Chapter 5 #2
“Didn’t I tell you that I had a gift for you?” Horus is slurring his words. “Don’t you like it? Should I have wrapped the wolf in pretty ribbons like the priestesses have taught you to wear in your hair, as if a monster like you can be made beautiful?”
Is he still drunk?
He looks a state. He is dangerous like this.
I don’t even flinch on the monster anymore.
He once carved LITTLE MONSTER into my skin in revenge for my scarring Sobek’s face.
Except, I had broken free from their torments by wounding Sobek.
Fighting back against bullies is the only way to silence them for good. The danger is worth the freedom.
Perhaps, I forgot that truth for a while.
Daire has taught me to find myself again. He has helped me to understand why rebelling…why freedom…matters.
“I don’t need anything from you,” I say. “You’re a dead Blood. What do I need to talk about with a ghost?”
The crocodile opens her mouth like she’s already imagining swallowing Horus.
Horus pales. “You’re the one who murdered my brother.”
“Executed him.” My voice is flat. “And now, I will execute you.”
Isis laughs, bitterly. “Who are you to make threats or demands? I own this court. Tonight you will jump into the Void and sacrifice yourself to save the realms. If you want your beloved nestmates to survive, then you will do everything that I say.”
So, that’s how it is.
“I already have a Blood Oath with Ruin,” I reply. “Bad luck.”
“Our dynasty should have always ruled Blood Kingdom.” Isis’ face is a mask of icy rage.
“A freak like you should have been put down by Nebet, rather than trained as her pet assassin. It was her sacred duty, handed down through generations, to hunt monsters who inherited the Power. She failed in her duty.”
I don’t take my gaze away from Freya.
My Queen looks beautiful in the wedding dress, as I knew she would. I study how the bat circles the sun in gemstones on the front of the dress, as I circle her light. Her feet are bare.
They look blue with cold.
My eyes narrow.
“Return my Omega,” I snarl.
She needs to be wrapped in my wings, safe.
My heart hammers in my chest.
Unsettled by my distress, the crocodile lets out a harsh hiss.
Horus jumps. “You took my knot. I am taking your Omega.”
He tightens his hold on Freya, sinking his claws into her neck just enough to make her bleed.
My shadows whip around me in agitation at the scent of her blood on another vampire’s claws.
I am desperate to drag her away from him. But I can’t risk that he will rip out her throat.
I know Horus. The things that he has done, especially when he has drunk too much wine.
He will do it. I won’t risk Freya’s life on calling a bluff.
I won’t risk her for anything.
With a struggle, I force myself to slide my gaze to Isis. “By the Shadow Devils, what do you want?”
Isis leans forward, resting her hand on her chin. “Many things.”
“I am already dying.”
“There are worse things than death.”
“As you shall discover if you do not return my Queen to me.”
Horus snorts. “You have always been so quick with threats. Useless with most social interactions, as innocent as one of the fanatically blind Harts who offer up the holes beneath their cute deer tails with such stupid devotion to their dark gods. But wicked when it comes to graphic descriptions of death.”
“So speaks the dead Blood.”
“Boys,” Isis chides, “how many times do I need to tell you not to quarrel?” She adjusts her crocodile badge thoughtfully.
“Your mother gave this to me as a courting gift. I remember how special I felt. Singled out. I believed that it meant she loved me. I have never taken it off, not for a single moment since. I hoped that she would understand just how devoted I was, but I wonder now if there was something…missing…in her, as there is in you. Everyone can see it in your eyes, you know. I could as soon as I met you.”
“It’s why no one would be friends with you apart from your dirty animals.” Horus chuckles.
A low, rumbling growl arises in the crocodile’s chest in protest.
My stomach flips.
It’s not something I haven’t heard before.
I’m different.
Enough people have tried to beat that difference out of me.
Why can their words still hurt me?
“Perhaps I prefer the company of rats or reptiles to certain vampires,” I reply.
Horus’ gaze darkens in outrage. “Freak.”
I scan Freya.
Her chest is rising and falling too rapidly. Sweat is staining the neck of her dress, and her hair falls in damp strands.
Horus is holding her under the compulsion for too long. The toll is too much for her.
I wrap my wings around myself. “Tell me. Why have you kidnapped my Omega? I am already sacrificing myself. I know that it was you who staged that humiliation with my Blood Lover on the Night of the Shades. I warn you, if you don’t return my Queen now, then I won’t throw myself into the Void.
