Page 30 of Battle for the Shadow Prince (A Bargain with the Shadow Prince #2)

30

The Palace

DAMIEN

M y meal is late. Has Valeska decided she will no longer feed me? Or has she gone to retrieve Eloise now that she’s forced me to give up her identity? There is no end to the woman’s cruelty. I would not put it beyond her to not only make me kill my mate but then roast her and feed her to me.

I retch at the thought and then make a decision, one I should have made days ago. When my meal is delivered, I will use the knife that often accompanies the meat. I will take the blade, wait until Valeska’s order not to hurt myself wears off, and slit my own throat. It will be difficult to kill myself in this state. Almost impossible without sunlight. But I must try.

I will kill myself before I can be forced to kill Eloise.

Nothing can save my mate now. Valeska will have her by the time the sun rises. But if I am dead, we will meet again in the Darklands. We will be together in the next life. The thought makes me smile. The vampire queen has taken everything from me, but she can’t take this.

Perched on the edge of the bed, I meditate, preparing myself for what I have to do. When the click of the key turning in the lock meets my ears, I stand, relieved when I see it’s not Lazarus wheeling the cart. My friend would likely try to talk me out of what I plan to do. But this scribe is slight, almost womanly under the robes. I wonder if the vampire is new. It’s odd for a scribe to serve meals, unless of course Lazarus sent them.

I spot the knife next to the domed tray. “You can go,” I tell the scribe.

“I’d rather stay.” The voice from beneath the hood is one I never thought I’d hear again. Delicate hands reach up and draw the cloth back from her face. I stumble backward.

“Eloise. How? Am I asleep? Is this another dream?”

She turns gravely serious. “You have to drink my blood, Damien. It will break the bond Valeska has over you.”

She approaches me, but I back away, lifting a hand. “Wait… wait…”

“We don’t have much time. Lazarus says that Valeska could return within the hour.”

“You’ve met Lazarus?”

She nods. “Yes. Now do as I say and take my blood.” She pulls her hair to the side. “Then we can get out of here.”

I shake my head. “I won’t take it from your throat. I don’t trust myself. Eloise, she means to have me kill you. She’s ordered me to do as much. Sometimes she commands me in my sleep. What if I start and I can’t stop?”

She hikes up the robes she’s wearing and draws a dagger from a sheath strapped to her thigh. “Take from my wrist. If you take too much, I’ll stab you somewhere that will heal.”

Charging toward me again, she thrusts her left wrist toward my mouth, a familiar dagger held firmly in her right.

“That’s Cassius’s dagger.”

“Yes. He gave it to me after he trained me to use it.”

“Trained you to use it but didn’t come himself?” I take her hand, so soft in my own, my eyes falling on the flutter beneath the skin of her wrist. Guilt and anxiety claw at my lungs and throat. What if I hurt her? Will this even work? I had her blood when I was bound to the candle, and it didn’t break the curse. Although she did break it with fire. She has the power.

She’s here at great personal risk to help me. Me, the person who betrayed her.

“Damien, we don’t have much time. What’s wrong? You’re trembling.”

“I can’t do this. Not without you knowing the truth.” I lower her wrist.

Her brow furrows. “Whatever happened, we can talk about it once we’re out of here.” She thrusts her wrist back toward me. She’s right, of course. I’m not making sense. But accepting the gift of her blood when I betrayed her seems wrong.

“I gave up your name.” My neck heats with the shame of it. “I tried everything to avoid it. I’d hoped to die before…”

She’s staring at me, tears in her eyes, the dagger gripped in her hand. “Drink, Damien. I forgive you. Valeska forced a blood bond on you, and whatever happened, I forgive you, but as your mate, if you don’t drink my blood in the next fifteen seconds, I’m going to fucking lose it.”

Hearing the command in her voice spurs me into motion. I strike, and the taste of her blood is like lightning flowing over my tongue. Heat travels down my throat, through my veins. I’m hard in an instant. I break from her wrist, closing the wound before I pull her against my body and bury my face in her neck.

