Chapter 37
I’m not breathing. Raker doesn’t look shaken in the slightest. He shrugs. “I know that you’re miserable creatures sustained by blood. You drink it. You paint your walls with it. You probably fuck in it. You have to be around it, all the time, or you’ll go mad with hunger.”
My eyes widen, looking at Raker as if he’s just lost his mind. We are humans. Standing in front of an immortal bloodbane. A word I’d only ever heard spoken in legends.
Vander’s grin is a mixture of amused and poisonous.
Raker keeps fucking going. “Mortal blood is preferable to immortals, isn’t it? Not tainted by magic?”
I swallow, and Vander’s eyes go straight to my throat.
But he does not move a muscle. “As I said before,” he tells me, “if I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead.” The veins on his hands stick out more than usual.
His face is severe; he looks almost pained.
Like he’s using every shred of his immortal strength to stand still.
The words grind out of him. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to feed.
And … as much as I would like to keep you alive …
whatever you two were doing in here has your blood pounding.
” He’s looking at me. His eyes flash with nothing short of hunger as he stares at my neck.
The skin there prickles. “Get out of this room, Aris,” he rasps.
I don’t need to be told again. Almost to the door, I hear him say, “Bathe. Change. Then we’ll speak to the heirs.”
It takes two baths and endless scrubbing to get the blood off my arms. Even then, I can still feel it on me.
I can’t believe we didn’t smell it before, in the room. I was too caught up with Raker’s gods-damned soap to notice. Not just his soap, really.
Vander was right that day when he said I should be running for the gates. But he was also right when he said he could kill me in an instant if he wanted to.
I’m not going anywhere. Not until I get the invitations I need.
Vander didn’t order Raker to be chained again, perhaps knowing it would be useless.
He’s waiting in my room when I walk out in nothing but a towel.
I go still—but he doesn’t turn to face me.
He’s looking at the walls, unimpressed. His gaze narrows on everything, as if he is finding fault after fault. I roll my eyes at him.
On my bed sits another gown. I smooth my hand across the wall in a silent thank-you to the mysterious powers of the house before slipping back into the bathroom to put it on.
This dress is lilac, just like the flowers I saw near the Prism Pass. Now that I don’t have to hide, it has a low-cut bodice that’s curved and pointed at each end like a scythe, and a silk skirt. I love it.
The only thing I don’t love about it are all the ties in the back. I’m able to get the ones at the base of my spine, but then I can’t reach any higher. I try for several minutes in vain to do it myself, before giving up. I walk out of the bathroom, only to find Raker still frowning at everything.
“I need—I need your help.”
He doesn’t move an inch.
I roll my eyes and turn. “Please, I just—These cursed corsets …”
His voice is punishing. “If you think I’m going to tie your dress—”
I sigh. “Fine. I’ll ask Van—”
The name isn’t out of my mouth before he’s roughly tugging me back by the strings of my corset, squeezing my ribs, choking the words out of me.
I whip my head back to glare at him.
He’s scowling. “Let’s get this over with.” He starts to tie the strings, muttering curses and something about why dresses are so damned complicated.
It almost makes me smile, then seize as he squeezes the air out of my lungs again.
I laugh ruefully. “Famed knight can cut down an entire army without a mark on his armor … but can’t tie a corset.
” I turn to see him glaring down at the strings as if they have personally insulted him.
“I’m sure you’ve untied plenty of them.”
At that, his eyes slowly drag up to meet mine. They are hard as steel. “Do you want me to untie it, Aris?” he asks, his voice a low rumble along my bones.
I stop breathing. I think about him pressed up against me. His length between my legs. How it felt to writhe against it. My throat goes dry, remembering. Imagining.
I’m dragged out of the thought by Raker roughly pulling on the strings with far too much force, choking me again, like he’s taking out his frustration on them.
When he’s done, he doesn’t even look at me before striding toward the doors.
“Don’t kill anyone,” I say, still fighting for breath. Anyone else, I guess.
He looks over his shoulder at me. His eyes slip down my dress, gaze snagging on my chest, which I can feel spilling from the top of my bodice since he tied it so damned tightly. “Be happy if I don’t kill everyone,” he says, before slamming the door behind him.
Vander has gathered some of the heirs in a room.
