Read Drake Chronicles: 02 Blood Feud Online
Authors: Alyxandra Harvey
Drake Chronicles: 02 Blood Feud (27 page)
Except Solange.
She elbowed Montmartre in the ear, hard enough to snap his head to the side. He turned, snarling. But she was already scooping the discarded crown out of the ash-covered grass.
Solange drove the broken spokes through his back, right over his heart. It wasn’t enough to pierce his heart entirely, snapping off in his shoulder. Helena spun him around and finished the job, shoving a stake through his chest.
He howled and disintegrated, leaving mother and daughter staring at each other with dusty boots.
Quinn gave a bark of triumphant laughter and Magda spun like a mad fairy, flinging stakes from her hands. The Host, seeing their leader dispatched, stumbled, looking for escape.
And I stil wasn’t inside my body.
I’d stayed too long.
The mist was thinning, the battle was breaking apart, and I hovered over myself as if a pane of glass barred my return. The veins under my skin looked too pronounced, my cheekbones too harsh. My scars were like satin. I was disoriented, dizzy.
I wasn’t strong enough to control the magic.
It was control ing me.
The sun rose, sending arrows of light between the trees. The
Hel-Blar
howled, seeking shelter. The Host dispersed. Logan scooped me up, running through the ferns. Birds began their morning song. The sky turned the color of opal. Liam pushed his family forward as Helena dove for a wooden door hidden under the brush. Sebastian was carrying Solange, who, being the youngest, had already passed out. My spirit fol owed behind them, too slow, watching my body get carried farther out of reach.
The Drakes dropped into the tunnel, one by one. Logan handed me down to one of his brothers as blood stil seeped from his wound. I felt his mouth brush my ear.
“Isabeau.” He sounded frantic, furious. “Isabeau,” he said again. “Isabeau!”
He’d remembered what I’d told him about repeating a name to return a spirit to its body.
I’d have kissed him if I could have.
I landed so suddenly and so violently that I twitched uncontrol ably, eyes rol ing back in my head.
Epilogue
LOGAN
The next night I found Isabeau sitting on the roof of the farmhouse, watching the stars come out over the forest. She stil wore her tunic dress, a little torn at the hem but wiped clean of mud. I couldn’t help but remember the vision of her running along the roofs of Paris in her stolen coat. I stretched out next to her on the shingles that stil retained the heat of the day. She wouldn’t look at me, as if she didn’t quite know how to be around me. I was going to take that as a good sign.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. Her veins were stil unnatural y blue, her eyes red; side effects of nearly burning herself up with magic.
“
Ça va
,” she replied. “Thank you,” she added, so formal y she actual y winced afterward.
I smiled a little. “That was some trick with the mist.” She nodded. “There is so much we don’t know yet about our magic. I wasn’t sure I could work that spel . I certainly couldn’t unwork it once I’d started. I’d have been trapped in spirit form if it weren’t for you.”
“Are you sorry you didn’t get to kil Greyhaven yourself?” I asked quietly.
She considered that and final y shook her head slowly. “No.
I guess that doesn’t make me much of a warrior, does it?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” I snorted. “Dogs and magic mists are a hel of a battle strategy.” I reached for her hand, weaving my fingers through hers. “You’re stil staying for the coronation?”
“
Oui.
”
I looked at her. She sighed a little. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“No one else in the world has ever seen me the way you have, not even Kala. You saw what I was. Before.” I knew she was remembering those rooftops too. “And yet you stil look at me as if I matter, as if I’m somehow precious.”
“You
are
precious,” I insisted. “Stubborn and secretive and independent to a fault, but precious.”
“Oh.”
I thought she might be blushing. “I love you, Isabeau.” She was definitely blushing now. She blinked at me. I just stared back patiently. “Come on, the bones said we’re meant for each other,” I reminded her.
“Who told you that?”
“Magda. She doesn’t hate me quite as much as she used to.”
“Oh.”
I smiled. “Don’t be scared, Isabeau.”
“I’m not scared,” she insisted indignantly.
“Oh, please. One little ‘I love you’ has you al freaked out. No sword or stake or slavering dog-beast can get you that pale and stiff.”
She seemed to fight a short battle inside herself, one I could only watch. I didn’t have the weapons to help her. Only she had them.
“You have a point, I suppose.” She unfisted her hands. “And what is a warrior but someone who faces her fears and defeats them?” She swal owed. “
Je
…” She swal owed again. “
Je
t’aime
.”
I’d never known the kind of bone-deep satisfaction I knew right then and there. I lifted our joined hands to my mouth, kissing her knuckles.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked hoarsely.
She smiled. “I suppose not.”
She lay back down next to me, our sides touching, her hair fluttering over my arm, smel ing like leaves and berries. We lay under the stars for a long time.
“Wil you visit me in the caves?” she whispered final y. “After the ceremonies and the council meetings are through?”
“Of course.”
“Even though everyone wil disapprove?”
I pushed up on my elbow. Her eyes were so green they nearly glowed. “I couldn’t care less what everyone else thinks.” I lowered my head, my mouth hovering over hers. “Besides … ,” I grinned slowly. “Think of it as intertribal negotiations.” She touched my jaw, smiling back, softly, lightly. “As handmaiden, it
is
my duty to foster a good relationship between the Cwn Mamau and the royal family.”
“Exactly.” I closed the last inch between us and kissed her.
And when she kissed me back we weren’t a prince and a handmaiden, weren’t Drake and Hound, weren’t anything or anyone but Logan and Isabeau. Together.
ALYXANDRA HARVEY
studied creative writing and literature at York University and has had her poetry published in magazines. She likes lattes, chocolate, and tattoos and lives in an old Victorian farmhouse in Ontario, Canada, with her husband and three dogs.
www.alyxandraharvey.com
www.thedrakechronicles.com
Copyright © 2010 by Alexandra Harvey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in the United States of America in July 2010
by Walker Publishing Company, Inc., a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
E-book edition published in July 2010
www.bloomsburyteens.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Walker BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harvey, Alyxandra.
Blood feud / by Alyxandra Harvey.
p. cm.
Summary: As the clans gather for the coronation of the next vampire queen, new alliances are
beginning to form and the power of the clan leaders is threatened by a would-be usurper.
ISBN 978-0-8027-2097-9 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-0-8027-2096-2 (paperback)
[1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H267448B1 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009049258
ISBN 978-0-8027-2228-7 (e-book)
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