Chapter 115 Hybrid Queen
❀ Maeve ❀
Drusilla stood still as a statue, face blank. But her energy warred with the already tense atmosphere.
I spoke first.
“I have it under control.”
“Nikolai attacked a royal. Something he would never dare in his right senses. He knows, or should know, that Vladis could kill him as easily as a gnat.”
“But Vladis didn’t. And Nikolai held his own.”
Nikolai had healed by this time. He stood in front of the wall he’d been flung at, clothes in shreds, skin glistening with blood.
His face was twisted with hatred as he looked in Vladis’s direction.
Vladis looked on, amused. He picked up the cuffs he’d given me to use on Nikolai.
No one in the room, not even me, was concerned with my near nakedness.
This was much more serious. Immortal life and mortal death.
“You won’t escape the curse,” Drusilla started. “You’re only still sane because Nikolai bears the brunt of it—”
“So Vladis said,” I cut in with a glare in his direction.
Gathering the covers over my body, I swung my legs down with a little too much force. The bed frame cracked in half.
I inhaled for calm, heart fluttering with a mix of excitement and displeasure.
“I’m on top of it. I’ll fix it,” I declared.
“How?” Drusilla asked.
I wheeled to face her. “I am the queen.” My voice rang out. “If I say I’m working on it, then I am.”
“And when you succumb?”
“I won’t. Or are you hoping for it? So you can take the throne?”
Silence.
Vladis observed us. Nikolai glared.
My chest tightened at the fact he’d been referred to as a conduit for the curse. All without his consent.
I turned to him. “Nikolai, can you please bring the antidote you got?”
His jaw clenched. “I told you, it won’t work—”
“You’re a royal. You do not plead with the help,” Vladis intoned from my side.
I flustered. “Are you joking? You seem to conveniently forget he’s my mate! Doesn’t that make him royal too? I’ve marked him, we’ve completed the bond. So show him some respect,” I hissed.
I was sick and tired of them acting like Nikolai was some slave to me. I’d made mistakes I wasn’t proud of, but that gave them no right.
“Nikolai, please,” I repeated.
With a curt nod, he vanished into the air—traced.
Silence descended onto the room.
I didn’t understand why Vladis was still present. Was he that nosy?
Drusilla kept looking at me like she was aching to scold me—
“What is this antidote?” she finally asked in a calm voice.
“I wasn’t aware he’d gotten something for us to try before the marking. According to him, it would have prevented the curse from activating.”
“Nothing. And I mean this with love. Nothing can cure the curse, Maeve.” Her voice had gone soft. “That’s why I’d rather you rule imperfect than accursed.”
“Well, it’s too late for that now,” I muttered.
Vladis took a step closer to my commissioned portrait. “There’s one way, of course…”
“I’m not interested. I think you’ve done enough.”
“Trust me, you’ll want to hear this.”
“No, I’m sure I don’t.”
Vladis’s eyes flashed with annoyance, but I held his gaze with a stubborn one of my own.
Nikolai traced back.
In his arms was a little brown box.
Wasting no time, he walked to me and uncovered it, presenting me with a small round glass bottle the size of my forefinger.
I inhaled sharply at the sight.
Despite being raised in a supernatural environment, and being one myself, the sight of supernatural phenomena or objects still fascinated me.
The liquid inside flowed thickly like molten goo. Purple with blazing flecks of gold.
“I want us to drink it. I believe that even if we missed its original instruction, it should still do something, however small,” I told him.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Nikolai insisted flatly.
I could see in his eyes he’d lost hope in this regard.
“Please, trust me in this. At least we won’t waste your trip.”
“Why can’t you just get another one?” Drusilla asked, emotionless.
Nikolai hesitated. Then he pressed his fingers to his temples. “The witch gave her life for it.”
My hands trembled.
What?
“You killed her… for this?”
He nodded, face grave. “No witch would willingly help a vampire. To get this again, I’d first have to scout for one strong and skilled enough, then spill her blood at the last moment of brewing the antidote, as the final ingredient.”
“Assuming it would work,” Vladis said.
We ignored him.
“We won’t do that. Kill innocent people… for my mistake.”
Vladis snorted. “They’re hardly innocent.”
My room doors slowly swung open and a pale face appeared.
Jessica.
She was carrying a large bowl of scented water, towels draped over her arm.
“O-Oh…” she stammered. “Pardon me, I’ll go back.”
Silence reigned again.
I sighed, then handed the antidote to Nikolai.
Without another word, he uncapped it and drank about half. He handed it to me.
I tipped it back as well. Surprisingly, it was completely tasteless and odorless. Even weightless. I hardly felt any texture on my tongue.
I swallowed regardless, silently praying to the moon goddess that it would either miraculously work as intended, or just a little. Anything at all.
All eyes remained locked on me as I swallowed and waited.
“I don’t feel anything.” I placed the emptied bottle on the vanity.
The spell broken, Drusilla spoke up. “I sought you out for a political duty.”
I almost groaned. She noticed.
“You wanted to be queen? You have responsibilities,” she said sharply. “I advise, in my capacity as regent and advisor, that you make a public appearance. The people want to see their new queen. Talk is abuzz… the excitement has only grown. They want to see… you.”
My veins rushed with pleasant surprise.
I pictured myself in my carriage, or walking the streets. Waving. Giving out flowers and bread and coin to the town’s vampires.
Patting the hair of children.
I was queen.
I blinked. “Oh… well. Alright. I can do that. When?”
“Tomorrow. It’s tradition to hold it soon after the coronation. The people need a symbol to believe in.”
“And what a symbol they got.” Vladis’s lips were wide with a smile.
I hated how sometimes I couldn’t read his mind.
He was still angered about my dismissal of his new ideas, but I meant what I said.
I was done letting my emotions sink me deeper into his traps.
He had an agenda. It was plain as day. But in trying to outsmart him, I could burn myself and those I loved… even worse than I already had.
Something tickled my senses. That scent of pine and cocoa.
My spine stiffened. I recalled perceiving it during my pain, and now…
I was either hallucinating Bastian’s proximity, or he was close, in this kingdom.
But suddenly I felt small. I didn’t know if I was ready.
I wanted to present myself a queen. That I was—only… also cursed.
What would my wolf mate say to that?
It would be unfair for the man to brave being outnumbered by thousands of vampires, abandoning his pack, to rescue a cursed hybrid queen.
One who had yet to tell him she was bringing a vampire mate for the ride.
As I looked in the faces of my family and mate, I realized this was all on me.
Somehow, I had to balance this circus that was my life.
Or else—
I would lose everything.