Queen of Shadows (35 page)

Ariana and the Prime stared at each other. Then Ariana said sweetly, “Looks like we get to call a truce, my Lord.”

He didn’t answer.

“Just think,” Ariana went on, “You and I, bound together for all eternity—how poetic. I had no idea, when I killed your little human whore, that this would happen. I thought I was merely inflicting the same pain on you that you had on me. But this is so much better.”

Miranda started to leap up, but Sophie again grabbed her arm and held her back. “Just wait,” she hissed.

Ariana, laughing, reached up and dropped the Signet’s chain around her neck.

The second it settled over her chest, the stone went dark.

David’s continued to flash, and he glanced down at it, frowning a little before looking back up at Ariana.

“You will never be Queen,” he told her. “You will never hold a Signet. You are a pretender to the throne, Ariana, and not worthy of these hallowed halls. I’ll cut you down the same way I did your Prime and you’ll die the way you lived—as nobody.”

Ariana’s face became a twisted mask of rage. “Kill him!” she shouted.

Her men rushed forward past her, roaring out their challenge, and surrounded the Prime, who stood waiting, a faint smile on his face.

As the first of the insurgents reached him, he brought up his sword and said to the Elite without raising his voice, “Attack.”

The insurgents, so intent upon following orders, had all run into the center of the room toward David and were now surrounded by Elite on all sides. The Haven warriors bore down on the insurgents, their swords slicing through the air, and the room was suddenly full of the sounds of battle once more.

Miranda pulled her eyes back to the Prime.

He met the first four attackers at once, his sword a liquid flame, his body a blur of motion as he kicked one in the head, spun in midair, beheaded the second man, and opened another’s throat on the follow-through stroke. The fourth avoided the first slash aimed at her, but was simply not fast enough—she tried to parry but couldn’t, and he punched her, then pulled a wood-bladed dagger from his belt and ran her through. By the time he’d gotten to her, more had come, but he didn’t lose a step; she could barely see him, he moved so fast, almost as if he were dancing, each movement graceful and deadly.

Sophie was laughing, a look of recognition on her face. To Miranda’s eyebrow, she said, “That style—I’ve only met one other vampire who fought like that. Come on—let’s go get messy.”

Miranda followed her from the balcony rail around to the staircase, and they ran down to join the Elite.

Miranda’s heart was pounding, but there was no time to think, no time to consider her actions. She simply had to fight. One of the insurgents closed on her, and she felt her awareness turning crimson again, her mind going deeper into the trancelike place Sophie had shown her before she crossed over. Now the power came through her like a breath, and she gave herself to it willingly.

Nearby she heard something crash, and then a scream; she disabled her opponent and rammed her sword into his neck, unable to avoid the spray of blood; it hit her chest and shoulders, and the thick smell of it only fueled her bloodlust. She glanced up toward the noise in time to see an invader fly backward into the wall, then another, and another; they were picked up off the ground and flung without anyone touching them. She jerked her head to the right and saw that David was fending off an attack with one hand and gesturing with the other.

She felt the energy moving through him up and out like a volcanic eruption, and another insurgent fell to the ground, screaming, clutching his head as his skull cracked.

Miranda fought her way toward the center of the room. She could hear Sophie laughing as she did the same—but then her laughter cut short, and Miranda whirled around toward her.

Sophie lurched forward, mouth open. The splintered end of a wooden stake protruded from between her ribs. She seemed to gather the last of her strength to round on her attacker and return the favor, sending the woman who had impaled her to the ground with wood in her own chest. Blood running freely from her body, she threw herself at the next wave of attackers, taking out three more before her strength failed her.

“Sophie!” Miranda cried, diving between warriors toward her teacher, who fell to her knees, then pitched forward onto her stomach.

She turned Sophie over gently. “What do I do?” she asked. “Do I pull it? Sophie—”

Sophie laughed again, weakly. Blood was trickling from her mouth. “Told you so,” she wheezed, coughing. Spasms racked Sophie’s petite frame, and something rattled deep in her chest.

