Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Blue Lotus Palace, Blood Kingdom
Freya
I creep down the corridors that bleed pale dawn sunlight, having left both my Alphas sleeping in our nest.
When he first arrived, I didn’t miss how little Daire slept. He was guarding over me. He would never have allowed me to slip out by myself like this in the corridors of the Blood Court.
Yet the nightly feedings are taking it out of my fae.
Now, he’s deeply asleep, recovering.
It has been three nights since we flew back from the cave in the desert. We are closer than ever, and Lanlin appears even more addicted to Daire’s blood.
Plus, more addicted to me.
Each night, once Lanlin has fed from Daire’s neck, I hold honeyed dates and figs up to my soulmate’s mouth, as he lies panting and pale in the nest.
Daire tries not to show either Lanlin or me how exhausted he is or the tremors of pain that run through him. But I know him too well now to miss them.
I stroke through his wings, while helping him to drink from a cup of water that Lanlin makes sure is on a tray along with our favorite foods.
Lanlin has been spoiling us both.
He kept to every word that he said in the cave.
His earnest devotion is like someone opening up your chest and sinking their claws into your heart.
He has hardly stopped excitedly talking about taking us on his arm to the Night of the Shades.
No one has wanted me to attend a ball with them before.
I’ve cleaned the floors ready for parties in the Great Hall for Bard and his friends. I’ve sneaked looks from the end of the corridor, as the elite Omegas and their Alphas swept in to dance and feast, before being caught and having my ass kicked.
Me?
On the arm of the King?
As his soon-to-be Queen?
It doesn’t suck.
The Blue Lotus Palace has been in upheaval with servants and nobles alike transforming the place with decorations, lights, as well as food and wines being brought in by local Shadow Humans for the feasts.
It truly is the biggest night of the year.
Yet most of the time, I have been in panic mode, trying to work out the impossible puzzle of how to save all three of my Alphas.
How do I get out of this without one of my Alphas ending up a prisoner or dead?
I slink down the labyrinthine, cool corridors, which I have become familiar with over the days that I have explored them with Daire.
This time, however, I shook my head at Shadow and Devil, when they stood to follow me. To my surprise, they obeyed me, settling back into their bed.
I know that Lanlin can communicate with them.
What’s the bet that they spy for him?
I pause in front of a low door, resting my hand on it.
I’m a thief.
I can use my skills in the one place that I know holds the magical artifacts that could free Daire from the iron, which I am sure is wracking him with pain or possibly, from the cursed mask that is meant as a trap for Lanlin.
Heka and the other vampire mages have been ordered to work on both problems. But are they truly concentrating on them?
Are they purposefully dragging their feet on solving them?
My skin tingled in the way it always does when I sense magical talismans and other items that are thief worthy, when I was last in the House of Life.
“Come to wolfie, magical items.” I rub my hands together, before flexing my fingers.
A thrill rushes through me at being able to steal something valuable again. It just isn’t the same being gifted something. You haven’t worked for it.
Well, stolen it. But that’s a thief’s work.
My eyes brighten, as I push through into the sacred archive in The House of Life.
I blink, surprised that the high slits in the thick, limestone walls have been covered with heavy drapes that are blocking the sunlight.
The lamps are still hissing in the niches, and dancing shadows are cast along the rows of wooden shelves, which hold the clay jars of tightly rolled parchment scrolls.
I shiver. Hairs rise on the back of my neck.
I nibble on my lip for a moment, scanning the silent room.
Empty.
Then why does it feel like there is a lingering presence in the shadows? Are ghosts a thing here? Do the spirits of the dead rise on the eve of the Night of the Shades?
I wrap my arms over my chest. Then I force myself to start searching.
The quicker I find something to help, the quicker I can return to my warm royal nest with my Alphas.
I wrinkle my nose at the scent of papyrus, ink, and cedarwood.
“Hmm,” I ponder, running my fingers over the yellowed parchments that are laid on the low table in the center of the room, “what are you hiding?”
I can’t read the beautiful hieroglyphs. But I can feel their magic.
Were the vampire mages sitting here last night looking at these? Are they about Daire’s iron bracelets? His mask?
My fingers tingle. Something here contains powerful magic.
I cock my head, studying the reed pens and ink pallets of smooth stone.
Something tiny and glistening is lodged to the side of an ink pallet. It is half-hidden, but it calls to my thief side.
