Vampires Dead Ahead

TWENTY-THREE



Colin looked a little green after I took us through the transference from the Earth Otherworld to the belowground Otherworld realm of the Dark Elves. I did a credible job of not throwing up.

“Sorry.” I took Colin’s hand, and we stepped down from the transference stone. “It was my first time taking anyone with me.” Not to mention my first time using the transference to get home. Usually my father did it.

“I didn’t need to know that, Nyx.” Colin squeezed my hand and smiled. “Next time, I drive.”

I matched his smile. “Now that you know the way here, I guess that’ll be just fine.”

He kissed me and I gave a soft little moan. A thrill went through my belly as I thought of our afternoon together.

I had shifted into Drow before we left for Otherworld and wore black leather and my Elvin boots, as I did when I tracked. Colin simply wore jeans, a Breaking Benjamin T-shirt, and New Balance shoes. We both carried packs containing enough for an overnight trip to Otherworld.

“Nyx?” My father’s voice boomed out as he stepped into his transference room.

“Hi, Father.” I gave him a bright smile. “I’m home. And I brought company.”

Father narrowed his gray eyes at Colin, assessing him. “Dragon,” he said.

Colin nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Colin, this is my father, King Ciar,” I said. “Father, this is Colin of Campton.”

Father looked at him a moment more before he strode across the chamber and reached out his arm. They did the warrior hand-and-elbow grip.

Over two thousand years old, broad-shouldered, muscular, and powerful, my father was a male who few could contend with. If any.

His sapphire-blue hair flowed past his shoulders and light blue skin. As usual he wore leather breeches and boots, a sword sheathed at his side. The metal breastplate he had on was studded with precious gemstones mined by the Dark Elves.

Father gave a single nod to Colin, and they released their grip. In that nod I saw approval, and it made my chest warm. Father believed in his senses, and obviously they had told him that Colin was a great guy.

My father turned to me and held out his arms. He was so tall I had to stand on my tiptoes. He felt good and familiar as I caught his earthy scent.

“Ciar?” My mother’s voice came from the entrance. “Did you send for—” She caught sight of me. “Nyx!”

My beautiful mother picked up her skirts as she hurried across the transference chamber toward me. Her sapphire-blue eyes had a glint of tears as she hugged me. “I’ve missed you,” she said as she drew away and smiled her brilliant smile.

In Otherworld, after about thirty human years, beings don’t age, or they age very slowly. My mother had been in her twenties when Father brought her to the belowground realm. She had been here almost thirty years, yet didn’t look much older than she had when I was a youngling.

“I’ve missed you, too.” I hugged her again, noticing her pale skin next to my amethyst flesh. Her skin was fairer than mine—when I was human—from living underground for so many years. She was about two inches shorter than me and I’d inherited her sapphire-blue eyes.

“Colin, this is my mother, Kathryn Ciar.” I drew her toward him. “Mother, this is Colin.”

“Dragon,” Father said.

She looked interested. “I’ve never met a Dragon before,” she said as Colin took her fingers and kissed the back of her hand.

“It is my pleasure.” Colin gave her a smile.

Father took him by the shoulder and started walking toward the entrance to the transference chamber. “How do you know my daughter?”

“Why didn’t you say you were coming?” Mother and I walked with arms around each other as we followed the two males.

“Wanted to surprise you,” I said.

“Your father usually brings you through the transference.” She looked at me. “Did your Dragon bring you?”

I glanced at “my Dragon” before I turned back to Mother. “I did it myself. I brought us both through the transference.”

“What?” My father nearly bellowed the word as he came up short and turned to face me. “You are far too young to even have the ability, much less use it to bring someone through the transference.”

“I, uh, never had a chance to tell you.” I sort of hadn’t wanted to tell him—yet. “I learned how to do it during that Werewolf op.”

Father scowled. “You are too young,” he repeated.

“Apparently not.” I glanced at Colin, who had one brow raised. “I got us here just fine.”

“Humph.” Father turned away again. “We will discuss this later.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” I mumbled under my breath, then realized I was falling into the role I’d always played with my father.

When we reached the entrance, two guards stood outside. I looked at the guard on my right. Instead of the usual disdain for me that the warriors held, I saw interest. And was that respect?

I had trained with Father’s warriors from the time I was a youngling. I’d grown up with a sword in my hand.

The problem was that Drow females are subservient to males. That was one thing Mother hadn’t believed in for herself or for me. Father loved her so much that he didn’t argue when she raised me to be the independent female I am. And I had Father twisted around my little finger. He would do anything for me.

So I grew up around warriors who did not believe I should be there. And I’d humiliated those I’d bested over the years.

