Первородные: Восхождение

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

IT WAS HAPPENING all over again. A party full of witches and werewolves, a lovely young bride-to-be, and Klaus. Always, always Klaus. Elijah let himself fantasize for a moment that, when the fight inevitably broke out, he would simply kill his brother himself. It would make everything so much easier.

Rebekah should have been there—this debacle wouldn’t have gotten so far out of hand under her watchful eye. She would have diverted Armand, contained Klaus, and still had time to terrify the three servers who’d snuck out with one of the better bottles of wine.

But there was no time to think about what might have been. In the blink of an eye, Elijah inserted himself between Solomon and his brother. “Get her out of here,” he ordered Klaus. “Go.”

He could see that Klaus wanted to argue, but for once in his life he listened. He must really love that poor girl if he was willing to forego a fight to keep her safe. The two of them ran into the narrow corridor, Vivianne’s silver gown gleaming until they were finally out of sight.

In the hall, the chaos had escalated to pandemonium. Sol’s furious snout was just inches from Elijah’s own, and it took all of Elijah’s self-control not to bury his fist in it. “You tried to kill me once already,” Elijah reminded him, keeping his voice quiet and brutal. “I don’t think it’ll go any better tonight.”

Sol gritted his teeth, but backed off. “You played us for fools,” Louis Navarro shouted. “You came to us with all those fine words about peace, knowing that your brother destroyed the alliance behind our backs.”

“No one ever knows what my brother is up to until it’s done,” Elijah said. “I negotiated with you all in good faith, and I’m prepared to keep up my end of the bargain. I want there to be peace.”

“But now your brother has run off with our prize,” Sol growled. “And I want her to be returned to her rightful place.”

“Your prize,” Elijah repeated, rolling over a worrying thought. It couldn’t be true, could it?

Sol took another step back, unsure if he’d said too much. Elijah scanned the crowd to find Sofia Lescheres, wondering if she’d stumbled upon the truth before him. That small white wolf he’d seen...Those damned wolves must have convinced the girl to change. Her mother would never have allowed it if she’d known, but it was too late for that.

It dawned on him that Klaus must have already known about Vivianne’s change. Naturally, Klaus wouldn’t have bothered to mention something so important, busy as he was sneaking around with the one woman the entire city seemed to have a claim on.

“And why is Vivianne’s rightful place with you, Sol?” Sofia demanded, stepping closer to Sol. “She has no desire to marry your son, so why do you think she still belongs to you? What did you do to my daughter?” She was watching Sol’s face intently, waiting for him to say what she already knew.

“She made a pledge,” Sol argued, frustrated that Sofia was backing him into a corner.

“Obviously the alliance isn’t that important to her,” he went on, “or to any of you. If you don’t intend to follow through with your part of the contract, there is no contract.”

Louis grinned maliciously, and a crackle of energy rippled through the werewolves around him. Their part in this peace has never been more than halfhearted, Elijah realized—probably why they had been so willing to risk it. A war could break out right now, and they’d welcome it.

“If the alliance is dead,” Elijah suggested, lifting his voice over the menacing thrum, “then I hope this time the witches will be smart enough to want us on their side.” If he could not have a peaceful city, then at least the vampires could have one of the factions at their backs this time. And if Klaus was set loose to resume his old hunting practices, the fighting would be quick.

“You?” a white-haired witch demanded shrilly. “What could you possibly have to offer us that would replace the good will of the werewolves?”

“The werewolves’ allegiance was never yours to begin with,” Elijah told the witches, although he kept a careful eye on the pack as he spoke. “They’ve gone rogue. All that’s left to do is decide whether you want to deal with them alone or with help.”

“They are only turning against us again because of you!” another witch shouted.

“Because of your brother,” another said. “If he hadn’t been in Vivianne’s ear, convincing her to break her word, we would still be celebrating tonight.”

That was probably true, Elijah reflected, but their happiness would have been short-lived. Klaus, as mind-numbingly selfish as he was, might have accidentally done the witches a favor.

“And yet the werewolves had already violated the terms of the alliance before the wedding could even take place,” Elijah declared, deciding it was time to reveal the truth—his ace card against the werewolves. “At the last full moon, they convinced Vivianne to take a human life, so that she would be more theirs than the witches’. They were not content with a marriage of equals—they wanted to own her.”

There was a renewed outcry, but this time Elijah let the cacophony build without trying to interrupt. Sofia Lescheres, pale, reached out to clutch at his arm. “So it’s true?” she whispered.

“I saw her,” he replied softly, and then he raised his voice again. “I saw her after she had changed, and the werewolves tried to silence me.” That was not exactly true, but it was close enough.

“You attacked me unprovoked!” a petite brunette werewolf cried, straining to be heard over the others. “You struck first.”

But it didn’t matter. Elijah’s version of events had already caught the imagination of the crowd. “There can be no peace if you made my daughter turn,” Sofia shouted back.

Elijah pulled Sofia back into the ranks of the witches, who closed around them protectively. Elijah could feel a strange energy in the air, and he saw some of the witches’ mouths moving in a steady, focused pattern. “This is who you thought you could ally with,” he reminded them ruthlessly. “These filthy, faithless creatures broke the contract and turned Vivianne, and wanted her to marry Armand against her will. They want to enslave you, not govern with you. There can be no peace in a city where they are allowed to live.”

“Enough!” Solomon bellowed, but before he could say more, a wineglass was hurled at his head. His eyes, and dozens of others, blossomed with murderous yellow, and Elijah could hear the deliberate chanting of the witches around him.

“Let’s go,” Elijah urged Sofia, who stared at him in shock and shook his hand off her arm.

“I’ll kill them all,” she hissed in a strangled voice, her black eyes wide and round.

This betrayal must be doubly bitter to her, a woman who had once loved and bore a child to a werewolf, never dreaming that one day his kin would return to claim her. Sofia had every right to her anger, but it would not do anyone any good if she died defending her daughter’s honor.

“Vivianne needs her mother now,” he said with urgency as snarls and screams began to fill the banquet hall. “Let me get you to safety.”

Ysabelle appeared on Sofia’s other side and grabbed at her arm, trying to pull her toward one of the exits. Sofia yanked herself free just long enough to cast some spell at a werewolf Elijah hadn’t even seen coming. The werewolf fell to the ground with a high-pitched whimper, and Elijah dragged both women—one much more willing than the other—to the door.

It was strangely quiet outside. The sounds from within the hall could almost have been the remains of the party. Witches and werewolves alike fled in twos and threes, but they did not linger or make any sound to draw attention to their exit. They simply lost themselves in the maze of moonlit streets, disappearing down cobblestoned alleys and over the walls of gardens.

Elijah relaxed his grip on the two witches, and Sofia slumped miserably against her sister. “I knew it was a mistake,” she sobbed. “But she thought she was one of them already. She wanted to trust that they wouldn’t hurt her, and I wanted that to be true.”

Ysabelle stroked her sister’s black hair and gave Elijah a pointed look. He understood—this was a time for family and he had his own family to attend to. He needed to find Klaus.