and seven others, to stand with me and to fight the Flayer of Mithrans and his vampires and allies. To find and free the witches caught in the wheel of time spell. And I want all the arcenciels to agree to give me the time to kill him. In addition, I want all arcenciels to agree to leave the vampire timelines untouched. To leave the vampires alive and in place from conception through history. To leave the bloodline intact and in place from Adam and Eve, or his and her equivalent, through now. To leave all the paranormal bloodlines in place, untouched, alive.” That was pretty broad and very narrow at the same time. I hoped I had made it tortuous enough.
“I cannot promise eight of my kind.”
I raised my eyebrows, wishing for the ability to lift only one in that snide, slightly insulting manner that Leo’d had. “I’m listening.”
“The four. Perhaps. And if the Flayer of Mithrans dies before actual battle?” she asked.
“If the Flayer dies without them fighting and with his bloodline, timeline, and historical line untouched, then all debts will be paid.”
“I can agree in theory.”
“Not good enough.”
Soul splashed the steaming water. Fins and silver hair caught the cloud-gray light. Steam made little balloons of pale mist, puffing high into the air and hovering over the water. “There is one problem to all you ask. I can no longer access my dragon form.” She laughed sadly at whatever she saw on my face. “I have been punished for changing the timelines when Leo was at Sangre Duello and his head flew from his body. I am stuck in human and mer-form and cannot shift into my dragon. I can bargain back for my true form if I have access to a rift. Which you are hiding from us, the dragons of rainbows and air, who own all rifts.”
“Your kind doesn’t own the rifts,” I said, my brain trying to find the point that was still eluding me. “You didn’t make them. The rifts simply are.”
“I am under attack for not letting my sisters go back in time to destroy all vampires,” she hissed, fury rising, the water simmering harder, steam rising from the pool in heavy clouds. “Only the Mercy Blades, eleven in all the world, have kept their word to the Mithrans, have backed me against my own kind.”
“And if you get access to a rift?” It came to me. “You’ll jump through and be gone, and our bargain will be trashed.”
Soul narrowed her eyes at me like a ticked-off mermaid. “Yes. It means I may be pulled through to another world and leave you alone to finish the fight with the Flayer of Mithrans. Rifts are dangerous,” she repeated.
“And if you fall through, the other arcenciels will go back in time and kill the SODs before they’re even born.”
“Killing the Sons of Darkness before they are born has been a potentiality since you were crowned with le breloque.” Her tone was sour, bitter as wormwood.
Empress, Beast thought at me. Soul is not the empress of the arcenciels. Jane has crown.
It hit me, like being slapped with the fin of a bathing dragon. Beast was right. I had le breloque. I was empress of the vamps and, with the corona, I was also the Dark Queen. The arcenciels wanted the crown. They wanted a lot from me and I held the royal flush—the corona. Before I had time to reconsider, I took a big honking chance and said, “You help me with the Flayer of Mithrans or you get nothing from me. The holder of le breloque, the Dark Queen of the Mithrans, no longer negotiates with the people of the rainbow dragons. The beings worshipped as gods by the People of the Straight Ways have been foresworn too many times.” I lifted my jaw into the air. “I’ve told you what I want. Take it or leave it.”
Soul spread her mouth wide. Her predator teeth flashed at me. She lunged from the heated pool, mouth open wide. I ducked and slipped on the icy ground. Rolled to my backside hard, back to my knees, through the snow. Not fast enough.
Her teeth tore through my shoulder, ripping my clothes and taking off a layer of flesh and muscle. Blood pulsed into the air, scarlet and shocking against the sea of white and grays and blacks of snowfall. Soul reared back, a cobra position, flared and violent.
She took two rounds to her torso, kill shots had she