Eternal

12 ~ Royal Blood

For several seconds, I paused outside the office’s medieval-looking door, gathering my courage to face whatever—and whomever—was on the other side of it.

Please, please let Aidan be there.

“You’ve got this,” Tyler said softly, laying a hand on my shoulder.

I nodded and then glanced over at Matthew, who sat on one of the benches against the wall. He was trying to look disinterested, but not quite pulling it off. Maybe I just knew him too well—I recognized that, despite his casual pose, the hard set of his jaw and the shadowed look in his eyes meant that he was worried. Really worried. I could sense the waves of anxiety rolling off him as I reached down and patted my stake, which was strapped safely against the inside of my left calf, tucked into the new sheath Matthew had made for me.

Silently, Matthew tipped his head toward the door.

Okay. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wiping my damp palms on my jeans before rapping sharply on the door three times.

“Come in!” a feminine voice trilled out.

Mrs. Girard!

I was nearly hyperventilating when I pushed open the door and stepped inside, pulling up short at the sight of the person standing there beside Mrs. Girard. I froze, unable to move a single muscle. I blinked several times, sure that my eyes were playing tricks on me.

“Shut the door, chérie,” Mrs. Girard said, smiling broadly.

I did as she asked, and then launched myself across the room—right into Aidan’s arms.

Without a word, he gathered me into his embrace, his face buried in my hair. I could feel his entire body trembling as my tears dampened his shirt.

“It’s really you,” I managed to whisper, my windpipe so tight I could barely breathe.

His only response was a strangled, choking sound, and I realized then that he was reining in his own tears. My hair was damp with them now. He lowered his head, pressing his lips against my shoulder.

All I could hear was the sound of my own heart thumping noisily against his chest as we stood there silently, clutching at each other like we’d never let go. The room seemed to fall away, and I didn’t care who was there watching us.

And then Mrs. Girard cleared her throat, breaking the spell. “I know this has come as a bit of a shock, Miss McKenna, but if you’ll take a seat, I’ll explain it all to you.”

Aidan released me, his gaze never straying from mine as I blindly reached for the chair that Mrs. Girard indicated and lowered myself into it. It was only then that I got a good look at him, and my breath hitched.

He was pale. Thin. Gaunt. His eyes were faintly rimmed in red, and there were deep, purplish blue shadows beneath them, looking almost bruise-like against his fair skin. I’d never seen him look so frail, so haunted.

Just what had they done to him?

“Don’t worry, chérie. His physical form will heal soon enough, and he’ll be just as he was before.”

I wondered if I’d somehow let the barrier around my mind slip, or if she’d simply read my expression. Whichever the case, I made sure my mind was safely guarded now.

Mrs. Girard moved around her desk and sat in the enormous leather chair facing me. It was only then that I noticed the tall, dark-haired man standing beside the fireplace, one hand resting on the mantel. He was enormous, broad and muscular, with slicked-back hair that fell to his shoulders and piercing, pale blue eyes.

Mrs. Girard noticed that I was staring and turned to gesture at the man. “I’m sorry. Wherever are my manners? Miss McKenna, this is Luc Mihailov, one of my closest associates.”

So this was Luc—one of the two male Tribunal members who’d been turned by Vlad the Impaler. Aidan had called him a friend, but right now I was willing to bet that Luc was acting as Aidan’s guard. He seemed somehow . . . menacing. I couldn’t help but notice that my right hand tingled, itching for my stake, whenever I looked at him.

I considered breaching his mind, but decided against it. At least, not yet. I didn’t sense an immediate threat.

I turned my attention back to Mrs. Girard. “Okay, so what’s going on?” I asked her.

“It’s time for me to lay my cards on the table,” she said. “We need your help.”

“My help?” I chanced a glance at Aidan, who sat slumped in his chair, staring at the floor with empty eyes. Fear settled in the pit of my stomach.

What the hell is going on?

Mrs. Girard nodded. “Yours and Aidan’s. War has erupted, you see. Isa, the Eldest, has been destroyed, the Tribunal disbanded.”

“Okay, you’ve got to back up,” I said, shaking my head. “Who, exactly, is at war?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I thought Aidan had explained it to you. The factions.”

“Only a little bit. I mean, I know about the Propagators.” I shuddered at the memory of Julius and his little harem.

“Yes, and they make up the largest portion of the opposition, along with the Wampiri—they hunt from noon to midnight—and a few feral, ancient tribes. Let me put it this way—our kind can basically be divided into two groups. One believes that vampires are the higher race, superior beings to mere mortals. Ultimately, they’d like to grow their numbers to the point that they can subjugate humanity. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

A shiver raced down my spine. “Yeah, I think I get it.”