He’s picked the ones most likely to sympathize with my cause—including Magnus and the other three who I had previously marked, given the locations of their estates.
I’ve already danced with all of them. The ball is still going.
I can hear the trill of music and laughter just down the hall.
Raker and I stand in the room as the heirs argue. They keep going on and on about a prophecy without naming it. They keep talking about a paladin that was promised.
“What’s the prophecy?” I finally demand. The room goes quiet.
Sixteen glittering eyes fix on me. Not one of the heirs speaks.
Finally, Vander sighs. “We can’t tell you, human,” he says.
I frown. “Why?”
“Prophecies are heirlooms, passed along and earned like blades. It would break the vow of our swords. Even if we wanted to tell you, we couldn’t,” Vander says.
“And we don’t,” Lord Ashcroft says lazily.
Fine. I don’t care about a fucking prophecy. I just want to get an invitation to the closest estate possible.
“Why are you arguing about it now?” I ask. In front of us. I look at Vander, my eyes saying, I thought we were trying to get me alliances?
His eyes drift away, and that’s when I blink.
“Wait. Do you think … I have something to do with it?”
I expect them to laugh in my face. To roll their glimmering eyes at the fact that some mortal thought she was the paladin that was promised.
But instead of ridicule … I’m met with silence.
I back up a step. I look to Vander, silently pleading him to tell me I’m wrong. Finally, he does meet my gaze again. But it looks sad.
Whatever the prophecy is, it can’t be fucking good.
Still … it’s apparently a good enough outcome for some of these heirs that Vander is bringing it up now …
As a reason to help me.
“We don’t know for certain if it’s about you,” Lord Ashcroft finally says, as if he heavily doubts it. But that’s confirmation enough.
They think there’s a chance I fulfill this mysterious prophecy.
My blood goes cold. Is that why the gods are after me? The God of Death, in particular?
Do I actually have a chance at killing the gods, like I promised?
Lord Ashcroft shakes his head. “I don’t believe it. The prophecy can be interpreted in different ways.” With one last long, lingering look at me, he strides out of the room.
Vander looks at the door, shoulders tense. Then he turns back to the rest of the heirs. “If it isn’t her, then why is there a bounty? Why do they want her dead?”
Magnus looks deep in thought. “The gods are thorough. They’ll eliminate anything they believe fits. It doesn’t mean it’s her.” He seems hopeful it’s not. Which again, makes me desperate to know what it is.
There are murmurings of agreement.
“But if it is?” Vander’s voice silences the room. “Do you want to take that risk? Not helping her now?”
More murmurs. More whispers.
More debate. One by one, heirs walk out of the room, one ignoring me, one shooting me an apologetic glance, one outright ogling, until only four remain.
One is Magnus. “You know where I stand, Aris,” he says, saying my name just as gently as he held me. Then, he reaches into his perfectly pressed jacket … and pulls out a necklace made of diamonds the size of the town weaver’s buttons. He offers it to me.
My lips part. It sparkles so brightly, my eyes hurt looking at it The cost of the silver chain alone—
“I—I can’t accept this.”
“Please,” he says, his voice so tender it reminds me of dancing beneath strings of starlight. “I insist.”
I nod, if only not to be rude.
“May I?” he asks.
I nod again, and he walks around me. His fingers lightly brush the nape of my neck as he clasps the lock.
I don’t feel anything at all. No chill down my spine.
No flurry in my stomach. “There,” he says, admiring me.
“Now you shine brighter than the stars and the moon combined.” He bows.
“The invitation to my House is always open. I hope to see you again soon, Aris.”
With that, he walks out of the room.
I frown, still dazed by the gift, wondering if it’s some part of this Heartfall Courting Ball, when another heir approaches me.
His eyes are dark as night, just like his hair.
His skin is pale. Lord Rodin—the heir of the House Vander says is secretly working against the God of Death. The one I need the most.
He looks me up and down with relish. His blade has a black stone in its hilt, and its edges are slightly brighter than the rest of its metal, as if it’s recently been sharpened. He buries it into the ground before me. “You have my oath, human,” he says.
And my knees nearly buckle in relief as I press my blade to his.
I don’t need any others now. His estate is the closest to the Land of the Gods.
I actually fucking did it.
Relief wins out against the revulsion of his heated gaze.