Chapter 45
Aryana
Aryana and her mother crept down the hall toward her father’s study. Guards no longer stood outside the door, but at the far end of the hallway. Her uncle had certainly moved the wards out farther. Her mother motioned for her to stay back and marched up to those standing watch.
“Queen,” they said, bowing.
“My husband would like to speak with you in the throne room immediately.”
The guards exchanged uncertain glances. “Your Majesty, our orders forbid us from leaving our post under any circumstances.”
Her mother stood, her shoulders erect, showing her full height and regalness. “These are my husband’s orders and they are my orders. If you want to keep your position here in the palace, you will do as your queen commands.”
They glanced at each other and nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
The guards proceeded down the passage and disappeared around the corner.
Aryana slipped up next to her mother. “I know where I get my fierceness from.”
Her mother smiled, and she pulled Aryana into a tight hug. “Go quickly and be ready. Take care, my love.”
“I will.”
Aryana raced forward through what must be an invisible barrier that would alert her uncle to her presence.
She dashed into her father’s study, and with her eyes shut, moved across the floor heading toward the alcove.
It grated on her, the time it took to slow down, but it was better than being stuck in her trauma again.
The scepter piece hung in its casing on the wall. She reached into the pocket of her cloak for the Neutrolisis Potion, ready to deactivate the protective barrier.
The door to her father’s study burst wide, and she spun, sword in hand.
Her uncle stood there with death burning in his blood-red eyes.
“You. I knew you’d return.” He looked a little disheveled, as if he’d rushed to get there. Which he most likely had.
“Yes, I see your paranoia has extended to halfway down the hall.”
“Is it paranoia if I’m correct? This time, you have no pathetic demon arch king to protect you. Now set down your sword and step away from my piece of the scepter.”
“It’s not yours,” Aryana shouted. “You had my father killed and then threatened my mother so that you could become king.”
Surprise shone in his expression. “So she finally told you.” Then he smirked.
“Do you think I was the only one who wanted your father dead? Your father wanted to turn the vampire portion of the scepter over to the arch king. Plenty of other demons wanted to stop that from happening. But that matters little, now. I am the vampire king.”
“When others learn what you did to steal my father’s crown—”
“Do you think anyone cares about how I obtained the crown? Once you become king, you’re king. And you? You’re nothing but a disgraced outcast, cast aside, throneless, and crippled by guilt over a father who’s long dead.”
She bared her teeth at him. “Let me take the scepter piece, and I will hold off on avenging his death.”
“You think I am afraid of you? I made you, child. Every swing of the blade, every calculation, every violent thought in your head was placed there by me.”
Inside the study, the weight of the past hung in the air. Aryana’s breath came in sharp gasps as she faced her uncle, standing in the same room where her father had been killed. Her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword. “Then let us fight.”
An angry smile curled his lips. “I will slaughter you and hang your head from my rafters and allow the bats to pluck out your eyeballs. And perhaps, now that the charade is ending, I will place your mother next to you. Alive, but just, her blood dripping down onto my throne room floor.”
Her anger flared, and with a fierce cry, she rushed at him, her sword raised high. Her uncle effortlessly parried the strike, a twisted smile on his lips. “You’re never as sloppy as when you are trying to protect someone,” he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt.
Aryana’s grip on her blade tightened, her resolve hardening. She would make him pay, not just for her father’s death, but for every lie he’d ever told.
Flickers of the past crept in as the room, the memories, tried to flood her.
Uncle pressed her toward the wall, not looking the least bit fazed.
His movements were precise, calculated. He was toying with her.
With each step she took, each strike she made, recollections of that night came flooding back.
The sound of her father’s voice, full of life and hope, the sudden, terrifying silence after the fatal blow, the cold, lifeless body of someone who had always existed just out of reach.
It all rushed over her like a tidal wave.
Her vision blurred, and for a split second, the figure before her wasn’t her uncle, but her father, standing there, blood staining the floor.
The illusion was enough to weaken her resolve, and in that instant, Uncle seized the opportunity.
