Chapter 2
Dominique Tremaine stood to the side of her sister’s throne and watched as she slowly ate a green apple in front of a group of vampires. She supposed it looked terrifying to the males on their knees waiting for Natasha to render her verdict, but all Dominique saw was her sister exaggeratedly eating an apple. With her fangs.
Natasha let the core drop to the floor, and then she dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a silk napkin. Straightening her shoulders, she slipped her manicured fingers through her pale gold hair and said, “We’re fighting with each other when we should be fighting against the wolves, who threaten to stake us at every turn. Every day I mete out punishments for those vampires who fight each other, and I’m weary of it.”
Natasha cast her silver gaze to Dominique. “Make an example of them.”
She opened her mouth to ask how she wanted that done, then snapped her teeth together with a click. Natasha didn’t like being questioned in public. Or ever.
Nodding, Dominique gestured to the guards. “Take them to the courtyard and chain them. I’ll be along shortly.”
The males on their knees begged for mercy as they were dragged away from the throne by the guards, burly vampires who had vowed themselves to Natasha’s service when she killed the previous mistress of the city of Arbor twenty years earlier.
“You could have just punished them yourself, or killed them outright,” Dominique said as she faced her sister.
“It’s easier when you do it for me. Plus it’ll be good for your reputation for the upcoming ball.”
She tried not to roll her eyes. Her sister was forever trying to get her to mate with a master of another city so she could have more allies. Natasha wouldn’t mate with a male herself because she’d have to share her rule with him, and male vampires didn’t like playing second fiddle to females, especially publicly.
Not that Dominique was looking for a mate, either. The masters of the cities around Arbor were either old or assholes. Of course, being immortal meant they didn’t age once they reached maturity, but some of them were so old that they had super-outdated ideas of a female’s place in the home. The last thing Dominique wanted was to be mated to a male who wanted to take her independence and make her a broodmare. She was Natasha’s chief advisor, the one person in the entire coven who was closest to her. She’d earned her place by learning about coven politics and studying their laws when she was young. She’d always known her sister would become mistress of a city someday, and she’d wanted to be there to help her.
Their father had been a renowned warrior who had died in the great wolf-vampire war of 1993. Their mother had returned to the coven of her birth and married another male. Neither of them had spoken to her in years, even though technology was so much further along now than it had been decades before.
Dominique turned to her sister. “Do you think Father would be proud of us?”
Her pale brows rose. “Of course. He’d be even prouder after you take a powerful male as your mate and join our cities together.”
“I suppose you have someone in mind?” she asked dryly, not bothering to hide her irritation.
She looked somewhat aghast at the notion, but Dominique wasn’t fooled. “Jahnpaul is powerful, and handsome.”
“If you say so.” Actually, he wasn’t. Dominique and her sister clearly had different ideas of what handsome meant.
“The ball is in two weeks. You’ll need to find a mate. It’s time.”
“Are you saying this as my loving sister or my mistress?”
Natasha adjusted the enormous diamond on her index finger and smiled sweetly, flashing her fangs. “As your sister. For now.”
Which meant Dominique had about two weeks to figure out how to change her sister’s mind before she did something irreparable, like make it a decree that she had to be mated. Or chose the male for Dominique herself.
And no thanks on that.
She bowed to her sister, left the throne room, and headed to the courtyard to punish the males who had annoyed the mistress.
Natasha only looked at power. She didn’t care if Dominique loved a male or found him attractive – she just wanted to use her to elevate herself. Dominique was thirty, although she didn’t look like she was out of college thanks to her immortality. She did think about finding a male to mate and start a family with, and she would certainly like her mate to be a powerful male who wouldn’t be threatened by her independence. But what she didn’t want, was for Natasha to choose a mate on her behalf.
Entering the courtyard of the mansion, she saw the four males were chained on their knees on the raised stone dais. A small crowd had gathered at the commotion. The moon shone overhead, and torches lit the area with flickering golds and reds.
“These males are being punished for fighting among themselves when the real threat is outside our gates – the shifters who would kill us and take our land for themselves. Make no mistake, the mistress sees and knows all, and any in our city who choose to fight each other over petty things will be punished as these are.” Dominique turned to the guards. “Remove their fangs.”
The crowd gasped. It was a harsh punishment. It would take two decades for the fangs to grow back, which meant the males would have to use a blade to feed from a live donor or drink a manufactured blood substitute. But it was better than staking them or cutting off their heads, which was a far more permanent punishment.
She watched as the guards pulled their fangs, then collected the bloody teeth and brought them to her. “Take them to the mistress,” she said, “and leave the males until just before dawn. They’re on house arrest for thirty days and are not allowed to attend the ball.”
Spinning on her heels, she walked down the steps of the dais and headed back into the mansion to the east wing she called home. It was on the opposite side of her sister’s opulent quarters, and she liked it that way. Her suite had a beautiful view of the city. She could see the security wall that ran the perimeter, and just beyond that, the fields that were neutral territory as decreed by the previous mistress of Arbor and a wolf leader. Beyond that space was the territory of a wolf pack. Every now and then they’d push into the neutral territory and draw close to Arbor, but only when vampires happened to move into the pack’s territory did they attack, staking them and sending their bodies back to the castle in warning.
Wolves.
If only their people weren’t always at war. It would be nice if there was peace, but the only way vampires thought there would be peace was if the wolves were wiped out.
And she was sure the wolves felt the same way.