Cold Blooded

think that is?”

That was a good question. “I don’t know. Why?” Rourke let go of me and grabbed my hand, leading me out of the room.

“Because power respects power. For eons supernaturals have coexisted in this world together. If there was truly only one who was the strongest of them all, we would have a King or a Queen of all supernaturals. But we don’t.”

“But isn’t that exactly why everyone is so upset about me? They think I could finally be that Queen. The supernatural who is finally strong enough to rule everyone.”

“But the Prophecy states you are a reincarnate,” he pointed out. “One who walks again.”

I nodded. “That’s true.” It was weird to think of my wolf as a reincarnate, but she definitely had the knowledge and diva attitude to back it up.

“Then we would have had several Queens over the last millennia, correct?”

“But it doesn’t really matter if I wasn’t put here to rule”—which I could’ve told anyone who bothered to ask —“because unless we convince each Sect, they’ll interpret the Prophecy any way they wish. I’m a threat to their power. End of story.”

“Then we convince them all,” he growled. “If the supernatural race had a King or a Queen, we would know it by now. But make no mistake: I will bloody anyone who chooses not to listen, and we will fight to win.”

“That’s exactly what my father said. We have to fight until they fear our power, and when they stop fearing us, we fight again to prove we are the strongest.” We turned down a long hallway decorated in deep blues. It was weird no vamps were around. We must still be in the old warded part of the Queen’s wing.

“Your father’s right. You’re incredibly strong, Jessica, and it’s clear you don’t realize it. Power leaks out of you. Some will covet that strength, but most will seek to destroy it. Valdov died because he chose to fight you for power, but defeating him equalized us with the vampires. You made the right choice to end his life.”

We arrived at the top of a back stairway. The old treads looked well used. Rourke moved aside to let me go first, grabbing a handful of my ass as I went down.

I had to admit, no matter how shitty my future was as an equalizer of the supernatural race, I loved this man.

22

“Are you sure we’re heading in the right direction?” I asked. My fingertips brushed against cool stone. Feeling the rough texture of the wall was the only thing rooting me in place. We were trying to reach the area where I was held the first time, thinking Ray may be in a similar room. “I can’t see a single thing.”

“I smell something,” Rourke answered. “But it’s not Ray. It’s the old vamp I had by the neck.” Rourke was directly in front of me, his scent making him easy to follow. “I left the door of the cell open, but they must have stayed in the area. If the underground tunnels you told me about were a maze, this place is one too.”

All my senses were muted. “I can’t smell anything. How are you able to get through the mask?” Whatever spell this was, it was strong enough to blanket my senses. “This feels nothing like it did with Conan. Before, I could see everything, except for the fact I thought we were in a dungeon the entire time.”

“I think this is a new ward,” Rourke answered. “It has a taste, but it’s fresh.”

I inhaled, but I couldn’t taste anything. “The other spell had a flavor too. Is it tart?”

“Yes.” Rourke stopped abruptly.

I pulled up just short of running into him. “I wonder why I can’t sense it.”

Rourke’s body tensed, suddenly alert. “There’s something else here. Can you feel it?”

“No,” I said, frustrated. “I’m going to throw my magic out again and see what I can find.” I gathered my power and extended it into the area.

This time I did detect something. It was very faint and heavily masked. “Whatever it is, it has the same crab-apple taste I told you about. I’m thinking—”

“Come.” A broken Russian accent cut through the darkness. “We are here.”

Rourke’s blood jumped. He was a hairsbreadth away from reacting, which wouldn’t end well for the old vampire.

We both knew it was Yuri’s voice, but we couldn’t tell where it was coming from, or if there was another threat attached to it.

“Yuri,” I called. “Are you and Alana alone?”

“For the time being,” he replied. “But you must hurry. The Queen is angry with us.” His voice sounded strong and sure, nothing like before.

And he seemed to be waiting for us.

Rourke and I edged farther into the darkness, moving carefully, trying to sense if this was a trap. “The spell breaks here,” Rourke said, reaching out to grab my wrist and guide me around a corner.

Once my hand skimmed over a doorjamb, the haze immediately lifted.

We were in some sort of storage room. It was covered in cobwebs and dust, more than a few inches thick in some places. A single lightbulb illuminated the far corner, shedding some weak light, but everything else was etched in shadows.

Alana hissed.

I glanced around Rourke’s shoulder. She sat in the middle of the room. Her head wound was more or less healed, if you called a gaping scar with a partial indent healed, but at least she was awake and it wasn’t oozing. The most alarming thing, however, were her eyes. They were pulsing a pewter color and she seemed to be leaking bloody tears.

“What the hell is this?” Rourke said. “What is she doing?” He’d come to a full stop ten feet from where she was bound and hadn’t moved.

Alana rocked in place, and was mumble-hissing over and over again in what was likely Russian, but it was too garbled to tell.

“Yuri,” I asked. “Did you bind her to that crate?” I pointed to the chains he’d obviously brought with him from the cell, which were strung around her body and hooked to some kind of wooden storage box to keep her in place.

Instead of stating the obvious, he said, “We could’ve stayed well hidden from you, but Alana knew you were coming and bid me to find you. Tying her was the safest thing, as she is … unpredictable.”

My eyes flicked back to Alana, who appeared to be out of her ever-loving mind. “Unpredictable” was a quaint way to say she would rip our faces off if she had the chance.

I found it hard to believe she could form a coherent thought and speak to Yuri. She caught my eye and started waving a yellowed fingernail around in a circle, chanting something while sniffing the air in front of her like a dog.

Jesus.

“Yuri.” I slid out from behind Rourke and moved into the room. “What’s going on here? How did Alana know we would be coming? And was that your spell out there? The one that tastes like crab apple?”

“Alana grows stronger out of the cell,” he responded. “But we must vacate this place soon. Danger is coming quickly and they must not find her here. If they do, things will not be as they should. We have waited too long for our freedom and we grow impatient.”

Okay, what?

“Why have you been kept prisoner here?” Rourke demanded. “If you are indeed the Queen’s blood-kin, she has broken a law by jailing you. It’s a high crime to harm your relatives according to vamp laws. That I do know.”

Yuri appraised Rourke, a reserved expression on his face. “It was necessary. She had no choice in the matter. Alana could not be contained … any other way.”