Page 23 of A Thousand Burning Ravens

The thin line of a smile passes over his face, and he hands her his glass of wine to share. “Three days should be enough time to plan a wedding, do you not agree?” He leans forward, offering her a chalice and urging her to drink. Reluctantly, she does. “And until then, perhaps we can sample what is to come.” He presses cold fingers to her collarbone, allowing them to explore the dips and curves of her body, pacing the ridges of her breasts before resting on her belly where the fabric unites. His eyes turn upward to meet hers. “There is one issue though.” His voice is louder now and Myla tenses, already unnerved by his touch.

An overwhelming intoxication suddenly fills her senses. Moments before, he was disgusting to her. Now, as she studies his features, she is drawn to the depth of his eyes, the ridge of his upper lip and the way the light across his scars is both ferocious and attractive. His breath is spiced, and the cologne he wears must be an aphrodisiac. She catches her breath and against her will finds herself pressing against him with enthusiasm, eager to please.

“Whatever is the matter?” she asks, her impulses not to be denied as her hands caress his chest in spite of her brain begging her not to. She presses soft lips to his ear. “Tell me, my lord, what issue do you speak of.”

He grins. “I like how you respond to me.” Then he stands, pushing her from his lap, and gestures to a young woman sitting at one of the tables. Myla recognizes her as the teenage daughter of one of her Council members. “The issue is that traitorous bitch.”

Myla flinches at the language, as do many around her. “Whatever has she done?” she asks, feeling a reaction within her, not his magic, but hers. Anger simmering beneath the surface and threatening to bite like the snapping jaws of wolves.

“She was speaking to a friend before the celebration began, speaking on her concerns regarding my presence.” His words are calculated as his hands raise at his side, a blackness forming in the skin of his palms. “Come, child. Step forward.”

Myla’s throat swells and turns dry as cotton, watching as the girl stands. She seems small and far too young to be here in the first place. “Vesperian,” she coos, placing a hand on the rigid shoulder in front of her. “The words of a mere girl are no threat to us. Send her away for the night and let us be done with the nuisance.”

The Blood Stealer turns to her, the irises of his eyes framed with crimson now and the small wraith forming between his hands growing violent and wriggling in his control. “I do not suffer insubordinates to go unpunished beneath my rule.”

Myla forces a relaxed smile, allowing the light at her own palms to form. “Neither do I. I must be the one to punish her.” Eyes full of terror, the girl before her trembles, her fingers laced together in a fervent plea. “Please, Your Grace . . . I—I was merely frightened. Surely you see we all are.”

Lord Reacher, her father, and the Treasurer on Myla’s Council has rushed to her side, his body partially shielding the girl’s. “Do not harm her, I beg of you. She meant no disrespect.”

Although her heart begs her to show mercy, Myla retires the thought, aware of how Vesperian watches her with anticipation. This is a test. The dead bodies on the wall were not enough. He has to see her in action. With a breath of a prayer, begging the Spirit Mother to give her precision, Myla allows her magic to trickle, first to her palms, then her fingertips, and finally, through her pores, until all the light in the throne room has been summoned to her body alone. Flecks of golden light seeping and collecting like a tether in her hands, blinding all around her. The use of magic costs her dearly already, and Myla can feel the magic relinquishing its hold on her womb, a problem she will have to rectify later in the evening.

For now, she calls upon the Gods to bring their trembling wrath upon her court.

Better their wrath than Vesperian’s.

“I was clear,” Myla speaks, her voice a booming echo of what it usually is, no longer sweet and assertive but distorted and angry, the light within her coiling and ready to snap. She has used her power to kill before but never has she tested its precision. She does not wish to kill the girl, only scare her, and make a spectacle of the situation. “You may accept my word as law, or you will die. I implore each of you to consider the very real consequences of defying me!” Myla hopes they interpret the duality of her message. If anyone strays, it will not be her who kills them; it will be the Fae God beside her.

Her guests grasp their ears, some seeming to try and tear them from their heads, the rasp of her voice stabbing deep into their brains and evoking screams of agony. Others abandon all care for their hearing, covering their eyes from the angry light. With a flick of her wrist, her light furls around the ankles of the girl, suspending her upside down in the air. A chilling scream pours from the girl’s lips as she catapults fifty feet upwards, and pleas for mercy mixed with apologies are frantically sobbed.

Everything inside Myla wants to turn her magic on the Blood Stealer, but this is a game of waiting and biding her time. In order to defeat him, she must catch him completely unaware. Instead, she channels her energy into controlling the thread of burning light so as to not knock the girl senseless on the stone pillars. “Should anyone find it necessary to speak against me again, know that death will be the consequence, not humiliation.” Myla lowers her to a few feet above the ground before releasing her. She falls into a defeated slump, her parents rushing to help her up. As Myla’s light fades, it is replaced by a sinister darkness growing larger between Vesperian’s hands.

