8. Diana
CHAPTER 8
Diana
M av stumbled toward me, and I caught him carefully by the shoulders as his jaw hung at an awkward angle, blood dripping to the ground in a steady patter. Blood that drew my eye like nothing else.
“He asked to fight,” Nicholas said. “This is not anyone’s fault but his own.”
“Yes, well a child will ask to hold a weapon long before he is ready, that does not mean you give it to him!” I snapped back, anger at Raven, and some at myself for being distracted when Maverick was injured.
Mav tensed under my hands, a shudder rolling through him before he jerked away from me. His jaw protruded sharply to the left at a wholly unnatural angle, and I winced.
“Go to the infirmary, Maverick. I’ll have Sienna meet you there.”
He glared at me and then stalked off without a backward glance, his gait steady despite his injury.
I spun back toward Raven, only then noticing the blood welling from a slash against his thigh. “Are you injured?”
“No…” He was staring at me with something very near surprise. I realized all the men were. Surprise or horror? I felt a niggling of something closer to embarrassment on Mav’s behalf rolling off them, most especially from Raven, damn that bond. And why would he be embarrassed for Maverick?
“What are you all looking at?”
It was Will who spoke. “Sister…I know you were trying to help Maverick, but you also just gravely insulted him. A male’s pride can only take so many blows like that before he crumbles.”
Gravely insulted? It took my mind a moment to replay the words that had flown from my lips. A child not ready to wield a weapon…no wonder Mav was pissed. I put a hand to my forehead. “Goddess bless, could things get any worse?”
“Do not invoke her to try,” Dominic rumbled.
I looked to my older brother, doing my best to ignore Raven and the urge to make sure he was not injured worse than the slash across his thigh. “Continue on with your sparring, then.”
“Did you come here for a reason?” Dom leaned on his sword. “Or just to make sure we were playing nice with the human?”
I took note that through all this, Raven was quiet. “I came to talk with Will about us both speaking tomorrow. I think it will be good to model unity for them all to see.”
And indeed, that was why I’d told myself I’d come this way. Not the fiery rage that had snapped through me—rage that was not my own, but clearly Raven’s. I’d known only one person could set him off so quickly.
And while I might not care for Mav the way I’d once thought, I didn’t want to see him injured or worse, killed. He’d been a part of our journey to find the shard and hopefully save the Territories. For that I was grateful.
Will tipped his head. “Let’s go then and speak about speeches.”
“I will meet you in my quarters, Will. I need to make sure Mav made it to the infirmary and that Sienna can help him.” I turned and wasn’t surprised to feel Raven step up to my side. “I do not need an escort, Raven.”
“Ah, but perhaps I do?” Raven limped a little, favoring that leg. “I plan to head over there myself…I’m feeling strangely lightheaded.”
I glanced at him. “Stop it. You aren’t feeling any such–”
But no…he was lightheaded. His face pale and his eyes seemed almost to fog over. He shook his head and stumbled, barely catching himself on the wall.
“Frostbite, something is wrong.”
In a panic, I grabbed at his arms, trying to drag him upright. “Raven, what’s going on? Stop this.”
“I don’t know…” He closed his eyes and grimaced. Swallowing hard, his throat convulsed but that wasn’t what drew my eyes.
Against his collarbone, something moved, undulating under his skin. Rippling. Feasting on his blood.
No, it couldn’t be…
I pulled him to his feet and yanked his arm across my shoulders. “Dominic! Nicholas!” I didn’t dare call for Will, not when this very thing had almost killed him once.
They caught up to us when we were nearly to the infirmary.
“What’s happened?” Dom took Raven’s other side and together we hurried him through the doors.
“He just said he was feeling lightheaded and then…Dom…there’s something under his skin.” I gritted my teeth, not wanting to believe I had seen what I knew I’d seen.
We got Raven inside and flat on a table, only to have his body arching up on his heels and the back of his head. I pressed his chest down, feeling his heart beating erratically and even pausing. “Don’t you dare, Raven! Don’t you fucking dare!”
The one male doctor in the room hurried over. “Another patient?”
I gripped Raven’s hand and kept my other on his chest, the world narrowing down to his face. “Look at me, Raven. Keep your eyes on me.”
His lids flickered open, but I wasn’t sure he even truly saw me through the pain.
“Dom, go get Sienna.” I didn’t look up.
“He’s already left to do so.” Nicholas was beside me. “Diana, this is bad.”
