Vanquished Gods (Hallowed Games #2)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

D espite the faint howling, it didn’t take me long to settle in to the castle. Maybe it was all the flowers, or the long nap I’d had. Or the absolutely divine wine, or the venison pie and fresh fruit.

Mine was by far the grandest room I’d ever stayed in. A large velvet chair nestled between the vast windows. One entire wall was taken up with bookshelves stacked full of novels and poetry.

And for the first time in my life, I had my own bathroom. In the barracks of Throckmore, I’d shared outhouses with twenty-four men and a copper tub behind a curtain for bathing.

This was luxury .

I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit quite how much I was enjoying being in Sion’s castle. And despite my prior reservations, I really felt like Leo was safe where he was in the witchy city.

As I filled my private tub, I poured myself a glass of wine and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows of my bathroom, which gave me a perfect view of the sea. And I felt it as the white poppies blooming over the walls and sprawling over the stones also turned their faces to the light. Outside, the sun-kissed ocean gleamed with sparks of rosy gold in the setting sun. I’d noticed that in most of the castle, the windows had a sort of filter on them that gave them a bluish tinge. But in here, the ruddy sunset streamed in, bathing my skin with warmth.

As the water continued to pour into the bath, I started stripping off my travel-weary clothes—and my gloves.

With the bath finally filled, I sank into it. Instantly, my aching muscles melted into the heat, and I breathed in the humid air. Light from the setting sun slanted in through the coiling steam, lending the room an ethereal quality—amber and coral rays cutting through the mist. All the way up here, looking out onto the sea and twilit sky, I could imagine I was in the heavens.

I rested my head on the back of the bath and closed my eyes. Leo, I imagined, had eaten several meat pies before falling into a contented sleep somewhere in that cozy house. Archon knew he deserved it.

I released a deep sigh, relaxing deeper into the bath, my skin going pink from the heat. I could get used to this place, of course, but did I really belong here? Or was all this luxury just a way to lure me into the vampires’ dark plans? That’s what vampires did, didn’t they? Sexy, alluring, their lips on your throat, making your pulse race, your fingers curl into their hair—then, it’s punctured veins and oblivion.

And no matter what the Keeper of Relics said, I wasn’t sure I was the person to take down the entire Luminari army. Thousands of them.

Tremble before the Underworld Queen as she sips expensive wine in a bath…

I lifted my fingertips, staring at the water beaded on them, little domes refracting light.

What if there were another way to use my powers? One that didn’t involve slaughtering thousands of people and becoming a monster?

What if we found a way to cut off the head of the snake? The Pater. The man who could not be killed—supposedly. But I knew death intimately enough to understand that everyone had a vulnerability. It was just a matter of learning what it was. For vampires, it was hawthorn and sunlight. For the fae, apparently, it was iron. And for the Pater? I didn’t know yet, but I could make it my job to find out. I took another sip of the wine.

As the sun slid lower, burning the heavens, a knock sounded on the door. My fingers tightened on my wine glass. After so many days in a cramped little cottage with the singing bards, I’d really been enjoying the quiet in here.

“I’m busy!” I shouted through the open bathroom door. “Don’t come in.”

But to my horror, I heard the bedroom door creaking open—followed by a loud, agonized shriek.

Bloody hell.

The curtains were wide open, and honeyed sunlight poured into the room. I had told her not to come in, hadn’t I?

Jumping out of the bath, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself. I ran into the bedroom, groping the towel to my body, and yanked the curtains shut.

When I turned around again, I found a burning woman lying on the stones, rolling to try to extinguish the flames that blazed from her black dress.

I pulled off my damp towel and threw it on her, smothering the flames. Smoke filled the air, and I found myself shaking, naked and crouched over this singed stranger.

“Are you okay?” I asked breathlessly.

Smoke rose from her seared skin, and her dress hung on her body in scraps. But already before my eyes, the horrific red burns on her face were healing over, her cheeks turning white.

She caught her breath, staring, stunned for a moment. Then a smile spread across her face. “Hello, Underworld Queen. I’m Rowena.”

It took me a moment to realize what had caused her gaping. I was not used to standing around strangers stark naked. In fact, I’d hardly even take my gloves off around people in a decade. I snatched a velvety blue blanket from the bed and wrapped it around my damp body like a giant towel. Only then did I realize that delicate gowns lay strewn over the stone floor.

She sat up, still smiling at me. “Oh, don’t worry about covering up. Vampires aren’t shy about bodies.”

I nodded. “Well, I’m not a vampire.”

So, I wasn’t getting alone time. Pity.

