Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Nikolai
Holy fucking Sun, Moon, and Stars, I’m absolutely fucked! This is a clusterfuck of a shitsundae with a cockhead cherry on top. I kissed Vladlena Solis. Hell, I practically mounted her right here in my office. This is fucked on so many levels. I pull out my phone. This is the worst possible timing.
Nik: Mandatory meeting in my office. Right now!
I pour myself another shot and pace the room. Something is seriously wrong with me. I need something stronger than straight vodka.
Boden: You’re joking, the party’s just getting good.
Callum: After we find Lena, Ariki’s finally going to get a chance to enjoy himself now that Kian and him are finished taking care of Michi.
I roll my eyes. This is more important. As much as I, in no way shape or form, want to have this conversation with them, I screwed up, and now we all need to address the fallout.
Nik: Yeah well, we’ve got a bigger problem.
Teariki: Have any of you seen Lena, yet?
Nik: She was just here. That’s why we need to talk.
Callum: Coming. Is everything okay?
Teariki: Is she alright?
Nik: I don’t know. Just get here fast!
Kian: On my way.
Who is Vladlena Solis? That’s the question that has occupied my mind every spare moment for the last two months.
Conniving traitor’s daughter or innocent girl in over her head?
She’s oxymoronic. She’s sophisticated yet unsuspecting, clever but still inexperienced, powerless but brimming with power, beautifully lethal and deadly gorgeous in that red dress I sent her.
Boden: Why are we all dropping everything because Solis was a little embarrassed?
Nik: I know her insignis.
Kian: What is she?
Boden: Really? Can’t this wait until tomorrow?
Nik: No. Because now I’m fully aware of what we are.
Kian: And what are we???
Nik: Royally fucked!
“Where is she?” Ariki is the first through my door, Cal following on his heels.
“Not here anymore.” I pour all three of us drinks. Everyone’s getting vodka. We’re going to need it. “She left right before I texted the group.”
Ariki looks to the door, considering bailing to find her, I’m sure.
“We need to deal with this first, then you can go play knight in shining armor.” The moment the insult is out of my mouth, I regret it.
Ariki scowls. “She had a shit night. I’m worried about her.”
I don’t know what made me poke at him like that. I’ll need to evaluate my behavior later, when I’ve had a moment to breathe.
“It’s a little ridiculous the amount of time we spend on this girl,” Boden complains, strutting into the room and stealing a bottle of bourbon from my bar.
“Tell me what you’ve learned.” Kian shuts the door behind him. “Did you finally crack her mental wall?”
“Nik,” Ariki grunts through his locked jaw. He’s been standing by the door since he entered. “Why does it smell like blood and sex in here?”
I grimace. I was hoping to approach this tactfully.
“And why the hell are the scents both Lena’s?” he snarls, a deep growl cracking from his chest.
“You know what Lena’s arousal smells like?” Cal arches a brow at Ariki. Cal seems more curious than jealous. Interesting.
“Of fucking course.” Boden lets out a cold laugh. Fuck, this is devolving quickly. I glance at Kian, who seems to share similar concerns.
“I’ll explain.” I hold my hands up in supplication.
“You fucking better.” Ariki draws up to his full height. “Because right now, it seems like you left me to deal with Michi so you could be the one to comfort Lena.”
“Everybody, sit down!” Kian commands. “We aren’t going to lose our heads.” At his order, we all find seats around the room, drinks in hand. “Now, Nik, please explain. And we all will remain calm while we process new information.” Kian cuts a sharp glance across the room.
I finish my shot and pour another. “I tasted her blood and subsequently figured out her mother’s insignis,” I say cautiously, concerned about the increasingly intense scowl on Ariki’s face.
“You were able to get into her mind when you drank from her?” Kian settles back into a chair by the window.
“Yes. Sort of. Not exactly.” I run my hand through my hair. “I think she let me in, and then she immediately pushed me out.”
“So you were able to taste her insignis?” Boden asks, after downing a swig of bourbon straight from the bottle.
“As much as I’d like those bragging rights, also no. I couldn’t taste it in her blood. I know what she is, because of how I reacted to her taste,” I confess nervously.
“Nik, my wolf is not doing well with the smell of her blood in this room. You need to get to the point.” Ariki clutches the arms of his chair in the corner, clearly fighting every instinct he has to remain seated.
“I’ve never had a similar reaction to blood. I only took one drop from her finger, and it was enough to wash me in need,” I explain. “I was gripped with the undying urge to drink her dry. Like I was a fucking teenager again, and this was my first feeding.”
“Fuck,” Kian whispers, as he begins to put the pieces together.
“I wanted every last drop. It was compulsive, more than an addiction, a life-sustaining requirement.” I stare into my glass of vodka.
“Okay, Edward, is she like your own personal brand of heroin?” Boden gives me a cruel sardonic smile.
“Ha ha ha, very funny.” I roll my eyes.
Cal turns to Ariki, who still has a death grip on the chair, and redirects us back to the topic at hand. “I don’t get it. Don’t all vampires react to blood that way?”
“Not like this. I needed her to consume me, too. I would have let her take all of me, completely drain my life away.” My fangs ache at the memory of her taste, the feel of her soft body, the need to claim all of her and have her own me right back.
“That only happens with other Devorare. Really strong ones.”
“So she’s half Devorare?” Boden gasps. Concern hangs heavy in the room.
If this got out, Lena would be in a lot more danger than she’s already in for being Adrik Solis’s daughter.
The anti-cross procreation laws are firm.
She could be expelled, shunned, forced into exile.
This might very well be a death sentence.
“She’s a vampire?” Cal asks. I shake my head and meet Kian’s gaze.
