Not unless she wants to be here.
That is the possibility that disturbs me the most.
Suddenly, she stops. I prod her forward with my silver-tipped sword. Witchbane—the same sword from all those centuries ago.
It has only strengthened with time. The moment I understood the sort of creature Morgan had turned me into, I made it my mission to never again be left helpless against vampires. Even if I had been turned into one of their kind, I knew they were still my enemy. I had to arm myself, to protect myself, to learn their strengths and weaknesses so that I could understand mine.
It was I who discovered that silver was their weakness, for example.
“Go on,” I grunt. “Don’t make this harder on yourself than it needs to be. You heard the Queen’s threat.”
A mocking sort of high-pitched laughter comes from beneath the cloth. I tense, ready to plunge the blade into her heart at the slightest provocation. If she attempts to escape…
I shift the blade into her. I apply the faintest bit of extra pressure, just to remind her that I’m here.
Or is it to remind myself that I’m in control?
“Your Queen is nothing compared to the ruler I served under for forty years,” she replies. “The only reason I allowed myself to be captured is so that I could be led here… to you.”
She eases her body forward and starts to turn. She does it smoothly, slowly, with just enough grace to let me know she doesn’t mean this as a threat or a precursor to an escape attempt.
She shocks me, though, when she brings her palms to either side of my sword and presses them onto the silver.
“I could snap this blade in two,” she drawls, almost lazily. “Such is the power given to me by The Ancient’s blood.”
I try to hide my surprise but the effort is wasted. A sharp intake of breath is all it takes for me to give myself away.
“Oh, yes,” she continues, keeping her head aimed at me, as if the velvet barrier is not even there. “I know how long you sought The Ancient yourself. But you never found him, did you, Smithson?”
“That’s enough,” I growl. My response to the initial query was all the evidence I needed of Victoria’s trickery. Usually, I’d have enough self-control to hold that intake of breath in. But she’d exerted her influence over me in the most subtle way possible, subtle enough that I didn’t notice. Had her attempt to control me been more overt, I could have barricaded my mind from it.
But Victoria is slippery. I’m more aware of that now.
“Is it now?” she wonders. “Look at where we are. Alone. Underground. I could kill you, hide your body, and run free in The Haven if I so wanted.”
“There are two hundred guards watching these corridors,” I bluff. “You wouldn’t get ten feet past the exit.”
She laughs again. “Two hundred guards? Is that supposed to impress me?” She lowers her voice. “I know it’s just you.”
“The silver addles your senses,” I tell her. But a bead of sweat trickles down my spine. “Your sense of the other vampires is inaccurate.”
“Are you saying that to convince me or to convince yourself?”
“Neither,” I tell her firmly. “I am simply stating it as irrefutable fact. Now come on, princess. I don’t care who you were in your other coven. Here, you’re a prisoner of my Queen, and you’d best remember that.”
“Or what?” she asks. “You’ll skewer me with your little sword?”
“Yes,” I grate, pressing it into her belly. “I’ll do exactly that.”
“I don’t think so,” she sighs. “You wouldn’t kill me.”
“And what makes you so confident?”
“Because of the link I have with your Queen’s most prized possession.”
Is she talking about…
“Eleira,” Victoria says. “My blood was the first she drank. It wasn’t from the vein, but from a chalice infused with magic. You kill me,” she laughs, “…and you write your own death sentence. Because if my link to the girl breaks, so will her mind. And we’ll see how well Morgan’s succession works then.”
I shake my head even though I know she cannot see me.
“You’re wrong,” I say. “The Queen has taken precautions. Eleira is at no risk. Besides, I don’t even know why I’m entertaining this conversation with you. So I won’t. Another word, and, link or no link, my sword goes through your pretty little heart.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she hisses.
I grab the silver layer of her sack and pull it up to see her eyes. Burning pain shoots down my arm, but I force the sensation down completely.