Prince of Power (11 page)

Quite possibly, sadder words had never been spoken aloud. He managed what he could of a smile. “Says the female who just gave birth?”

She had the decency to look chagrined, at least. “Just trying to be polite.”

“I put a glass of water over there for you, next to your chair.” He gestured toward the walnut end table at her elbow. “The midwife and the doctor both said it's vital that you keep up with your fluids while the baby is nursing, remember? They said water, juice, herbal tea…
blood
.”

Maybe it was the condensation on her water glass that made it slip from her hand just as she lifted it to her lips. She muttered quietly and returned the tumbler to its coaster. “Xander.”

They had been dancing around the topic for a couple of days, but finally there it was. Xander found it hard to look directly at her, so instead he rubbed his forehead and studied the small table on which her drink sat. It was bold and dark. Classic, with clean lines like the rest of the furniture in the room. Everything, including the Panasonic plasma-screen television and the unfussy cabinet it sat on, spoke to how much time Eamon had spent in this room before his death.

Jeez.
Jeez
.

Xander squared his jaw and forced himself to meet her amber-eyed gaze. “Theresa, nobody knows better than I do how difficult it is to move on.”

“I won't do it.” Her voice was barely a whisper, kept low so as not to wake the baby, but the fierceness of her conviction was unmistakable.

Xander sighed. As a vampire, as a warrior, he respected and honored her resistance to drinking from someone other than her departed mate. Before Thad had posted him to guard Theresa, Xander had given consideration on more than one night to stepping outside his door and running until the sun rose and burned him alive. But this… he couldn't let her do it.

Only a few days out from the birth, and she was exhausted. She was healing but too slowly. And as much as it might pain her, she had a tiny infant who was relying on her for care. They didn't have the luxury of waiting for her to be at peace with drinking from someone other than Eamon. So he did something he had never done for anybody.

He got down on his knees. “Theresa. Please.”

“Xander. My goodness, get up.” Her face flushed and she covered it with her hands. Embarrassment, probably.

Well, that made two of them.

He nudged his way alongside her legs. Pressed as close to her as he dared. Carefully, like he was approaching a frightened woodland creature, he used the barest pressure to rest his fingers on her cheek. “Theresa, you have a helpless baby in there that has already lost his father.” He closed his eyes against the memory. “I was
there
for the birth, Theresa.

“Remember all the blood? Remember how you were in labor from Sunday to Tuesday, and by the time he arrived you barely had the energy to push him out? Just how long do you think you can continue caring for Eamon's namesake when you barely had the strength to get through bringing him into the world? That child can't afford to lose his mother, too.”

He had her. When her face crumpled and a tear slid down her cheek, he was forced to blink back the moisture pressing in his own eyes. The pearl button of his cuff flew to who knew where when he yanked up the sleeve. “Theresa. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
This
is
hard
for
me, too
.

The room was ominously quiet, save for the heavy beat of both their hearts, the tick of the hallway clock, and the tiny, tiny snores coming from the baby monitor. “I know,” she whispered. “I know. I just don't think I can.”

“He'd understand,” Xander said. “And he'd want you to take care of yourself. Of your family.” That much was true. He brushed his fingers against her face once more. This time, his wrist brushed against her lips.

When her mouth opened and her fangs sank in, he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. Tried to focus on the gentle suck of her lips, the delicate sweep of her tongue, the brush of her long hair against his hand.

He tried not to notice that it was all so different from what he was used to. The size and shape of the body, the fact that she was sucking at his wrist instead of his throat. The crushed velvet dress that was soft underneath his left hand. Tam hadn't worn dresses much at all.

His biggest failure was in blocking the room itself. In his heart, Xander knew he was doing this for all the right reasons. But the warm, soft, pink lips of a fallen comrade's mate on his skin as she sat in a leather chair that still held the scent of its old owner—and as Xander knelt on the dark brown carpet next to a rattan basket of never-to-be-read-again
Sports
Illustrated
magazines—brought it all into vivid mental focus, even though he tried for it not to be. For all of his guilt, he might as well have made love to Eamon's mate on top of their oval coffee table.

