God Save the Queen

CHAPTER 14

NOT SINGLE SPIES BUT AS BATTALIONSNo f*cking way had Church shot me. Not on purpose.

“You’re the goblin that attacked me?” Old fear – foolish now that I had already decided I wasn’t so afraid of him – came rushing back. I remembered that moment, when I fell to the ground, fur and snarls surrounding me …

I growled. Both Vex and the prince started at the sound. It was just as much of a surprise to me. I sounded brilliant, and bloody frightening, but when the hell had I developed that particular ability?

“Did not attack!” There was so much vehemence and indignation behind the goblin’s words that for a moment I forgot my fear and my anger – forgot that I could growl. One clawed finger pointed at me. “The Churchill made violence. Your prince would never hurt the Xandra lady.”

This went against everything I’d ever been taught about goblins. Since that seemed to be the way of things lately, I wasn’t entirely sceptical. And if he wanted to hurt me, he could have ripped me apart the night I braved the den. “So what then, you were just trying to say hello?”

He shrugged, shoulders lifting beneath the thick fur. “What else?”

“Indeed,” I replied drily. It was unquestionably a suitable explanation for one of the defining incidents of my life. “Why me?”

The prince lifted his hands – paws – pads up. “Your prince was drawn to the child pretty. Never seen anything like you, with hair brighter than blood.”

Anger tore through me, filling me with the urge to snap at him, all spit and fang. “I thought you were trying to kill me.”

“Thought what the Churchill told the child to think.” Indignation drew his spine up straight – we were eye to eye. “The plague be not as bad as taught.”

“You eat children,” I fired back. “How is that not bad?”

“Meat is meat. Blood is blood. It is good.”

“Right. That’s it. Out.” I stormed past him to yank open the door. I didn’t care that he could disembowel me in the span of a heartbeat. Truth be told, I was feeling a little itch to do some ripping of my own.

The door came right off the hinges, leaving me standing there holding it by the handle. The heavy wood hit me in the side of the face, knocking me backwards. As I twisted, the entire left half of my body felt like a thousand hot pokers had been shoved into it at once.

I’m fairly certain I cried out – though pain has an odd way of making one uncertain. One thing was irrefutable – the fact that I fell to my knees like I was some sort of Roman soldier in battle, holding a bloody door for a shield.

Vex was immediately there beside me, checking on me with his gentle hands. The prince carefully relieved me of the door, and set it back in its place.

“I’m good,” I told Vex as the pain subsided to just this side of bearable. Fang me, but that hurt. I’d probably ripped stitches.

What the hell had just happened?

“Where’s your medication?” he demanded as the two of them helped me to my feet.

“Living room.”

He had no problem leaving me with the goblin as he went to fetch the pain meds. Obviously he trusted the beast.

“Your prince can help,” came a whispered rasp.

I turned my narrow gaze to his. “How?”

He offered me a bottle from the pouch he wore over one shoulder. It looked like blood. “Drink.”

“I don’t trust you.”

Intense yellow eyes locked with mine. “We have done nothing but help the Xandra lady. We never will hurt our pretty.” As his fingers – or were they claws? – wrapped round mine, he squeezed gently but insistently. “The plague serves you.”

“What kind of blood is it?” What I wanted to ask was why the goblins appeared to be so loyal to me, but my mouth couldn’t seem to find the courage to form the words.

He removed the cap. “The best kind.”

I was right – he had given me blood before, but it hadn’t been his. Couldn’t have been. It had to be a vampire, or maybe werewolf.

Regardless, one sniff and I knew it was the right thing to do – that it would make everything better. It was like chocolate and cake and chai – everything rich and delicious. I heard Vex returning from the living room, so I tipped the bottle and took a deep drink.

Sweet baby Albert, it was fantastic. Earthy, with a hint of something like cinnamon and clove. It filled me with warmth, causing a tingling in the areas where I hurt the most, as though healing them. It was.

I looked at the prince, ignoring whatever Vex was saying. “It’s working.”

The goblin smiled that awful smile. “Said pretty was special.”

Vex grabbed me. “What the rutting hell did you just drink?”

“Blood,” I replied. I didn’t tell him what kind.