I rock on my heels, eagerly reaching to push the pallet aside. “Now, you’re interesting.”
“Talking to yourself is, according to the scholars, the first sign of madness. Although, I could give you at least ten more, on which I have written my own analysis,” a cold, detached voice says behind me.
I yelp, jumping.
I twirl around, standing deliberately in front of my treasure.
I don’t know what that magical item is but I do know that I am stealing it.
“Who the fuck are you?” I blurt.
A willowy Alpha vampire with short black hair materializes from the shadows of the doorway.
He is startlingly different looking to the other Shadow Vampires in this court but is just as startlingly handsome in his own way. He appears to be in his forties and is dressed in a pure white floor-length kilt with an elaborate collar, which is made up of diamond scarab beetles.
I narrow my eyes at the use of scarab beetles in his collar. Is he connected to Lanlin? Was that a gift from the King?
The vampire’s hand rises to touch his collar, as if he forgot that he was wearing it, when he notices me looking.
Then he casts me a calculating glance. “The answer is yes.”
I grit my teeth. “I asked you who—”
“But you asked me with your eyes if the King gifted this to me. If I am important within this court. And the answer is yes, he did, and indeed, yes, I am. Although, I couldn’t give two figs about the court.”
My eyes widen.
This must be Heka.
Isn’t he the only vampire mage or scholar who Lanlin would feel affectionate enough toward to gift anything and who is a hermit within the court?
I relax, but only slightly.
If Heka wants to prove how smart he is, then I’ll show him that this Omega can match him.
“Then, Heka, do you know my next question?” I quirk my brow.
At the same time, my hand drops to the hilt of my dagger.
Just in case.
See, I’m not an idiot.
Heka strolls into the room, ignoring me. Instead, he scans avidly across the parchments.
“I’d rather that you left me alone to work,” he grumbles.
“Interesting as it is to solve why you are here alone and unguarded, I have experiments that I am running and…” He stops and taps his clawed finger on the table in thought.
“Lanlin must have told you about me. You have visited here. So, why are you here alone?”
“Why are you awake during the day?” I throw back, edging my hand toward the talisman behind my back. “How are you working and not resting?”
Heka straightens.
His eyes spark with sudden interest. “You’re also not sleeping. Maybe I have finally found a fellow spirit who recognizes how worthless sleep is. Think how much we can achieve if we only don’t waste it lying in bed?”
“I don’t think we have much choice in that.”
“Choice,” Heka sneers, snatching up a pen and pointing it at me. “A mage does not look at what is possible, but rather at what is impossible. Then he works out how he can wrest away control from the natural world into his own hands.”
To my shock, Heka draws a fast hieroglyph on the paper in front of him.
Instantly, the paper levitates off the table between us, before folding itself repeatedly into a paper dove.
Its wings flap, before it flies around my head.
I gasp in shock and delight, as the paper dove flies up to settle onto Heka’s shoulder.
“How…?” I breathe.
“Wrong question.” Heka points the pen at me again. “You witnessed it. The how was my hand, this pen, ink, and a simple symbol. The why is the fascinating part.”
Heka’s dark gaze is flat and cool but also enticing. I understand now why he was Lanlin’s favorite tutor.
“Then why,” I try again, “don’t you want to sleep during the day?”
“Better.” Heka strokes over the head of his paper dove, which coos happily.
“Because then I can study and run my more secret experiments in silence without the risk of interruption. I don’t need to have anything to do with the rest of the Blood Court.
I have developed a potion that does away with the need for more than an hour or two of sleep. ”
“Then why don’t you share that potion with the rest of your kingdom? On the moon, I’d have thought it would have made your army fucking invincible.”
“Why would I care about our army?” Heka looks genuinely bewildered. “My experiments are all that matter. Revealing the truth.”
Perhaps, there is such a thing as being too fanatical about studying. I’d been excited about learning more magic. But Heka appears to have learned too much.
He waves his hand. “Anyway, the potion has side effects. All magic has a cost. I think that your fae knows that.”
I bristle. “The iron bracelets were forced on him. He didn’t choose them.”
“Choice again.” Heka tilts his head. “You are caught up on that notion. The paper dove didn’t choose to be created, but does that make it more or less alive now?”
When he moves his hand towards the dove’s neck, I sense what he is going to do but can’t stop him.
“Don’t,” I plead.