Page 8

Luc

I go straight back to the capital and contact Alexandra, asking to see her. She agrees to meet me at the Moonlight Garden outside of the city. I am glad she is not making things awkward because our relationship had not ended well and we did not part on good terms. Some harsh words had been exchanged and she was a proud woman who did not tolerate being treated badly.

She stood at one of the fountains, a tall, slim shape in a shimmering silver robe. She was extremely attractive, with delicate features and slanted eyes, her dark hair reaching to her waist. However, the look she gave me was cold and hostile. I knew I didn’t have much time with her.

“Thank you for meeting me, I know this is a difficult time.”

Alexandra was now the chief Hattari counsel to the rulers of the city. She represented the al-Hattari tribe, who occupied the Western Territory. Even though it was an area of mostly mountains and inhospitable land, it included the coast and several miles of sea in the South, where rich gas reserves existed. VCOM ran huge exploration and extraction enterprises there. We were about to open a new plant there as well.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“VCOM is having problems with the Hattari deal, do you know anything about it?”

A small smile twitched her lips.

“Are you asking me for information? I thought that was your department?”

She was not going to make it easy for me.

“I was under the impression we were renewing the contract, opening a new plant. Now I’m told the Harrati government has received a new proposal from a rival organization offering better terms. Do you know anything about this?”

Alexandra turned away from me.

“Marran-Da is exploring her options. You can’t blame her. VCOM have been underpaying for years.”

She was referring to the Hattari queen, a woman who, in the past, had preferred a traditional lifestyle closer to the ancient ways of the Hattari.

“What does that mean?” I asked her. “Exploring her options?” When she wouldn’t answer, I pressed on. “Do you know who the other bidding party is? Could they be sympathetic to the shifters?”

Her shoulders tensed and that was all I needed to know.

“Damn it! Alexandra! You could have warned me!”

“Why would I?” she shot back, her tone cold as ice. “You were always so arrogant, so all-knowing.” Her voice became mocking. “Vampires have been around longer than any other species! Remember your words? Telling me how powerful you were, how much more superior to anyone else! Your superior intellect!” she spat the words at me. “And now you have to ask me for help! A mere mortal. Oh, how, ironic!”

She was right, but I could not admit it. “I am trying to remedy the situation,” I began, shaking my head.

“Matteo didn’t find it that difficult,” she said, her voice taunting me.

“Matteo? What do you mean?”

She gave a step closer to me. “He was coming to meet me, the night he was killed. I was waiting for him at the lodge where I was brokering a meeting with Marran-Da but he never showed up. They got to him right outside the lodge.”

“Who? The shifters?”

She laughed, mocking me. “Of course not.”

“I was told shifters killed him. My men reported his death to me, they said the body was torn apart. They brought me his belt buckle!”

Her beautiful eyes narrowed. “I saw his body before the flames destroyed everything. He had been killed by a silver spear in the heart. Then his head was severed before he was set alight.”

She waved a hand and conjured up an image of the scene. I could see Matteo lying in the grass, his eyes staring unseeing. She was right, there was a silver dagger in his heart. It had a decorated handle, which was not handed over to me as evidence but the bigger problem was that this was a vampire dagger. I recognized it. It meant that Matteo had been killed by one of our own. I didn’t doubt that Alexandra was telling me the truth. Even though I knew she hated me, she had taken a vow of Truth. I was reeling from the information she had shared with me.

“Did he tell you anything?” I asked her.

She paused. “He was worried about the increase in shifter activity and thought there might be a link between one of their leaders and the al-Hattari. He said he talked to you about it but you thought he was being paranoid.”

She was right, but I didn’t want to hear how I had let my friend down.

I ran a hand over my hair, trying to make sense of what I’d just heard.

Alexandra flicked her wrist again and a new image came up, of Marran-Da at some kind of event. There were a number of people around her, but closest to her, was an extremely tall and thin man. His hair was slicked back with a distinctly reptilian air about him.

