Struck (A Vampire Novel) ✔

Fifty-Two

We stood in front of a familiar length of gold, a table which separated us from the Royals. The same seven Royals from the last trial I had attended were there: the twins of Vassily, Zelda and Ezra Thron, and the three Roslind including Audrina. The only addition was that of Darsana Thron, who sat at the end next to her relatives with an expression of anxiety on her face as she watched Audrina.

On my side was no one other than Jacobi, who had reverted back into his vampire form after several weeks of mortality. It was him who had sped this trial along with fire in his eyes. He was nothing short of determined for me to step up to my true birthright: the name of Raene and the position it would give me among the vampire society. It was this rather intimidating fact that caused such a strange and private trial to take place.

Audrina Roslind hadn’t wanted to spend another second on us in the first place. But when Jacobi had finally got ahold of her, the news she received was not pleasing from what I could discern. Then she downright refused it. And in her haste to disprove my birthright, she also required our silence. We hadn’t been informing the coterie or anyone else on what Zachary Monet had told us originally, due to Jacobi’s fragile state. We thought it might cause a bit of a ruckus initially, so we had decided to keep it between us at the moment. But when Audrina ordered us to keep silent, it made me think perhaps we should have told many people the truth in case something happened.

Despite the order, we told Darsana everything before the trial. She had disappeared almost immediately after Vincent had captured me, in case there was an attack being launched against the Headquarters. After all, her first priority had been to protect Katja and Karsten Diederich. But when she had them safe and removed, she was the first one we reached out to about my situation. While she had seemed shocked and anxious about the news, she vowed to stand for me, if only to protect someone who technically was related to her.

It was strange to think Darsana Thron, who was no doubt centuries older than me, was technically my half-niece. It hadn’t taken much to convince her that I was Eve Raene’s daughter. She believed everything made sense, down to my visions of Adelaide. Apparently, the sight is more open to the ones who share a link with you and Adelaide, being bonded to Eve before death, was able to use that bond beyond death to try to converse with me. But being that I still had yet to master the ability, many visions were still unclear to me.

Audrina hadn’t wasted too much time to demand a trial. When the Royals arrived, they wanted a secluded trial in which they ordered members of Jacobi’s Coterie in separately to ask questions as to what had occurred at the vampire hunter reservation.

I knew most of the members were confused. When Jacobi’s spirit had been suppressed by the Middlemist Red, rendering him completely mortal, they had expected the bonds of the coterie to dissipate. By claiming Jacobi, I had also claimed his coterie, and thereby acted as their temporary Master until I could feel Jacobi’s spirit rising back from the quiet slumber of mortality. Many didn’t know what it meant, that I was vampire in the first place and that I could keep their bonds together. We hadn’t eased their minds except to ask for their trust until we were able to properly explain in the future.

Still, I could remember the look on Aveline’s darkened face as she exited that secluded trial room before Jacobi and I were called in. If any member didn’t trust us, it was Aveline. We had been unable to find Xander, despite the trail of dead he left behind him. Jacobi said it was because a vampire who turned rogue due to breaking a Mate bond was more intelligent and less feral than the typical rogue. Now Aveline was like a ghost, quiet and dark as she floated the halls of the Headquarters. The only life she showed was when she spotted me, and that only in the form of anger that lit her eyes.

I partially blamed myself for her pain. My father captured Aveline and Xander specifically for me and then broke their bond just to prove something to me. I could also understand a separate pain she felt as she watched Jacobi and I walk together, our Mate bond still connected and our lips still able to find each other in the night. I could understand her pain and I knew if I could, I would find Xander to bring him back to her. But even I knew it was less likely as the days passed.