Chapter 13 #2
He is king in name. Yet he is as much a rejected, outcast orphan, as both Daire and I are in reality.
“Do you have a Blood Lover who you feed from, when you leave me at night?” I ask, carefully. “It’s been days, and you haven’t drunk from Dove yet. You must be starving otherwise.”
Lanlin stills. “That would dishonor Dove.”
“That’s not an answer.”
A pair of beautiful vampires dance and kiss, twirling past me in nothing but snake-like lapis lazuli collars. They are so lost in each other that they don’t appear to notice Lanlin.
“My fangs ache with such agony that I have considered tearing them out,” Lanlin replies like I am not staring at him in horror.
“They have for the years that I have not been able to sink them into your throat. I will not sully my fangs with anyone’s skin but my fated mate’s.
I have witnessed here, also in the Scarlet Temple, how pleasurable the bite is.
For an Omega, it is like being rutted but by fangs.
It is the deepest ecstasy that a Shadow Vampire can experience: blood, desire, and intimacy.
I merely drink donated Blood Lover’s blood, however, from glass goblets; it tastes rancid. ”
He turns quickly and prowls further down the corridor.
That was weirdly romantic.
Also, sad.
Lanlin pushes open a low door, before glancing over his shoulder to make sure that I am following him.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand. “There must be actual dancing going on or…”
“I’m taking you to start your lessons in my language. Aren’t you interested in my hieroglyph magic, my dear? You have looked through my papers several times.”
I freeze.
Shit, shit, shit.
I should have known that he could tell I’d rifled through the items on his desk. Was it by the trace of my scent?
I try not to shake. “How did you…?”
“I’m an assassin. I notice things. And you found my drawings. Still, it was a guess, until you admitted it to me by your answer.”
Fuck a troll.
It should be Wraith here on this mission, rather than me.
Lanlin is too good at this.
I give an awkward laugh. “You caught me. I would often borrow…okay, steal…books from the elite in Fang Court to study rune magic. As an orphan Omega, I spent most of my time on my knees scrubbing the floors. But I dreamed of learning magic.”
“By my heart, what barbaric kingdom would treat any Omega as a servant? I give you my blood oath that if it is within my power, you will never need to steal to make your dreams come true again.”
I smirk. “What if I like stealing?”
Lanlin tilts his head to study me. “Then you shall be my Thief Queen.”
My cheeks flush.
He would accept even that side of me…?
“This is my favorite room in the palace.” A genuine smile flits across Lanlin’s lips.
I like it and wish that I could put it there myself.
“It’s called The House of Life, a sacred archive, where knowledge is kept alive.
Nebet only allowed me out of the temple to one place — this room.
My tutor was Heka, a vampire mage. He taught me hieroglyph magic.
” He rests against the archway. “I was feral, when Nebet brought me to him. A little monster who bit and clawed, furious at the world. I was beaten for it, but when I bit Heka the first time, he didn’t hit me back.
He calmly said, “I will prove that you’re safe with me, my Prince.
Also, how to turn those fangs into weapons against your true enemies.
Everybody is a monster in their own way.
” He was the first person to call me prince or to treat me like I was worthy of the title. ”
Lanlin hasn’t spoken about anyone with this quiet warmth before.
“Why wasn’t Heka in court the other day? Can I meet him?” I ask.
I am glad that Lanlin at least had someone in his corner, when he was young.
“As you wish. I should warn you that Heka is a hermit, obsessed with his study and experiments. Don’t expect him to take part in court life.”
Lanlin pushes through into the House of Life, and I follow him eagerly.
The room is long and cool. It is lit by the moonlight that slips through high slits in the thick, limestone walls, along with hissing lamps in niches.
I scrunch up my nose at the scent of papyrus, ink, and cedarwood.
Along the walls stand rows of wooden shelves that hold clay jars of tightly rolled parchment scrolls.
Lanlin is a warrior. An assassin. Supreme Commander of his army.
But he was also raised here as a scholar.
I love this side of him.
I find myself grinning as I rush to run my fingers over the ancient, yellowed parchments that are as delicate as moths’ wings, which are laid on the low table in the center of the room.
