Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) (18 page)

T
HE ROOM WAS
dark and quiet. Adele was hesitant to disturb the silence. Her head pounded. The powerful explosion had only been a few hours past, but the pain wasn't bad enough to stop her from what she needed to do. Despite the darkness, she moved unerringly through the room and placed a tray on a table at the far wall. A dim shape shifted on the bed next to her and a pale face turned toward her.

“I didn't mean to wake you,” she said softly.

“Don't be foolish. Did you have any trouble getting what you need?”

She laid a hand on his shoulder and kissed him. “No. The good thing about being an empress is people don't ask too many questions.” She turned up the lamps and winced at the sight of Gareth's back still riddled with shrapnel. She had cut away the ruin of his clothes with scissors, but more delicate surgical instruments were needed to extract the vicious shards.

Gareth raised himself up. “You know you won't hurt me. You let me feed, so I'm already stronger. The remaining ministrations are simple.”

“Easy for you to say.” Adele took a deep breath. “I've done it before, I can do it again. Lie flat, please.”

Blood oozed slowly from some of his wounds, staining the sheet below him a dark red. If it weren't for his bravery she would be dead
along with many others. How many times now had he thrown himself on the pyre to protect her? How long before his luck ran out? She didn't want to think about it and focused instead on the task ahead of her.

His back was bare and raw. After sterilizing the tweezers, she went to work on a small piece of metal shrapnel protruding from his back. She pulled hard at the shrapnel but it resisted, which meant it was wedged in deep. Her gut knotted at the thought, but she had no recourse but to take the scalpel and cut around the shrapnel. Mercifully, he never flinched. Then she leaned over and gripped the metal more firmly. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” was his swift response. “Scars just add to the mystique.”

“We both have far more than we need. My new goal is for us to go at least six months without an injury.”

He laughed quietly. “That's far too optimistic.”

“Three?”

“Two.”

“I'd be happy even with one,” she admitted softly. She moved into a better position over him and pulled, ignoring her own aches and pains as she wrestled with the jagged metal. A nasty five-inch fragment of steel came free of his muscle with a spurt of blood. Adele gasped at the size of the shrapnel as her stomach rolled.

“Easy. You did fine. It didn't hurt,” he reassured her.

“I know,” she panted, breathing harshly through her nose to stem the nausea. She dropped the shard into a metal tray with a loud clank. No matter how many times she mended him, it never seemed to get easier for her, even though he felt no pain. She was terrified that perhaps someday she would be as blasé about it as he was. Adele never wanted that to happen.

“Then breathe deeply, slowly.”

“Just keep talking to me. How did you know that man was carrying a bomb?”

“I could smell it.”

“You know about explosives?”

“My time spent on the front has burned the smell of explosives into my memory. The bomber did not expect that. But his kind are not skilled assassins.”

“His kind?” Adele tweezed out another fragment, this one smaller and easier to extract.

“I suspect the man was Undead.”

Shock burned through her, pausing her hand. Gareth had told her about the human cult of the north. The thought of them chilled her to the bone. Adele instead concentrated on removing more shrapnel. She had only another three dozen pieces to pull out. “Undead. In my city.”

“It raises the question as to how they got here,” Gareth remarked. “They need transportation. Someone had to ferry them here. And a ragged bloodman airship couldn't possibly slip through unnoticed.”

“Meaning a human conspirator.”

“We know they exist.”

A scowl marred Adele's face. “And where there was one, there are more.”

“Most likely.”

“Is there any way to tell an Undead from a free human?”

“No. It was only the bomb that gave this one away. We were very lucky. If he'd had a knife like Selkirk, it might have been another story.” His voice drifted away into brooding silence.

She knew where his thoughts were taking him. “I will always trust you with my life.”

“I didn't stop Selkirk.” His tone was harsh and angry. The anguish of that moment forever haunted him.

“You're only human,” she remarked simply and kissed him, but Gareth didn't respond to her compliment.

Finally, the last piece of shrapnel was pulled from his mangled back, and Adele hung her head, utter relief spent in a long sigh. “I've gotten them all.”

Gareth shifted onto his hip and reached for her, his hand cupping her flushed cheek. “I couldn't ask for a better surgeon.”

Adele scoffed. Then she pressed him down again and disinfected the wounds with alcohol before stitching the deepest ones. To her amazement, the hole from the first one was already healing over.

Her blood did that. It healed him.

Her hand brushed over the muscles on his back, her fingers fluttering over the deep well-developed curves and the ragged scars. Those
scars told the story of how hard they were trying to have a life together. She doubted he could even feel her light touch. But her touch didn't need to be physical. It was how she touched his heart that mattered.

Then something caught her eye. It was a dark mark at the base of his neck. His long hair had covered most of it so she had not noticed it before. It resembled the burn scars that marred his chest and the one that creased his left cheek and jaw in a thick line, the ones she herself had inflicted on him in the Mountains of the Moon.

The mark of geomancy.

“What is this?” she asked, her hand tracing the scar.

He fidgeted. “It's nothing. Just another old injury. It happens in my line of work.”

“No. This wasn't from me. Where did you get it?”

“It is nothing, Adele. Merely an echo.”

