Chapter 31 Force of Nature
King Lucian
The leather seat creaked beneath me as I adjusted my silver cufflinks for the third time in ten minutes. Through heavily tinted and bulletproof glass, I watched the world roll by, noting the beauty April had brought to western New York.
“You’re doing it again,” Sebastian murmured.
I turned my eyes to the security monitors embedded in the SUV’s dash, watching our entourage glide like black beetles ahead and behind us.
“Doing what?”
“That thing where you pretend not to care while mentally drafting contingency plans for twelve different social catastrophes.” His chuckle was velvet-lined, an heir’s confidence worn as easily as his tailored shirts. “Stop fretting, Dad. She’s just a woman.”
“Just a woman,” I repeated, thumb grazing the silver signet ring stamped with our house’s coiled serpent crest. “She’s the woman who has thoroughly captivated your brothers’ hearts. It’s a rare thing to find a beloved. Rarer still for three dhampirs, even half-brothers, to share one.”
“You say that like it’s sorcery rather than biology,” he scoffed. “A wolf-shifter mate bond layered with the beloved bond? That’s not bewitchment. That’s moon-damned atomic fusion.”
“The feelings may come swiftly, but they are genuine. Not forced or fabricated. And the way your brothers spoke of her? Even Koa, who would sooner tear out his own fangs than exchange pleasantries with me, waxed poetic about her kindness, her gentle strength.”
When had my sons last trusted me to guard anything precious to them? The memory of their taut voices—“Keep her safe. Just until we deal with Claudio”—needled beneath my ribs.
“Third time you’ve checked your watch since we crossed the county line,” Sebastian remarked. “She won’t evaporate if we’re twelve minutes late.”
“Unseemly to keep her waiting.”
“My mistake,” he snorted as we turned onto Evermere’s serpentine driveway, his tattooed knuckles flexing on the steering wheel. “I predict she’ll hide in her room the entire time.”
My dhampir sons’ disdain for me had no doubt colored their beloved’s perception. I could hardly blame her if Serafina greeted us with icy reservation.
The manor emerged through ancient oaks, and my knee betrayed me with a minute bounce.
“Relax. After Ko’s brooding, Casi’s micromanagement, and Zane’s pyromania, our visit will be a pleasant diversion. And remember, she prefers to be called Seri.”
“Seri,” I repeated, testing the nickname on my tongue.
And a new dilemma presented itself, one that had my mind spinning with protocol and etiquette. Should I address her as Serafina upon our first meeting and wait to be invited to use the more casual moniker? Or simply greet her as Seri from the start?
Noctem maledicta! Ridiculous, to be so thrown by something so trivial! I, who had navigated the treacherous waters of vampire politics for decades, was overthinking how to address my sons’ beloved!
Sebastian, damn him, laughed outright at my consternation.
“You’re enjoying this far too much.” I shot him a withering look.
“Sorry, it’s just so rare that I get to see you so flustered.” Sebastian parked and killed the engine. “Dad. However this goes, you showed up. That’s the part that matters.”
In the twilight, guards materialized from our flanking vehicles, their tactical boots silent against cobblestones. I stepped into air scented with apple blossoms and gun oil and took note of every surveillance camera my sons had installed.
A woman in a tidy black uniform greeted us at the door, wringing her hands.
“Your Majesty. Your Highness. Mrs. Cimmerian’s resting before dinner. Prince Koa left instructions regarding disturbances.”
Sebastian muffled a laugh against his fist.
“Let me guess. Something involving entrails and the rose garden?” I murmured dryly.
“Beheading, Your Majesty.”
Of course Koa would armor her in threats. He always did prefer blades to words.
“Where would you like to wait, sire?”
“The library,” we said in unison.
Sebastian fell into step beside me as we followed her through vaulted corridors, his whisper carrying.
“Admit it; you’re relieved. Gives you time to rehearse your ‘gracious monarch’ routine.”
“They asked for me, Sebastian. Not the royal guard, not the intelligence corps. However grudgingly, they acknowledged…” The words congealed in my throat like old blood.
“That you’re still the most dangerous thing in three continents?
” Sebastian flung himself into a leather wingback, boots propped on a 17th-century ottoman.
“Don’t flatter yourself into thinking they accept you as a father yet.
They simply needed someone who’d burn cities to ash if Arabesque blinked at their precious girl wrong. ”
Two days since Casimir’s call. Two days since my sons trusted me with their heart’s compass. And still my conscience ached painfully.
It had taken Kaori to pry my eyes open, but now that they were, I longed for a better relationship with my younger sons. I craved it. I wanted what I had with Sebastian with Casimir, Zane, and Koa, and knowing I might never gain it was devastating.
