“You,” Lily said softly, suddenly understanding. “You were the one who took the baby from the temple.”
Anura’s smile was radiant. “Lilith was as my own sister. Our lines have ancient ties, little one. I promised to protect the babe. That was the promise given by the Empusae, to care for the human children of Lilith until the dynasty could be reawakened. But time and carelessness lost the carriers of her blood. Still, I believe that same blood brought you back to me.”
“Blood is destiny,” Lily murmured.
“For the love of Sekhmet,” Arsinöe snapped.
Her people were in an uproar, shouting epithets at Lily, at the Cait Sith, and threatening the Dracul with slow, deliberate dismemberment. Arsinöe shoved Vlad aside and strode to Lily, who held her ground. She wasn’t afraid anymore. Whatever happened, she knew these people had her back.
If blood was destiny, if it truly was, then it had brought her to the people she was meant to be surrounded with. But to reawaken an entire dynasty, to create something that important when she was only one human with a mark that was singular in all the world… how was she supposed to do that?
And yet, even as she asked herself the question, she understood.
Break his chains. Free our blood.
“No house can stand alone,” Lily said softly as Lilith’s voice whispered in her head. Blood might be destiny. But there were always choices.
Arsinöe tore Lily’s shirt down the front with a single swipe of her hand. Lily didn’t even have time to react before Arsinöe was inches from her, glaring at the mark that seemed oddly illuminated in the candlelight.
The queen bared her teeth. “She would have created chaos. She created a child with a demon, whether you share his blood or not. Where we seek to preserve our lines, she reveled in tainting hers. Lilith’s actions were worthy of death then. And I refuse to see her madness continue.” She looked to Ty, who moved to place himself in front of Lily.
Lily stayed him with her hand and a meaningful look. She saw all of his raw emotion, so close to the surface, stamped onto his beloved face.
“You don’t need to save me this time, Ty.”
“What if I want to?” he asked roughly.
“I’m going to kill you both,” Arsinöe hissed. “That should solve all of our problems.”
That was when Lily saw it, rising behind the vampire queen like the shadow of Death itself. It was a patch of pure darkness, only vaguely man-shaped, with red eyes that spoke of an ancient hunger. And no one could see it but her.
Nero had sent the Mulo. And in all the confusion, he intended to kill the queen.
Lily heard her own warning cry, even as Arsinöe drew the same glittering, curved blade she had seen in her dreams since she was a child. The Mulo opened a gaping maw filled with jagged, sharp teeth, a rotting hole still flecked with bits of blood and skin. And it gave a furious, ravenous wail a split second before it struck, its only warning, and far too late.
But it was not coming for her, Lily realized.
She didn’t think, didn’t even have to try. For the first time in her life, the power inside of her burst through her as naturally and easily as breathing. There was no struggle, nothing held back behind some invisible wall.
In that moment, she was all Lilim. And there were no voices, no alien sensations of another sharing her body. This was all her.
Her own scream filled her ears as she threw Arsinöe aside. There was a bright burst of pain as she did so, but Lily had no time to consider what it might mean. The Mulo was inches from her in all its vile fury, and denied of its target, it turned its attention to the next thing in its path: her.
It was as she wanted it. Lily didn’t shrink back as it lunged at her. She reached for it, though it had no visible substance, and caught the sides of its foul mouth with hands that thrummed with white-hot light. It screamed at her touch, thrashing from side to side as it tried to get away. But Lily, possessed of a strength that she had never known but always felt, just out of reach, hung on tighter. She pushed the energy into the Mulo, pulling to the sides as she did so, burning it even as she tore the shadow in two.
The ballroom was filled with horrified screaming; her ears were filled with it—it came from the dying creature that should never have had this second life.
With a final, deafening roar, it surrendered to the inevitable as Lily rent it in half. There was a flash, the stench of ozone, and she watched the tattered wisps of shadow that hung from her hands flutter rapidly in some unseen breeze before vanishing completely.She had done it. She’d finally managed to use what was in her for something good, to harness what she’d never been able to. Even if it was only this once, Lily thought as pandemonium erupted around her, with Ptolemy fleeing for the exits and dozens of men and women she’d never seen before pouring in through the windows, shoving through the doors, it had been a big once. She’d stopped a war. She’d saved the Ptolemy, though whether that was all so great was debatable. She understood what she was, how she had come to be. And she had a man who loved her. Who had announced he loved her in front of one of the scariest vampires in existence.
