Queen of the Vamps: FourWinds Series, page 33
Luckily, he’s in a semi-cheerful mood, even though we’ve just been rudely prodded awake. He chuckles at my antics and lets me guide him into the connecting bath.
The lights automatically turn on, making me blink as the spotlights pierce my eyes.
“Go on, minx. Get washed.”
“Come with me?”
“We’d never get clean,” he mutters, and I smile at him.
“That’s the point.”
“Yeah, well, we have important business to discuss out there.”
Dima’s head pops around the door. “We’re all needed.”
Rolling his eyes at the command, Niko mock salutes him but grabs a toothbrush.
I shower, then, after toweling myself dry, brush my own teeth as I watch him under the cascading water.
Dreamy.
One word says it all.
Hard muscles, lean strength. Huge cock. Pretty face.
What more could a girl want?
When Dima appears with a towel around his waist, hair damp from his own shower, I realize I’m the luckiest bitch on earth.
Two men that look like these, and they’re mine.
No cheating, no fears about trusting them. Our souls are as one. I realized that last night when I let him stroke my cunt with fangs larger than my gel nails on either side of my clit. That is some fucking connection we share.
“What’s going on out there?”
“You’re about to meet the Asian leaders.”
“Hang on a minute. Aren’t they called Curzio and Dante?”
When they both nod, I frown at them. “But they’re Italian names, not Asian.”
Niko sighs. “It’s a bit archaic. Our empires were created before humans began to settle into their own. It’s unfair, I guess, but we have our own territories, and we split them up between ourselves after the Battle of FourWinds.”
“Racist is more like it,” I grouse, pulling on a pair of socks.
“Not racist. We’re more than just a color, Lyssie,” Niko chides. “If anything, color has nothing to do with it. It’s about the shifter more than anything. For Pyres, it’s bloodlines. But for the Lykaens, only certain breeds can rule. Lions, bears, wolves. That’s it. Dante is a wolf.”
“You’re all in the wrong territories too,” I complain, ignoring his words. “It would make much more sense if Zeke was over here, because at least America has bears. Lions would fit in Asia, and wolves in Europe. You see, you needed me, the voice of logic, when you were signing that treaty.”
Dima snorts. “We’d have been too busy fucking you to fight at all. We split the land up that way on purpose. Each breed going where we didn’t fit in. It’s a shifter thing,” he remarks casually.
“What does that mean?”
“It means it’s a dominance thing,” Niko mumbles as he pulls on a shirt. “That even though their kinds don’t fit in to the locality, they’re still top dog, cat, or bear.”
Sounds about right. This dominance shit is weird. Perplexing weird.
I frown at them both as I shrug into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. “China’s had dynasties for ages.” Understatement, but surely dudes with Asian names should be ruling their own roost?
“We’ve been around for longer,” Dima tells me, bopping me gently on the nose. “Plus, there are only three Pyre lines, three Kings, and they all find their roots in the motherland—Europe. Russia, France, and Italy.” He shrugs. “Blame the Pyres, not the Lykes.”
I huff at that, then changing track, grumble, “I wish I’d been forewarned about this. I’d have liked to have looked at least halfway decent when I met these guys.”
They shrug almost as one. “They’re not looking at your clothes.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Dima chuckles. “What do you think it means?”
“But I’m your mate. Why would they look at me as though I had no clothes on?”
Niko rolls his eyes. “Because they’re men.”
“And that’s supposed to reassure me?”
“No, just to warn you, there will be drool.”
I refuse to blush. I really do.
“You’re their hope, Lyssie,” Niko tells me, tenderly pinching my chin. “The first of the consorts. They’ll be hoping you’re the catalyst. A new start for the royal lines.”
Huh. Talk about pressure.
Dima grabs my arm and starts to lead me away from the place I most want to be—bed. A few paces ahead of me, Niko wanders into the next room, where four men are seated.
