Chapter 35 Ready
"Do it," she sneered at me. "Try it, you wet little mongrel. I am three hundred years old. My blood is pure. You cannot compel me."
I looked at her pink dress, stained with the wine Klaus had crushed. I looked at the bruise forming on her shin where I had struck her with my skirt.
She had locked me in a room with a monster. She had wanted me eaten alive.
I stood up.
I didn't need to sing. I didn't need a melody.
I reached for the feeling I had in the storage room. The pressure. The weight of the ocean pushing down on the hull of a submarine until the metal screamed.
I walked down the steps of the dais until I was standing right in front of her.
I looked into her watery red eyes.
I took a breath.
"BOW."
The word tore out of my throat, laced with the resonance of the Trench.
It hit Vespera like a physical blow.
Her eyes went wide. Her pupils contracted. Her body went rigid as her own muscles betrayed her. She tried to fight it. I saw the veins in her neck pop as she strained against the command. She bit her lip until it bled.
But she wasn't strong enough.
Slowly, jerkily, her head lowered. Her shoulders slumped. Her spine curved.
She collapsed forward until her forehead hit the marble floor.
She lay there, prostrate at my feet, trembling with humiliation and rage.
The silence in the ballroom was absolute.
"Good," the Emperor purred from his throne. "Very good."
I felt sick.
I had used my gift—my father’s gift, the song of the ocean—to force a woman into the dirt. It tasted like ash in my mouth. It felt like a violation.
"Rise, Arch-Duchess," the Emperor said.
I turned away from Vespera. I walked back to Klaus.
He didn't look at me with pride. He looked at me with a stark, terrifying sorrow. He knew what I had just lost. I had lost my innocence in this court. I was a player now.
"Take her," the Emperor commanded Klaus, waving a dismissive hand. "Clean her up. Feed her. I want her ready for the Diplomatic Summit next week. If she can make a feral sit, imagine what she can do to the Lycan Ambassadors."
"Yes, Your Eminence," Klaus said. His voice was mechanical.
He offered me his arm.
"We are leaving," he stated.
We walked down the steps of the dais. We walked past Vespera, who was still pressed into the floor, sobbing quietly into the stone. We walked through the crowd of vampires who now parted for us not out of curiosity, but out of genuine, primal fear.
They didn't look at my dress anymore. They looked at my throat. They looked at the voice that could force a High Duchess to her knees.
We reached the great doors. The guards threw them open.
We stepped out into the cool, drafty corridor. The music faded behind us.
Klaus didn't stop. He walked fast, his strides eating up the distance. I had to run to keep up, my torn dress dragging, my heels clicking frantically on the stone.
"Klaus, slow down," I gasped.
He didn't slow down. He turned a corner, dragging me into a shadowy alcove near the armory.
He spun around and pinned me against the wall.
It wasn't gentle. He slammed his hands against the stone on either side of my head, trapping me.
He was breathing hard, his chest heaving against his torn shirt. His eyes were wild, the sapphire light fracturing into chaos.
"Do you know what you just did?" he hissed.
"I survived!" I shouted back, my own adrenaline crashing into anger. "I did what I had to do! You weren't there, Klaus! You didn't see the Emperor's eyes! If I hadn't made her bow, he would have let the court eat me!"
"He made you a weapon!" Klaus roared. The sound echoed down the empty hall. "He didn't just give you a title, Nerissa. He put a target on your back the size of the moon!"
"I already had a target!"
"No!" Klaus slammed his fist against the wall, inches from my ear. Stone dust rained down on my shoulder. "Before, you were a curiosity. A pet. Now? You are a threat. You outrank Vespera. You outrank the Council. Do you think they will just accept that? They will come for you. They will try to kill you in your sleep. They will poison your food. They will try to break your mind just to prove you aren't invincible."
He leaned in, his face inches from mine. I could smell the blood on his hand, the wine, the ozone.
"I cannot watch every shadow," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I cannot be everywhere. And now... now everyone wants you dead."
"Then let them come," I said, trembling. "I made a feral sit. I made a Duchess bow. I am not the little fish anymore, Klaus."
He looked at me. He looked at the defiance in my eyes, at the pearls stained with wine, at the ruin of the dress he had helped create.
His expression crumbled. The anger drained out of him, leaving only exhaustion and a terrible, aching fear.
"I know," he murmured. "That is what terrifies me."
He reached out and touched my face. His hand—the one that wasn't bleeding—cupped my cheek. His thumb traced my lower lip.
"You were supposed to be safe," he whispered. "I was supposed to keep you in the tower. I was supposed to keep you... innocent."
"Innocence doesn't survive here," I said softly.
"No," he agreed. "It doesn't."
He looked at my mouth. His gaze was heavy, scorching.
"You looked like a queen in there," he confessed, his voice rough. "When you commanded her... gods, Nerissa. I wanted to kill everyone in the room just so I could be the only one to see it."
My breath hitched. "Klaus..."
"You are dangerous," he said. "To them. To the empire."
He leaned closer. His forehead touched mine.
"And to me."
He pulled back before I could answer. He pushed off the wall, straightening his coat, putting the General back together.
"Let's go," he said, his voice flat again. "The party is over. We need to get you back to the tower before the assassins start drawing lots."