Court of the Vampire Queen: Part 3 – Chapter 38

I spend the next twenty-four hours in misery. I still can’t keep anything down and I’m so tired, I don’t bother to leave the motel room. Thankfully, I don’t have to. Grace paid through the end of the week, so at least I don’t have to be worried about being kicked out.

Another price she paid on my behalf.

It doesn’t matter if she said she was doing it for herself, if she went accepted Azazel’s bargain because she was looking for answers about her mother. She never would have had access to the demon in the first place if not for me. If anything horrible happens to her…The fact she just lost seven years…

Everyone is making sacrifices for me. Malachi. Rylan. Wolf. Now Grace, who’s little more than a stranger. Meanwhile, I’m huddled here on a motel bed, waiting to be rescued. Again. It’s enough to make me want to scream.

I feel the change in the air before Azazel materializes in front of me. It’s a strange sort of static electricity, like right before a lightning storm. One moment the room is mundane and ordinary, and the next shadows reign supreme despite the relative early hour.

I won’t say Azazel’s less scary after all these interactions, but I don’t have the energy to cower right now. I just blink up at him as he towers over me. “Took you long enough.” Even my voice sounds wrong. Weak and thready.

He frowns. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Just special, I guess.”

He frowns harder and leans down to coast his hand over my body. He doesn’t touch me, keeping a careful few inches of distance between us, but it still feels too intimate. Especially when he hovers over my midsection and huffs out a laugh. “I suppose that would do it. You’re cooking quite the little beast in there, aren’t you?”

“Don’t call them a little beast.” The words rush out before I can think. I might have more than a little resentment about the pregnancy, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let this demon talk about the…baby…like that.

“If you insist.” His dark brows draw together, eyes lighting almost red for a moment. “Ah, I see. That would do it.”

“What are you talking about?” I don’t like this. I’m prone and feel particularly helpless, and he hasn’t moved his hand away from my stomach. “Back off.”

“Your shields are abysmal.”

“I’m aware,” I grit out. I can’t sit up because he still hasn’t moved and I don’t want to risk accidentally touching him, but I don’t like this. Not a single bit. “Get away from me. I mean it.” I try to inject as much authority into my voice as possible. I don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t listen. I don’t know what I can do.

“I’m feeling generous after meeting my quota so I’ll help you out for free.” He presses a single finger against my lower stomach in the gap between my T-shirt and my jeans. It’s such a tiny touch. A single fingertip. It still goes through me like a giant bell tolling. The room gives a sickening spin and then another and another, before finally settling back into place.

“What the fuck? I told you—” I stop short. I feel different. Lighter. Like I can draw a full breath for the first time in over a week. I’d attributed that claustrophobic feeling to worry about my men, but it was the pregnancy all along? I narrow my eyes at the demon standing over me. “What did you do?”

“Supplemental shield. It won’t stop the beast from growing or gaining the necessary sustenance to survive, but it will stop the constant drain of power.” He considers. “Think of it as a funnel rather than a waterfall. Better for both of you, I imagine.”

“Do you have a lot of experience with seraph pregnancies and the resulting vampire-hybrid babies?” I manage.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Can you—”

“You already got this for free. Don’t press your luck asking for more.” He straightens abruptly. “I’ll retrieve your vampires once it reaches full dark. Where do you want them?” He makes a show of looking around. “This place is hardly secure and your father will be searching for them.”

I finally sit up. He’s still too close, his shadows taking up too much space and making him seem larger than his human form. It’s disconcerting in the extreme. “You took seven years of Grace’s life and you can’t even guarantee that you won’t leave a trail for them to follow?”

He sighs. “You continue to press me. It’s irritating.”

A few weeks ago, having a ridiculously powerful and scary demon exasperated with me would be enough for common sense to take over and silence me. No longer. I lift my chin. “Then maybe you should make better deals. You’re supposed to be so powerful. My father is just a vampire. What’s that compared to a demon?”