The male doctor fussed around. “How long has he been ill?”
“Five minutes. Less.” Which made no sense, and I knew it. Unless he’d been hiding his illness from me?
The doctor flinched. “Bad indeed. Looks like a bloodworm. Or some variation of it? Never seen it come on so fast, though. As strong as he is, he should’ve been showing signs for months before it came to this.”
“No symptoms. I felt strong.” Raven’s breathing was coming in shallow gasps. “Nicholas…promise me…Keep her safe.”
“Don’t you fucking give him orders!” I snapped. “I’m the one in charge here. You will make it through this, Raven!”
His smile was pained. “Yes, my queen.”
I gripped his hand harder. This was not happening; it could not be happening.
“Fresh bloodworm eggs would come on faster than dormant ones, but even at that, to go from healthy, with no sign of being infected, to this in such a short time…strange. Almost as if they’d been altered somehow to make them react near instantly upon ingestion.”
Altered…by magic? Was this the work of Lilis somehow?
“What did he eat most recently?” the doctor asked, brow furrowed.
“The feast,” I whispered, horror striking me even deeper as I understood this was more than just Raven now and it was no accident. This might have been an attempt to take all the vampires out at once. I didn’t know how, but once the thought hit me, I knew I was right. “Nicholas. The others, go check on them!”
The food had been consumed by Dominic, Will, Bee, Evangeline, Nicholas, and Raven. Six vampires at a single feast. And someone had slipped the deadly bloodworm eggs into the food. The only ones affected would be vampires, which made no sense if it was Lilis.
No. This was done by my own brethren. Those who didn’t want me to sully the monarchy with more vampires in our midst had finally come up with a deadly solution.
I clutched Raven harder. “Don’t you dare give up.”
He shuddered, blood trickling from his mouth. “As you command, Frostbite.”
Someone else was talking to me from the other side of the room, calling my name but I didn’t look up. I couldn’t look away from Raven.
I bent my head close to his. “Don’t you leave me, Raven. Don’t you dare leave me alone in this. I can’t…I can’t do this without knowing you’re behind me. No matter what, I always knew you were there. It was enough to give me the strength to do the impossible.”
He groaned and his fingers tangled tighter around mine. “I don’t want to go, Frostbite. But I don’t think I have a choice…” Blood gurgled in his throat as he struggled to breathe.
Someone took me by the shoulders and tugged me toward them. I didn’t even think, I jerked away, vaguely hearing a scuffle as whoever it was stumbled.
“I see that’s how it is, then.”
I barely registered the snarled words, or the voice that, in the back of my mind, I knew was Mav. His injury was nothing compared to this—he would heal, and his hurt pride would heal too.
But if Raven died…my heart felt as though it were being torn in half, shrieking as each fiber was pulled apart at the thought. The shard trembled inside of me, but my hands weren’t capable of healing. They were only capable of meting out death and destruction…pain and rage, and out in full force now…
Brilliant red hair came into view, and a breathless Sienna bent close to Raven.
“Diana, you need to back up. I cannot risk the worm attaching to you.”
It took a second for her words to register. There weren’t six vampires at that meal. There were seven. This might not have been an attack to rid me of my advisors and my lover.
This might’ve been another assassination attempt if someone had realized what I was now.
The ramifications had me reeling.
Had the poisoner known my wolf was gone? And if so, how? The thought that the attack had come from inside the keep cut me to the core, from someone I trusted—but I shoved it away. All that mattered right now was Raven.
Strong, gentle hands wrapped around my upper arms and carefully pulled me backward. Dominic held me tight. “She can save him, Di. And she will. Just have trust and give her the space to work.”
Shaking, I stood there and watched, unable to look away as Sienna wove her magic that connected her to the shard, through Raven’s body.
I didn’t close my eyes, and yet I could no longer see Raven.
The black willows surrounded me.
A pyre stacked high, flames bursting upward around a black shrouded figure.
My throat closed off as a scream built deep in my chest, trapped by my heart as it shattered. The shard spoke to me, not unkindly.
“Even if he is not your fated mate…would you lose him?”
“No. Give him back!”
“Get me a jar, quickly,” Sienna snapped, waving a hand to the doctor hovering nearby. A couple silent moments passed and then a choking growl escaped Raven’s lips.
