My Love Lies Bleeding (16 page)

“Go to hell,” Nicholas spat.

“And Helena’s spawn as well, clearly. Abominable manners.”

“The bounty?” I asked, my brain racing frantically. We needed to leave this main hall with its crowds of vampires, but I didn’t
know how to get us out of there.

And then it went from bad to worse.

Much, much worse.

Kieran Black stalked toward us, trailing guards. His face was all angles, his smile sharp and insolent. In his hands he held
a wooden box inlaid with pearls. Before any of us could move or even speak, he flipped open the lid.

Inside, a heart dripped blood through the iron hinges.

“The heart of Solange Drake,” he announced. “Your Majesty.”

Everything stopped.

I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the red lump bleeding in the delicate box. The pearls went pink under the oozing
blood. Nausea rolled in my stomach. I couldn’t form a coherent thought, couldn’t move, could barely breathe.

Not Solange. Not Solange.

Kieran stood like any good soldier, looking straight ahead, blood dripping at his feet. He was muddy and tired, his sleeves
pushed up to display his Helios-Ra tattoo. I had never physically hated anyone in my entire life the way I hated him now.

“No,” I finally choked out. “It’s not possible.”

“So many gifts,” Lady Natasha murmured, rising gracefully to her feet.

And then, chaos.

“My baby sister,” Nicholas yelled, leaping into the air, fangs extended, snapping his handcuffs apart. He aimed at Kieran’s
throat, his eyes like silver coins. Lady Natasha raised an eyebrow, and it was as if she’d let out a battle yell. Araksaka
closed in from all directions so quickly their feather tattoos seemed to flutter.

“Nicholas, behind you!” It wasn’t enough to help him in any way, but it was just enough to give ourselves away entirely. I
was hardly part of Hope’s unit if I was trying to save my Drake captive. And I did try. I went to pull one of my stakes from
its sheath, but it was as if I were moving in slow motion and everyone else was in fast- forward, like those nature documentaries
where an orchid blooms and wilts in three seconds. Only we were trapped in a garden of vampires, blooming like deadly nightshade
and belladonna and thirsty for our blood.

Nicholas didn’t land as he’d planned, thrown off course by the flying granny boot of an Araksaka, which caught him full in
the chest. Kieran went into a roll and came up several feet away, bloody heart rolling across the floor. I gagged as it came
to a soggy halt near my left foot. I was shaking and choking on the bile in my throat and absolutely no match for the guards
who grabbed me.

“Get off her.” Nicholas struggled as he was hauled to his feet, nose bleeding sluggishly. Kieran wouldn’t look at me. Lady
Nata-sha flicked her hand.

“Such drama,” she said, as if we were a dinner show that bored her.

And dinner, for that matter.

“I haven’t time for children,” she said. “There are still preparations to be made for the ball tomorrow night.” She patted
a stool next to her throne. “Have a seat near me, dear boy.” She smiled at Kieran, showing teeth like polished shells. “We
have much to celebrate. Civil war has been averted, thanks in part to you.”

“I only want the money.”

I spat at him. I couldn’t help it. I was immobilized between two Araksaka and there was nothing else I could do.

At the moment.

Because, karmic baggage or not, if I got through this alive, I was going to break more than his nose.

Lady Natasha sniffed with distaste. “Barbaric.” She waved a hand. “Take them away, won’t you? They’re becoming tiresome.”

Nicholas and I were dragged out of the plush hall. I was shorter than my captors and my feet dangled slightly off the ground.
The stairs were narrow and damp, cut roughly out of the stone and leading into more damp and more darkness. One of them shoved
me, and I stumbled down the last few steps, landing hard on my hip. I could hear Nicholas struggling, cursing.

“Lucy! Lucy, are you okay?”

“My family will come,” he promised darkly.

“As it should be,” the guard said. “The Drake clan will witness the final crowning of Lady Natasha, with none to usurp her
throne.”

“Solange didn’t even want your stupid crown,” I croaked through my bruised throat. “Or your throne.”

“She was a threat, now she’s not.”

I opened my mouth to yell. I was angry and bereft and afraid and all of those things made my temper harder to control than
usual. Nicholas’s eyes flared at me warningly. He was right. I could swear and fume all I wanted, it wouldn’t change anything.
And I was already bruised all over, and we’d been here less than a half hour. I wasn’t exactly a force to be reckoned with.
I slumped against the wall and held my tears until the royal guard had filed out and we were alone with the cold drafts and
the mildew. Sobs finally racked through me and I couldn’t stop them. They were loud and ugly, not like movie tears, which
always seem so delicate and fragile. My tears burned and stung and didn’t make me feel the slightest bit better.