I cut my gaze to the other guard on the opposite side of the door. His gaze was just as interested, and not hostile or cold in the least.

What in the Otherworld was going on?

Father laughed at something Colin said and clapped him on the shoulder. “We will have an ale at the tavern.”

Who could argue with the king?

My parents’ first meeting with Colin was going exceptionally well if my father was already inviting him for a drink.

Mother and I talked as we walked behind the two males. I was glad she didn’t ask me about Colin even when we were a bit of a distance behind them. Dragons have exceptional hearing.

As we walked through the great hall to the passageway that led to the underground village, I leaned close to my mother and kept my voice low.

“Why are all of the males looking like that?” I said. “Like they’re interested in me and even a little curious.”

Mother tilted her head. Being the queen she was, she didn’t look directly at the males to see what I was talking about, but I was sure she was glancing at them from the corner of her eye. “Honey, I have no idea. But your father might.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Let’s not get Father involved.”

“I don’t blame you for that,” Mother said with a conspiratorial note to her voice. “Your father would make their lives miserable for even looking at you.”

Father and Colin dropped back so that they were with us as we entered the village.

“I have something I must attend to,” Father said. “I will meet you at the tavern.”

Colin smiled at me and walked beside me, my mother on my opposite side. “So tell me about this place,” he said.

“The belowground world of the Dark Elves is a lot like aboveground, with a few exceptions,” I said. “We don’t have horses for transportation or oxen for work. But we do have pigs, sheep, and cows for food.

“In the Drow world,” I said, “if males are not warriors, they work in the mines, own shops, barter aboveground, and fill other ‘male’ roles. Females take care of the younglings, cook, clean, and other ‘female’ jobs.”

We walked into a tavern filled with laughter, talking, and the sounds of ale mugs thumping on the tables and the barmaid serving up orders.

The room grew quiet when Colin and I walked in with Mother. I didn’t know if it was because we were with the queen, or because Colin was a stranger, or because everyone seemed to have taken some kind of fascination with me. Maybe it was all of the above.

We settled on bench seats at one of the picnic-like tables and the barmaid practically ran to my mother’s side. I was certain it wasn’t every day that the queen stopped by.

“An ale for each of us,” Mother said with a pleasant smile. “Plus a fourth for the king.”

When the barmaid rushed away, Mother turned to me. “Excuse me for a moment.”

When Mother left, Colin squeezed my hand beneath the table. “See any friends around?”

I shook my head. “Because I wasn’t raised in the same lifestyle as other Dark Elves, I never made many friends. I had servants who made polite conversation, but I think everyone was always a little frightened of me.”

“Frightened?” Colin said. “How?”

“I don’t think it’s just because I’m both a princess and a Drow warrior, but rather that I am different. No one else in my world shifts into human form. I am unique.”

Colin studied me. “I can’t imagine you not having friends here.”

The thought hit me of how the Witch said the mind reading would come and go. I hadn’t heard anything since my time with Colin. But that was fine.

I shrugged. “I was used to it. I didn’t know anything different until I became a Tracker and I learned what friends really are.”

The barmaid returned with four mugs of ale, setting the others at the empty seats for Mother and Father. She scuttled away.

“You sure stir up a lot of interest.” Colin held his mug of ale and looked around. Just about every warrior in the place was looking at me.

“Do I have something in my teeth?” I said. “Because I’ve never stirred up interest like this before. Ever.”

“No on the teeth.” He grinned. “Let’s find out about the other.”

I opened my mouth to ask him how we’d do that when he turned to a warrior at a table next to us. “Did you have something you would like to ask Princess Nyx?”

“Yes.” The young warrior looked pleased that he’d been asked, which was strangeness beyond strangeness to me. He was one of the younger warriors who’d started training just as I was leaving for the Earth Otherworld. I suppose that’s why he didn’t have any reservations answering Colin.

“What’s your name?” Colin asked. “And your question.”

“Alfric, sir.” He nodded to Colin. “My lady,” he said to me.

“We have heard tales,” he continued, “that you are a great warrior in a different Otherworld. That you bested the same beings who stole and murdered our people.”

My eyes widened. In Drow I said, “Zombies?” That was what this was about?

The male nodded with enthusiasm. “And other heroics. You are known well to us now as a warrior princess.”

A warrior princess? I blinked at him. “I am?”

The young warrior gave an enthusiastic nod. “Yes, the stories say—”

He suddenly sat bolt upright, his gaze no longer curious but now steadfast, like any Drow warrior. The rest of the warriors in the tavern seemed to take the same cue as heads suddenly turned toward the entrance.