“Sunny The Snake,” I said with a sinking feeling, noting how close he was standing to Marran-Da, with an arm draped visibly around her waist. “Is this the man she is thinking of marrying?”

Alexandra shook her head. “Nothing has been decided.”

But she didn’t finish her sentence.

“Matteo wanted to find out what Vlas could do to secure the deal for VCOM. I thought he had a good chance,” she shrugged. “Then he was killed.”

She gave me a cool look. “There are some who say the time of the vampire has passed. Your numbers are small. Too many of your families are old and weary. Do you think you have it in you to win this fight? Yet another war?”

I knew what she meant. Many of the royal vampire houses had seen too many wars and didn’t want to become involved in yet another fight. Some lived in castles in distant lands, presiding over their own villages. They felt that shifters could take over areas where they had no involvement. The South was not important to them, but this was where the oil was. We had taken our eye off it and as a result, the shifters were moving in.

I had heard that some of the older vampire families had sent word they wouldn’t send fighters to the royal army, which was treason. Our numbers were low but losing was not an option and certainly not to shifters. I would fight them to the end.

I briefly thought of Ruby, lying in her arms last night when the wolves attacked. I had easily defeated them, more than a match for both of them. It was a mistake to think of Ruby, though, Alexandra saw her in me, right away.

“There is someone else now,” she said slowly. “A woman?”

I nodded, there was no point lying to her.

“I sensed the change in you,” she says. “I wondered what it was… now I see it, the softening, the human in you awakening.”

I shook my head, refusing to accept it.

“It could be the making of you,” she said, lightly.

I stepped forward, changing the topic. “Alexandra, what are the rulers saying? Are they still with us?”

She inclined her head. “They are divided. Some of the younger members are more open to the charms of a new elite, offering them money and land. I have heard of parties, of lavish gifts…”

Vampires were notoriously exclusive, we’d always been accused of not letting anyone in. I had warned Vlas that the world was changing and that we couldn’t keep everyone else out but he wouldn’t listen.

“I must go,” Alexandra said suddenly.

I nodded. “Thank you, for seeing me. You didn’t have to come here.”

She paused. “I don’t want things to be awkward between us,” she said.

“I appreciate that.”

She looked at me strangely.

“You are different,” she said. “This girl must be something.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t like the idea that my relationship with Ruby was weakening me in any way. I knew she was in my thoughts, but it had not occurred to me that in doing so, I was being distracted from my duties.

I couldn’t lose my focus on protecting my kind and my king. Even worse, Alexandra had suggested that I had ignored Matteo’s concerns, perhaps that I could’ve prevented his death. I felt anger rising in me and I knew I had to control it. Alexandra wanted to get a rise out of me, it was her way of showing me she was still in control.

“Oh, one last thing,” Alexandra said, turning back. “In consulting with the spheres, I have tried to see how this war will go, but it is unclear. All I can see is that there will be destruction and that many will die.” She waves her hand and I see a world filled with thick smoke and devastating flames.

“It means the outcome is not yet decided.”

Then she was gone.

The war would be worse than I feared, but all was not lost yet. There was a way to win it, but I had to find it. I thought of what she said about Matteo’s death. He had been betrayed, by one of us. It had to be someone in power, in a senior position. In whose interest could this murder be?

I thought of the silver dagger I had seen. That had not been just any weapon, but an expensive blade. Perhaps royal? Overpowering Matteo meant either numbers or a vampire of superior strength and there were not many like this left.

As I made my way back to the Castle, I thought of Ruby and wondered how she was getting on in Buzzard Creek. I would have liked to go back to check on her, but my focus had to be on the Capital.

I thought of Matteo and how I had not been there for him in the end. He had wanted to talk to me and I had been too busy and kept blowing him off. Whenever he told me about his concerns about the shifters, I told him he was seeing ghosts. Furry ghosts, with bad breath, but these ghosts had come back to haunt me, in the worst way.

There could be no happiness for me until I knew who had killed him and why.

I owed him that.