Team changes, p.18
Team Changes, page 18
Once the bruise was gone, I shook it off as best as I could and raced through all the ghosts. I didn’t want to deal with any of them that day and felt like they were going to unravel my mind soon. People noticed but didn’t say anything, simply keeping me fueled, which I appreciated.
Finally, when I was done with the ghosts, I went back to the meeting and found it was just the same back-and-forth. That wasn’t productive and I called it.
“This gives us a lot to work with and think of. For now, we know where to start. I want the knights to figure out the best spots to get back online for more vamps in your area. Stay for lunch and discuss it with who you need to. Today, we’re celebrating we survived the attack and didn’t lose anyone. Tomorrow, we get our asses in gear to make sure we keep up that track record and are ready for the next problem.”
It seemed most were ready for the meeting to end as well. It was too long in my opinion, but long enough that it was clear I would listen to options and give people voices. But not overly long where talk was all I did and people would whisper I couldn’t make a decision and maybe could be influenced.
Life was a balancing act after all.
“Talk to me about what Hanna wants and the plan,” I said to Winston off to the side once the party got started.
“More weapons, and I think you know why,” he said at a level I could barely hear. He waited until I nodded. “We have some young ones who know how to handle it all, but we would appreciate some training and teaching.”
“Or some better visual deterrents,” I muttered. “Trisha was discussing that, so speak with her, but whatever you guys need I’m fine with. I know Hanna’s not trying for world domination.”
He swallowed a snort but nodded. Then he went over how he’d brought back extra teams who were solely hunting on the side and loading up several cargo planes that had refrigeration. Hanna had made it clear the idea was smart and it needed to happen fast. Some thought Bahati’s coven would make me implode from the inside and to attack before that happened so they could get me.
Basically, they were idiots, and I wanted to claw my ears to stop hearing such stupidity.
But we had some luck in what we’d found in Mississippi. There was a massive chicken farm in good condition and wildly populated. So that got thrown on the items list along with the ducks, bass, turkeys, deer, wild boar, alligator, and black bear. Which meant we had lots of incentives for people to kill corrupted and Hanna’s power backing it up that no one would bulldoze us.
Fabulous.
The kitchen had used all the hog roasters from the wedding for the party, so there was a massive amount of pulled pork and just everything pork. That made me happy, and I grabbed myself a huge plate. I tried not to pay attention to Darius who kept being closer and gave even less to Jaxon and Cerdic who were off to the side… But I did keep catching something that I wasn’t a fan of.
Namely, James had a lot of fans. He was apparently a really popular guy.
The jealous bitch in me loved that. I seriously loved that after all he’d said the night before I got married again, and then he’d been ducking me. Yup, big time.
I was debating getting drunk when Vitor and Petre appeared, several of the super old nobles next and before I could blink. What shocked me was a few were from Bahati’s coven or visiting.
What the fuck was going on now that they had to worry about me so much?
“Risa, I apologize for my reaction, but you normally don’t come to any court and travel with a group if you do,” Vitor greeted, his posture relaxing.
I swallowed a sigh and got to my feet to see what was going on now.
“This is now our complete group,” a woman I couldn’t see replied. “One of our sisters was killed in the mass destructions. Even our speed cannot outrun a nuclear weapon.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he muttered. “Truly, but that does not explain why you are here and at such an odd time.”
A different female voice answered, but I was barely listening, focused on the situation that was upsetting me and trying to hear more of the conversation going on over there. “We are here to meet Aether’s champion. The tide was turning but she is in danger. We are here to make sure Aether and Her champion win so our planet can be rebuilt in a way it will thrive instead of implode.”
“One would expect no less of the Sisters of Earth,” Petre accepted.
I felt my mind was about to burst at what I was hearing while they were still blocking me, about to push past to see what was going on, except the final straw broke for me.
“Yeah, tonight sounds good,” James said as he leaned in closer to a female shifter. He whispered something in her ear that made her chuckle and flick her hair over her shoulder giving him all the green lights she was in.
Nope. No. Not happening. I wasn’t dealing with this shit.
Not anymore.
“I forbid it,” I bellowed, getting the attention of everyone there and not in the best sense. I ignored it and headed towards the pair. “This isn’t happening. You’re my knight and I don’t give my permission.”
The look James gave me was almost comical if any of it was remotely funny.
But it wasn’t.
He seemed to snap out of it and slapped on a smile. “Princess, I haven’t actually—”
“Get away from my knight and spread the word he’s not available,” I warned the shifter as my fangs slid out. I hated her less when she held up her hands in surrender and backed off, dipping her head to me. My focus was on James then. I grabbed his arm and bit him, taking just a sip but enough to make my point.
Namely, my bite made him orgasm.
“Not mine, huh?” I purred, licking my bite and then my fangs. “Aether seems to think otherwise.” I tossed his arm back at him, ignoring his shock. Why was he shocked? Had I really been the only one to feel anything? Had it all been a game to him? Even the possibility of that made me blow my lid. “Arrest the secretary of defense.”
Everyone froze around me, but I didn’t care how I sounded. I wanted it done.
