Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (8 page)

She stared at Vex, her gaze hard. “He tried to hurt me at the doctor place.”

“The lab,” Vex needlessly supplied. I knew what she meant.

“He wasn’t trying to hurt you, dearest.” I ignored the fact that I’d called her the pet name I used for my siblings. “He was trying to help you. Those people weren’t nice.”

Wide eyes turned to mine. “They were nice to me.”

Fuck. How did I explain to her that her very existence proved just how not-nice they were? Of course they were good to her – they knew what she could do if they weren’t.

This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have out here, in the heart of aristo territory. Anyone might pass by and hear. Anyone might pass by and see her. It wasn’t just the Yard looking to find
her, but the people responsible for her as well. And the Human League, though any spies they had in Mayfair would have to get fairly close to know what was going on, and we’d smell them. Humans working in Mayfair were closely monitored.

“I’m glad they treated you well. Vex thought they were hurting you and he wanted to save you from that. No one wanted to harm you.”

She looked at my wolf again, this time with less dislike and fear, but still with a hearty degree of wariness. “I’m sorry I tried to eat you.” Fang me, she sounded like a child – such innocent sincerity.

Vex nodded. His posture was relaxed, but I knew he was ready to attack if necessary. I really didn’t want that to happen. He wasn’t fully healed, and both of them could get very badly hurt.

William approached. He didn’t look the least bit afraid, or even wary, and that said a lot about him. He was perhaps the only one of us I’d wager on to take her down.

“Smells of plague,” the goblin said, a slight growl to his tone.

“She’s goblin?” For a second, I wondered if maybe the gobs would want her as their queen instead of me. She was certainly more like them than I was. Odd. After months of denying my place among them, I was suddenly loath to lose it.

William nodded his shaggy head, his one eye narrow. “Some and more than that, lady. Another thing altogether.”

Relief washed over me despite the ominous proclamation, and I couldn’t even feel the least remorseful or foolish for it. I liked being queen. I liked having a purpose that had nothing to do with being bred to protect aristos.

“What do you mean, another thing?” Vex asked.

“We should go inside,” I suggested, glancing around the yard. It felt so wide open and vulnerable. Plus, my goblins were extremely sensitive to light, and even though it was dark out, the lights around us could hurt their eyes and give them headaches.

Vex looked at me, and I saw something in his eyes that I’d never seen before: refusal. He was not about to allow my doppelgänger in his house.

It stung, but I couldn’t be angry. He had a responsibility to his pack, just as I did to the goblins. He had to think of his people, and this was one of those times when pack safety had to be more important than me.

“William, send those from the plague back to the den, please.” I’d always thought the fact that the goblins referred to their pack as “the plague” was a little over the top, but it suited them – us.

He bowed his head. “As she wishes.” He walked away, leaving me facing Vex.

“I’ll take her to the den,” I told him. “She needs to be somewhere she can feel safe.” What I didn’t add was that we needed to keep her where she could do the least amount of harm.

My doppelgänger stroked my hair. “Pretty.” Then she held out a hank of her own matted mess and smiled. She had raw meat caught in her teeth. “Same. We match.”

Like insane bookends.

“I’m coming with you,” Vex insisted.

“That’s not a good idea,” I countered. Plus, I was still peevish that he wouldn’t take her in – despite knowing logically that he had every reason not to. “She’s afraid enough as it is, and you’re not healed yet. I don’t want you to get hurt, and I don’t want her to get antsy.”

Oh, I could tell it pissed him off that there was actually a creature that could do so much damage to him – and that I was rubbing his face in it, especially in front of his people.

“I love you.” I didn’t care who heard it, only that he understood. “Your pack needs you whole and so do I. She’ll be safe with the goblins, and everyone else will be safe if she’s with the goblins.” She might be a match for one of them, but there was no way she could take on all of them.

“I love you too, and I think you’re fucking mental.”

I smiled. “You say the sweetest things. You know I’m right. Besides, the den is the only place coppers won’t look for her. And they will be looking for her after what she did.”

Yes, they would. She’d murdered someone. She’d done so much damage, and here I was, about to hide her. Albert’s fangs, Val would be looking for her. I was not only hiding her from the aristos that had created her; I was going to hide her from the police – from my own brother.

The “fucking mental” part of it was that I knew all of this, and the possible ramifications, and I didn’t care. My only thought was to put her somewhere safe – for everyone involved.

My doppelgänger – did she have a name? – turned to me, eyes wide. “Did I do something wrong?”

Lovely, she really didn’t understand. Well done, aristos, you made yourselves an ignorant monster, because
that
always ends well, doesn’t it?

I wasn’t going to lie to her. “You know when you ate the man in the car?”

Her expression turned blank, so I tried again. “You have his blood on your face.”

She lit up like a Christmas tree. “Breakfast. He was delicious!”

“I’ve no doubt.” Fang me, but she was nuttier than a walnut pudding. “We don’t feed like that, though. We try not to kill humans.”

She cocked her head to one side. My father had a corgi that did the exact same thing. “But that’s what the meat is for. We eat it. I eat it.”

Vex barked – literally – with laughter, and not the what-a-jolly-day-this-is sort. He had to be thinking the same thing I’d been – that they’d fed her humans in the lab. Live ones.

This just got better and better.

“Humans have been around a lot longer than us,” I told her. “Thousands of years.”

She frowned as though she found the idea distasteful. “But we’re better than them.”

“Indeed, though they think they’re better than us.”

She laughed. I didn’t blame her. It was ridiculous when you thought about it. We of aristocratic descent were faster, stronger, just
more
overall. The fact that we ate humans was proof that we were top of the food chain. I could spout that we all had rights, but that would lead to even more discussion and questions, and I wasn’t prepared to play matron tonight.