She stood, dusting off the burned rags that hung from her slim body. Now that the burns had cleared, I could see that she was strikingly beautiful, with wild blonde curls and deep blue eyes framed by long eyelashes. With her big eyes and heart-shaped face, she had a doll-like quality.

“Well, Underworld Queen, as luck would have it, most of the clothes I brought for you are fine. Mistress Adeline sent me.”

“You can call me Elowen.”

She picked up the clothes off the floor, then lay them out on the bed—stunning gowns of delicate material, stitched with vine-like patterns over ivory and blue, some with black lace over white silk. She pointed to one in particular, a dress the color of bone with maroon stitching that snaked over the thin fabric. “I like that one, I think. The sun is setting now, and you will dine in the lunarium with the king. It’s truly a great honor, you know. I’ve always wanted to eat there, but only the most esteemed members of his court are invited to sit in the lunarium. Just as only the most esteemed will receive navka pendants. Someday, you know, I hope to have one, if the king so chooses.”

“Navka?”

“The butterfly pendants that protect vampires from sunlight. They’re very rare.”

Probably not a good time to mention that I had an extra one jammed under my mattress.

I cleared my throat. “Sion had said I’d be mostly alone up here.”

“Well, yes, but you need a lady-in-waiting, of course.”

I clutched the blanket around myself. “Well, thank you, I’ll take it from here.”

“Mistress Adeline said I’m to help you, and that it’s a great honor. And I do what she says, even if she’s only a mortal.” She giggled. “No offense.”

“…Right.”

Rowena flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I understand you’d like to keep covered up. Adeline said you’re a spinster, and I don’t remember what it means very well, but she said it’s when mortal women can’t find a husband, and they grow old without having ever been touched.”

“Do we need to talk? Is that part of being a lady-in-waiting?”

“Adeline said that human spinsters stay very buttoned up. But things are a bit different here, and we don’t hate our bodies, though I can see how if someone were mortal and growing old, she might hate hers.”

“I’ll be fine getting dressed on my own. Just tell me where to find the lunarium.”

She laughed, and her pale blonde curls bounced. “Oh, not to worry, I’ll take you there when you’re dressed. This is fun, isn’t it? Getting to wear beautiful clothes? We want you looking lovely. Even if you’re an elderly virgin.”

“I’m only twenty-nine. And I’m not…” I cleared my throat. “This is me asking again if the conversation part of your job is necessary?”

“I can see why you wouldn’t marry a mortal. Centuries ago, a human man named Jaggard was courting me. Before I got married to my sad husband, and before Sion turned me, and do you know what Jaggard said to me? ‘I need a real woman,’ he said. As if I weren’t one! So, I told him, ‘You know what? I’m gonna find a real man. Not like you.’ And it took me a while. I had a really sad marriage, but eventually, I found Sion. And when he turned me into a vampire, do you know who I went to see first? Jaggard and his slowly decaying body, that’s who.” She giggled. “Only, he never got old, did he?”

She had my interest now. “Did you kill him, Rowena?”

She beamed at me. “I did. Boy, did he regret his words.”

“Okay, just because I feel the need to clarify, I don’t cover up because I’m an old virginal spinster. I mean, technically, I’m a spinster, yes…but anyway, the gloves and leather clothes are because I kill people with my touch, and I try to avoid that.”

“Yes, of course, Underworld Queen. It’s a glorious power you have. But we’re already dead, so you can ease up on that. Adeline and the thralls are alive, but they know the risk they take coming here. So, you can relax a little, my lady, and just try to look nice for the handsome vampires. All right? You are so lucky to be in their company.”

Was I being patronized by a woman who’d just lit herself on fire by failing to follow basic directions? I think I was.

I grabbed one of the dresses from the bed—ivory with silver stitching—and headed back into the bathroom. I closed the door and dropped the blanket. The last rays of the dying sun slanted into the room through the towering windows, washing my naked body in crimson.

I pulled on the exquisite dress, and the expensive material felt divine against my skin—a fine silk that brushed over my hips and thighs as I slid it over me. It shimmered, almost, like mother of pearl. I had to admit, it was really nice in this place. The dress was pure opulence.

I pulled the bodice on over it, finding it more comfortable than I’d expected, as if someone had taken my measurements and designed it exactly to fit my rib cage. When I was fully dressed, I stepped back into the bedroom.

Rowena beamed at me. “You look so beautiful. I’m jealous, really, of the blush in your cheeks. I had that once. But let’s fix that sad hair, shall we? We could use some of the flowers! I always wear flowers in my hair. Sit,” she commanded with surprising ferocity.

