I felt Schwint nudge me, and I stepped forward automatically. After the first movement, conscious control took over once more. I wouldn’t do Omar or anyone else any good by making a stand here. He was already dead, and I had too much to lose.
Within ten strides, we’d passed through the vampires and arrived at the head of the long table. Moving a little past it, I made to sit down, but Gwala’s voice filled the room. “No, warlock. As I said, this night is partially about you. Have the seat across from the queen. Veronica!”
The vampire servant appeared at my side as if by magic and took me by the elbow. She led Schwint and me completely around the table, putting us on display. I kept my eyes averted from the dead warlock’s body, as well as the vampires watching us, instead trying to identify food items spread at random intervals. When that didn’t work, I looked up though the jagged opening of the roof, getting lost in the cloud-filled night sky.
When I felt Veronica pause, I slipped my legs over the bench and sat down. I felt Schwint do the same beside me to my left. He sat so close our thighs pressed together, and my shoulder found its place slightly in front of his.
“Royals, please find your seat.” At his words, a flurry of fabric erupted throughout the room as vampires filled in the perimeter of the table. A body brushed my right side, but I didn’t look to see which vampire sat by me.
After the bustle died down, Gwala spoke again, this time his voice directly across from me. “We honor you, Warlock Finn. May you bring honor and power to your rise in position.” No other sound. No voiced agreements. No clank of raised glasses. Only the growing whisper of wind as it swept into the room.
I forced my head up to look the vampire king in the face. Before I got that far, another face met mine. We’d been placed directly in the middle of the table, and Omar’s profile lay between the king and myself. Unwilled, my hand squeezed harder on Schwint’s fingers beneath the table. I thought I felt him squeeze back, but I wasn’t sure.
A movement across the table caught my attention, and I saw that Sonia was seated next to Gwala. She’d pulled her hair back behind her shoulders. Hazily, I saw the mass of non-Royal vampires encircling the table.
Try as I might to keep my gaze fixed on her, my attention shifted automatically toward Omar.
Other than the two massive spikes protruding from his body, there seemed to be no other harm done to him. In fact, he looked better than I’d ever seen him. He was clean, his skin healthy in the soft light of the room.
With another loud rumble, thunder filled the dining area. Small warm drops of rain began to fall.
As the droplets beat lightly against Omar’s face, his head turned in my direction, as if trying to avoid direct contact with the rain. His bloodshot eyes opened and looked directly at me.
I let out a cry and flinched backward, my hold on Schwint the only thing that kept me from falling off the bench.
Omar’s mouth opened slowly, the motion jerky and halting. The expression his face held made it seem he was going to speak, but his mouth closed once more, no sound uttered.
I stared in complete horror at the man I’d hated so much. My brain could not fathom that he was alive. It was impossible. Even as I stared at him, the rain increased, hitting his face harder. Splashing into the ever-growing blood pooling from his body, making countless red splatters over the golden surface of the table and my plate.
Gwala’s blood. It had to have been. While it hadn’t changed the warlock into a vampire, it must have provided him with an amount of immortality to survive such a fate.
I continued to stare into his eyes.
Schwint whispered something, and I felt him pull at my hand, but I couldn’t make sense of whatever he said.
Without more sounding thunder, the clouds turned loose, rain instantly shifting from gentle drips to a torrent, drenching my body and spreading Omar’s blood as surely as if a bucket of water had been dashed upon the surface of the table.
Omar blinked rapidly, trying to keep the water from his eyes.
Even Gwala’s invitation for the Royals to feed couldn’t force me to look away from the one who’d caused me to be captured. The vampires that fell upon his body, sinking their teeth into his newly cleaned skin, didn’t cause me to break contact with his now rolling eyes.
Ultimately, it was Sonia’s black curtain of hair falling over Omar’s face as she bit into his neck that released his hold on me.
Twenty-Three
BRETT WRIGHT
Lelas curvedin closer to Nalu’s body, pulling his arm tighter over her as she slept. In response, his tail slipped over hers, causing the kelp that wrapped around them to rip slightly at the strain. Still, they slept on.
“I didn’t think it was possible for Lelas to be happier than she already was.”
Wrell imparted a warm feeling in response.
Continuing to watch them, a faint sense of jealousy crept up. After seeing them together all these weeks, it was simple to shove it aside. Actually, it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. It only increased my happiness for her. If anyone deserved to be truly happy, it was Lelas. Plus, I only needed to remind myself that I was the one who screwed up my own chance at such a relationship. My own fault, nobody else’s.
Maybe saying it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation wasn’t entirely true.
While I couldn’t claim to have approved of such an instantaneous relationship, neither could I argue with the fact they were both over-the-moon happy. Granted, honeymoon phase and all, sure. Still, it didn’t take long watching them together to realize real magic was at work in the whole “mating” thing. They were at ease with each other more than most old married people I’d known.
