Chapter 21
EIRA
Dawn sneaks in pale and thin at the edges of the curtains, and I wake feeling as if I’ve spent the night being hunted through my own skull.
Which, to be fair, is not far from the truth.
Sleep came in ugly fragments. Valentin’s voice. Valentin’s mouth. Those two cursed words tolling through me like a bell I could not un-hear.
Fated mate.
Because apparently my subconscious has no dignity and no sense of timing, one moment I was replaying his horrible calm as he said Lyra Hannigan was his, and the next I was back in that impossible half-dream, flying through black sky and silver wind, his body hard behind mine, his arm locked around my middle.
And beneath my palm, beneath the open collar of his shirt, that same throbbing thing I’d felt in the dream before I ever glimpsed it in real life.
I woke with my fingers curled in the sheets and the memory of his refusal lodged behind my teeth.
What was that mark?
Tattoo would be the simple answer.
Unfortunately, vampires and simple answers don’t tend to share postcodes.
Most can’t hold normal ink because their skin heals too fast and pushes it out before it sets.
I’ve heard of some using traces of silver to slow healing long enough for marks to take, but that kind of vanity usually belongs to younger vampires with too much money and not enough fear, or ancient ones bored enough to flirt with discomfort for aesthetics.
Valentin Moretti is many things. A man who sits still while someone pokes silver into his skin for decoration does not feel like one of them.
So what did I see?
The question hums at the back of my mind, all hooked curiosity and bad instincts, and I force it aside because I have a more immediate problem than mystery skin art.
I’m due back at the Tower.
By morning, he said. Or else.
Hoo-fucking-ray.
I scrub a hand over my face and drag myself up, then move through my routine with clipped efficiency.
Shower. Teeth. Hair.
Clothes chosen for movement over style. Dark layers that won’t catch, flash, or slow me down if things go sideways.
Then weapons, because if I’m walking into a vampire’s nest carrying the knowledge that I am Lyra Hannigan while he’s out there hunting Lyra Hannigan on a blood-bound destiny quest, I’m not doing it unarmed.
Widow’s Fang settles against me with familiar weight.
Mercy Pin. Wire. Bolts. Knuckles. Every piece a reassurance. Every concealed edge a reminder that panic is a luxury and preparation is not.
By the time I’m done, my stomach is tight and empty, my nerves too close to the surface.
I reach for my phone and call Tezra.
It rings. And rings.
No answer.
I frown at the screen and glance at the time. Tezra takes weird jobs and sometimes vanishes into weird spaces. He can technically cover absurd distances in seven seconds, but somehow still manages to be late when his sizeable belly is running on empty.
I wait ten seconds, then call again. Even if he’s mid-run, he usually sends a message as soon as he lands.
Busy. Can’t. You alive?
Something.
Nothing. The second call dies.
I stare at the screen long enough for irritation to sharpen into unease. Not a great start to the morning when my favourite supernatural taxi is ghosting me.
‘Come on,’ I mutter, and try a third time. Then a fourth.
By the fourth, the silence isn’t silence any more. It’s a thing with bones.
I don’t leave a message because Tezra hates voicemail on principle and once told me only debt collectors and emotionally unstable exes leave voice notes.
I stand in my kitchen with my phone in my hand and the urge to call someone else gnawing at me.
Selphine?
No, thank you.
The woman drip-feeds support. Besides, I’m not ready to divulge the avalanche I rode into stupid-ville last night.
Not before I have to.
So I call the next teleporter on the list, shove the phone away, and head out.
Seven seconds later, I’m back in New York City.
The Tower rises over the morning, cold and arrogant, all glass and steel and money and secrets. By the time I step through security and into the private lift route, I’ve wrapped enough composure around myself to pass for merely annoyed.
Which, to be fair, is also true.
I’m met not by Malachi but by Aaron, another of the Black Twelve. I know his name before he gives it because I catalogue predators on sight, and he’s the sort who would be forgettable if he weren’t trying so hard to look harmless.
Lean rather than massive with dark hair tied low at the nape.
Clean planes, unreadable eyes, black suit cut close to a frame that looks deceptively elegant until he shifts and you catch the coiled economy underneath.
Where Malachi carries hostility like a blade, Aaron wears mildness like a trap set with good manners.
‘Hunter,’ he says, inclining his head.
‘Bodyguard Number Two,’ I reply, because if I start polite, I might lose momentum.
A corner of his mouth moves. ‘My name’s Aaron.’
‘Eira.’ I pause. ‘Unless your sire has renamed me this morning.’
His gaze flicks over me. ‘Not to my knowledge. He asked that I escort you to his private quarters. He is waiting to breakfast with you.’
