Chapter 0005

Kane

A million thoughts are flying through my head as I make my way down the hallway toward the rose garden, Rainer, my best friend and second, at my side. I can tell he is dying to say something, but even he has to be careful at a time like this not to say something to piss me off, and he knows it.

As we approach the door that leads out to the rose garden, located on the south lawn, about fifty yards from the castle, Rainer says, “Well… that was unexpected.”

All I can do at first is grunt as my mind goes back over what has just happened. While I had known better than to expect Alpha Bernard to show up here with the money he owed me—in its entirety, anyway—I had no idea that he was going to try to convince me to take one of his children instead.

And then… when he’d told me it was the younger girl, the one that’s barely out of diapers compared to me at a hundred and forty-seven, well… I wanted to just kill him and be done with it.

But… then a remarkable thing had happened. With absolutely no concern for her own well-being, his other daughter, the one with the long red locks and the stunning jade eyes, had interjected herself between the insane proposition her father had offered me and what she likely sees as a miserable future living with the enemies of her pack.

The devil only knows what sorts of lies she’s been fed over the years about me and my kind.

Her bravery is remarkable to me. I still can’t believe anyone would be willing to subject themselves to that sort of an uncertain future. What I’m going to do with her, I don’t know, but she can be of value to me in more ways that I am currently aware, I’m sure.

“You didn’t tell Clark which room to take her to,” Rainer reminds me.

He’s right. I should’ve been more specific. I think perhaps I should send him a quick mind message to tell him which room I had been thinking of when Rainer pushes the exterior door open, and even though she’s far away, on the other side of the rose garden, I hear the screeches of Opal’s voice and my stomach tightens.

“No! You never fucking listen to me!” I hear her shouting. “What the actual fuck is the matter with you, anyway? Are you some sort of a fucking moron?”

I stop in my tracks, not wanting to move forward, not wanting to deal with this after what’s already transpired this morning. Rainer stops too, and I can’t fault him when he hooks a thumb over his shoulder and says, “I’ve gotta go. There’s a… former governess with a skewer waiting for me in the library who wants to shove the sharp wood right through one of my ears and out the other, and I kinda think that would be more fun than listening to Opal scream at the poor wedding coordinator.”

I narrow my gaze at him, and we both know he’s not going anywhere. “You always have had the strangest fetishes,” I say to him.

He shrugs, “The heart want what the heart wants.”

“Come on,” I say, stepping forward. I take a deep breath because that’s what one is supposed to do, not because oxygen has any usefulness in my body.

I see that the overcast skies from earlier today have dissipated while I was inside dealing with the likes of Alpha Bernard. I would say that’s a good thing, but the sun always makes me a bit nauseated. At least it doesn’t burn my flesh and turn me into a pile of ashes as is rumored of my kind.

It really is silly what humans will write in books.

The closer I get to where Opal is standing with her friends and the poor wedding coordinator, Blanca, the best in the kingdom, one who came with thousands of excellent reviews, the more irritated I become until I’m ready to claw my ears off just so I don’t have to listen to her. A curse on the asshole servant who came to fetch me while I was awaiting the removal of the Alpha’s daughter from the throne room. Though, in fairness, the servant was just doing his job.

“Do these look like the queen consorts fucking prized red roses?” Opal is shouting as Rainer and I step around a large hedge of pink flowers. “Well, do they?”

Opal is perfectly named. Her alabaster skin is nearly opaque in the glints of sunlight that reach her beneath the parasol one of her maidens is holding above her head. There are three other girls with her, and while they are pretty enough, none of them can hold a candle to Opal. Her raven hair is pulled up in a perfect bun on top of her head, with little curls framing her beautiful face. Her blood red lips give a sort of glowing quality to her sapphire blue eyes. Her eyes are by far the brightest of any vampire I’ve ever seen.

There’s no question that Opal Maxwell is a beauty. It was one of the selling points her family had made when they came to visit last year, speaking to my mother and I about how an alliance would do both of our kingdoms well. Not only could we work together against our enemies, there was a good chance offspring could also be born from this union since Opal was also a vampire since birth, like myself. We are a rarity, and our kind is said to be a gift from the powers that be….

Whatever powers those are. At the moment, the only being I’m certain exists beyond vampires, humans, and wolf shifters is the devil himself….

Especially as she continues to scream at the wedding planner.

Blanca stands with her shoulders back and her head held high, her usual stance from what I can tell. But even she has a tipping point, and I can see her on the cusp of breaking.

