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Chapter thirteen
TORY
“You’re crazy.” My eyes focused on the blood dripping down West’s skin and soaking into his shirt cuff.
“Am I?” he asked gently. I nodded, my eyes fixed on the crimson trail. I ran my tongue over my lips as my mouth watered. I watched, hypnotised, as West slid a finger down his wrist and then reached out and painted a thin layer of his blood on my lips. I jerked back, startled, the action breaking my crazy fixation on his blood.
“West! What the... What the hell are you doing?” I went to raise my hand to scrub it off, but he grabbed my wrist.
“Use your tongue,” he ordered, staring down at me. Held by his intense blue gaze, I did as I was told, swiping my tongue over my lips again, this time tasting his blood. I gasped, closing my eyes and tilting my head back as the taste exploded in my mouth. It tasted of blood, thick and metallic, but it also tasted of something else, something that burst with flavour and sent my senses tingling, snapping me into a strange sense of alertness, like an instant caffeine high. Had he drugged me somehow?
I opened my eyes and looked up at him in panic. He simply stood there watching me, as were the others. “What’s going on, West? Why does your blood taste like... that? What’s happening to me?” There were tears in my eyes, and I wasn’t sure if they were from anger, frustration, panic, or sheer weariness. I looked from him to Jack, then Wesley, then outside to the man in the corridor. Panic flared inside me, and I clenched my fists, feeling my nails dig sharply into my skin as I fought for something to hold on to, like my sanity, which seemed dangerously absent.
“First demons, now vampires? That’s what I am? A vampire?” I actually giggled, something I rarely, if ever, did, and I hated the sound of it.
West nodded. “Yes. No. Sort of.”
I glared at him. “Well, glad we straightened that out.”
He shook his head. “You’re not a vampire in the strictest sense. You’re where the mythology of the vampire began. You were the first vampire in your first life. You drank blood for sustenance but also for pleasure. Now that you have been awakened into this body, you will need it again, but it sustains your power, not your body. You will still need to eat and drink.”
“You’re crazy,” I repeated, though my tongue snaked across my lips to find any residue of West’s blood just to taste once more. “And what do you mean, sustain my power? Are you just taking the piss now? My entire calendar is controlled by society functions. My friends, even whom I marry, are pretty much laid out for me by that same society. For fuck’s sake, I can’t even volunteer on a dig without being manhandled by bodyguards my parents employ. Not exactly feeling very powerful here, West.” The humour was quickly draining out of the situation.
West leaned back against the table behind him and folded his arms across his chest. “Whether you feel it or not right now, you are an extremely powerful being. Speaking of your dear old mum and dad, they don’t know anything about this, so they aren’t vampires either. As I said, you aren’t exactly a stereotypical vampire. You’re an ancient being who reincarnates over and over again and needs blood to sustain her magic.”
“A goddess,” Jack added helpfully. West shot him a reprimanding look, and I swung around to stare at him. He kept a straight face.
I laughed again, and this time it sounded more psychotic than giggly. “A goddess? Me? of what, luxurious prisons? Arrogant boyfriends? Expensive champagne? No, don’t tell me. It’s the cats isn’t it? That’s why they like me so much. It isn’t actually the tuna treats.” The guys looked at each other and then down at the ground. Even West averted his gaze, and I swear there was a smile at the corner of his mouth from the way it twitched. I stared at them. “You’re kidding me, right? Seriously? Cats?”
“Why do you think we’re here, my queen?” Jack asked softly.
I stared at him, then back at West, who was no longer smiling. To my amazement, he knelt down in front of me and took my hand in his.
“You are, and always have been, our beloved goddess, Bastet, Queen of Prosperity and Pleasure, daughter of the sun and slayer of the serpent. You do not remember yet, but you will. You will remember who you are and who we are, and all will be well.”
I stared at him in shock. West, my cocky, arrogant bodyguard, my essential jailer who had controlled so many aspects of my life from a young child, was on his knees before me. He looked up, and his ice-blue eyes met mine. Something flashed across them, and for a moment, he seemed so much older than his apparent thirty-five years.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
Jack knelt next to him and took my other hand. “Your devoted priests, my lady, as are Zayn and Wesley and many others who will remember and return to your service now that you have awoken.”
I looked from him to West to Wesley, and then to Zayn who was standing quietly behind them. They all watched me silently, and I could see they were waiting for my reaction. I was still in shock, and I wasn’t sure how to react. Were they expecting me to freak out and run screaming from the room? Judging by the way Zayn hovered by the door, I was inclined to believe that they expected that reaction. To be honest, I couldn’t do much but stare at West. His eyes burned into mine with an intensity I had never seen before. It pierced me in a way that made my body heat and my skin flush. I couldn’t get the taste of his blood out of my mind. The scent hovered at my nostrils, and my mouth watered at the memory. I dropped my gaze to his throat where I could almost see his pulse throbbing under the surface. My teeth tingled, and I snatched my hands from his and Jack’s.
I began to pace the floor. I wanted to run like hell, but there was no way I was going out in those dark passageways with those hatay out there. Jack stood up and wrapped his arms around me. I appreciated the gesture, but I couldn’t take any more physical touch right now. My mouth still tinged with the taste of West’s blood, and I felt hot and shaky as well as exhausted and terrified of the things that even now hunted us in the dark.
“It’s going to be fine,” he murmured quietly, his voice reassuring even though I could see a flicker of hurt in his eyes as I pushed him away. “It’s just like waking up after a really vivid dream. You remember some things, but not others. It’ll come back to you, and you’ll start to understand who we are, what we are.”
“I can’t think, I can’t remember. I can’t handle this, Jack. I can’t even think clearly.”
West stepped forward and took me firmly by the shoulders. I tried to pull away, but he held on, and I stared up at him, confused and angry and afraid. He didn’t try to comfort me like Jack did. He was just... West.
“Lady Victoria Astley-Hawke, get a grip on yourself,” he snapped. My mouth fell open in shock. “What on earth would your father and mother say if they saw you losing your control like this? Is that how they raised you? To crumble under pressure? The way you are acting is pathetic and not at all becoming of a woman of your station.”
“How dare you? Do you have any idea what has happened to me in the last few hours?”
“Yes, I do. I happen to be the person you’ve led on a merry dance across two continents and three cities, so don’t give me that shit. I know who you are in this life, whoever you were in others, and you are wallowing in self-pity.”
Anger replaced fear, and I reached up to slap him. He grabbed my wrist in a flash, bending my arm gently but firmly behind my back and pinning me against his body.
