Vampire Elite (2 page)

Taking a full breath of crystal night air, Istara raised her eyes to the sky in an effort to distract herself from her thoughts. Billions of cold distant mute stars watched her from the sky. Deep in her heart she refused to believe that she was about to leave this beautiful planet. Hathor, her Divine Mother, would save her. The Goddess would not allow the Order to murder her. She still had a chance: if seven—the sacred number of Hathor—of the Amiti present rejected her death sentence, Istara’s life would be spared.
 

Obsidian waves of indifferent sea rolled in and disappeared between the apathetic rocks surrounding the beach. Why didn’t she feel even a slightest degree of compassion from the planet she loved so much? There must be something wrong with her senses; her perception must have somehow gotten distorted.
 

Once again Istara tuned in to her surroundings, only to be hit by a wave of hostility emanating from the crowd. She closed her eyes in an effort to suppress the searing pain in her heart and the tears ready to spill from her eyes. If she was here to die, she would die as the Queen: with dignity. In the eyes of her people, she was just a selfish bitch without loyalty or integrity, a bitch who had sacrificed them all to satisfy her lust for the vampire male. But as Goddess was her witness, Istara had been portrayed wrong. She was the Queen who had never been understood by her people.

Yes, she had her shortcomings, and to some extent this sentence was not completely undeserved. Istara had committed a crime against her race; she had opened her heart to the enemy in the form of a vampire—and not just any vampire, but a member of the Vampire Elite, the upper caste of vampires, who were direct descendants of Sekhmet and called themselves Sekhmi in her honor. In the Amitis’ eyes, she had allowed herself to be deluded by romantic fantasies instead of standing her ground and being committed to her path as the Queen. Yes, she did covet personal happiness with a soul mate. But who does not? It was not her fault that the love of her life was a Sekhmi vampire. Istara could not tell her heart who to love. And she
had
lost her mind over Tor. Powerful and confident, with an iron will and astonishing magnetism and charisma, he epitomized everything she had dreamed about for millennia. She was willing to sacrifice everything for his love. She blood-bonded and shared the Gift of Ra with him, making Tor the strongest of the vampires, and soon he fought for and won the vampires’ throne and became their King.

What the Keepers did not know was that Istara had done everything possible to convince Tor to change his views regarding keeping Amiti as bloodstock. She had thought that her love would result in freeing the Amiti: surely once Tor was King, and given his love for her, he could not allow the bloodstock practice to continue.
 

When she realized how wrong she had been, her heart had broken and she’d spent endless sleepless nights soaking her pillow with tears. Tor didn’t care about Amiti. He argued that his people must feed, and that having bloodstock was the most convenient way for them to meet their needs. Enraged, Istara fought with him and yelled at him, even threatened to leave him. But nothing worked: Tor knew that Istara loved him unconditionally and would stay with him, supporting him with her powers, regardless of his policy.

When Tor suggested that she stop worrying about Amiti and focus on herself and her happiness, Istara, exhausted, had finally given up and convinced herself that the Amiti must take care of themselves; it was beyond her capacity now to help them.
 

Istara and Tor had been together for more than a thousand years, but this last year had been the most crucial for the couple. Their daughter Simone was born. The Keepers were enraged, not by Simone’s existence but by Istara’s decision to make the half-Amiti, half-Sekhmi Simone a Keeper. It was the Queen’s privilege to redistribute Keepers’ powers, and when the Keeper of the Mysteries of Life had died, she had given them to her daughter. Istara knew that the Keepers and all Amiti would interpret it as utter betrayal of her race. But all Istara wanted to achieve was to ensure that the Key would never be turned.
 

The Keepers believed that turning the Key would put all the powers of the Egyptian gods in their hands, under their control, but Istara was not delusional. As the oldest of the Amiti, she remembered that Hathor herself had failed to control even her own destructive powers. All her life, even before meeting Tor, Istara had tried to convince the Keepers that turning the Key was not a solution to the problem. She firmly believed that the Keepers’ rage would unleash the Goddess Sekhmet, the primordial destructive power that would wipe out not only the vampires but all life on earth. Locked in their narrow-minded and grandiose perception of themselves, the Keepers were deaf to Istara’s words.
 

