Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (12 page)

“I know.” He tugged me closer, his breath warm against my ear. “I know.” He kissed my neck. A few moments later, he was asleep.

I could have lain there and felt sorry for myself or beaten myself up, but I was too exhausted, and there was no point.

I slept deep and dreamless, waking up just before two that afternoon, when I heard something hit my window. These shorter days were lovely for nocturnals, as was the dreary weather that rolled in while I was dead to the world. Temperature didn’t bother me much either way, but overcast skies made it easier for Vex to be up and about during daylight hours.

I slipped out of bed and went to the window that faced south, peering through the light-blocking curtains.

A man stared back through the rain-spattered glass. “There she is!” he cried. He raised a camera and took a photo. Thank God I’d only peeked my face out. He had a camera for filming as well, and he stuck that one up to the window.

“Fuck!” I jumped back, heart hammering.

How the hell…? He was in one of those crane baskets – the kind workers used to clear tree branches and do elevated work. The truck was parked on the other side of the Mayfair wall, allowing him to extend the basket arm across to my window.

Why hadn’t the alarm gone off? Just as I thought it, a wail cut through the air. The man glanced nervously behind him, then back to me. I wanted to watch him get arrested. Bastard had scared me, and I hated him for inspiring so much fear. He was a measly human, and I was terrified.

“Lady Xandra, how do you respond to allegations that you killed a man last night?”

I glared at him. First thought was to tell him to get lost, but that would hardly be helpful, no matter how satisfying. “It wasn’t me,” I said.

“How do you explain that the murderer looks just like you?”

A low growl came from behind me. I felt rather than heard Vex approach – he was that stealthy. The reporter’s eyes widened.

“Look again,” Vex told him with a fierce scowl before yanking the drapes closed once more.

“I want to watch them nab him,” I said, and turned to peek. I had to grin when Vex joined me.

The reporter didn’t even make it back to his truck before he was grabbed by Special Branch. That was when my rotary trilled out in greeting.

It was Avery. “Fang me and chew the wound, you’re live on the box. Didn’t you ever learn not to talk to the press? Vex looks yummy in the morning, by the way.”

I was going to make a lesbian crack, but I hadn’t any wit about me. “I’m well, Avery, and how are you?”

She chuckled. Then seriously, “Val filled me in. I’m here if you need me.”

That brought an unexpected lump to my throat. “Thanks. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

I’d just disconnected when it rang again. It was my mother. Huh. I hadn’t heard from her in weeks. Whatever she had to say, I wasn’t keen on hearing it. She really only ever rang when she wanted something. I hit the mute switch and didn’t answer. I needed coffee, blood and food, and not necessarily in that order.

The blood truck had been by earlier, leaving the day’s delivery. The donation of blood was mandatory for healthy humans living in the British Empire, but that was softened by it also providing tax relief. A robust human could save several
hundred quid a year just by bleeding a pint or two every couple of months to keep aristos sated and placid.

There were two scheduled deliveries a week. I ordered extra for the second drop, just in case Vex stayed over. Today was one of those days, as luck would have it. I went down to the front door in my bare feet. I was wearing a camisole and short bloomers that provided no protection from the rain as I grabbed the package and darted back inside. If I hadn’t been wide awake before, I was now.

Bertie’s face was on the front page of the paper I’d snatched up at the same time. It was a bit archaic in this modern age to get the rags delivered, but this was Mayfair, and very few residents knew what a computer was, let alone owned one.

PRINCE OF WALES ASKS FOR DIALOGUE NOT VIOLENCE.

I tossed the paper aside. “Good luck with that, Bertie.”

I sipped a glass of blood – I never drank it from the bag if I could help it – while I poured boiling water over the grounds in the cafetière. The freshly ground beans smelled so good.

I showered while the coffee brewed, and returned to the kitchen to find Vex at the hob cooking breakfast. I admit, it was one of my favourite sights. He wore navy pyjama trousers low on his hips, and that was it. His thick hair curled around his nape. I liked it shaggy – especially after he’d run his hands through it a few times.

His wounds had almost completely healed. One of two of the deeper cuts remained as thin scars, but the rest had faded. Only a bit of bruising remained around his ribs and jaw.

