She stopped a few feet in front of me and waited, her features unmoving, her head tilted at a slight angle.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I raised myself to a full sitting position, with my hands bracing my weight behind me. When I was done, I met her eyes for a brief second and was rewarded with a bolt of power so strong my nails curled into the stone beneath me, gouging little moon-shaped grooves into the rock.
My wolf was issuing fairly erratic sounds in my mind, ones I hadn’t heard her make before. Easy there. We don’t want to freak the Freak too soon. Instead of answering, she responded with a small flow of adrenaline. It ran through my veins, calming me, but it wasn’t enough to trigger anything. Perfect. Just relax. We’ll get out of this. We aren’t tied up, and nobody else is here. Specifically the horrid Valdov. If she wanted us for breakfast, we’d be shackled in her dungeon or sucked dry by now. This place so had a dungeon.
“Valdov was a fool to bring you here,” the Vampire Queen snapped. She was still examining me, her eyes measuring. I felt like I was under a vampire microscope.
Huh? “From what he implied to us,” I retorted, “he was only following your direct orders.”
“Fool,” she grated. Then she turned abruptly, ascending the steps of her dais toward her gilded chair. She whipped around with a flourish and sat, her gorgeous face set in a frown, her cape flowing gracefully around her.
Hmm. Instead of watching her brood, I brought my legs around and perched myself on the edge of the altar. I wiggled my bare toes and looked down at my filthy, torn clothing, still reeking heavily of sulfur and sweat.
The perfect picture of badass.
I had no idea what she wanted from me, but other than sensing her incredible power, I wasn’t feeling the threat of imminent danger. Having her irked at Valdov worked in my favor. I just didn’t know why. Someone like Valdov did what he was told. Always. I decided to venture a question. “If Valdov was disobeying you, then why am I here?” I asked.
The Queen narrowed her eyes at me like a hawk. A fleck of mercury sparked in their depths so brightly it seared like a white flame. She stood abruptly and strode forward, stopping at the edge of the steps to look down on me. I instinctively leaned back.
“Do not push me, little wolf girl. I am not something to be trifled with so easily. If you provoke me, I promise I will punish you. You are here because I wished it and nothing more.” She waved her hand in a sweeping dismissal. The vamps liked their hand gestures.
You just said Valdov was a fool for bringing me here. I said instead, “I’m not trying to trifle with you, um … Queen.” What in the hell was I supposed to call her? “I’m just trying to figure out why a newborn wolf would warrant such an interest from you. By all rights, I should be beneath your notice. If what I know of our races are true, I shouldn’t even be a blip on your radar. Our separate Sects haven’t made it a habit to be involved in each other’s business at any point in time.”
Her voice rang out in a cold laugh. “You, little wolf girl, are very much my business.” She floated down the steps. “My trusted servants have been keeping tabs on you since your very untimely birth.” The vamps had been tailing me for that long? She laughed. “What? You think your father could hide you from us? The birth of a female? Never!”
Her eyes flickered dangerously between the purest silver to black, and back again. She came to a halt a few paces in front of me, clasping her hands in front of her torso like a demure schoolgirl. She might look the part if I wasn’t hyper aware she could snap my neck between her two index fingers in the space of a sneeze.
“What exactly do you mean by ‘untimely’?” I asked. “I wasn’t aware there was a good time for a female werewolf to be born.”
She inclined her head, peering at me closely. I shifted uncomfortably, hating the feel of her weighted stare—it made my skin crawl. Then she tilted her head to the side, like a bird listening for a worm, just like Valdov had. Vamps were totally creepy. Every movement they made was unnatural. There was no way the Queen went out in public. Very little about her resembled anything human.
She abruptly straightened her neck and a wicked smile crept over her unsightly red lips. “You do not know what you are, do you, little wolf girl?”