I’d known Solange all of my life. Sometimes I knew her better than I knew myself. She was solitary and clever and elegant
even when she was adamant that was she was no such thing. She was special, and not just because she was the only vampire daughter.
She was loyal and had always been there for me, no matter what. She was the one who nursed me through countless ill-advised
crushes; she was the one who snuck me ice cream when my parents discovered tofu desserts and wouldn’t buy anything else. She
was quiet and strong and artistic.

I gagged on more tears. It wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. We were supposed to be at her house, where
she’d drink her first taste of blood at midnight tonight and wake up sixteen years old and dead— or reborn, technically, what
ever. Not this. Never this.

“Lucy.” Nicholas pressed against the iron bars. I had no idea how long he’d been saying my name. I was curled into a ball,
my eyes swollen. I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“Sorry,” I said, blinking away the last of the tears. More hovered behind my lids, clutching at my throat, but I had to fight
them back. It wasn’t in me to just give up, even when I desperately wanted to. I couldn’t force a smile, but at least I could
sit up. Nicholas looked worried and wretched. “What are we going to do?” I asked.

His fists clenched around the bars.

“We’re going to get out of here somehow. They’re going to take us up to the hall for the ball. Lady Natasha wants to gloat
and show the vampire clans that she’s defeated the Drakes. It’s posturing.”

“I really hate her.”

“I know.”

“No, I mean, like, a lot.”

“Me too.”

“And Kieran, that rat.” My voice caught. “I’m going to break his nose again. And the rest of him.”

“I’ll help.”

“My mom’s going to make me spend weekends at the ashram for the next ten years to cleanse me of all this violence if we survive.”

“When we survive,” he corrected. He was pale, almost misty in the flickering light of the single torch on the wall between
us. Smoke hung near the low ceiling, darkening the stones. “Dawn’s not far off ,” he said, frustrated. His eyes looked bruised,
even from a distance. “I won’t be able to stay awake much longer.” He sat on the ground, leaned his head back on the wall.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to protect you.”

“Right back at you.”

He half smiled. “Don’t shoot your mouth off while I’m asleep.”

“I can’t make any promises.”

I thought of Liam’s grim face, of Helena’s sword flashing.

“I can’t wait.”

I lay there for a long time. I could have been there hours, days, months; I’d lost track. There was only my breath becoming
longer and deeper and slower. I felt like a dandelion gone to fluff y white seed, drifting on the wish of some petulant child.
I hoped my family was safe, tucked into the old farm house. I’d miss its crooked halls and creaky floors and my little pottery
shed with its views of the fields and the woods and the mountains beyond. I’d miss Nicholas nagging at me to be careful, Lucy
arguing with everyone about everything, Kieran’s quiet confidence.

At first I thought I’d imagined the faint clang.

But the voices were real, echoing down to my bed. I tried to move, to open my eyes, but nothing happened.

“This is the one,” someone said. The voice was rough. “I can smell her.”

“Aye, like bloodwine just waiting to be sipped.”

The footsteps approached. I managed to pry one eye open, not enough that anyone would notice, just enough that the faint light
showed me two men and a woman through the fringe of my lashes. Each of their faces was tattooed with the three raven feathers
of the royal house.

Araksaka.

I tried harder to move, to scream, to kick out. It was as if I was barely in my body—it paid virtually no attention to my
frantic commands.

“Not quite out yet, are you sweetheart?” I tried to fight but only dangled limply over his arms when he picked me up. His
mouth was very near my neck. I shuddered violently. “Just a little taste.”

“Michel, no.” Someone plucked me away like an apple off a tree. “Lady Natasha would have your head,” he said. “And more importantly,
mine as well.”

“But she smells so delicious.”

“Put in your damn nose plugs— you know it’s the bloodchange pheromones.”

“Spoilsport.”

“If you two are quite finished courting,” the woman snapped, looking down as she climbed the rope back up to the forest floor.
“We don’t have much time.”

My captor slung me over his shoulder and went up the rope, quick as a hummingbird. The light in the woods was faintly gray,
the sky like a black pearl. I could feel the approach of dawn, the way I’d never actually felt it before. It was like a weight
on my chest, like being wrapped in chains and dropped into the ocean. The guards felt it just as keenly as I did, I could
tell by the way they lowered their heads and ran faster than I’d ever seen a vampire run. The trees blurred into shadows,
the leaves slapping at us faintly as we passed. Coyotes yipped hysterically from the valley behind us. The mountain loomed
closer and closer, blocking out the shimmer of light on the horizon. The woman cursed. They ran faster. I hoped they crumbled
into ashes, even if it meant I would too.

