Excerpt of Left For Undead by L.A. Banks

Elder Vlad stood by the desecrated mausoleum peering down at
the charred male corpse. Blue blood slowly blackened beneath
the visible pulsing veins in the paper-thin skin of Vlad’s
bald head while his black irises completely overtook the
whites of his eyes. The Vampires around him were quiet and
still under the blue-white wash of moonlight in the
cemetery, awaiting his permission to investigate. Fury
threaded through his body like dark tendrils of hatred,
although the ancient vampire remained stoic.

“Who did
this?” His rhetorical question was uttered between his fangs
with deadly calm. He already knew the culprits; his angry
query was simply a command for external confirmation. Elder
Vlad glanced up, holding his top hunter lieutenant’s gaze,
and impatiently waited for an answer.

“We believe it had
to be Unseelie Fae, Your Excellency. Just like the others.”
Caleb dropped to one leather-clad knee, allowing his long
spill of platinum hair to flow over his shoulders as he more
closely examined the Vampire ash. The black leather coat
Caleb wore dusted the ground, billowing out around him from
supernatural fury.

“Undoubtedly death by daylight
invasion,” Caleb said, suddenly looking up baring fangs as
his rage kindled. “I suspect that Monroe Bonaventure went to
ground, sleeping here in his mausoleum for fear that since
the mansions of so many others had been recently overrun
that his might be as well. But they found the poor bastard
anyway.”

“He was my sixth and last viceroy in the
region.” Elder Vlad paced away with silent footsteps,
beginning to levitate from his unspent anger, and then he
turned quickly to speak in a burst of rage to the assembled
hunters. “We are of the caste Vampyre! We are the eternal
night! That we fear anything is sacrilege! We are the
definition of fear in the supernatural world! It is our kind
that has always been at the top of the food chain for
millennia! By all that is unholy, I vow that there will be
merciless redress for this offense. Tell me, dear Mara, what
clues have you uncovered, before I formally declare war….
Transylvania will want to know why and I shall give them
indisputable proof.”

Mara traced the edges of the broken
door hinges and locks around the opened crypt with her
fingers. Only her long brunette hair moved in the gentle
night breeze as she stopped for a second to peer at Elder
Vlad, remaining momentarily eerily still.

“This metal was
fractured by sudden freezing … temperatures so cold that a
mere tap would have shattered them,” she finally said. Her
smoldering dark gaze beheld Caleb’s ice blue stare for a
moment before returning to Elder Vlad. “Our local Seelie Fae
do not work with such extreme temperatures,” she murmured,
her voice sounding like a seductive forensic expert’s. “Nor
do the wolves.”

Elder Vlad narrowed his gaze and looked
off into the distance. “No, they don’t, do they.”

Mara
shook her head. “Sir Rodney is many things, but a fool he is
not,” she said with a low hiss between her fangs.

“Your
orders, Your Excellency?” Caleb asked, rising to stand with
his head bowed before the ancient leader of the North
American Vampire Cartel.

“Fix this,” Elder Vlad murmured.
“Make sure the Unseelie have a list of names for which we
demand blood restitution. And do be sure to let Queen
Cerridwen of Hecate know how very displeased I
am.”

“Queen Cerridwen of Hecate,” Rupert announced,
bowing before Sir Rodney as he entered the war room with
Garth and a formidable retinue of palace
guards.

“Cerridwen,” Sir Rodney said in an even tone,
offering her a slight bow while refreshing his Fae ale. “And
to what do I owe the rare pleasure—especially at this hour,
unannounced, and well after I have declared war on you via
Fae missive for your treason of siding with Vampires against
my kingdom?”

“I was set up, Rodney. Purely and simply.”
Queen Cerridwen casually shed her mink coat and walked
forward, allowing it to pool on the floor behind her. “I
received your missive and I suspect that you received mine
stating that all is forgiven. We are not at war … what has
been between us has been a bitter disagreement at
times—something that occasionally happens amongst evenly
matched rivals—but never war. However, we are now under
siege.”

“Rivals,” he said flatly, his sapphire gaze
holding hers for ransom.

“Among other things,” she said
softly. “Is that not sometimes the outgrowth of passion …
for lovers to become rivals?”

“Or enemies.”