My fingers tingle in the way they do when I can sense ancient relics, talismans, and magical artifacts that are worth a thief’s time.
I flick over a parchment to study the beautiful but complex hieroglyphs. “This is how you want to court me…? By giving me a dagger and training me in dangerous magics?”
For the first time, Lanlin looks uncertain. “I had hoped so.”
I give a sharp grin. “Add in those chocolates you promised, and I’ll grade you top marks.”
Lanlin’s shoulders relax. “They are waiting for you in the chamber. I made them wolf shaped and topped them with rose petals. Then I can eat you.”
My mouth dries.
He can eat me in other ways too.
My pussy throbs its agreement.
Lanlin smiles slowly, revealing his fangs.
I shiver.
I force myself to turn back to the papers on the table, which lie between reed pens and ink pallets of smooth stone. The table is ringed with dried ink and the faint smudges of ochre.
I take a deep sniff.
What is that coppery tang? Is blood mixed into the ink?
“Dove would love this.” I rock on my heels. “He has been teaching me rune magic, which is also his special thing. You know, you two would get on; you’d be surprised. As your Omega, I’m telling you that I want both of you.”
Lanlin looks troubled. “Fae are my enemy.”
“But Dove isn’t.”
“And what was his name before he became a pet?”
The skin of my neck prickles with alarm, along with the sense of being circled by a predator, as Lanlin crosses behind me.
I pick up a reed pen, playing with it between my fingers. “Does it matter? Does any of the past?”
Like vampires massacring the Orm Court…
Lanlin is so close behind me that I can feel his hot breath on my neck. I am wet with slick, but at the same time, my brain is screaming danger.
I am frozen, as Lanlin gently reaches to clasp his gloved hand over mine and guide the pen into the ink.
“The past is everything that we are, just as the spirits of our ancestors live with us now.” Lanlin’s chest is pressed against my back. My breathing becomes fast and shallow. “You can’t simply forget or escape it, no matter how much you desire to.”
“But aren’t we forging something new together?”
I don’t realize until I say it how much I fucking wish that it was true. This isn’t one of Wraith’s tricks. I have been sleeping in a nest that smells now of both sunshine and incense.
I have sat on Lanlin’s throne, declared as both his Omega and Queen.
He has courted and claimed me. He feels like pack.
I didn’t expect that.
What happens to Aurelius, the other king who is also pack and who I fiercely love, if I don’t go through with the plan on the Blood Moon?
How can I choose which Alpha to sacrifice?
My expression tightens.
I came to this kingdom believing that at least I would not like Lanlin. But I have glimpsed sweetness beneath his hard facade like the way that he made me honey and date cakes and leaves cheese out each night for his rats.
Lanlin may be monstrous, but I don’t believe that he’s the monster he’s been taught he is.
He didn’t kill my parents; his bitch mother, KalaKant did with Ulf’s blessing.
Should a child be blamed for his parents’ sins?
This was never our war, but we are all paying for it.
Lanlin turns over the parchment to a fresh page. “Shall I show you how to draw something?”
I nod, enthusiastically.
The feel of Lanlin’s glove against my skin is cold but softer than I am expecting, as he is careful to keep his claws curled away from me.
“This is the Ankh, the key of life.” He guides my hand with the pen to the unblemished paper surprisingly gently, drawing with sweeping arcs to create a symbol that combines a circle at the top of a cross like a handle.
“It is a powerful part of our magic. It represents our immortality through the drinking of blood.” My skin prickles, when he lightly grazes his fangs along my throat, before drawing back with what feels like an effort and kissing my shivering skin instead.
“Also, the eternal love between an Alpha and Omega. It is the bond mark of the House of Sin.”
The first magical symbol that he’s showing me is something as intimate as his bond mark…?
My hand jerks, smearing the symbol.
I pull a face. “Whoops, I ruined it.”
“You did no such thing. Nothing is perfect, no matter how much we wish it may be. This was your first try. I shall treasure it.”
“It would be easier if you took off your gloves,” I suggest. “I would love to feel your touch…”
With Lanlin’s uncanny speed, he lets go of me, slinking around the table, as if he needs to have the distance and barrier between us.
We stand looking at each other.
