Chapter Thirteen
Leonora
The idea of a trial for Elowen, despite her absence, still seemed ridiculous to me. But considering how badly someone had tried to stop me attending, I was even more determined to stay and speak.
There were guidelines more than rules in this world, nobody was going to hunt her down and punish her for killing some humans. The danger that she posed, as far as the council was concerned, was more about the power she wielded. The threat of usurping their own seats. Why have a council if you could have a dictator?
I didn’t recognise the other council members, only Adrian who kept glancing over at me with some expression on his face I couldn’t understand. What had he seen that had worried him so much? I’d claimed Novalie, and maybe he was worried I could claim others, too—I’d have to ask Cal and try and work out what exactly I’d done to Novalie. He’d refused to tell me before, but maybe he could point me in the right direction at least.
“Fine, fine,” Adrian was muttering and I tried to refocus my thoughts on whatever the council was whining about now. They were self-absorbed, power-hungry leeches and I could only assume that the others in attendance only humoured them because they were old as dirt and, therefore, hard to kill. They’d spent barely any time talking about Elowen or the experiment she’d been running, more interested in gossip about supposed vampire hunters. “We will hear from our first character witness, Rath, House of Curio, please rise.” Adrian looked up and nodded to someone in the audience I hadn’t yet noticed.
The tall frame was familiar and when he approached the council to take a seat in the wooden chair next to them on the dais, I frowned. House of Curio. Adrian’s house. Funny that Rath hadn’t mentioned that when I’d met him.
Rath bowed his head towards the council, a smirk curling his mouth as he crossed his legs and elegantly steepled his hands on his knee. “Delighted to be here.”
“For the record and those gathered, please tell us in your own words your impression of Elowen.” Adrian watched Rath with an intensity that surprised me, as if whatever was said here actually mattered and not mere performance. But why?
“The first time I met Elowen I was charmed by her power and the air in which she conducted herself.” Rath straightened, his eyes meeting mine in the audience for a moment before he looked away. “Of course, this didn’t last long. Elowen quickly proved herself to be interested in only three things: power, chaos, and reputation.”
“Do you believe that, given the proper motivation, Elowen may return to court to claim her seat?” The words were cool, unaffected, but it felt like the room held their breath—metaphorically, of course, as most of them were undead.
“Without a doubt,” Rath said, nodding. “If Elowen’s council seat were to be in question, I am certain she would crawl out of the gutter.”
So that’s what this was about? Her council seat?
“Though,” Rath continued, “I would like to add, for the record, that I do not believe her council seat should be in question.”
My eyebrows rose at his words and Adrian glared at the other man.
“Enough.”
“Come now, it is not the way things are done. If somebody here wishes to claim Elowen’s seat, they must do as you all have done.” Rath speared his gaze into the council member sitting closest to him and smiled wolfishly. “Take you, Billius, we all watched you carve out Tavian’s heart ourselves. Your seat is rightfully yours. Just like Refus,” Rath said, nodding to another council member further down the table. “If I’m not mistaken, you rolled old Minia into this very room tied to a stake and burned her alive.”
A few of the council members were nodding and Refus had a dreamy look on his face, like he was reliving a better time.
“And Elowen,” Rath said finally, “won her seat the same as any of you. She devoured Thierre’s heart right in front of you all. If you can decide to take her seat, what protects any of yours?”
My mother had claimed her council seat by eating a heart. It sounded about right. I couldn’t help my amusement, however, at the uneasy looks on the council members’ faces, like they’d only thought of the benefits of reclaiming Elowen’s seat and not the ripple effect it may have in endangering theirs.
“Of course, Adrian’s own seat would be protected in ways yours aren’t,” Rath mused. “Given that his was appointed by the monarchy before their disappearance.”
That seemed to be the final straw for Adrian and I chuckled as Refus narrowed his eyes on Adrian and several other council members looked equally suspicious.
“Your testimony is complete,” Adrian snapped and Rath swaggered down off of the dais, winking at me as he took his seat among the audience once more. “Next, we will hear from Leonora Romilly, unclaimed, as to the events that transpired at Ashvale.”
My spine straightened and I could practically feel Cal’s alarm radiating off of him in waves as a crackle of electricity lifted from my skin as I stood. “House of Romilly.”