“On what charges?” Jaxon of all people asked me.
I didn’t look at him, keeping James’s gaze. “Betraying his princess. Lying to her. There’s a list. I’m the princess and I said so.” I looked to whoever was next to me to yell at them to do it, but Cerdic moved to grab James which added to the surprise. But I met his gaze and sneered. “I’m not sure you should be the one to do it. I’m done letting people do as they want to me. You should get out of range.”
“No, I shouldn’t, and I accept whatever you think is deserved,” he said loudly.
Now he was backing me up? I was fairly sure that made me feel worse and wish he’d just stayed off to the side. Seriously, these men were going to be the death of me.
I followed after Cerdic and Jaxon who escorted James. Trisha tried to intercept me, but Vitor, Sisay, Moon, and Petre made sure to flank me through the party. I didn’t blame her, but I wasn’t happy she did it in front of people.
Then again, she probably wasn’t happy I did the same. Validly, but I was also pretty valid for blowing my lid.
We made our way down to the dungeon, and they locked him up in the first cell, Cerdic even going as far as bolting James’s wrists to the wall.
“Everyone out,” I whispered as I tried to gather my thoughts.
“No, we’re not leaving you alone right now,” Jaxon said quietly. He shook his head when I gave him a look of death. “No. You’re too upset and would never forgive yourself if you went over the line, a line any of us would cross with what else is going on. We will stand off to the side and not say a word, but we are not failing you and leaving.”
“Well, this time,” I sneered.
“You’re right, but it’s still our answer, love,” Cerdic interjected.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped. “None of you need to hear this.”
There was a sharp intake of breath that I was fairly confident was Darius figuring it out, but then Jaxon growled.
“What happened that night you slept over with him?”
“Not what you’re thinking, but shut up if you’re going to stay. I don’t want you here, and you’ve lost any right to comment on my life.” I wasn’t convinced that last part was true but… Fuck all of them. It worked and at least they listened, my guards backing off but making it clear they were staying too. I went to the cell and grabbed the bars. “Why?”
“Why what?” he whispered, not meeting my gaze.
“Why her?” I rasped, finally not holding back what I was feeling, the flood gates of pain opening fully. “Because she’s a shifter? A leopard?” I thumped the bars with my hands. “Her you can love, right? A leopard from Safie’s coven. One you’ve met since me because you don’t want real with me.”
“Inez, please,” he breathed, hanging his head.
“What did I do?” I begged. “Tell me this is about something more than I’m a princess and you can’t—tell me I did something. Tell me I’m a nutcase and you can’t handle the drama. That I could understand. Tell me anything other than it’s the one thing I cannot change and I hate about my own life.”
“It’s not—”
“Don’t lie to me again!” I bellowed, flicking the switch to open the door and storming inside the cell. I shoved his chest, and that made him look at me. “You owe me that after all the flirting and promises and lies about wanting me. Don’t lie to me again that you don’t wish I was a leopard. You lied to me that night and we both know it. You would love me if I was a shifter, a leopard like you.”
Tears filled his eyes and I saw the truth there. It was absolutely true just like I’d known, and he could never love me because I was a princess.
“You are so cruel,” I breathed as I lost the strength in my legs and sank to my knees. “You’re so fucking cruel. All the flirting and promises. All the bullshit that I would be yours and I mattered to you. All your—”
“I’m so sor—”
“I love you, and you’re sorry that you can’t ever love me because I was born a princess?” The pitch of my voice hurt my ears, but my heart was beating in my throat, and I was all-around a mess. “You made me fall in love with you and want something that would be complicated after all your promises, and you are sorry you are so heartless to feel nothing because I’m a princess?”
“Not nothing,” he argued. “Inez, it’s not nothing and it’s—”
“But you just said all of that after I came to you and then… Drifted. Another of you who says he cares but disappears.” I let out a bitter chuckle as I reached behind me for the bars. “No, you were worse. You pick a leopard shifter, which you wish I was—would love me if I was and can never be—and set up a date at my home while I’m right there. I was not ten feet away.”
“I was trying to—”
I looked at him while I pulled myself to stand. “Do you hate me?”
He gasped. “What? No, never.”
“Why would you do that to me then? Right in front of me? You hate me because I can’t be what you want, right? Is this my punishment?”
“No, no, I would never play games with you like—”
“All you’ve done is play games with me!” I screamed.
And watched in horror as a huge gash appeared on his arm. I’d seen that before. I’d seen Safie do it.
Bahati had done it to me.
Dread filled me and I stepped along the bars. I didn’t know what to say, but he started talking, and all I heard was ringing in my ears. Another wound opened along his chest and panic raced through me as I realized I was just like them. I was a monster like Bahati and Safie. I was just like them.
That was why I kept seeing Safie and now Bahati. My mind was telling me I was now them. I’d killed them and absorbed their darkness.
And I didn’t blame James for not loving me.
I didn’t blame any of them.
Vitor grabbed me and shook me, saying something I couldn’t make out the words for.
