Chapter 24 #3
I force my focus past her parted lips, past the peaked nipples I want to suckle with a need bordering on manic, and back to the Heartshard Glass.
‘The five of us established dominions,’ I say, voice lower now, roughened in spite of myself. ‘Five Blood Thrones. New York. Chicago. London. Ireland. Sicily. Distinct territories. Distinct houses. Systems built so our kind would not devolve into chaos in the dark and call it freedom.’
Eira stills in my arms. ‘Wait. Is Don Rafe Navarro one of them?’
I tense. ‘You know the vampire who rules Chicago?’ The question comes out harsher than intended. ‘Have you crossed paths with him?’
She shakes her head. ‘Crossed paths, no. But I’ve hunted in his city. It’s good to know what you’re up against when you enter a territory.’
I realise my grip has tightened on her arm and loosen it. ‘Yes. Rafael Navarro is one of my blood brothers.’
She gives a shallow gasp. ‘And the one in London. Damian Vale?’
My teeth grind at hearing their names from her lips. Even slightly incorrect.
‘Lord Dorian Vale. Also correct.’
Before she can offer more names, I continue.
‘There are rules to holding territory. Like feeding boundaries and siring restrictions. Enforcement structures. Pacts of noninterference except under agreed circumstances. We do not move openly against one another’s seats without consequence or poach power carelessly, especially when that power will ignite wars we cannot contain.
When our wars spill into the human world, mortals notice. When mortals notice, deaths multiply.’
A tiny huff escapes her. ‘Good to know you’re all capable of strategic thought.’
I ignore the barb, though my cock digs deeper between the firm curves of her ass.
Sweet demons of Netheris. What I would give to sink there in this moment.
‘Despite our preferred aversion to interaction, our connection remains,’ I say, noting the strain in my voice. ‘Blood remembers blood. Distance dulls many things, but not all. Each brother’s scent is ingrained in my every sense. In my blood.’
She grasps it instantly. ‘And you felt one of them today?’
I nod. ‘I caught a trace in the alley that should not have been there. Familiar enough that I knew it before my mind named it. But I think it was an emissary rather than the sender himself.’
‘Would someone act without one of your brothers’ express permission?’
Highly unlikely.
Not unless whatever they sought was greater than their fear of having their heads torn from their shoulders by one of the Five Blood.
I do not say that aloud.
Not yet.
She feels the omission in the way I go still, and she twists slightly, trying to read my face in the Glass.
Clever thing.
‘So someone from your’ – she searches for a term and settles, predictably, on irreverence – ‘founding vampire club is in your city, killing contractors and investigators?’
‘Perhaps. Or someone carrying old blood, old scent, old allegiance. Do not simplify what remains unproven. I need to reach out to be certain. Assumptions are dangerous in my realm.’
‘But you think it’s connected. All the signs point that way, right? If it quacks like a duck…’
‘Yes.’
Her breathing has gone shallow now, not with desire but with the shape of the stakes. ‘Who, Valentin? Who do you think is behind the deaths?’
I consider my words carefully.
‘Someone with resources enough to build precision traps in my territory and conceal them in noise,’ I say. ‘Someone with access to old methods and modern cover, willing to eliminate peripheral actors before they become threads. That suggests fear, not bravado.’
‘Fear of what?’
‘Change. Exposure. Consolidation.’ I let the words settle. ‘And perhaps fear of what follows if I succeed.’
She turns her face more fully, enough that her hair brushes my jaw. ‘Succeed. In finding… her? Your f-fated mate?’
My mark throbs in protest, as though I could have forgotten it. ‘Yes.’
A faint shiver travels through her. ‘But why won’t they want you to bond with Lyra?’
And therein lies the true question beneath all the others.
I look away from the Glass, from our impossible reflections standing together like a warped prophecy. Misplaced, because the woman in front of me is not the right one, despite the unvarnished craving in my blood for her.
For the first time since I began speaking, the answer catches.
Here is where omission becomes strategy, and strategy becomes cowardice.
I have no taste for either when it concerns this.
My jaw tightens hard enough to ache.
I could evade. Name power and rivals and inheritance and leave the marrow hidden.
But she has already been drawn into bloodshed for my sake. Tezra is dead. The investigator was murdered. Eira is now a point of pressure whether I approve of it or not.
If I want her cooperation, I cannot keep speaking around the centre.
I release her shoulders slowly and step half a pace back, enough to put space between my body and hers before the mark and my blood and my appetite make a liar of my composure again.
When I speak, my voice is quieter than before.
‘Because if I do not find and bond with my fated mate within three years,’ I say, each word precise as a cut, ‘I will perish.’