Page 7 of Dance of the Phoenix (Cloak of the Vampire #3)

Aileen

A couple dozen vampires now sat in the front row, awaiting their turn to show what they had.

This shouldn’t have surprised me, considering that vampires saw the Hecatomb as a stepping stone to climb up the hierarchy of the vampiric society.

And yet I was still dumbfounded when I saw that that many people, who weren’t even related to the Troop, were willing to put their lives on the line.

But the most surprising applicant was Zoey, who was sitting next to me.

“Are you sure?” I asked her for the tenth time since we’d found one another and sat together. “It’s only been a couple of days since you recovered—”

“I’m sure,” she cut me off, her jaw set stubbornly. “I’m feeling great. I can do this.”

Seeing how sickly thin she still was, I had my doubts. “Just ... don’t overexert yourself, okay?” Though I doubted she was in any shape to perform well enough to be voted for, just going onstage and participating in a long mock battle was bound to take its toll on her.

For the improvised show, each mock battle would be five minutes long instead of one.

And, as if word had gotten out about what was going on, the Auction Hall seemed even more packed than before, all the League members wanting to see their options, especially since the voting happened tomorrow, and a lot was at stake.

“It’s just five minutes,” Zoey now said. “I’m going to be fine.”

Pursing my lips, I agreed to disagree in silence. Zoey was a big girl. She’d been through a lot ever since she was sold to Renaldi, then rescued from the Jinn manor. She was entitled to have free choice.

I just wished she wouldn’t put herself in danger, especially after everything that had happened.

As the mock battles started taking place on the stage, I remembered a conversation I had with Zoey not long after Ragnor officially added her back to the Rayne League. I’d asked her why she’d been at the Jinn manor in the first place and not at the Renaldi League.

“When all hell broke loose at the gala, I used the chaos and ran away,” she’d told me, sipping blood in her infirmary bed. “But the Jinn found me and captured me. They took me to their mansion, where you later found me. They used me as sustenance.”

She’d talked about it with something akin to indifference.

As if her fate at the Jinn mansion was far better than it would have been staying at the Renaldi League.

While I knew from Isora and Eleanor, my former Atalon League suitemate, how bad the Renaldi League really was, in terms of how Lord Renaldi used his members for worse things than prostitution, I couldn’t imagine being kidnapped by the Jinn was preferable.

But perhaps that’s because I was used to doing those things Renaldi forced his female members to do—except for the prostitution part, that is.

Looking at Zoey now, eagerly waiting her turn to show what she’d got, stubborn determination etched in her face, I remembered her carefree, queen bee nature from before the Auction and couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

She’d become a vampire with the hope of a better life than the one she’d led as a human.

And yet here she was, going through hardships she never could’ve imagined. Her brown eyes, once full of life, were now cold and detached.

“Just be careful,” I said now, wincing as a Common Troop member kicked the non-Troop applicant right in the chest, sending him back with a cry of agony. It hadn’t even been a minute, and the fight was already over.

Zoey didn’t respond. So I stopped talking.

Half an hour later, it was my former suitemate’s turn. When Kaylon called her name, she rose to her feet, adjusted her jeans and tee, and took the stage. Her Troop opponent was the woman who’d been CJ’s partner in their mock battle earlier. Lynnea, her name was.

My heart rate picked up as I watched the two circling one another once Kaylon called “Start.” I could only hope Zoey would be okay.

After a few long moments, in which the women seemed to size up one another, Lynnea made the first move.

She jumped and shot a fist to Zoey’s face, but Zoey cocked her head and the punch went flying over her shoulder.

Using that momentum, Zoey grabbed Lynnea’s upper arms and with almost no effort at all slammed her down on the stage with a loud thump .

Lynnea groaned in pain but still moved her legs, trying to kick at Zoey, but Zoey used her thighs to pin her down, her hands around Lynnea’s wrists.

Lynnea growled and struggled under Zoey’s hold, but Zoey was immobile.

It was such an odd sight, seeing Zoey, who was only now starting to gain weight after being skin and bones back when we found her at the Jinn mansion, holding down a taller, much more muscular woman who was also a member of the Troop.

Long seconds trickled by, filled with silence from the audience. No one cheered. No one clapped or called. In fact, I could swear I heard everyone’s heartbeats quickening as the realization of what we were all seeing dawned on us.

