The Vampire Gift 2: Kingdom of Ash (2 page)

I give a strangled choke. “No!”

“Yes.” She looks like a puma glorying in the moments before the kill. “Patricia and Jacob have proven their unworthiness to remain part of our coven again and again. This final insult, it was too much.”

The hanging woman’s eyes roll up and meet mine. The despondent resignation in them breaks my heart.

I look at the guards again. They all have smug smiles on their faces.
They
know what’s going on. And I’m starting to suspect that I do, too.

Mother brought me here to witness an execution.

“You think
they
killed your guards?” I say. “Look at them! They barely had the strength to stand after you kept them prisoner and brought them to Eleira’s introduction ceremony. How could they have gone against
four
of The Haven’s most accomplished fighters?”

Mother gives a little laugh. “Oh, that’s the same story they’ve given me. It’s funny how such things align. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you three are colluding against me.” She glances at the ring of guards. “Wouldn’t you say, Smithson?”

The Commander instantly drops to one knee and holds a fist to his chest. “Yes, my Queen.”

Morgan strolls up to him and casually rakes a hand through his hair. “Oh, you’re most obedient now, aren’t you? Of course, that’s just how I like my companions.”

The commander glances up and meets her gaze for the briefest moment. There’s something more going on between them—I wouldn’t be surprised if Mother has already taken him to bed.

I don’t know if her promiscuity should repulse me or not.

“Why’d you bring me here?” I ask. I barely stand above Patricia and Jacob in terms of strength, but I try to channel some of Raul’s fortitude.

“I brought you here…” Mother turns to me, “to show what befalls vampires who oppose my rule.”

Everything happens at once.

She flings an arm toward me. That chained silver collar flies from her sleeve. I raise a hand to protect myself but it does little good. The collar simply binds it to my neck.

The force of the strike throws me back. All the air rushes from my lungs as I slam against the wall. Mother’s magic instantly pins me in place.

The guards surround the prisoners. They shove a strange looking sack over each of their heads. Patricia and Jacob start to convulse the instant the sacks are on.

Their bonds are released. They drop to the ground and jerk about with absolutely no control over their limbs.

“Hold them tight!” Mother commands.

Two guards grab either of the pair. Patricia and Jacob don’t so much fight the guards, as the guards fight them, doing as much as they can to keep the convulsions in check.

Mother gestures to Smithson. “Bring it now.”

The Commander rushes off into the depths of the cave and comes back carrying two empty canvases.

Exactly the same sort that I saw lining the hall.

Realization sinks in. “No!” I exclaim. I fight the silver collar with all my might. “No, Mother, don’t—“

“You
dare
call me that?” She turns on me, dressed in all the fury of a Queen. “I am your Monarch, and you will address me as such!”

She slaps me. My head snaps to the side, and my glasses go flying. Everything becomes an indistinct blur.

Jacob and Patricia keep convulsing on the ground. Smithson raises the two canvases onto hooks on the wall, right where the husband and wife pair were previously hanging.

Morgan towers over them. The way the shadows fall across her face make her all the more menacing.

“For the murder of four of your kind,” she declares, “I sentence you both to eternal suffering. The lives you stole will never be brought back. I would not do the same to you, but I
will
ensure that all the pleasures of this world are denied to you as you continue to linger, as trapped souls, for all eternity!”

Her voice gets louder and louder as she delivers the two sentences. A wind gusts up from the sides of the chamber and surges around her in a violent tornado. Her dress flaps this way and that. For the first time in my eyes, she looks like a real witch.

She pulls a silver dagger from her waist. The wind howls, ripping away my screams of protest.

Morgan raises the dagger above her head. She plunges it straight down into Jacob’s heart. Blood spurts out, but it’s caught by that wind and directed straight into one of the empty canvases. Mother chants an incantation, and the flow of blood is surrounded by a glowing blue light. It streams right into the frame, where slowly, the image of a wretched
Jacob starts to form.

