Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Blue Lotus Palace, Blood Kingdom
Freya
“Stay close,” Lanlin murmurs like warm honey.
“Not a problem,” I mutter, hurriedly walking faster to catch up with him past a courtyard.
My eyes widen at sight of the writhing, naked vampires who are rutting, as if in a frenzied dance, beside deep pools that reflect the stars in the courtyard, which is open to the night sky.
Blue lotus flowers, the color of twilight, glisten on the water’s surface. Their sweet scent is overpowering like the rhythmic, sensual beat of drums and ecstatic flute melody.
The music is hypnotic.
The vampires are lost to the passion, kissing, fucking, and biting.
Suddenly, my breath hitches.
I catch a glimpse of twitching shadow deer ears and cute wagging tails.
Are the vampires feeding from Shadow Humans?
Scarlet runs down long, pale throats. Groans of pain and pleasure mingle like there is no difference between the two. The breeze sighs through the date and fig trees, as loudly as those of the nest of vampires.
Are these the Scarlet Temple Omegas? Can they take off their veils along with everything else, to rut with the Fang Born Alphas?
To feast on Shadow Humans?
I tug on the back of Lanlin’s robe. “Are these Shadow Humans? They’re kind of a myth to wolves.”
“To us, they’re how we survive. They worship us as dark gods, offering up their blood.
They also farm the land around our city that provides our food and drink, which we don’t need to live but enjoy for the pleasure it brings us.
The Shadow Humans are trained in a Blood Lovers Guild.
Like fae, they are close to nature. We call them Harts and Hinds.
” He glances over his shoulder at me. “Do you wish one to join our nest?”
“Nope, beautiful as they look, I have more than enough on my hands with Dove and you. Where is our fae? Did you call a healer for him?”
Lanlin stiffens, stalking toward an archway.
“Dove is settling into his new chambers. He’s being taken care of.” Lanlin’s voice is cool, but there is an edge to it that I can’t read. It unsettles me. “Now we have time alone, dearheart, I want to show you my court and help you learn how to survive it.”
When he turns to face me, I am taken aback by the intensity of his gaze. This close to him, I find it hard to breathe.
I simply nod.
Lanlin’s gaze drops to my lips like he’s desperate to kiss me, but he doesn’t.
I remember the first touch of his lips, after he fought so fiercely against Daire for the right yesterday in the sparring session.
It had been thrilling to watch two powerful Alphas battling to impress me and win for my sake.
Any Omega would be turned on.
By the time that Lanlin’s lips touched mine, I’d melted.
Yet I could also feel from his hesitancy, and the way that he felt out each move, that it was Lanlin’s first kiss.
It was delicious to take the lead, showing him how to deepen it.
The raw adoration in his eyes set me on fire.
The fact that Lanlin wears all his clothes in bed, never removes his gloves, and flinches from touch, makes me think that I may be all his firsts.
Especially with what Aurelius and Wraith told me about the Bat King. He has been obsessed with finding me for three years.
Has he truly survived without rutting another Omega?
What has he done for blood?
He must have drunk from Blood Lovers, right?
My guts twist.
Wicked as he is, can I use Lanlin’s innocence — at least, in being a virgin — against him like the dragons want?
It’s not a trick or tactic.
I can’t play these games like Daire does. These firsts are special, and if I spend them with Lanlin, then he will be my mate.
And I will fight for him.
My hand falls to the iron dagger at my side, which has a curved hilt like a crescent moon. It is strapped at my waist to the linen dress, which is decorated with a carnelian sun.
When I first woke up this evening, Lanlin was kneeling next to the bed.
He was holding up the dagger with an expectant look. “Something stabby.”
I laughed, sleepily. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I shouldn’t?” He started to pull the dagger away, but I sat up hurriedly and snatched it away from him.
“You really should. Thanks, it’s perfect.”
“It belonged to my mother, Queen KalaKant. She had two of them, but the High Priestess stole one to use in her ceremonies. They are famous weapons within the Blood Court. Legend says that they were crafted from iron that fell from the sky, which is why they are named the Night Sky Blades. They have slaughtered many fae. A queen’s dagger for the new Queen. ”
I grimaced in disgust only just stopping myself from dropping the weapon.
It was the thought that counted.
“It can kill Bloods too, right?” I weighted the dagger in my hands.
Lanlin arched his brow. “It depends where you’re intending to stick it. Why? Do you have any in mind?”
“Whoever put that bruise on your cheek.”