Zoey had bested a Troop member in less than ten seconds.

When Lynnea finally surrendered, Kaylon said into the mic, his voice a shocked murmur, “The winner is Zoey Rittman! Remember this name, ladies and gentlemen.”

After her display of absolute dominance in the mock battle, Zoey had just become a prime candidate to participate in the Hecatomb.

“Now, for the last mock battle of this wonderful show—Troop member Sulien versus Aileen Henderson!”

Déjà vu hit me when I climbed the stairs to the stage, only instead of an easel that dictated my entire vampiric existence, a man waited for me. This man, Sulien, had fought against CJ in the mock battle, I recalled. He had a lean, athletic build that was similar to Logan’s.

If I were in shape, I could’ve bested him. But unfortunately, it’d been a few months since I last had any sort of training. In fact, my last true physical training had been during PE class with Logan. Since then, I’d been busier learning my newfound powers.

Basically, I’d neglected any sort of physical training. So I had to rely on muscle memory for this one, which did not give me a lot of confidence.

Once Kaylon called “Start!” Sulien rocketed toward me with fists flying.

I managed to block the first few punches, but when he feigned aiming at my midsection, I fell for it, and he landed a punch to my jaw. Staggering back, I ignored the pain and spit blood on the floor before bracing myself for another round of attacks.

Sulien wasn’t as strong as others I knew, but he made up for it by being annoyingly relentless. He did not let me catch my breath or be on the offensive. He was attempting to dominate the entire battle.

And that, I couldn’t let him do.

So as I avoided his barrage of kicks, I began preparing for my counterattack. Ignoring my aching, rusty muscles, I began to slow my movements. It was an extremely gradual process, so much so that Sulien didn’t realize he was beginning to slow down as well to fit my pace.

I hadn’t used Iovan’s Imperium since that time during the first PE class with Logan.

The main reason for it was that when one wasn’t at their physical and mental peak, Iovan’s Imperium could be rendered useless.

To perfect this martial art, one needed to be in tune with their body and mind after a gruesome training that could last years.

My father had drilled these movements into my bones since I’d taken my first step. And while I was far from peak physical, or even mental, condition, muscle memory played a very big part in performing this martial art. It just wouldn’t be executed in as deadly a fashion as it should be.

Iovan’s Imperium included five Behests the practitioner needed to execute in order. The first Behest, Gradus Diminutio , was about lulling the opponent into a sense of false security, while in fact making them match your pace as you prepared for the next Behest.

The tricky thing was, the opponent had to be completely oblivious to the fact you knew this martial art, or this wouldn’t work.

Unsurprisingly, Sulien was clueless. In fact, his face lit up in bored resolve, as if he couldn’t bother giving his all to this fight anymore.

And that’s what Iovan must’ve considered when cultivating his martial art: a play on the opponent’s sense of supremacy.

We were moving at a far slower pace than before, and my muscles were screaming at me in pain.

Gritting my teeth, I knew if I didn’t move to the second Behest, Propero Incrementum , despite not entirely completing the first one, I wouldn’t be able to continue.

So I took a slow, deep breath and, with every ounce of strength I had, launched myself at Sulien with an explosive, accelerated movement full of power, backhanding him across his face so hard my knuckles groaned and shooting a fast kick to his ribs, knocking him down to the floor.

Adrenaline rushed through me, propelling me to move even faster than before.

Before Sulien could even try to rise back up, I was straddling him, shooting a fast set of punches to his face, making his head bob from side to side.

At first, he tried to struggle against my body, but I caged his legs between my thighs, rendering him utterly motionless.

Only when I felt the tension in his body leaving, telling me he was losing consciousness, did I stop, drenched in sweat and gasping for air, awful pain reverberating through my sore bones.

Panting, I saw Sulien had completely passed out, his face swollen.

Grinding my teeth, I released my hold on him and pushed myself off his body, landing on my butt.

I leaned my elbows against my raised knees, blinking drops of sweat on the floor.

Drool of saliva mixed with blood trickled down my chin, dripping over to my shirt.

I had barely executed two Behests—quite poorly too—and I felt as if I’d been run over by a truck. I’d become so fucking weak, it wasn’t even funny.