What little I make out without my glasses is ghastly. The Jacob in the painting is barely a skeleton. The muscles take shape over the bones of his skull. His eyes appear there, too, looking infinitely haunted. The barest layer of translucent skin starts to cover the red muscle fibers…

And then the flow from his body stops. I look at the shell that remains. It’s a horrible sight. Inside the painting, he starts to move, but then Mother utters another spell, and he goes still.

She stands and draws a strand of hair out of her face. “One done,” she says. “Never to trouble me again.”

Her coterie of guards snickers.

She turns her attention to the woman. “My dear, you’re in luck,” she says. “You get a few more minutes on this earth while I recover my strength.”

I see it as my chance. If I can save Patricia… if I can make a difference…

“Morgan, you mustn’t do this!” I stop fighting the collar around my neck—it’s not like I can do anything against it. “Think of the consequences! You speak of killing vampires as the greatest crime—surely, this is worse! A soul is not meant to be separated from a body. Not while still remaining on this earth! Please, please, don’t mar your rule by doing something while lost in the grips of madness!”

She barely looks at me. “Madness?” She scoffs. “No, Phillip. This isn’t madness. Madness would be allowing the seed of rebellion to linger. You think I can turn a blind eye when four of my guards are dead? You think I can sit on my throne and do nothing while
filthy
vampires such as these seek to undermine everything I have? Everything that
we’ve
built?”

“You’re not listening to yourself!” I cry. “You feel their strength. You know Patricia’s never been powerful enough to challenge one of your personal guard. How would she or Jacob have killed them?
Why
would they kill them?”

“Because they’re filth,” she spits. “Because they were humiliated by my guards in front of the entire assembly. Because in the fires that you and my other son began, in the mayhem and confusion, they thought they could have their revenge!
How
they did it, I don’t know. I don’t care to know. Maybe they took them by surprise. Maybe—”

“Andrey would never have been taken by surprise.”

“SILENCE!” she screams. “Silence! Don’t you
dare
talk about Andrey. Never again—never again will you speak his name to me. Or else… or else…” she’s starting to sound hysterical now, “…or else you’ll end up in a painting on the castle wall, too!”

One of the new guards gasps. Mother turns on him in a blind rage.

“You don’t think it’s within my right to do?” she demands. “You don’t think that I have absolute rule in The Haven?”

“No, my Queen. You do, my Queen. Forgive me, my Queen.”

The apology seems to appease her. She takes a few deep breaths to compose herself.

Then she addresses me again in a sweet voice. “My son,” she says. She walks toward me. “My sweet, precious, youngest son. Don’t you know how hard it’s been for me to watch you toil away as a result of your…
choice?
Don’t you know how hard it’s been for me to see Raul and James rise up above you, when you were the one always gifted with such potential?” She touches my cheek.

I stare into her eyes, unflinching.

“You know what I speak of,” she tells me softly. “You were always the intelligent one. You sensed the same darkness inside you that I did when you were made. You
knew
it could overtake you, if you only let it, and you
knew
that its power would be unrivalled by any in our coven. You knew that had you embraced it, you would have risen in power, and, eventually, stood above even me.”

The silence in the cave is palpable. Each one of the guards is listening to his Queen with bated breath.

“Yes, Mother. I knew,” I say. That is my greatest secret—that I can become the strongest of all.

And now it’s out in the open.

“But you rejected it,” she says. “You rejected it, because of your love for me.” She wipes away a fake tear. “You did not want to challenge my rule. Why, then, do you do it now?”

“I made the choice for myself, not for you,” I tell her. “And yes, I loved you once, as a child loves either of his parents. But who you’ve become today is a far cry from the woman who raised me.”

She smiles in a cruel way. “You think your words hurt me.”

“I don’t resort to holding my sons hostage,” I challenge, “when things don’t go my way.”

She gives a flippant little laugh. Then she directs her gaze at Patricia, still being held on the floor.

“You want to save her?” she asks. “You can. I’ll tell you how.” She leans in, and whispers in my ear, “Feed
. Feed
, and embrace who you are meant to be.”

She turns away and clasps her hands. “Bring her,” she tells Smithson.