Her laughter stopped abruptly, and I could see the tips of her ears perking up through her hair – they were pointed, more like a goblin’s than human. It was a little disconcerting, like those hairless cats.

I heard it then as well – the distant wail of a siren, drawing closer. Special Branch.

Val was part of Special Branch, and I’d got into trouble before with his colleagues. I’d also caused him enough problems recently. “Come…” I didn’t even know her name, or if she had one.

Her fingers took mine once again. “They called me Alexis.”

My heart twitched. My full name was Alexandra. Coincidence? Not very bloody likely. How had they managed to make her?

Were there more?

I couldn’t think about that right now. The sirens were definitely closer, almost to the Mayfair gates. They’d be let through almost instantly. I shot Vex a meaningful glance before running for the nearest underside access, Alexis in tow.

She followed me without question, as though instinct told her I could be trusted. Well, yay for her, because my instinct was screaming that this was going to get very messy very quickly.

Victoria just might have to get in line if she decided she wanted my head. And I had a feeling the line was about to get a lot longer.

William gave Alexis a room of her own in the den. There was a comfortable little bed tucked into it, and it wasn’t far from one of the bathrooms – yes, there was civilised plumbing – but it was a good distance from the regular goblin sleeping space. That was where I took our guest upon our arrival. Dozens of pairs of amber eyes watched us – some in awe, some in suspicion. I think others were downright frightened.

I couldn’t say I blamed them. I wasn’t quite certain how to feel about my doppelgänger, who was becoming less of a doppelgänger with every new difference between us I noted. Her pointy ears were just one. Her joyous, unhinged naïveté was hopefully another.

The room held a faint scent of opium, and I noticed small vents against each wall near the floor. Were they there to clear the air, or to pump smoke into the room? I suspected the latter, and applauded my prince’s thinking. They just might be able to get Alexis stoned enough to keep her relatively calm. Hopefully she wouldn’t get the munchies.

Again I questioned my judgement in bringing her here, in hiding her. It seemed the right decision, but now… Was I putting my goblins in danger? Was I asking too much of them? I should have waited for the Yard and let them take her, but she probably would have killed them all, and then Ophelia would have shot her.

And I’d have been no closer to the truth. It wasn’t enough to know about the labs and shut them down. I wanted to know what they were doing, why they were doing it – and what part I played in it. Was it really about breeding? Because Alexis didn’t strike me as the maternal type.

I asked one of the younger goblins to run up to my house and collect clean clothes, then I ran water into one of the large copper tubs in the large Roman-tiled bath, added some fragrant oil, and helped Alexis out of her gore-soaked clothes. I threw them on the fire in the hearth nearby. It hissed as it consumed the fabric, smoking dark and thick for a few moments. I could almost imagine the flames cursing me for feeding them such disgusting filth.

She didn’t need help getting into the tub, but she did need a little encouragement.

“It’s called a bath,” I informed her. “It makes you clean and it feels good.”

Alexis slid a dubious look in my direction. “It’s wet. And hot. It stinks of flowers.”

It did not stink. “Well, yeah. It’s a bath. Look, it’s only water.”

Suddenly her face brightened. “Water?” She threw herself into the tub, creating a tsunami I only just managed to avoid with a quick duck and dive. Good thing the tiled floor here sloped gently towards a centre drain. Alexis breached the surface with a delighted squeal.

I scrubbed her back with a sponge and soap that smelled of jasmine. Her skin looked different wet, almost like… velvet. Actually, it was exactly like velvet. I ran my hand against the nap in amazement.

She had
fur
. It was very, very short and the exact same shade of ivory as my skin. Astonishing. There also wasn’t a mark on it. That didn’t mean much. I had to assume that she healed just as fast if not faster than me or any aristo, so they might have beaten her on a regular basis for all I knew. That didn’t fit with her personality, however.

“Ali, the people who… looked after you, did they treat you well?” I asked as I shampooed her hair.

She shrugged. “I suppose. Not like you. I enjoy this bath thing. No one’s bathed me before.”

Disgusting. Poor mite.

She giggled. “Then again, I’m only three weeks old.”

I dropped the bottle of shampoo on my foot. Bloody hell. How had they done this? Wolves, vampires, even goblins had average gestational periods that were similar in duration to humans, though a little shorter. None of us gave birth to a creature that reached maturity in three weeks. Unless…

Goblin babies were very much like puppies when born, and within a few weeks were walking, running and behaving like toddlers.

I didn’t know how the lab had managed to engineer her, or for what purpose, but at least I had a slightly better understanding of her. No wonder she had such little impulse control; she was basically a toddler. I’d just treat her like some of the little ones I’d known during my time at Courtesan House, only with a bit more caution considering she could rip out my spleen and have it for tea.

“You’re very young,” I commented when I remembered myself.

“How old are you?”

“I’ll be three and twenty next month.” I hadn’t realised it was so close already.

She tilted her head back and grinned up at me. “You’re old.”

“I am not!” I smiled along with my mock outrage, just to make certain she knew I was joking. Albert’s fangs, what was I going to do with her? Cross my fingers and hope for the best? I couldn’t keep her down here for ever. I also couldn’t let her leave, not when she looked so much like me and had a habit of eating motorists.

I couldn’t set her free on the world and I couldn’t allow the world to unleash itself on her. Neither would be prepared for the assault.

And there was the fact that she had hurt Vex. I should despise her for that, but I couldn’t, any more than I would blame a frightened dog for biting.

But I wouldn’t want to bring the pooch home with me, would I? All right, perhaps I would, in order to save it, but I didn’t kid myself into believing I could save Alexis.