“And the winner is . . . erm . . . Aileen Henderson?”

Why Kaylon phrased it as a question, when Sulien had obviously lost, I had no idea. All I could hear was the crowd clapping, though it sounded quite reluctant—or perhaps I was imagining things. I couldn’t even lift my head to see what was going on in the audience. I was that exhausted.

The lights on the stage were suddenly shut down and Kaylon cleared his throat and said into the mic, “That’s it for the improvised show! I hope you all enjoyed it and have a better idea who to vote for tomorrow! Have a good night!”

A moment later, a familiar large, warm hand landed on my shoulder, followed by a soft murmur. “I’m going to carry you. Bear with it, please.”

I couldn’t have resisted if I’d wanted to, and, in all honesty, I did not want to. So when Ragnor slithered his arms under my knees and back and lifted me up, the remaining tension finally left my body, and I leaned my head against his chest, closing my eyes in relief.

“You never told me you knew Iovan’s Imperium.”

I didn’t process Ragnor’s words immediately. He was straddling my back, massaging my aching shoulders, back, and legs, and I was feeling so sleepy as he worked my kinks, it took me a moment to realize what he’d just said.

“Oh,” I murmured into the pillow, moaning when he unknotted a particularly sore muscle in my thigh. “How ... do you know Iovan’s Imperium?”

He didn’t stop massaging me as he spoke. “I studied it a few centuries ago,” he said quietly, “from a martial arts expert. I could tell when you used the correct order of the Behests.”

Surprised, I turned my head to the side and glanced at him. “It’s not very common knowledge.” To say the least. In fact, that he could tell it was Iovan’s Imperium just from the few movements I’d executed, and not even in their fullest form, was quite the feat.

“True,” Ragnor said, his hands sliding up my back to my shoulders. “Very few practice it nowadays. I didn’t know you were one of them.”

I sighed as his thumbs dug into my shoulder blades in slow, circular motions. “Iovan Heka was one of my ancestors,” I said. “He was a Child of Kahil.”

Ragnor said nothing for a few long moments as his hands moved to my sides, massaging my waist. “That explains a lot,” he finally said after a while. “So your father taught you, I assume?”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “He trained me every day from the moment I could walk until he was first put in prison.”

Ragnor hummed in understanding. We were silent for a while until he finally finished massaging me and slapped my butt. I whirled my head toward him and narrowed my eyes. “What was that for?”

“For hiding that you were a Praefectus,” he said with a frown, using the word for one who had mastered Iovan’s Imperium. “I knew you had some martial arts knowledge, thanks to Logan’s reports during your newcomer days, but I didn’t know it was like that.”

I leaned back, gently pushing him off me, and sat down, facing him.

“Logan didn’t mention that?” I asked with a frown of my own.

Logan knew Iovan’s Imperium, since I’d taught some of it to him during my time at foster care with his parents.

I’d even used some of it on him, in ways he would never forgive me for.

So why didn’t he tell Ragnor, his Lord , about it?

Ragnor’s face twisted, turning carefully expressionless. I tensed. It had been a while since I saw this kind of face on him, and it put me on full alert. “Why would Logan know about it?” he asked, midnight blue eyes locking mine in a dangerous hold.

It was then that I realized I hadn’t told Ragnor about one thing in my past. One of the most crucial things in my past that actually pertained to the present too: the relationship I used to have with Logan.

The fact that Logan’s family had taken me in as a foster kid when my father ended up in jail.

That Logan now loathed my very existence—and rightfully so.

Oh, fuck.

Just the thought of sharing that, telling Ragnor about Logan and me, made my heartbeat quicken and my mouth turn dry. Anxiety filled my insides, my stomach churning with sudden fear.

“No, I guess he shouldn’t know about it,” I said, hoping my voice was as indifferent as I willed it to be.

Ragnor’s eyes scanned my face silently before he nodded and got off the bed.

“I’m going back to the office,” he said with his back to me as he slid his feet into his usual combat boots.

“Take a shower and rest. The day after tomorrow, once the voting is done, you’re in for two very intense weeks of whipping you into shape. ”

I didn’t have the time to respond before he left the room and slammed his suite door shut.

And I had the nauseating suspicion that Ragnor knew I had lied.