“You don’t need to do anything that you’re uncomfortable with,” I say, softly. “I just…
Lanlin narrows his eyes. “I am not uncomfortable.”
“Uh-huh, that’s why you jumped the whole way across the room just at the suggestion of holding my hand. The other vampires who we passed in that courtyard were doing a lot more than that, and you had no problem showing off your frankly gorgeous naked body to me after your bath.”
His eyes narrow further. “Am I meant to bathe in clothes?”
“Help me out here, my darkness. We’re kissing one moment and the next…”
Lanlin hisses around his fangs like a bristling cat. “My lips are not poisonous.”
“Good to know.”
He slams his hand down on the table, overspilling the ink that pools like blood over the parchments. “You don’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I was raised in the Scarlet Temple, where sex and death are entwined, but you are trained in only one. Some are raised to worship the Shadow Devils with their bodies, while I was trained to worship it with death.”
I meet his gaze steadily. “You didn’t choose that.”
He pushes his hair angrily out of his face.
“Does it matter? Fate chose it for me by cursing me with The Power. My mother betrayed me into the hands of the High Priestess. I have been told my entire life that I was too dangerous to have an Omega or a nest.” He glances down at his hands.
“Nebet ordered me to wear these gloves. She told me that my touch was death. And, my dear, these gloves have been coated with more scarlet than you could possibly imagine.”
What’s most frightening is that I am not horrified to imagine just how many people Lanlin has killed as a trained assassin and soldier for Nebet and this kingdom, but that a child could have been taught such lies about themselves.
I remember holding my own hand underneath the bedclothes at night, as an orphan Omega without any family, trying to imagine what it would be like for someone else to hold it.
Daire grasps mine now with the deep need of a child thrust into adulthood too soon.
I struggle to control my rage. “You call me your Queen. Well, then you are my King. And I won’t let anyone force my King into wearing something that he doesn’t want to, as if it is a collar and leash.
Fuck that knotless witch. Nebet has been persecuting people with your amazing powers for generations.
You do have a nest, and you are bonding.
So, you don’t need to wear those fucking gloves all the time. ”
Lanlin looks torn. “But what if…?”
“Then I’ll turn into a pile of ash or whatever.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.” It sort of was. “Come on, I dare you to hold my hand. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Lanlin growls, prowling around the table. “You are reckless.”
“One of my many good qualities.”
Lanlin takes a shuddering breath. Then he drags his right glove off his elegant hand, hurling it to the floor with a clank.
His chest is rising and falling. His eyes are wild, as if he is going into battle.
He is terrified.
“It will be fine.” I soothe him with my pheromones.
“I can’t risk—”
“I trust you.”
I raise my hand, holding it out but not touching Lanlin. I wait for him to make the move.
Slowly, as if he truly believes that I will be turned to ash, he moves his hand toward mine. He barely seems to be breathing.
Then he presses the pads of fingers toward mine, hovering just shy of touching.
At last, he grabs my hand like I will change my mind.
Yet the moment that Lanlin’s fingers close around mine, it isn’t death but rather pleasure that surges through my blood.
I collapse to the stone floor.
I’m being cradled in someone’s arms. Their hand is still squeezing mine. Their dark head is bent over my other wrist, and their fangs are latched over my pulse point, nuzzling and licking.
Yet I’m frozen, sunk in the sudden bond that has bound Lanlin and me.
I am trembling at the agonizing, bleak emotions that I can feel pulsing through the bond now from Lanlin: It is like staring at an abyss but knowing that even the abyss doesn’t want to look back.
I am sobbing. I can’t stop.
I am alone in the dark. I will be alone for eternity.
Is this what dying feels like?
What wanting to die feels like?
How does Lanlin keep on living, when it’s like half of his soul has been ripped away?
Dazed, I blink down at a black Ankh symbol that has appeared above Daire’s silver snowflake on my wrist.
A bond mark, a Shadow Vampire one for the House of Sin.
Numb, I watch as a matching one rises on Lanlin’s wrist.
I’ve bonded with King Lanlin, before the Blood Moon.
I’m his Omega.
There is no going back now.
Perhaps, Lanlin’s touch truly does mean death.