Chapter 46
SHARA
Crouched down on one knee in the shallows of the Aegean Sea, I stared into my silver wolf’s eyes, sinking into his bond.
My fingers grounded firmly in his ruff, our noses almost touching.
I allowed a drop of my blood to drip into the water as his memory of the small, secretive blood circle he’d found deep in the swamp played through his mind.
Our noses twitched with the fetid smell of rotting plants and thick mud. The salty breeze turned to heavy, humid air. Sparkling golden sands and azure waters became massive cypress trees dripping curtains of moss toward brackish water.
The image firmed between us enough for the first of my Blood to pass through the portal. Rik stood at my back, Sekh and Guillaume on either side of us. I waited until everyone else passed through, and then I slowly stood, releasing Xin’s fur as I allowed the other side to close.
:Nothing’s moving,: Vivian reported as she circled overhead.
I checked the sky, relieved we still had several hours of daylight. I didn’t want to be out here in the dark, especially if there might be thralls around.
Xin slipped away in a flash of quicksilver with Itztli, nose working, looking for anything that might not belong. Vore’s ushi-oni tagged along in case anything needed to be devoured, and Okeanos moved easily through the muddy water encircling the small island.
My lower legs were already wet and dirty, but Rik picked me up and carried me through the smelly water to a gray-green hump rising out of the water with several giant trees in a loose circle. Each heavy step of his rock troll made the mud pop and suck at his feet.
A faint tingle warned we were close to the blood circle. Rik paused, letting me study it. This one was unique from the others we’d been to because it was wholly Jeanne’s. Her true power from only her blood. Her will. Her magic.
Closing my eyes, I tapped into the circle.
Far from prying eyes in the middle of a swamp, Jeanne Viennois needed no disguise. Yet her features were still blurred and distorted. I wondered if she even remembered what she looked like after hiding for so long.
“This will do, Guigues. These trees are big enough.”
We’d already seen her alpha in Thierry’s memory, and Sekh had traced his history back as far as possible.
The man looked… average. Basic. He wasn’t very tall or exceptionally muscled.
He had regular brown hair clipped short in a modern style.
There was nothing about him that signaled he was anything more than a human.
Until he moved. Then the innate grace of a swordsman was undeniable, though different from my knight’s. His steps flowed like a waltz, even though all he did was walk alongside his queen as she paced out the blood circle.
She only allowed three drops of blood to drop onto the ground, which explained why the circle was so faint as to be almost undetectable until we were a pace away.
Once she let another drop fall, she mentally reached back and connected the two, then three, then finally closed it.
Pretty impressive, really, and I made a mental note of the technique.
Certainly much easier than bleeding all over the ground, though I didn’t mind giving the sacrifice.
The Mother’s earth welcomed every drop of Her daughters’ blood.
But maybe that’s why Jeanne barely dropped any blood even to form her protective circle.
She hoarded power and blood, stealing other queens’ natural gifts and using them as her own.
I allowed the magic to flow faster, waiting until someone else’s face appeared. A second Blood with Guigues. Between them, they dragged another man with his hands bound behind his back.
Lew let out a snarl. “That’s Vaughn. He’s one of ours.”
Oh no. I swallowed hard. “Esetta said the rest of the Blood were safe as far as she knew.”
“Then she—and they—were betrayed.”
:I’m already looking for his image to determine which house he went to,: Sekh said.
“Keep going, my queen,” Lew said flatly, though his hands fisted at his sides. “Though I can tell you now, we’re going to see more Isador Blood going into those fucking trees. Just like Thierry and Greyson.”
Seeing Greyson’s image in Thierry’s memory had been a gut punch, even though I’d hated the monster who’d killed Mom and then hunted me for years.
I had no idea he’d been Selena’s alpha before she abandoned the nest in London and left court life behind.
Trapped as one of the Dauphine’s zombies for years while her magic rotted and corrupted not just his body but also his mind and memories…
I didn’t forgive him exactly. Not after he killed Mom. Though even that hadn’t really been his fault. I at least had more empathy for him.
Before I could allow the Dauphine’s vision to continue playing, Sekh showed me a grand ivory-colored stone house with immaculate green yards and meticulous gardens of fountains and flowers.
A white graveled driveway encircled a large pond fed by another fountain.
The mansion itself was two stories tall and had two larger towers on either side of a grand facade.
“House Valois,” Guillaume said. “Or Palais de Valois, located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.”
Which meant Rosalind Valois had given Isador Blood to her grandmother, Jeanne.
“Who else?” Lew’s gravelly voice shredded my heart. He’d been their alpha for centuries. He’d loved my mother with them. He may have even loved them, as much as he loved Thierry.
As much as Rik and Daire loved each other.
Dread choked me. I didn’t want to see who else was in the trees.
But I allowed the magic to flow.
LLEWELLYN
Gryphons mated for life, and I was mated to House Isador. While I might have only been able to fuck Isador queens, I considered every person inside my queen’s house as mine. It was more than love. More than honor.
Every drop of blood in my gryphon heart burned for my house.
