Free Creche (Book II of Paranormal Fallen Angels/Vampires Series) by Karin Cox Page A

cannot substitute for another. Or it may be you could have put aside your pride and found the Swan’s chosen path for you to be true, but you would not.”
    “Sister!” A Proxim whose plaque identified her as Illysia from Luminil, half rose from her chair. Red-gold curls tumbled over her shoulder as she chastised. “Cruelty will achieve nothing. Daneo has paid the price for his pride.”
    It must have been a high one, I considered. I had never seen such a haughty creature.
    “Yes, and Kisana with him,” Skylar said, unperturbed. “Would that I never make the same mistake.”
    “MISTAKE!” The scrape of Daneo’s chair against the floor of the dais accompanied his roar as he leaped to his feet.
    “What do you call this but a mistake!” His eyes followed the line of his index finger to where I stood in the dock. “How dare you judge me! You who cannot fathom the hurt laid upon me.”
    “Can I not?” Skylar squinted, but her voice was calm. It was a gift of hers, the serenity that always emanated from her. I envied her level head. In anyone else, it might have been dispassion, but in Skylar, it was something else, a desire for peace under pressure.
    “More than anyone here, I can sympathize with you, Daneo. Remember that I, too, have been lied to. I too lost my Swan. But I will not let pride be my undoing. Always I have trusted the Cruximus to show me the way; now I must trust the Swan—the true Swan—and the Sibylim to bring me that which will enrich me, even if it pains me.”
    “Even if it kills you!” Jania spat. Climbing to her feet again, she said, “Permission to speak, Shintaro,” but did not pause for him to give it. “I above all others love and trust you, Skylar Emmanuel.”
    Skylar nodded, waiting. At the Councilor’s table, I noticed Lilyana, the second Proxim of Milandor, look down at her hands.
    “But know, too,” Jania continued, “that the Swan has been wrong before.”
    “No,” Skylar answered. “Hearts are fickle things and intentions more so, but perhaps, in the absence of pride and fear and duty, the Swan might hold true.”
    Jania laughed, not unkindly but loud enough to shock. “People do not love on paper, Skylar.”
    Skylar’s smile was sad. “They do not, but there was a time when Daneo might have righted the wrongs done him. Our mission, our origins, even the inception of your own house, Jania of Milandor, is foretold within the pages of the Cruximus . And yet, some things it did not tell us. It did not tell us how the population of Vampires would continue to grow. It did not tell us there might be another way to love. But it does tell us that there is hope and that we might find a way to lift this accursed ‘honor’ placed upon us. That we might live again, truly, in love.”
    “Love,” I cried scornfully. “The time to hate has arrived. The time for death. Why must we talk of such matters? I have a job to do. Give me the tool to do it. The Sphinx’s riddle.”
    Scorn marred Jania’s brow as she glared at me, but she ignored me and turned back to Skylar. “Such a romantic, Skylar—you always were. But we have peace and love in Milandor.” She turned her icy eyes back to mine. “We do not need to hunt or kill or birth or sacrifice there.”
    “You have a fantasy, Jania. True peace will never come to Milandor, nor to any Crèche, while Vampires still live.” Skylar arched one pale wing smoothly toward the assembly, motioning to where a phalanx of black-caped Cruxim stood. “You say you have peace, but you and your squadrons train for the day Vampires might breach the stronghold of Milandor, and you are wise to, for that day draws ever nearer while we deny the existence of the Cruor in the dock.”
    “You do not hunt?” I raged. “You do not kill. This is a crèche indeed, where children play at being Cruxim.”
    Shintaro put up one hand. “Silence, newcomer. Do not presume to tell us how Cruxim are.”
    “What of the question none of us will speak?”