SINCE ARRIVING IN the mortal realm, Vail could think only of tracking down his bastard father and killing him.
Now, as he stood before Zett, holding the ash-wood quarterstaff one of Cressida’s men had provided him, Vail cared little about Constantine de Salignac. The one enemy he had dallied with over the years stood not six paces away, armored in adamant jade and sneering at him.
Zett had stolen the innocence from many females on the night before they were to wed. He’d tormented Vail all his life because he was different, a filthy vampire. He wished to steal the throne from the missing Unseelie king. And he was trafficking his own kind to the mortal realm to be brutally used by vampires. He didn’t deserve death, but he did deserve to be taken down by the one breed he hated most. And Vail was just the vampire to do it.
Swinging out the ash-wood staff, he met Zett’s staff, tip to tip, in the traditional salute. Someone called out, “Begin!” and Zett soared into the air, wings flapping. He would use an aerial attack to his advantage.
But Vail had the advantage of the mortal realm. Faeries did not spend a lot of time in this realm. And confined inside this huge iron and stone building? Couldn’t be advantageous for any of them.
Blocking a smart stab to his left shoulder, Vail swung and, with a leap, managed to clip Zett’s armored ankle. The faery shook it off, and landed on the concrete floor, swinging a furious figure-eight pattern in a blinding attack that forced Vail down the long arrivals platform between two resting trains.
The white globes from the streetlights that queued down the row glowed yellow in the twilight hour. A swing of Zett’s staff nicked one of them, sending shards from the globe across the floor and onto the tracks.
“Is it so important to you,” Zett said as he deflected a blow from Vail, “my doings? I am not your competition, vampire. Or is it that you’ve not a home here, either?”
“I fight for the honor of all the women you have stolen from their wedding beds,” Vail said. “And for the one woman you will never have.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Zett spit to the side, and then leaped into the air, flipping a somersault over Vail’s head and landing on the opposite side of him. “She is filthy.”
“At one time, you thought she was worthy of your hand. Worthy enough to mark her as your bride.”
“We all make mistakes. Some of us are bold enough to correct them.”
“Is it so easy to take a life to make your life better?
“Says the vampire who is on a quest to slay a man for no more reason than he is his father.”
“Enough!”
Vail slapped the staff through the air and landed it across Zett’s neck, which pushed the man, flailing, against an iron support beam. The faery’s hand slapped to the beam and his skin sizzled and smoked from the iron burn. The crowd of sidhe observers hissed and cringed at the sight.
Zett tore off his face mask. “You deny your bloodlust for your father?”
“No.”
The faery lord’s laughter pricked up Vail’s spine. “Then you are like me, vampire. You do as your heart demands.”
Zett rammed his staff upward, crushing it through one of the glass globes. Glass shards again rained over their heads, and Vail dodged to avoid the cutting weapons. He blinked, felt the thin glass tear his eye, and knew the hot ooze was blood. His right eye filled with blood and blurred his vision.
A sharp thwack pounded across his back. He stumbled forward. He dropped his quarterstaff and it rolled onto the tracks. Landing on hands and knees, Vail shook his head but couldn’t clear his right eye of the blood. A woman shouted and he knew it was Lyric.
You don’t need your father’s blood on your hands. It will change nothing. Don’t forget the real fight is for Lyric’s freedom.
Hearing Zett charge from behind, Vail dropped to his side and rolled to catch the faery lord with his boots. A well-placed kick sent Zett soaring away from him at such speed that the faery ended up on the iron rafters four stories above.
Using this opportunity, Vail took a running leap and, thanks to his new vampiric strength, was able to soar as high as the rafters. He landed on an iron crossbar and shoved a hand to Zett’s neck, pressing the back of it against the iron.
The faery struggled and yowled. The iron burned his exposed hands, neck and the backs of his thighs. Vail tore off his chest plate, and shoved the faery over, burning him onto the iron.
“Enough!” Cressida shouted from below. The Mistress of Winter’s Edge held the highest standing while they lacked an Unseelie queen.
But as her champion, Vail answered only to the Summer Queen.
“Do you yield?” Vail asked the struggling faery lord. “Do you swear you will never return for Lyric Santiago, nor send out your minions after her?”
Zett growled and lifted his chest, but the iron was eating through muscle now. The sickening smell of burnt ichor made Vail wonder how he could have ever consumed it. The wound would become irreversible within moments.
“Yes!” Zett cried.
Vail pulled the faery off the iron rafter and dropped him. The Unseelie lord was caught by a sidhe and helped to stand.
Vail leaped to the concrete floor gracefully beside the Seelie queen. Going to one knee, he bowed his head, blinded by the dazzling gown, and offered himself as her champion.