Her cool
gaze warmed him as it slowly raked him from head to
toe.

“You don’t mean that,” she murmured. “I have known
you a long time, my summer prince. Your warmth always belies
the coldness of your words.”

Sir Rodney glanced over her
head at his men who rimmed the room in protection, noting
how they bristled at the queen’s blatant attempt to lure him
into complacency with feminine charm.

“And your coldness
always belied your warmth, Cerridwen. Therein always lay the
conundrum.”

“Touché. Evenly matched in words and wit, as
I said.” A sad smile overtook her face as she walked closer
to stand before him. “We may have fought, but the one thing
you never lost was my respect.”

He nodded. “And I never
lost respect for how dangerous you can be when crossed,
Cerridwen. Forgive my hesitancy to simply allow bygones to
be bygones. I have felt your wrath, and men died behind it.
We did not fight as a couple; we went to war. So let us not
play games tonight. State your cause or leave my
castle.”

“Very well,” she said, lifting her chin. “I have
traveled long to come here before nightfall, as have my
guards. Surely hospitality is not so lacking that you would
see us unsheltered against Vampires in the dead of
night?”

“Rupert, please bring the lady refreshment and
have her men placed in the dungeon under heavy guard—albeit
with food and ale.”

“Thank you,” Queen Cerridwen replied
in a tight voice, keeping her unblinking gaze on her
ex-husband.

“Aye.” Sir Rodney waved his hand before her
to motion for her to be seated at his round table. A chair
drew itself away from the table, waiting for her to fill it,
but she declined.

“There is no need for me to sit here
and break bread with you, Rodney, as I am clearly not
trusted. Should you cough from swallowing your food too
quickly or somehow accidentally choke on a quail bone, your
men would have my head thrust in the guillotine. Therefore,
as long as my guards are fed, I am fine. But the information
I have brought you is vital to our Fae way of life.”

She
kept her eyes on her ex-husband’s back as he walked away
from her with a cup of ale in one hand and the other clasped
in a fist at his spine. Despite the years and all the raging
water under the bridge between them, it was hard not to
study his regal posture and broad shoulders or the way his
dark brown hair spilled over them. That sight was almost as
compelling as his deep blue eyes and his strong
jawline.

“You make me sound like such a lout, Cerridwen …
and yet trust is hard to come by between us, for good
cause.” He turned away from the window and stared at
her.

“Yes, it is, Rodney,” she said in a gentle tone that
lacked its usual bitter edge. “I thought we would live a
long and passionate existence together—you ruling the summer
and I ruling the winter—but after the first century you grew
bored of me and the nymphs and human conquests were too much
of a temptation. I do know about trust becoming a difficult
commodity to own.”

“Back to that again,” he said, taking
a slow sip of ale and sending his gaze toward the window
once more.

“It never left that,” she said more coolly
than intended.

“It never does … but there were other
things, too.”

“Yes. Like your weakness for the human
condition and my disdain of it.”

He looked at her hard,
ale held mid-air. “Have you not learned from what we have
recently experienced that there are those of that species
that have honor?” He paced to the round table and set down
his ale, waving Rupert to set down the silver-domed tray of
refreshments he’d brought in for the queen. “They are weak;
they own no magic but rush in anyway to do that which is
heroic. Some of my men would not be here were it not for the
humans that Sasha Trudeau led into battle with us against
Elder Vlad and the horror he conjured up from the demon
depths.”

“Time improves vision and perspective,” Queen
Cerridwen said carefully, and then released a weary
sigh.

“Not understanding that, taking such an intractable
line against the humans … allowing your subjects to harm
them with foul tricks for sheer amusement is what drove me
from your bedchamber, Cerridwen—not my so-called wandering
eye. I do not claim sainthood, but I was indeed yours
without rival for a very long time … until my opinion no
longer mattered and I began to feel as though I, too, was
one of your subjects.”

Both monarchs looked away and
crossed the room in opposite directions, oblivious of the
uncomfortable guards who stood stone still during the
emotional exchange.

“Milord,” Garth finally said,
diplomatically trying to restore order. “There is a matter
of state business that Queen Cerridwen has brought tonight …
and mayhap we should learn more about this potential Vampire
threat?”

Queen Cerridwen lifted her chin as she faced Sir
Rodney’s top advisor.