Chapter 19

19

Princess for a Night

The memoryof that day lingered in my mind as I woke up in my apartment. They’d thought I was losing my mind. They hadn’t believed—hadn’t wanted to believe—that I was seeing the future. Looking back now, after all I’d recently lived through, I saw the foresight in a new light. The demons had never truly left. They’d been hiding in the shadows all along, biding their time until they could return.

Something tugged at my senses, and I realized that someone was in my apartment for the second morning in a row. I made a mental note to upgrade our security. I only hoped we could afford it. This was just getting ridiculous.

I grabbed some clothes—and my sword—then eased my bedroom door open. I found Aaron in my living room, making himself at home in front of the coffee machine.

“What’s the matter with people? Doesn’t anyone ever knock anymore?”

“I did knock,” he professed. “Several times, in fact. You didn’t answer. I grew concerned.”

“I’ll bet.”

The vampire’s lips spread into a mildly amused smile. I wondered if hanging garlic over the windows would keep him out. No, on second thought, it would probably take a moat around the building with holy water and a dragon swimming inside to do the job. Now that was security. If only I could have afforded it. I’d love to have a pet dragon, especially one that could breathe fire.

I folded my arms across my chest. “I take it you’re here for an update?”

“Yes.”

I told him everything—starting with Lady Cassandra’s demon artifacts, and ending with the Helleans being demon agents and his cousins being sucked away to the demons’ domain.

Aaron listened in silence. When I was done, he said, “How did you get access to the ruins of Decia?”

“All of that game-changing, world-shattering, crazy shit is going down, and you’re asking me how I snuck past your soldiers? You really have your priorities mixed up, Major.”

“I can’t do anything about the demons. I can do something about my patrols,” he stated, pragmatic to the core.

“I have my methods,” I said cryptically.

He gave me a hard look. “Explain.”

I smiled at him. “No.”

I wasn’t going to tell him about my friend Everett, the rogue Rev mercenary who could sneak in anywhere. Not only would that not go over well, I didn’t want to put Everett on the Diamond Edges’ most-wanted list.

“May I remind you that you work for me?” he said.

My smile never faded. “Fire me if you don’t like it.”

Even if he did fire me, I was going to keep digging until I got to the bottom of this. The demons were trying to return. This was bigger than vampire politics. It affected us all. I didn’t know if I could stop the demons’ return, but I had to try. I had to expose their allies.

“You are a very stubborn woman,” he said.

“I like to think of myself as resourceful, dogged, and cunning. I thought the Diamond Edges appreciated those qualities.”

“We do,” he said in a silky voice.

Time to change the subject. “I can’t believe the Galactic Assembly allowed you to bomb Hope.”

“We had evidence of the Revs’ involvement.”

“Cut the crap, Major. We both know what your ‘evidence’ is: fabrications and lies. Just the same as it was when you convinced the Galactic Assembly to convict Jason and me.”

“As always, you paint everything in black and white. I see two years out here at the far end of civilization hasn’t cured you of that.” He sighed.

“You were played, Aaron,” I told him. “The demons’ bombs destroyed Decia. They knew you would use the Revs as a scapegoat. It’s already happening, can’t you see? The demons are sowing the seeds of discord. They are turning vampires against witches. Mages against other mages. They are trying to divide the galaxy, to get us so busy fighting one another that they can swoop in and take over.”

“They still have to get here.”

“They already made a portal between our galaxies.”

“But according to you, it took killing a Phantom and harnessing his magic to do it, and even then, it only lasted for a few moments,” he said. “Even if their agents hunted down and killed every Phantom there is, they wouldn’t be able to create enough portals to bring through the troops that they need for a full-scale invasion.”

“They’re working on something else. They must be,” I insisted. “Even now, their agents are still manipulating us. Lady Cassandra is one of them. And the witches might be their latest allies. The demons gave them weapons because they want conflict and unrest. They saw the witches weren’t strong enough to hurt you, so they gave them the means to do it. This is all a game to them.”

“We must find Lady Cassandra’s accomplices and any other traitors,” Aaron said.

“Isn’t that playing right into the demons’ hands?”

“What would you have me do?” he demanded. “Leave demon allies in key positions of power?”

He had a point. No matter what we did, we lost. I hated those damned demons.

“I have a lead for you.” I told him about Silas’s Extraction on Larix. “We need to speak to Melody.”

“I can arrest her.”

“No, I have no proof that she’s guilty. Let’s talk to people before arresting them.” I shot him a hard look. “And before shooting them.”

“Very well,” he agreed. “We’ll do it your way.”

The calculating smile on his face worried me.

“Lord Vencent is holding a gala tonight,” he continued. “All the vampire nobility will be there.”

“Lapis. That’s Lord Vencent’s planet, right?”

“You know all the vampire worlds.”

“Some.” I shrugged. “I’ve done a few jobs in Lord Vencent’s territory. I know of a portal that will bring us close to the palace on Lapis.”

