Chapter Eight #2
My teeth clenched. The last thing I’m going to let happen again is me pinned down and helpless while my sister is attacked. I’m ending this stupid, jealous-rivals bullshit now.
“You know,” I began. “Since you were kind enough to give me advice, shall I give you some?”
Raven frowned. “What the fuck did you call me? What the hell is kind?”
“You five don’t need to fight over who’ll be the next queen of sloth,” I said, blowing past her question. “Why in the world should you... when you can all be Ronin’s queens?”
Eris snorted. “The bitch is insane as well as a slut. Normally, I’d like that about her, but you’re taking it a bit too far, don’t you think? Ronin can only have one queen, and it’s going to be me.”
I let her insults roll off my back. “Belphe can only have one queen? Why?” I asked, my voice light and innocent. “Is that some kind of rule?”
“Of course it—!” Kama cut herself off, blinking. “I mean... it’s...”
“That’s what I thought,” I pounced. “Seeing as neither one of you loves him—”
“We what’s him?”
“Love?”
“Loves?”
They passed the word, and confused glances, around the group, then looked back at their flunkeys to see if they knew. Their minions all gave them shrugs in response.
“Exactly,” I continued. “None of you want anything more from him than his power and his body, and like you just realized, there’s no rule or law saying you can’t all have it.
All of you should marry Ronin,” I announced.
“Equal in status and equal in power, you can unite the Houses of sloth, envy, greed, wrath, lust, and gluttony into...”
“Into?” Kama whispered, leaning in. “Into what?”
I hid a smile. “The kingdom of sin.”
They gasped.
“No,” I cried, hamming it up. “Make that the empire of sin!”
“Empire?” Ursula repeated, eyes huge.
“Just imagine,” I said. I threw out my hands, snapping all their heads up. “All of hell will be kneeling at the foot of your thrones with their begging bowls clutched in their bony grips.”
“Begging?” Kama licked her lips. “Oooh, I like it when they beg.”
“Yeah, princess of wrath is a nice title and all, but how much better does empress of wrath sound?”
“Empress of wrath?” Raven staggered back, releasing my collar. “Wow... I do like the sound of that.”
“And what about you over there, Eris?” I winked at her. “No one’s going to make a more gorgeous empress of envy than you.”
I swear Eris blushed.
“And you, empress of lust! And you, empress of gluttony! All of you empresses!” My enthusiasm was so infectious, Dora started clapping and cheering behind them.
That only made the peacocks puff it up some more.
“No, wait,” Raven cried, tossing her head. “This can’t be! I mean, this is... this is...” She tapped her lips, face scrunching. “This is genius.”
“Of course, it’s genius!” Ursula shoved me out of the way. “It’s genius because I thought of it first! The mortal bitch is just ripping me off again.”
I slowly backed away, reaching for Dora’s hand.
Her captors let her go easily, all of them focused on their leaders and what they were going to do next.
“No, I thought of it first,” Sauda hissed, getting in Ursula’s face. “I’ve always said the five of us should stop fighting over Ronin and just make him marry all of us. You’re the ones who never fucking listen!”
“No, the empire of sin is my idea,” Kama screeched. “I was born to be empress of lust!”
Five charged glares pinged back and forth, then Eris spun away.
“I have to make a call.”
“No, I’m calling first,” Ursula cried, scrambling for her phone.
“No, me!”
Just like that, the five of them rushed off in different directions—all of them shouting down the phone to whoever, I assumed, was going to make them an empress. Their lemmings chased after them.
“That was impressive.” Nik stuck his head out of the doorway. “I thought for sure all five of them were going to walk away with five pieces of you—each. But you completely defused them,” he gushed. “You’re amazing. Can all mortals do that?”
I chuckled. “They can if they work in the service industry.” Dusting myself off, I gestured down the hall. “Want to walk to History of Hell with us?”
For some reason, Nik looked up and down the hall—twice. “Uhh, sure, yeah,” he said hesitantly. “I think it’s okay. I mean, we are going the same way, so... yeah, yeah, it’s fine.”
My brow crumpled. “Nik, is everything—”
The hallway winked out.
In a flash, Dora, Nik, and the whole crowd of students sullenly shuffling to their next class were gone.
Coming to a sudden, abrupt halt, I was dumped on the floor.
Pitching over, I vomited right on the carpet.
Nausea and dizziness wracked my body and spun the world on its head. I’d felt like this once before when—
“Radu?” I gasped, fingers curling in the fibers. “What is... wrong with you? Just because—” Slicing off, I threw up again. Tears leaked from my eyes. “Stop doing this to m-me! There are easier ways to meet—”
“Sorry, darling.”
