The Emerald Lily Page 18

  “Private among our party,” Mikhail clarified, meaning without the concubines and Lord Petrov.

  “Granted,” said Lord Rathbone.

  Mikhail’s steely gaze dipped to the ground as he gave a tight bow and retreated back inside.

  Mina must go to him. He mistook what was taking place out on the balcony. Or did he? The earl had just proposed marriage.

  “Captain Mikhail is certainly in earnest about your protection, Your Highness.” His tone was accusing. Knowing.

  “The Bloodguard are devoted to me.”

  “The captain most of all.”

  His expression sealed his knowledge with a smile. “I believe I know the answer to my proposal.”

  She smiled with sympathy. “I’m sorry, my lord. I cannot accept.”

  “Too late, I see.” He smiled and swept her hand up in a parting kiss. “He’s a bit gruff for one as gentle as you, but I see that in your eyes, I’m already outmatched.” With a deep bow, he filed back through the balcony doorway, but she stopped him before he crossed the threshold.

  “My lord?”

  “Yes?”

  “Steward Thorwald is not a dilemma. Neither are the lords.” She lifted her chin, the strength of her she-beast steeling her backbone. “Arkadia is already mine. I will claim it as their rightful queen.”

  Then she would save Izzy and the rest of the world by showing Queen Morgrid what decimation truly looked like.

  Lord Rathbone studied her a moment, his wide mouth sliding up into a scintillating smile. “Perhaps you’re a good match for the captain after all.” Then he was gone through the empty parlor.

  With a deep inhale of the crystalline air, she enjoyed the righteous passion stirring her blood, willing her to take what was her own.

  She walked back into the parlor and draped Lord Rathbone’s coat over the settee for she’d forgotten she still wore it.

  “I know who he is, you know.”

  Mina spun and gasped, her heart leaping into her throat, only to find Lord Petrov still sitting in his chair in the corner, staring into the fire.

  “Pardon, my lord? You know who who is?” Perhaps this was the onset of dementia, sitting in a room all alone, divining strange things from the flames.

  Then he turned his gaze on her, his eyes as sharp and intelligent as any vampire she knew. “Mikhail Romanov. I know him.” He smiled like the devil with a secret, chuckling to himself. “And he’s not a lowly lord’s son of Korinth.”

  Heart hammering, she asked, “Who is he?”

  “Sit down, my dear. I have a story to tell.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Mina seated herself in the chair opposite the former earl. The firelight danced across his face, illuminating his sharp nose and broad brow. He looked much older, though once more his keen gaze fixed on her with a vibrant intelligence.

  “Once, long ago, there was a good king who ruled the land of Varis.”

  His voice was husky with age. Mina didn’t realize he intended to tell her a fairy tale. Perhaps he wasn’t so lucid after all. Still, she remained seated, hands in her lap.

  “His name was King Rodin. The people were at peace, and they loved him. Then one day, his twin sister returned after a long absence. She had left the kingdom the year before in spiteful anger and dabbled in the black arts. Still, King Rodin welcomed her home. In return, his sister, now a creature of the night, bit into his throat so viciously he fell prostrate before his throne.”

  Mina gasped. He was telling her the story of their origins, the beginning of vampirekind. Not a fairy tale at all. He turned his piercing gaze on her, seeming to step out of the past for a moment.

  “I know this to be true, my dear, because I was there when it happened.”

  Mina wanted to ask him a hundred questions. So few vampires still lived from the early days. As a matter of fact, other than Queen Morgrid and King Grindal, Mina had never spoken to any of them.

  “Please, my lord. Go on.”

  With a dip of his head, leaning back into his chair, his arms draped languidly, he stared back into the fire.

  “The stories passed down have all spoken of the Massacre at the Glass Tower. And indeed, it was a massacre.” His gravelly voice rolled dark and bitter with memory. “Queen Morgrid demanded loyalty on the spot. Anyone who fought against her was killed at once. I lost many friends that day.” His eyes misted. Sorrow pooled around him, like a cloak of mourning billowing down to his feet. “But there is one person the tales have all forgotten, mainly because Morgrid thought her dead.”

