God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (33 page)

My gaze jumped to Ainsley and his wife, who were also dancing. If Dede had indeed given birth to a fully plagued child, that would certainly be an advancement in increasing aristo numbers. Given the desire for “pure” blood, it would explain why Ainsley would pass his lady off as the child’s mother.

It would also explain why someone would have an interest in unusual halvies. Why someone might want to experiment on them.

Fuck. It was like a flash bulb going off inside my head. I had to keep myself from running up to Vex, yanking him away from deb number whatever, and telling him my suspicions. This wasn’t about hurting halvies, or even using them as guinea pigs. If aristos were truly behind these atrocities – such as letting goblins rape halvies – then it was like a darker part of the Pax. The government tried to sell monitoring human DNA as a good thing for humans, but it was simply a way for aristo-backed scientists to weed out those who carried the plague and see if they could be used for the good of all with “royal blood”. This was about increasing aristo numbers.

I came back to myself in time to find Vex watching me with a
quizzical expression. I arched a brow at his mousy companion – a full blood were who could probably eat me for breakfast. She didn’t see my look, but Vex did. He winked at me, obviously enjoying the little niggle of jealousy poking at my spleen.

“Did MacLaughlin just wink at you?”

The sound of Church’s voice snapped my shoulders back. That was what I got for letting my guard down. “Probably he had something in his eye, sir,” I replied as I turned my head towards him.

We stood nose to nose. How little he was. Right now his pale blue eyes studied me as though I were an ant beneath a magnifying glass – no emotion, only curiosity.

“You cannot fool me, Alexandra Vardan. I know you better than you know yourself.” I would have liked to argue that point, but he went on. “The rumours about you and the Scots wolf are true. Tell me, is he what brought you so prematurely out of mourning?”

I matched my gaze to his and held it there, no matter how much the bottom of my spine seemed to writhe. “Duty to my queen and a desire to be useful brought me out of mourning, sir. As it did my brother and sister as well.” I kept my voice low. We weren’t far from the Queen, and I didn’t wish her, or those who were paying her court, to hear our conversation.

He clasped his hands behind his back. The stance lifted his chest, made him seem larger. “You’ve been different these past few times we’ve met, Xandra.”

“Losing a sibling changes a person,” I countered. I wasn’t going to admit that being around him confused me. He had changed. He seemed almost offensive with me – as though I had displeased him in some way.

Such as sleeping with a man he hated. Only, this didn’t feel like a fatherly sort of displeasure. He looked at me as though I had wounded him on an emotional level.

“Your blood was on that murdered halvie they found.”

I didn’t flinch, though I might have paled. It felt as though all the blood in my head had run screaming for my feet. “Are you accusing me of being involved in Simon’s death, sir?”

“You must admit it looks suspicious,” he commented, dodging the point.

“Suspicious?” I echoed. He never would have said these things to me before. He would have immediately asked what happened, what he could do to help. No, this was the attitude of a man who wanted to make me squirm just a little. “Is it against the law to have a friend do some blood tests for me?” I hadn’t planned to say it, but what the hell.

“What manner of tests?”

I smiled – a little mockingly, I might add. “I wanted to make certain the insanity that obviously runs in both sides of my bloodline hasn’t affected me as well.”

“There was no indication of any tests found in his office or his computer, or on the body.”

I shrugged, relieved that Simon hadn’t left a paper trail. “He called to give me the results. I went to see him with some questions, only to find him gone.” I didn’t want to confide even this much, but this was Church, for fuck’s sake. He was the man to whom I’d run with everything from a scraped knee to a broken heart. I couldn’t turn my back on all of that just because fingers had been pointed in his direction, or because he was jealous of Vex.

Jealous over me.

“Were the results satisfactory?”

I met his gaze evenly. He looked genuinely concerned and I felt like a cad for lying to him. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was. “They were, thank you. Sir, I …” I heard something that drew my attention, smelled something that brought my fangs out fast and hard – fear.

I whirled around. The orchestra still played, the dancers continued to dance. Conversation buzzed around us, but my attention went immediately to the one thing that didn’t belong.

Up on the balcony. A human with a rifle – pointed at the Queen.

“Gun!” I yelled, my voice seeming to reverberate around me. As I leapt forward, I was aware of several things at once: the music screeching to a halt, the discharge of the rifle, screams, and how sweet that human bastard smelled.

How the bloody hell could I smell him from where I was?

I moved faster than I ever had before – or at least I seemed to. One moment I was beside Church; the next I crashed to the floor, my shoulder exploding with pain as I took the Queen with me.

I sucked in air, forced myself to reach for the Bulldog hidden in my bustle. Hot blood ran down my left arm. I’d been shot. Damnation, it hurt. Felt like my shoulder was on fire. My head and stomach churned in opposite rotations.

Tetracycline. Fang me, there was tetracycline in the bullet. And the bullet was silver. It had gone straight through – luckily for me. It still hurt like hell.

“Your Majesty, are you all right?” I demanded, positioning myself so I wouldn’t drip blood on her. Plague me, even my eyes burned.

“Quite,” she replied, looking both shocked and relieved. “Young lady, you are most extraordinary.”

I smiled despite the throbbing in my shoulder. “Thanks.”

Church and my father appeared at my side. I told Vardan to look after Victoria, and then I jumped to my feet. I swayed, but just for a second. The shooter was already gone, but I could track him.

It didn’t matter than a dozen RG had already taken off in pursuit. It didn’t matter that Vex was shouting my name as he pushed through the crowd. I knew I could catch the bastard – that I was
the only one who could. It was hubris, of course, but I was so high on endorphins it felt like kismet. Those endorphins were the only thing keeping me standing.

