Chapter 34

34

R hi

“Vampires?” I gasp, my knees buckling as I try to stand.

The silver-haired woman hisses, baring her fangs at me, and snatches my wrist. Her grip is bitingly cold and now, now I understand why. She has no warmth of her own, no magic. The only way she can survive is to leech it from others. From magicals like Charmaine.

“Yes, Beautiful, vampires.” Her red eyes glint with excitement. “We hoped you would join us soon. Not quite so soon as this, but now the Black Prince will have no further reason to wait.”

She yanks me up right and along, and I struggle to pull my arm from her bruising grasp. I’m already surrounded by more of the dark magicals, swarming around me, reaching out to touch me, to scrape their fingers against my skin. I feel them tugging at my magic, sucking at it .

“Let go of me,” I cry. I reach for the light magic I’d used to dispel the ghouls out on the water back at the Gray Isle, but all that comes crackling to the surface is that crimson magic, potent and dark. It seems to send the drainers into a frenzy. They scramble to touch me, dragging me along, hissing and murmuring at each other.

“No!” I scream. “No! Let me go!”

I call through the bond for my mates. Pray they can hear me.

And then I’m being hauled into that same dark room, carried up to the raised platform, slung down hard on my knees before the feet of the Black Prince. My father.

All those stories about him, they were true. They were right all along. His kingdom is not some paradise. It’s built on the back of the suffering of others. No better than the republic. In fact, worse, much worse. A million times worse.

No wonder my mom ran from him. She must have learned the truth and fled.

“Rhianna,” he says, his voice sounding a lot less charming than it did before. “I had not planned for you to join us so soon. But here you are.”

I fling back my head and glare up at him.

“You disgust me,” I say.

“So very like your mother. I think those were her words too.”

“You killed her!” I say, flinging my magic at him. He meets it with his own, strong from his recent draining of the young boy. The two sets of magic sizzle against one another, like dark sparklers in the air, lighting up the room for a brief moment. Then they fizzle out and fall away to the ground.

“I told you. It wasn’t me. I never planned to hurt her.” He crouches down in front of me. “Just as I have no intention of hurting you, daughter. You’re too precious to kill. Much more valuable alive. Kennedy is a fool for believing any different. You will make an enviable Source indeed.”

He stands and faces the crowd of vampires, pointing at me with his hand. “My daughter. I promised you she would be powerful – powerful beyond belief. With her magic, we will be unstoppable. No longer relegated to this barren land. No longer trapped in this wasteland. With her magic, we can seize the republic. It’s what she wants, after all.” He turns and smiles at me, his crimson eyes cruel, his fangs elongating in his mouth as he stares at me.

I stumble up onto my feet and meet his gaze head on.

“I know what you are,” I spit. “And now I understand why my mom fled from you.”

“Your mom was very precious to me, but she didn’t understand. Didn’t understand what the two of us could achieve if united.”

“United?” I say. “You mean if you sucked up all my magic?”

“With your power, Rhianna, and my abilities, we could achieve great things. We could conquer not only the republic, but Aropia, too.”

“You killed that boy!” I cry. “You took his magic and left him for dead! This place is no better than the republic. It’s worse.”

“You misinterpreted what you saw. He gave his magic willingly, sacrificed himself for the greater good, for a leader who has united his lands and stopped the attacks from the East.”

“Then why the hell was he chained up!” I yell. “You’re a liar! And there’s no way you’re using my magic.”

“But it’s your destiny, Rhianna. Your mother foresaw it.”

“Fuck destiny,” I say. “There’s no way you’re taking my magic. ”

His smile widens and then he strikes me, hard across the face with the palm of his hand. I wasn’t expecting it, the pain stunning me, bringing tears into my eyes and knocking me straight back down on the floor.

He bends over me as I struggle to regain my bearings, my ears ringing with white noise.

“I can smell your blood. So potent with that crimson magic. So delicious.” He licks his lips, and then, before I’ve had a chance to lift my arms, the other vampires are back on me, gripping my arms and legs and carrying me struggling to the couch the boy had lain on earlier, cuffing my hands and my ankles.

Immediately, I sense it. The cuffs are just like those Christopher Kennedy bound my hands in. They restrict and bind my magic and my father leans over me. I shuffle on the couch, leaning away from him but I’m caught by the cuffs and he slides my hair off my neck.

“We will feed on the princess tonight,” he says, pressing his thumb painfully against the vein in my neck and making me light-headed. All the other vampires hiss in response.

My heart beats frantically and I imagine he can see the blood pulsing in my neck, can feel it under the pad of his thumb. His fangs grow longer still, his eyes so red they’re like blood.

He leans right over me.

But I’m stronger now. Bonded to five powerful mates.

I crash through the magical binds, and smash my magic against his body, just as my mates come racing into the room.

It takes the vampires a second to realize what’s happening as the Black Prince falls to the floor and I yank my arms and hands free of the cuffs, jumping off the couch. I race through the crowd of vampires as my mates barrel towards me, firing my magic as I go so no one can touch me.

As I reach the others, I let the anger and disgust inside me boil and snatch their hands. We form our circle, combining our magic and letting it pound through the crowd of drainers.

They tumble to the ground like skittles. And only then do they compute that something is wrong. They are in danger. They respond, hurtling magic towards us. But their magic is weakened – I interrupted their feeding after all – and they are nowhere near as strong as us.

Behind us there’s a commotion at the door and from my peripheral vision I see Charmaine and two of the other servants. Now I understand why Charmaine’s magic was so weak. They are the vampires’ Sources. Magicals with deep wells of magic that the vampires feed upon.

I take a gamble, remembering how frightened Charmaine had seemed, how she’d refused to answer so many of my questions.

“Help us!” I cry out. “Help us destroy them! Help overthrow them!”

There’s a hesitation and then Charmaine comes running into the room, flinging what little magic she has at the drainers. Others follow. There are shouts down the corridor and then more of the servants follow, standing alongside us and fighting against the vampires that have been using and abusing them.

And it’s working. The vampires fall one by one. Evaporating into dust.

That is until the Black Prince rises back up and strikes.

He raises his magic into the air, shooting blood-red bolts skyward and almost immediately the scores of Sources surrounding us fall to their knees, clutching their faces as if pain soars through their skulls.

“You see,” he yells, “they are mine. Infected with my magic as I drain them, programmed to obey even at their own cost. Noble to try of course – I suspected you would have your mother’s feeble sentiments – but nonetheless futile.” His eyes glitter with a madness. “No harm done. Return to your quarters and we will think no more of it.”

“Fuck no!” Renzo says, wrapping his arms around me and shooting us into time and space.