Azazel sighs again, louder. “Fine.” He produces a card from somewhere and passes it over. It looks nearly identical to the one from earlier, except it has an address on it. “That’s a one-way ticket, so don’t use it until you’re ready to go.”

“Go,” I repeat.

He doesn’t roll his eyes, but it looks like he wants to. “Yes, go. When you’re prepared to leave, hold it to your chest and concentrate. Anything you’re carrying will be transported with you.”

A sliver of cold works its way through me. Teleportation. Obviously, I knew Azazel could do it since he seems to come and go as he pleases, but to allow someone else to do it independently of him? The thought makes me shudder. It seems risky. Surely there are a thousand things that could go wrong while I’m a disembodied version of myself, winging from one location to another. If that’s even how teleportation works. I honestly have no idea.

Riskier than trying to call a cab and leaving a trail for someone to follow if they know where to look?

No. Not riskier than that.

I finally nod. “It will be safe there?”

“Safe enough.” He shrugs. “What happens after that is up to the four of you. My help ends with the transfer.”

He looks like he’s about to leave, but I find myself speaking before he can pull a disappearing act. “Azazel.”

He waits, eyes dark and far too knowing. It would be so easy to let fear silence me, but I breathe through it and say, “If Grace is hurt because of the deal she made with you, I’ll find a way to kill you myself.” Maybe it’s an impossible task, but I’ll do what I can to repay that debt.

His lips curve, though his eyes remain cold. “As long as she follows the rules, she’ll be fine.”

If Grace finds out someone in that realm was the reason her mother never returned, she might murder them. Or at least try. I don’t know her well enough to know for sure. Maybe she’ll try to kill Azazel himself. The thought has me fighting back another shiver. “She made that deal because of me.”

“If you say so. Seems like she was intent on it for her own purposes.” He cocks his head to the side as if listening to something I can’t hear. “Don’t linger here. They’ll be searching the area shortly.” Then he’s gone, sinking into the shadows on the floor as if stepping into a deep pool of water. It’s more disconcerting than when he just disappears in a flood of darkness.

I test the floor, now clear of shadows, and it feels solid enough. “Creepy.”

I don’t know what to think of Azazel’s supplemental shield, but it’s a worry for another day. At this point, I have a lot of worries for later dates. There’s no help for it. I need to gather what few things I have and get out of here. The card feels strange against my palm, a faint pulse coming from it.

Teleportation.

I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s possible. In the last couple weeks, I’ve seen plenty of things that I’d previously thought impossible. With all that said, this feels particularly fantastical. I shake my head and make quick work of packing up anything that could link me to this room. There’s the blood on the floor, but I can’t do much about that without burning the place down, and I’m not willing to do that. My father isn’t able to track from some old blood.

Even if he was, he wouldn’t have to tear up the carpet in this hotel room to have access to my blood. I left plenty of it behind in his compound over the years, originating with one punishment or another. I shake off the dark thoughts and throw the last few things in my bag.

My gaze tracks to the desk where Grace’s weapons are laid out. I can’t leave them. When we spoke about deals, Azazel made it sound like time moved differently in the other realm, so seven years might pass in a matter of months or even days. If Grace returns that quickly on our side of things, I want her to have her weapons. It’s the absolute least I can do.

As I carefully pack them into the duffel bag she’d brought in, I notice a few of the knives are missing. Two daggers and one that’s long enough to be a short sword. I laughed when I first saw it and asked her if she planned on fighting any Spartans. She hadn’t been amused.

I didn’t even see her grab them during that short conversation with Azazel before she made her deal. Maybe she’d already had them on her. Or maybe she was better at sleight of hand than I could have imagined. I press my lips together. I hope you know what you’re getting into.

After slinging both bags over my shoulders, I grab the card and examine it. He said I just need to concentrate, which sounds deceptively simple. Everything about magic is deceptively simple.

Just reach for it.

Just imagine what you want it to do.

Just let it do what it’s meant to do.