With a swift strike, he knocked her sword from her hand, sending it skittering across the ground.
Aryana stumbled, her knees buckling slightly.
She fought to steady herself, but the room seemed to close in around her, the air thick with memories of betrayal and loss.
Her uncle’s mocking voice cut through the haze.
“You think you’re strong enough to avenge him?
Look at you, you are nothing.” His words stung, and the darkness of her trauma threatened to swallow her whole.
A cold ache pierced her right thigh. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as fresh panic surged through her—urgent, immediate. No.
Zarathos was in danger.
Every part of her yearned to be at his side. He needed her. Now.
And just like that, the fear fell away. The trauma quieted.
In that moment, her father’s voice echoed in her mind, urging her to fight. And beneath it, stronger still, came Zarathos’s voice: daring her to rise, calling her his queen.
She was his queen. Her mother’s life was on the line. Her father deserved justice. She was the vampire princess. The demon queen. She’d survived the Demon Trials, and Zarathos needed her one last time. She’d fight for him. For all of them.
Her uncle lunged at her again, but Aryana had learned from the best. She twisted away just in time, using the momentum to roll and grab her fallen blade from the floor.
Fueled by fury and determination, she shot to her feet.
She parried his next blow with a loud clash of steel and sent a swift kick to his abdomen, sending him backward into the desk.
She sprang after him and rammed her blade through his stomach with such force, it slammed into the wood beneath, pinning him there.
Then leapt upward, grasping his wrist and sinking her teeth into his hand and ripping the sword from his grasp.
She backed up, wiping the blood from her chin, and stared at her uncle.
He watched her, pain and rage in his gaze. “That’s it? You have me at your mercy and in the end, you don’t have the guts to do what needs to be done. This is why you are not fit for the throne. Why you’ve never deserved it. You’re weak.”
“I’d rather be weak than rule like you. Besides, vengeance isn’t mine to take.”
She clenched her teeth against the urgency still coming through the Bloodbond. She had to finish this. Aryana released the sword and stepped back.
A shadow graced the doorway of her father’s study. “Good evening, Fallor,” her mother said.
Her uncle’s eyes widened, a flicker of fear breaking through. “My wife. My love. Help me.”
“Help you?” she echoed, stepping forward, a stake clenched in her hands.
“Like you helped my husband—by murdering him? Or helped my daughter—by nearly killing her? Was it helpful when you threatened her life to control me, forcing me to obey your every twisted whim?” Her voice trembled with fury as she stepped closer, steady and inevitable, resembling death itself.
“For years, I bowed to you. Submitted. Watched you torment Aryana, convinced I was protecting her, while you shattered the last piece of him I had left. But tonight, that ends.”
She took a final step forward, lifting her arms above her head, and rammed the stake into his chest.
Fallor gasped out loud, before expelling out one final breath, his eyes growing empty, slowly faded into nothing.
Aryana’s mother leaned closer and murmured in his ear. “Tonight I am free.” And then she turned and bit his neck, drawing his blood.
Securing her victory.
“Mother,” Aryana said, stepping close. Her mother drew back and wiped the crimson on her lips before drawing Aryana into one more embrace.
Tonight, they were both free.
But the dread hadn’t released Aryana. The icy insistence of her Bloodbond with Zarathos had her withdrawing and rushing over to the alcove, retrieving the Neutrolisis from her pouch.
“I must hurry. He’s in danger. I can feel it.” Her voice shook as she tried to compose herself.
“The demon arch king?” her mother asked.
“Yes.” Aryana lifted the potion to the case and poured it down the glass. The small hum of energy omitting from the glass went dark. She sighed. It had worked. She reached down, pried off the cover, and extracted the vampire scepter.
“Are you actually returning to him?” inquired her mother.
“I have to. We have a bargain. If I break it, I’ll die.” She needed to get back to him. The sooner the better.
“But that’s not really why you’re returning.”
Aryana suddenly couldn’t breathe. Her hands flew to her throat as she dropped to her knees.
