Chapter Twenty-six

“Augghhh!”

I screamed and sat up, staring around wildly.

At a darkened room.

My room, I realized, recognizing the mural on the far wall, splashed with moonlight.

And my bed, where I was lying next to—

There were running feet, a door crashing open, and a light flicking on, but I barely noticed. Because Louis-Cesare was beside me, and he was all right. He was all right!

Only, he wasn’t. He was out cold, in a healing trance, the kind vamps fall into when they need all their strength focused on repairing catastrophic damage. Damage I could still see in ridges and ripples of flesh, healed over but not yet smoothed out, what seemed like everywhere.

There was a huge indentation over his heart, with new, pink skin puckered and drawn around it. Another where his belly button should have been, except that it had been carved anew by hot metal, embedded pieces of which still ringed the crater the bullet had left. I pushed back the duvet and found a third wound in his thigh, angry and red and seeping into the bandage I pulled away.

It looked like a shark had taken a bite out of him.

There were other wounds, too, smaller but still visible, because a vampire’s body isn’t like a human’s. It prioritizes healing, putting the most dangerous wounds first. So the little lesions, which should have been closed in an instant, hadn’t been, because he’d needed, because he’d almost, because—

“Dory?”

There were other people here now, and he was naked. I should have been covering him back up, but I wasn’t. I was pulling him into my arms, crying and making sounds that weren’t screams, but weren’t not screams, either. And staring at the wall, my wall, which should have been comforting but wasn’t, because one of those shots had taken his heart. It had taken his heart, and if another had torn through his neck, or if a piece of shrapnel had—

“Dory. Dory, take this,” someone was saying, and trying to give me a cup of some hideous-smelling concoction.

I didn’t take it. I held on instead, rocking him slightly, I didn’t know why. Maybe to comfort him, although he didn’t know it. Maybe to comfort me. While a litany of no, no, no rang in my head, and may have come out of my mouth, but I couldn’t tell, didn’t care. Because he wouldn’t have suffered all that except for me, because he could have dodged any of those things but for me, because he deliberately—and I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—

“Dory!”

Someone snapped their fingers in front of my face, loud enough to make me blink.

It was Olga. I looked up to see her bending over the two of us, her hair in a mess. She had on a baby blue robe over a floral nightgown; I don’t know why I noticed that. She took my head between her hands—giant, strong, strangely comforting hands—and looked into my eyes.

“He survive. You survive. It over.”

But she was wrong. It wasn’t over. I’d almost gotten him killed, and it wasn’t over at all.

“Olga, can you?”

That was Claire, passing her the horrible brew. Which Olga fed me like I was a baby. It tasted as awful as it smelled, and was a complete waste of time because it didn’t do a damned—

---

The next time I woke up, the sun was shining through the curtains and Louis-Cesare was gone. For a moment, I just stared at the indentation in the mattress, at sheets that still held the scent of his body, at faint traces of blood on the duvet. And then I was up and running for the door, and bursting out into the hall—

Where Gessa was playing with the boys on the sunny boards of the landing.

I stared at them. There were blankets and toys and a large, pinkish bear that had now lost both ears but otherwise seemed to be holding up. It was regarding me quizzically, like everyone else.

I swallowed, and just stood there, swaying for a moment. “Where—”

“He fine,” Gessa told me. “He go talk to Senate. He said tell you.”

I swallowed again. “Okay.”

Stinky came over and offered me a cookie. It was half-eaten and the rest was seriously slobbered on. He was badly in need of braces—if his adult teeth ever finished coming in—and he drooled a lot.

“Thanks. I’m okay,” I told him, and went back into the bedroom.

I was not okay. I looked down to see that my hands were shaking, which was absurd. I sat down on the bed, but all I could see were bloodstained sheets. All I could hear was the sound of those bullets hitting flesh. And tearing and rending and—

My breath started coming faster, and I wondered if this was what a panic attack felt like. I didn’t know because I’d never had one. Dhampirs didn’t. Of course, dhampirs didn’t have friends or families or children or—

I got up and went to the bathroom.

My face in the mirror looked like a stranger’s: gaunt and dead white except for the burning, half-golden tint of my eyes. They looked like my father’s, when he was calling up power. They looked alien.

