The Phoenix Prince Page 18

  The prince couldn’t bring himself to look away from her, though he feared the confession of the obvious truth might damage what was between them—if there was anything between them. “Aye.”

  There was no hesitation on her part as she broke into an honest smile. Her right hand came up and touched his cheek briefly. “Then I am glad for it.”

  He swallowed hard and closed his eyes at her touch, a charge running through him. “I was worried on some level everyone would be afraid of me.”

  Thana gave him another smile, her dark eyes shining up at him as she lowered her hand. “I’m not. No one in their right mind would be. And seeing you stand up to Peirte after how shy you always seem, that was very impressive.”

  Not accustomed to dealing with females who might have some interest in him, he wasn’t sure what he was feeling from the girl, but there was definitely something intense there. His felt his cheeks burn worse, and his heart refused to slow down. “Well, it wouldn’t do to let him get away with having me assassinated.”

  “Aye, that is true.” She swayed from side to side for a moment, before looking around Keiran. Her mother, Sorna, was at the door to the throne room, waving her over. The older woman’s expression didn’t look too happy.

  She looked up at Keiran one more time, giving a last smile before jogging off and following Sorna from the room.

  Keiran stood there, looking toward the doorway for several moments after she left.

  Jerris came over and put a hand on his shoulder, leaning in close. “It’s about bloody damn time, Keiran. You’ve had your eye on that one for a long while, now.”

  The prince scoffed and shoved Jerris away. “Don’t start.”

  “Oh, I think it’s a great time to start, Keir,” he whispered with a snort. “You’re actually overdue to finally know the joys of a woman.”

  The vampire growled and curled his lip, glaring over at his guard. His fangs weren’t showing anymore, though. Minor annoyances of the Jerris sort weren’t enough to bring those down. Keiran turned and moved over to the throne, dropping into it and letting the cloak fall to the floor.

  Jerris decided Keiran might not be in the mood to be messed with too badly. He wandered over and stood before the prince.

  “Right, well, uh,” the guard started, glancing around, “what are you going to have done to Peirte?”

  “Hell if I know.” Keiran closed his eyes and slumped down into the seat. He hated to admit it, but he was starting to get thirsty, and the return of Peirte to his thoughts didn’t help. “Clearly, the man is dangerous and into more things than we’re aware of. How he got that white deer out there to lead me like it did, I’ve no idea. If he can do that sort of thing, if he has that much power, the risk of keeping him alive is obvious. I don’t know what in the hell the man has gotten into. It has to be some sort of magic, don’t you think? I suppose I’ll have to have him either imprisoned forever or executed. Pretty lousy that one of my first official duties will have to be to decide which one.”

  Jerris went over and sat on one of the stairs that led up to the throne and leaned forward, supporting his head with his hands. “And yet I’m still picking up some hesitation on your part for having him executed. Keir, he deserves it. He did have you killed after all, and who knows who else he might have moved out of his way in the process?”

  One of Keiran’s eyes opened and a brow quirked upward. He debated for a few seconds on exactly how much he wanted to tell Jerris of what he’d envisioned and thought just a little while earlier. “The only reason I’m hesitant at all is because, well, after the whole ordeal following the assassination, I thought about killing Peirte with my own hands. Then, when I grabbed him by his scrawny neck just now… What was on my mind wasn’t justice or the anything along those lines. It was something else entirely. It was sheer pleasure in killing him, not for revenge, but just to do it. If I turned out to actually enjoy having him done in, I think that’d mean I was damned to head down a path I’d rather avoid.”

  “Keir, I think most of us know that you’re not one to just order something like an execution out of fun,” Jerris said back, looking over his shoulder. “It is justified. The man is dangerous, and at this point, he really has nothing left to lose. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was already thinking about pulling off something terrible, imprisoned or not. You wouldn’t be doing it just because of a personal vendetta.”