The Commander immediately retreats into the far reaches of the cavern. I hear a door open. And right away comes the fresh scent of human blood.

Smithson pushes a girl into our midst. She’s bound, gagged, and blindfolded.

It’s April.

“I’ll leave you alone with her,” Mother says. She releases the collar around my neck. I stagger down. “Feed, and I’ll spare the vampire’s life. We both know that it’s much more valuable than that of a
human’s
.”

On that note, Mother walks out the door, trailed by her guards. They drag Patricia with them.

April is shaking. She’s in very rough shape. I can’t imagine the horrors my Mother must have inflicted upon her.

“You wouldn’t,” she whispers. “Would you?”

ELEIRA

I sit in the back of the plane, huddled beneath a blanket, holding Raul’s hand.

He’s turned the autopilot on and come out to see me. I’ve been trying my best to suppress the vampiric urges roiling inside.

It’s been hard. Very, very, hard. With our two prisoners, James and Victoria, sitting bound in silver not more than twenty feet away, the urge to feed on them comes and goes in ravenous spikes.

So far, I’ve managed to fight it down. I suspect the only reason I’m capable of doing so is that I’m wearing the ring Raul gave me.

“It’ll become easier,” he promises. “Once we get to The Haven, you’ll get to feed from the blood banks. You won’t need to kill anyone.”

I nod, very stiffly. The vampire inside me wants to kill. It
craves
the hunt.

I’m terrified of letting Raul, or anybody else, know.

I draw into myself even more to help contain the struggle.

My eyes go to the front of the plane. James is reclined in his seat, staring despondently at the ceiling. Victoria is as tight as a compressed spring beside him.

“Why do I want
their
blood?” I whisper. “Vampires aren’t supposed to lust that way for each other. Are they?”

Raul coughs and tightens his hand around mine. “You’re different,” he says. “We knew that from the start.” He traces the ring. “This helps. Doesn’t it?”

I swallow and nod. I keep my breathing very shallow. I’m afraid of catching either James’s or Victoria’s scent.

“
You’re different,”
Victoria suddenly mocks. “Oh, how naïve the both of you are.”

Raul stiffens as soon as he hears her speak.

“You’re a
witch,
” Victoria continues. “And your transformation has been prompted by the blood of one infused with the strength of The Ancient. No wonder you crave vampiric blood. No wonder you want to kill.” She sticks her neck out. “So come on, little vampire. Come here. Do what you were meant to do. Suck me dry. Feed the darkness growing inside you.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Raul growls. He stands up. “I can shut her up if you need me to. Just say the word.”

“No,” I motion him down. “She can taunt me all she wants. It won’t make a difference.”

If anything, resisting will show Raul my resolve.

“It’s too bad you’re unwilling,” Victoria continues. “I would make the most
scrumptious
feast. I’m sure of it.”

James’s eyes pop open. “You’re disturbing my rest,” he tells her. “Shut it.”

Victoria gasps in indignation. I’ve only been a vampire for a little while, but even I can tell how the reprimand goes against the hierarchy of power on the plane.

Victoria is stronger than James, who is stronger—slightly—than Raul.

But I am the most powerful vampire here.
That
terrifies me.

I pull the blanket tighter around me and try to become as small as possible.

“If either of you bug her while I’m gone,” Raul says as he walks to the cockpit, “the silver sacks are going right back over your heads.”

Victoria gives him a nasty glare but doesn’t say a word. James simply offers a resigned shrug.

I’m left alone with my own thoughts. Time slows to a standstill. Only the constant hum of the plane’s engines keeps me company.

In short order, I find myself drifting off. I didn’t know vampires needed to sleep. In fact, I’m not actually sleepy, but my mind seems to be slowing down. The worries running through it no longer seem so prevalent.

Victoria’s voice makes me perk up.

“You’re not falling asleep. You’re going hypo.”

I look at her. “Excuse me?”

“Hypo. Like a diabetic. Low blood sugar? Ever heard of it?”

“Of course I’ve heard of it—” I start to say—and then stop short.

Victoria hasn’t actually opened her mouth.