“We do not recognise any such house,” the council member on the far left, Billius, said with a derisive snort, eyes so pale they almost looked white locked on me.
I smiled and inclined my head as if in respect. “Then I decline to give testimony.”
A wave of murmurs sounded and I tried not to roll my eyes. Vampires—who would have thought they’d be such clutch-your-pearls types?
Adrian glared at the other man who’d spoken to me. “House of Romilly is acknowledged. Approach, Leonora.” There was a new sharpness to him, as if his usual charm was slipping away with every step I took. Rath had unsettled him and had planted some seeds of doubt within the council too. I could only hope that meant Adrian would have bigger problems to deal with than me.
I settled on the wooden chair, moving it at an angle so I could watch the council members on my left and look out at the gathered vampires on my right. I didn’t want to put my back to either of them, lest I lose my head.
“Please tell us, in your own words, the events at Ashvale that led to the death of one of our own and the abandonment of another.”
My eyes found Adrian and held his gaze for a moment before I looked away and found Cal next to my empty seat in the pew. He nodded and a wave of calm washed over me. “After being murdered, I awoke as an undead vampire with no recollection of who—or what —I was. I was retrieved and brought to Ashvale.” I swallowed, not having anticipated how raw it would feel to talk about what had happened. “My death occurred under suspicious circumstances and more strange deaths began to occur at Ashvale, including that of a human girl who had been brought to the castle by a living vampire under the influence of a drug that Elowen had created.”
“What did this drug do?” Refus interrupted, and I fought to keep my expression pleasant.
“It increased the power of the living vampire, heightening their strength, their speed, to that of an undead without the drawbacks of the sun or death.” Murmurs broke out and I raised my voice to be heard. “However, it had one major side effect in that it also heightened the bloodlust of the living vampire to supplement the additional power expended.”
“And when you discovered this drug, what did you do?” Adrian strolled closer and I stiffened.
“I reported my suspicions to Elowen and even retrieved a baggie of the drug and gave it to her as proof.” My chin raised defiantly and Adrian stopped in his tracks, mouth curling ever so slightly as his vampire instincts responded to my challenge. I looked away, reminding myself that I just needed to get this over with and then we could leave this place and not look back.
“How did you obtain this baggie ,” he sneered and frustration bubbled in my chest.
“A living vampire was selling it. I took it from him.”
“Did you try it?”
“I was already undead when?—”
“Of course.” Adrian waved a hand dismissively and I blew out a breath slowly. “As most of us here know, one of our number was killed at the debut ball at Ashvale. What can you tell us about that?”
I shrugged. “We knew that the hunger from the drug eclipsed all reason based on the escalating murders on campus. The blood of a council member would, I trust, be powerful. We assumed the council member was felled by the living vampire on the drug.”
“Impossible. A living vampire, let alone one still in training, could not have the strength to kill a council member,” Billius scoffed.
I opened my mouth, ready to snap back, when Adrian cut me off.
“I thought you might protest, so I took the liberty of procuring one of the later versions of Elowen’s drug.” He nodded to another vampire at the back of the room and I watched with wide eyes as they led a living vampire inside and up to the front. “This is a living vampire, they have volunteered to take the drug so you may witness its effects. This is a weaker version than the initial prototype Elowen engineered and therefore its addictive qualities are lesser.”
I stood, intending to stop this before it could go too far, but the living vampire had already tipped the small vial of liquid into their mouth, their pupils blowing wide almost instantly. The council was silent for once, watching with intrigue as the living vampire followed Adrian’s instructions—demonstrating their strength by raising a pew with two fingers, their heightened ability for thrall by controlling the undead guard who’d accompanied them… All the things that made being an undead so valuable, with the benefit of a heart that still beat and the ability to walk in the sun.
The dose must have been small because it wore off quickly, leaving the living vampire with a horrible pallor that indicated one thing: hunger. They lunged for Adrian’s throat, managing to pin him to the ground for a few seconds before Adrian lazily pushed against their chest and they flew back. The same vampire who’d led the living vamp inside the hall slid their hands around the other vampire’s arms, restraining them as they led them back out.
