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“Xander, Skylar would kill me if I followed through with that,” she said.
“Are we clear?” I asked again. “I couldn’t live with it. You understand. Better than anyone.”
She let out a long breath. “I understand. We’re clear.”
“Thank you.” I opened the car door. No point in delaying the inevitable.
“Xander, the queen eagerly awaits your audience,” Mateo said. His voice was hollow and flat. It was like his body was there but someone else was speaking through it. I resisted the urge to shake him out of it. My wolf clawed at my chest, begging for release. Even my wolf could sense the trap we’d fallen into. I’d been so focused on Skylar that I hadn’t thought of all the angles.
Too late now.
“Lead the way,” I said.
Matteo nodded. There wasn’t even the smallest flicker of recognition in his eyes. It was unnerving. I might be walking headfirst into a trap, but I was still determined to get that stone. My friends didn’t deserve to be treated like this and I wasn’t going to allow it. Fuck, my worst case was Madison killing me if I go zombie but that couldn’t happen. I had to put an end to this insanity.
I walked over polished marble, my footsteps echoing through the huge entryway.
A woman in a pencil skirt with her hair in a tight bun glared at me through thick rimmed glasses. “Welcome, Mr. Vega.”
“I would say the pleasure was all mine but we both know that’s bullshit,” I said through a false smile.
The woman’s shrewd face didn’t change. She wasn’t even phased by me in the slightest. Well, good for her, I supposed. I guess it took a special kind of person to work for the queen. Though, I suppose she could be compelled the same as Madison had been.
I eased up a bit, suddenly feeling guilty about being harsh with her. She was possibly a prisoner here.
“My queen awaits your presence,” her eyes flicked down, clearly sizing me up, before looking back up at me, “though I’m not sure why.”
I grunted in response. Maybe this woman was here by choice after all. The moment of guilt passed and I decided I didn’t owe her anything. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
“Did he give you any trouble, Madison?” the woman asked as if I wasn’t standing right there.
“No, Justine. He came willingly,” she said.
Justine cocked an eyebrow. “Willingly?”
“I temporarily spared his companions,” she said.
Justine’s lips pressed into a thin line. Her dissatisfaction was clear in her expression.
Now, I really hated her. “Sorry to disappoint you. I know how your kind thrives on death and destruction.”
“You don’t know anything about my kind, dog,” she said.
I growled. “You’re all murderers.”
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“The queen waits,” Madison said in an unnervingly strict, empty voice. It had a similar quality to the way Matteo sounded. At least she was keeping up her act. If I wanted to get out of this, I was going to need her to be alive and free to move around the palace.
“She does,” Justine agreed. “Follow me. Touch nothing.”
As if I wanted to risk making contact with anything in this place. Justine spun on her stilettos and clicked across the marble floor. I followed her with Madison at my side. With her hair up, I was able to clearly see the tattoo on the back of her neck. Squinting, I was able to make out the queen’s symbol.
I had wondered if Justine was a victim of the queen, but I still thought her a vampire. I didn’t realize she was human. My inner wolf growled and I clenched my fists. What kind of human agrees to work for a vampire? Sure, we’d all heard the stories. Humans who wanted eternal life in exchange for servitude. The one thing those stories had in common was that the vampires often used up their familiars before they ever turned them.
This woman was worse than I thought. She wanted to be here. To be the property of another being. Who wanted that kind of life? She probably thought using the stone was a good idea. After all, she’d willingly entered into servitude.
We turned down a hallway lined with massive oil paintings in gilded frames. I walked past a legit suit of armor and a few tapestries. The vampire queen took this whole palace thing a little too seriously. What century did she think we were living in?
