Accidentally Married To...A Vampire? (34 page)

“Yes. Fight my dear,” Reyna snickered. “It will make it so much more enjoyable for me. Andrus doesn’t love you, but he does care for you. I can feel it. I can feel every pathetic emotion running through that thick skull of his.”

Andrus suddenly lunged from the bed and slammed into Reyna with such force that she flew across the room and hit the wall. Plaster crumbled as she slid to the floor, moaning.

“Leave her out of this, Reyna! This is between you and me!” he screamed.

Helena crumbled into a ball on the floor. She grasped her own neck, struggling to let the air back in her lungs. Andrus rushed to her side. Somewhere in the back of Helena’s mind she registered the fact that Andrus was nude.

Had Reyna forced herself on him?
Poor Andrus.

Reyna began crawling in their direction. “You do care for her! I knew it!” she hollered. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but if you value your life, you best remember that I am your mate. Me! You cannot love her! You are not destined to be with that wretched mortal.”

Andrus turned in Reyna’s direction. “What the hell are you talking about?”

***

Mingled with bloody tears, black mascara ran in thick clumpy rivers down Reyna’s pale face as she cried. If Andrus didn’t hate her so much, he could almost feel sorry for her. “What are you talking about?” he repeated.

“Mate! You idiot.” She chuckled psychotically under her breath. “Three hundred years, and the thought never occurred to you?”

Reyna slowly rose. If he didn’t know better, he’d say there was a look of remorse in her eyes.

“I didn’t want to turn you,” she said. “I fought it off as long as I could. But there was no other way. The legends were true.”

Though her words were frantic and thoughts incoherent, there was a harsh churning in his stomach as his mind began shuffling the pieces of the puzzle.

No. It just can’t be. No!
“What. The. Hell. Are you talking about, Reyna?”

Her face twitched. “Did you not hear me? You are my mate, Andrus. My. Mate. And vampires mated to humans slowly go insane if their mate is not turned.”

Andrus shook his head. How could this be possible? Mates were supposed to love one another, protect the other at all costs, have a connection. He hated her with every fiber of his being. He’d dreamed of nothing but killing her for centuries. Surely, this had to be another one of her many delusions. “I don’t understand.”

Reyna’s eyes continued pouring pink tears. She began pulling at her hair. “I can’t think straight. Your emotions…are like cancer!”

Andrus grabbed her shoulders. “You’re lying! You’re fucking crazy! I can’t be your mate, you never cared for me—I saw it in your eyes.”

Her eyes darted wildly from side to side. “No! That’s not true. I did everything to shield you from the truth. And I was prepared to do anything to keep from turning you; this was not the life I wanted for you.”

“But this one was okay?
This!
You turned me into a vile bloodthirsty vampire. Then you blackmailed me and traded me away to the gods to save your own ass. You betrayed me! Twice!”

“No! It wasn’t supposed to turn out that way. I wanted to keep you human. I only cared about being with you, even if it meant I’d go insane and have to end my life. You were everything to me!” She pounded her fist into the side of her head, her words flowing frantically. “I had Niccolo to keep the order—to keep the Obscuros in check. But when they began taking over, I realized he was gone. The gods demanded I be punished. They demanded I make you into a vampire and hand you over along with my best men.”

Bastard gods.
Andrus recalled Niccolo’s story. It was Cimil who had taken Niccolo out of action for three centuries.

That meant the gods caused of the outbreak of Obscuros then demanded action from the queen. In the end, the gods got their own race of soldiers—the Demilords. Was that what they were after all along?

Andrus stood in shock, digesting her words while attempting to sort through centuries of memories tainted by erroneous assumptions. A tiny voice of reason chimed in his head. Reyna was telling the truth.

Bloody, goddamned hell.
It just couldn’t be right. But it was. The gods caused this mess. And…Reyna was in fact his mate.

Flashes, moments in time, hundreds of them, shuffled through his mind like a revolting slide show. Images of lying in bed at night, feeling Reyna’s light hovering over him. Irrational feelings and thoughts bombarding him for no good reason. That horrid darkness plaguing his heart day after day. His inability to move on and forget her. She’d never left him. That godforsaken black cloud following him was her. Her darkness.

Andrus tried to take it all in, but it was too much. All this time he figured she’d just thrown him away. That she didn’t love him. In fact, she’d been trying to mask her pain and was going crazy. He felt her insanity, her loneliness and regret. Her hate for the world.

“Why didn’t you just tell me? We could have found a solution.”

She stood, her hair wild about her face, and cupped her hand to his cheek. “Like what? By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. Fate had decided for me, and the gods had spoken. I tried to bargain. I even offered myself, but they said I had to be punished for neglecting my duties and allowing so many Obscuros to roam freely. They decided I would live an eternity knowing my mate was somewhere in the world—also immortal—paying for my sins and far from my reach.”

“Three hundred years, Reyna. You could have told me.”

“No. There was to be no contact. If I broke my word, the gods would punish you somehow.” She fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around his legs. “Forgive me, Andrus. I tried! I did. The only concession they gave was to allow me to keep my best soldiers to fight the Obscuros.”

Reyna mumbled on and on about how she’d offered up their decedents. Unbeknownst to everyone, she had made it a habit to track her best warriors’ bloodlines. Eventually, she would turn the cream of the crop into vampires. That was how she first spotted Andrus.

“I don’t understand.” Andrus’ brows pulled together.

“Andrus, you and the other Demilords are all decedents of my best warriors. Like the others, I’d been watching you since you were a boy. You are from Niccolo’s bloodline. There are dozens of his ancestors in my ranks.”