It really didn’t get more devoted than that. And all she wanted to do was wrap herself in his arms and go someplace quiet and dark, to tell him how she felt, how she wanted nothing to do with this dynasty business unless he was at her side.
Lily turned, finding it odd that the room seemed to spin with her. Everything seemed to be moving too slowly. She saw Jaden (Jaden! she thought with a burst of pleasure) hurl Nero to the floor, a feral snarl on his face, and raise his blade. She saw Vlad rush toward Arsinöe, who was staring at her own knife, which seemed to be dripping with blood. Damien watched her with something like pity in his eyes.
She stumbled as she turned and felt Ty catch her. She would know his touch even in the most impenetrable darkness, Lily thought, a faint smile on her lips. Why was it getting so dark all of a sudden?
“Lily,” she heard him say, and she looked up into his eyes. “Stay with me. Lily, please… please…”
His eyes were the stars, the moon in the sky.
Then she was gone.
Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
HE WATCHED HER DEEP, even breaths as she slept. He monitored those carefully, half convinced that at any minute, her chest would cease to rise after a fall. That she would vanish from him as stealthily as the ghost that had once haunted her, never to return.
The door behind him opened, throwing a bit of light into a room that was furnished with an ornate canopy bed draped in taupe and cream linens, a carved bombe chest, a towering wardrobe carved with the faces of cherubs. It was all a bit much for Ty, but he knew antiques when he saw them, and this room was worth a fortune. He was hard-pressed to care at the moment. About anything, including the Very Important Person who moved quietly to his side to study Lily’s still face.
“She’s lucky. I don’t know how Arsinöe, of all people, managed to miss internal organs. It could have been over right then. Still, she lost a lot of blood. It’s lucky there was so much chaos, really. Not everyone would have been able to resist the scent.”
Ty glanced up at Vlad.
“Lily saved the woman’s life, and she still took off as if the hounds of Hell were nipping at her heels. Not a word. Just that odd expression.” He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “At least no one batted an eye when every last Cait Sith stormed out of there. The Ptolemy will have to wait on themselves for a bit, I think. Might be good for them.”
Vlad eyed Lily speculatively. “You’re sure she’ll take them?”
Ty nodded. “You could do a lot worse than the Cait Sith as a foundation for a dynasty. I suppose you could do a lot better, too, but the woman seems to have a thing for strays,” he said. “No, they need her. And she wouldn’t turn them away. She has a big heart.”
His brothers and sisters were taken care of. That, at least, he had seen to. Things had indeed become bleak as Nero’s hold on Arsinöe had increased. He’d brought out the worst in her, but Ty could blame no one but the queen herself. The worst had always been there. He just hadn’t wanted to see it. How he could have so badly misjudged the queen, he didn’t know. She seemed so brittle to him now, so contrived. So unlike the warm little creature he had been alternately infuriated and infatuated with, the one lying here now. Too late, he understood the difference.
One had judged him worthy despite his mark.
The other had found him worthy without ever considering his mark at all.
Now it might be too late. Despite Lily’s words to him before she’d given herself up to the Ptolemy, Ty knew, better than she, how much things had changed. She would be shouldering a great deal of responsibility, and thousands of years of history. Would a woman who now needed to choose a mate, a partner with whom to reawaken the oldest and greatest of the vampire dynasties, truly consider a lowly Cait Sith? Especially when every single council member would argue against that choice?
Perhaps not Vlad. But Ty was certain the Dracul would be happy to volunteer if Lily rejected him.
Vlad pulled up a chair, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Ty wanted to brood and mope in peace. He’d already irritated Anura out of here.
“So how is she?”
“Lily?” Ty shook his head. “No change. I’m glad you had a doctor around to sew her up. But like you said, she’s lost a lot of blood.”
“He would have been happy to give her some from our supply. But as I told you, her blood isn’t… normal.” He paused. “You have to make the decision, Ty. All of us agree. It’s your right.”
Ty sighed heavily and scrubbed his face with his hands. “Yeah. I know.” And damn him, damn him for having wanted his teeth in her even when she’d been dying in his arms, her blood soaking his shirt and beckoning him, begging him to drink. The scent of it lingered on her, though she’d been sewn and bandaged, her wound cleaned, her clothes taken to be burned.
He felt Vlad eyeing him. “Her mark is beautiful. I’d never imagined I would see a true mark of the Lilim, much as I’ve studied them. And your Lily looks a great deal like Lilith herself.”