His face has lost all color. “Fuck. You do know.” His eyes beg me to tell him it’s not true.
I furrow my brow and drop the bomb into the room. “Given that my desire to fuck her outweighed my desire to drain her, I have one hell of a hunch.”
Then three things happen at once.
Kian’s face cracks with fearful misery.
Ariki wrenches to a standing position, his glass shattering in his fist.
And Boden and Cal both hiss out her insignis in tandem, “Succubus.”
It’s not that succubi are more dangerous than any other magica, it’s that they are notoriously wild cards.
Frequently nomadic and secretive, they’re a rarity.
There are only two incubi and not a single succubus currently enrolled at this institution.
Their birth rates are the lowest among magicae.
It’s uncommon for succubi and incubi to procreate, because feeding off each other can be counterproductive and sometimes outright destructive.
They’re a dying insignis. All Devorare magicae are careful when we feed from within our kingdom.
But vampires are warned about feeding from succubi.
Our proclivities tend to stoke each other’s.
It’s how a tiny drop of her blood encouraged my explosive reactions.
If I thought for one moment there was any chance she was half succubus, I’d have never taken a taste.
I can never have another, but I’ll spend the rest of my life craving her—in every way.
Ariki interrupts the sustained moment of silence. “Hold up, are you sure? Is there any other reason you’d react that way?”
“No, not really,” I confirm grimly.
“Not unless she was his mate.” Cal makes the comment almost offhandedly, but the room goes quiet once again. My heart rate spikes, that can’t be it. It’s much more likely that she’s a succubus. Ariki lets loose a possessive rumbling growl. Cal glances frantically between Ariki and me.
“But if she were his mate, he wouldn’t have had the urge to drink her dry,” Boden cuts in.
“Not necessarily, he’d just have the strength to stop,” Kian amends. Fuck, no. That was succubus blood. That was a succubus reaction. Her existence is illegal and basically unheard of, but I am confident she’s a succubus.
“Did you fuck her?” Ariki snarls, as his eyes shift between his human and wolf forms.
“Of course not.” I pinch the bridge of my nose to keep my anger at bay.
My anger at Ariki for acting like she’s his, anger at myself for fucking this up so royally, and anger at Vladlena for being an impossibility that provokes my every taboo proclivity.
My shoulders turn inward. “But I wanted to, I almost did. I kissed her, but that’s all. ”
“With more than one possibility on the table, we need more than just your desire to bed her to confirm,” Callum says as a voice of reason.
“It makes sense.” Ariki lets out a breath, his shoulders finally loosening as he slowly lowers himself back into his chair.
“Since we met, I’ve felt this pull toward her.
We shared a kiss earlier today. It was…intense.
” Ariki’s face turns a deep shade of red.
Cal refuses to catch anyone’s eyes, tapping their foot on the ground.
“I thought we had some strong connection. I’ve never met a succubus before.
It’s possible that my feelings, my desire for her, stemmed from her abilities.
” Teariki shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I have complete control of myself.
I think I’ve let her get to me.” Ariki pouts, his puppy dog eyes glistening, looking heartbroken.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Cal gives Ariki’s hand a squeeze. “I imagine we were all feeling an attraction to her, in our own ways. But we still need to get confirmation.”
Cal’s right. I tilt my head in question toward Kian.
He gives me a slight nod. “I’ll be able to confirm it. I’ve met a few in my time.”
“So what if Solis is a succubus?” Boden rolls his eyes. “Other than you two losing your heads for a minute, how does that make us fucked? Isn’t this a good thing? She can’t make a claim for my throne.”
“That’s one way this could go. Or she could attempt to make a claim by hiding her parentage.
” Kian grimaces. “Additionally, we brought a mixed-kingdom magica to the most prestigious institution in the world. We knew there was a chance that she was a mixed-Convalescere Insignis, and that would have been a difficult sell but we probably could have done it. However, this is a bigger problem.”
“An illegal, life-endangering problem,” I add.
We may be princes, and Kian actively holds a throne, but that doesn’t mean any of us, or even us together, have sole decision-making power.
The realm is structured in such a way that a cross-kingdom council must agree to certain laws and policies that affect more than one kingdom through negotiation between courts.
“Aiding, abetting, and harboring a very illegal problem.”
“Then there is the matter of her extremely powerful abilities and what exactly they might be,” Kian adds. There is very little understanding of how abilities manifest across insignia let alone across kingdoms.
“No wonder she’s been hiding her power and history. She’s probably been manipulating us from the very beginning,” Boden spits out.
That doesn’t ring true to me. “I’m not so sure about that.
” I saw her very real pain when we played chess.
I know she was telling the truth about not knowing anything about her mother.
But she also lied about knowing nothing of her father.
“Something’s not adding up. We collected her—she didn’t come looking for us.
Indeed, she actively avoided our world. She clearly wasn’t feeding earlier in the semester.
It explains why she was so sick. I’m not sure she’s really feeding now.
She’s still struggling in combat and her courses.
Why would she go to all that trouble just to lie to us?
” I think she’s likely hiding something, but I’m not sure what.
“And then there is the matter of what’s in the police report we received this week.
We’re missing something.” Something big, something important.
“It’s time to go to her. I was able to get a good deal of credible information when we just had an open and honest conversation.
She responds best to a little give-and-take. ”
“Exactly, she’s reasonable.” Cal narrows their eyes. “Maybe instead of scheming and trying to outsmart her at every turn, it’s better to just…I don’t know…talk?”
“Talking hasn’t exactly gone well for her and me in the past.” Kian rubs his temples. I can tell by the set of his shoulders he knows we’re right. “Give-and-take?”
I give a brisk nod and pass him the vodka. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He looks out the window before downing a shot right from the bottle.