Page 22 of The Crimson Princess (The Ravengale Chronicles #1)

Chapter seventeen

I push off the couch and sit on the stone coffee table in front of Toren, as if a little distance somehow makes what I have to say easier. “Like mother, like daughter. I’m here to keep peace before there is none to be found.”

“What does that mean?” Toren urges, his expression indecipherable, but I can feel his edginess. He’s not sure what to expect from me right now, but he knows it’s nothing good.

“I’m taking a huge risk by telling you this and I’m trusting you to see me as the future and not try to destroy my gales.”

His energy sharpens, his jaw flexing. “Are your gales going to attempt to destroy my vampires?”

“I wish I could say no, but there’s a problem brewing.”

“Go on,” he says quietly.

“The druids have been trying to get in my father’s good graces.”

“Never trust a druid,” he urges, “and if you want Ravengale to exist and thrive, never forget that.”

“I don’t trust the druids. The problem is my father trusts them over you.”

“You want to know the irony of that statement?” He doesn’t wait for my reply, anger crackling beneath his tone. “You want to know how I drank of him? We were on the battlefield, facing the druids, and I took a near fatal blow.”

“ You ? You almost died?”

“I’m not immortal, princess. Just hard to kill and we were outnumbered.

Your father couldn’t win without me and he knew it.

I was half dead when he sliced his wrist and fed me his blood.

Royal blood that still runs through my veins.

I was stronger and more dangerous than ever.

I destroyed our enemies. Your father turned around and tried to kill me. He didn’t need me anymore.”

The words should be shocking. I should be vehemently rejecting them and him.

But I am not.

I have a deep understanding of my father, through both myself and my mother, that I often wish I did not possess.

He’s trying to whore me off. It’s hard to not see him as willing to do anything for power, not to mention his extreme hatred of Toren, I suspect to be rooted in a knowledge that the vampire king is stronger than him.

He couldn’t win that battle without him.

And then there is Toren. There is simply something about Toren for me, something between us that allows me to feel him on a deeper level than I can anyone else around me.

I know what he’s telling me is the truth.

“I had no idea.” The admission is sandpaper in my throat.

“I didn’t expect that you would.” He doesn’t push me. He doesn’t comment on my easy acceptance of his history with my father. He sticks to what is near and present danger. “What’s his plan?”

“I don’t think I can tell you that.”

“I’m not going to turn against you or your gales, but if we don’t find a way to work together, my brother will destroy us all.”

“You give him a lot of credit.”

“Evil always deserves a lot of credit, Satima. I’d think you’d know that after ten years guarding a portal.”

He’s right. I do. “I feel like a traitor right now.”

His hands settle on my shoulders, warm with understanding. “All we have as leaders at times is instinct. Go with yours and if you don’t want to tell me, I’ll respect you, even if I wish I could drag it out of you. And that’s as honest as I can be right now.”

It’s more honest than I expect from him.

My mother was a powerful believer in instinct standing between us and death and I have to go with mine now.

“He’s decided the gales, too, have the sorceress at our disposal.

I made all the arguments about your brother’s wrath, but he won’t listen.

He’s certain that if the gales and druids are one, we can defeat not just your brother, but you. ”

He just looks at me. And looks at me some more, his eyes so damn cold.

“Stop staring at me like that,” I demand and it’s my turn to say, “I’m not your enemy.

I do not want to be your enemy. There has to be a way to fix this and that’s why I’m here.

That’s why I came looking for you tonight. To fix this.”

“The gales will not accept this merger with the druids easily. How does he plan to overcome that obstacle?”

I have no idea why I dread this part the most with Toren, but I do.

“He’s been in talks with the druid king.

They’ve negotiated and—I can’t even believe I’m saying this.

He plans to marry me off to the druid prince.

” Toren’s spine goes ramrod straight and I hold up a hand.

“I didn’t agree to marry Bellar. I was forced to agree to a public courting, not a marriage, but I fear how the gales will react. ”

His fingers flex where they rest on my shoulders. “Your mother would not stand for such a thing.”

“Neither will I, but my father is king and I have to proceed strategically.”

“You cannot marry him, Satima.” There’s a raspiness to his voice and for reasons that feel illogical, I think it’s personal. Which is silly. We’ve only just come to know each other, and yet, if I’m truthful with myself, I dread the day he leaves Ravengale.

