“Don’t talk to me.”
She stood, the motion stiff and unsteady. She was shaking, but it wasn’t fear. It was pure emotion. She held out her hand to him, her fingers almost grazing his arm.
He jerked back. “Don’t touch me. I wasn’t here, remember?”
“Max,” she said, her voice pleading, but then she stopped. He had done what he could. He’d betrayed everything he believed in to save her. She couldn’t ask anything else.
“You’d better be able to walk,” Max said darkly, opening the door.
Omigod! Talia’s eyes flew wide, and Max wheeled back to the doorway. Her mind went blank with shock.
Belenos stood there, watching a miniature image of them in his quartz ball. “Tsk, tsk. I told you I’d be watching. Both of you. You know what happens to children who don’t listen.”
What was he doing back? Wasn’t he supposed to be out killing Queen Omara?
Max blocked the entry, but Belenos brushed him aside. “Playing the big brother, are we? What will Daddy say about his beloved heir breaking the rules?”
Talia watched Belenos move toward her, every past horror rearing up like a cobra dripping venom. Instead of making her afraid, it was making her angry. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt Max, and he was planning to do it all over again.
She caught Max’s hand signal from the corner of her eye, one they’d used together time and again since they were children. An evil kind of satisfaction filled her, but she wiped it from her face.
“You have to take care of this, Max. Plans have changed. We have to be prepared to move in a hurry.” Belenos reached out and gave a lock of Talia’s hair a tug. “She’s betrayed us both, and now she’s nothing but a nuisance.”
“Leave her alone.” Max took a step to the left, getting into position.
“Why should I?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Then the honor of taking her head is all yours, my boy.”
Talia looked from one to the other, letting rage, terror, and incredulity flow over her features. Let him think she was frightened and helpless. Belenos undid the buttons on his jacket, exposing a shoulder holster that held both a gun and a long knife.
Maybe the same blade he’d used to hack Michelle’s head from her body?
Max’s face went hard and cold. “No way.”
“Then you’ll be the first to die.” Belenos drew a Browning Hi-Power. “Loose ends need to be tied up.”
It happened before Talia could form a thought. Vampire-quick, she grabbed for the knife at the same moment that Belenos aimed the gun at Max.
Max kicked, knocking the Browning aside. Talia had the knife, the grip smooth and elegant in her hand. Silver hilt, silver blade.
She shoved it between the Belenos’s ribs. On the left side, slanting upward. Instinctively, she aimed for the heart.
But it wasn’t his only weapon. He had a boot knife.
Searing pain sliced into Talia’s side, turning her whole body numb. The hilt of her knife slipped from her fingers. “Max! Make it stop! Make it stop!”
Max fired his own gun, taking the top off Belenos’s head.
The king fell to the ground, collapsing onto his right side. Talia dropped to her knees, blood oozing from her side. She pulled out the boot knife, feeling the ooze turn to a steady flow. Belenos was stirring. She groped for the Browning he had dropped, working by touch.
Horribly, with brains and blood oozing down his face, the king was sitting up.
Talia’s brain short-circuited. Vision was no more than blobs of color. There was a noise in her head like the steady screech of a car accident, waiting for the crash. “Stand back, Max.”
She’d found the Browning. She raised it, knowing she was a good shot. At this range, an idiot couldn’t miss.
She started firing. A spray of lukewarm blood caught her face and arms, blowback. It didn’t stop her. She kept firing.
And firing until there was nothing left but the click of the gun.
Belenos had no head left.
Max was gone.
And then the world began to fade to black.
Chapter 31
When she came to, Talia couldn’t figure out what she needed most: rest, water, blood, medication, or a therapist.
A bath. She pulled herself upright. Her side twinged where Belenos had stuck her with the knife, but she’d stopped bleeding.
Belenos.
The gruesome ruin of his body lay there, an arm’s reach away. He was melting, dissolving into a dusty slime as vampires did when they died for the second time. She’d well and truly killed him, a vampire monarch. Her sire. Her persecutor. Her killer.
She’d been a Hunter. She’d killed before. By rights, she should have felt remorse, jubilation, satisfaction, something—but no. Maybe those were emotions for later. Maybe this was too personal, too deep for ordinary feelings.
Right now it was more like ticking a mental check box. Belenos needed killing. No question. Tick. Done that.
Suddenly, she turned and threw up a spatter of liquid, missing herself but not missing the decaying splodge that had been his feet. Her body was experiencing something, even if her mind had checked out.
I have to get out of here. Her senses were coming back, and the smell of him was staggering.
Talia got to her feet, memories returning in a jumble. Michelle, finally avenged. Max, who had come to save his sister but had been too afraid to stay. Afraid of Dad.
Belenos was a crazy, dangerous sonofabitch, but in some ways was a stand-in for the real villain of this piece. Her father—the great Mikhail Rostov—was the one who’d given his daughter her real wounds. Without him, Belenos would never have had a chance to touch her.
And he was out there with the rest of the Hunters, killing her friends.
Lore. She knew he could take care of himself, but he was facing magic and Hunters. I have to help him.
I have to stop my father.
At the thought of that confrontation, Talia’s hands began to shake. How long had she been unconscious? She stole another glance at Belenos. Couldn’t have been too long. Vampires decomposed quickly, and there were still bits of him left.
She picked up his weapons, pulling the long knife from the remains of his chest. Without looking back, she left her prison and her jailer behind.
To find the first man who’d hurt her.
Talia walked for a while, listening to the sounds of battle around her, but not seeing anyone until she had gone some distance south. What was going on? What was it Belenos had said? Plans have changed. We have to be prepared to move in a hurry.
If he was packing up and killing the captives, he and the Hunters were losing. The first feelings of satisfaction began to warm her.
It was then she saw a party of four moving a little way ahead. Gun drawn and held in both hands, she ran
