Chapter 1 #2
“How much do you know of the history of Runne?” Raziel asked the question from behind her.
“What do they teach you fae in the underground?” His tone was free of any sort of accusation or judgment.
In this moment at least, he seemed honestly curious.
“You seem educated. But you spent most of your life in the metropolis, from what I can gather.”
His voice echoed in the room. The ceiling was tall, soaring high above them. There were several holes through it, and the rest was damaged, revealing the beams of the ceiling like a ribcage.
“I know enough. Why?” She glanced behind her. He still had the gun pointed at the back of her head, and the corpse slung over his shoulder.
“I’m interested in your side of the story. I know what was taught to me.” He briefly gestured with his gun toward the paintings on the walls.
“Which was?” Nadi walked down the aisle, tracing her hand along the curves of the pews as she did.
“A tale of noble liberation. Of freeing the sheep from their oppressors.” Sarcasm was thick in his voice. “The beastly and terrible fae overran this world. They kept the vampires and humans in servitude, and their cruelty knew no bounds. Until our great savior appeared…”
When Nadi reached the end of the aisle, she could see what the painting behind the altar depicted.
It was of a beautiful woman—one who was unmistakably a vampire.
Her skin was almost the same color as her hair—pure white, flowing around her, like it was caught in the drift of a river.
Her head was haloed by both the Mother and Father moons.
She was the vision of youthful beauty. Her lips were a bright red, and her fangs were bared not in a grimace of violence, but in an expression of rapture. Her arms were held out as if to embrace those who might approach her.
And at her feet were gathered humans and other vampires alike, kneeling in supplication to the goddess.
“Behold.” His tone was flat and devoid of any reverence. “Grandmother Lilivra.”
“Bullshit?” She arched her eyebrow, though he couldn’t see her expression from where he was standing behind her.
“Bullshit.”
“So… She isn’t real?”
“Oh, she’s real.” He walked up to stand in front of the altar. The gun was still aimed at her. “There’s a rope over by the wall there. Pull it.”
“Why?”
“Because I only have two hands, Nadi.”
Rolling her eyes, she headed over to the only thing she could think he could possibly be referencing. A rope fed through a series of pulleys through the floor and again through the ceiling. It was the only thing that looked like it had been touched in the past hundred years.
With a shrug, she took hold of the rope and pulled.
It didn’t budge.
“I suppose you’ll have to put Ivan’s back into it.” Raziel grinned, clearly pleased at his cleverness.
“Very funny.” She sighed. Deciding to not make it that easy for him, Nadi shifted into Raziel’s shape, instead. She grinned back at him with a mirror of his own amusement.
Raziel’s expression instantly fell. “I do not like that.”
“Then, don’t run your mouth,” she replied in his voice. She grabbed the rope and pulled. In his form, it soon began to move.
“Is there a limit on how many times you can shift in a day?” He seemed once more honestly curious.
“Not an exact number. But I can get tired. What about your hypnotism?” It was bizarre to hear his voice coming out of her mouth. She wasn’t a fan of it either, to be frank.
“Mm. Same. Too many times, and I’m liable to give myself a migraine.”
As she pulled the rope, a section of the stone floor rumbled and began to hinge open.
Ah yes. The crypt. For the sacrifices. That would make sense.
Once the lid was hinged all the way open, Nadi tied off the rope and shifted her form back to her own.
She was also eager to turn the focus of conversation back to the painting of Lilivra and away from herself.
She gestured to the image of the painted woman.
“If she’s real, then why is she bullshit? ”
“Hm?” Raziel glanced over at it. “I mean, her whole story is bullshit. This? All this sacrifice nonsense? The story of the ancient vampire who made the original deal for a sacrificial human? All these old rituals. It’s made up.
” He dropped the real Monica on the ground next to the hole with a thud.
“Lies and stories told to keep people in line. It’s about power. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“But… you’ve met her.”
He took his hair out of the ribbon that kept the long black strands tied at the base of his neck and combed his hand through it for a moment before retying it.
He suddenly seemed to be in a very unusual mood.
Serious. Dour, almost. “In a manner of speaking. She was behind a sheer curtain, sitting in a bed. She is over a thousand years old. At this point, she probably looks less like that”—he gestured up at the radiant image in the painting—“and more like the corpses in there”—he gestured at the gaping black hole into the crypt below. “A withered old hag.”
That was when it hit her. “You want to kill her too.”
“Of course I do!” He grimaced. “Look at this place! If she were really some kind of all-powerful vampiric savior, would our home have been left to rot? Would we be forced to cower in a festering city packed with humans? No! We let a human mayor rule the human city and we abide by their human rules!”
Nadi couldn’t help but stare at him in fascination. This was the real Raziel. This was what she was missing this entire time—the piece of him that she had never understood.
“We are fed this horseshit story of how we defeated the fae and beat back the Wild. Yet we cower from it behind our walls. We let it take our home from us. The metropolis shrinks more than it grows, year after year after year.” Raziel looked down at Monica Valan’s body.
