“Don’t hurt them!” I burst out.
“Such a soft heart, love,” he said, smiling down at me.
Yeah, right. Clearly, he didn’t know Viola as well as he thought he did.
“We might need them later,” I added hastily. Since we had home advantage and knew the terrain intimately, I had to believe my family could take Constantine’s men. Plus, we had Mom. Still, I wasn’t going to take any chances.
Luckily, there was no need to speak as we made our way through the forest to the encampment. Every so often we would pause in a clearing so Constantine could map our location using the position of the stars. I couldn’t see or hear the Chandramaa guard around us, but I knew they were there. Eventually the snow gave way to tramped-down dirt trails, all snaking to the same center. We passed a guard, then the field where Duncan had kept his motorcycles, then between two trees into the outskirts of the camp. I could hear faint drumming and see the warm flicker of torches and bonfires. Guards divested us of all our weapons, right down to the slender toothpick stake strapped to my ankle under my pants.
I waited until we’d entered the main field, the wind snapping the pennants and banners on the painted pavilions. Lanterns swung between the tents. Vampires turned toward us slowly.
“Chandramaa!” I called out. Constantine paused curiously. I met his eyes. “I am formally calling off the banishment on the House of Drake. Do you hear me?” I added, just as loudly.
“We hear you,” someone answered from the treetops. “Consider it done.”
“We hear you as well,” a hard voice said from behind us.
“What are you doing?” Constantine asked me at the same time. We turned to face the speaker. He was huge, with ropes of muscles and braided blond hair. He didn’t look impressed.
And he wasn’t alone.
Vampires circled around us, pressing closer. They muttered unhappily, menacingly. “The little queen finally makes an appearance,” the blond vampire said disdainfully. “Been too busy breaking all of our covenants and terrorizing the town to sit council?”
I swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“What do we care about the town, Lars?” someone else shouted. “Do the humans care about the cattle they eat?”
“She’s turning too many eyes our way,” Lars snapped. “And if we’re going to have a figurehead queen, she should at least be benign.”
“What, like Natasha was? You weren’t here in the eighties.”
They were starting to shove one another to get closer to me. Constantine angled himself to shield me. They didn’t have weapons of course, but the press of their anger was sharp and unyielding. “Don’t hurt her.” A woman cuffed Lars on the back of the head. “Do you want a red arrow through your head?”
“Alva, quit it,” he grumbled.
“You have every right to be angry,” I tried to shout above the harsh words and hissing. Constantine shoved at someone who came too close. “I was possessed,” I said, trying not to give away the fear choking my throat like smoke. I knew they’d be able to smell it. “Please, listen.” I tried to force my pheromones out over the crowd, but there were too many of them.
“A likely story,” a girl scoffed.
“It’s true,” I insisted, stumbling when an elbow hit me in the spine.
Constantine caught me, turned me to face him as if we were alone under the moon. “What are you saying?”
“I’m not Viola,” I told him coldly. “We cast her out. She’s not coming back.”
He staggered as if in physical pain. “That’s not possible.”
The mob shifted and I could suddenly see down the path to a circle of torches. The light glinted off metal chain and a tall heavy tree, cut down to become a post. People were tied to it at various lengths, huddled around small fires. I froze. “What is that?”
“The post you ordered,” Lars barked. “As if you didn’t know.”
Viola had set up the same kind of post her own mother had been chained to. It wasn’t just cruelty, it was madness too. “Take it down!” I shouted, ill at the sight of it. I could remember only too well Lady Venetia covered in bite marks. “Let them go!”
Someone had me by the hair. I was dragged toward the post, the angry mob moving with us. I couldn’t get away. I caught a glimpse of a trio of laughing girls all wearing white brocade gowns with dyed white hair. The Furies.
“Too little too late, princess,” Lars said, deliberately not referring to me as the queen. I couldn’t care less about that, except it meant I was losing what little ground I still had.
And I really didn’t want to have my head chopped off or whatever it was they were planning to do.
“The Chandramaa,” I croaked. Constantine was just standing on the deserted path, broken. He swayed, looking worse than I felt, and I was the one about to be torn apart by an angry mob.
“Vampire tradition allows us a royal execution if all the tribes agree.”
“But I was possessed! Can’t I abdicate? Name a regent or something?” I was really starting to hate vampire traditions. There was no fairness to them, no second chances. Just a stake in the heart if you made a mistake, like medieval law. I’d seen the Middle Ages firsthand and it wasn’t all pretty dresses.
“That seems fair,” a girl pointed out, the pink daisy in her hair incongruous against all the fangs and bloodshot eyes.