Still, I’d keep trying. I had decades to make up for, but also decades in which to do it.
“Either she’ll tolerate you for their sake or…”
“Or?” I prodded Sebastian, valuing his opinion.
“You’ll learn what Koa meant when he said some bridges can’t be rebuilt.
” He tapped the cover of Vampyr! #37 where a broody vampire straddled a flaming motorcycle.
“Bet this was Zane’s contribution. Did you know he owns every issue?
Even the rare Italian print where Dracula’s hunting a werewolf Pope? ”
“Mmm.”
I selected Machiavelli’s The Prince from the shelves, casual irony for whoever might notice. The pages fell open to Chapter XVII: Concerning Cruelty and Clemency. How many times had I quoted that very passage while drilling statecraft into Casimir’s adolescent mind?
Men must be either pampered or crushed.
“Dad.” Sebastian stiffened, nostrils flaring.
I turned as the air shifted. A barefoot shuffle against Persian wool.
She stood framed in the doorway, a sparrow caught mid-flight.
Zane hadn’t exaggerated. Five foot six of golden curls and trembling hands.
Her lavender collar lay gently against the gray sweater swallowing her narrow shoulders.
Her fingers worried the cardigan’s hem, twisting yarn until the knit puckered.
Yet her chin lifted as our eyes met, gray irises reflecting the sun like steel daggers.
Sebastian’s book snapped shut. We rose in tandem, decades of protocol overriding modern informality.
“Mrs. Cimmerian,” I went with to be safe. “Forgive us for commandeering your sanctuary.”
“Oh! No, it’s…” Her voice stumbled, soft as dandelion fluff catching sunlight. “Please call me Seri.”
“A beauty my brothers undersold.” Sebastian gave her a tiny bow, his courtly grace softening his warrior’s build.
“King Lucian. Prince Sebastian. Welcome to Evermere.” Her smile flickered, there and gone like candle smoke.
“Might we tempt you to join us?” I gestured to the carved settee between our seats. “Unless Casimir left landmines in the upholstery.”
Her giggle surprised me, a clear bell peal at odds with the shadows beneath her eyes.
“I’d count more on Zane hiding a whoopee cushion.”
She perched on the edge, and I cataloged each sign of abuse: Sunken cheeks, blue veins mapping translucent wrists, the faint tremor in her crossed ankles. My knuckles whitened around my book’s cover.
“First, I owe you an apology, Seri. My blindness to Arabesque’s machinations nearly cost my sons their heart. That error won’t be repeated.”
Her head tilted, golden curls slipping over one shoulder.
“It wasn’t your mistake. You didn’t know she—” Pale fingers fluttered to her throat, as if an invisible collar was tightening.
“We’re aware of the constraints.” Sebastian leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Casi briefed us before they left. The silence shackle, siphoning, all of it.”
“You know everything?” Eyes widening, she glanced between us.
“Enough to start building gallows,” he growled, and she leaned away from him and closer to me.
“Then maybe we could discuss something I don’t understand?”
Ask, I willed her. Let me prove myself.
“Certainly, daughter-in-law. We live to untangle conspiracies before dinner,” I assured her.
“It’s about my father. Jonathan Bell. He was an earth witch.
Powerful, but not ambitious. I’ve always wondered why Arabesque chose him.
We weren’t rich, not by any means. The farm was modest, but we always had enough.
Then she and her daughters arrived, and it was like the money just disappeared.
I couldn’t even afford new shoes when mine wore out. ”
“I heard Casi threw a tantrum about that,” Sebastian smirked. “I believe he called them ‘podiatric abominations with aglets.’ ”
“Zane shouldn’t have told you that,” she chided.
“Which part?” His grin turned wolfish. “The rant? Or how our resident cyborg spent hours researching the best replacements?”
“They’re comfy and practical.” She held up a foot to display a pristine white sneaker with soles thick enough to survive a zombie apocalypse, then ducked her head as a pretty blush stained her cheeks. “He knelt and put them on me himself.”
My chest tightened. Casimir hadn’t knelt since age seven, when he’d vowed to never again beg for mercy.
“Dark take it, I wish I’d seen that!” Sebastian choked on his laughter. “Casi playing Cinderella’s valet.”
“Let me guess. Waterproof, GPS-tracked, and doubles as a flamethrower?” I murmured.
“Antimicrobial lining, actually.” For the first time, her smile reached those wounded-doe eyes. “They bought me a whole new wardrobe, too. Koko made me. We shopped on his phone.”
“Good.” I nodded once.