They looked like hers.

I cut that thought off hard. I didn’t want to think about her right now. How she’d taken over my body, and forced me to follow her commands, instead of helping him. Together, Louis-Cesare and I could have laid waste; together we could have cleared the fucking room. Instead—

I saw my lip curl, showing fang. I wanted to put a fist through the mirror. I wanted—

To look at something else, I told myself harshly. Before you give her even more control! Calm down!

I didn’t calm down, but I did look away. And let my eyes roam over the bathroom, but that didn’t seem to help. Couldn’t think; didn’t know why I’d come in here.

Until I bent over the sink, to splash some water on my face, and my ribs screamed at me.

Oh.

That was why.

I peeled off the baggy sweatpants and T-shirt someone had put on me, and checked out the damage.

The slinky jumpsuit had provided zero protection, but Louis-Cesare had drawn most of the fire and I’d been surrounded by troll. The worst I’d suffered was a bunch of weird, round bruises, peppering my stomach and thighs, from the porcupine-quill-like shrapnel thrown up by the destroyed floor. They were puffy and sore, with an angry red eye in the middle of each one. My ribs were also pissed off again, I was stiff as hell, and I felt uncharacteristically weak from the blood loss. But it could have been worse.

It could have been a lot worse.

I sat on the side of the tub and put my head in my hands.

I felt like shit, but it wasn’t physical. I’d fought in worse shape than this—way worse. But I’d never hurt like this.

He’s okay, I told myself. What is wrong with you? Get up, get dressed, get busy! You only have about a thousand things to do!

I didn’t get up. And I already felt busy, like my head was sucking up all my strength, trying to sort out a mess that couldn’t be sorted. I didn’t have the skill set for this. I didn’t even know where to start. My thoughts just went round and round, until they made me dizzy, until they made me want to throw up.

If we hadn’t been attacked so ferociously, and thereby held up, would Dorina have drowned a theatre full of people? Would she have pressed that trigger if they’d still been inside? I didn’t know.

Like I didn’t know how well she’d been following the fight. With her mind literally elsewhere, had she realized how much danger she’d put us in? Did she care?

Or was she confident that she could get me—and therefore herself—out of there, and fuck everyone else? She’d saved the fey, people she didn’t even know, but what about the people I knew? What about Olga and Ray and—

If Louis-Cesare was anyone else, he’d be dead right now.

The thought intruded on my mental battle, loud and clanging, like a cymbal dropped on concrete. It made logical thought impossible, because every time I tried, there it was again, resonating. Over and over, louder and louder, that moment when he’d pushed me out of the way stuck on repeat in perfect clarity.

I could see the brilliant crimson of his blood, brighter than the acres of curtains; could feel the warm stickiness hitting me in great bursts; could smell it in the air, partially vaporized by the force of the bullets, and rich with power he could no longer use. Shook again as I hit the floor of the box, sliding painfully into the hard wood of the side, unable to stop with his weight on top of me. Felt her throw him off and jerk the weapon out from under him, like it was nothing, like he didn’t matter.

Because, to her, he didn’t.

I finally got up and took a shower. The water hurt the bruises, but it was a familiar, burning ache, almost comforting. I knew how to bleed; I knew how to heal. But this . . . I didn’t know how to do this.

The hot water ran out before I was finished, because we only had about a thousand people taking showers these days. I rinsed in cold, got out, dried off, and put on some clean sweats. I thought about combing out my hair, but it didn’t seem important. Neither did the hunger clawing in my belly, the ever-present cost of a dhampir’s metabolism. I felt it; I just didn’t care.

I wanted to call somebody, to report what I’d seen, but Louis-Cesare was already doing that. The only thing he didn’t know was what Dorina had overheard in that underwater room, but that seemed . . . really unlikely. The mage had told Curly that he was in charge, and it had sounded like he was talking about Geminus’ family. Only vampire families didn’t work like that.

Like really didn’t.

Vampires thought of themselves as a breed apart, better, smarter, longer-lived—basically an evolved sort of human. Homo superior, I’d heard one say once, and he hadn’t been joking. To take orders from a regular old garden-variety human, even a magical one, would be like . . .