I shall allow the Void Devils to devour the world. ”
Isis pulls herself to sit up straighter; an imperious never-quite-queen on her crocodile throne.
“You act like you alone know suffering. Do you believe that your good twin and you were the only ones who were banished by your mother? I loved KalaKant with the strength of a burning star, but as the Beta consort, I was sent to live in this subterranean palace beneath the city, far from her light. Her other children basked under the moonlight and glittering diamonds in the Lotus Palace, while my sons wallowed in the false night with our crocodiles. Yet my heritage, from a village in Crocodile Valley, is noble. I should have had a place in KalaKant’s royal nest, but she was obsessively devoted to her Omega.
She could not bear to have a Beta in their royal nest. So, my sons had to become stronger, more powerful, better mages than any of their sons to gain a place at court.
Our dynasty would have ruled this kingdom if only you had died with your brothers and sisters. ”
“I’m sorry to disappoint.”
“You should be.” Isis’ gray eyes flash. “I earned this kingdom.”
Suddenly, a dizzying wave of rage hits me.
Earned?
I stalk toward Isis. The crocodile sways side by side with the swing of its powerful tail next to me. Her head is low, and her jaw hangs open to reveal crooked, wickedly sharp teeth.
She is as hungry to rend flesh as I am.
It must show on both our faces because Isis blanches, cringing back on the divan. “Stay back. I order you.”
“Actually, you don’t,” I hiss. “I am your King. When I was grieving for my lost family who had never claimed me as theirs, and you locked me in the punishment pits, I thought that I must deserve what you did to me. But I never understood why you hated me. By the Void, however, it was all because of petty ambition.”
Isis’ fangs lengthen.
She glances between the crocodile and me, as if readying herself to attack one of us. “There is nothing petty about ambition.”
“Then choke on it. Once, I would have called you mother and meant it. I longed for someone — anyone — to love me or show me kindness. Until the arrival of…” I glance at Freya, still clutched on Horus’ knee, and my expression softens.
“…I had forgotten what they even meant. But all you showed me was despair and pain. Why? Because this palace isn’t grand enough for you? ”
Isis sniffs. “Of course you wouldn’t understand.”
My temples throb.
The Void Devils press at my mind, pulsing with one word: devour, devour, devour.
I grab at my hair, wrenching it from my head.
“What’s wrong with you?” Horus demands. “Are you having a fit?”
“Nothing is wrong with me,” I pant. “I realize now that it never was. It’s all of us…the rest of the world that was wrong. I should let the Void Devils fucking devour you.”
“Then kill yourself. Right now.” Isis leans forward, hungrily. “My son shall become the revered martyr who throws himself in and saves the kingdom in your place. You’re not needed. Ruin can’t say that I don’t have the right to rule after my son becomes the Void Vampire. Isn’t his blood royal too?”
“Mother?” Horus stares at Isis, startled. His voice is high and frightened — young. “What are you saying? Why would I…?”
“Silence.” Isis glares at Horus, and he quails back.
“You have been a waste of a knot, until you lost it. And you are even more of a waste now, unable to give me a grandchild to continue our lineage. Sobek was at least a fighter with a respected position at court. But what do you do? Arrange parties? Fuck as many Shadow Humans and Omegas as you can? What use do I have for a pretty Alpha as a son? You will sacrifice yourself tonight, and your name will at least be remembered as more than a joke. Be grateful.”
Horus is trembling. “You don’t mean that.”
Isis’ smile is as cruel as any she has directed at me. “I don’t argue with dead Bloods.”
Horus lets out a sob. “Mother…”
Isis has already turned away from him, however, as if he is already lost to her in the Void.
I stare at her.
She talks of love…love owed to her. Yet she doesn’t show it to her own family.
I may not understand much, but I love my nestmates.
Daire and Freya may not love me but that won’t stop me showing my love for them, even if they don’t ever discover how much I have given up for them, even my life.
Isis holds up her long-clawed finger. “It’s a simple choice. Kneel and slit your throat. I deserve to watch you choke on your own blood, after you denied me the satisfaction of watching it happen to King Daire. Take his place or watch your Omega die.”
I cut a quick glance at Horus.
He appears in a daze, as tears drip down his cheeks.
Yet his claws are still embedded in Freya’s neck. His fangs are too close to her artery.
When the crocodile swings her head toward me, I shake my head.
It was never a choice.
I fall to my knees on the marble and wince. My shadows retract.
“In a heartbeat.” I duck my head, and my hair hangs over my face.
At least I shall die in my wedding outfit. That feels important.