And then we were at the caves and they leaped inside as if their feet were on fire. The first spear of sunlight hurled from
the sky, fell between the branches and struck the ground. It gilded the humus underfoot, the curling ferns, the white birch
bark peeling into strips. The woman cursed again.

“Too damn close.”

That would be my very last moment of sunlight. Ever. My skin itched all over. I was certain that if I’d been caught out there,
I would have blistered as badly as the other vampires would have.

I was taken down a narrow tunnel and into a circular hall with rugs on the floor and tapestries on the walls. Torches burned
and candles were scattered everywhere, like stars on a clear winter night. Ravens cawed from floor to ceiling in wrought-iron
cages, eyes gleaming like jet beads. The few vampires there stopped what they were doing and followed us to a white throne,
trailing behind us like the train of a wedding dress. Lady Natasha was on her feet, her face so pale it could have been carved
out of moonstone. Even her hair seemed stunned, white as orchids. I might have enjoyed that brief moment of victory, if I
hadn’t seen Kieran beside her, equally pale. What was he still doing here? Our plan was falling apart around us and there
wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.

“Is that Solange Drake?” Lady Natasha’s voice was cold enough to crack steel. I couldn’t quite place her accent. It seemed
vaguely French, vaguely Russian.

The guard still carrying me lowered himself to one knee.

“Yes, my lady. We found her in the woods.”

“Did you now?” She turned her head a fraction of an inch toward Kieran. He was staring at me, so many emotions chasing across
his face that I didn’t have time to decipher them all.

Our plan hadn’t worked after all.

Natasha gestured to a silver plate on which lay a roasted heart, swimming in a pond of blood. The pearl-studded iron box Kieran
had taken from the chest before leaving me to go hunting sat nearby. “And what, pray tell, is this delicacy I was about to
consume?”

Kieran didn’t answer, didn’t look away from me as I was released to tumble to the carpet.

“I asked you a question, boy.” One backhand and Kieran was crashing into the table, scattering a vase of roses, a crystal
bowl, and the silver plate. The heart hit the side of the throne and slid slowly down in a syrupy trail of blood. I would
have gagged, but even my throat was too tired from the bloodchange to react. Kieran coughed, rubbing his chest as he pushed
himself up into a sitting position.

“It’s a deer heart,” he replied without inflection.

“How very clever,” she purred. One of the royal guards winced at the sound. She raised an eyebrow at the guard still on one
knee. “We’ve much to do apparently. The ball will go on as planned, and we’ll set the Drake girl up on the dais so that everyone
can watch her die, along with any threat to our unity.”

“No.” Kieran leaped to his feet.

She smiled at him.

“And you’ll watch every moment of it, after which, I will pull your heart out of your puny rib cage and eat it. Seeing as
I was denied my treat.”

“Solange doesn’t want your throne or Montmartre,” Kieran insisted, crouching to put his back to a tapestry of a maiden drinking
from a white unicorn, when two guards began closing in on him. “She doesn’t want to be queen of the damn vampires.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Lady Natasha paused, turned to the doorway. She sighed. “Now what? I don’t recall inviting you.”

“There’s been a change of plans.” Hope marched into the room, two agents behind her. Her eyes narrowed. “Kieran. What the
hell are you doing here?”

Natasha lifted her chin.

“Kieran?” she repeated icily. “As in the son of Hart’s brother? When you killed him you said you had everything under control.”

Kieran froze. He looked as if he was going to choke on his fury.

“What?” He turned slowly toward Hope. “What did she just say?”

“Everything is under control, but I hardly expected you to invite a Helios agent into your court.”

“He brought me a heart.” Lady Natasha nodded toward me. I was still sprawled on the carpet. “Clearly not hers.”

“Well, the Drakes are on to me now,” Hope snapped.

“You,” Kieran bit out, fists clenching.

Hope didn’t look particularly concerned with the hatred pouring out of him.

“I’m doing what I have to for the Helios-Ra, and I guarantee it’s more than your father or uncle could ever have accomplished.
Lady Natasha understands that. We look after our own.”

Kieran didn’t bother with more debate; he launched himself at her. He didn’t make it within two feet of her, of course, not
with her men there and the Araksaka as well. He didn’t have a chance. I doubt that mattered to him.

“Honestly, children these days.” Natasha waved her hand, looking bored. “Take them away.”