Ali had done that. God, she was strong. I wanted to hate her
for it, and part of me did. Another part of me was in awe of her strength, proud almost. But mostly I was just sad, because she had to be stopped, and I had a feeling I was going to play a large part in that. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t asked to be born, or that she was a victim. Something as volatile and unstable as she was couldn’t be allowed to roam about.

“You going to stare at my back all day, or are you going to make the coffee?”

I smiled. Vex’s voice was like velvet, and that Scottish accent made it even lovelier.

He held up his rotary as I approached. “Her Majesty commands our presence at seven thirty this evening.”

Well, fuck. I’d suspected she’d want to yak again after finding out we’d had Ali and then lost her, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. “Huh. Did you see the paper?” I asked.

“Not a good photo of Bertie, but they made him sound sincere in his quest for peace.”

I got two mugs out of the cupboard. “You don’t believe it?”

He shrugged those wide shoulders of his. “I think people who say all the right things have been trained to say them.”

For some reason his words made me think of Church. He’d always seemed to know exactly what to say.

“And you might want to watch the programme paused on the box.” Vex gestured to the small appliance further down the counter. It had been his idea to install one in the kitchen.

“It’s not this morning’s reporter playing Romeo to my Juliet, is it?”

“They did run a bit of that – they edited most of me out, the wankers.”

I smiled and pressed “Play” on the digital recorder. A news
announcer’s face appeared. She looked slightly drunk, if there was such a thing. “This just in – Scotland Yard says the West End man attacked in his car early last evening was
not
killed by goblin queen Alexandra Vardan. While Queen Alexandra has yet to issue any sort of official statement, there are murmurs from Buckingham Palace that she was in a meeting with Her Majesty Queen Victoria at the time of the attack. The Human League has set up camp outside the palace and the gates of Mayfair demanding answers – and action.”

The image cut to the Mayfair gates, where a few dozen humans protested with signs, banners and shouting. The halfies guarding the gate were dressed in protective armour, and were armed to the teeth.

“Fang me,” I murmured. This was bad. Ali was enough to worry about without throwing a bunch of bloodthirsty humans into the fray.

“Wait,” Vex said drily. “It gets better.”

The image cut back to the announcer. “Shortly before dawn this morning, VBC’s Magda Taylor-Tate sat down with anti-aristocrat advocate Juliet Claire.”

“
Fuck off
.” I couldn’t believe it. Really? After more than a decade of hiding, she was coming out into the open? She couldn’t send me a birthday card for fear of her own safety, and yet she could do a ruddy interview?

And then there she was – my mother. Sitting primly in an extremely uncomfortable-looking overstuffed chair, she was a vision of angelic beauty. She was well into her forties, but she looked to be mid to late twenties. The wolf-bite had slowed down the ageing process. She had golden-blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Toss in a peaches-and-cream complexion and she could be a cosmetics advert. She looked non-threatening
and almost delicate in a coral-coloured gown with a high neck and corseted waist.

“Ms Claire,” the woman across from her began. She was as dark as Mum was fair – they made a very striking pair. “You are technically an aristocrat, are you not? Yet you are here to publicly protest against the monarchy.”

My mother flashed a serene smile. I had to hand it to her, she was really selling the whole “gentle” thing. She could rip that reporter’s arms off, yet she allowed the woman to be alpha – or to at least
think
she was alpha.

“Please, Magda, call me Juliet. I was born one of those privileged plague-carriers chosen to be courtesans. While the sexual aspect of the vocation was repugnant – I wouldn’t have willingly chosen an aristocratic mate – it enabled me to care for my family and gave me several beautiful children.”

“One of those children is Xandra Vardan, the recently appointed goblin queen.”

My mother kept her smile plastered on, but even from here I could see that her gaze became shuttered. “I was pregnant with Xandra when I was attacked by a werewolf. The bite—”

“You were
attacked
?”

Juliet arched a brow. “Yes. The matron of the house had banned him from the establishment because he didn’t behave properly with the girls. He went feral and I was in his way.”

This was more than I knew about it.