  The prince ran a hand down his face and sat up a little more. As much as he wished he could keep a division between his personal feelings and his duties as the head of his country, the line was already blurred, and it didn’t look like it was going to get any clearer in the foreseeable future. “What needs to be done will be, but we should, at the very least, find out what sort of magic he was using. I can’t think of what else he could have done to get that deer to direct me as it did. Those damn things can’t be trained like that. It wasn’t traditional human magic, not by a long shot. I’d also like to know who else was involved. He surely had accomplices. Ivan, for one. I think he should be brought in for questioning before he gets word of my return and tries to flee.”

  Jerris pushed himself back up to his feet and headed for the doorway. “That, Keir, is a good idea. I’ll be back shortly. Stay out of trouble, would you?”

  “It seems to have a way of finding me, little brother,” Keiran said with a smile, watching with amusement as Jerris kept right on walking, simply lifting his right hand to give Keiran a rather rude gesture before he vanished from sight.

  Chapter 8

  Peirte sat on the bare stone floor of his cell with his knees pulled up to his chest. He’d been stripped and searched thoroughly prior to being shoved inside. They had given him a basic pair of pants to wear, but they weren’t near sufficient enough to keep the cold of the dungeon from eating at him.

  The space was relatively dark, with a few oil lamps on the walls providing the scant amount of illumination within. The dungeon wasn’t very big, as the real prison was down in the town. The bars of the cell were old wrought iron, rusted at least on the surface from the moisture that seeped through the subterranean walls. There were no other prisoners being incarcerated for him to converse with, if he’d been so inclined.

  Which he would not have been, regardless.

  The councillor sat fuming over the turn of events. Though he wasn’t exactly sure when Keiran had started taking human blood, he was forming his suspicions. He’d never seen Keiran ingest it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening in secret. Maybe the vampire and his little guard friend were into something weird like that. Perhaps Keiran’s whole physical decline over recent years had been a ruse to keep people from knowing that he was actually partaking. Whatever it was, Peirte was certain that the very idea of it made him ill.

  Hadn’t be been doing the country a favor in killing Keiran? He’d thought so, but as could be expected, people were too stupid to realize it. Vampires coming into power and ruling never turned out well for the people or the countries they ruled. Not that Peirte would have been a particularly merciful leader, either. That wasn’t the point to him, however.

  Damn it all if his attempted assassination hadn’t inadvertently brought about Keiran’s final transformation, giving the prince more power and strength than he’d possessed before.

  It was a bitter dose of irony that the councillor refused to swallow.

  With a frustrated groan, he tipped his head back against the wall and covered his face with his hands. Surely, Keiran would have him summarily executed. Peirte was far from ready to die, however, and he struggled to think of a way out. There were no tools readily available to him, and under all the stress he wasn’t even sure he could remember some of his more basic spells. He imagined flipping through the various pages of his books, lamenting the fact that he didn’t exactly possess a photographic memory. Maybe if he calmed himself down, he could come up with something.

  Peirte grit his teeth and thumped his head back against the stone wall several times, try
ing to physically jar his brain into working order. Behind him, something shifted and clinked to the floor. He turned and looked behind him, seeing that a small sliver of stone from the wall had broken off and fallen. The councillor picked up the stone shard and eyed it. The thing was too small to use as any sort of weapon. He pressed the tip of it against the floor and scratched it along, producing a thin, white line.

  The corners of his mouth quirked upward, and he got onto his hands and knees, starting to draw out something on the floor both inside and outside the bars to the limit of his reach. In the dim light, he knew that the next time the guards made a round, they wouldn’t be able to see what he was doing.

  * * *

  Above the dungeon, the throne room was empty. Keiran had moved up into his quarters to get changed and washed up. While that made him feel better, his thirst was worsening. This made him get increasingly agitated with just about everything. Aware that his mood was tanking fast, he tried to distract himself. The prince went over to the window in his room to check on the weather.