Terror lanced through my anger and sickness.
“But the Elder isn’t here to save you now.”
I tried to get up and tipped over, landing hard on my back.
My spinning vision made out four—five—ten?
—sallow faces and glowing eyes as they crowded in, hovering above me.
I could barely see, but I knew we weren’t in the vampire wing.
That place was pitch black—not a trace of light or fire anywhere—and since my abductors weren’t going to turn the lights on for little old me, I had to be somewhere else.
Somewhere Elder Radu won’t hear my screams for help.
The truth of that single thought stopped the nausea, stopped the heaving, stopped the dizziness, stopped everything. My body sank into a still and peaceful reverence... as if preparing for death.
Taking a slow, steadying breath, I gazed at their drooling mouths and darkening eyes.
There were six of them—all different heights, sizes, and ethnicities, but all sharing the same expression.
I wouldn’t waste anybody’s time by asking why they brought me here, but the fact that my limbs were still intact and they weren’t feeding on me in a ravenous frenzy meant the rational part of their brains was still operating.
For the second time that day, I may be able to defuse a violent situation before it blew up.
“Okay, okay,” I rasped. With steady vision came the recognition. I was in the library where we caught the shade, lying on the carpet of the new Sins lounge area. “I understand that you’re hungry—”
Loud, hair-raising hissing hit the air.
“—but think this through,” I rushed out. “Living humans don’t make trips down to hell for the fun of it. I’m the only one who has come down here in three hundred years, and after you kill me, there won’t be another one. You’ll just go back to starving.”
One—just one of them stopped hissing. For the barest second, his predator black eyes blinked harmless white.
It’s working.
“That’s why you should keep me alive,” I cried. “I’m going to live for another sixty, possibly even seventy years. Wouldn’t you rather have fresh, flowing blood for seventy years instead of a one-time fix?”
Two more stopped hissing. Eyes changing, they blinked as if coming to their senses.
“I can safely donate a pint of blood every month,” I continued. “It’s yours. All you have to do is—”
“Wait? A pint?” one of the white-eyed ones asked. “That’s fucking it? Screw that! You’ve got ten times the amount in you right now”—his eyes flashed black—“and it’s mine.”
“Noooo!”
Half a dozen pairs of fangs pierced my skin—
—and then they were gone.
“Naughty, naughty.” Radu threw the guy who spoke into the air, and beheaded him on the way down.
That was the last thing I saw.
Rushing, twisting, blurry shapes flashed all around me, telling of a battle happening too fast for me to see. By the time his head rolled to my feet... four more hit the floor.
“Hi, honey!” Santino beamed at me from the top of the stacks. “Do you see, my love? I told you we’d meet again soon!” He shook a bug-eyed, disembodied head at me. “Who knew it’d be because these little shits finally went through with their plan?”
A single word penetrated. “Finally?” I cried, bolting upright. “Did you just say finally? Are you telling me you knew they were planning to kidnap and eat me!”
“I did! Isn’t it great?” He jumped off and landed beside me.
I shrieked when he scooped me off my feet.
“I overheard their little plot to break our most sacred rule and defy an Elder, but I couldn’t act until they actually defied me.
” Radu tsked at me. “Vampires aren’t barbarians, honey.
We don’t go around killing each other just because one wants to break a rule. They have to attempt to do it first.
“I mean, after all...” Eyes flashing black, he licked his lips. “We all want to swallow you whole, honey girl. You can’t blame a man for having good taste.”
“Yes, I can!” I kicked out of his arms, stumbling away.
“And I can also...” I sighed. “Thank a man for saving my life. So thank you for stopping them, even though you’re the one who told all of hell that I’m a mortal, so when you think about it, all you did was save me from the danger you put me in.
It’s like tossing me overboard into shark-infested waters, and then rowing up in your dinghy and wanting to play the hero for fishing me out.
“So I guess what I really want to say to you now is”—I flashed him twin middle fingers—“screw you, jerk.”
Radu howled, doubling over and gasping on the air he didn’t have in his lungs. “I missed you too, honey.”
“Did you hear a word I just—?”
Grasping my wrist, Santino snapped me to his chest, and planted one on me.
“Hmpf!”
Radu swallowed my cry and stole his chance, slipping past my lips.
He kissed me with fierce and reckless abandon—sweeping up my desire and blowing it through my body, waking up every nerve and sensor, and ravaging my nervous system with an explosion of fireworks bursting behind my eyes.