SovereignsChoice (17 page)

“Uh, yes.” I clear my throat and step back,
clutching the box to my chest.

“Thank you, Ms. Krist,” he says formally
and closes the door with a
snick
before turning to me. “May I ask again
if there will be two or three for lunch?”

I flush, remembering the state I was in
last time he asked the question. “Just two, Barnes,” I say, speaking as formally
as he did. “Thank you.”

“You’re most welcome, madam.” He nods at
me, perhaps a touch less frostily. “Would it please you to have lunch by the
pool?”

“Oh yes, that would be wonderful!” I’m
getting excited now to show Lexy the house. It’s not as if I own it but if you
live in a mansion, you might as well make use of it. And having lunch by the
pool sounds so perfectly
la-di-da
. She’s going to
love
it.

A very small smile touches Barnes’ thin
lips. “Very well. I’ll set everything out for you.”

“Thank you,” I say again, really meaning
it.

He nods and leaves me alone. I look after
him until I realize I’m still gripping the mysterious box. What’s in it? I lift
it to my ear and shake but I don’t hear a thing and it’s very light, almost as
though it were empty. Who would send me an empty box and why? There’s no
tingling in my fingertips so no magic is involved. At least, nothing overt.

I take the box back in my room before I
open it. Inside is a single slip of paper and on it, in elegant script are
written these words:

Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of
the heart. O. When may it suffice?

Soon.

I stare in confusion at the piece of paper.
It seems to be some kind of a quote or warning. But by who and about what?
Too
long a sacrifice
—is someone trying to say that a year is too long for the
designated Sacrifice to serve the Sovereign? Well, what good is it going to do
to tell me that? It’s not like I can change anything.

I’m still puzzling over the box and its
confusing contents when I hear the front doorbell again. This time it’s Lexy
with a laundry basket full of clothes and—oh joy!—my cell phone. She even
remembered the charger.

I give her an enthusiastic hug and then she
steps back to look around. “Wow, this place is swanky! But what the hell is the
deal with all the glass walls?”

“Aiden likes sunlight,” I say, with a
shrug. “He says he went without it for too long and now he wants to make up for
lost time.”

“A vampire who loves sunlight.” She shakes
her head. “What’ll they think of next? Well, come on, give me the grand tour.”

I take her to the bedroom first, so I can
deposit the laundry basket full of clothes. But I have forgotten about the
abandoned harness, lying discarded on the bed. I’m quick to put the laundry
basket on top of it but Lexy is even quicker.

“Oh my Goddess—what’s that thing? Do you
wear
that?”

“Not all the time.” I can feel my cheeks
heating and I curse myself for leaving the damn harness in plain sight. After
all the trouble I went to in order to take it off and then I go and let her see
it anyway! It’s mortifying.

“So he’s into the kinky stuff, huh?” Lexy
grins at me and wiggles her eyebrows. “I thought he might be after what I heard
about him.”

“What? What did you hear?” I’ve been living
here with Aiden for weeks now and I scarcely know more about him than I did when
I first came. He’s maddeningly evasive when I ask about his past and he has an
annoying habit of answering my questions with other questions.

“Ah-ah-
ah
,” Lexy trills, shaking her
finger at me. “I’ll tell you everything but first you have to tell me the dirty
details of what it’s like to be the Sovereign’s personal sex slave.”

“Oh come on, Lexy,” I moan but she only
laughs.

“You know how it is—you have to give some
to get some. Besides, I’m dyingto know. You’re the envy of every single
girl in the supernatural community, you know. The last Sovereign was so old and
stodgy and boring. And Aiden James is so sexy and hot and mysterious and—”

“Lunch is served, madam.” Barnes is suddenly
standing there at the doorway, giving Lexy a very disapproving look from his
blind eyes.

“Oh, thank you, Barnes,” I say, feeling
embarrassed all over again. “Uh, by the pool, right?”

“As you requested, Ms. Krist.” He makes me
a formal, sweeping bow and then stands back, indicating that we should precede
him from the room.