“Don’t tell Kristof,” I begged, whimpering as tears kept flowing. “Please don’t tell him. He didn’t see. He didn’t see me be a monster like them. He won’t love me if I’m like other princesses. He stayed back, so he didn’t see it. Don’t tell him. I can’t lose him too. I’ll be all alone again. Four of them couldn’t love me. I can’t lose all five. I can’t. I can’t shatter anymore. I can’t go back to being all alone again.”
And that was the moment I broke. It was as if someone pulled the plug of a lamp out of the wall and the lights went out but instead, it was in my brain. I officially hit my limit and something in my mind just disconnected.
I suddenly felt nothing, and everything around me was muted like I was underwater. It just happened and I had no idea how to fix it.
I was quite certain I didn’t want to.
16
James
I was in love with Inez.
It was a fact. The sky was blue, water was wet… And I loved her. No matter how much I tried to deny it. No matter how much I lied to myself about it, I’d fallen deeply in love with her.
If I was truly honest with myself, I think I was sunk from the moment we found Vance. Some piece of my person had been brought back to find my baby brother alive when most of our clan was wiped out. And some of our younger cousins. We’d lost scores more, but some of us had survived. Our whole clan wasn’t gone.
And it made sense that I transferred some of those feelings to the woman who had made that happen. Sure, Aether had given her the dream—which was still a hard pill to swallow—but she’d done it and brought them to us.
She was beautiful, there was no denying that, and everything people said about her was accurate or paled to the reality if they were jealous. There was more to her than her looks. To the vamps who were hundreds or thousands of years old that knew courts, hers was light and pure when they had seen only darkness.
But I saw the darkness and doubt in her that I struggled with myself. The weight of what she’d been through crushed her some days, and keeping everyone alive was all that kept her going. I knew that weight well. It was a certain type of hell most could never understand—even before the fucking apocalypse and corrupted—but she was so much younger than me and handled it well.
And never compromised herself.
Yes, I was attracted to her, but I wasn’t going near a princess. The moment she punched me because I’d tested her to see if she’d trade sex for what she wanted, like the stories I’d heard about princesses having no morals and horrible, was the moment I wanted her. Like, wanted her.
So what? There were people we wanted but couldn’t be with. That was life. It was nothing but fun flirting and sneaking hugs.
Until it wasn’t. It became more, and she was the person I thought of when I fantasized. Hell, there were many times my damn hand and dick hurt when my room was too close to hers and I could hear her having sex. And I hated the men who touched her.
Fine, I didn’t. I liked all of them, was friends mostly with a few of them even, but I hated she was theirs and not mine. Things got worse, and I kept pushing because I was an idiot. She shut it down when I said it out loud the first time that I wouldn’t ever go near a princess. The hurt in her eyes killed me, but maybe that had been for the best.
Yeah, I had only been kidding myself, and I was already sunk. I was like a druggie looking for a fix of her. Every glance we shared, every time I was near her, and every touch I stole pulled me in deeper, and there was no chance for me before I even realized it.
And then she came to me after the bachelorette party. She was going to take the vows of two more men, and I was losing my fucking mind. I couldn’t even look at another woman, and she was accepting more men. I knew it was their ways. I knew it was the ways of some shifters even.
I just couldn’t… How could she do that and remotely care about me? I knew she was capable of loving many, we all were to some extent, but mating was sharing your soul with a person. How many people could you really share your soul with?
But then she showed up to my door, and it hit me that this wasn’t the life she wanted either. She didn’t want so much complicated. Yes, she loved them, but the way she talked about things being different… We wanted the same thing. We wanted her to be born a leopard shifter so we could have fallen in love and been mated. That should have been our fate.
And then I drank myself stupid drunk that night for feeling so selfish. Here she was practically saving what was left of the world because she was a princess—including my family—and could be Aether’s champion, and I selfishly just wanted her to be something else so she could be mine. Pulling it together for the wedding and what we needed to do for the coven had been hard.
Listening to Trisha tear into me that she was on Inez’s side, and I didn’t deserve her, was harder. I knew I was a bastard, but I couldn’t help how I felt. But I would never tell Inez that, and it was time to end this before it got worse.
Not that I was sure how it could, but I wasn’t going to be the reason things crumbled around us. History was filled with loves and affairs that destroyed empires and the best of people. Time to be smarter than the past.
So I pulled away. It killed me to do, but I did it.
Especially when she clearly knew I was doing it. She would send me hurt looks like what we shared had meant the world to her and I was shutting her out. There were several times when people were pressing her on what was going on that she would pull away from them but seemed like she might tell me.
If I had known then what I did now, I would have begged her to tell me. I wouldn’t have given two shits about my feelings and let her unload everything she was holding back from us. When I realized Inez had tricked us and was off somewhere and we didn’t know where was the moment I knew I was completely in love with her in a way that would never die.
Because I would have died inside if something happened to her.
And then we learned what she’d done, Jaxon and Cerdic turning away from her instead of helping her. I hated them. I hated them for not being what she deserved and having her when I wanted her as mine… But only mine. Watching it all unfold was like a train wreck I couldn’t stop, and all I wanted to do was reach out to her. I knew if I did, I wouldn’t ever let her go again, and nothing was different between us.
