The Kingmakers(65)
“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?”
“All I see is scores of dead vampires, by my hand. I see our empire has the strength of true allies, and is not under the rule of a foreign nation. Tell me how that plays into the hands of the vampires!”
Mamoru shouted, “Adele, you are blind beyond compare! And every day its hold on you strengthens. Soon it will have you darting off into vampire territory again, from which you will not return. It will make its final play and you will be murdered, and the one chance we have will be gone.”
“You are absurd! If that was his plan, then why the big charade? It's ludicrous to go to such great lengths when all they need do is kill me, which Gareth could have done at any point since we met. Trust me, a great planner, he is not.”
“It will kill you, Adele. That is their nature.”
“And you will kill him before he does such a thing, I suppose.”
Mamoru remained silent, but his eyes told everything.
Adele's mouth settled into a hard line. She hadn't intended for this moment to occur, but there was no turning back. Terror filled her at the precipice she now stood upon. “Dear God. Then you leave me no choice. I can't trust you. You are confined to quarters until I deem fit to set you free.”