“Satima.” My name is a plea and a demand. “You cannot—”

“You already said that. Twice. When I marry, if I marry, it will not be to a druid prince I despise. I’m not my father’s possession to gamble away.

I’m not anyone’s possession. Nor do I think joining the druids is the safe move for Ravengale, but he doesn’t seem to think joining you is either.

You’ve never acknowledged Ravengale as the ultimate rule when everyone else has. ”

“Because he claims that’s what the book wants doesn’t mean it’s what the book wants. How do we know no one else can read it? He won’t let me try. ”

He knifes me with those words, driving home my biggest worry over my father’s actions. He’s afraid of Toren. “I’ve never seen the book. I don’t…know, Toren. I don’t really know a lot right now.”

He presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose and then looks at me again. “He could force you to marry him.”

“He can’t force me. I won’t do it.”

“Did you sign a commitment to marry him?”

“No.”

“Once you do,” he warns, “the druids will be obligated to fight with your father. They’ll also try to take your kingdom.”

A sick feeling rolls over me right along with a hard dose of reality. “My father will most certainly try to link us during the Challenge, at least publicly establish a courting ritual is taking place.”

“I’m not as convinced as you are, that you can just say no.”

“I can. I will.”

“In which case, the druids will be enraged, and your father will be forced to reconsider me as an ally.”

“And you’ll protect the gales?”

“Despite your father, and because of you, Princess Satima, yes. I give you my word.”

I study him a moment, really study him, allowing my magic and the instincts we’ve been discussing to guide me forward, and I trust Toren. “And I shall take you at your word, King Toren.”

“But if Ravengale attacks—”

“I know. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep my father from this partnership with the druids. On that you have my word, King Toren.”

“Then I too, will take you at your word.”

For several beats we just stare at each other, and there is this pull between us, this need that I can feel easing us closer, back into each other’s arms, but I resist. It’s late.

So very late and I fear being missed. “I have to leave.” I attempt to get up and he catches my hand, and with the touch goosebumps lift on my arm.

I can kill a werewolf, but a vampire king can bring me to my knees with a mere brush of his hand on mine .

“We need to talk about your bloodlust.”

I blink in confusion. “My bloodlust? You mean yours ?”

“No, Satima. I mean yours . We both know you enjoyed the blood in the way no full gale is capable.”

My throat is dry and my heart is barely beating. “What are you saying?”

“It’s true that your mother came to me like you did today, to avoid a war, but there was more to it than that alone. She also felt loyalty to me because I’d done her a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” My voice squeaks out, dread I do not understand in my belly.

“Obviously she was found by the river at age five, no knowledge of her origins. When she asked to meet me, it was because she’d been in a battle, and during that battle she’d experienced bloodlust. She was convinced she was a vampire.”

“That’s impossible. Gales and vampires can’t— can we ?”

“That’s a complicated question and answer. When your mother came to me, though her claim defied reason, I had a hard time denying her reasoning. I took her blood samples back to one scientist I trust completely, and under lock and key, he studied the results.”

“And?”

“She was both vampire and gale, but the gale genetics were a mutation never seen before. We assume that she inherited that from her mother, and that was the reason her mother was able to conceive with a vampire.”

“Then a mutation exists?”

“Yes, but with your mother’s help, we checked random samples from the gale bloodlines, and nothing showed up. No mutation. It appears the mutation is extremely rare.”

“But I have it. I have to have it. That means we—tonight—”

“Relax. No, I do not think you are now pregnant with my child.”

My hand presses to my belly. “But you don’t know. ”

“I know.” His voice is absolute. “No matter what, a male vampire is only fertile certain times of the year. This is not the time.”

“I thought it was monthly, some lunar thing?”

“It’s not. You’re not pregnant, but at some point a gale and a vampire mated.”

“Do we know who they were?”

“No, but during the war we were intermingling far more than any other time.”

My brow furrows. “That timeline doesn’t work.”

“Even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean a relationship didn’t start during that time and secretly continued afterward. I have a theory it was someone from your mother’s village the whole time, and that river beside the village caused a mutation. But it’s pure speculation.”