Andrus felt like he’d been hit upside his head. Niccolo was his great-great—okay, he didn’t know how many greats, but
that
…vampire was family? And his men were related to other vampires who worked for the queen? Andrus felt sick. Reyna thought of these bloodlines as her own private breeding stock of warriors. Did her men know she’d been plucking out males from their families and turning them into vampires without consideration for the lives she was stealing away? Reyna truly had no heart.

Andrus gazed into her eyes and realized the truth. Some part of him did still love her. Yes, it made no sense. Yes, it was pathetic and twisted. But…it was what it was.

Maybe he’d known all along she was his mate. It would explain why time couldn’t mend his broken heart and why she occupied his thoughts constantly—except when Helena was near. That was his attraction to Helena; she gave him peace, even if for only short moments. And as badly as he might hope to someday truly love again, it wasn’t in the cards for him. Reyna had been his destiny, and it was time to end the suffering. His and hers. He and Reyna were not meant to be a fairytale. They were not destined for happily-ever-after. But he could still save Helena from the queen and hope time would heal her broken heart after Niccolo turned to ash. Helena might have the chance he never got.

Andrus looked down into Reyna’s icy green eyes. “I understand now.” He leaned down, kissed her lips, and slid his hand from her waist to her hip. He was about to go for the knife strapped to her outer thigh, when—

“Nice try.” She slipped the dagger from its sheath and held it out in her hand. “Looking for this?”

Andrus tried to swipe it from her hands. Reyna lost her grip. The knife fell to the floor.

“Reeeyna!” A deep voice suddenly howled with rage from the corner of the room.

Niccolo.

His eyes flew to Helena who was still on the floor struggling to breathe. “Why is she here? Who did this to her?” He then looked to Andrus, bare in the middle of the room, pointing at Reyna as the culpable party. “I’ll fucking kill you,” Niccolo said to Reyna. “Nobody touches my mate.”

Reyna took a few steps back and smiled. “Well, what can I say? I had planned to kill her so you might work for me again. But, what the hey, since you’re here.”

She pulled a long, razor sharp machete from her thigh-high boot. “Welcome to my party. Who’s up for a round of piñata?”

***

Helena fought to suck the air into her lungs and push it out again through her scorching throat. The pain was excruciating.

In the back of her mind, she could hear the conversation between Andrus and Reyna, and for a moment, she believed things might end joyously for the two. In a dysfunctional, warped kind of way. Clearly, there was a valuable lesson to be learned in all this: couples, no matter what species, should have open communication. Honesty was the key to happiness. Yes. She felt the makings of a good self-help book in all this. She could gear it towards immortals and put her academic background to use.

But Andrus turned on Reyna, and the two were suddenly at it again. Helena felt another book opportunity:
The Art of Letting Go of the Past, for Immortals.

Then, her knight in shining armor, Niccolo, appeared in the room. She’d thought her vampire would sift her away to safety and that she’d finally get to tell him the truth about what had happened with Viktor. But hope was short lived when Niccolo announced his intention to kill Reyna.

“I vote you and I kill Reyna together. I was about to do so myself,” Andrus suggested to Niccolo.

Niccolo pointed one of his two gleaming swords at Andrus. “Stay where you are. I handed you over to Reyna, hoping she’d kill you. So I’m pretty damned sure you and I are not on the same team.”

“Got me there,” Andrus replied with a grin.

Helena senses heightened to a level she’d never imagined possible while she watched the three facing off. She inched across the floor, scooting several feet to the knife. She didn’t know what she’d do with it, nevertheless having a weapon seemed like a good idea.

“How about I kill you?” Reyna pointed to Andrus. “Then you.” She pointed to Niccolo. “And that little blond slut last.”

Had the queen just called her a slut? That was like calling a Twinkie “a healthy snack.” Or, like calling Cimil “well balanced.” It wasn’t even in the ballpark.

“At least I’m not a psycho immortal spinster,” Helena retorted with a low, gravely voice, purposefully bating the queen to pull her attention away from Niccolo.

Reyna’s eyes flared. “You die first!” She jumped at Helena.

Andrus was on Reyna’s back in the blink of an eye.

Reyna turned, machete in hand, but Andrus hung on. If it weren’t a life and death battle, the scene of a naked Andrus clinging to the queen’s back like a rabid monkey might actually be funny.

The queen swiveled on her heels, back and forth, trying to shake Andrus off. She moved so fast, Niccolo had no choice but to stand back. Andrus suddenly lost his grip and tumbled to the floor. Reyna turned, but instead of going for Andrus, she lunged at Niccolo. He side-stepped her and she flew past him, skidding across the floor.

A look of unrelenting rage in his eyes, he raised his sword.

Time stood still.

Helena watched the blade barreling down like a hammer hell bent on slicing the world in two. How Helena did it was a mystery, but she moved herself between the blade and Reyna, hoping to stop the queen’s death. Without Reyna, there was no Niccolo. There was no world. This was it.

***

Horror overtook Niccolo as he stared down at Helena’s wide blue eyes, her body draped over Reyna like a shield. His sword had plunged straight into Helena’s abdomen. Blood poured from the gaping wound.

“No! Helena!” He slid her off Reyna. His entire world shifted on its axis.

Niccolo had lived an obscenely long time, and he’d made his fair share of miscalculations. Regret was no stranger to this immortal. But if he gathered up every moment of remorse, sadness, anger, and pain, and then condensed them into one, it would only represent a fraction of the despair that struck him down at this very moment.

Nothing in the past, present, or future would ever matter as much as this very moment, for if she died…he’d destroy the entire fucking world, down to the last blade of grass with his own two hands to take his revenge on fate.

This. Isn’t. Meant. To. Be.

Blood flowed like an unstoppable river over his lap, forming a crawling puddle on the floor. She could not survive such a wound. And if he tried to turn her now, his blood would simply run right out of her.