Then she lay still.

Miranda’s eyes burned. She looked up; all around her people were dying. The stench of blood and the chaos were overwhelming.

She caught sight of Faith, still alive, still fighting.

Her opponent was Ariana Blackthorn . . . and Faith was losing.

Faith yielded more ground to Ariana, who was swinging side to side with a blade as if she had lost any sort of skill to the scarlet rawness of her hatred. The Blackthorn was a horrific sight, her face streaked with blood and her hair filthy around her face. Still, Faith continued to let her drive her back, and back . . .

. . . straight to the Prime.

Faith moved from side to side to avoid Ariana’s wild swings, only bothering to parry when her sword sang too close to Faith’s head for comfort. Ariana obligingly followed her in their waltz across the hall until they reached the center of the storm.

David dispatched the last two insurgents who had the balls to fight him, throwing their bodies aside as he pulled his dagger from one and his sword from the other. Faith fell back to his side and then jumped out of the way to let him take over.

Again, Prime and Blackthorn faced each other, but where Ariana looked like a walking corpse, David was still cool and collected, a single smudge of blood on his cheek where a knife had gotten through his defenses and left a cut behind. She was breathing hard and ragged, her eyes darting around the room to see that her people were all but wiped out. Likely any that had been waiting outside were long gone by now. Even outnumbered, the Elite had won.

David’s Signet was still flashing. Ariana’s was still dark.

The Prime followed Ariana’s gaze from one end of the Great Hall to the other, and he said, “Surrender.”

Ariana’s voice was high and cracked, what little sanity it had once possessed long gone. “Surrender? To your tender mercy? Never. I’ll spend my last breath spilling your traitorous blood. I killed your beloved and I’ll kill you!”

“Wrong on both counts,” came a warm, smooth voice, touched with dark honey.

A blade flashed.

Ariana’s face was frozen in a look of eternal surprise as her head was parted from her neck and, almost in slow motion, fell to the ground. Her body followed a second later. The second Signet tumbled from her throat and lay on the floor.

The silence in the Great Hall was absolute.

Faith’s hand flew up to her mouth.

Miranda Grey stood over the body of their fallen enemy, her sword bloody, her bearing regal. She wore black from head to foot and her jewel-red hair had fallen out of its clip to tumble around her shoulders. Her skin was pale ivory with the luster of immortality. Her green eyes were ringed with silver.

Power surrounded her and shone like a nebula. Faith had never seen anything like it.

Miranda stepped forward, lithe and purposeful as she sheathed her sword and bent down. She picked up the Signet, and as her hand closed around it, the light in the stone blazed to life and began to pulse.

She held it up and fastened the chain around her neck.

The light in the stone brightened and grew steady. Miranda turned in a circle, letting the entire Elite see the Signet. Her voice rang off the walls.

“I am your Queen,” she said. “Any questions?”

There was a clattering sound, and Miranda turned to face the Prime.

He was staring at her in stunned silence. The sword had fallen from his hand. All of hell was in his eyes.

Faith could feel the power in the room rising, contracting around them. She could feel currents of energy crackling between them—a circuit was completed, the floodgates opened. Power joined into power, weaving in and around itself and each other, and the foundations of the Haven trembled as David stepped forward, a single tear leaving a silvery track down his face.

Miranda laughed joyfully and opened her arms to him, her own eyes shining. Neither of them spoke.

David drew a ragged, halting breath . . . and then he crossed the last space between them, and throughout the Great Hall a cheer went up as the Queen and her Prime fell into each other’s arms.

Epilogue

Matt was such an asshole. What was she thinking?

Madison stumbled out onto the sidewalk, so angry she was practically shaking, her fingers missing half the keys on her phone while she tried to dial. “Come on,” she muttered. “Answer. Come on, Teresa.”

