Dark Possession - Aja James Page 0,31
her expression placid, while she gnashed her teeth behind faintly smiling lips.
Little sprite?
My?
Begged?
Ramses was begging for trouble, as far as Eveline was concerned.
Anya’s mouth turned slightly down at the corners, as if she couldn’t hide the displeasure of learning this. Was the Great Plains hive behind the abduction then?
“How does the Dozen take her departure from their fold?” she inquired after a lengthy pause, as if she had to take time to gather her thoughts.
“They wish me quite well,” Eveline answered directly, tired of being spoken about but not spoken to.
As if she wasn’t even there.
There were some grumbles and ferocious frowns from the audience at her breach of protocol. She knew she shouldn’t have spoken out of turn, but Eveline just didn’t give a shit at the moment.
And the next words came out of her mouth as if another female was speaking them. They were so bold and uncharacteristic, Eveline felt like she was watching someone else in a daytime soap opera. (Or so she understood from Aella, as she never had time to watch any herself).
“I am a woman of…particular needs. The Dark King is generous enough to service them.”
She looked up at him with what she hoped was a seductive gaze.
“Aren’t you, sausage muffin?”
Eveline didn’t know what to make of the tremble that coursed through Ramses’ big body, but as he looked down at her, a strange, slightly frightening gleam had entered his obsidian eyes.
Queen Anya’s eyes all but bugged out of her head when Eveline looked back at her. They bounced like ping-pong balls from Eveline, to Ramses, and back to Eveline.
“Indeed,” was all she managed to utter.
“Surely you have more pressing matters you wanted to discuss by amassing such an audience,” Ramses said, taking control of the situation once more, his tone both bored and edged with impatience.
“Get to it, Anya.”
“We grow tired of your indecision, Dark King,” the vampire queen began. “You must ma—”
“Who is ‘we’?” Ramses interrupted.
Anya gestured to the gathered nobles.
“My hive, the Great Plains. Queen Minerva of the Great Lakes.”
Said queen stepped forth.
“Queen Constantina.”
The Mid-Atlantic queen stepped forth.
“And queen Tatania.”
The Appalachia queen joined them.
“As well as more than half of your own Noble houses.”
At this, Andor Varna stepped forth with a haughty sniff.
Ramses curled his upper lip at one corner to reveal a gleamingly sharp fang.
“The cowardly, sniveling half, you mean?”
Varna tried to maintain the staring match Ramses had locked him in, but after only a few beats, he slid his eyes away.
Ramses flicked his gaze away and refocused on the ring leader.
“What decision would you like me to make, Anya? The night grows long.”
The vampire queen bristled at his dismissiveness.
“You know full well, Dark King. Those of us gathered here today are ready to reclaim the Dark Ones’ glory of old. All other Kinds are beneath us, and I, for one, am tired of holding back our natural dominance and power. The humans and Pure Ones must be taught their place. Rule belongs to the strongest.”
“You are not the strongest,” Ramses said softly, his words somehow more menacing in their quietness.
Eveline wondered whether he meant “you” as in Anya or “you” as in Dark Ones. But if he meant the latter, shouldn’t he have said “we”?
Queen Anya narrowed her eyes before they suddenly turned smoldering.
Eveline instinctively bristled at the sight like a hedgehog.
“We could be stronger together, Ramses. Join us.”
And now Eveline’s metaphorical quills were standing up like a porcupine’s.
“Join me,” the Great Plains queen invited.
It was crystal clear to all those present just what her invitation entailed.
Eveline narrowed her eyes. Now would be a good time to put a spell on the seductively beautiful bitch. If she just concentrated hard enough…
“I rule alone,” Ramses said before Eveline could give the vampire queen a hideous, painful skin rash all over her perfect body.
Anya’s head jerked slightly back at his public rejection. He didn’t even try to ease the sting of it with indirectness.
“You will die alone,” she hissed.
Eveline was still watching the vampire queen with unblinking eyes, but she could sense Ramses’ humorless smile.
“Alone or not, it is still death. But it will not be mine.”
Eveline didn’t like that he added so quietly only she could hear, “Not yet.”
At that, Anya tossed something toward the throne with a flick of her wrist.
The Sentries all around the perimeter of the chamber stepped forth en masse at the aggressive action. Devlin unsheathed his sabre in the back. And from out of nowhere, Eli poofed into physical being in a swirl of smoke