“I don’t think people ever get past that kind of thing—especially the way it happened to you.”
Flashes came back of his scrawny pretrans self locked in that crawl space, watching through a knothole in the wood as his parents were cut into pieces. It was always the same film reel, the same glints of sword blades and screams of pain and terror … and it always ended the same, with the two most important people in his life up to that point gone, gone, gone.
He wasn’t going to lose Beth. Not even in a figurative way.
“No,” he said with utter finality.
Reaching over, he put his hand on her womb. “I’ve lost my past and there’s nothing I can do to change that. I will not lose my future—even for the throne.”
FORTY-NINE
One of the problems with marriages, matings, whatever … was that when the person you loved laid down a veto? Not much you could do about it.
As Beth stepped out of the weight room with her hellren, she was popped-balloon deflated. Out of arguments, out of plans, she hated where they were, but all the avenues to a better place were obstructed by a “no” she couldn’t get past.
Instead of following him into the showers, she went to the office and sat at the desk, staring at the laptop’s screen saver of bubbles floating around the image of Outlook—
The hot flash came out of nowhere, blasting up through her pelvis and spreading like a brushfire to the tips of her fingers, the soles of her feet, the crown of her head.
“Christ,” she muttered. “I could fry an egg on my chest over here.”
Billowing the collar of the nightgown helped a little, but then the internal oven blast was over as quick as it came, nothing but the cooling sweat on her skin left behind.
Swiping the screen saver off, she watched as Outlook updated itself with a send/receive. The account that was configured on this computer was the general mailbox for the King, and she braced herself for a long lineup of unread e-mails to start appearing at the top of the list.
There was only one.
A tangible representation of the switch in power, she supposed …
Frowning, she sat forward. The subject line read: Heavy Heart. And it was from a male whose name she recognized only because it had been on the list of signatures on that f**king parchment.
Opening the thing, she read it once. Twice. And a third time.
To: Wrath, son of Wrath
From: Abalone, son of Abalone
Date: 04430 12:59:56
Subject: Heavy Heart
* * *
My lord, it is with a heavy heart that I greet the future. I was at the meeting of the Council and I executed the Vote of No Confidence, with its antiquated, prejudicial grounds. I am sick for myself and the race over the glymera’s actions of late, but more so over my lack of courage.
A long, long while ago, my father Abalone served your father. Family lore has passed down the story, although its details are not widely known anymore: When a cabal went against your parents, my father took a stance with his King and queen and honored this bloodline of mine for e’ermore in doing so. In return, your father provided the generations of my family with financial freedom and social elevation.
I did not live up to that legacy this night. And I find that I cannot stomach my cowardice.
I do not agree with the actions taken against you—and I believe that others feel the same. I work with a group of commoners to help field their concerns and approach the glymera for appropriate redress. In my dealings with such citizens, it is clear that there are many at the root of the race who remember all the things your father did for them and their families. Although they have never met you, that goodwill extends to you and your family. I know they shall share my sadness—and my worry—as to where we are headed the now.
In recognition of my failure, I have resigned from the Council. I will continue working with the commoners, as they need a champion—and although I am sorely remiss in that role, I must try to do some good in this world or I shan’t be able to e’er sleep again.
I wish I had done more for you. You and your shellan shall be in my thoughts and prayers.
This is all so wrong.
Sincerely, Abalone, son of Abalone
What a lovely guy, Beth thought as she got out of Outlook. And he probably needed to ditch the guilt. Given the aristocracy’s steamroller approach to everything, he hadn’t stood a damn chance.
The glymera had ways of ruining lives that had nothing to do with coffins.
Checking the clock on the wall, she figured Wrath would be along any minute. And then they would … well, she had no clue. Usually at this time, they were heading up to bed, but that didn’t hold any appeal.
Maybe they could switch bedrooms today. She didn’t think she could handle even seeing that bejeweled suite of rooms.
Idly heading over to Internet Explorer, she stared at the Google screen, shaking her head at the I’m feeling lucky line.
Yeah. Right.
God, if only V didn’t hate everything about the Apple company, she could have had an iPhone in her hand and asked Siri what to do.
She so appreciated Wrath standing by their marriage, but jeez …
For absolutely no reason, that scene from The Princess Bride flashed through her mind—the one where they were getting married at the altar in front of that priest.
Meeeewidge, a dweam wifin a dweam—
Beth froze.
Then typed fast and hit that frickin’ lucky button.
What came up was—
“Hey, you ready to head up?”
Beth slowly lifted her eyes to her husband. “I know what we have to do.”
Wrath recoiled like someone had dropped a piano on his foot. And then promptly looked like his head was pounding. “Beth. For the love of f**king God—”
“Do you love me, all of me?”
He let his huge body fall back against the office’s glass door as George curled in for a lie-down—like he expected this to be another long one. “Beth—”
“Well, do you?”
“Yes,” her hellren groaned.
“All of me, human and vampire.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t discriminate one side versus the other, right?”
“No.”
“So it’s like Christmas. I mean, you don’t celebrate the holiday, but because it’s what Butch and I are used to, you, like, let us put up Christmas trees and decorations, and now everyone in the household does the present thing, right?”
“Right,” he muttered.
“And when it comes to the winter solstice, I mean, if you were going to ever do one of those balls, you wouldn’t think it was any more or less important or significant than Christmas, right.”