  What little good cheer he might have had left instantly evaporated as his eyes landed on a large, black carriage in the center of the courtyard. The body of the thing was intricately carved, and it was pulled by a team of six massive horses.

  Keiran leaned forward and let his head bang against the glass, eyes closing. He’d seen this carriage before on several occasions and knew that it belonged to the vampire Athan Vercilla.

  “You have got to be bloody kidding me…”

  Right on cue, there came a knock to his door and Corina let herself in before he had the chance to answer.

  “Keiran, they’re telling me Lord Vercilla has arrived. Do you know anything about this?” she asked, stopping about halfway through his room. Her expression gave away the fact she was upset about it. She hated the man with every fiber of her being.

  He turned to face her, trying to stop himself from saying something snotty about it. He forced up a smile, but he knew that she’d be able to see right through it. “No. I’m not aware of him being scheduled for anything, not that my father always informed me when Athan was going to show up. I suppose I’m not allowed by etiquette to tell him just to go to Hell and leave.”

  Her eyebrows rose, and she put her hands to her hips. Keiran was definitely a lot more assertive about people he didn’t like since his father’s death just a few days prior. She couldn’t really blame him, though. On the subject of Athan, she wouldn’t have protested if he had given the order for the other vampire to shove off.

  “You know my feelings on him,” she replied. “I wouldn’t care if you did, but it is a good chance for you to explain to him that your father is dead and that things are going to change.”

  Keiran grunted and glanced toward the window. He wasn’t in any particular hurry to run down and receive his guest, whether it was to tell him off or not.

  Sensing his hesitation, Corina took a step closer and opted to give him a change in subject. “Care to tell an old woman what happened with Peirte? I’ve only heard the rumors about you returning and pretending to be some sort of assassin. What happened?”

  More than happy for anything that would delay him from having to talk to Athan, Keiran gave Corina a rundown of the events that had taken place over the last two days. He didn’t leave out anything.

  She listened in rapt silence, eyes wide, occasionally nodding. Only when he’d finished did she break her silence. “I don’t know what to say. If you’d not come back, Keiran…”

  He went forward and put his hands on her shoulders, looking down into her eyes. “But I did. There seem to be some things I need to adjust to, I’m going to have to watch my temper. I can only hope things get easier from here on out.”

  Corina stared right up at him, sighing. “What’s done is done. I’m not well for the fact you died and had to suffer like that, though. That was still awfully close to you dying and not returning. In the future, when Jerris and I are both on you about something, perhaps you’ll listen?”

  Keiran looked up and to the side, before leaning in and kissing her cheek. “We’ll see. I can’t just start being agreeable all the time. I’m royalty. I’m supposed to be a stubborn, obnoxious pain in the ass.”

  “And you always will be, no offense. Speaking of obnoxious ass pains, get downstairs before Athan gets impatient. I don’t want him getting angry and taking it out on any of my girls,” she said, stepping aside and pointing toward the door. “Take him into the dining hall. I’ll see to it that you’re served wine or something to make dealing with him easier. God knows we have enough alcohol in the castle, since we were supposed to do your coronation and banquet tonight.”

  Keiran winced a little. “Ah, well, I’m not quite up to it today, all things considered. I know it’s a big inconvenience to everyone to delay it until tomorrow, but I was killed yesterday. I’d like a rest. Extend my apologies to everyone that worked so hard to be ready for today. I’m just not up to it.”

  “It will take us that long to remember how we’re supposed to cook bear anyway, Keiran. A bear, honestly,” she huffed, waving toward the door again. “Get on with it and be careful. The man is not stable.”

  Keiran moved out, pausing just long enough to look back over his shoulder and give her a wink. “I’m always careful, you know me.”

  “Aye, and look at the trouble your version of careful causes. Go.”

  * * *

  Keiran jogged down the stairs that led to the main floor of the castle, skidding to a stop. He’d nearly run into Jerris.

  “I went to Ivan’s house,” the guard said.