“Did it work? Can you tell if the bond is broken?”

I draw back, my muscles tensing. “I smell another vampire on you. More than one.”

“It’s a long story,” she says, taking my hand and sheathing her blade. “Let’s try the door. Lazarus says she contained you to this room, right? So if you can leave, we know it worked.”

She leads me toward the exit, but the scent of the vampires I smelled on her neck, in her hair, haunt me. “How did you get into Night Haven, little bird?”

She doesn’t have a chance to answer me.

The door swings open and Valeska, flanked by her lady’s maids, enters, wearing the same smug smile she’s worn since the day she captured me. I tug Eloise behind me, but there’s no hiding her. The queen’s smile fades as her gaze traces over my mate’s borrowed scribe robes, her face, her hair, and then our coupled hands.

“Who is this?” she hisses through her teeth, but when her nostrils flare, her yellow eyes spark with recognition and she bares her teeth. “Kill her, Damien.”

Her command is direct, and I wait for the burning to start. Wait for the compulsion. It doesn’t come. Eloise’s blood has broken her hold on me.

“No.” Our eyes meet and hold.

Then she moves. Fangs and talons bared, we collide. She tries to knock me aside to get to Eloise, but my hand closes around her throat and what do you know, I can squeeze.

The problem is I’m still recovering, and Valeska is as strong as she is wicked. She claws my hands off her throat and attacks. I avoid the stab of her talons by breaking into shadow and retaliate with a jab to her jaw that knocks her back a step. My shadows rush her, piercing her flesh like needles, but she heals almost immediately, and when she retaliates, she goes straight for Eloise. In shadow form, I whirl between them and stop the queen just in time, my hand gripping her throat.

But her lady’s maids are screaming, and palace security pours into the room. The queen has backed us into a corner. Eloise is behind me, her dagger raised bravely toward the queen, but there’s nowhere for us to go. A half dozen guards stand between us and the door. If I break apart to kill them, I have to release the queen to do it, and if I do that, she’ll kill Eloise. I squeeze harder, but she’s strong. Her talons dig into my hands. As a vampire, she doesn’t need to breathe. I’m going to have to take her head off to end her. I raise a taloned hand.

Valeska’s eyes shift to the side, no doubt hearing the guards move in behind her, and she grins. Grins like she knows she’s already won. If I behead the queen, the arrows fly and Eloise is dead. If I break apart to take out the guards, Valeska kills Eloise.

My mind races. There must be a way.

Foolishly, Eloise shifts from behind me, locking eyes with Valeska. What is she doing? Does she plan to get herself killed?

The air crackles with her ire as she says in the old language of the vampires, “ Valeska, I challenge you for Damien, my mate, under the law of Provocationem Ad Mortem .”

A thrum of power pulses through the room. It blows my hair forward and causes the guards stumble back from us. Valeska uses the distraction to break from my grip long enough to claw at Eloise’s face. Power like I’ve never experienced blasts the queen into the air. She crashes into the wall, denting the stone and sending rocks cascading to the floor. I look back at Eloise and then at Valeska, who is already climbing to her feet, albeit slowly.

Eloise sheathes her blade. “I’ll save you some time while you come up to speed, Valeska. You can’t hurt me, and you can’t have someone else hurt me. And the same goes for Damien. I’ll see you at the first trial.” She takes my hand and pulls me toward the door.

“What have you done?” I whisper. My heart contracts with fear. I do not know this magic, but the last thing I want is for Eloise to challenge Valeska.

“Stop!” the queen hisses from behind me. “You will not go with her.”

Without a glance in Valeska’s direction, I keep walking even when her wails of outrage send her guards scurrying after us. An arrow flies, and I whirl to block it from hitting Eloise. But it hits an invisible barrier and crumples like crushed paper before clattering to the floor. This is old magic. This is dark magic.

“Come on.” Eloise yanks me toward the hall.

The queen screams at the guards. “Call the scribes. No one sleeps until I know everything there is to know about Provocationem Ad Mortem.”