I dropped into a chair by the window.

She grabbed a lock of my hair and started tugging at it with the comb. “Don’t you want to become one of us? Godlike?”

“Um…is that how you’d describe vampires?”

She tugged hard at my hair. “We are godlike, yes. Strong and beautiful and graceful, blessed by the goddess of night, immortal. King Sion doesn’t think the gods exist, but none of us can know for sure. And if they do exist, they’re like us.”

“Violent?”

“Of course the gods are violent. The world wouldn’t be the way it is if they weren’t. And have you ever seen a vampire when we’re unleashed? That’s what we call it here when our eyes go black and we just want to fuck and kill, or both at the same time.”

She flashed her fangs in the mirror, and a chill rippled up my nape.

I swallowed. “I have seen it.”

“You know when Maelor is unleashed, it’s like he’s totally gone. He’s an absolute beautiful beast, gods bless him. An unleashed vampire goes into a place beyond language—one of hunger and lust, from a time when we lived as animals in the woods, from the primal age of the gods who now lie buried in the earth. The forgotten gods. And I don’t think the gods speak, either. Language is a human thing. The gods are both mute and indescribable. I think they’re… what’s it called?”

“Ineffable? Numinous?”

“ Numinous …what’s that?”

“Awe-inspiring,” I said.

“Ah, sweetheart, yes. Well, that’s exactly what I mean about vampires being godlike. King Sion without his shirt on is numinous as fuck. That’s what I mean.”

“Tell me more about Maelor unleashed,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” she chuckled to herself. “Absolute bloodbath when he’s unleashed, poor man. He feels ever so guilty afterward. But it’s not his fault. It’s the night goddess working through him. And that’s the risk the thralls take for greatness. It’s all worth it for the thrill, of course. And what’s the point of life without a thrill, or without the chance to become something divine?” She tugged at my hair as she braided flowers into it. “Have you experienced the sexual power of a truly magnificent vampire like Sion? Because once you have a taste of it, you might as well be dead without it.”

My chest flushed as my mind flicked back to the feeling of Maelor’s lips against my throat. Then the image of Maelor morphed into Sion—more feral, hungrier.

Rowena’s fingers worked expertly to thread the white poppies into braids. “And with a king like Sion, all it takes is a touch. Just a brush of his lips against your skin will make your knees weak and your blood pound, and you’ll melt into his arms. When a vampire king drinks from you, you’ll become soft, malleable, pliable as warm beeswax. Some of the witches say thralls get so obsessed because the powerful vampires exude a magic called amoris . It even works on vampires like me. When we breathe it in, it makes us wild with need until it’s all we can think about. Getting fucked by a vampire king.”

She yanked at my hair, tugging my head back.

“Ow.” This woman really needed to get laid because she was taking out her frustration on my scalp.

In the mirror, I could see that her beautiful blue eyes danced. “But they always want the humans, don’t they? Even a beautiful vampire like me…I’m not what they want. I’m not alive. They want your life. The rosiness in your cheeks. Do you understand that? Sion craves life .”

Oh, yes. I understood all too well the dark impulse to crush a rose in bloom.

“How old are you, Rowena?”

“Just a few years younger than Sion and Maelor. We were all alive together back in Lirion. I knew Epona, too. So beautiful. So full of life. Mirthful. And when Sion turned into a vampire, he wanted to wrap her in his shadows, like the night consuming the day. A vampire wants to devour the living, to be inside you, to ruin you so that you crave them, and only them, and all you can think of is the wild, erotic pleasure of their fangs in your throat and their cock inside you.”

Archon above. Were all vampires insane? “Can you ease up on the hair pulling?”

“Sion feeds from me sometimes.” She sighed. “Even though I’m a vampire. But I serve him so faithfully. In time, he will realize my worth. I will get a navka pendant. You know, I’ve seen too many thralls give in too easily. They’re not after the real prize, like I am. He will see my value one day. I have served him all these centuries.”

“Are we almost done here, or…”

“The thralls keep hoping he’ll choose them. If a vampire falls in love with you, he can turn you. It’s the easiest way to become immortal.”

“Is that how you were turned?”

“I loved him,” she said sharply. “I caught his eye.”

I stared at myself in the mirror, and the candlelight bathed me in warm light. “…Okay.”

She giggled. “He is the kindest and most gentle lord.”

Kindest and most gentle lord. Rowena was full of shit, but at least she was entertaining.

“Now, let’s get you to the lunarium. I know everyone is eagerly awaiting you.”