Min's Vampire (31 page)

She hadn’t a hope that anyone would, or
even could come for her. She’d read long ago that there were very
few ways any mortal, witch or no, could make their way into Faerie.
And to make it to the heart of Faerie, to the heart of
Winter…

But there stood her courageous sister,
and though it was impossible she had come, the moment their eyes
met, Andy felt a surge of something more than hope, more than
gratefulness. She felt loved. Her sister loved her enough to lay
down her own life to save her.

She really wasn’t alone.

“
You’re an idiot,” Andy
sobbed, but a smile pulled at her lips.

Silence spread through the gargantuan
chamber, and Min’s eyes softened as she looked at her sister. “I
couldn’t just leave you with her, now could I?”

And then Min’s eyes hardened again and
glowed an unnatural green. “Okay, bitch. Let her go and I won’t
wipe the floor with you!”

The Winter Queen smiled and let go of
Andy’s hair, causing her balance to shift and she fell over to the
floor. By the time she regained her kneeling position the faerie
Queen was slithering down the stairs leading to Min, and frigid
darkness seemed to gather around her, like spider webs.

No…

~*~

Min didn’t wait for the faerie Queen to
attack; she started throwing the hell hot flares of fire at her the
second she started down the stairs. The Queen stopped for the
briefest of moments, having caught the great lance of flame in her
hand. She held it, as if examining it, and then snuffed it out by
closing her hand. She laughed and started forward again, not
hurrying one bit.

Min kept throwing the flames. Maybe the
closer she got, the more Summer’s power would work. But she knew
that was just wishful thinking. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t
throw every ounce of heat Summer had implanted in her at the
bitch.

But the more she threw at her, the more
easily, it seemed, the Winter Queen swatted it away. And the closer
the Queen got, the colder the air felt. For the first time since
first entering Faerie, Min felt everything in her start to be
chewed and blown away by the bone crushing cold of
Winter.

It wasn’t that Summer had abandoned
her, it just wasn’t enough. Having the Winter Queen so close was
overwhelming Summer completely.

Min let out an involuntary scream as
the Winter Queen reached out her snow white, blue nailed hand
toward her face. Luca turned in a flash and the hand he held the
iron sword in flashed to take off the Queen’s head. But the Queen
was oh so much faster than Luca, and with a single light touch Luca
halted, his hand turning to ice, and his entire body freezing solid
in no more than a heartbeat. His breath came out in a cloudy gasp
and died before he could say another word.

Min’s heart stopped beating as she
watched her lover be turned into an ice sculpture…would that kill a
vampire? And in an instant she felt her own fiery anger well up
within her. That emotion joined with the fire of Summer, and she
raised her hand, the one with the silver rune emblazoned upon it,
to Sliva’s heart.

But again the faerie Queen was too
fast, and she clamped her far hand on Min’s wrist, and the other
rose dramatically, the perfect flesh turning to a cold, crystalline
claw, which slashed down and cut into Min’s palm.

Good god it hurt. It wasn’t just the
wound though, Min knew. It was the fact that Sliva was gouging out
the power of Summer from her as well. And even though it was only
borrowed power, it had been wrapped around her very soul, rooted
deep into her very being. It felt as if the faerie were scraping
out her very life force with that diamond-like claw.

Min screamed and thrashed against the
faerie Queen, but it didn’t even make the Queen wobble in the
slightest. She felt herself fading as the Queen’s icy fingers found
what they had been looking for, and clasped around it.

She knew in that moment that if the
Queen pried the power of Summer from her like that, it would most
certainly kill her. And in that moment she knew, just knew—she had
failed her sister completely.

Chapter 30

Andy pulled with all her strength
against the bonds that held her to the spot, but to no avail. She
would not be able to help her sister at all. The Summer Queen’s
words, that she was the only thing that could stop Sliva, had been
a crock. Tears ran down her face as she listened to Min’s agonized
cries. The Winter Queen was tearing the very life out of her. And
there wasn’t a thing she could…

Then something hit her in the face: one
very interesting fact. The Winter Queen had had her in her
possession for what seemed like hours, and yet she hadn’t consumed
her.

Why not?

She could hurt her, but she hadn’t just
devoured her as Andy had imagined her doing. If anything, the Queen
had…she had been trying to force Andy into allowing her to do so.
She’d been doing nothing but trying to make Andy give
up.

And hadn’t she been so very close to
doing that? To giving in to the heartless, evil bitch? But that was
until she’d laid eyes on her sister; her sister who was going to
die at the Winter Queens hand. Who was going to die any
moment.

But what had the Summer
Queen said? That this had all been a trick. To make her cousin want
her in the
worst way
, to make her want her so much that…

That she forgot I was a
being of light.

Adrenaline rushed through her veins and
she screamed her next word with such intensity, the walls of the
throne-room all but shook. “Stop!”

Every set of eyes in the chamber turned
toward her, including the Winter Queen’s. That’s all this had been,
more trickery. Sliva was using Min to push her into giving
up.

Was there no freaking end to faerie
treachery?

Andy let her emotions flow. She was
very much afraid for her sister’s life. And she allowed all that
fear and worry to choke her now, to make her words as pathetic as
possible.

“
I give up…I give up.
Please, you can do whatever you want with me…just d-don’t hurt
her!”

~*~

Sliva closed her eyes as Andy spoke, as
if she were listening to the most divine music. Satisfaction filled
the chilling beauty of her face. Min shuddered as she realized what
she’d done. The Queen hadn’t been able to eat Andy’s power. That’s
why she’d been torturing her, to make her give in. And
now…

And now her sister was going to give
her exactly what she’d wanted.