Once we get seated by the cool blue water,
Lexy can’t stop gushing about how fabulous everything is and honestly, I have
to agree with her. Lunch is a much more elaborate affair than the simple fruit
and cheese courses that Barnes usually prepares for me. There’s an elegant
chilled cucumber soup to start and then tiny finger sandwiches filled with
smoked salmon and cream cheese. Next a mushroom-and-spinach quiche followed by
blackberry-sage sorbet for dessert. Barnes even opens a bottle of
champagne—something expensive with tiny bubbles that tickle my nose and go
straight to my head. That’s not really saying much though—I’ve never been much
of a drinker.

“So tell me,” Lexy continues as we nibble
and sip. “What exactly is going on here in this weird glass house?”

“About what you’d expect,” I say and take
another sip of champagne. Honestly, I’m beginning to feel a little tipsy. I really
should stop but it tastes so
good
.“I mean, you know, regular sex-slave
stuff.”

“
What
?
” she squeals. “What kindof sex-slave stuff. Tell me, Emma!”

It seems to me I didn’t want to tell her
before but now that I’ve had several glasses of the lovely champagne, it
doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“You know,” I say again. “I wake up in the
morning and have breakfast with Aiden. Then he takes me in the bedroom and
makes me wear the harness.”

“What? That weird purple dildo thing I saw
in your room?”

“Yup,” I say and hiccup before taking
another sip. “I’m not supposed to take it off but I did anyway. I thought it
would be too weird to wear it with you here.”

“You got that right.” She snickers. “So then
what?”

“He goes off to work and leaves me here.
Oh, but usually I spend the whole day naked except for this.” I point to the
collar I’m still wearing. “And the harness.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Lexy says, looking more closely
at the collar with its dangling pendant. “Is that a real ruby? And did you just
say you spend the whole day
naked
?”

“I have no idea if it’s real but knowing
Aiden, it probably is,” I say. “And yes, I don’t wear clothes. He, uh, says he
likes to see me. Also, he wants me to like myself better too or something like
that.” I hiccup again.

“Weird,” Lexy murmurs. “But also kind of
hot.”

“That pretty much sums up the whole
situation,” I agree.

“So what happens when he gets home?” she
prompts but I shake my head.

“Uh-uh, cuz. No more about my kinky daily
routine until you spill what you know.”

“Oh, all right,” she sighs. “But you should
know I had to sleep with a
lot
of vampires to get this dirt.”

“Yeah, like that was such a hardship for you,”
I say dryly.

Lexy giggles. “Actually, it’s been a lot of
fun. Even if I
am
starting to feel like a pin cushion.” She looks at me curiously.
“By the way, where are your bite marks? Aiden must be feeding from you, right?
I mean, you should see my inner thighs.”

“Uh…” I feel slightly uncomfortable,
despite my semi-drunken state. “He hasn’t actually bitten me again since that
first night. He, uh, says that he doesn’t need much blood.”

“Okay, well even without the biting the sex
must be amazing,right?” she prompts.

“Actually…” I clear my throat. “We haven’t,
uh, done that either.”

“
What?
” she shrieks. “He’s had you a
whole two weeks and he
still
hasn’t claimed you?”

“Keep it down,” I say, feeling annoyed. “I
told you, I’m not telling you anything else until you give me the information
you got whoring around the vampire community.”

Lexy grumbles some at that but she finally
starts to talk. “Okay, get this—apparently Aiden James has a tragedy in his
past. A mysterioustragedy,” she continues, nodding when I lean forward
to look at her. “It was like a hundred years ago or something but apparently
when he was first made a vampire, he fell in love with a witch. Only back then,
that wasn’t done.”

“Back when the supernatural community
didn’t mix,” I murmur.

Lexy nods again. “Exactly. Anyway, apparently
he was crazy for her but she died.”

“How?” I want to know. “
How
did she
die?”

Lexy shrugs. “None of the vampires I, uh,
talked
with seemed to know. Some people say he killed her—maybe by accident. You know,
taking too much blood?”

I shiver and nod. It’s not unknown for a newly
made vampire to get a little too enthusiastic about feeding. Deaths happen from
time to time, which is why you’re actually safer with an older, more powerful
vamp than a brand-new one, fresh out of the coffin. I’m not wild about the idea
that the man I’m with may have killed a previous lover but Aiden always seems
so controlled around me. That could never happen now…right?

