which explained the strong resemblance. This thought occurred to me for no reason as I stood to the side, watching as medical people – the plague doctors – took my father’s corpse away in a black, non-porous bag that wouldn’t show the stains.

Avery and I had both showered, and I lent her some of my clothes that I kept at Vex’s. The garments that were soaked with our father’s blood I put in a large plastic sack to be tossed away if they weren’t needed for evidence or… something.

So she and I were standing shoulder to shoulder when our brother finally arrived. He stopped the halfies with the gurney
and flashed his badge. He didn’t have to do that, but I reckoned he was in shock as much as Avery and I were.

Val paled when one of the halfies opened the bag for him to look inside. It wouldn’t be a pretty picture. My brother had seen far too many corpses in his lifetime, but seeing his father’s drained all the professional, hard-arsed copper right out of him. He ran his hand across his face, holding it over his mouth for the span of a breath before nodding that they could close the bag again.

He crossed the threshold into the house, and somehow his gaze found Avery and me immediately. His expression softened, and I saw him blink back tears as he came towards us. He was trying so hard to be the strong big brother. He didn’t have to do that, at least not with me. I don’t think I could have cried if I wanted to. I was numb all over, particularly inside.

I don’t think Val grasped the entirety of the situation. With our father dead, he was the new Duke of Vardan. It was rare that halfies inherited titles, but about thirty years ago or so Victoria had decided that they could, as there was a chance they might be able to produce a full-blooded heir. If the halfie failed to do so, at the time of his death the title then went to the closest full-blooded relative.

With the Vardan genes being as they were, I didn’t doubt that Val would produce an heir, although who knew what sort of freak it might be. Maybe it would have to be locked away like a shameful secret.

Like William.

“Are you two all right?” Val asked, letting us go.

I nodded, dry-eyed. Avery sniffed, her eyes and nose red, but she held her shoulders back. “I will be.”

“Val,” I said, “we need to talk.”

He nodded, understanding that something had to have happened for our father to be dead. Vampires didn’t just die on their own – not that we knew of. It was assumed that their lives were finite, but the world had yet to see a naturally occurring aristo death.

I led both him and Avery to a small upstairs sitting room that Vex had said I could turn into a little study/office for myself when I was at his place. I had a similar room at my house for him. All nice and cosy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get my brother into the room before two maids and a footman walked past us on their way to the servants’ stairs carrying the blood-soaked bedding.

Val stopped and stared, all colour draining from his face. If it weren’t for the fact that I knew he’d seen worse in his line of work, I’d have feared he might empty the contents of his stomach on to my shoes.

“Stop looking,” I commanded both siblings and practically shoved them into the room. Call me cold, but I had no desire to dwell on any of this.

I knew I had shut down that part of my brain that reacted to tragedy in a normal fashion. Later, I would no doubt cry and wail and gnash my teeth – or maybe not. My father and I had had a complicated relationship, and my feelings towards him weren’t going to change just because he was gone.

However, it was how he came to be gone that actually made me feel something. I believe it was rage.

I closed the door, and turned to face my brother and sister. Avery had composed herself, though that could change at any moment. I loved her dearly, but she could cry at the drop of a hat. To be honest, I was more in awe than angered by it. Avery
let her emotion out and then was done with it. Me, I ignored it until it started to fester.

“What happened?” Val asked. “Take a deep breath and start from the beginning.”

I scowled at him. “You want to pull out your notebook and take my statement while we’re at it?”

He returned the frown. God love him for being like me in that his reaction to anything painful was to fight.

“Stop.” Avery’s voice was like a slap to the face, knocking reason back into place. “Father is dead, and I will bang your skulls together if either of you makes this about you.”

And God love Avery for taking charge. She’d had her cry; now she was going to take control, which suited me just fine.

She jerked her head towards Val. “Go on.”

I rubbed my forehead. “All right. It could be coincidence, but I doubt it. I asked Vardan to help me convince the vampires that war with the humans was not in the best interest of those with plagued blood. I also asked him to see if he could find what vamps are involved with the labs. Only a handful of people knew this. Next thing I know, he’s dragged himself here to find me after being attacked by Ali – the laboratory escapee.”

Val blinked. “Why would she go after Father? He had nothing to do with those labs.” There was just enough of a question in his voice to make my chest clench. Neither of us wanted to believe our father was a villain, but we knew him too well to paint him as a hero.

“She was sent after him.” I handed him the blood-written note. “I reckon she intentionally left him alive so that he would find me, or I would find him.” It wasn’t wishful thinking on my part. If she’d wanted him dead, she would have made
certain of that before she left him. Maybe it did show a presence of conscience on her part, but she was still a monster.

“Did he die from his wounds when he got here?”

Ah, now the fun part. “No. We gave him blood. He had started to rally.”