  The prince stood there for a moment and quirked a brow. It was another delay in getting to Athan, but that was all right with him. “Good, I’ll have to talk with him after I deal with Lord Vercilla. We can question him as soon as I’m done.”

  Jerris reached up and scratched the back of his head, closing one eye. “Uh, actually, you can’t.”

  “Why?” Keiran asked. “Did he run? Was he not there?”

  “Oh, he was there. He was dead, but he was there.”

  Keiran blinked a few times, a brow edging upward again. “Dead? Why?”

  “There wasn’t any obvious reason to be seen at first. Looked like he’d been sitting at his table, counting out some gold. Actually, a lot of gold. Died somewhere in the process,” Jerris answered, shrugging.

  “Gold?” Keiran repeated. “He was a huntsman, he shouldn’t have had a stash of any great size. I wonder if someone paid him off for something?”

  Jerris looked thoughtful. “Aye, could have been. You’re right, a hunter like him doesn’t pull in that kind of cash. Town’s sheriff came in and had a look since it was in his jurisdiction. You might find this interesting. He said Marcus fell dead a few days ago, too. Guess what he had on him at the time?”

  “Gold?”

  The guard nodded. “Yeah, and the bags that both sets of gold were in were identical according to the sheriff.”

  Keiran leaned back against the wall and cast his gaze to the floor. Marcus had been a friend, at least to his alterego, on some level. The deaths of both men stung a little, even if they had been in on something bad. “Marcus did seem pretty spiteful toward the monarchy the other night. If they were both involved in this whole mess… No signs of trauma on either of the bodies?”

  “None. Both just looked to have keeled over,” Jerris replied quietly.

  Keiran’s eyes narrowed. “Poison?”

  “That’s what the sheriff wondered as well. One of his men fell very ill after they’d helped move Marcus’ body the other night. As a precaution, nothing was touched in Ivan’s cabin without gloves.” The guard reached down and untied a weighty bag from his belt and held it between them. “Both stashes of gold are in here. I took the one from Ivan’s place, and the sheriff gave me the one from Marcus. He’s afraid it’s the gold itself, or the bags it came in that are poisoned.”

  Keiran slid along the wall a few inches, moving away. �
��Well, I don’t want it if that’s the case!”

  “Probably wouldn’t hurt you, all things considered,” he replied, letting the bag swing between them. The prince’s impulse to edge away made Jerris smile and he took a step closer, and Keiran backed up yet again.

  “I still don’t want it! No need to test out that theory on me. Go put it somewhere safe and we’ll have it looked at by an alchemist,” Keiran let his words trail off, before he grinned, “or we’ll take it down and give it to Peirte. See if he’s willing to touch it. If he’s not, I imagine we’ll have to take it as some sort of clue.”

  Jerris looked at the bag and lowered it back to his side, nodding. “Sounds like a good idea. I’ll be waiting.”

  Keiran nodded as well, before carrying on to the throne room. He arrived at the doors and stood there, taking several long breaths. The sentries flanking the entry asked if he wanted them to escort him while he was with the other vampire, but he declined. He thought it’d be best if they didn’t have a bunch of eyes on them. There was a good chance that the conversation would end up on the subject of vampirism, and he didn’t need an audience.

  When he was ready, he gave a nod and they opened the doors. Keiran walked in a short distance and stopped, feeling his blood run cold.

  Standing dead center in the room was Athan Vercilla. His expression was utterly blank as he watched Keiran step into the room. His strange, teal colored eyes met the prince’s as he awaited his greeting.

  Keiran stood several yards away, studying the other vampire. Athan was nearly as tall as the younger vampire but noticeably thinner. Still, his expensive clothes were well tailored and hung on him in a way that made him seem more imposing than he was. Athan’s jet-black hair was long, touched with silver at the temples, and as always, pulled back tightly. Though he was nearing his eighth century of life, his features gave him the appearance of a man just nearing sixty.