Because she was one of the five Keepers in addition to being the Queen, as long as Istara refused to cooperate, the Key could not be turned. But with each passing century the Keepers had grown more infuriated by her recalcitrance. Finally, Istara foresaw that one day she would be summoned to answer to them; she realized that if they could not change her mind, eventually they would try to eradicate her obstruction of their plans by eradicating her. To guarantee that whatever happened to her, the Key would never be turned, when a Keeper was killed shortly after Simone’s birth she had seized the opportunity and granted the vacant position to her half-blood daughter, the vampire princess. Istara trusted that Simone’s loyalty to her vampire family and race would prevent her from ever turning the Key and, perhaps without even knowing it, Simone would guarantee the continuity of life on earth.
 

This action was what finally broke the Keepers’ patience. Three months after Simone’s birth, Istara found a summons letter in her daughter’s crib—the delivery method also a chilling message of the threat to Simone if Istara ignored the Order’s call. After a final evening with her family, she had severed the connection enabling Tor to locate her, teleported to Greece, and turned herself in to the Keepers.
 

There, the Keepers had offered her the possibility of leniency if she agreed to conceive and give birth to a pureblooded Amiti daughter and then surrender the powers of the Queen to her, the Amiti Queen’s powers being transferable only from mother to daughter. Although she knew that it was probably a ruse, Istara agreed to the terms and, overcoming her repulsion, laid with the father chosen by the Keepers: Marcus, Keeper of the Mystery of Death.
 

In nine months she gave birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter. The tiny little girl resembled Marcus, with flaming red hair, golden skin and forest-green eyes. Marcus chose the name Arianna, “purity,” wishing for her to be pure not only in blood, but also in heart and soul. He declared that his daughter, unlike her mother, would be a true Queen of her people and stand for them until the last drop of her blood was shed. Istara grinned when she heard Marcus’s declaration. She had other plans for her newborn.
 

That night, while little Arianna slept in her cradle, Istara came to the nursery and glared at the baby for whom she felt no love nor even compassion. In her eyes, this little girl was a thief who had stolen Istara’s crown and whose purpose for existing was literally to ruin everything Istara had fought for during her entire life.
 

“I decree that your path will be difficult beyond measure,” she cursed her infant daughter, her voice cold. “You will suffer and bleed, and in order to save your people you will have to sacrifice your greatest love. That, you little witch, is my parting gift to you.”
 

At that moment the baby girl opened her eyes and glanced at Istara as if asking her why her mother hated her so much. To Istara’s shock, Arianna’s eyes changed color: one eye remained the same dark forest green, but the other became an amber color, the eye of a lioness ...

Istara had been given three months to spend with her baby before her destiny would be determined. She never once held Arianna or even touched her. Meanwhile, Istara prepared her Last Spell, just in case. If the Goddess decided she had to die and denied her the seven voices in favor of her innocence, Istara would release her spell to the air. She might fail to save her own life, but she would make sure that Tor would live. The spell could not be reversed except by its maker; she would cast it on the verge of her death, so no power in the world could stop it from manifesting.
 

“Do you have a last wish, Queen Istara?” Marcus’s voice jerked her back into the present. She was at the beach. She was probably about to die.

“No.” She forced herself to meet his hateful eyes.
 

“By the power given me by the Eye of Ra, I, Marcus, the Keeper of Mystery of Death, declare the Amiti Queen, Istara, a traitor, who must be put to death.”
 

The two other Keepers, Oberon and Deimos, joined Marcus and repeated the declaration sealing Istara’s fate. But it was not final yet; they had to ask for the Goddess’s approval.
Please, dear Goddess
, Istara passionately prayed,
forgive me if I’m guilty, take my crown, but leave me my life. Please allow me to go back to Tor and Simone.
 

