She pushed the impulse aside. What had she expected, anyway? Save the anger for her next victim. One worthy of the attention. Maybe she’d run into another male on her way back to the Cathedral. Not that she really had time to spare.
She’d been gone for hours. Most of the night. Much longer and the sun would soon begin to rise. The thought allowed another rush of anger to push away the fear that had once again begun to tingle—knowing Gwala would be upset at her prolonged absence.
There’d been no sense in the king giving her the gift of the sun, then not allowing her to use it. Those brief days wandering and hunting in the daytime had been so wonderful that she’d nearly begun to be grateful to the redhead who had bestowed her immortality. Nearly. However, once the ceremony announcing her as queen had passed, so had her time in the sun. She was to be by Gwala’s side every instant of every day. Whether roaming around the Cathedral, hunting in the forest, or sitting for eternity in the damned throne room. If vampires shat, she had no doubt Gwala would have expected her to be no more than five inches away for those events as well.
Having the sun only to lose it again made existing even more miserable than before.
While she’d had no desire to be queen, she’d assumed there would be more freedom with the title, not less. The finery Gwala continued to bestow upon her had increased exponentially, so at every instant she was prepared to walk a runway in a couture fashion show. With every additional garment, the more silent he commanded she be. The few times she’d commented in front of the other vampires who resided in the Vampire Cathedral, Gwala had made it abundantly clear she’d been out of turn. He never raised his voice or lost his flowery praise of her beauty. Nothing he did hinted at the anger he felt at her offense, but she could feel it. It wafted from him, as surely as hers must.
She didn’t care what caused his anger or why he was unhappy with his choice of her as queen—if that was the problem at all. Maybe he was losing the ability to find Menos in her, was increasingly seeing Sonia seeping through his idealized picture of her. It didn’t matter. She’d not wanted to be queen. She’d not wanted to be a vampire. The only thing she’d wanted, he’d given her. But now it was as far away as it had been those months after she’d been turned.
Since her coronation feast, the closest she’d gotten to the sun was stepping through the pools of light that fell in abundance over the stone floor of the Cathedral. Each pass through the illumination caused her bejeweled gowns to explode in fireworks, playing across the faces of those around her and highlighting her increasing confinement.
She should have fled before the coronation, before feeding off the disgusting, aged body of the old warlock. Taken the hours or days she would have had before Gwala hunted her down. Reveled in the sun. Run so fast she might as well be flying. Decimated a town or two. No matter what little time she would have had to enjoy it.
For the first time since that night, Sonia was not by the vampire king’s side. The minute he’d left with the fairy to see what Finn had accomplished with the mer’s water, she’d raced out of the chamber, through the smaller forest inside the cathedral’s protection, and out into the Costa Rican night. Still, she couldn’t make herself truly run. As it was, she feared Gwala would make it where she would be unable to leave the next time he chose to go off on his own.
She knew why she was afraid to run. The knowledge made her self-hatred nearly a palpable presence.
If she ran, Sonia was certain the king’s gopher would be the one sent to track her down and bring her back. One or the other she could face. But not both. Not Gwala and the redhead. When she was being honest, which was every time she was unable to keep from dwelling on it, she had to admit it really had nothing to do with Gwala at all. He could kill her easier than any other creature she knew of, but the idea of him chasing her was almost laughable. The possibility he’d use the indentured servant to do the job was more than she could face. Even the thought of him pursuing her made her want to bury herself under the ground and wait for eternity to pass.
How she hated her weakness. The power she allowed him to have over her. If anything, her terror of him continued to grow. She couldn’t shake the belief that her destiny was tied to him, that there would be a day when she would be held powerless beneath him once again.
It was this, even more than her anger at not being allowed out in the sun, which prompted her newfound defiance of the king. Though birthed in the whim of the moment, Sonia had discovered the key to her freedom.
She thought back to the heap of male flesh she’d left behind. Maybe they’d be discovered in the morning. Maybe they already had—some other tourist returning from an all-night rager at the beach.
The bodies would be endless. And undeniably vampiric in their mutilation. She’d make each one worse than the last.
Sonia unpinned the diamond clasp that held her hair at the nape of her neck. The wind caught the dark strands and whipped them about her face as she stared out at the sea. Holding the cluster of gems in front of her face for a second, she twisted her hand, causing the moonlight to refract across the clasp. As the finality of the plan solidified in her mind, she reared back and whipped the jeweled gift out into space, watching in pleasure as it arched from the cliff and disappeared into the ocean below.
Every chance she got to slip away, she’d tear this small country apart, killing every human man she met, until Gwala had no choice but to slaughter her. He’d have to do it himself. Make an example.
Give her freedom.
Thirty-Seven
SONIA LIU
The screamlasted less than a second before it was cut off. Her body recognized it before her brain. Her spine rigid, eyes wide, she stiffened as if expecting an attack. When none came, she glanced around cautiously, peering between the trees. Though still before dawn, her predator vision made out every minute detail. Each trembling leaf, every glistening droplet of dew.
She didn’t waste time reprimanding herself for her fear; instead she simply shifted through the barrage of possibilities as efficiently as if she’d been equipped with a premium processor.
Though she’d never heard him scream, not in terror or pain at least, she had no doubt of the source. And that he was near.
The abrupt silencing of the scream meant one of two things—the sound had been stifled by magic or the vampire had bested whatever had accosted him. Seeing as she’d heard no sound to indicate a struggle, the first option was the only one that made sense.
Sonia allowed herself one moment, her hand steadying herself on a nearby tree. Again the possibilities flooded, and once more she eliminated all but one. She would not return to Gwala, and she would not flee. She would find out the cause of the vampire’s distress and take advantage, if she could.
Though she couldn’t comprehend how such a thing would be possible, there were only two things in the jungle that were a threat to the vampires. Not that either of them could be truly considered a threat, but they were the only ones who sought to oppose the Vampire Cathedral. Sonia had disagreed with Gwala when he’d chosen to let Finn’s sister and the fairies live. Not because they posed any real threat, but for the sheer logic that all opposition should be eliminated, no matter how small or inconsequential. She’d not said as much to Gwala. Nor had he inquired.
Despite her intelligence, Sonia couldn’t conceive of any way a fairy or witch could cause any adverse effect on a vampire, but judging from the muting of the scream, they had.
Forcing herself to move slowly, even slower than a human, she stepped over the tangles of roots and fallen branches, hiking the long blood-soaked yellow gown nearly to her waist. She held no concern for the fabric, but she was not taking a chance that any rip or tear would announce her arrival. If witch and fairy had found a way to harm the redhead, she would not be impervious either.
Sonia hadn’t been to the cave the two lesser supernaturals had occupied, but she’d smelled their presence in the forest often enough before she’d been confined inside the Cathedral’s walls, so she knew exactly where to go despite no sound escaping. There was a chance they would stay wherever they had accosted the vampire, but it was miniscule. They wouldn’t risk being found. They would seek shelter. She supposed they might choose to go elsewhere, if they thought others had been keeping track of their whereabouts, but she doubted it. As it was, luck was on their side. The redhead had been the only sentry Gwala had assigned such a mundane task.
Less thanten minutes later, Sonia stood within a hundred feet of the cave’s entrance and had no doubt she’d made the right assumption. The smell of blood and charred flesh hung thick in the air.