“Are you even listening to me, you stupid bitch?” Opal shouts at the woman.

“I hear everything you are saying, Princess,” Blanca says. “There’s really no need to yell.”

“I guess there is since you’ve not done a fucking thing to fix this since you first told me about it ten minutes ago!” Opal is flinging her hands around, causing her long, layered red skirts to bustle about, and the more she does so, the more she looks like a bloody tornado.

“Seriously, my mom is calling for me,” Rainer tries again. I elbow him in the side, and he continues along with me.

“Your mom died decades ago,” I mutter, and the two of us arrive at the scene of the battle, ready to figure out what is going on. “Opal?” I say, causing her to jump a little at the sound of my voice. The whirling dervish has been too busy with her chastising to notice my approach.

“Oh! Kane, darling!” she says, putting on her best “good girl” face and blinking her long eyelashes in my direction. “How are you, dear? How was your meeting with the werewolf?”

I grimace at the use of the derogatory term. I’ve told her we shouldn’t use that word. There are some wolf shifters in the castle that are quite useful and good people, but she likes to think of them all as unhinged beasts. In Bernard’s case, that probably fits.

I see Blanca relax only a margin as I take the focus off of her. “It was fine,” I tell Opal. “But… I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

“Oh, well, you’re not going to believe it!” Opal says, releasing my arm so that she can gesture wildly again. “I told this idiotic bit—”

“Opal?” I say, giving her a stern look. She takes a deep breath and tries again. We’ve talked about how she needs to behave like a polished princess all of the time, not just when she thinks “important people” are listening.

“This Blanca,” she modifies, “that I wish for the ceremony to be held in the middle of your mother’s antique roses, beneath the light of the full moon, but she insists on trying to make me choose! And I won’t hear of it!”

The three girls behind Opal, two blondes, one whose color is probably out of a bottle, and one with orangish-red hair that isn’t nearly as stunning as the locks on the head of that shifter girl, all humph in agreement.

I look to Blanca, knowing there has to be a good reason for her dying on this sword. “Blanca, what’s the problem?” I ask in a calm voice.

She clears her throat, something most people must do while gathering the courage to speak to me, even when I’m not trying to be intimidating. “Your Majesty, the princess would like for me to somehow change the course of the bodies that navigate the heavens.”

Biting back a chuckle, I nod, getting the gist of the problem. “She wants the moon to be in a specific spot over the rose garden at an exact moment in time when it will not be?” I ask.

Blanca’s head rocks back and forth, her light eyes blinking in relief as she sees that I understand.

Turning to Opal, I say, “It can’t happen, Princess. The moon won’t be in this location, right over head at the time you want to get married. You can change the time. You can change the location. Perhaps you can even change the date. But you can’t move the moon.” The third option, the one where she changes the date… that’s the one I’m hoping for. I have rushed into this marriage of convenience for my clan’s sake not realizing it is actually quite inconvenient, and even though Opal and I both know this is a marriage only for the sake of such a thing—she certainly takes many lovers into her room—I have been second guessing my decision a lot lately.

“No!” she shouts, pulling down on my arm. “I can’t change any of those things! It must be at three in the morning, during the fall equinox, here, in the rose garden, and I want it over there!” She points about seventy yards to the north. “That’s where the prettiest flowers are!”

I am not going to run the risk of transplanting my mother’s favorite flowers for this immature woman-child. “Well, there’s nothing else that can be done. Why can’t the moon be slightly to the south of the ceremony? It’ll be like… backlighting. You can use it to show off your best features.”

She mulls that over for a moment before she leans close to me and whispers, “You mean my breasts?” and winks at me.

I did not mean her breasts. I actually had nothing in mind at all. But if that is what she needs to hear, I lean over and give her a quick peck on her cheek. “I have business to attend to, Opal. You handle this, and no more shouting. I don’t want to have to come back out here.”

“Yes, my darling,” she says as if there’s actually any affection between us. Perhaps she thinks there is. I am being polite. I am going through the motions. I am about to tear two thorns off of the rose bushes and gash my own eyes out….

As I head back into the castle, I see a familiar form leaning against the wall, waiting….

Waiting for me.

A crooked grin on his face, I can tell he has something to tell me that he thinks is amusing that I am sure to think is anything but.

“What the fuck does he want?” Rainer says, as much contempt in his voice as I feel inside of me.

“I have no fucking idea,” I admit as I address him. “Lex?”

His grin widens as he says, “Hello, brother.”