Two of them I know. Zeke is trying not to look pissed off as Rule attempts to figure out how the chandelier is suspended from the ceiling. At least, that’s what I think he’s doing. He’s standing on the dining table, peering up at the cut glass, while the two strangers—and the guys might not be the only ones drooling, because these dudes are hot—are staring at him like he’s insane.
Well, maybe he is a bit. But Rule’s cute and harmless. For the most part.
“Everything okay up there, Rule?” I ask, watching his head tilt at the support.
“Yes, Lyssa,” he tells me absentmindedly. “I wondered if this was a tungsten carbide support.”
When all five men groan, I’m the only one to step close to the table and peer up at the light. “I thought that was only used in jewelry.”
Rule frowns down at me. “How did you know that?”
“I bought Niko’s wedding ring,” I tell him. “I needed something he wasn’t going to scratch or break. The jeweler said tungsten is harder than gold.”
“Ten times harder,” Rule informs me with a pleased smile, like that of a teacher to a student. “I was wrong, though. I doubt they’d use tungsten in these supports. Although, see how thin the cable is for such a weight.” His words draw to an end as his study continues.
I reach up for his hand and tug his fingers. “Rule,” I whisper, “there are guests, and we all need to talk.”
He blinks at me, then nods. “Of course, about the Fomor.”
Quicker than it takes for me to blink at him, he’s on the floor, beside the sofa.
Dima rolls his eyes at Rule’s lack of social niceties, then leans forward to grasp my hand once more. “Curzio, Dante, this is our mate, Lyssa.”
“I thought you said there’d be a ton of royal platitudes to make when I met these guys.”
“That was before they turned up at our hotel room,” Niko grumbles.
“You weren’t expecting them?”
“Not yet. Not for a few more days.”
I smile pleasantly at the two hunks in front of me, watching, charmed, as they bow over my hands and press gentle kisses to my fingers. I can feel Dima tense at the touch, but I ignore him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”
“It is our pleasure. I simply wish it were under better circumstances,” Curzio murmurs smoothly.
Before I can reply, Niko interrupts. “We have a gift for you, Dante.”
Realizing what that gift is, I let my gaze scan Dante’s form and realize that he has only the one arm. His jacket’s right sleeve is pinned closed. It’s a testament to the man’s face that I only realize that now.
Michelangelo, weep your heart out. This man is made to be painted.
Hell, he was probably walking around with the artist back then. Maybe he has been painted, for all I know.
“A gift?” Dante asks, a scowl marring his golden brow.
“Yes. Although it’s more of a gift from the gods.”
He turns to me with a lighter frown at my words, which probably seem cryptic to him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to explain.”
I stare at him. “You’ll see what we mean.”
Niko returns from the bedroom, and in his hands is Nuada’s arm. In the legend, once the arm was fitted, flesh covered the limb. I wonder if that’s going to happen today, and if it does, how fucking cool would that be?
The arm in his hands, Niko holds out the offering to Dante. “Your gift in the war that is to come.”
Dante blinks. “I don’t need a prosthetic.”
“The gods disagree,” Dima intones.
Curzio frowns. “What is that supposed to mean? Perhaps you should share more of the facts before any gifts are exchanged.”
Whoa, boy. These guys don’t trust each other.
“Isn’t he your cousin, Niko? He doesn’t seem to like you.”
“Yeah, he’s family, but there was a rift with his side a few centuries back. Curzio holds a grudge.”
I hold up a hand before either of my mates can speak. “Less of the pissing contest, thank you. Let me explain.”
And so I did. I told them everything, in short sentences, no bullshit. The straight, honest-to-gods truth.
They started on their feet, both bristling at their belief the gift was intended as an insult, but as I told them the facts, they gradually plunked down into one of the sofas, astonishment written into the lines of their faces.
“You cannot be serious,” Curzio groans.
“They’re deadly serious,” Zeke interrupts. “You’re lucky you haven’t been affected yourselves.”