I snort and press the card to my chest. Nothing happens. Of course nothing happens. Why would anything magical I attempt actually work on the first try? I take a slow breath and close my eyes. The desire to leave, to see my men again, whole and healthy, slams into me so hard, it makes me dizzy. I choke on a ragged inhale and the world seems to go sickeningly liquid for half a beat.

When I open my eyes, I’m somewhere else.

I turn a slow circle, taking in the relatively normal living room I now stand in. It looks like something out of a sitcom. Small and cozy with furniture that has a lived-in kind of feel. A staircase leads up to the second floor and I can see the kitchen through the doorway in the back of the room. Another turn shows what appears to be a front door.

The bags go on the low coffee table. I pad to the front door to peer out the windows on either side. I’d half expected to find a street with rows of nearly identical houses, but there is only a gravel driveway leading down a hill into dark trees. Not a single light breaks up the growing darkness, though in the distance I can see what appears to be a town. I exhale slowly. Good. With this house being so isolated, it means there’s less chance of innocents getting caught in the cross fire if my father’s people find us again.

Less chances of close neighbors asking questions about weird sights and sounds, too.

I do a quick search of the house, but there’s nothing worth noting. A few bedrooms with large beds, a deceptively nice shower, a modern kitchen with a fridge and pantry packed with food. I pause there, considering. My stomach is cramping with hunger and I feel a little woozy, but I have energy for the first time since I found out I was pregnant. “Maybe this supplemental shield will help with the morning sickness?” I murmur.

Ten minutes later, I have my answer as I puke up the few crackers I managed to choke down. Damn it.

I drag myself to the living room to dig out my toothbrush so I can scrub the taste out of my mouth. That done, I circle back to the fridge. Food is right out, but I had seen some electrolyte-packed drinks in there. Maybe that will help.

A thud from the living room has me spinning around.

I rush through the doorway to find Azazel standing over my three men as if he just dumped them in a pile. Azazel brushes his hands together as if dusting them off. “Good luck.” Then he disappears in a surge of shadows.

I don’t hesitate, I drop my drink and rush toward the men. “Are you okay?”

Malachi is at the bottom of the pile, but he throws up a hand. “Stop.”

I freeze a few feet away. “What?”

“We’re…” He shakes his head, eyes slightly unfocused. His handsome face is haggard and drawn, cheekbones stark. “Not safe.”

What they said in the last dream comes rushing back. Somehow my father managed to get them to the brink of starvation in only a few days. In all the chaos, I hadn’t had much time to think about it. Now, the truth stares me right in the face, evidence blatant in the fact all three of them have obviously lost weight. Too much weight. More, they’re too pale, their skin stretched tight over their bones. Even Malachi’s long hair seems dull and brittle.

I don’t move, but I don’t retreat, either. “You need blood.”

“Not yours,” Rylan grinds out. He lifts his head and the gauntness of his cheeks make my stomach drop. “Need too much.”

They can’t go hunting like this. They can barely move. If they don’t trust me to touch them—or, rather, don’t trust themselves to allow me close—then I’ll have to hunt for them. The thought fills me with unease, but I’ll do anything to keep my men safe. If that means someone else has to pay the price.

Well, it’s becoming something of a trend, isn’t it?

It’s so much easier to make that call for them than it is for myself, though. I would commit unforgivable acts to keep my men with me and safe. I spent a lot of time pretending I’m not just as monstrous as my father, but in this moment, I don’t even hesitate. I take a slow step back. “Stay here.”

“Mina.”

I hold Malachi’s gaze. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

“Mina.”

I don’t give him a chance to argue. I spin on my heel and rush back into the kitchen. I had noticed a hook with keys on it by the back door. Sure enough, outside, I find a tiny garage with a truck parked there. It even has a full tank of gas. “Thanks, Azazel,” I mutter.

I don’t have much experience with driving, but I won’t let that stop me. The clock reads midnight as I tear out of the garage and kick up gravel behind me. At this time of night, there’s only one option for scoping out victims.

I need to find a bar.