Well, like your dog walking you.

It just didn’t happen.

And then there was the fact that what I’d heard, or thought I’d heard, had come from Dorina. She’d been riding that guard; she’d heard what was said, not me. So this was secondhand information, filtered through a wobbly link, and from a source I didn’t entirely—

Goddamn it!

I’d twisted wrong, picking up a dropped towel, and pain ripped through me. I stood there, panting by the sink for a moment, tamping down a desire to rip it out of the wall. Screw it. I couldn’t do this right now. Like I couldn’t heal if I didn’t eat.

I threw the damned towel in the bathtub and headed out the door.

And almost tripped over some fey drinking coffee.

I must have been in the bath longer than I’d thought, because Gessa and the boys had moved on. The fey were in their place, looking like they were taking a break from whatever fresh hell Claire had been putting them through. And eating their version of biscotti, with big mugs of steaming-hot brew.

Or, at least, they were until I showed up, when they abruptly scrambled to their feet.

Okay, that was . . . different.

Because another thing the fey didn’t do was to give a shit about their dhampir housemate. They’d always treated me as something between a high-ranking servant—because I traded protection for rent—and a friend of Claire’s. Which meant that I was well below them in the household hierarchy, but also not theirs to order around. That had worked out, leaving us on a casual, vaguely friendly footing, with no obligations either way.

Including whatever the heck this was.

“Good coffee?” I finally asked, when the silence stretched a little long.

“You need more,” one of them said, holding up his mug, which was the size of a soup bowl. And had another elbow him in the ribs.

“I thought you guys didn’t like it.”

“We’re trying to acclimatize ourselves to your strange Earth foodstuffs,” a second one said, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at another tall, well-built blond, a carbon copy of all the rest except for his expression.

His expression was . . . well, shit.

“Is there a problem?” I asked, because clearly.

There was no answer. But the stare-down continued—why, I didn’t know. I’d spent the day sleeping. Pissing off somebody while unconscious was a new one, even for me.

“Reiðarr,” a taller fey said, and put a hand on the angry one’s arm.

And had it immediately shrugged off.

I looked between the two of them. “Okay, what?”

“It’s nothing,” Coffee Lover said.

“Seems kind of tense for nothing.”

“He’s being ridiculous—”

“Watch yourself!” Reiðarr flushed, and his hand flexed. The one on the same side as his sword. “It’s my right—”

“It’s your neck!” Coffee Lover snapped. “The king likes this one—”

“Then he should have put her under his protection!”

The tall fey, who was also a little bulkier, and who hadn’t liked having his hand shrugged off, smiled at him. It wasn’t a particularly nice expression. “Maybe he doesn’t think she needs it.”

Angry Ass didn’t like that, turning flashing eyes on his supposed ally.

“You’re only doing this because the king’s away,” Coffee Lover accused.

“He’s still away?” I asked.

“He remains at your Senate. He should be back soon.” He shifted his gaze to his buddy. “Which is why you should wait until he returns.”

“He’s afraid he won’t allow it,” one of the others said. “I told you—”

“Won’t allow what?” I asked. Because I hadn’t had my coffee yet—or eggs or toast or anything else—and was getting annoyed.

“Tell her,” the tall one said.

“It’s my right,” Reiðarr repeated, ignoring him. Because I guess I didn’t merit an explanation.

His fellow fey just looked at him, with expressions ranging from embarrassed to pissed off. Like when the angry drunk guy who wants to fight everyone is your cousin. Only I didn’t think this guy was drunk.

I didn’t know what he was, and wondered if I cared.

“It is!” he insisted.

Annnnd the verdict was in.

“Fuck this,” I said, and headed for the stairs.

And had a heavy hand grab my shoulder and spin me around, which was not the problem.

The problem was that I was unarmed and it was from behind, and that sort of thing—

Wakes the beast.

It happened in an instant, as it always did. Rage spiraling up out of nowhere, red haze descending, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. But this time, it didn’t come from her.

This time, it came from me.