Dante blinks at the prosthetic still in Niko’s hands. “This was Nuada’s?”
“Yes.”
“May I have it, please?” Nerves overload his tone.
Niko passes it over with ease. The reverence in Dante’s face is enough to make me bite my lip.
Without a word being spoken, which tells me they’re doing the mind talk “thing,” Curzio removes the jacket from Dante's shoulders. Once it has pooled around his hips, he unfastens the buttons on Dante’s shirt, baring pretty glimpses of muscled, tattooed torso. Dante slides the arm through the gap, revealing his stump.
He holds the prosthetic to the stump, sucks in a breath, then pushes them together. A groan escapes him the instant he does. Before our eyes, the silver appears to knit to Dante’s flesh, and the agony of it has him dropping his hold on the false arm. Weirdly enough, it holds itself upright so it’s almost floating in midair for a handful of seconds.
All of us watch on in discomfort as the prosthetic cleaves itself to Dante’s elbow, using some weird-ass magic it seems none of us has ever seen before. I mean, it figures I’d be in the dark. But the way the others are flinching, tells me this is a whole new ton of crazy.
Sweat beads his brow, rolls down his face at the obvious pain of the magic. He closes his eyes and grits his jaw. More mind talk ensues because, out of nowhere, Curzio pulls out a knife and slashes his own hand. Blood pools and starts to drip from his clenched fist. He lets the droplets fall on the arm, and hey presto, won’t you know it, it’s like the legend.
Out of nowhere, flesh develops. It grows, spreading over the silver like a wildfire’s conflagration.
By the end, when nails have appeared on his fingers, Dante is panting. And I don’t frickin' blame him. My own stomach is clenching and I didn’t suffer a drop of pain.
“Thank you,” he whispers to the room at large, eying the limb as though he’d just been handed a treasure, and I guess he has. Niko told me that Lykaens can’t wear prostheses. They simply don’t work with the shift, and it’s easier to live without the limb than to have to tote the prosthetic around in their shifted form.
A part of me wonders if he’ll have a silver leg as a wolf.
I’d pay good money to see that.
“What are we to do about this threat?” Curzio asks, his attention on the arm but the question aimed at the group.
“What can we do but fight?” Niko replies, his gaze also on Nuada's, now Dante’s arm. “The Fomor are coming. Bres made that pretty clear to us. The oceans are heating up, and because of that, the Fomorian jail cell is weakening. It’s only a matter of time until that happens.”
“We could help stop global warming,” Rule murmurs innocently.
I snort. “Because the governments haven’t been trying to do that, Rule. Honey, if they can’t do it, then we can’t.”
“You don’t realize how powerful we are, Lyssa. We can invest heavily in alternate technologies. Develop means that would hinder the use of crude oil. It’s a preventative measure. Surely we need to address that as well as develop an offensive plan for what will happen when the Fomor surface?”
Niko nods. “He’s right. We need to do both.”
“We have millions of shifters, all with no battle training. We’re as bad as the humans nowadays, more interested in the dollar than fighting for our honor,” Zeke inserts.
“We’ll have to make it mandatory like it was once upon a time,” Dante says, his voice still husky. “They must start to retrain immediately.”
“Conscription?” I squeak. “Is that really the answer?”
“This is more than conscription, honey. This is every man, woman, and child called up to battle. It’s in our blood, but we’ve forgotten that. This is a reminder to embrace the sides that were gifted to us, not to neglect them as have the humans.”
I nibble my lip at Dima’s words. “I don’t like this. I don’t want a war. My granddaddy fought in France. My nana said he was never the same after he came back.”
“We have no choice in this, Lyssa. It’s been planned since before any of us existed.”
And in the face of that, I’m not sure I’ll ever get a decent night’s sleep ever again.
Niko, sensing my fear, lifts an arm and tucks me into his side. Dima reaches out and joins his fingers with mine.
