Page 26 of Princess For All

“You give your blood andsanityso we can have hot showers and my favorite snacks again. You could be in the castle living your best life that’seasyjust on your own without all this extra bullshit. But you kill yourself to save everyone all over the fucking world now and do more and more.” He kissed my nose which made me smile.

“Yeah, but I’m not being a good girlfriend.”

“You are, but you’ve been too hurt to see it. When our lives are calm and bland after the corrupted are all gone and this war is won, you can plan dates to spoil me, okay? Until then, your plate is overloaded and I’mblessed. I’m very blessed and we all feel that. You appreciate the spoiling, see it as spoiling, and don’t expect it. That’s what we want.”

Okay then. For now, I was pretty sure that I could accept that.

For now.

7

We made up for the lame naked time in the morning, and Branko said more than once that he really enjoyed spending the night with me. It was actually amusing, and several people chuckled who overheard him.

“Not to put a downer on your mood, but you were really a draw to corrupted,” Sundar said as he approached me with dozens of very old vampires who weren’t nobles. “And they are more dexterous. I saw several easily break out of doors or push down to open the handle ones. They still don’t seem to be able to turn actual knobs—”

“But they can handle basics,” I muttered. “And not just several of them in a frenzy can break through a door or window with sheer force.”

“No, it was one I saw shove open a normal type house front door and then race towards you. I was about thirty miles away and he went right for you.” He nodded when several of us couldn’t hide our shock.

“I saw one at fifty miles,” someone else added. “We had people set up at intervals, many of us wanting to test this since we knew you’d be there for a while.”

“This tracks with what Nora has reported back about laying your blood out and how they still go towards it for days even after bombs have taken many out,” Jamelle muttered as he joined us.

“Let’s discuss this over breakfast today and come up with some quick ideas,” I said, nodding to Kristof that it was okay. For today. I wanted this handled as well.

We went back and forth and came to some really great decisions and people put forth some inventive ideas. Everything from rotating locations where even a thimbleful of my blood was put down to I had dinner at random places drawn by lottery so Keres and her people couldn’t know where we’d be.

They would all help and throw them off. I also had one because I was tired of playing so much defense.

“I want landmines all over Florida,” I told all the nobles and really old vampires we trusted who had come for breakfast.”

The room went eerily quiet for several moments before a few people burst out laughing.

“I’m not done,” I said before they could jump on me. “I also want all of the animals out of there. They have it too easy. If they can come up here and start trouble for us, then let them have more trouble getting what they can.” I looked to Sebastian. “Tell Nora she can haveeverythingin Florida if she sends a stealthy team to steal it out from under them.”

“That’s a dangerous game to play, Princess,” he muttered.

“But asmartone,” Jamelle praised, nodding when others seemed hesitant. “I know, I know, we’re all shitting ourselves that she’s Erebus’s champion. Take that out of the equation and you have a young princess. She won’t be for long. Fine, but how do we fight thatnow?”

“Make things more difficult for her and stop playing so much damn defense,” I answered with a smirk. “We know where now. So enough. Go fucking turn everything there into energy beads. Go get the animals out. Put down landmines around the fucking coven. Whatever we can so they start having to deal with shit. We’re way more than them.”

“She’ll retaliate,” Kristof warned me, worry in his tone.

“Yes, she will, and I’m sure she’ll do something with the ghosts again.” I let out a sigh when he frowned. I went to tell him, but then I muttered that we’d talk later. No matter how much I trusted people there, there were some things I shouldn’t tell everyone.

Like I’d realized we’d missed something. Once I’d had a full day to decompress and just relax after so much stress and crazy, some things had clicked for me.

Like how could Cerdic have had a vision of Sundar killing corrupted in Russia and matching the ghosts to the ones who overwhelmed me that day but then none of his ghosts bothered me when he killed corrupted in Africa? Something had happened. Something had changed.

And I would put anything on it being Keres. Myguesswas some power. Aether had sent Cerdic a vision to warn us of some sort of power.

A power strong enough that it had probably knocked Keres out for a while which was why she’d left us alone for a bit. Then the attack on Fort Knox to throw us off. But things weren’t done with the ghosts or these better corrupted. No, she was a smart adversary. There was more to it.

There was more to all of this, so it was time to start giving it back.

“This might be a task Nora might only entrust family with,” Jamelle hedged. “They would be the only ones powerful enough and could—only them.”

They could hide, and he wasn’t going to announce that.

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