I felt her start to rise—the familiar, hateful rush—and something in me snapped. I’d spent most of my life containing my anger, trying to tamp it down, to beat it back. I’d spent years learning techniques to quiet the beast.

But not this time.

This time, for the first time, my rage matched her own.

I saw again the puckered skin, the bloody wounds, the glittering pieces of shrapnel Louis-Cesare was going to have to dig out of his healed flesh at some point, yet more pain. Like all the rest he’d suffered for me, but because of her! She’d hamstrung me in battle, almost gotten him killed, like she’d taken over time and time again, blacking me out and using my body to do unspeakable things.

Not this time!

I threw everything I had at her: five hundred years of pain and fear and hate, a storm of fury with all the raging wildness of a hurricane. And it felt good—God it did! To let go for once, and let her know how it felt for a change!

And it was a change.

Because, instead of everything going black, the sunlit room merely darkened. Instead of gutting the fey with the knife that my hand had decided—on its own—to pluck from his boot, I drove it into the floor. And instead of passing out, and leaving my body in Dorina’s hands, it felt like there were suddenly two captains on this ship, each fighting for control.

And I wasn’t finished yet!

But the fey almost was. He was trying to scramble away, after my leg swept his out from under him and we followed him to the floor. But Dorina was faster, grabbing the still-quivering knife out of the floorboards and—shit.

The knife was a blur even to my eyes, hitting down a dozen more times in a staccato beat, as she ripped it out of the floor and I drove it back in, over and over, trying to bury it. That didn’t work, and it was everything I could do to keep it out of the fey’s flesh. Which wasn’t helped by his twisting and turning—and squealing, when the latest strike sliced through his trousers in a particularly vulnerable area.

It didn’t slice through anything else, but it was close. I needed to get rid of the damned thing—now—and started struggling to throw it out the window. But all that did was screw up my vision, making it look like someone was flipping a switch on and off, on and off, while the damned fey yelled and rolled around some more instead of taking the chance to—

Finally! He’d made it to his feet, but he didn’t run. And then things got interesting.

Darkness: She tripped him, grabbed his hair, used it like a handle to bare his throat—

Light: I twisted the knife at the last second, slammed the hilt into his temple, tried to knock him out, hoping that would end this.

Darkness: But he stayed conscious and she latched onto the idea, jackhammering the thick wooden handle repeatedly into his face.

Light: I shoved him away, toward the wall, and ran for the stairs—

Darkness: She spun us around and lunged for him, catching him before the paneling did, and then crashing his head through it—

Light: So I threw him at the stairs, hoping he’d take the hint and run, goddamn it!

Instead, he snarled and whirled, face a bloody mess, but eyes flashing, and unsheathed a sword. Immediately, a wave of heightened rage flooded my body, tingled my fingertips, sapped my control. And sucked all the light out of the room in a split second, leaving me fumbling in the dark.

But not unconscious; not yet.

But I was left trying to stop a fight by hearing alone, because she had my eyes now and she wasn’t giving them back. And the idiot had a weapon, and if the fey’s reputation was anything to go by, he knew how to use it. And his buddies weren’t interfering, despite their earlier attitude. I didn’t know why; I just knew—

Fuck.

I heard the fey curse, my own voice snarl, and a sword go clattering. Felt my hand closing on a long, pale throat, a pulse beating rapidly in my palm as I squeezed. Felt it start to slow, weakening his attempts to free himself, which weren’t working anyway, because Dorina had a hand free.

I could track his movements by her responses: blow blocked, foot sweep denied and turned against him, his own momentum sending him to the floor again, half the job done right there. Gut punch arrested before it could land simply by grabbing his hand and pressing the bones until they crunched and he cried out, a barely there gasp for mercy he wouldn’t get, and I couldn’t help. Suddenly, I couldn’t do anything.

And that made it worse than all those other times. She was using my body to murder someone, and I was going to feel every second of it, a captive audience to savagery I couldn’t control any more than I’d ever managed to control her. A useless appendage that couldn’t do anything but rage, so I did.

“I hate you!” I yelled, even knowing she didn’t care. “I’ve always hated you! You take every good and decent thing and you destroy it! You’re the monster they always called us, not me, not me, and I hate—”

And just like that, the world fell away.