I wasn’t sure Adrian had proved the point he’d hoped—instead of horror, disgust, or even concern, there was only lust on the undeads’ faces. Covetousness. No, this meeting wasn’t about Elowen at all—they just wanted to know how they could use this drug themselves to make their own armies of living vampires, bound to their will for a taste of the drug.
“As you can see, Leonora did not overstate the effects.”
Disgust choked me and if I hadn’t already been so drained from whatever magick I’d performed on Novalie, I might have been tempted to kill the lot of them right then. Now I understood why they camped out down here, under the city, hiding in the dark—where else would monsters dwell?
I spoke as succinctly as I could, recounting the murders and the drug we’d seen in action as the council members continued to question me. By the third repeated account, I was pissed.
“I believe I’ve told you all I know,” I snapped and Refus bared his teeth.
“We’ll be the judge of that,” Adrian murmured, a languidness in his eyes that told me he was enjoying watching me squirm. My senses seemed to roar in response, the bond in my chest pulsing in place of the heartbeat I no longer had, as strength filled my limbs. He wanted to dominate me, control me, and I couldn’t allow it.
My legs moved of their own accord, pushing up from the chair with a slow glide that was entirely controlled. Despite being the same height as him, I felt like I was looking down at Adrian from afar, like I could make the heavens rain fire as I gripped him in my fist.
Before I could reach for him, however, heads turned in a wave as sound beyond the doors reached the audience and then me and the council. Screaming. A rhythmic thudding that was familiar but that I couldn’t place, a strange clicking that had my fight or flight going into overdrive. For some reason, the sounds conjured images of dark nights and moonlight and running through the forest at Ashvale.
I looked at Cal and he shrugged helplessly as the doors at the back of the room slammed open and the first silver paw came into view.
The vampires in the pews scrambled to move away from the central walkway, mouths dropping open in a combination of awe and shock. Others froze in place, as if they realised they were now prey, and a few vampires fell to their knees as the wolf strolled through the hall like he owned the place. His claws clicked on the stone floor and when the whispers began, I saw his ears twitch to listen.
The heir. The silver wolf. He’s alive.
I hadn’t had much time to really look at the wolf the last time I’d seen him. I’d been too busy running away while he chased me at first, then I’d been too full of rage as I attempted to hunt down Elowen. But I had no doubts it was the same one. Those icy blue eyes were too familiar for it to be otherwise.
Familiar anger wound its way through me, but there was also relief too—because I was surrounded by monsters and it was never a bad thing to have a monster or two of my own at my back. Hayes was here and, despite everything, I revelled in the screams and the gasps as it became clear what, exactly, the wolf carried in his mouth.
He tossed his head and the object went flying through the air, landing with a squish in Adrian’s hands. Blood dripped on the floor and I wrinkled my nose as the scent of decay filled the air.
A flash of bright light distracted me and in the place where the wolf had stood, there was a man—a living vampire. His pale skin was speckled with blood, his muscles taut across his chest and stomach, and the smirk that played over those lips was intimately familiar.
Hayes strode up to me, unphased by his nakedness and the gaping of the room as he claimed my mouth like our audience only spurred him on. Warmth spread through me, the bond humming in satisfaction, and when he pulled away there was a good humour in his eyes that made me feel unexpectedly soft. “I told you I’d be here.”
He looked away, over to Adrian who was inspecting the gift Hayes had brought, holding it up by its hair and oblivious to the shock that was making me feel dizzy. The dream—it had been real?
“Sorry I’m late,” Hayes said, and when he turned to look out at the council and the vampires cautiously watching, his eyes glowed silver. “I had some errands to run—traitors to kill, you know how it is.”
The silence was deafening and I shoved down my emotions for later, needing to concentrate on the here and now. Because either Adrian was going to step aside for the last remaining member of the oldest vampire family, akin to royalty, or he was going to try and kill the man I was blood bonded to without hesitation.
“Nice of you to keep my seat warm for me,” Hayes continued, striding up the tiny staircase that led to the long table where the council looked out over the hall. He moved to the largest chair, slap bang in the middle of the table, and slid into it, reclining effortlessly.
Adrian’s face went pale and then red, his mouth opening and closing as Hayes looked at the gathered court and smiled. “It’s good to be home.”