“Go on,” I tell Lexy, trying to push away
my feelings of unease.

“Not everybody thinks it was Aiden’s fault
she died,” my cousin says. “Some say she killed herself—maybe she couldn’t deal
with the whole vamp-witch interracial thing. Anyway, whatever the reason, when
she took a dirt nap, he went a little bit crazy. He went to ground for years
and years and just refused to have anything to do with anyone. Then, about
fourteen years ago he finally came back to the land of the living—well, in a
manner of speaking, anyway.”

“Fourteen years? Are you sure?” I ask,
frowning.

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason,” I murmur. It wouldn’t be a
significant number except it’s been almost exactly that amount of time since my
mother died in the fire that left me an orphan. In fact, the anniversary of her
death is coming up in less than a month.

“So anyway,” Lexy continues, “He had gone
to ground for so long I don’t think anyone really believed he would come back.”

“Right,” I say, getting back on track. The
vampires’ ability to hide themselves away from the rest of the world in a dark
box and basically starve themselves to death without actually dying is unique
in the supernatural community. It’s kind of like a bear hibernating through the
winter, only vamps can go for years, even decades or centuries in their dormant
condition until something happens to wake them from their long rest. “So what
brought him back?” I ask Lexy.

She shrugs. “Again, no one knows. But when
he
did
come back, he rejected his own kind.”

“What?” This makes no sense at all. Why would
Aiden swear off other vampires? The fanged set is usually very close-knit—why
put himself outside the group and its protection?

“It’s true,” Lexy avers. “They say he lived
like a human. Apparently he made all these investments before he went to ground
and when he came back into the light, he was a multi-gazillionaire. So he
started his own company, built this massive, weird glass house and pretty much
did his own thing. Until the Council stepped in, that is.”

“The Vampire Council?” I ask, raising my
eyebrows at her.

Slowly she nods. This dark, mysterious
ruling body has been the subject of much speculation among the rest of the
supernatural community. It’s said to be made up of some of the oldest and most
powerful vampires in history. It’s also said that no one individual, vampire or
otherwise, is strong enough to stand against it. The Council chooses the
Sovereign, who acts as a visible figurehead—probably so they can retain their
anonymity.

“So what does the Vamp Council have to do
with Aiden? Aside from choosing him to be Sovereign, I mean,” I say.

“That’s the thing—they didn’t just choose
him. They
forced
him to be Sovereign.” Lexy’s eyes widen. “Several of
the vamps I talked to said they heard he didn’t want to be. But they made him.
Something to do with his bloodline or something. And they didn’t give him much
time either. Apparently he didn’t even know he was going to be Sovereign until
two days before the Sacrifice Ceremony.”

I purse my lips in concentration.
Hmm.
That would certainly explain how rushed and irritated he was the first time he
came in the shop. They gave him next to no time to prepare and he knew he had
to choose a Sacrifice so he resorted to that old spell in Farrow’s.
But why
was he so concerned about finding just the right woman? A man in his position
had the wealth and power to have anyone he wanted. Why didn’t he just pick the
prettiest or most powerful witch out of the crowd and not worry about it?

I remember him telling me that he wanted me
the first minute he saw me, and my cheeks get hot. Was I just a choice of
convenience? Did he make a snap decision to have me the minute he met me
because he liked the way I looked? Or maybe the power he claims I have bottled
up inside me drew him to me.

“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Lexy
says. “Whatcha thinking of? Whips and chains?”

“No.” I look down at my champagne glass, feeling
suddenly sober. “I was just wondering why Aiden chose me.”

“Because you’re a sexy goddess. And don’t
give me that look.” Lexy reaches around the table to give me a one-armed hug.
“You’re gorgeous, Emma. You just don’t give yourself any credit. Did it ever
occur to you that he might really have the hots for you? There is such a thing
as love at first sight, you know.”

“Not with vampires,” I say. “They’re so
cold and standoffish.” Although that description doesn’t match Aiden at all.
Well, unless he’s angry or disappointed with me as he is now.