He scowls at her. “I will always choose her as she means everything to me, you mean less than nothing, Eloise. I have put up with you all of these centuries because you were chosen, as was I. Don’t pretend it was any more than that.”
“But I love you. You know that I have always loved you,” she begs. “I know you feel something for me.”
Listening with interest to this, I tilt my head, wondering how he will respond.
“No, Eloise,” he says. “The only thing I feel for you is contempt. You are a manipulative bitch who has gone out of her way to destroy the happiness of my love and I, too, will take great delight in seeing you finished.”
He grabs her by the wrist with his free hand and twists her arm up behind her back as he releases her throat. “Whenever you are ready, my sweet,” he whispers as he forces her to her knees. Needing no more encouragement than that I slice the sword through the air – mindful not to touch CK with it as he steps back – and with a savage grin that is the last thing she’ll see, I remove her head.
She disintegrates to nothing.
Letting the sword disappear back into my virtual armory, I go to CK’s side as he has dropped to his knees, weakened briefly by her demise.
“Are you okay?” I whisper.
“Never better,” he replies with a soft smile. He helps me up. My two boys are looking at me warily, seeing the destruction I have just caused.
Devon recovers first, crossing to me, arms open. “Are you okay?” he asks as I step into his embrace. I nod, having gone into a bit of shock. I step back and Cole is there with his support. “Christ, Liv. That was badass,” he says quietly.
I turn to CK and say, “So how does it feel to be the last one standing?”
He laughs. “Strange. I can feel that they are gone. We have been connected for so long…” he trails off. “I wonder what this will do to the Vampire population at large,” he says, then concerned.
“What do you mean?”
“I think he means that as he is the only Initial Vampire left, he is the only one now that can create new Masters. The hierarchy is going to collapse if you aren’t careful,” Devon says, as ever, one step ahead.
“Fuck. I never even thought of that,” I say. “CK, what the hell are we going to do?” I ask, not at all pleased at the thought of him breeding new charges left and right.
He looks at me blankly, completely at a loss for once in his long life. “I don’t know,” he says eventually.
“Restructure,” comes Ahmed’s voice from behind me.
We all turn towards him to see he is there with Corinne.
“What?” I ask stupidly.
“Restructure,” he says again as if that helps me. “Aefre, nice to see you again.”
I incline my head and smile at Corinne. She moves forward and takes me by the arm, “Come,” she says. We blink out back to my bedroom. Not two seconds later, the boys have all followed, concerned about my wellbeing. I’m more surprised that CK bothered to bring Cole and Devon with him, than anything else.
Corinne tuts at them. “Leave us,” she commands, and they obey without a word.
“They all love you, you know. You are very lucky,” she says.
“I know,” I say simply.
She smiles and waves her hand over me. Suddenly, I’m standing in a long black crushed velvet gown that falls to the floor with long flowing sleeves, a plunging neckline and high collar. Glancing down at myself, I look like Elvira and sigh, “Really? Nothing more original?”
She smiles again. “It is only befitting of your new standing, My Queen,” she says as she curtsies.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
M y mouth drops open in shock. Queen? Queen? What the fuuuuck?
“This is your destiny, Aefre,” she says. “A thousand years later than we would have liked, but here you are now.”
Queen? Queen? My mind hasn’t quite caught up yet. I sink to the bed, taking a breath. “This is what The Power wants of me.”