I struggled against Dom’s hold, but he didn’t release me until Sienna stepped back, her face bathed in sweat. Dominic finally let me go, and I forced my shaking legs forward, returning to Raven’s side, fearing the worst. His eyes were closed, and when I put my hand on his chest, it rose and fell in a steady rhythm.
I let out a strangled cry and bent low to rest my head on his chest.
“He will need to rest,” Sienna said. “But the bloodworms were small and hadn’t attached to his stomach with their hooks yet, so I was able to pull them all out quickly.”
I wanted to ask her to stay, to make sure, but she was clearly exhausted by her efforts, and I could ask no more of her than had been given already.
“Thank you, sister.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I need you to sit down so I can check you as well.”
Because I was a vampire, like my brothers…Like Raven.
A quick nod and I let her put her hands on my face, the magic of the shard suffusing me. “There were bloodworms in you.”
My guts clenched.
“But?”
“The shard protected you, keeping them as eggs, which allowed me to destroy them.” Sienna’s golden eyes locked on mine. “But someone was trying to hurt you all.”
Shaking with adrenaline and rage, I felt the pressure of my fangs against my gums. If we hoped to figure out who was behind this before we left for the summit, we needed to act now. I didn’t want to leave Raven, but I had to. Someone had nearly killed the man I loved, and I’d be damned if I’d let them get away with it.
“Dominic…” I looked to my brother, seeing understanding on his face.
“We will stay with him, Di. Go. Do what you have to do.”
What I had to do was find out just who the fuck had done this and make them pay.
Ten minutes later, I was sprinting the distance to the water’s edge where I’d battled Gavin Barrach, with Lochlin at my side.
“We need to search, to see if there are any signs that someone else had been there during the full moon. If someone outside the keep could possibly have known what happened…”
“Diana, this is bad, if someone else saw…there will be hell to pay,” Lochlin growled as we swept the area. I was trusting his nose since my own had gotten dulled under the loss of my wolf.
I shook my head, clearing it of the thoughts that pulled it in so many directions.
We swept the far side of the river first—across from where Gavin had attacked me.
“I’m hoping I’m wrong but…” I paused on the far side of the river, across from where the fight had happened. A series of branches were bent backward, deep gray fur embedded in them. Just a few strands, but enough to draw my eye. Crouching, I brushed plants aside to see the soft ground and the massive imprints there of wolf paws. My stomach lurched.
“Loch,” I croaked, barely breathing as I called to him.
He hurried over to me. “Fuck. Gray wolf, paws that size…I bet Gavin was running with Teeter and his gang. Teeter is a gray when he’s turned, Diana.”
And he’d also been vocal about his less-than-kind thoughts regarding me being queen—right from the beginning of my reign.
“If he saw me with the deer, then he might’ve decided to go with the bloodworms. If I died, it would prove I was a vampire for sure, so that’s a win for them. If I didn’t, a secondary problem would be solved as Raven and the others would have perished. Either way, they’ve gained something.” I brushed my hands over the size of the prints. We followed them back through the trees, heading south. “These fit the timeline for freshness.”
“Scent too.” Lochlin scrubbed a hand over his face. “This is a shitpile of a mess. What do you want to do?”
Indeed, it was shit. But strangely, the assassination attempt gave me a burst of strength and understanding. My time as queen was fading, there was no denying it now. Even I could see that there was no coming back from this.
“We have to assume this was an assassination attempt now. So, we triage, Loch. You take some guards over to Teeter’s place and bring him in for questioning. If he’s not there, head to Mary Barrach’s home. It makes me ill to prod her in her time of grief, but clearly, they were running together and Teeter might have contacted Mary since Gavin’s death. Hopefully, we get some answers, but if not, so be it. We can’t move the summit, so no matter what, we plan to leave in the morning, unite the territories, then deal with the fallout when we return. Just make sure that we have the keep guards on the highest of alerts.”
I met his eyes, saw the concern there.
“I need one more thing from you, Lochlin, maybe one of the last things I’ll ask of you as your queen.”
His head snapped up. “Do not say that.”
“It’s coming, it must—this whole situation has left me no choice and…I knew, Loch, I knew. The best thing we can do now is to be ready for it.”
I found myself reaching for the bonds between Raven and me, checking on him. Assuring myself that he was still alive. Irritated but alive. A smile ghosted over my face.
“What is it that you need?”
“A list of anyone you think might be capable of leading our people. Before the end of the week, I will name my successor…”