Val was starting to get a dark glint in his green eyes. I would not want to be someone for whom he got a hate-on. “This isn’t a fucking melodrama, Xan. What the fuck happened?”

“He was resting when Vex told me William needed to speak to me. We went downstairs, where I found Avery and asked her to sit with Father. In that short space of time someone snuck into his room and left a bottle of poison disguised as medicine beside his bed.”

“I never should have given it to him,” Avery whispered. “I should have checked it.”

“There was no way you could have known,” I reminded her for the third time since Vardan’s death.

“Something tried to kill him and you left him alone?” Apparently my brother hadn’t taken Avery’s warning about smashed skulls seriously.

I refused to rise to the occasion. “He was alone for perhaps a minute or two – in the house of the alpha, I might add. I thought he was safe. He should have been safe.”

“So your boyfriend has a traitor in his house, is that what you’re telling me?”

Managing to not get defensive took an enormous amount of energy on my part. “There were a lot of people here tonight trying to help us track Ali. It could have been anyone.” Just because I suspected it was pack didn’t mean we shouldn’t look at everyone.

“You should have fetched me.” Val’s cheeks flushed with anger. “You should have told me everything when you called.”

“You were supposedly on your way,” I shot back. “What took you so fucking long?”

His lips curled into a faint sneer. “He died on your watch.”

I sighed. “You want to blame me, go the fuck to town.” I pulled a plastic bag from my pocket; inside it was the bottle of medicine that had been used to kill our father. “But you might want to take a bit of time to have this analysed. I reckon it’s got silver, tetracycline and goblin blood in it.”

“The holy trinity of poison,” Avery remarked. She took the bag when Val wouldn’t, and handed it to him. “Grow up, Fetch. Xandra and I both did the best we could. If you’re going to blame her, then you have to blame me too. Personally, I had my fill of passing blame when Dede died. We’ve lost a sister and our father this year, so can we not do this right now?”

“Fine by me,” I said, folding my arms over my chest.

Val hesitated – the bastard. Then his shoulders slumped. “Forgive me, both of you.” He put the bottle in his coat pocket and wrapped one arm around me and the other around Avery, drawing us in for a tight group hug.

I kissed his cheek and hugged him back. Of course I forgave him. I would always forgive him. It was forgiving myself that was the problem. However, I was not going to forgive Ali. I didn’t care if she was forced to do it; we all had free will. And I was definitely not going to forgive whoever had given her the task. In fact I had pretty much decided that I was going to conduct a little experiment of my own on that lucky fellow.

It would be most interesting to see just how much of a person I could tear off with my teeth while they were still alive.

By the time everyone left the house, I was beyond knackered. The part of me that had a good rage on wanted to storm Buckingham Palace and maybe chew Victoria’s face off, but there was a wee part of me that cautioned me not to be so hasty, and for once, I listened. So instead of racing off like a madwoman, I washed my face, brushed my teeth and went to bed.

Everything would seem better at dusk.

Vex crawled in with me. We were both too tired to do anything but cuddle, and really, shagging a couple of hours after watching my father die just felt… wrong. Maybe if I’d been more distraught I could have worked up the emotional need, but beneath the tired and weary was nothing but anger and a sense of being fed up.

Was it just me, or was I the only person these anonymous aristocrats liked to fuck with? No, I knew I wasn’t the only one – I wasn’t that special – but I certainly seemed to be a
favourite. Or maybe I just made too much noise for them – stuck my face in their business. They’d been allowed to carry on for far too long because no one had ever pieced it all together before. If it weren’t for Dede, Ophelia and William, I would still be in the dark.

And I probably wouldn’t have Vex. I snuggled as close to him as I could get in his big bed, wrapping arms and legs around him so tightly he chuckled. “I’m not going anywhere, love.”

“Make sure you don’t,” I muttered into his neck.

His arms tightened around me. “I’m sorry about your dad.” Saying it that way – like Vardan had ever truly been a father – made the back of my eyes prickle. “I’m not about to make a hero out of him, but I think he did the best he could.”

Warm fingers stroked my back. “I’m sure he did. You know, he was born in a time when fathers left child-rearing to the mother and the governess. Honestly, I think I turned out all the better for it. My old man had a temper you avoided at all costs – until you discover you’re a werewolf and he isn’t.”

I lifted my head to look at him. It was dark in the room, the curtains keeping out the watery December sun, but I could see Vex’s face. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “He raised his hand to me and I… bit it.”

“Oh no!” I couldn’t help but laugh. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle it. “Was it bad?”

“He required stitches, and he never tried to hit me again.” I ran my fingertip along the line of his jaw. I loved every inch of him right down to my bones. “I can’t imagine hitting a child.”

“Like I said, those were different times. Did you know there used to be a law stating that a husband had the right to beat his
wife provided he used a stick no bigger around than his thumb?”