Page 32 of The Vampire Court
I take a deep breath and instantly regret it. My head pounds, so I lay still until the world stops moving.
Closing my eyes, I take several deep breaths then roll onto my belly. I inch my way up to my hands and knees then sit back on my heels and take in my prison.
A thin layer of straw is scattered across the floor. In the far corner is a bucket I assume is for waste. And from the smell, I don’t think it has been emptied since before the last prisoner stayed here.
I stumble to my feet and make my way to the nearest wall. It’s not far, but even that exertion has winded me. I use the damp stone and lower myself, bringing my knees up to my chest.
There’s nothing to do but wait for Alaric to come.
Chapter Twelve
Alaric
Rubbing my head,I step inside my room. “Clara, I—”
My head whips to the side as a resounding slap echoes through the quiet room. Snarling, I turn on the offender. Elizabeth stands before me, nearly panting with anger, face both pale and flushed.
“Be the prince you are meant to be and stand at my side.” She grinds the command out between gritted teeth. “Give me your power.”
The pretense of seduction has dropped entirely. This may be the first time in one hundred and seventy-four years that she is honest with herself and me. It was my power she craved, a truth I have always known. When I rejected the throne she offered, she somehow got it into her head that I would fall for someone who pretended to love me and that I wouldn’t notice there was nothing real about it.
But she was wrong about that, too. Elizabeth had dismissed the one thing I cared about—keeping Rosalie safe. I never even wanted to be a vampire, something she could never understand and refused to believe.
“No,” I say simply then walk around her, ready to enter the bedroom and close the doors on this conversation. I am tired of being used for what someone else might gain.
“You brought a potential slayer into my domain,” She snarls. “You’re lucky I didn’t rip her head off and leave it as a present for you on the bed.”
I freeze, my hand hovering over the door handle as her words sink in.Potential slayer?
She doesn’t know.
I spin to face her. Elizabeth crosses her arms over her chest and offers me a smirk. Her eyes flick to the closed door at my back. For a heart stopping second, I expect Clara’s head to be waiting for me on the bed. The longer Elizabeth looks at me like that, the more I believe it.
Turning from her, I throw open the door, heart in my throat.
For several seconds, I stand unmoving and staring at the sight before me. It takes several heartbeats to understand what I’m seeing.
No head.
But the bed has been remade. The sheets, blankets, and pillows have all been replaced with pristine white versions.
Elizabeth stands by my side, quiet and amused.
“What have you done with her?” I ask.
Instead of answering, Elizabeth takes my hand and unfurls my fingers, holding it up to her face. Her long nail slices across my palm. I hold back a hiss at the unexpected cut. Her nail feels like acid. A thin line of blood wells up. Smiling, she watches me as she brings her mouth down and licks the blood off.
The shallow wound is already healed. Pulling my hand from hers, I wipe it down the side of my leg.
“The better question,” she purrs, her voice soft yet deadly, “is how the fuck can she be one kill from being a slayer when she’s only killed one vampire while she’s been here? How, when you have complete control over her, has she managed to commit such an atrocity, not once… but twice?”
I press my mouth into a thin line and say nothing.
“Sheismarked?”
I don’t even dare to breathe. Finally I say, “I am in the process of marking her. It is nearly complete.”
On the outside, Elizabeth is calm, and to the world, she would appear so, but it’s when she’s as still as death, with her face pleasant, that she is most volatile. Raging anger courses through her like wildfire. It’s in the tightening of her hands clenched at her sides and in the slightest narrowing of her eyes.
