Chapter 129 Kill or Be Killed
❀ Maeve ❀
“You look about ready to rip me apart, but a true queen would give us a chance to explain, don’t you think?” Crossing her arms, she added, “And I can trace you there.”
Tammy’s spine straightened. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Lilith and I echoed at the same time.
Something about her tone made me pause. All the while, she’d been her typical infuriating self, but not explicitly hostile.
I jerked around to face them . The sight of them both, standing together, against me, gutted me.
Tammy and I may not have been close, but we’d gone through things together. The caves.
But what had she done the first thing she woke up as a vampire? Latched onto my most obvious enemy. The one my vampire mate was planning to betray me for.
My throat was so thick the words stuck.
In my silence, she continued.
“Heavy is the crown, and myriad are its secrets. But I swear to you that what I’m about to say is the whole truth, and you’re free to make of it what you will.”
Tammy clasped her hands, staring everywhere but at me.
Lilith continued. “After Nikolai swore to take my head for torturing you, I knew then and there that any fantasies I had about him were impossible. So when Vladis offered to protect me from Nikolai’s wrath, I accepted.”
“Are you trying to stall me?” I sneered. “Are you helping Nikolai distract me right now as he burns my mate like a piece of meat?”
“Will you just listen?” Lilith snapped, her eyes blazing with fury.
Fury? At me?
“At first, Vladis asked nothing of me but that I avoid Nikolai and you so I wouldn’t get killed. But then I started noticing things. How he resents Drusilla more than she thinks. How he controls narratives from the shadows.” Lilith sighed, pressing the bridge of her nose.
When she raised her eyes again, they were filled with pain. “You must understand. I had no one for years. Then Nikolai comes along. A fellow progeny of Drusilla. I fell deep and hard for his dark allure. I thought it would be that easy. But he never encouraged me from day one, even before he met his bride. You.”
My fists clenched. “I’m getting awfully impatient, Lilith. I don’t care for your unrequited love story.”
She narrowed her eyes but continued. “Vladis knew how desperate I was to have Nikolai. But he didn’t know that by that point, I’d already given up. I know Nikolai would never love me the way I wanted. So Vladis hinted that in the event of your death, Nikolai would turn to me if I played my part right.”
I was silent. Although none of this surprised me, and I’d never trusted Vladis one hundred percent, I wanted to hear more.
“And?” I pushed. “Out with it.”
“When you didn’t die at the town uprising, he got more proactive. He ordered me to slip poison into Drusilla’s drink. He proved to me it wasn’t toxic and would just cause temporary paralysis over hours by feeding it to one of the guards.”
My hands trembled. “How could you? Drusilla is your sire. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It does,” she sneered. “Will you just let me land?”
“Well, it’s hard to do that when my mate is being trussed up on a pyre right now!”
“I didn’t drug my sire!” Lilith’s eyes flashed, her face reddening. “But Vladis had a plan B. He must have sent someone else to dose her, which would mean if I had done it as well, she’d have been poisoned twice.”
“And you didn’t think to warn her?” I challenged.
“I was wary of what he would do. I wanted to monitor him and get more proof before speaking against him. But that’s all. Just know that right now, Bastian’s not the only one getting tortured tonight.”
My brows furrowed.
I hated the uncertainty. Too many lies.
“If you came to make this confession to feel less like the traitor you are, congratulations. I don’t give a damn.” My voice sounded dead even to my own ears. “My mission tonight is to reunite with my mate, arrest your precious Nikolai, and get to the bottom of this. If you happen to be on the wrong end of my sword, I will cut you down without a moment’s hesitation.”
“Noted,” Lilith casually replied. “So what’s it going to be? Want the lift or not?”
I eyed her, mulling over everything she’d said.
I’d already lost valuable time listening to her story. And it hadn’t exactly benefited me.
If Vladis truly was planning to hurt Drusilla…
No. I had to keep a clear head and stick to the plan.
Bastian first. Death to any who got in the way of that.
At this point, he, an outsider of Veilmoor, was the only one I could trust.
I clamped her hand, “Let’s go.”
Without a second’s hesitation, we traced—
As the ground fell beneath my feet, I tapped into my beast and my darkness at the same time.
Power surged as space warped.
It was kill or be killed—