I'm so sorry, Eamon
.

Xander held his body so still that his muscles ached. He needed to get out of this house. Back to helping the fight against the wizards. Maybe to find out what was going on with this rumor about a wizard Tyra had brought in. Or finally to take that sunbath he kept pondering. Either way, he'd gotten Theresa to feed, and once she was out of the woods, his usefulness here had passed, right?

Just then, lights flashed on the nearby monitor and the baby cried.

Silvery breath ghosted in front of Anton as he trekked across the crunchy, frozen estate grounds to a small stone building situated conspicuously on the dark edge of nowhere. Thad and Siddoh flanked him, and accusations rang thick and loud in the air around them all.
Good
times.

Anton growled and shoved against Siddoh's meaty vampire mitts when they reached for him at the doorway. “I can walk through on my own.” He ducked slightly and turned to shove again when Siddoh struck from behind. Those opposing forces made him stumble, and his back hit the nearest wall with a lung-punishing “oof.”

The dimensions of the place were little more than about double by triple Anton's arm span, and there was nothing inside except some old, rusty bolts and chains hanging from the wall. Dust and dirt and dark stains covered the floor. A thick, metal, windowless door was the only exit, and it clanged shut ominously in their wake. Not hard to guess what this place was used for. The primary directive was to convince them to keep him alive.

Upon leaving Tyra's bedroom, he had planned to make nice with these guys. Too much aggression would send the wrong message, especially right now. Give them the excuse Siddoh was unquestionably looking for, with his jealous, glittery eyes narrowed at the fresh bite on Anton's throat and his nostrils flared at the lingering smells of sex on skin.

Yet there were limits to Anton's patience. He jerked his chin in response to the threat in Siddoh's cracked knuckles and retracted arm. “Do it. G'head.” His own father had tried to kill him not so long ago. What fear could these vampires really hold? Anton was firm in his conviction that he would not go down without a fight—not without making every effort to protect Tyra—especially knowing what he knew now about Tyra being part wizard. God, how could that be?

“Cut it out, Siddoh. That's not what we're here for.” That was Thad. Anton might have thanked the king for rising to his defense, had the guy sounded the least bit sincere about it. The young vampire leader stood quietly in the center of the room, his arms folded over his chest, his stare sharp and narrow. Siddoh, angry and restless, paced between them like a wounded animal.

The king stared Anton down until he felt like he was about two feet tall. “I'd tell you to get comfortable, but there's not really any point in that.”

“I guess not.” Anton assumed a similar stance. Feet planted, arms crossed, jaw set. It was understood that they saw him as the traitor here, and they had every right to see him as such. In a way, though, Anton was angry too. All of this had been to protect Tyra. To help their kind. And the chances were good that they would never believe him. Patience? He'd spent the better part of thirty years biding his time for an escape from the dark, empty life that being born a wizard had given him. He was fresh out of patience at that moment.

“Okay.” The king eyed Anton intently, his hands casually caressing the butt of a dagger at his waist. “So tell me everything you know. Every bit of inside data, every possible weakness, everything. No matter how insignificant. I was already in need of a damn good reason not to kill you, and that was before you slept with my sister. Hell, I almost killed
him
for that.” The king jerked his head toward the bulky, restless male.

Aha
. So Anton had been right. Siddoh snarled, though whether at Anton or at the king himself was hard to say for certain. Surely, though, he wouldn't snarl at his own king. Then again, Anton would have snarled at his own so-called king. So who could tell?

He wiped a hand over his face. “I already gave Tyra every bit of the information I'm about to give you.”

“That's just great. If I didn't hear it myself, it didn't get said.”

Yeah, yeah
. “I just want to be clear. I understand that having me here inside your compound is uncomfortable, and I realize that for the safety of everyone here you have to proceed carefully. At the same time, my foremost concern is for Tyra, and I am not going to roll over quietly just because you threaten me. I've seen a hell of a lot worse from the wizards than I could ever see from you.”

Anton stepped back. He planted his tongue against the roof of his mouth and breathed out to keep his jaw from clenching and his teeth from grinding together. He folded his arms over his chest as much for warmth as to put a buffer between himself and the five hundred pounds of angry vampire. If he looked defensive, oh well.

