“There it is,” she cooed. “The selfish princess. But still, the Underground wants no part in this?—”
“I don’t want your people to get hurt. I don’t want any more lives lost. That is why Ineedyou. Please. We have others. Royals. Hunters. Another witch. But numbers are everything. I’m…I’m calling a Royale.”
There was a pause, then she let out a booming laugh, her red glowing eyes coming up in front of me.
“ARoyale? You against him? You’ll never win.”
The Royale was something only royal vampire siblings could call. A duel to determine the rightful ruler of the throne. It became more common after the fall of the hunters when the vampire population boomed. Clans and royal families started producing heirs left and right, and when the time came for someone to sit on the throne, too many people wanted it.
They solved it in the simplest terms that would leave no question.
A fight to the death.
The last secret I am keeping from my lovers.
It was the only way I knew to get his defenses down. It would just be me and him.
“I won’t, which is why I’m recruiting.”
“And breaking the rules?” She pulled away with a raised brow. Her surprise must have made some of the magic disappear, as I was able to make out her scarred face.
“I either break the rules, get cast out, and win, or…”
My throat closed of its own accord. I had considered this possibility, but I was having a hard time saying it out loud.
“Or you die, and everyone else jumps in to avenge you. So sweet. Didn’t take you as a sacrificial lamb. Though you were the hottest gossip when you sold yourself to your husband.”
She turned her back on me. An insulting gesture that told me that, even with her back turned, I posed no threat to her.
“But that still doesn’t tell me what’s in it for us.”
“Land,” I said. “Inside a barrier where no one can find you. It must get stuffy here.”
If that piqued her interest, she didn’t show it.
“Last I checked, you weren’t in a position to offer Castle land.”
Nor would anything to do with Castle property appeal to them. Once a family was plunged into ruin, no one wanted the remnants for at least a millennium, for fear of what curses the land might hold.
“I’m not,” I admitted with a smirk. “My husband’s land. He’s terribly bored with the fortune his family left him and is willing to give it up.”
“The Hart family,” she mused. “He does have a good section, and it’s near the mountains, so we could extend our Underground there…” She rubbed her chin. “How much?”
My smirk widened.
“All of it.”
She froze and turned to me.
“You’re lying.”
I puffed my chest and put my hands on my hips.
“I know you can tell I’m not.”Or at least I think that’s what her freaky power does.
“And the people?” she asked, her voice coming quicker.
“Just like the Castle family, they will be let go and free to roam to whichever clan or family suits them.”