“An echo of what? I know of only one other geomancer who can do what I do.” Her eyes focused on the middle of his back, where a small round blackish red mark blazed. It was an injury bestowed by Mamoru when the secret of Greyfriar had been revealed to him, and the man's hatred had overwhelmed him. The wounds were identical.

“Don't jump to conclusions,” Gareth said.

“Am I wrong? Or is this something I did to you, and you didn't tell me?” Her expression turned to one of horror, and a small gasp escaped her lips at the thought.

Turning, he took her in his bare arms. “It wasn't you.” He kissed her, wiping away her fears. But she would not relinquish the matter.

“Then it was Mamoru.”

Gareth was silent.

“It was. He tried to kill you?” Rage was building inside her like a wave.

“He failed. That's all that matters.”

“No, it isn't!” she exclaimed. “He lied to me.”

“Adele, he will not have another opportunity. I will never turn my back on him again.”

“He's a geomancer! He does not have to be near you. He has the same power that I do.”

“Far from it. What you do is completely on another scale, trust me.”

“What did he do?” Adele asked, almost afraid to know.

“It's in the past. Your Anhalt saved me, and he is as good as his word. Someone I trust with my life.” Gareth proceeded to tell Adele what had transpired in the catacombs beneath Alexandria, the night Flay learned his secret.

Adele fumed at the conclusion of his tale. “You mean General Anhalt knew of this? What is the matter with you two? How could you keep this from me?”

“Because you care for Mamoru, and because you need him.”

“Nothing is worth the risk of losing you!”

“And you never will.”

“Gah, you are such a romantic! But that doesn't mean we shouldn't take precautions.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Make Mamoru realize making a promise to me is nothing to be trifled with.” She gathered her strength and rose to her feet.

“I think that's unwise. You still need him, Adele.”

Fury filled her face as she made for the door. “We'll see who needs whom more.”

Adele entered the dojo with extreme civility, though that was not what consumed her thoughts. Mamoru's head lifted and he smiled at her in surprise, but when she did not return it, he sobered.

“Your Majesty? I did not expect you. What did the doctors say? I rejoice that you appear uninjured.”

“Did you think I wouldn't find out?” Her voice was low and quiet, a desperate attempt to remain calm.

“Find out?”

“You tried to kill him,” Adele stated harshly. “In the tombs while I lay in surgery.”

Mamoru showed shock. “No, I was aiming for Flay.”

“Oh please. If your geomancy is that shoddy, perhaps I need a better teacher. You knew full well what you were doing.”

“Who told you that? Your pet vampire? Of course, he did.” He waved aside the entire conversation. “He is paranoid.”

“Being that Gareth bears the scars of your geomancy, while Flay escaped scot-free, pardon my skepticism. Gareth said that you were looking straight at him when you cast the runes. Not at Flay, who murdered my father!”

“You believe a vampire over me?” Mamoru's words were cold.

“I didn't think I needed to. I thought I could trust you both! You swore to me you wouldn't hurt him!”

“I promised loyalty to
you
.”

“Don't bandy words with me. Not after all we've been through.”

“All
we've
been through? You have no idea. You are naïve about that thing. It has you under its sway. You are a fool to think I would allow that creature leave to do with you as it pleases.”

Mamoru's hatred of Gareth, and his disrespect of her, scalded Adele. “Nothing occurs between he and I that I do not wish.”

Mamoru threw up his hands, increasingly livid at her words. “Yes! I don't need to be reminded of that! You are as mad as everyone says. You see nothing. Because of that
thing
! It's made you complacent to everything it does.”

“Gareth is an anomaly. Where every other vampire is trying to kill us, he is helping us, forsaking his own kind. He is something to protect, not destroy. He could be the future of vampires.”

“The future of vampires is death. There will never be peace between us so long as they drink our blood!”

“He drinks my blood, and I am fine.”

“Are you?” Mamoru stepped close to her, his face ablaze with unusual anger. “You are weakened by what it does to you! You must know that!”

Adele was taken aback by his fire, and stammered, “The geomancy is what weakens me. Gareth's feedings are fitful, hardly affecting me at all.”

“It hampers your control.”

Adele rallied her argument, once more sure of her facts. “My control is better than yours apparently, better than most, you keep telling me.”

“You don't practice when
it
is here. Precious days of training are lost because of it.”

“The few days lost are inconsequential. I do it to protect him. And he is with me little enough thanks to the war.”

“Yes, off it runs to the warfront with new information,” Mamoru sneered. “Only with whom does it confer? Us or them?”

“You don't know him,” Adele replied succinctly. “You refuse to admit there may be something in this great world that you don't already know.”

“Why don't you think for a moment? What could it possibly gain by acting this way? It wants you, Adele. The empire falls without
you
and it knows it! It orchestrated the attack on Alexandria, murdered your father, ruined the American coalition, and steers us on a losing war!”

“That's rubbish!”

“It has used you from the start. You are just too blind to see it. Cesare may be devious and bloodthirsty, but your vampire is the greatest mastermind of them all. With one stroke, it has disarmed the sole weapon that would lay its kind to ruin.”

“He didn't even know I was a weapon when we first met. Neither did I, for that matter.”

Mamoru's eyes were wild with desperation and fury. “Can you not see how everything has fallen into place for the vampires since it found you?”