“Watch me,” I say as I prepare to Astral my arse out of here. Or at least attempt to. I’m not sure if I can now or not. I certainly couldn’t from inside the cell.
“Leave and I will return for you and not only bring you back here, but I will bring every member of your so-called family back here with you, to rot inside their very own cells.” He smiles as he has my attention. “I am sure your sire can hold his own, at least for a few weeks. He is remarkably difficult to kill, and he still owes me his blood, but I wouldn’t bet on the others so much.”
“You are sick. What do mean he owes you? And if you threaten my family again, I will kill you,” I snarl at him, pissed that he has me over a barrel.
“Is that any way to speak to your father?” he asks with a laugh, ignoring my question.
“I will fight you to the death to protect them. You will not get your hands on any of them,” I say, going all fierce in protection of my boys.
“So protective. It’s misguided, really. You should care for your own well-being more than theirs,” he says.
“Fuck you. You clearly don’t know the first thing about family,” I hiss at him and get a resounding slap across my face for my efforts.
“Use that language with me again and I won’t stop at just a slap,” he threatens.
“Oh yeah? What will do you, strap me to the floor and bleed me out like you did with my sire?” I ask cockily.
“As much fun as that would be, I need you well and alive. At least for a time. No, I think somewhere more in the region of ripping your fangs out and then removing every single one of your claws. I hear that hurts and has dire consequences for your kind,” he says innocently.
I blanch. Very few people, Vampires and other creatures aside, know about the dire consequences of such an act. Unfortunately, I do know, and it isn’t pleasant. Defanging a Vampire is probably the worst thing you can do to one. Worse than death. They don’t grow back, and you are left without the ability to bite. While that may not sound like a big deal, it is. It is not only the loss of the bite, but also the loss of a prime piece of yourself that makes you innately a Vampire. It eventually starts to drive you crazy, and I mean funny-farm crazy. It might take decades, maybe less depending on your strength of character, but you will eventually lose your mind and your senses and become nothing more than a feral creature that needs putting down. Combined with declawing, you might as well just stake the Vampire on the spot as the degradation is quick and painful and ugly. How do I know? Because I saw Lance use it more than once on my fellow prisoners. How I was lucky enough to not end up on the same end of that treatment remains a mystery. Maybe because he kept hoping I would give him myself, and if I did, he wanted me as a fully functioning member of the Vampire club.
“I see that gave you pause,” he says, interrupting my thoughts.
“How do you even know about that?” I ask.
“Oh, I know almost every way to destroy your kind. You see, Vampires are probably the worst creatures to roam the Realms. Stealing our blood so that they can walk in the light. It’s despicable behavior,” he says.
“They don’t know,” I say, needing to defend my race. “They don’t know it’s the Faerie blood that activates the protection spell. I only just figured it out a few weeks ago.”
“Not just Faerie blood,” he says. “But knowledge of the ins and outs matters not. There are those who do know and still continue to offer us up as some sort of prize.”
I blink at him and his hatred, but I suppose I have to give the man a break. From his point of view it must feel like the ultimate humiliation. “Only those deemed worthy get the silver,” I say and it’s lame, but I feel I need to say something.
“Perhaps, but then it gets passed to those who didn’t earn it. That’s the part I don’t get,” he says, puzzled. “If you are going to fight for something and be deemed worthy of it then it should be yours to keep. Who is to say that the one you give it to is worth it?”
Good fucking point. And not one I had ever even thought of. “I…err…yes,” I say, flustered and somewhat embarrassed that this had never crossed my mind before. All you have to do is look at Constantine and Lance to know it is true. “As Queen, that is perhaps something I can look to change,” I say with an authority that I don’t feel.
“Ah yes, Queen of the Underworld,” he says, casting his critical gaze over my casual, muddy outfit. “It’s easy to forget when you look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Hey!” I snap. “You are the one who Vamp-napped my sire, forcing me to come to this place to get him. You really should keep your cells in better shape if you expect your prisoners to look decent.”
“I didn’t Vamp-nap him,” he says, offended. “He offered to come in exchange for me leaving you alone long enough to recover from your…injuries. And if prison cells are supposed to be comfortable, it sort of defeats the object, wouldn’t you say?”
“He asked you to do that?” I ask softly.
“Yes, I have to say you put up a damn good fight. Your Fae powers are coming along nicely. You pulled up that storm and used it like a true Princess. For that, I think I may be proud. I haven’t decided yet. But you were most definitely on the losing side. A word of advice, power isn’t everything. You need to know what to do with it. Your sire is a warrior. He was born a warrior and he fights like a warrior. If you expect to beat him, you need to fight like a warrior too.”
“I expect never to see him again, let alone fight him again,” I say, the hurt of what he said and did to me coming back to the surface.
“Well, can’t say that I blame you. That fall looked like it hurt,” he says with mock concern.
“Hurt?” I yell at him. “It broke every bone in my body.”
“And yet here you are, perfectly fine as he knew you would be. So, daughter, are you going to stay and do your duty, or am I going to have to track you back to Earth and start rounding up your friends? I can start with the man you call your husband,” he says.
“Lay a finger on Cole and I will rip your head clean from your shoulders,” I say forcefully.
“Cole? Our information had you in an unholy union with the Demon Overlord,” Drake says with a small frown.