I can only pray that the gods that gave me these two men planned our fates to the nth degree, because I’m not going down without a fight.
I want a full life with them. Kids, a dog, maybe even a pony. The whole nine yards. Frightened as fuck I may be, but woe betide anyone who withholds that dream from me or tries to get in my way.
Even freaky-ass, horn-sporting water demons.
Lyssa Jane Hamilton sure as shit isn’t going down without a fight. Or a wedding ring.
And that’s a promise.
Epilogue
Sebastian
“Did you feel that?”
Beatrice frowns at me. “Feel what, Sebastian?”
My shoulders droop then surge up again as tension fills me.
How do I explain to the leader of my people, the witches, that something, someone, just called upon my magic?
From afar.
My throat clutches and I shake my head at Bea. She’s studying me in concern, and I wave a hand. “Nothing.”
Though she narrows her eyes at me, she merely says, “As you wish.” Turning her attention to the room’s occupants, she states, “They’ll be calling upon us shortly.”
Benjamin rubs the back of his neck. “The prophecy has come to pass?”
She dips her chin. “The first Queen has been found and the first King has been killed.”
Jacob’s nostrils flare. “Do you know which of us will become her third mate?”
Bea’s eyes turn sorrowful. “No. I wish I could help, but the Sight has shown me nothing that could makes this an easier transition for you, my sons.”
Benjamin’s jaw clenches. “I still can’t believe we have to mate with them.”
Bea reaches over and pats his hand. “We have a larger purpose than they have ever understood. We’ve been waiting on this moment for generations. You’re fortunate not to have been called up in the interim.”
Fortunate? Ha.
To our kind, the Lykes and the Pyres have always been lesser. As Elitist as that may sound, they’re younger than us, less evolved, and to be frank, far less able than we are.
We’ve known the witches and their kind would have to knit together at some point in the future, but it was only twenty-seven years ago when mother had a vision.
A Queen had been born.
She had two more of such visions.
Each time upon a female’s birth, a female who would become a Queen and who would become one of her sons’ mates.
My throat is still thick after the sensation of having my magic used without permission. I know who it must be. One of them, but still, it came as an intense surprise. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life.
I release a shaky breath. “We must go to them, Mother.”
She dips her chin even though I’m not asking a question. “You must discern who is bound to whom. More than that, it is time to weave the ties between our peoples. They need us. More than that, the Mother needs us.” Her gaze turns inward as is her way when the Mother communes with her.
I reach up and rub at my eyes. I have more of a clue than most. Whoever had used my magic to forge flesh is my bound partner…
Sighing, Jacob murmurs, “Four Demon Kings and three Queens. Hardly seems far.”
“When do the demons ever fight fair?” I counter. “At least one of the Demon Kings has perished. That’s something.”
“It was a catalyst,” Bea predicts, then she sucks in air. “That was the easiest of kills. The rest… the Kings will not perish so quickly. It is time for you to go, my sons.”
“Where?” Benjamin questions, his jaw tight at her omen.
“To Maryland, where the three Vampyre Kings and their Consorts are in congress,” she whispers.
And like that, our aimless wanderings on this Earth are put to an end. With our purpose set in stone, it is time for us to take the first step on a path we can only pray will be fortuitous for the people of this world.
If we fail… well, this is not the time to think of failure. Nor is it the time to think of success.
Even as I rub the back of my neck, my thoughts are consumed with just who my mates are.
I’m not thinking of the Fomor, of the Demon Kings I must help kill. I think of them. Of her, and I wonder who exactly they may be.
To Be Continued
Afterword
Yep, you may have guessed it.
We will be returning to Lyssa, Dima, and Niko’s lives in the not too distant future.
Until then, I hope you’re as psyched as I am about Zeke, Rule, the elusive Lykke, and the witch who is about to become a part of their relationship. Nope, I’m not going to give you more of a hint. You already know who Curzio and Dante’s witch is, after all. ;)
