The Vampire Gift 2: Kingdom of(41)
“Not magic.” She gives a wistful sigh. “I cannot do any of the sort.”
“Then what?” I ask, stepping closer.
She holds her arm out toward me. “Do you see my skin?”
“What of it?”
“Have you ever known a vampire with a tanned complexion?”
“I assumed you were like that when you were turned.”
She laughs again. “How little you truly know. No. Even if I were like this when I was turned, my skin would pale from lack of sun. I’m tanned, Smithson, because I go out in the sun.”
“What?” I shake my head. “You can’t. The light would burn you to a crisp!”
“Oh, that’s what you want to believe. The truth? Being in the sun is simply… painful. It does not kill.”
“I know that to be a lie,” I growl. “I’ve seen vampire’s tortured by being left in the sun’s rays.” I’ve ordered vampires tortured by being out in the sun’s rays. “The stronger ones might last longer, but in the end, they all perish. If left out there long enough.”
“Then I guess I really am the strongest you’ve ever met.” She winks at me. Then she shrugs. “What can I tell you? The pain of the sun, the discomfort of silver… I crave those sorts of feelings. I embrace them. That’s why your cells, your silver, your sword—that’s why none of those things frighten me.”
“You’re a masochist,” I say under my breath.
“Maybe. Some might call me that. But you didn’t come here to discuss my… personal perversions. And yet I’ve given them away. Could it be that I trust you, Smithson?”
“Don’t,” I warn. “Don’t get any ideas in your head. You’re still my captive.”
“Yet with all you know about me, don’t you think it would be so easy for me to break out?”
“No,” I say. “You have a high opinion of yourself. I respect that. But if you are like that around the Queen, you will get yourself killed sooner or later.”
She throws her head back and laughs. “Oh, I highly doubt that. The Queen is desperate. She needs me more than she knows. Tell me about James. He’s gone?”
“Yes. We suspect your coven had something to do with it. The question is,” I start to pace the cell, despite the discomfort moving around silver gives me, “why would they break him out?”
“You know it’s them for a fact?” Victoria asks.
“The Queen was sure of it.”
“It’s easy, then.” Victoria shrugs. “James knows their secrets. Logan would do anything to keep those secrets safe.”
“But you know those secrets, too,” I say.
“Yes.” She smiles at me, and it’s the smile of an opponent who knows she has the upper hand. “I know them, and many, many more.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
ELEIRA
When we emerge out into the night, I feel like I can take my first full breath in ages.
I did not like the close proximity of the underground. It reminded me too much of my imprisoned arrival in The Haven.
The magic Morgan showed me… I wanted to deny seeing it.
At first I thought the streams and gossamer flowing out of her body and coalescing into the spells she cast were just my imagination. But when she called me close and used the probing spell, and I saw the disparate threads collect above her head and then surge forth in a rush of power… I knew that it was real. I could not deny that I could see them anymore.
I wasn’t frightened by it. No, I was more concerned about the affinity I felt for the force. My fingers itched to try commanding something of the same sort. I wanted to own those powers, wanted it almost as much as I had wanted to be whisked away from my ordinary life in my early teens—
Wait a minute. I look at Raul, then at Phillip, and finally at Morgan. I’d forgotten all about that old longing, the old desire that I once had. I felt it very acutely every single night I went to sleep for a period of almost six months, after getting too caught up in a series of fantasy books I was reading.
Is that longing the reason I was so susceptible to letting these vampires take me and define my life?
My eyes go to Raul. He notices and breaks off his conversation with his brother just long enough to give me a sweet, assuring smile.
Is that why it was so easy for me to develop feelings for him?
A vampire guard I don’t know runs up to us. “The Captain Commander sent me to tell you that all the arrangements have been seen to. The Haven is under the protection of the guards, all of whom are on high alert.”
“Good,” Morgan replies. “Take me to him. I want to inspect the posts he set.”