Hitching my skirts, I ran, following the heavenly scent – which had only grown stronger. Had human fear always smelled this delicious? And how did I know that that was what I smelled?

The others had gone up to the balcony first. That was a waste of time. If the shooter had been smart enough, and stealthy enough, to get inside, then he was smart enough to have an escape route planned – a quick one. I knew it as soon as I found it.

He had gone out through a window – there was a length of grappling cable hanging outside the glass. How had he even got in? Every staff member was a long-term employee, and had been screened before the event. Guards patrolled outside, watched every entrance and exit despite all of them being securely locked.

But one of them couldn’t have been secure. Either that or someone had let the human in. One way or the other, this was going to reflect badly on my people. We were supposed to prevent this kind of thing, and one of us had fucked up – royally, to be perfectly accurate.

I swung out of the open window below the balcony, dropping easily to the ground. My shoulder seemed to be going numb, though it was probably shock. Soon my body would start repairing itself, but the drug’s properties would have the opposite effect on me from what they had on non-plagued blood, and would slow the process down. It was a powerful weapon when trying to kill a halvie or an aristo, fighting our blood as though it was a sickness.

The would-be assasin wasn’t far ahead. As I raced past the few halvies who had beaten me outside, I could hear him gasping for breath, the lumbering, graceless slapping of his boots on pavement. And I could smell him – like a cake straight from the oven, or a fresh cup of chai. My mouth actually watered.

My lips peeled back from my teeth as I ran, forced back by the fangs extending from my gums. I could stop, raise my right arm and put metal in the human, but I didn’t want to shoot him. I wanted to take him down and rip out his throat – but I’d settle for just a little taste before turning him over to Scotland Yard.

He ran into a Met station. I followed close on his heels, dimly aware of humans stopping to stare, or cry out as I raced by – a crazed halvie bleeding like mad and waving a gun almost as big as my head. Two tourists got in my way, almost toppling me over as they stopped to take a photo. The flash momentarily blinded me, scalding my sensitive eyes. I stumbled, blinked rapidly and pushed on, spots dancing in front of me.

My prey ran below, pushing his way through the normal underground crowd. They cleared a path for me, and when the human jumped the platform, running for the dark of the tunnel, I ran too.

He glanced behind, saw me and gave a little cry of distress. The glint of metal in the darkness, and then a flash. He fired at me, but missed. Terror didn’t exactly make for an accurate shot.

I reached for him. He could shoot me again if he wanted – I’d survive, at least long enough to finish him. Behind me I heard the pounding of halvie feet – at least a dozen backing me up.

The shooter fired again. Then another report – someone had answered from behind me with a shot of their own. I was sure he’d missed, but then I felt a familiar heat in my chest – or was it my back? – knocking me off balance and making me careen into the rough stone wall.

I struggled for breath and was rewarded with what felt like a building sitting on my breast. The bullet had collapsed my lung, and hadn’t had the manners to go right through me. It was inside, filling me with its poison.

Poison that was taking me down much further than it ought to have. Staggering, I tried to push off the wall and take up the chase
once more, but I couldn’t. I stumbled to my knees. I was on the tracks, and any moment there would a train. I could feel the vibration beneath my palms.

I was going to die.

Out of the darkness came the scent of fur and smoke. Strong furry paws clutched me, pulled me up on to a ledge and further into the shadows. I heard the pounding of footsteps – someone running through the tunnel. Then more running – this time several people. I might have called out, but a paw over my mouth stopped me. It smelled of dirt and strangely of coffee.

Quickly my eyes adjusted to this new darkness. I blinked and looked around me. I was surrounded by goblins. The prince stood in front of them, eye glowing in the darkness. “Xandra,” he said, “you bleed, pretty.”

And then he licked his chops and everything went black.

For a moment I hoped I was in heaven – or wherever it is my kind go when death calls. I wanted to wake to peace and warmth in a place where trying to suss out what I was didn’t get people killed, and I didn’t get shot by mental-arse humans.

Instead I opened my eyes and discovered that I was in hospital. The flimsy little gown they’d put me in had tiny pink piggies on it. My first thought was that I had to have been in bad shape to be admitted. My second, I’m ashamed to admit, was whether or not they’d let me take the nightie home with me.

“It’s about fucking time,” growled a voice to my right.

I turned my head with a smile. Vex rose from a chair beside my bed. He was still in his evening clothes, though his cravat hung loose about his neck. He looked tired, drawn and terribly gorgeous.

“Heaven’s better than I imagined,” I told him, my voice a rasp. I took back what I’d thought earlier about him contemplating
killing me. There was no faking how wrecked he looked at that moment. It was as comforting as it was terrifying.

“Don’t even joke,” he chastised me, taking a cup of water from the nightstand and holding it for me to take a sip. “You scared the fucking fur out of me tonight. If it wasn’t for the gobs …” He stopped, expression grim.

I had a fuzzy memory of the prince finding me. I thought I was going to be served on toast. “If it wasn’t for the gobs, what?”

He shook his head. “They saved you. I don’t know how they did it, but they kept you from dying with a fifty-calibre silver bullet in your chest, and tetracycline in your system.”

“Halvies aren’t frail, Vex.”

“Your heart stopped.” His face was ashen now. “I was there. Your heart stopped and there was so much blood. The prince took you and made your heart beat again.”

I stared at him. “You were there?” Wrong detail to get hung up on, but I didn’t want to think about how close I’d come to dying. And I didn’t want to think about the debt I now owed the prince.

“Aye.” His expression told me it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss.

I swallowed, and tasted something unfamiliar in the back of my throat – like a memory on my tongue. My stomach clenched, not because it was unpleasant, but because I had an awful feeling I knew just how the goblin prince had saved me.