“Now we ask any members of the Order who reject this sentence to speak out on behalf of the condemned. If seven object, the Queen’s life will be spared. If our Divine Mother wants the former Queen Istara alive, she will intervene through seven members.”
 

Despairing, Istara searched the crowd for signs of compassion but found no mercy in their stony eyes. She was completely alone, rejected and despised by her people and her Goddess. The tears she had been forcing back finally spilled from her eyes. She savored their taste on her lips.
 

The Keepers of the Key raised their fists to the heavens, gathering the power they needed to eliminate her.
 

Istara threw her gaze to the sky, casting her Last Spell into the darkness just as the Keepers opened their hands to direct rays of blazing white energy at her heart. For an instant, she became that energy, her body illuminating the beach like a lightning flash, and then she was simply gone. All that remained of Istara was a shimmering mist of tiny sparkling stars, her powers, lingering brilliantly in the air in anticipation of being welcomed by a new Queen.
 

Arianna was brought to Marcus. He took the tiny baby in his arms and tenderly kissed her rosy cheeks, smiling down at her, his eyes filled with love and joy. Then he placed Arianna in the center of the shimmering mist. The mist came alive and curled like smoke around the little girl, who giggled as she tried to capture the little stars swirling around her.
 

The gathered members of the Eye of Ra began chanting as the mist attached and melted itself into Arianna’s skin like snowflakes. When the last star disappeared into the child’s body, they rose their voices in unison.
 

“Long Live the Queen! Long Live the Queen!”
 

The coronation was complete.
 

Arianna became the new Queen of the Amiti. Hope filled the eyes of those surrounding her. This girl was destined to change the fate of their dying race. She would have powers to help her achieve this, but powers were not enough. One question filled everybody’s mind: would the young Queen have both the desire and the willpower to fight for her people?

* * *

Nice, France
Ten days later

Sitting on the terrace of Tor’s villa in Nice felt like being suspended on the edge of the world; it jutted out past the cliff’s edge, nothingness below and around it. At sunset, with gold, scarlet, and pink glazing the dark waters of the Mediterranean Sea below, the effect was even more dramatic. Only the late yachts returning home, their forms slipping through the fiery liquid, disturbed the reflection of sky on sea.

Tor watched all of this splendor without really seeing it; he was perched on an entirely different kind of precipice. In his hand he held the letter he had received a week earlier, but like the vista before him, it had become so familiar that he knew what it contained without looking at it.
 

My love,
 

By the time you get this letter I will be dead, executed by my own people for loving you too much and making Simone the Keeper of the Key. I am so very sorry to leave you without my blood-bond. I only hope that my powers remain strong in you for a long time before they begin to decline.

Reflecting on the world I will leave behind, it breaks my heart to imagine you without the protection of my powers. You must have the Gift of Ra, my love, and the only way for you to access it again is to blood-bond with the new Amiti Queen, my daughter Arianna. This will not be an easy task, of course; the Keepers and the rest of the Order will do anything to ensure her security.
 

My final gift to you is my Last Spell, which will help you find and blood-bond with Queen Arianna. On Arianna’s twentieth birthday, her father and protector Marcus, the Keeper of the Mystery of Death, will die, leaving her without family, and vulnerable. This will create an opportunity for you to gain access to her and accomplish the blood-bond—and with it, Gift of Ra.

The new Queen of the Amiti is my gift to you, so that you will always be the King. MY King. My Love. My Life.
 

Your Istara.
 

When he’d first read the letter, Tor had been overwhelmed by grief. Part of him had always known that this would happen, and when Istara had disappeared a year earlier, he had suspected the worst, so his shock and sadness had surprised him. Had he loved Istara? As much as he could love anyone, he supposed: he was, after all, a warrior and a Sekhmi. His heart didn’t clench at the sight of her the way it did for his adopted children and his daughter Simone, but she had been his blood-bond and treasured companion. He’d withdrawn from the world and most of his duties in order to devote the past week to mourning her loss.