Page 34 of House of Crimson Hearts
“Then you’ll have to win the trials,” she says, a grin tickling the corner of her thin lips.
“Oh, I’ll win. But she should have given me the title of heir. It’s mine by rights.”
Erin turns to me, stands, downs the rest of her vodka, and stares me right in the eye. “When has anyone ever beengivenpower? The greatest leaders always take it. So what are you waiting for?”
She leaves and heads towards the rear of the club, no doubt meeting the bouncers on shift tonight.
I roll her words over and over. Is she right? Do I need to mutiny against my own mother? No. It’s not that. Cordelia is up to something. These trials, this rigamarole she’s going to put us through, it’s not what it seems, but I guess the only way I’ll figure out what she’s up to is if I play her stupid fucking game.
This whole conversation has irritated me. I know Mother. What she wants is bloodshed. She’s always been this way, trying to drive wedges between us and the hunters, drive wedges between her nobles, her children. Pushing us towards her twisted ideals.
Three hundred years ago she almost caused civil war between two factions of vampire nobles because she played favourites. At all the parties and dinners, she would whisper lies of secret alliances and deception. Lie upon lie she wove and all for her twisted sense of fun.
And then there’s her children.
Where do I even start. Her eternal favouritism, constantly showering one or another of us with an inappropriate amount of attention and praise just to make the others jealous. Dahlia has been her favourite for the best part of the last one hundred and fifty years. It’s growing tiresome, that’s for sure.
Once, shortly after Xavier joined the family, he couldn’t have been turned more than a decade or two, she convinced me that if I drained him, I’d bind him to me in servitude and secure the position of heir.
Of course, it was total shit and he nearly desiccated. It was only when I gave him my blood and slaughtered half a village for him to regenerate that I saved him, and that was when we swore allegiance together and against her. I haven’t trusted her fully since then.
I should have known she wouldn’t hand me the keys to the kingdom. That would essentially put me in place as the strongest vampire house in living history. And what is Mother going to do with the rest of her long life? I can’t see her actually retiring.
Not when I’d own the entire city. The Montague territory has never had much about it, even more so after the boundary was created. None of us are even sure how the residents are surviving. Isabella—the original vampire who founded the territory, established her house and then vanished. The Montague heirs would never stand a chance against me. Not if I held Cordelia’s territory too. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of.
Fuck the humans and the hunters alike. No one would ever look at me like the freak they think I am again. I’d make them bow at my feet.
And if they refused?
I’d drain every single motherfucking one of them.
I’d dismantle the Hunter Academy, perhaps even restore the Montague territory. I could remake this city in my image, make it finally accept me.
Erin’s right. If I want control of this city, I’m going to have to take it.
* * *
When sundown arrives, I leave the club. The Midnight Market is bustling already. Mist and steam rise off the canals as the cool press of night descends, eradicating what warmth the sun left.
The air is usually full of iron, what with the number of stalls selling blood. This is the only place you can get it legally unless you’re inside the heart of the vampire territories.
But there’s something else under the metallic tang of dinner on the breeze. I follow my nose and head into the warren of stalls, down canal streets with river boats gliding gently through the water.
I move faster, not vampire-fast but speedy enough that I knock over a couple of drunk shoppers.
“Oi,” someone shouts as they nearly stumble into the canal.
“Apologies.” I wave them off, hurrying over one of the stone bridges and veering into a narrow street with tall townhouses pressing against each other. I stalk through suffocating alleys where the houses all lean at strange angles and leer over me like drunk men. The cobbles are damp here, the canal leaking its watery bowels into the street. I’ll have to keep an eye on it. A flooded market is bad for everyone’s business.
My feet splash through the puddles as I turn into another, yet narrower street. The hum and hubbub of traders and sellers is muted now that I’ve meandered off the main thoroughfare. Though there’s no lack of stalls; they are stationed in front of the townhouses, making the tight streets tighter. And these sellers’ wares are less than legal, less than legitimate.
The night coils around me, the only reprieve the infrequent oil lamps. Not that I need the light, I see just fine without it.
And then I lock onto the smell.
It’s rich, peppered with heat, the kind of fury that wraps around your throat and drills blazing flares of rage through you. There’s something a little sweet buried in it. Like the sugary taste of revenge, and then something else I can’t put my finger on.
I glide into the next alley and freeze.