“So. My father rules the wizards. You've got that much, I guess. It's kind of a ragtag bunch, but they do follow and look up to him. To a degree, he trains them to be that way. He tries to start them young, usually when they're still children, to ensure total compliance, and he breeds them to be predisposed to the personality traits he's looking for. Except in my case, I guess, it didn't work.”

“Nothing we didn't know before,” Siddoh growled.

The king held up a hand. “Continue.”

Where should he begin if not at the beginning? The king had said he wanted to hear everything. Anton started again. “Part of what we're supposed to do—what the wizards are supposed to do—is propagate the species. Find ‘suitable' women. Dregs of society. Throwaways. The wizard males impregnate them, and all beings with wizard DNA are born with this mark on their hairline.” With a small turn of his head, he gestured to his birthmark. Tyra's. Hell…

The king cleared his throat. “What of the females?”

Anton straightened. “My father was of the belief that they weren't of any use to him, I think. He discarded them or left them alone. I'm not sure why, but I hear that they tend to die young.”
Tell
him. If something happens to you, he can keep Tyra safe if he knows. But what if he hates her? Holds it against her? Shit.
The words wouldn't come.

“So my father—I know he's been around since the early days of your father. He came here from Armenia after your kind did.” He tipped his head forward to indicate Thad. “And I know he looks down on your species. I don't know if he sees you so much as an enemy as he does cattle. You're food. A power source.

“That's just an observation I've made over my lifetime, which is about twenty-seven years, I guess. It's hard to say for sure because we don't exactly celebrate with cake and ice cream growing up in the wizard clan.” He laughed, an awkward, nervous laugh because—well, damn, something had to give. At least he sure as hell thought so. Apparently he was the only one who thought so.

Siddoh kept right on staring. The king shifted his stance, blinked, and waited.

Anton licked his lips. “Someone found out about Tyra. She's unique in her ability to absorb multiple powers the way we can?”

Thad nodded tightly. Understandable that the information exchange was only going to go one way. Really, though, this was like pulling teeth.

“Anyway, that's what we—that's the assumption that the wizards have operated under—that vampire powers are biologically inherited. Somehow Tyra absorbs them. The way we—they—do. She doesn't have to go through the sacrificial ritual of eating the heart the way wizards do. Master wanted to study her to figure out why. I get the feeling he's losing his grip on things. Somehow, he doesn't command the same kind of loyalty he used to. It's a perfect time for you to take him out. If you can, you might be able to wipe out the clan entirely.”

The king nodded. “We've noticed more of an ‘every man for himself' mentality lately. More attacks on our kind, too. Less rhyme or reason to them. Used to be we could predict patterns, but not lately.”

“Wish I could help you there. For obvious reasons, I'm not in on any plans of late.” Anton rubbed his forehead. He had trouble focusing since the head injury, and he was under a little pressure here. It was hard to know how to even address the king. “My lord…”

“Whoa. Okay.” The king held up a hand. “Thad is fine. Until you piss me off, anyway.”

That remained to be seen. “Okay, Thad.”
He
needs
to
know. Tell him.
“Listen…” Anton cleared his throat. “That mark I just showed you on the back of my neck? Tyra has one.” His body went rigid then, waiting for the fallout. Would the king leave him here in this stone shed? Would Siddoh gut-check the messenger?

The surprising thing was that the king was
not
surprised. His hands went to his hips, and with a slight nod, he dropped his chin to his chest. It was Siddoh's startled murmur of “fuck me” that made the cinder block–walled room get colder.

Anton's eyes widened, heat rising in him again. “You
knew
?” They'd known and not kept an eye on her? What kind of a two-bit moron was this king?

Thad licked his lips. He seemed to absorb Anton's countenance like he hadn't seen him before. “I only found out recently myself. Tyra's older than I am. We thought for years that her mother was human.” Thad shook his head sadly. “Tyra's mother disappeared long before my father mated with my mother. Nobody ever questioned the story.”