Then, he used his foot to push the corpse into the pit.
Nadi would have remarked at how callous the act was. But, in fact, it was remarkably similar to the way she’d disposed of Raziel’s other bodyguard, Hank, not even thirty-six hours ago.
Sure. Fine. Monica had been innocent. Hank had been a willing accomplice of a vampiric mass murderer. There were differences. But a life was a life.
There was a crunch as the body hit what sounded like a pile of dried sticks at the bottom of the hole. But Nadi knew it wasn’t kindling Monica had broken upon landing. It was a pile of her predecessors.
Raziel was still in a dark mood, his muscles tense as he went back to the pulley that would lower the stone slab back over the crypt.
Nadi stayed where she was to watch, the only mourner at a sad excuse for a funeral.
The slab fell into place with a resounding thud that resonated through the room, shaking loose some plaster from one of the walls.
As the dust settled, Nadi broke the silence. “You want to… what? Reclaim Runne in the name of vampires?” She couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Murder your family and raise an army and run this world the right way?”
Raziel’s red eyes glinted in the moonlight. He shifted his gun to his other hand, still pointed at her, as he took a step toward her. “Yes.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re going to fail, you know. You’re going to die. And even if you don’t, even if you kill your family, you won’t win in a war against nature.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He smirked, taking another slow, careful step toward her. His expensive shoes clicked on the stone floor, echoing between his words. “Because this world has never seen anything like me.”
He really was serious.
Deathly serious.
“And now, my dear sweet murderer… you have a very important decision to make.”
“You want me to swear I’ll help you?”
The laugh that left him was soft. “No.” With one long stride, he nearly closed the distance between them, forcing her to step back.
“You would simply lie. You would even likely believe it. You would do anything to have another chance to kill me, to kill my family.” Another step, and she was forced up the stairs toward the altar.
“Then what?” Before she realized what he’d done, she’d backed up the stairs and into the altar, bumping into it. “If my words can’t convince you, I don’t know wh—”
He was fast. Damn vampires. In a blink, he closed the distance between them. Her breath hitched as he was suddenly right there, the gun pressed up underneath her jaw, silencing her, tilting her head back.
The darkness in his eyes wasn’t violence. It wasn’t rage. It was lust. Pure hunger as he watched her with those crimson eyes of his. He pressed the length of his thigh against hers, pinning her to the cold stone of the altar.
She bit back every part of her that wanted to moan at the sensation. At the feeling of the power in him. It should be revolting. She should hate this. Being at his mercy.
“Look at you… my beautiful little fae. My assassin. My killer in the dark. Look at all that hatred, all that uncertainty in your eyes—and what eyes they are. Like cut gems, sparkling in the night…” His voice was dusky and deep as he tilted her head farther back with the gun.
Pressing his other hand to the stone beside hers, he leaned in to kiss her throat, slowly, as if savoring the taste.
“I need you to answer something truthfully, Nadi. I need you to look me in the eyes and vow to me that you aren’t lying. ”
“And if I can’t…?”
“Then you and I are done here.” He scraped his fangs against her skin, causing her to jolt.
Her head reeled. Fuck. Her body felt like it was on fire. She wanted him. Needed him. Damn him to the pits.
“You’ll kill me.”
“No. You leave here alive. Return to the Wild, to the shadows, return to hunting me and my family. I don’t care—I’ll let you disappear.
” He slid his free hand, very lightly, up the bare skin of her arm.
It gave her goosebumps. The tenderness of it in sharp contrast to the press of the muzzle of the gun up underneath her chin.
It made her want to scream.
“I want to make sure you understand what’s at stake here first, my perfect little creature.” He tilted his head to the side slightly as he studied her features. “I am going to ask you a yes or no question. You can answer truthfully… or you can choose not to answer.”
When she stayed silent, staring up into his ruby eyes, he continued.
“But if you refuse to answer…” His anger turned into something wicked.
Something dangerous as his lips turned up in a vicious, hungry grin.
“I will force a response out of you. And trust me… I can be”—his hand tilted her head just slightly farther back with the gun—“very convincing…”
That should have terrified her. Absolutely horrified her.
But her heart was racing with something that wasn’t fear.
No, it was something far more dangerous for her than that—because she could handle fear.
No, it was desire. And if he hadn’t pressed her up against the altar, her damn knees would probably have given out.
What in the moons was wrong with her?
“Ask your fucking question, vampire.”
He placed the gun down on the altar next to her with a click before cupping her cheek in his hand. He rested his thumb against the hollow of her chin, the point of his nail just pricking the skin of her lower lip. His cologne, all spices and roses, washed over her.
“All the time we’ve spent together… when we’ve fucked. When we’ve laughed. When we’ve touched. What we’ve shared, you and I. All that we’ve exchanged.” He tilted his head to the side just slightly, studying her face.
With a slow, creeping and purely evil smile, the Serpent asked his question. “Tell me, little fae… how much of your heart belongs to me?”