I’d hoped the other Blood who’d served with me might have escaped Thierry’s fate. Yet we all watched as the Dauphine’s Blood used the tip of a knife to pluck a leech off a human and put it into Vaughn’s mouth. He was already helpless to deny anything the Dauphine ordered him to do.
Now he was also tainted with human blood. Turning him into a zombie-like thrall to slowly rot inside one of the giant trees.
Shara paused the vision, focusing on the other cypresses in the circle. “They look normal to me. So this happened before Thierry or Greyson were trapped.”
The knight made a low grunt of agreement. “House Valois sent them over fairly quickly.”
Goddess. Thierry had only been in the tree a couple of years as best as we could tell. That meant Vaughn had been trapped as long as my young queen had been alive.
At least twenty-two years. While he slowly rotted to death.
My teeth ached from clenching my jaws too hard. Hands fisted, I fought to keep my talons sheathed. Every muscle burned to leap into action. Shred and tear and rip the trees apart to save my friend. But which tree? What other traps might the Dauphine have lodged inside?
Shara flowed the magic forward to the next Blood.
My breath rushed out as if Rik had stomped on my abdomen. “Mallac.”
Tears streamed down her face. “I’m so sorry, Lew.”
Thierry had been my closest friend among the Blood. We often shared our queen together, and we worked well together in all ways. I’d shared more with him than any of the others.
But Mallac had been the one to make us all laugh.
He and Thierry combined had balanced me, somehow keeping the darkness from swallowing me with their jokes and pranks.
Even in the grim shadow of House Skye, with our queen’s departure from this earth looming before us, Mallac had dared Thierry to moon the mighty tower while he spotlighted him.
No one else would’ve dared such a prank.
It wasn’t very Blood-like, especially for Isador, which had always prided itself on formalities and proper behavior.
Which was only one of the reasons Esetta had loved him so much. He helped balance us all.
“I See him arriving in Paris with the other Blood,” Sekh said quietly.
My heart weighed so much it felt like it was crushing me. “Thierry was in a nearby tree and never knew they were so close.”
Sifting through the residual magic, Shara found the arrival of the last two Isador Blood.
“Lucian. Zharr.”
I didn’t realize I’d fallen to my knees until her arms wrapped around my shoulders.
She held me against her chest while I sobbed.
I clung to her. Not caring the rest of her Blood saw me weeping.
Silently, I dared any one of them to lose their queen and this family and not fall to their knees in agony.
Even the motherfucking dragon wisely kept his mouth shut.
“They’re in a group of five arriving in Rome around the same time,” Sekh said.
Her fingers stroked through my hair. “That tracks with what Esetta told me. How did they get here?”
The sphinx was silent for a few moments.
While we waited, I fought to bring myself back under control.
Listening to the steady, strong thump of Shara’s heartbeat against my cheek.
The sounds of the swamp around us. Birds and insects.
Quiet plops into the water. Frogs and other chirps I couldn’t identify.
I hoped my friends had been able to listen to the natural creatures around them and found some comfort during their imprisonment.
Some small joys. Even while they lay trapped and rotting, waiting…
I shuddered.
Waiting for us to find them. And put them out of their misery.
“Exact dates and times are harder to pinpoint, but I See the two of them going together to Valois recently. In the past year. They almost immediately departed again for New Orleans and entered the Delafosse nest.” Sekh was silent for a moment, and I could almost hear the whizzing of time forward and backward as he scanned. “After Thierry was released from here.”
Shara’s arms tightened around me, her voice deadly even and calm. “Were they sent to Valois before or after I was called to Rome?”
“After, my queen.”
Now she leaned on me, a fine trembling spreading through her body.
“Then I could have saved them. If I’d only known they were there.
I could have brought them out of Rome before the Dauphine could hurt them.
Goddess. Marne stood there and demanded I take a Blood from her house, even knowing she held five former Isador Blood.
She could have given them to me then, and I would’ve gladly taken them. Even if they carried her blood. She…”
Her voice broke, but when I tipped my face up to look at her face, she didn’t cry.
Her eyes burned with the same anger choking me.
“She deliberately kept them from me. Then sent them to hell.” She laughed, a harsh, ragged sound that stilled the swamp around us.
“That’s why Byrnes called Gina. She wanted me to know she’d exchanged Blood with House Valois, as if she could just wash her hands of the matter.
It’s not her fault they ended up here in the swamp.
“But it is. It’s absolutely her fault. She could’ve told me. I could’ve—”
She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking.
“You couldn’t have changed any of this,” I told her gently. “None of this is your fault. This was all set into motion before you were ever born.”
She laughed again, a wry, exhausted, furious sound devoid of any amusement whatsoever.
“I’m so fucking tired of these fucking games.
Fucking up people’s lives. Sending them to death and torture as if they’re not real people.
Just pieces on a board. And for what? To keep me from ‘winning’ five Blood she didn’t want me to have?
To keep me from having any more of my mother’s blood brought back into my house? ”
A strident caw jerked her gaze up to where Nevarre circled. I watched as her lovely face hardened into a visage I knew and loved well.
So very much like her mother.
“Yes, Nevarre. It’s time to purge the old blood.”