  “Who is that?” asked Mina, breathless with anticipation.

  “Queen Tamora, the good king’s young wife.”

  “King Rodin had a wife?”

  “He had a queen,” he corrected. “She was so beautiful and so kind. Ebony hair, lovely smile.” His brittle features softened by the firelight as he remembered. “Morgrid wandered the castle and infected one man after another with the blood madness, the ones who swore allegiance to her. Killing all the rest. She didn’t know that Queen Tamora had used the secret passages to get to the throne room to her husband. The poor queen held her husband’s head in her lap, thinking him dead.” Sharp eyes met Mina’s. “He was not. Morgrid had infected him with the blood madness and though savaged, King Rodin was a Varis. He’d absorbed his twin sister’s power into the blood they shared, giving him the same power of creation that she held. Had he lived and survived the blood madness, I believe he would have ruled the new land with justice.”

  “But what happened?” Mina sat on the edge of her chair, her fists tight in the folds of her gown.

  “The blood frenzy was too great. King Rodin didn’t know who leaned over him, her throat so sweet, her pulse pounding, beckoning him to taste. He bit her. She screamed as the king threatened to savage her. Then her knight stepped forward and chopped off the king’s head to save her. For the king would surely have killed her in the throes of the blood madness. Her knight was devoted to her and carried the queen away into hiding. And this is where the story gets interesting, my dear.”

  “It isn’t interesting already?”

  He chuckled, and with a heavy blink of both eyes, he said, “Listen.” He laced his fingers together across his lap. “The queen’s knight tucked her far away in the woods, where no one would find her and where she could give birth to her unborn child in privacy.”

  “She was with child by the king?”

  “Indeed.” His glassy eyes sparkled. “The child, her son and the rightful prince of Varis, was the first vampire born.”

  “Oh, my stars.”

  “Her son, whom she named Rodin after his father, the king, grew tall and strong. By the time he was a man, Queen Morgrid had established all of her vampire loyalists as aristocrats across the land. She’d also created her Legionnaires, her own vampire army. And she had taken her king, Grindal, as her husband. He was the one who’d encouraged her to establish laws so that her vampires didn’t savage the humans mindlessly. Grindal saw that if there weren’t laws in place to protect the humans, then there’d be no humans left to feed upon. And so the peasant class and commoners became the feeding ground, the human aristocrats helping enforce the laws to ally themselves with the vampire monarchy.”

  Mina’s stomach twisted. The brutal enslavement of a people had over time become an accepted, commonplace practice. Yes, there were laws protecting humans from mindless slaughter, yet it still occurred. And the peasants were kept in the darkness of poverty to ensure their continued obedience to the vampire’s will and reliance upon them. When Mina was queen and when they’d won this war, she would ensure no one was forced to serve another being—human or vampire.

  “But what happened to the son, to Rodin?”

  “I’m getting to that, my dear.” Squinting as if to see the memories better, he said, “Tamora raised her child and lived in peaceful quiet until she died of frail health. Though she was vampire, she had never recovered from the loss of her husband.”

  “So i
t’s true one can die of a broken heart?”

  His sad smile said enough. “It is also true one can live too long with a broken heart.”

  Mina pleaded, “Please continue, my lord.”

  “The knight took the young man to the east, away from the eyes of the Glass Tower. He pretended to be the boy’s father and invented a new name. He’d had enough sovereigns to set them up as local gentry. There, young Rodin met a lovely woman of the vampire aristocracy and married. The knight went away, thinking it safer for Rodin, for if he ran into the king or queen or anyone who was there at the Massacre, they would know him on sight.”

  “That’s so sad.”

  “Perhaps. But necessary. And so Rodin and his wife had a son they named Christov. Rodin lived long, but he died in a battle during the Thorn Wars. Christov met a lady, a human, at a Harvest Holiday in the north while visiting friends. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Harvest Holiday, but it is a night of revels…and passion.” His blue eyes twinkled.