Lanlin raised his hand to touch the deep bruise underneath his purpling eye. I have seen him tear apart entire armies, snarling in primal delight at their death cries. I have watched his bodyguard demonic lions savaging his own half-brother.
He sparred with Daire, but his face wasn’t bruised last night.
Who would Lanlin have allowed to hit him like that? Because having seen him fight, I now know that he would have had to let them.
“Isis claimed all of my mother’s possessions as hers, taking them into Crocodile House after the Queen’s death.” He stood with a swish of his robe. “Isis was displeased that I claimed back, as is my birthright, that dagger.”
“But you’re the King. KalaKant’s son. The last vampire of the House of Sin.”
Lanlin leaned down to cage me. “My dear, you say that, as if they are protections, rather than the reasons that the consort and her sons would have to hate me. They are the most loved and powerful Fang Born nobles at court. I am the bestial freak whose own parents disowned and sent to be raised in White Lotus, until I was old enough to be taken into the Scarlet Temple and turned into a killer.” His fangs gleamed in the light, and I tightened my hand around the dagger.
“I didn’t even see my mother, whose dagger you’re clutching, before her death.
I hear that she was a fearsome warrior.”
“You admire her.”
“Do I?”
“Loved her…?” My voice wavered.
Lanlin licked across his fangs. “I hated her.” My eyes widened in shock. “Because she betrayed me. That is something I can never forgive. Do you understand how it feels to have someone who should love you, instead destroy you?”
Don’t react, don’t react, don’t…
I paled, trembling.
My heart raced. My pulse thundered in my ears.
I slowly counted to ten in my head, focusing on each part of my body, as Wraith had taught me to stop me from giving myself away. “Yeah, I do. My first mate rejected my bond.”
Lanlin’s eyes glowed with fury. “Cursed cur. Tell me his name, and I will gift you his pelt to keep you warm in the winter.”
“It hurts too much to talk about.”
Bard, you owe me.
Lanlin’s expression softened. “I never wish to hurt you, dearheart. I don’t talk to anyone but my rats about these things, but you… I feel like I can with you. Hating my mother became more complicated after she was killed by that villainous fae, King Daire.”
Oh, fuck.
My heart beat even more wildly. Lanlin must be able to hear it. Even my pulse is throbbing in my throat. His gaze is fixed on it.
“Weren’t they fighting a battle?” I ventured. “It was a fair fight in war. Plus, she was decades older than him. Look, I’m glad that we have peace now because this war has killed too many people. It’s just that—”
“It was an ambush,” Lanlin snarled. “It’s not that Mother died. Soldiers die in war. It’s what happened at the funeral. It’s everything that it has led to after.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To survive my court, you must understand that my brothers and sisters were raised here to rule. I wasn’t.
But that was why they all attended a private memorial at the tombs in White Lotus, while I and the consort and her sons didn’t.
We were too low status. During funerals, you drink from a holy pool beside the tombs.
My family didn’t know that Maximinus had poisoned it with silver.
For months after, the royal family sickened and died one by one, until I was the last vampire left of the House of Sin. ”
Horrified, I reached up and clasped my arms around Lanlin without thinking.
He flinched, but for the first time, he didn’t pull away. “Don’t...don’t stop holding me.”
Surprised, I pulled him closer, stroking my hand down his back.
Lanlin was still stiff, but I tried to show as much affection and support as I could without overwhelming him.
Had he ever been held like this?
Certainly, not by his asshole mom. And I couldn’t imagine that he had been by that freaky Nebet in the Scarlet Temple.
Has he been shown love by anyone?
“I was fifteen,” Lanlin whispered like the words were being wrenched from deep in his soul.
“On my heart, I still hoped that once my training was complete, my family would wish to see me. But then, they were all gone, and the Crocodile House locked me into their punishment pits. I don’t know how long I was locked in that dark.
My half-brothers would take turns trying to break me.
They didn’t but they came close. I was only released because the kingdom was falling apart into civil war — risked losing to the Shadow Dragons — without a king from the House of Sin on the throne.
The people believe that our dynasty is blessed by the Void Devils.
Kingship, power, and status are nothing but dancing shadows. ”
“You mean bullshit.”
Lanlin’s lips twitched. “On the other hand, they are good weapons to fuck our enemies.”
Now, I follow this vampire, who I understand more than I did before, through the labyrinthine corridors that echo to sighs of pleasure and sensual music, yet don’t understand at all.