“Myla, my Ruthless Queen,” he says with a laugh. “That was spectacular. I have heard you called The Queen Who Bleeds Stars . . . but to see it, that is something else.” He toys with the wraith between his hands as though it is a pet needing attention. “I can see your goodness will be difficult to supplant.”

There is no time to think or even intercept. It is faster than a blink or a sharp breath, shooting across the room like an arrow. The black wraith cuts through the girl’s cheek, met with a river of red leaking from her face. Vesperian is consumed inside the darkness of the wraith, one moment standing beside Myla and the next, reappearing alongside the shrieking girl. Her father lets out a cry, a protest, begging for his daughter’s life. Vesperian, void of feeling, seizes her by the throat, his hand sliding against the blood already spilling down the neckline of her dress.

“Why would I kill her,” he asks, “when controlling her is far more entertaining?” He leans in, his tongue gliding across her cheek, lapping drops of blood from her face. The blackness around him grows, coiling and pulsating as the girl’s minor magic feeds his main source. A look of disassociation washes over her, an absence of thought or feeling replacing what was moments ago, a young woman full of life and fight and opinions.

She is a shell.

She is his shell.

And she never saw it coming.

Horror devours the crowd, silence claiming all but her parents, who weep. Lord Reacher lets out a beastly scream, raising a hand above his head ready to attack. It is a futile effort. The conjured wraith pivots from the Blood Stealer’s being and lops his head off with one lethal slice.

Myla flinches and her chest constricts, everything inside her screaming at what a mistake she has made. Not one night into her plan, and he is already claiming lives and wills.

“Margot, Matteo.” The dark Fae God gestures to his wolves. “Eat.” To Myla’s horror, the command is obeyed, and the large wolves descend on the fresh kill. The sound of ripping flesh and famished wolves is sickening. The urge to scream is snuffed when he turns around, searching for her approval. Something inside her suddenly worships him, a congenial expression forms, and she finds herself leaning against him, wiping traces of blood from his chin. “Your power is exhilarating,” she says breathlessly, hoping to pass off her distress as being awestruck. “Let the servants clean this mess, I am famished.”

Signs of conflict and casualty are erased by servants who clearly wish they were elsewhere. The remainder of the guests fill their plates, not because they appear hungry or happy to, but for fear of finding themselves on Myla’s wall. Myla reclines in her throne, a laissez-faire cover for the waning of her energy. The proximity to Vesperian is draining her in spite of the tonic poured in her wine and a few subtle recharges with Elsa. Nothing could prepare Myla for the way she now feels sitting next to him. Both fatigued and helpless, yet happy to be so. She finds herself doing and saying things that feel a betrayal to herself, to Elsa, to her entire court, and especially to Bryar.

Between feasting and drinking and exchanging scandalous promises with Vesperian, the night drifts on in a drunken haze. When Myla comes to, in a moment of sanity, she finds herself draped across Vesperian’s lap, his lips to her throat and his hands exploring up her legs all while her guests and subjects sit watching. Attempted conversation and music from the bards seem dulled beneath the heavy blanket of intoxication poisoning the room at Vesperian’s hands.

Myla wants to stand, to remove his hands, to walk out. Her body is frozen in place and a strange longing inside her defies her logic. At their feet, between Margot and Matteo, like a cowering dog waiting for orders from her new master, is Lord and Lady Reacher’s daughter. Her eyes seem empty as glass, nothing laying beyond them but a possessed soul in a helpless trance.

Those also under the Blood Stealer’s control seem to be responding to the drunken and lustful energy. Myla realizes his control is not always a conscious instruction. Anyone tied to him by blood oath is like the root systems to a tree, connected to all the others, communicating, and responding as one. If he feels drunk, so do they, and if he feels rage, they also feel rage. And as Myla is rapidly discovering, his arousal seems to be theirs as well. Men and women both under his control make indecent advances on those around them, matching his pace and even his gestures until the room spins out of control in a landscape of scandal and nakedness.

Myla inclines her head, hoping to see a friendly face, yet the blur around her grows until Vesperian is the only person she can see. The sensation strikes fear to her core, fear she might respond the wrong way and be another victim to his wrath, but also fear for responding the way he wants and being his victim in an entirely different way. His voice is the only voice she can hear, though she swears her friends try and speak to her. She can not hear them, only him. She feels isolated from those she trusts now, and no matter where she turns, all she can see, feel, and hear, is him.