“The others,” she continued, “feel far more connected to our humanity. Our aim is to coexist with mortals, to remain cloaked by the screen of myth and legend. We fear that the discovery of our existence would lead to panic and panic to mass destruction of our kind. Up till now, the two sides have managed to agree to disagree. Some of the dissenters choose to live under Tribunal law and therefore are afforded our protection, and some choose not to.”

“What’s changed, then?”

“The Propagators’ numbers have swelled recently, and they’ve launched several mass attacks on the populace in Eastern Europe. We’ve contained the situation, but just barely. The Tribunal decided to send out an army, which basically amounts to a declaration of war.

“But then there was a coup from within. While the battle for the Eldest rages among the ancients, the Propagators are taking full advantage of our state of disarray. Worse, we’ve learned that a traitor—a member of the Tribunal—has given valuable information to our enemy. Information about our greatest weapon.” She paused, glancing over at Aidan, who sat now with his head cradled in his hands.

This had something to do with him, obviously. I couldn’t help but remember the time I had breached her mind, right here in her office. She’d thought of Aidan as her “crown jewel.”

“Go on,” I prodded.

“There’s a legend—a prophecy, if you will—that the Tribunal has carefully guarded for centuries. The legend speaks of a leader—the Dauphin, we call him in my native tongue—who is a male vampire of royal blood, turned before his eighteenth birthday.

“There are several elements to the legend, including the fact that the Dauphin’s maker cannot know of her victim’s royal blood at the time of his making. You see, so that no one sets out to intentionally fulfill the prophecy.”

The full effect of her words finally sank into my muddled brain. Aidan was the Dauphin. At least, she thought he was.

“Other parts of the legend specify the Dauphin’s exceptional abilities. One, he cannot be destroyed—not by a vampire. Two, he will possess the ability to command the Sâbbat and the Krsnik, giving him power over both breed of vampire slayer.”

I must have looked surprised by this, because she smiled, arching an auburn brow. “Yes, there’s another kind, chérie. Perhaps Luc can answer your questions about the Krsnik later. Luc is, after all, the most knowledgeable of our kind where slayer legend is concerned.”

I remembered the ancient, dusty book tucked away in my dorm room. It had been Luc who’d given the book to Aidan, who’d translated the page about Sâbbats and the Megvédio. Did they know the truth about Matthew? Or did I still have one secret left to keep?

“Anyway”—she waved one hand—“there’s much, much more, but I won’t bore you with the details. The most important thing is that the Dauphin’s power usurps all others, even that of the Eldest. He will take control of the Tribunal, and all will bow to him. He can bring peace, you see. Safety to the human race. With the Sâbbat and the Krsnik under his control, he can ensure that those who refuse to follow the law will be summarily destroyed.”

“And you think Aidan is the Dauphin,” I said, stating the obvious.

She nodded. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he is. It would appear that Blackwell figured it out before I did. He was a clever one, that Augustus Blackwell—clever and ambitious. I should have known that, with his vast knowledge of legend and lore, he might eventually stumble upon something, a hint of some sort.

“But it was Goran Petrović who ultimately betrayed us all, giving Blackwell the specific information he needed about the prophecy, information that no one save the Tribunal was privy to. The Propagators made him promises he couldn’t refuse—he would eventually rule all, they bargained, both vampire and subjugated mortal alike. All he had to do was destroy the Dauphin. Or have you destroy him, Miss McKenna, since a vampire cannot.”

I looked over at Aidan, waiting for him to speak, to say something about that awful day last spring. But he didn’t—he just sat there, as silent and still as a statue. “Bu-but Blackwell sent Jenna in to save us,” I stammered, completely unnerved by Aidan’s haggard, haunted expression.

Mrs. Girard shrugged. “That I cannot explain. A last-minute change of heart, perhaps? I suppose we’ll never know.”

I digested that in silence.

“So, you must see my dilemma. We need a leader. We need someone to restore the peace, to end the war and ensure the safety of both mortals and vampires alike. I couldn’t very well have Aidan cure himself, no matter how sympathetic I might be to that cause. I didn’t mean for the tampered serum to affect him the way it did—those attacks were an entirely unexpected consequence. But once they were discovered . . . well, I couldn’t tip my hand and show him preferential treatment. He had to be punished. The outbreak of war and ensuing chaos provided the necessary opportunity to release him, and so here we are.”

My heart was thudding in my chest now, anger racing through my veins. I still couldn’t believe she’d done that to Aidan—turned him into a killer. I struggled to rein it in, to keep my voice calm and controlled. “So . . . why do you need my help?”

“Simply to help me persuade Aidan to do what he was created to do—to assume the role of the Dauphin and take his rightful place by my side on the newly formed Tribunal.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “And if I don’t?”

Her smile turned my blood to ice. “Well, then I suppose I’ll just have to make you destroy him, won’t I?”