Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(34)

The howling windstorm rose again, and this time the world fell away as the cyclone swallowed her whole.

Terror rampaged through her mind. The only thing solid or stable was the creature that held her prisoner against a hard, lean-muscled body. Then the world began to reappear around her: walls, ceiling, furniture, and a floor beneath her feet.

She didn’t wait to look around or get oriented. As soon as those steely arms loosened and she had enough freedom of movement, she pushed away from him, pivoted and punched her kidnapper in the face as hard as she could.

She threw the punch right-handed, from her dominant side, which also was her uninjured side. She got lucky. She felt the male’s nose crunch as his head snapped back.

Those strange diamond eyes flared. She panted and staggered back a couple of steps, hand pressed again to her wounded side. Champagne-colored liquid trickled from one fine-etched nostril. The crooked break in his nose straightened back into place as she watched.

“You’re Gumby Man,” she said in awe, and with not a little resentment. Did all his other body parts straighten into place like that when he got injured? How could you fight and win against a creature that wouldn’t stay broke when you broke him?

He didn’t bother to reply. He wiped his face with the back of one hand as he regarded her with a lazy malevolence.

“I should have warned you to take care,” a woman said from behind her. “The Dark Fae heir apparent is small and cute, but like a Tasmanian devil, she can be vicious when cornered.”

Niniane knew that voice. It was one of the most beautiful voices in the world, and also one of the deadliest. Eyes widening, she turned to face Carling Severan, Councillor of the Elder tribunal, sorceress and Vampyre Queen.

The speaker was as beautiful as her voice, with a heartbreaking, life-threatening loveliness. Clad in a classic black Chanel suit and about average height for a modern woman, Carling Severan was slender with an exquisite bone structure. She had a patrician Nefertiti-like neck, long almond-shaped dark eyes, shining black hair that fell in a heavy curtain to her waist, high cheekbones, smooth luminous skin the color of honey and a treacherously sensual mouth. She had been ancient when Rome was born, but she still bore the face and figure of a thirty-year-old woman.

The Vampyre Queen was one of the oldest recorded surviving Nightkind, if not the oldest. Even at rest her Power filled the room, until Carling did something either to rein it in or camouflage it somehow, so that it receded like a tide flowing away from shore and she resembled a simple ordinary, beautiful human woman.

She was a poisonous king cobra that masqueraded as an innocent, bright green garden snake.

That was so not right.

“Councillor,” Niniane whispered, through numb lips.

The illusion of innocuousness vaporized as the Vampyre walked over to her with a swift, fluid, inhuman grace that was as terrifying as everything else was about her. Carling stopped just in front of Niniane, dropped a slender hand onto her shoulder and looked at the male creature. “That will be all for now, Khalil.”

The male creature’s nostrils flared. He said, “I have paid in full one of the three favors I owe you.”

Niniane could still hear the wildness of the cyclone in his deep voice. She shivered, and the unbreakable hold on her shoulder tightened. The Councillor said, “You have indeed. Until the next time, Djinn.”

A howling wind rose and died. Niniane looked down again and cupped her eyes to protect them from the whipping ends of her hair. That was when she noticed a bright yellow band of sunlight from a nearby window that slanted across both of her legs and also those of the Vampyre’s. Niniane stared. Carling wore no shoes, and her slender, beautiful honey-colored feet were limned in light. Such contact with direct sunlight would have reduced a lesser Vampyre to ash within seconds. Niniane’s shivering increased. Even for a creature that many regarded as unnatural, Carling was unnatural.

The Councillor said, “This is where you may ask whether I am a good witch or a bad witch.”

Niniane looked up, into that gorgeous, ancient smiling gaze. She said as steadily as she could, “I’m not sure I would want to hear your reply.”

Carling said, “It is a wise little heir. I heard you had been injured. I can smell the blood from your wound, and a Demonkind prince is not the most beneficent of taxis. Sit.”

Carling’s hand on Niniane’s shoulder compelled her toward an armchair and supported her as her shaky legs threatened to give out. Grateful to ease into the support of the chair, she sank down, although she was far from relaxing.

Carling flowed into a nearby armchair. By the simple act of sitting she turned it into a throne. Niniane watched her sidelong, envious of the other woman’s imperial grace even as she kept her wary dial turned on high, the needle squarely pointed to emergency red. She had interacted in a cordial fashion with the Councillor several times over the years but always in a public, formal setting. Although not Wyr, Carling was every inch a predator, and Niniane would do well to remember it.

Strictly speaking, Carling was no longer Queen of the Nightkind. In an unprecedented move, she had formally abdicated when she became Councillor of the Elder tribunal. Carling had taken advantage of a legal loophole that had existed when the U.S. Elder tribunal had been created in the 1790s, which had barred any Elder ruler from holding office but had neglected to forbid such a position from former rulers. At Carling’s abdication, her progeny Julian Regillus had become Nightkind King. While the legal loophole had since been closed, it was long accepted that Regillus acted upon his progenitor’s orders and that Carling remained the de facto ruler of the Nightkind while also holding the power of her seat on the Elder tribunal.