“Fuck me,” Siddoh muttered again, louder this time. The larger vampire ran his hand through his hair, which made it stand out all over and made him look like some kind of mad scientist. He held his hand in front of himself then, looking at it. Then he looked at Thad and Anton. “Her powers. She absorbs them when she feeds.” His nodded vigorously. “She can turn invisible like I can and read emotions like that douchebag she dated a few decades ago.” He looked up. “Why didn't someone think of that?”

“We didn't want to.” The king, who had started his own little loop of pacing, stopped and pressed his eyebrows together until Anton thought the deep crevasse between them might open up a magical portal to another world. He advanced on Anton and shoved two fingers hard into the wizard's chest. “You haven't told her, have you?”

“No. I figured it out about the same time you were threatening to tear down Tyra's bedroom door. Telling her then wasn't right. She identifies strongly with being half human. Woulda freaked her out. In case you haven't figured it out, my goal here is to
help
her.
”

Thad nodded. “You did protect her when she was in torpor, and you have my thanks for that. It's the primary reason you're getting this much leeway. Though I'll admit—how you pulled one over on Lee, I'll never know.”

Rage boiled in Anton's gut. “I. Am. Not.
Evil
. He believed I could be trusted to watch over her because I
could
be trusted to watch over her. Think about it. We know that you can sense us—” Shit.
Shit
. “I know you can sense
wizards
. I know it's an innate vampire ability to sense the evil aura projected by wizards. I was there to protect her, and an honorable male knows another honorable male. I'd think you would be able to do so as well.

“Now.” Anton's fist slammed his open palm. He was burning up, and he did some pacing of his own. He ignored Thad's look of frustration and Siddoh's weak attempt at an intimidating growl. He needed to
move
. “Do you want the information that I gave Tyra about how to find my father?”

***

“Thad.” Tyra's fists stung, but she pounded the cold, steel door even harder. “Thad, open the fucking door. I swear if you hurt him I will make you sorry.”

Footsteps crunched behind her. “Evening, Tyra.”

She whipped around. “Flay. What are you doing here?” Her fellow fighter didn't answer, but he was fully armed and ready for battle. Gary pulled up next to him, followed by what appeared to be all of the off-duty patrols for the night. Gary handed Flay a duffel, and the contents clanked and shifted. “What the hell is going on?”

Gary was a human lie detector. Human, not wizard, but maybe that was close enough. What if Thad was planning to use Gary for some sort of interrogation? She should never have let Anton leave her room alone.

Flay looked like he'd swallowed a handgun sideways. “I'm sorry, Ty. I'm not at liberty.”

What the hell did Thad have planned? The lapels of Flay's jacket were cold in Tyra's clenched fingers. “Look, Anton is on our side. He has done nothing but help us. I swear I'll kick your ass if you hurt him.”

The door groaned and creaked open. Siddoh's bulky form filled the entryway of the small interrogation space. He shoved Anton through the door ahead of him. “Tyra, you need to back off and let us do our jobs, honey.”

“Don't ‘honey' me. This is my job too. Or have you forgotten that?”

Thad stepped out. “You've gotten a little sloppy about it lately. Or have you forgotten that?”

She looked over the group, trying to get a read on things. They were armed and ready to head out. Someone had handed Anton a jacket. Her gaze narrowed at Thad and then swung back to Anton. “Oh my God. You're going after your father again.”

“Tyra, you aren't safe as long as he's alive.”

She scoffed. “I've been taking care of myself just fine since long before you showed up, thank you very much.”

Thad came forward. “Ty. None of us are safe as long as the wizards have a leader.” His voice was quiet. Precise.

“Thad, who's to say that if we yank his father out of power, three more won't grow back in his place?”

Thad rubbed his eyes. Annoyed? Yeah, well, so was she. “And there's just as much chance that if we wipe out the queen, we wipe out the hive. Come on, Ty. This is stupid. You're just pissed because you didn't get a crack at killing him yourself, and you know it.”

She took a glance at the peanut gallery. There were about a thousand ways she'd rather have this conversation than in front of an audience. “Well if he's after me, don't you think I deserve a crack at him?”