“You are competent.”

“Try not to sound so surprised,” I said drily.

“Oh, I’m not. That is, after all, one of many reasons I hired you.”

I didn’t ask about his other reasons. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.

“But Lord Vencent’s gala is not on Lapis,” he said. “It’s in Orion. In Lord Vencent’s home on Imperial Lane.”

Orion was the capital city of the vampires’ empire, the home of the imperial palace, where the emperor and his family lived. All the vampire nobles had a home in the city, a base of operations from which they conducted business in the capital—and threw extravagant parties, apparently.

“And you’re attending this gala tonight?” I asked Aaron.

“I hadn’t planned on it, though Lord Adrian wants me to go. He thinks it will solidify my position as the next emperor.”

So Lord Adrian was backing Aaron. It wasn’t surprising since he was Aaron’s boss, the lord who oversaw the Diamond Edges that Aaron led.

“Have you considered that our investigation might lead back to Lord Adrian?”

“I have considered all possibilities,” he replied. “But I don’t think he’s helping the demons. Lord Adrian is a very patriotic man. And his ancestors led our charge against the demons last time. That’s how the territory of Greenwood gained so much power and influence in the Empire.”

“People aren’t always what they seem. What if the trail leads to him?”

“If the trail leads to him, it doesn’t change a thing. Treason is still treason, no matter who commits it,” he stated coolly. “Do you have something suitable to wear to the gala? It starts in an hour.”

Right. It was nighttime on Imperial Lane right now.

“I was going to wear this.” I turned on the spot, showing off my tank top and shorts.

“You’re joking.” Aaron sounded disappointed.

“Of course I am.” I rolled my eyes. “And, yes, I have something to wear. This isn’t the first party I’ve crashed.” I headed back to my bedroom to put on my dress and freshen up. I doubted the vampire nobility was impressed by bed hair.

Aaron followed me to my room. “You won’t be crashing the party,” he said from the door, typing some text into his phone. “You’ll be attending as my date. I’ve already added you to the guest list.”

“If this is your way of forcing me to go out with you—“

He put his phone away. “The gala is for vampire nobility and their dates. No bodyguards. And no private investigators.”

“I am a private investigator.”

“Not tonight you aren’t. You are my date, Elite Prophet and former Princess of Laelia.”

“Please don’t tell me you put all of that on the guest list.”

“Of course.”

“Yeah, this will go over well,” I sighed, slipping into my dress.

Aaron turned his back to me. He might have been a vicious killer, but he was also a gentleman. “Terra, you have to trust me. They won’t respect you if you don’t put on airs. And if they don’t respect you, they won’t answer your questions.”

“And they will respect a former princess who was stripped of her title?”

“Yes,” he said with complete confidence. “It shows you’ve run in circles like theirs. And being a mage, you will be interesting to them, exotic.”

Like a pineapple.

“But most of all, being the Elite Prophet will make them fear you,” he continued. “Fear you for your ability to see what schemes they will someday try.”

“It’s not that simple. I can’t control my power that well. Not without my magic accessories.”

One of which was sitting in my safe. I couldn’t use it until I finished Aaron’s job. Or until I quit the job on account of his wrongdoing. But he hadn’t betrayed me, or done anything wrong yet—well, except for sneaking into my apartment.

“They don’t have to know that,” he said. “In fact, don’t tell them anything about your magic. Just stand there and give them knowing looks, letting them drown in their own worst fears of what you could do. Fear is a far better shield than respect.”

That was vampire morality in a nutshell.

“Ok, I’m ready,” I declared.

Aaron turned, his face lighting up when he saw my dress. It was a sleeveless, mermaid-cut gown that hugged my curves halfway down my legs, where it flared out like a flamenco skirt. The fabric was dark blue woven with silver threads that lit up when they caught the light just right.

“You look beautiful.” He moved behind me. His hand flashed out, and he fastened a necklace of blue diamonds around my neck. “Perfect,” he said with satisfaction. “Now you will really turn heads.”

In the mirror, I saw the diamonds twinkled against my skin. My sapphire eyes seemed to sparkle even more next to the blue stones.

“It’s beautiful.” I brushed my fingertips across the necklace. There must have been thousands of diamonds in it. “But I can’t accept it.”

“I wasn’t giving it to you, Terra,” he said with an amused look. “It’s just for tonight. If you want me to shower you with jewels, then we’re going to have to renegotiate the nature of our relationship.”

“We don’t have a relationship, Aaron,” I told him. “You would do well to remember that.”

“Of course.” He watched me closely as he handed me the box of matching earrings. “Just for tonight.” His mouth quirked up.

He knew how much I loved beautiful things. And he was using that against me.

I shook my head. “No, it’s too much. Too obvious.”

“The diamonds bring out the spark in your eyes. They make you look even more like a mage. And that’s what we’ll need tonight. You need to look like a force to be reckoned with.”