I stare. ‘Breakfast.’
‘Yes.’
‘For me, or with me?’
That earns me an almost amused glance. ‘With you.’
‘Good to know. I’d hate to arrive underdressed for cannibal brunch.’
He says nothing, but his jaw shifts. It’s a tiny nick but I’ll take it.
As we walk, I use the silence like a pry bar. ‘Where’s Malachi?’
‘Out.’
‘Out where?’
‘Taking care of the sire’s business.’
‘That sounded rehearsed.’
‘It is sufficient and accurate for those who pry into business that doesn’t concern them.’
Ooh. Pointy. ‘It was vague at best.’
He looks at me properly then, with that almost-friendly expression that would fool a less paranoid woman. ‘And yet you understood it.’
‘You’re less charming than you think.’
‘I’ve never aspired to charm.’
‘Liar.’
His eyes narrow. ‘You know I cannot.’
Right.
Vampire rules. Can’t lie, can evade until the stars burn out.
Cute system.
We turn another corridor, the Tower doing its polished stone and controlled quiet routine.
I hate how quickly my body remembers it.
Hate more that another part of me, the traitorous recently kissed part, remembers this place as his and responds with a pulse low in my belly I absolutely do not have time for.
I ask the question that’s been chewing at me since dawn.
‘Do scents change with age? Like blood?’
Aaron’s brow lifts. ‘Excuse me?’
I flash a smile I don’t feel. ‘Humour me with a little Vampire 101. Do creatures smell different to you as they age?’
‘Not enough to alter who they truly are. Although…’ He glances ahead.
‘The same way different cuts of beef taste different depending on a sustained diet, some scents and blood can shift with sustained changes. Illness. Hormones. Certain medications. Long-term environmental exposure. Habitual use of herbs or compounds. But the emphasis is sustained. Surface alterations remain surface alterations.’
A cold little drop lands in my stomach.
Fuck.
‘And even then,’ he continues, ‘you cannot fool an older vampire if he knows your original scent. Not for long. Scent memory is not merely olfactory. It anchors to blood, chemistry, pattern, essence. Age refines it.’
Double fuck.
Also… ‘Did you just compare humans to beef?’
His eyes narrow. ‘I wasn’t aware we were discussing humans.’
I blink. ‘Who else would we be talking about? Vampires feed on human blood. Ergo…’ I gesture vaguely, because my brain is trying to process essence-pattern-anchor nightmare while also objecting to being placed in a butcher’s display. ‘But scents can change?’
‘What are you driving at, hunter?’
I’m pleased he didn’t say little hunter, which is absurd, because when his boss uses that stupid pet name it annoys the heck out of me.
Annoys.
And also… thrills?
Nope. I toss that directly into the trash fire.
‘Curiosity,’ I say lightly. ‘You all keep acting like scent is DNA, destiny and accounting software rolled into one, and I like to know the rules before I break them.’
Aaron gives me a look that says persistent nuisance and potentially unhinged.
Fair.
I open my mouth to push further, but he tenses mid-step.
Ah. I’m guessing that means Valentin is mind-talking with his guard, remote-managing while probably directing the precise angle of a fruit platter and being obscenely composed about it.
I clamp my lips shut and count two beats, waiting for the aftertaste in Aaron’s face.
When the tension eases from his shoulders, I tilt my head. ‘Boss up your ass already?’
Aaron’s mouth goes flat. ‘Careful. That unruly tongue will get ripped out one of these days.’
I widen my eyes. ‘Wow. And people say romance is dead.’
‘This is not romance.’
‘Funny, your boss said the same thing.’
That lands. Aaron’s gaze cuts to me sharply. I smile, all teeth and innocence I absolutely do not possess.
He says nothing for the next stretch, which means I’ve either won the exchange or added my name to a private list titled ‘People to Dispose of Later’.
Hard to say with vampires.
By the time we reach the top levels, Selphine’s potion is humming faintly under my skin, the top-up I took before leaving giving a subtle bolster to the edges of my mind. Not safe, by any stretch, but steadier.
More myself.
Which is good, because the moment we step into Valentin’s penthouse and I see him, every scrap of composure I stitched together this morning threatens to slide clean off.
He stands near the windows in a dark shirt and tailored trousers, sleeves unrolled today, all long lines and impossible poise, one hand resting on the back of a chair like he was carved there specifically to ruin women’s judgement before breakfast.
Morning light catches his hair and skims his cheekbone, and I’m abruptly, furiously aware that I know exactly what he tastes like. Is that why this feels different today? Worse? Better? More dangerous?
That is the problem now. Attraction is no longer abstract irritation. It has a reference point.
Fresh Netheris hellfire.