A Shade of Vampire 40: A Throne of Fire(18)

“Don’t abandon me!” I called again—a whine, a plea.

“Will you stop that racket!” A guard kicked the cage, and like vermin, I shrank back. Would my lord leave me like this—barely able to fend off the insults and jabs from a group of third-class citizens, so beneath me, so beneath my unspoiled lineage?

I held my head in my hands, despair taking over, feeling the absence of my lord’s benevolence and love like a deep wound in my heart.





Ash





“What now?”

Ruby was standing on the balcony that overlooked the rear gardens of the castle. She had been anxiously fiddling with the hem of her robe, pulling at the loose threads as she looked at the rows of tents that had taken over Queen Memenion’s gardens.

“We wait,” I replied simply.

There was nothing else we could do, other than maintain the strength of the barriers, until Ragnhild’s team returned to the castle with news.

“The hardest part.” She smiled ruefully.

“I know.”

Tell me about it.

The wait, the build-up…it was hellish.

“Everything seems so peaceful…it’s unnerving. Do you think there’s a chance that this could all be over?” she asked, her blue eyes half-hopeful.

I shook my head. No way was this over—the book had promised armies rising from the sea, the entity rising to full power. I didn’t believe for a second that the death of Queen Trina and the Acolytes would have put an end to any of it. This was too powerful, so much bigger than the lives of a few sentries.

“I think we need to be prepared for the worst,” I said quietly. “But this is usual for you, right, with GASP and all the supernatural stuff you deal with?”

I’d been trying to get my head around Ruby’s family and home for a while now. I was having a hard time imagining that such a place existed—that she had been exposed to so much strangeness all her life. I had just assumed that Ruby had come from an ordinary home, like me. To find out her life had been so extraordinary took some getting used to.

“I wasn’t a fully-fledged member—not yet…” She paused, realizing that she was implying that one day she would leave here—go back home. We hadn’t really discussed anything like that since I’d become emperor. Things were very different from when we’d first begun talking about Earth. I had imagined leaving Nevertide, entering another land as her boyfriend, getting used to things like television, s’mores, game consoles and everything else. Now I didn’t know what the future held—whether or not I’d be permitted to leave, whether or not I’d want to leave my people behind if we survived this.

“Don’t worry.” I swallowed, trying to adopt an easy manner. “I know you’ll want to go home when you can…I don’t blame you. I thought working as a cook in Hellswan’s kitchens was bad. This is something else.”

She laughed. “Yeah. Things do seem to have gone from bad to worse pretty quickly. The kingship trials look like kids’ play now, right?”

“The power of perspective.” I grinned.

She turned back to the gardens, her smile dropping. Vultures were flying about inside the barrier, getting exercise. One hurtled across the length of the balcony, squawking loudly and making us both jump.

“I hope you choose to join me,” she said once we’d both recovered.

“On Earth?”

“Yeah, in The Shade. You’d be an asset.”

To you or to GASP? I wondered, hoping it was the former. I stayed silent, not sure how to respond…I didn’t want to make any false promises to Ruby, and in my heart of hearts, I was hoping that once this was all over, she’d change her mind and want to stay here. I knew that Nevertide could be better—together we could change it, turn it into a place she’d be proud to rule by my side.

“Or at least visit on vacation?” she asked softly, her eyes downcast.

“I can’t answer you yet, Shortie. All I know is that I never want us to be apart, and I’m trying to come up with a way that we can work around that.”

She nodded, turning away from me again.

This is not going the way I planned.

I felt like I was messing this up, badly. I knew that these few moments of quiet were the only ones we’d get for a while; I had wanted us to do something special. I had wanted to remind her that we were good together—that although the odds felt stacked against us, we’d find a way to work things out. Because we had to. For me, there was no other option.

“Come on.” I held out my hand. “Come somewhere with me.”

She willingly placed her hand in mine, looking up at me expectantly. I grinned, trying to look like I had a plan in mind…because I had no idea where we were going. Somewhere more private than this, that was for sure. Anywhere that we couldn’t see an entire sentry army would be good…