  “So Christov and his lady…?” Mina couldn’t quite state the obvious to the grandfatherly Lord Petrov.

  “Yes.” He chuckled lightly. “She became with child and Christov loved her, despite the fact she was not vampire or even an aristocrat. It is rare for such a thing, but Christov was beloved by the King of Korinth, Stephanus Varis, and so he bestowed the gift of vampirism on Christov’s bride. Therefore, their child, a son, was born vampire.”

  Mina’s heart thrummed wildly in her breast, dawning realization sinking in. “Where did you say Christov’s wife was from?”

  “I didn’t, Your Highness. But if you must know, she was from Kellswater.”

  A feverish wave of heat flushed through her body as she tightened her fists in her lap, her panting more pronounced. “And what was the name the queen’s knight gave Rodin?”

  He grinned, seemingly satisfied she’d come to the correct conclusion. “Romanov.”

  “Christov’s son is…was…Mikhail Romanov.”

  “Yes, my dear. I never thought to lay eyes on him. But he couldn’t deny the genes of his great-grandmother Tamora if he tried. Same ebony hair. Same eyes.”

  Her mouth had gone dry at all that had just unfolded. “My Lord. You knew Queen Tamora?”

  His gaze remained on the fire, now little more than gold-red embers. “Very well.”

  “You were the knight who saved her, weren’t you?”

  He smiled at her, and Mina saw the young, noble knight who so many years ago saved a queen and her unborn child. And therefore, Rodin’s son, Christov, and Christov’s sons, Mikhail and Dmitri.

  Leaning forward, he gripped her hands in his older ones. “It is not coincidence that you come to my house seeking aid from my own son in your quest to be queen. That Mikhail Romanov serves as your protector, your knight. The man who would have been king. Should have been king.”

  Mina’s mind reeled from the revelation, her heart racing with joy. But then she wondered, “Do you think he knows of his heritage?”

  “He knows.” He squeezed her hands. “Though he does not know I was the knight who saved Queen Tamora. No one does but Queen Morgrid and King Grindal.”

  “And that is why you have been put on house arrest all these years, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed. They recognized me here in Arkadia. They knew I had disappeared that day with the queen. I confessed, saying that she died of her injuries from the king’s bite. They believed me.”

  “I am surprised they only stripped you of your title and didn’t kill you.”

  He arched a brow with a haughty smile. “By then, I had many allies in the House of Arkadia, including the king, your father. He was the one who anointed me earl after my marriage to my late wife. Killing me would’ve injured diplomacy. When my son was born many years later, they allowed him to reclaim the title they’d taken from me. This was all long before you were born, and they had plans to ally their kingdom with your father’s.”

  “You knew him?”

  “I did. He was a good man. When you were born and your mother had died in childbirth, he held a gathering to celebrate your birth. He loved you so. When Queen Morgrid visited and declared that her son Marius would marry you one day, your father refused. Did you know that?”

  A queasy sensation twisted her stomach. “No. I didn’t. But I was betrothed to Marius.”

  “Hmph. After your father was killed.”

  Mina leaped to her feet, pacing away and then back. “She had my father killed, didn’t she?”

  “There has never been any proof. But it was shortly after your father was ambushed on the road by rogue vampires that she installed Steward Thorwald.”

  “Steward Thorwald,” she spat like poison from her mouth. “The man who kept me prisoner in Briar Rose all my life, making sure I was kept in comfort but had no free will of my own.”

  “That certainly sounds like the man.”

  “Well, damn him. Damn them all. I will be queen. No one will have control of me ever again.”

  “Only perhaps your heart,” he teased, sounding very much like his son.

  “Perhaps. What do you know, my lord, that you are not saying? For I can see a glint of merriment in your eyes?”

  “That celebration at your birth, Queen Morgrid threatened revenge upon your family. Because she dealt in the dark arts, everyone feared that she had indeed placed a curse upon you and the king. But then a woman appeared, dressed all in white. She was a white witch, to be sure.”

  “A white witch? I’ve never heard of such a woman.”