To save me…

No…

Min tried to tell her sister not to
give up, to not let the faerie bitch touch her. But Sliva twisted
her fingers into Min’s hand all the harder, and all that escaped
Min’s lips were agonized screams. The words in her head liquefied
into those feral cries.

“
You give yourself to me to
do as I wish?” Sliva’s voice was hard, and sharp as a
scalpel.

“
Yes,” Andy blurted,
breathing hard, her voice cracked and hoarse. “Anything you want.
Just let my sister live.”

Sliva looked down upon Min, for she was
a limp weight now, held up only by the faerie Queen’s arm, and the
hand that was magically penetrating her own.

“
Your offer is most
satisfactory…I accept.”

Sliva released her hold on Min,
extracting her hand from hers. Min fell to the floor, at the feet
of her frozen vampire, and she tried pulling in breath enough to
call out to her sister, but when she rolled over she saw the Winter
Queen was already by Andy’s side.

Andy stood, the silver manacles that
had held her to the floor now gone, she stood staring into Sliva’s
eyes as the faerie Queen crept closer. Like a great snake that had
captured a mouse with its gaze.

Sliva reached out and touched Andy’s
shoulder, the serpentine smile on her face widened, her eyes bulged
with excitement.

No, no, no…run Andy,
run!
But the pain the faerie Queen had
caused her had sapped so much of Min’s strength, she could hardly
pull in breath—speaking was out of her grasp.

As if she could read Min’s mind, Andy
turned and glanced at her, all fear gone, a knowing grin spreading
across her pretty pink lips.

And she winked.

~*~

Andy knew the moment Sliva touched her
that this insane plan of hers was going to work. Unlike before,
when the faerie Queen touched her, she could feel a dark power
begin to bite down on her, it was painful and
smothering.

And it was exactly what she needed: a
way in.

Before, Andy had felt nothing but fear
and hopelessness. But now she was filled with heart-stopping hope,
and with joy. Joy that her sister had truly loved her after all.
And joy that she was about to save both of their lives.

She turned toward the dark faerie Queen
and slapped her hands up on either side of her face. Gleefully she
pressed her lips to the ice-cold lips of the Winter Queen, and
everything turned blindingly bright.

Chapter 31

Min gasped. She could feel the sudden
reaction the moment her sister laid her lips on the Winter Queen.
It was as if water had splashed against a red skillet, but a
million times stronger. She heard a scream of agony, so alien and
blood curdling she had to cover her ears. As did every fae in the
huge chamber. The next thing she knew the room exploded with the
most brilliant, retina burning light. A light so powerful, that
came in such thunderous waves, Min felt it like a scorching wind
over her skin.

Min rolled away, for the
light was so bright that even closing her eyes wasn’t
enough.
Oh god, am I going to die anyway?
Is this the price for saving my sister?

If it was, then she would embrace it
with open arms.

A moment later the light receded. There
wasn’t a sound, only Min’s labored breathing and her heart pounding
in her ears. She blinked her eyes open. They hurt, and she had one
hell of a headache, but the sight she saw made her gasp and try to
pull herself up from the ground. Luca was kneeling by her side,
alive, and no longer frozen like a statue.

But her arms and legs weren’t
cooperating. They were still weak from the brutal pain she’d
withstood at the faerie Queen’s hand. Luca scooped her up and
pulled her to him, and to her feet in the blink of an eye. She
kissed him. And it felt so right. He was hers and always would
be.

And then she felt a stab of
the most horrifying angst.
Andy…

She whirled around, wishing suddenly
she had a sword in her hand, or the Bellini.

Andy stood all alone before the great
ice throne, black dust floated in motes through the still air. Andy
glowed still, and her face was radiant with joy. Min had never seen
her look so happy.

Of course no one else in that chamber
looked happy in the least; the fae who weren’t reaching for silver
swords, were moving back from the glowing form of her sister,
cowering.

Andy’s expression slowly changed; the
joyousness in her turned into a hard little smile. She turned from
Min and looked around her at the assembled Sidhe lords. And as she
did, the glow about her intensified, and the fae with their swords
drawn, backed away quickly. They held arms and literal shields up
to protect their eyes. And there was a strange smoldering, a pitch
black smoke, roiling off of every single faerie in the room. There
were agonized moans, and some dropped to the ground, rolling in on
themselves like a ball.

The radiance around Andy rose to a
crescendo, and then slowly subsided until she was merely glowing
again. Min had never seen a god or goddess before—at least not one
in the glory of their power—but the anger-powered glower her little
sister was casting down from the throne dais was as close to one as
she ever wanted to witness again. The icy throne at her back
shimmered with multiple rainbows and cascading lights like the
Aurora Borealis.

Andy stalked from the
throne, glaring viciously at every Sidhe she saw. They—every single
one of them—looked down in submission as she passed them. Min’s
sister had obviously made her point.
Don’t
screw with me.

Andy’s smile returned when she was
about a yard away from her sister, as radiant as ever.

“
Wow,” Min mouthed to
her.

Andy suddenly froze in place, her eyes
going wide, and then filling with a faraway look. Min could
practically see the gears in her head turning, and a gleam flared
in her eyes. Or more precisely, her irises turned to glittering
diamonds, imbued with their own light.

She turned and glared once more at the
Sidhe lords. They all seemed to shrink under her
scrutiny.

“
Your Queen’s power is not
lost to you. I’m sure you can feel it in the air.”

A few brave souls nodded in
agreement.

“
Soon that power will choose
one of you as the next ruler of the Unseelie Court. So let me make
this perfectly clear right here and now.” Andy moved slowly toward
the mass of faeries like a predator, and the herd scattered and
shifted position in reflexive response.