AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I understood then. She would kill me unless I walked into the veil. Terrified—what would it do to me? what would I become?—I tried to look away, but she shoved me forward.
“Step into your nature and learn. Or be destroyed. It is your choice.”
Weeping as she ripped my robe away, leaving me naked, I stumbled forward. There was no more leeway. Either I stepped into the veil—embraced the unknown—or I let Blood Wyne destroy me.
“Promise me one thing.” I turned to her, straightening my shoulders.
“You ask for favors, girl? Well, what do you want?” She did not flinch as she looked over the scars that shimmered on my body.
“Promise me that if I turn into the predator I fear, you will instruct Roman to stake me, and that my family will be informed.” I held myself straight, looking her in the eye. Against protocol or not, I didn’t care.
Blood Wyne nodded, slowly. “Deal.”
I turned back to the Veil. It rippled like a waterfall, and, feeling like a dead woman walking, I held out one hand to touch the shimmering field. My fingers touched the edge and then, as I walked into the Veil—
—The world fell away.
Everyone and everything was gone, and there was only me standing in the midst of the energy as it undulated around me. I’d expected to lose my mind, to be held in the grips of the blood-hunger, but instead, my mind cleared and I shivered, suddenly feeling the cold for the first time in a long, long while.
A shower of cool rain washed over me, except the rain was as blood, and it trickled down my body in rivulets, finding the channels of the scars that lined my body. I watched it flow, and for once, the smell didn’t set off the thirst. I was able to take it or leave it. I turned back, to ask Blood Wyne what this meant, but she was not there. Only the static of the Veil.
Power does not have to corrupt. You do not have to be afraid of your power if you are its mistress.
The thought raced through my mind and I frowned, not sure where it came from. I thought about walking somewhere, but there was nothing save for the waves of energy flowing around me, and I was a little afraid that I’d get lost in the currents if I moved forward.
To take control over your self, to master your powers, you must accept them, embrace them, and wear them with humility and with pride.
And there it was. On a gut level, I understood what Blood Wyne was saying, and I also knew where I fell short. I wasn’t proud of who I was. I didn’t revel in it except rare times when the bloodlust caught me up.
“I don’t know how to be proud of what I am.” I said it aloud, and my voice pierced the Veil, dancing through it with shattering effect. Shaken, dizzy from the constant movement that shifted around me, I said it again, louder. “I don’t know how to be proud of my powers…Dredge turned me, and how can I be proud of a curse given by a monster?”
The Veil twisted, coiling as I began to scream. “I don’t want to be proud of what he did to me! I don’t want to accept what he did to me! I will not forgive him, nor will I give him credit!”
As my anger grew, the crimson strings of energy began to twist and dance in on themselves, and I fell to my knees, caught in the full fury of my anger and memories. “I killed him—I dusted my sire and I’m proud of that! So how can I ever, ever embrace what he did to me?”
And then, Blood Wyne appeared in the middle of the Veil, and she knelt to take me in her arms. She lifted me to my feet, like she might lift a child, and lowered her fangs to my neck.
“You don’t have to be proud of him. Because you are my son’s daughter now, and mine. And we—we will make you dizzy with pride. Embrace me, and leave your former sire behind. Embrace my son.”
Roman appeared, on the other side, and he also wrapped his arms around me, and in the midst of the Veil, they lowered their fangs to my neck and fed, and it was glorious and delicious, and I came hard and quick, and then, without hesitation, aware only of my own desire, I fed from them, first from Roman, and then from Blood Wyne. And then, filled to the brim with the heady energy that ran through their veins, I slid into unconsciousness.
Chapter 18
When I woke, I was back in the ritual room. Blood Wyne was nowhere in sight, and I slowly sat up, feeling like I had a hangover from hell. I winced against the light, but apparently Roman had dressed me again. I leaned my head between my knees, trying to sort out everything that had happened.
As I examined my feelings, I realized something had changed. I was still me, but I felt different. Something was missing, something that had been a part of me for thirteen years. And then I knew what it was.
The feelings of shame and anger were gone.
I thought about Dredge. The fury that had remained after staking him had faded, leaving only a vague numbness. I glanced at Roman, and my heart skipped a beat as I instantly fell to my knees.>Without another word, Roman led me to the doors, and two guards bowed low when they saw him. We walked through, into the throne room.
The chamber was tremendous, as big as our entire house at home, and it was filled with seats lining the sides, like a university auditorium. At the center and back sat a raised dais and upon that dais, a throne. The throne was built of black marble, and on the throne sat a woman dressed in gold with crimson accents. She was stately, with salt-and-pepper hair, and a face lightly marred by time. She’d probably been turned when she was around fifty, and she had been in good shape, from the way she looked. Her eyes were the same pale frost as Roman’s, and his facial features mirrored hers.
Blood Wyne stood, her dress billowing around her, form-fitting on the top and spreading like a princess gown at her hips, shining gold threads interwoven with sparkling rubies that had been beaded in swirling designs. Victorian in design, the dress had a low-cut sweetheart neckline and a gothic collar that shrouded the back of her neck. Blood Wyne’s hair was swept up into a high chignon, accentuated by a diadem of rubies and diamonds inset into gold.
Pale as the mist. Pale as cream, with no color to mar her lips or cheeks. Blood Wyne, Queen of the Crimson Veil, was as cold as a sculpture formed from ice and snow.
She waited for Roman to bring me up the steps leading to the throne, and as he knelt before her, I did my best to drop into a low curtsey without disgracing myself.