“Hey, Maddie, how’s the date going?”

“Can you come get me?”

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“It’s a long story. We’re gonna need cheesecake.”

“Okay, where are you?”

Maddie sighed, pushing her professionally streaked auburn hair out of her face. She’d gotten it done special because she’d been waiting for Matt to ask her out for months. She’d even gotten a wax! What a fucking waste of money. “I’m on South Congress near the Paramount. I’m going to walk a little farther south—there’s a concert letting out up here and the road’s clogged. I’ll meet you in front of the Kinko’s, okay?”

“Sure, babe. I’ll be there in half an hour. Be careful.”

As she walked, Maddie made a mental list of all the ways she was going to get back at that bastard. Voodoo dolls, slashed tires . . . she got grim satisfaction thinking of his dick turning green and falling off.

She got farther from the postconcert crowd; thank God there were still a thousand people out.

God, she felt sick. She’d only been drinking since she moved to Austin—she’d been such a good girl in high school, and she was making up for lost time. She’d had a half dozen too many tonight, though. The bartender had called them Pierced Nipples, and they were sugary sweet with a bitter aftertaste and went straight to her head. She was so out of it that it had taken her until her shirt was halfway off to realize what Matt was trying to do.

Thankfully eight Pierced Nipples hadn’t affected her ability to knee him in the crotch.

Her phone rang, and she held it up, but she couldn’t hear Teresa talking—there was too much noise on the sidewalk. Madison shook her head in irritation and ducked out of the flow of people into an alley where it was quieter.

By the time she could actually hear, Teresa had hung up. Cursing, Maddie dialed her number again.

“There you are!”

Madison started, and her heart did a swan dive to her knees when she saw Matt.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said, his usual swagger uneven from the amount of beer he’d swilled. “Why’d you run off like that? I thought we were having a good time.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Maddie said. “I told you to stop.”

“Come on, Maddie . . .”

“No!” she cried as he came closer and reached out to her. “Leave me alone!”

He got his hands around her shoulders and pushed her back against the wall, and this time she didn’t have the advantage of a crowd of people and good leverage. She hit the wall so hard it dazed her and she dropped her phone. She yelled and struggled, but he ignored her and sloppily kissed her neck. He stank of Budweiser and cigarettes, and she could feel his erection stabbing her in the stomach. He held her back against the wall with his weight and groped her breasts, sticking a hand in her shirt.

Oh my God. Oh God, please, no, please . . .

She took a breath to scream at the top of her lungs.

Before she could, Matt was wrenched away from her and thrown hard into the far wall. Maddie heard something—she was pretty sure it was his wrist—crack.

Maddie was so relieved her legs turned to water and she fell back again, her planned scream coming out as a sob.

A figure stepped between her and Matt. She saw a long black coat and a wild cascade of red hair.

The woman couldn’t have been taller than Maddie, but she reached down and seized the front of Matt’s shirt and hauled him to his feet, then punched him in the stomach twice. He came at her, cursing a blue streak, and she took the opportunity to do what Maddie had done in the club—she nailed him in the balls with one knee.

Matt went down with a grunt, and the woman towered over him. Whatever he saw in her face, he whimpered and covered his head with his useless arms. “Please don’t kill me—”

Her voice was calm and strong, and Maddie recognized it. “If you ever again hurt a woman in my city,
human
, you will answer to me. Now go.”

Matt struggled to his feet and stumbled out of the alley, crying like a little girl.

Slowly, the woman turned to Madison. “Are you okay?”

Maddie stared at her: her luminous green eyes, her proud shoulders, the large red stone at her throat that looked like it was glowing.

“Holy shit,” Madison said. “You’re Miranda Grey.”

The woman smiled. “Yes.”

“You saved my life.”

“Yes.”

Madison swallowed hard and got up, dusting herself off and groping for her purse. “Um . . . can I have your autograph?”