“No more nasty vampire pills,” the prince ordered. “No good for the Xandra lady.”

“You’re lying down,” Vex commanded. To the prince he said, “We’re going to have a chat.”

I didn’t argue. The blood had made me a little … giddy, almost as though it was an opiate. I felt light-headed and warm. The pain had lessened, and though it wasn’t totally gone, it was all right. I could almost ignore it. Vex put me on the chesterfield and covered me with a blanket. He took the bottle from me. I reached for it, but then it was gone, and I closed my eyes, savouring this feeling. I could hear Vex and the prince talking. I think they left the house, because their voices were muffled. I couldn’t focus enough to concentrate on what they were saying, but I knew I was the topic, and Vex sounded angry.

And then I faded into oblivion and nothing else mattered.

The bullets matched.

I didn’t want to believe it, but there was no denying they came from the same gun, despite having been fired more than a decade apart. Vex and I studied and compared the two of them under a duoscope – a wooden box divided into two halves, with viewing lenses on both. We put a slug into either compartment, switched on the interior light and then examined the spent silver simultaneously, magnified.

We reached the unfortunate conclusion the next morning, after I woke up in my bed to find him sleeping next to me. The last thing I remembered was hitting the chesterfield after getting stoned on the blood the prince had given me.

I felt amazingly good for someone who had very nearly died. I suppose I owed that to the prince as well. I hoped he wasn’t keeping a tally, because I didn’t want to think about what he’d want in return.

I went downstairs to get breakfast – my stomach was growling like a rabid wolf. I had a craving for steak, crispy on the outside and bloody in the middle, with eggs and toast. I wasn’t going to be a master chef any time soon, but I could stumble my way around a kitchen all right. I made enough for Vex as well, because I knew the smell would wake him.

And I was right. I’d just sat down to eat when he walked in, all scruffy and mussed. He kissed me, loaded his plate and joined me. After we’d eaten, and consumed a pot of coffee, we compared the bullets in the duoscope he’d had delivered after I fell asleep the night before. I had to. I couldn’t stand the anticipation any longer.

Discovering that they matched almost made me lose my breakfast.

“There has to be an explanation,” I said. “He couldn’t have known he’d shot me.”

Vex looked dubious. “I don’t see how a man like him could make such a dangerous mistake.” Something in my expression made him add, “But perhaps you simply got in his line of fire.”

My chest hurt. “Maybe. This just doesn’t make sense.” Church loved me. I was uncomfortably certain of that. He had changed towards me over the last few years, but he would do anything for me. He would never hurt me.

Never. But my fingers shook.

The alpha rolled one of the slugs between his fingers – gloved to protect him from the silver. “Neither does the fact that he carries silver bullets. He can’t have to subdue goblins that often.”

“Precaution?” Val had silver ammo in case he had to take down a halvie in the line of duty.

“Could be.” Vex straightened, and rotated his shoulders. “If he was trying to kill you, he wouldn’t have left the bullet behind.”

I barely met his gaze. “Ophelia said someone else tried to steal it.”

His mouth went grim. “Might have told me that a wee bit sooner. I’m sorry, sweetheart. Churchill shot you, and only he can tell you why.” He jerked his thumb towards a huge arrangement of roses I hadn’t seen before sitting on the hall table. “Seems he feels broken up about it.”

I hadn’t smelled the roses because other bouquets had already been delivered before I arrived home from hospital. This one was by far the largest, and made up of every colour of rose I could think of. It was a little much, to be honest.

“The sentiment of a sorry man,” I murmured, leaning in for a sniff.

“Or a guilty one.” Vex ran his hand down my arm. “It had to have been an accident.”

He was right. What else could it be? That Church knew my secret and was prepared to kill me because of it? That made no sense at all – not when “they” had kept me alive for so many years. Obviously there were people out there who knew the truth about unusual half-bloods, and they hadn’t come for me yet.

But they had told Dede her baby had died so Ainsley could raise him. And someone had killed Vex’s son. I had a nephew I would never be able to know, a nephew who would never know his mother.

Mortifying tears burned my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. Poor Dede. Poor Vex. Poor me. Church was my mentor, the measure against whom I held myself in almost every aspect of my life. He could not have hurt me on purpose.

