to do the right thing. How can you betray them like this? You overstep your boundaries and make false accusations, trying to destroy us all instead of supporting and leading us!'
'Apprehend her,' Armand ordered.
'Martin, you must deal the sentencing,' Julia said, ignoring me. 'Banishment or death?'
The guard tried to grab me again. I twisted and flipped out of his grasp, pulling my dagger at the same time. The crowd fell deathly silent except for a few gasps.
'You can't do this,' I said. 'You're tearing us apart, not building us up! You're destroying the entire Amadis.'
'Tristan has torn us apart,' Julia seethed. 'It's all his doing. And this faerie's. And yours, too. Perhaps you'd like to go with your traitor husband?'
I'd had enough of her. I'd known the truth all along and had let her and her posse nearly convince me otherwise. I pointed the tip of my dagger at her. 'You're the traitor, you lying bitch!'
Julia's eyes widened and her fangs slid below her upper lip. My left hand twitched as electricity sparked between my fingers. I slowly lifted my arm.
'Alexis, no!' Tristan's voice bellowed in my head. I froze.
I heard you, I told him.
'Then listen to me. Don't do this. You have to do what's right.'
I am doing what's right! The Amadis deserve to be protected.
'But getting yourself banished or killed along with me won't do them any good. You need to calm down and do what they want. Do what they need you to do.' His thoughts fell silent for a beat, and when they returned, they were quiet, somber. 'They need a daughter, and I can't give you one without the stone. We've lost, Lex. You have to be with Owen. It's what's right for the Amadis.'
And here we were again. Tristan telling me to do the right thing for the Amadis, even if it meant being with Owen. He'd said before it would break his heart … as in, I wouldn't have it anymore. He'd given his heart to me, and I had protected it from the Daemoni while they held him captive. If I did this to him–left him for Owen and the Amadis–and let Martin sentence him to banishment, he would be out there, vulnerable to the enemy. Possibly vulnerable to death. Tristan with the Daemoni or dead … what his creators wanted more than anything. Either way, they would win. It had been them all along.
Which meant they'd infiltrated the council.
I won't let them do this, Tristan. They're not going to win. Not this time.
'Your sentence, Martin?' Adolph asked.
'Banish him. We can't be certain we can kill him.' The thought startled me. The voice certainly didn't belong to Tristan, but I knew it well enough. The traitor. 'Banish the faerie and Alexis, too.'
'Banish him,' Martin said. 'The faerie and Alexis, too.'
My arm holding the dagger fell to my side with astonishment. How did Martin hear the traitor's thoughts? And why did he repeat them? I felt for the mind signatures, now finding hundreds of them floating around the room, and focused on the one straight ahead of me. It wasn't normal, but thick and heavy, as if weighed down. Because it wasn't only one signature. Two signatures floated where Martin sat, almost as if bound together. One much more powerful than the other. And that one belonged to the traitor. But how? How could she be doing this?
Only Rina would know, but the traitor blocked her. I had to make her hear. I had to figure out how to share this with her. But my shield would certainly hold strong now, with all these people around, protecting my own vulnerability.
But I have to do this! It's the only way.
'You can do this,' Rina's thoughts echoed in my mind. Not her current ones. A memory from earlier.
The only way I knew how was to let go of my control and broadcast my thoughts to everyone. Let the entire crowd hear and feel it all. Expose myself to them completely, my innermost thoughts, everything. I had no choice. Too much was at stake.
I focused all my energy on my power and imagined blowing my shield away as I blew out the breath I'd been holding. I mentally returned to the last time I'd been able to broadcast–during a beautiful orgasm six months ago–and tried to recapture that feeling of a completely open mind, an open heart and soul. Let it go, I told myself. Relax. And somehow I did. A feeling of peace overcame me as the shield, which had once felt solid as steel, simply disappeared. I visualized my own mind as an open door and followed the strange mind signature to the traitor's thoughts, letting them flow through me and out to everyone else.
'With Tristan and Alexis out of the way, Sophia and Rina will be easily disposed of,' the traitor's voice said in my mind … and in the minds of everyone else. I knew it worked because shocked sounds filled the room, and Mom and Rina suddenly stood on each side of me. 'And then I will rule.'
Martin looked at the three Ames women standing united, and his brows furrowed. Did he not understand what just happened? Was he the only one who didn't hear the traitor's thoughts, although he'd heard them only a few moments ago? But his befuddled expression quickly disappeared, and he stood, lifting his arms as if wanting to embrace us all.
'Now,' he said, his eyes bright and excited as he looked over the crowd, 'we may discuss the future of the Amadis. It is time to end the reign of the Ames women and declare a new leader.'
'And I'll lead them right into Hell.'
Chapter 25
'Martin!' several people exclaimed, Rina and Charlotte the loudest.
'Yes, I would be honored,' he said instantly. 'It would be my pleasure to rule–'
Cries and yells from the crowd cut him off. Confusion clouded his face.
'They know,' the traitor thought. 'Katerina!'
Martin snarled as his hand flicked, and a blue light streaked through the air. My grandmother dropped to the floor next to me. Several people cried out as Mom fell to her knees, and Julia blurred to Rina's still form.
'Ignorant vamp tramp. The first of many to–' The traitor stopped, realizing her thoughts were still being broadcast although Rina lay unconscious on the floor. Then the voice changed, dropping several octaves from female to male, and went from a thought to spoken words. 'The first of … many to die.' Martin smirked. 'Ah, Alexis. You broke my block.'
'But how–?' I wondered as the crowd murmured with the realization of what I'd done–that I shared Rina's gift.
'Charlotte!' Mom cried out. 'How could you tell him? I trusted you!'
'No, not me,' Charlotte said, shaking her head, her blue eyes wide and her face paler than her blond hair.
'No, not Charlotte,' Martin said. 'And not Owen, either. They're more loyal to the Amadis than to their own husband and father. I have my own way of discovering things.'
Martin hurdled the table and jumped toward us, but before he landed, my hand flew up, and lightning shot out of it. The electricity didn't stop him, though, didn't even slow him down as he dropped to his feet. In fact, he began pulling on it, drawing it out of me harder than I could push it at him.
'Foolish girl!' Martin threw his head back and laughed–an eerie sound synthesizing a man's low guffaw with a woman's higher pitched giggle–as he pulled the power out of my body and into his own. His physical form wavered. A ghostly image emerged from it like smoke from a fire. A dark-haired woman, her body transparent, stood with Martin, half of her still a part of him. Several people cried out–vampires, Weres and mages afraid of this strange apparition. Martin's voice changed to the traitor's as both of their lips moved. 'I feed off your energy!'
He continued pulling on my power, draining me, and I couldn't stop him, couldn't break his hold. My body began to tremble, weakening, but he kept drawing on me, sucking all the force out of me. And as he did, the image of the woman became clearer and more defined. Just as my head began to swim with darkness and my knees began to buckle, a massive figure blurred in front of me, severing the connection. I fell to the floor, next to