“So you were a victim of aristocratic cruelty?”

“Oh yes. It was a most vicious attack – I begged for the life of my child.” Had she really? I was under the impression she’d had quite a different thought. “I was saved by the wolf’s alpha, but not before I was bitten.”

I glanced at Vex. He nodded at the box for me to keep watching.

“Doesn’t protocol require an abortion in cases where the birth might result in a goblin?”

God, that was so cruel. I understood, and at one time I’d supported it, but now… well, things had changed.

“It does, Magda.” My mother really knew how to ingratiate herself. “I didn’t want to lose my child, but I knew what had to be done. However, I was stopped by Xandra’s father, the Duke of Vardan. He told me to continue the pregnancy so that we could see what came out of it.”

Magda was suitably horrified. How many times had she practised that expression? “Forced by the very vampire whose offspring was slowly mutating in your womb to carry a child that might very well turn out to be a monster. Did he not worry for your health?”

She made it sound like I really was a monster, that my father was as well. All right, I
was
a monster, but not in the way she made it sound! And my father was never going to win any parental accolades, but he had been good to all of us, for the most part.

“Oh, he quite doted on me. He believed Xandra was going to be special, and of course, he was right.”

I shook my head. “Fang me, she’s actually pulling off the proud mama pretence.”

Vex took bacon from the pan and began cracking eggs. “She does love you; it’s just become… skewed along the way.”

I made a wry face. “You’re such a politician.”

“But Xandra isn’t my only child to have suffered at the hands of aristocrats,” Juliet went on. “My daughter Ophelia was imprisoned in one of the laboratories we’re now hearing
about. Unspeakable things were done to her there, and I know of other former courtesans whose children experienced similar interments. I myself was incarcerated when I refused to do as I was told. That’s why I’m here with you. I want the aristocrats to know that we’re not going to accept this treatment of our children. These labs have to be shut down and the people behind them punished. Queen Victoria needs to abdicate the throne or be removed from it. Aristocratic tyranny must be eradicated.”

“Amazing. She’s really going for it, isn’t she?” I ran a hand through my wet hair. “First time out in public in years, and she’s calling for the end of the monarchy.”

Vex shrugged. “She always did have a flair for the dramatic. That’s where you get it from.”

“That’s it, compare me to a lunatic.” I was only half as peevish as I sounded.

The interviewer went on. “But your daughter Xandra is an aristocrat now, for lack of a better term. Surely you don’t want any harm to befall her?”

Another beatific smile. “Xandra never should have happened, but she was and is a gift to me. Of course I don’t want to see her harmed in any way, but I’m sure she’d stand beside me and agree that it is time for the current body of power to be overturned. It’s time to stop ruling by fear and intimidation, and to make the empire a place of equality.”

All right, so she wasn’t calling for complete death and destruc tion, but she had still climbed on her soapbox and committed treason by calling for Victoria’s removal from the throne. And she made it sound as though I was already in her corner.

“And who would lead this new empire, I wonder?” Vex asked, shoving bacon, eggs and fried bread on to my plate.

I took the food from him, my gaze still riveted on the box, and my mother’s beautiful face. “Notice she always smiles with her mouth closed?” No flashing the canines for her.

“The better to fool you with, my dear.” He filled his own plate. “Juliet’s an ambitious woman.”

I turned the box off and sat down at the table. “Do you really think she wants to take over?”

A cup of hot coffee appeared before me, then another at Vex’s usual place. A few seconds later, he plopped himself down with a loaded plate. “Aye, I do. Your mother’s crafty, and she wants revenge on the aristocracy.”

“Revenge?” I bit into some bacon. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”

His gaze locked with mine. “Xandra, I was the one who saved her from that attack. She cursed me for not letting him kill her. She did not want to continue the pregnancy – understandably – and she blamed every last aristo for making her go through with it.”

It was like a punch to the stomach, even though I already knew most of that myself. “Does she hate me?”

“Of course not, but she’s not going to win any Mum of the Year awards, is she? All those years out of your life, and now suddenly she’s back and declaring her love for you on the box? You’re not just her daughter, you’re a political platform.”