Lord of the Vampires (Royal House of Shadows #1)(55)
Author: Gena Showalter

“You saw what I saw,” Laila gritted out. “Your precious human studied your kind. Cut them up, hurt them. Tell me, were they your friends?”

Oh, no, Jane thought. No, no, no. Somehow he’d known she had researched and done experiments on his kind, but he hadn’t known the identities of her victims. Had she hurt one of his friends?

“Do you still wish to protect her?” Laila demanded. “Do you still wish to be her lover?”

Silence.

Such heavy silence.

Please don’t tell me you knew any of them. If he had, he would hate her.

“What do you want, princess?” Nicolai said, his voice devoid of all emotion.

A knot grew in Jane’s throat, practically cutting off her air. He did. He hated her. She needed to apologize, to explain, but couldn’t do so here, now.

He can’t hate you. He loves you. He’ll forgive you. Eventually. She hoped.

Laila’s chin lifted, triumph flashing through her eyes. Such cruel green eyes. “I want you to bind yourself to me. Forever.”

He snorted. “No. What do I gain in return? Nothing.”

“I’ll allow you to kill the girl.” She motioned to Jane with a wave of her hand.

Acid burned a hole in her stomach.

“I’ll kill her,” he said, matter-of-fact, “but I don’t need to enslave myself to do it.”

Oh, God. Jane had become one of his enemies, his hated, must-be-destroyed-at-any-cost enemies. “Nicolai. Please. I’m so, so sorry.”

He didn’t deign to look at her. Just held up his hand to silence her. “I took your memories. Me. I wanted you to save me. So, as you can see, I never truly wanted you. Only what you could do for me. Save your apologies.”

He’d…what? Why would he…?

Everything rushed back, as if a glass cage had been shattered inside her mind. They had talked, they had shared. Discovered that she was cursed. He’d known that forcing her to cross over, to save him, would endanger him. For that very reason, she had refused. He’d taken her memory and forced her to do it.

At the time, she’d thought she would resent him. Instead, she was glad he’d done it. Glad she’d helped him, freed him, made love with him. She even understood his reasoning. When she had been bed bound, she had tried to bargain with God for freedom. In that state of mind, you did things. Things you weren’t always proud of.

Why hadn’t she returned home permanently, though, as the curse dictated? She loved him. She should have lost him already.

Or was his hatred the thing that would keep them apart, not her absence? Her stomach somersaulted. “I’ll kill her, then,” Laila said.

“With magic?” Nicolai laughed. “Please do. Then I’ll have the power to kill you.”

“Not if I kill you, then the girl.”

“You don’t want me dead, princess. You want me pliant.” His head tilted to the side. “Why did you bury my memories? Not of the girl, but of everything else. I know why you blocked my powers, but the memories…”

A smug gleam entered her eyes. “You want to know, fine. I’ll tell you. I’m not the beast you think me, you know.”

He crossed his arms over his chest.

“You appeared at the slave market in Delfina, and everyone assumed you were a Prince Nicolai look-alike. Everyone wanted to buy you. Me, Odette. The wealthy, the poor. Only Odette and I knew you truly were Prince Nicolai of Elden, crown prince, vampire, powerful beyond imagining.” Again, she stroked the timepiece. “You fought wildly and managed to slay several people who simply approached you to study you closer. Then, you escaped.”

His eyes widened ever so slightly, an involuntary reaction Jane was sure. She figured he hadn’t recalled that part of his life yet. She wanted to reach out to him, but feared he would reject her.

“Odette had set you free, after blocking your powers. She wanted you away from the market, away from the prying eyes of others. News had just come from Elden that the king and queen had been slain.”

A sharp intake of breath was Nicolai’s only response. How Jane ached for him.

“As you can guess, Odette wouldn’t have freed you if she had no way of capturing you. Yet still you proved elusive. She nearly succeeded a dozen times, because you kept trying to return to Elden, yet you always found a way to abandon her. When she at last caught you, she scoured the depths of your mind. You might not have witnessed the event, but you knew. You had heard the news, as we had, and magic had filled in the rest.”

“Tell me,” he rasped.

“In a bid to gain control of the lands, the Blood Sorcerer attacked. Your mother and father lay dying, and each cast a spell. Your mother, to send you away to safety. Your father, to fill you with a need for vengeance.”

Jane could feel Nicolai’s fury growing…sharpening….

“Odette couldn’t allow you to keep trying to return,” Laila went on. “Nor could she allow you to search for your brothers and sister. Had they known you still lived, they would have come for you. So, they had to think you were dead, slain with your parents. That way, no one would ever come to your rescue.”

His hands fisted.

“And now,” Laila went on, “now it’s too late.”

“What do you mean?” he gritted out.

“Twenty years have passed since the Blood Sorcerer attacked the palace.”

“No.” He shook his head, once, twice. “No.”

“Oh, yes.” A fleeting smile. “You were as unaware of the passage of time as you were of your past. Odette made sure of it.” Laila lifted her chin. “So. How about this for a bargain? I will help you defeat the Blood Sorcerer, if you kill the human. Right here, right now.”

“And forget the crimes you have committed against me?” he seethed.

At least he hadn’t accepted right away, Jane thought darkly, dryly. That he would turn on her so savagely…she could not forgive. Unless this was a trick. Unless he meant to gain Laila’s trust.

Hope eternal.

“It’s either that, or I let the healer wipe your memory once again. We’ve had to do so several times, you know.”

Tighter and tighter those hands curled. “You would trust me not to hurt you?”

“No. You will take a blood oath not to. Before I release you, and after you kill the girl.”

Jane gulped, her mouth going dry.

This time, Nicolai didn’t hesitate. “Very well. Release us from your magical hold, and I vow never to kill or hurt you. Help me slay my enemy, and I…I will kill the girl.”