“Vaillant the Vampire,” the Seelie queen said. “You have shown great skill and represented me well. Your banishment remains.”
“I accept that. And Lyric?”
The queen glanced at Lyric, who was still held by two armed guards. “By besting the Unseelie lord, you have fulfilled my need for retribution, and won the thief’s freedom. We are gone.”
And with a flutter of wings, the entire Seelie court ascended upward.
* * *
VAIL REMAINED on his knees, quarterstaff held with one hand, his head bowed. Blood dribbled down the side of his head. Faery dust glittered in his hair. Her hero had won her freedom. But at what price? Would the dust tempt him back to his addiction?
Lyric ran to him and plunged to his side, hugging him and kissing him. Wrapping his arm about her shoulder, he hugged her against his chest. Blood scent tempted her, and she nuzzled her face against his, so close to the crimson trickles. But even more, she needed the embrace to feel his heartbeat thundering against her own.
“You’re free now,” he said. “Free to do as you wish, go where you please.”
“You’re not still suggesting I take five seconds?”
He shrugged and exhaled. He was exhausted from the battle. “It would please me to be yours, lover.”
“You are mine,” she confirmed with a kiss to the corner of his eye. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’ll heal.”
“And there’s dust…”
“Ch’yeah, it’s tingling like hell. I…I want to taste it.”
“Don’t, Vail, please.”
“It smells great. I know it’s bad for me….” He studied his forearm, sparkling with dust.
Lyric cast about for assistance, for a friendly face in the throngs who stood witnessing their fallen lord’s defeat. Foolish to think any would care about a dust-riddled vampire.
“Please,” Lyric called, but not to anyone in particular. She didn’t know how to help him now. If he tasted the dust she might never get him back as she had before. The addiction would steal into his heart and change him forever.
Off near the lockers, Zett sneered, while the gaping wound on his abdomen was attended by a second.
Cressida was the one who finally stepped forward, bringing a cool breeze upon all. She touched Vail’s head. “Look at me, my vampire son.”
Vail tore his attention from the faery dust on his arm and looked into his stepmother’s eyes. The Mistress of Winter’s Edge bowed to kiss him on the mouth. And as she inhaled, the faery dust lifted from Vail’s skin. It fluttered out from his hair, dazzling the air about the two of them, and shimmered to nothing.
Lyric sighed with relief.
“Having defeated Zett,” Cressida said, “your banishment no longer stands.”
Vail stood and helped Lyric up with him. “I prefer to adhere to the banishment, if you don’t mind. I belong here, with Lyric.”
The faery’s lips curved into a sad moue.
“Though I would ask your favor to visit you on occasion,” he added, and with a bow, pronounced reverently, “Mistress of Winter’s Edge.”
“Of course,” she said gleefully, and bowed to him, as if she were the one accepting the gift instead of him. “It pleases me you’ve found someone like yourself, Vaillant the Dark. She will give you the love your dark heart craves.”
Vail laid a palm over his heart and looked into Lyric’s eyes. So much love lived in his eyes. She swallowed back tears at the tremendous feeling.
“One more thing.” Cressida addressed Lyric. “Where is Zett’s mark?”
“Behind her right ear,” Vail said softly when Lyric could but shyly lower her head.
The faery ran her fingers along the shell of Lyric’s ear. Her touch felt like needles of ice, and when she pressed firmly over the mark it was almost as though frost had affixed to her skin.
“Take care of my vampire son,” she said to Lyric.
“I will.”
“I know the sidhe do not take kindly to thanks,” Vail said to Cressida, “but…thank you, Cressida. For all the years, and everything betwixt and between.”
Her wings fluttered with what Lyric suspected was unabashed joy, then the faery stepped back and lifted, soaring high toward the ceiling, where her troops, clothed in red, waited.
The remainder of Zett’s troops followed in kind, leaving the train station exactly as it had looked an hour earlier, and with but a few frazzled mortals flapping at the air over them as if being dive-bombed by invisible insects. Some believed.
Vail kissed Lyric behind her ear, and infused warmth where Cressida’s touch had frozen it. “It’s gone,” he whispered. “You’re safe from Zett.”
“Thanks to you, lover. Is it over now?”
He pressed his forehead to hers and nodded. “But there’s something I still need to take care of.”
“Your father.” She slid a hand along his cheek. “You don’t need to kill him.”
He kissed her, a sweet promise. “I know that now.”
Vail’s cell phone buzzed and he answered. “Yes? It’s Rhys and Tryst,” he said to her. “They’re tracking Constantine. What’s the address of the Santiago mansion?”
Lyric gave it to him. “Did they get hold of your mother?”
“Yes, but Rhys thinks it best to let her see Constantine, to put it all out in the open. Come on.” He grabbed her hand, and they rushed outside. “I want to get there before they do.”