Vex gathered me to him and held me while I had my cry-out. I let it go on a few minutes and then pulled myself together. It was surprisingly easy. What was all the fuss? The world was a clusterf*ck of illusion. Nothing was new; I’d just had my eyes opened to it.

I was not about to go mental just yet – I’d done a bloody good job of keeping a grip on my sanity thus far – but how much more could my world be turned inside out before I finally cracked?

“What do you need me to do?”

“Find out what’s in my supplements.” I hugged him. “And be here when I need an incredibly broad shoulder to go hatters on.”

He kissed my forehead. “I can do that.” His brow was knitted as he stroked my hair. I didn’t know what to make of his expression, or the weight of his gaze as it drifted over my face. It was as though he was looking for something just below the surface of my skin.

“What?”

He smiled. “Nothing.”

“Liar. Regretting getting involved with me, aren’t you?”

Vex’s smile faded as a hint of gold lit his eyes. “If I didn’t want to be with you, I wouldn’t be here. You leave my thinking to me, all right?”

I should have been at least a little cowed by his tone and posture, but instead it awakened an answering aggression in me – a welcome change to having my head up my arse. I found that growl that had come out of me last night and used it again.

Gold bled through Vex’s gaze. A low rumble came from his throat. Fangs lengthened in my mouth, gums tingling. I ran for the stairs as though I’d never been injured, my wolf close at my heels.

Afterwards I had carpet burn on my palms and knees and a wreck of a bedroom to straighten, but it was worth it. I felt more centred than I had in a while. However this mess worked out, I was going to be all right. I had to be.

“You’re going to Bedlam, aren’t you?” Vex asked as I got dressed. He was sprawled on the carpet, naked. Most of the scratches I’d inflicted had already healed, leaving nothing but traces of blood behind. God, he tasted good. I could suck the very marrow from his bones and still want more.

My stomach twisted. I turned from the dresser and dropped to my knees beside him, fastening my mouth on a bite on his shoulder that hadn’t yet healed. I sucked, pushing against his warm, salty flesh with my mouth, shuddering as his blood slowly coated my tongue. Vex shuddered too, and wrapped his arms around me, holding me close as I licked the wound clean.

“You’re such a bitch.” He chuckled against my hair.

I lifted my head, caught between humour and mortification. “I reckon those supplements kept me from wanting blood.”

“Let’s find out what else they did.” He kissed me hard on the mouth and rose to his feet. I stood as well, and we dressed side by side. He kissed me again before leaving and made me promise to ring him later.

I left shortly after he did, pulling on my driving goggles, manoeuvring the Butler out into an early twilight brought on by a sky full of grey clouds. It was only seven o’clock, but felt later. I steered the motorrad around a carriage pulled by four matching horses. In the distance, Big Ben clanged out the hour. Lights were just beginning to come on as darkness crept over the city. It wasn’t bright enough to hurt my eyes, but not dark enough to make me feel invisible. The wheels of my motorrad bumped over cobblestones, then smooth asphalt. The ageless elegance of Mayfair bled into taller buildings made of glass and steel, and lights that blazed with a garish glow. Vehicles thundered past me, and on the walks pedestrians hurried home as darkness came early. Were they as afraid of night as aristos were of the dawn?

When I arrived at the asylum, the guards didn’t try to stop me. I suppose they were still smarting from the last time we tangoed.

Ophelia met me in the west wing, ground-floor corridor. Even though the plush carpet muffled her steps, I’d heard her coming long before I spied her. Another aspect of not taking the supplements? Or the prince’s blood? I noticed a slight bruise peeking out from beneath the top edge of her corseted waistcoat.

“You all right?” I asked as she approached. “You look a little knocked about, and you smell like blood.”

She hesitated, and gave me a look that went beyond wary. “I’m fine. Just a bit of a scuffle. Mum’s in her office.”

My sister didn’t walk in front of me – as though she was afraid of offering me her back. She didn’t seem too keen on ambling along beside me either. I fancied I could smell her uncertainty about me, and it went straight to my head like petrol.

I smiled when she drew back. What was wrong with me? I’d always enjoyed getting under people’s skin, but this was excessive. I wanted her to be afraid of me.