Panic clawed at her. She was a vampire—choking was rare—yet her chest burned, screaming for breath that wouldn’t come.
Her mother rushed to her side, eyes wide with fear. “What’s happening?”
Aryana tried to speak, but only managed a strangled gasp before collapsing forward onto the cold tile floor.
Zarathos.
He was dying.
She was too late—too late to save him, too late to save herself.
Darkness pressed in. Agony flared in her chest and throat.
No.
No. No. No. No.
Somewhere distant, her mother’s hands clutched at her, her voice frantic and pleading. But it was all fading.
Zarathos, her love. And with crushing certainty came the regret that she’d never see him again, that she had failed them both.
He would die there, and she would die here.
Miles apart.
No final moment. No last touch.
She’d never again feel his arms around her, never see the heat flare in his eyes when he looked at her. Never hear his wicked voice whisper to her from the shadows, or the way he said her name, Vampress, like it belonged only to him.
As her mother held her dying body against her bloodstained clothes, sobbing, all Aryana could think was how she regretted that there wasn’t more time.
More time with her mother to really learn about the female she was without her uncle’s presence looming over them.
More time to rebuild their relationship.
More time to find out who she was in her new role as demon queen.
But especially more time with Zarathos.
A small breath speared through Aryana’s lungs. She hungrily sucked it in, cooling the horrible fire inside her. Her next breath came a little more easily, and the next. After a few more moments, she managed to sit up.
Why? How?
Her mother sat back, her eyes wide. “Are-are you all right?”
Aryana provided a nod. “My bargain. Zarathos must have been dying, but he…” What?
Wasn’t now? Frantically, she yanked up her skirts and checked the mark on her thigh.
It was still there. Only as the pain in the rest of her body cooled, could she feel the cold piercing ache that told her that he was still in danger—though not dying.
Shit. What was going on? Had the final trial started, or was it something else? She stood on shaky feet, tucking the scepter piece safely in her cloak pocket. “I have to go.”
Her mother watched her with wide eyes. “He’s worth all of this?”
A burning ignited in Aryana’s heart. “Zarathos is the only one who deserves to be king. His people need him.”
“And he needs you.”
“I love you, Mother.” She touched her mother’s head before racing for the door.
She could grab a bat-winged steed from the stables.
They could fly and get her to Zarathos’s castle within half the night.
Her heart pounded. But if the final trial had already started, then half the night would be too late.
It didn’t matter. She had to try.
“Aryana,” her mother called, and she turned to see her mother’s tear-stained face. “If you go back, you must understand, there will be demons who won’t want a demon queen on the throne, let alone a vampire demon queen.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Be safe, my sweet.”
Aryana clutched the vampire portion of the scepter in her grasp and raced through the castle to the stables, where she knocked out the stable hand. She sought out the skeletal flying horse with large bat-like wings and eyes of flame. It was her uncle’s, but now she’d use it as hers.
She leapt on its back and ignored the shouts of alarm as she lifted into the sky. Hopefully, her mother would quickly get the guard sorted out as to who was now in charge. The low-hanging clouds soon enveloped her, hiding her from sight.
The wind shifted about her, and she took a deep breath in.
Her heart plummeted.
The smell of demons filled the air.
They dropped from the heavens, coming from every direction.
Aryana reached for her sword, but time had run out.
A harpy rammed into her. Knocking her off her steed and she fell, slamming into the dirt so hard her breath expelled from her lungs and pain radiated through her back and torso.
Several abaddons landed on the ground and grabbed her, pinning her in place.
Then one backed off, leaving the others to hold her immobile. He regarded her and then he changed. In only a couple of seconds, his shape had completely melted into a vampire’s form.
How was that possible?
Could he be a shapeshifter? Aryana thought Zarathos’s father had killed them off. At least, that is what Zarathos believed.
“We have her,” he called into the woods.
A cloaked figure came out from behind the tree, her silhouette thin and lithe. Her human scent reached Aryana first. Then she lifted her hand and pulled off her hood.
Neri smiled at her. “Good evening, Aryana.”