Page 52 of Blood & Bedlam

“And I’d do it again,” she hisses back, and despite the dire situation, my chest fills with warmth. I don’t know what a soul tie is, but Mina, my Mina, she did that for me. She chose me then, and she just chose me again.

“Selfish,” he spits, taking a few steps away before rounding on her again, more composed. I try to manifest my shadows, but I can’t get them to come to me. “We were linked, Mina. Our power, our legacy, our blood. You diluted it, then you ripped a hole in the chain. Thousands of years of accumulated power leaked from us like a sieve. Just gone. It took less than a fortnight.” He wiggles his fingers, mimicking a bird flying away.

“But that wasn’t all. You broke the line, and because of it, we couldn’t retain outside magic. They cannibalized each other, Mina. The only magic we would consume was our own. I watched him do it. I watched him crack apart her chest and drain her dry.” His eyes mist over, and whoever he’s talking about, Reine understands because the catch in her breath is audible.

Alesso scowls and closes the distance when tears well up in her eyes.

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t. You don’t get to cry over my mother’s death. You don’t get to mourn, because you sold her out to protect him. To ensure he never died. Did you know when you did it what would happen to us? It took less than a year for ten generations of our coven to murder each other. He held out, to the very end, and when she wouldn’t let him take my power, he took hers. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. There wasn’t even a soul to bring back. He took her spark.” Such pain—torment litters his voice, the cold fury arctic.

“I thought it would only be my magic, my power, that fed his immortality.” She reaches a shaking hand for him, but he steps away from her comfort. Realization dawns on me. Mina wasn’t thrown from the turret; she jumped. Sacrificed herself to give me eternal life and, in turn, damned her family. Her mother …

“You chose him over your bloodline. Over our family.” The disgust is palpable in his voice, and it ignites something in Reine.

“I chose him and innocent lives over greed!” she corrects, straightening her back. “We had enough power, but it was never enough for him, or you. Don’t pretend you didn’t track down the legend, push the seers to find it. You arranged a marriage to steal and maim, all in the name of more. We were the most powerful coven in the world! I loved him, and I begged you to find another path. I wrote dozens of letters to both Father and you, but neither of you cared. I took a vow to those people and to Vladimir. I couldn’t break it. I wouldn’t.”

Arranged.

Fuck.

Looking back, it’s so easy to see how easily they manipulated us. Forced political pressure, started a war, made alliances with political marriages. They probably were responsible for the direct death of my father, too, so I would assume the throne, fall in love, and then what … give up my kingdom for my wife? Ice flushes through my veins because I would have.

To save her, I would have done anything, given anything they wanted.

“You had a duty to your family,” he growls, but Reine just laughs.

“To what? A brother who sold me like chattel to betray a kingdom? Or a father whose greed caused him to rip my mother apart, just to live a little longer?” She throws her hands up, but Alesso’s shoot out and strike her across the face. The clap is thunderous, and I go berserk, seeing the red that blooms on her cheek until it’s all I can see. The chains creek, struggling to keep me contained, and I rally, pushing with all my might.

She glares at him with her hand over the bludgeoning welt, but lowers it slowly, defiantly holding his eyeline. It isn’t the first time he’s ever struck her. I can tell by the way she’s composing herself.

“It doesn’t matter. He took the bait in the book I’m sure you planted for him to find, and then he took the power inside of him—and look what he did with it. More beast than man.” The contempt in his gaze as he gives me a once-over is loud in the silence. “Then he shared slivers of it with the abominations he created as children. What a fucking waste.”

“What do you want?” she asks as he places his hands in his pockets and lifts a confused eyebrow.

“Isn’t it obvious? I want the power back. I spent eight hundred years scraping by, rationing magic and gathering totems to keep myself alive so I could figure out how to do it. It took longer than I expected to gather all the pieces, but I’m patient, Mina. You remember how patient I can be.”

“And you?” She speaks directly to the vampire who’s fang I tore out, the tone of her voice steel as she interrogates him. “What did you have to gain from this? Aligning yourself with a witch.” I watch his eyebrow raise, but it’s his mother who answers.

“Territory, power, honor. And the leechi is an abomination. He is not born or bitten, and yet he commands space in our society. No more.” She growls at Reine, flashing her teeth. It explains the long-standing feud between the Italians and us. I had always attributed it to First Blood bias, but if he’s been planning this for eight hundred years … he could have puppeteered it all.

“If you wanted the power, then why bring me back? Do you think he’s going to care what you do to me?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. “I assume you’re wanting to leverage my life for it, but I betrayed him. Vladimir doesn’t know me now, and he’s certainly not going to voluntarily give the ability to be unkillable up for someone he doesn’t give a damn about.”

She’s bluffing. I know it, she knows it, and I suspect he does too. I’d fucking die for her, but I don’t dare look at her again. She’s stalling, but for what I can’t tell. I still can’t reach the girls, the link between us severed by whatever magic is binding me here.

“I don’t think that’s true, little sister. But let’s say you’re correct, and that’s not a mate Bond I sense on you. We can pretend that barbaric display that caused the la morte dell’alba had nothing to do with who you looked like, and he was simply doing his duty. Perhaps the way he was fighting like a dog to get free of those chains while you were unconscious or the sordid position we found you both in has no effect on his decisions. I am told the Dracul is fiercely fond of his daughters …”

Alessandro snaps his fingers, and when the doors open, time stands still.

Five guards enter with Camille, the chains of violet around her body searing her exposed skin, smoking slightly as she struggles in their grip. They drag her inside, her dress scraping over the tiles, and the roar that rips out of my chest shakes the building. Cami’s silvery hair is matted with blood, and there’s a puncture wound in her chest that isn’t healing. Her wrists shake as she glances up at me, and in her eyes, I see her rage but also fear when she takes in my bound state. She’s never seen me rendered powerless before, and it shakes her.

“You’re going to take your power back from him, and seal this fucking hole in our line.” Alessandro points to Reine, who immediately moves to Cami, but he wraps Reine up easily, locking her in a choke. The guards around Cami let their eyes roam over her, the disheveled state of her dress, the heave of her chest, and my protective instincts go into overdrive.

I’m the fucking Dracul. I’ve been beaten, shot, stabbed, locked in a box, and tossed in the ocean, had my heart ripped out, and none of that has kept me down … but these chains. They’re unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

“No,” Reine sputters as his forearm flexes, cutting off her airway until she’s gasping for breath.

“You will. You’ll take back what is yours, and the Dracul will relinquish his stolen power for me to absorb. And if you continue to defy me, well …” He leans in closer, whispering in her ear, but in a room full of Otherworlders, it may as well be a shout. “I’ll let them return this Casket Girl to her original mandate, and her daddy can watch as they defile her, over and over again. And if either of you still don’t relent, there are three others to choose from. Your guards, Eternals I believe you call them, the ones that survived the initial onslaught, managed to get them away, but this one had fire. She stayed to fight, and wouldn’t you know how poetic that is for us …”