She was pale as she held the door to our mother’s office open for me. It was clever, the traitors of Bedlam actually running the hospital “Is everyone here part of your movement?” I asked.

Ophelia slid a wary glance my way. “Those who need to be.”

That wasn’t much of an answer, but I didn’t have time to press it. My mother greeted me with open arms, but her embrace was … cautious. A werewolf – a “made” aristocrat – was leery of me.

“I assume the results of my blood tests came back.”

Juliet released me. Once again I was struck by how young she appeared. She also seemed tired. “Yes.”

“Well?” I looked from her to Ophelia and back again as the two of them shared a glance. “The two of you are all knots and tangles. What is it?”

“Perhaps you should sit,” Juliet suggested, gesturing to the velvet sofa. She looked knocked about too. Had she and Ophelia been fighting? What could have happened to make them go at one another?

“I don’t want to sit,” I argued petulantly. “I want to know what’s wrong with me. Right. F*cking. Now.”

Both mother and daughter flinched, but Ophelia stepped back. It was then that I noticed the handgun beneath her coat. I had left the Bulldog at home – again. My trusty dagger was in my corset as usual, but wasn’t there a saying about bringing a knife to a gun-fight? And did my sister plan to shoot me? The few times we’d met, I’d never noticed a firearm, so why was she toting one now?

“You are right,” my mother allowed in a gentle voice. “You deserve to know everything. When you were born looking the same as any perfectly healthy half-blood, I assumed you had not been affected by my having been infected.”

“But you were wrong,” I offered when she didn’t seem to know what else to say. Fang me, but she looked as though she’d rather take a bath in liquid silver than tell me what the ruddy hell I was.

She looked away. “Yes.” A rueful sigh followed. “When Ophelia showed me that you were one of the halvlings with missing paperwork, I knew I’d been right to worry when you were young. And now that I’ve seen the results of your blood work, I know what my becoming a wolf did to you.”

The look she gave me was pleading, as though she wanted me to fill in the blanks so she didn’t have to tell me the truth.

An elastic band seemed to snap inside my brain. My father was a vampire and my mother was a werewolf. Those two things didn’t mix – not successfully. I valued family and those I cared for above all else. I was stronger than I should be. Had more accurate senses than I should. I could be feral at times, had an acute sense of smell and had started to crave blood.

Albert’s fangs, how could I have been so stupid? How could I have not put it together sooner? No wonder the goblin prince had been curious about me.

Church was wrong. I didn’t have the senses of a goblin. I was a f*cking goblin. My mother’s transformation had mutated me inside her womb. It was a miracle I survived.

Or a cruel joke, depending on how I looked at it.

“Did you know?” I asked. “When I was younger, did you suspect?”

My mother shook her head. “I wondered, but no, I didn’t know, not for certain. I think your father … Vardan had suspicions.”

Rage gushed up from deep inside me. I felt betrayed and hurt. I wanted to deny the truth even though I knew it in my bones. I thought I’d always known.

Fangs, massive and alien, tore free of my gums so violently that I tasted blood. My nails broke out of their beds, lengthening and sharpening before my very eyes until they were curved like claws, black and sharp. The real me was coming out to play.

“Jesus Christ,” Ophelia rasped, her eyes huge in her pale face. My own face felt stretched, as though my skin couldn’t contain my teeth and bones. My eyes were sharper – I could see the individual beads of sweat on her brow. I could smell it too – and her fear. It rolled over me in a wave of pleasure, so sweet and deep – better than chocolate or orgasm or any sweet memory – and she did nothing to control it. Everyone knew you were dead if a goblin got a taste of your fear.

I lunged, snarling and drooling, and took her to the ground with ease. She screamed all the way down, pushing at me with strong hands. I was stronger. When she went for her gun, I grabbed that hand and squeezed, shivering in delight when she screamed even louder.

I knew it was wrong, and I didn’t care, didn’t even try to gain control; it felt so good to let it all go. I opened the gaping maw of my mouth even wider, feeling the cool delight of saliva drip on to my lower lip.

I tore into the flesh of my sister’s shoulder as if it was no more substantial than a pub-fried chicken wing.

And God help me, she tasted good.