  “They are rare and live apart, for fear of being burned as witches.”

  Mina shivered. “But my nurse spoke of such a woman once. Before she was taken away. What did this white witch say or do?”

  He hopped up and ambled to the far shelf, his long, bony fingers tracing over the spines of old books. “Ah. Here it is.” He snatched the tattered book from its shelf and shuffled back toward the dying firelight.

  “What is that? Grimmstone?”

  “Yes. A first edition. I pen many things in the notation section as my memory fades.” He flipped through the back.

  “Well, you are a man of many years.” Mina wondered what other interesting memories he had penned.

  “Here we are.” He cleared his throat and read. “The white witch dusted a piece of hartstone onto the infant princess’s face and said, ‘A prince will awaken your heart with a blood kiss. Not long after, you will drink fire into your soul and awaken the beast of vengeance and righteousness. And courage and hope. Blessed child, you will awaken the white queen with emerald eyes and smite the evil one with one bite. You will be the savior of them all.” He snapped the book shut.

  Mina peered up at him. “I was awakened with a blood kiss.”

  He nodded. “And soon you will be the white queen to save us all.” His voice cracked, tears brimming.

  Mina threw her arms around this old man who was a mere stranger till an hour before. Her heart poured out with love for him, this vampire who’d risked his life to save his queen and who’d lived a life of exile for it. For it was his bravery and devotion that allowed Mikhail to come into the world.

  He squeezed her tight and whispered, “You must be our white queen, Your Highness. You must be.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mikhail had been waiting in the dark of her bedchamber for quite a long time. Long enough for Mina to accept Lord Rathbone’s proposal and seal their betrothal with long, lingering kisses. Perhaps more than kisses. He fisted his hands on the arms of the chair in the corner.

  Finally, he heard the quiet snick of her door opening and closing. She entered on silent feet, carrying a single candlestick, which haloed her face, making her appear even more angelic. His heart ached at the sight of her. She set it on the sideboard near the window and looked out. Was she thinking of him? Or Lord Rathbone?

  Mikhail swallowed bitter bile, for this was all his own doing. He’d been confused on how to handle his undeniable feelings for her
with the slaughter of their army, and his blood brothers, in Silvane Forest. He’d kept her at a distance, trying to work through it all. Well, no more.

  He watched her slide off her slippers and stockings with a soft rustle of silk, then unlace the bodice of her gown. She could use some help, but he remained there in the shadows, watching and wanting. Before she could slip it from her shoulders, he spoke.

  “Did you accept him?”

  She gasped and squeaked at the same time, spinning toward him. “For heaven’s sake, Mikhail. Don’t frighten me like that. What are you doing sitting here in the dark?”

  “Did you accept him?” he asked, the words scraping against his throat.

  She paused, her arms crossing her chest, still holding up her gown. “You overheard Lord Rathbone’s proposal?”

  “No. But I know men like him and how they think. He deduced why we were here the moment we stepped into his blue parlor and will have realized that an alliance of his house with the Arkadian throne would be a strong one. And beneficial to him.”

  “I see.” She continued undressing, pushing the gown down over her hips and stepping out of the circle, standing in only her sheer chemise, tied with white silk ribbons at the shoulders. “And what do you think?”

  Starting at her bare ankles, he looked his fill—at the slender curve of her thighs, the dark thatch of hair between her legs, the indention at her waist, the subtle curve of her breasts, pink nipples hardened against the transparent fabric, her slender arms at her sides, and svelte neck tall with her chin raised. A paragon of beauty and royalty. And pure woman. A possessive vise gripped his chest and squeezed, his beast murmuring in the dark. Mine.

  His fangs throbbed in his gums, extending and forcing his mouth open. He wanted to sink inside her in every possible way, slip into the sweet oblivion of Mina.

  “I think he’s right.” The truth of it ripped him in half. “He would be a strong partner and ally to win the favor of the House as well as the people of Arkadia.” He should stop talking, the thought of losing her like a knife slitting up his spine. But he had more to say, to make her understand. “But it will never happen. You don’t belong to him.”