Chapter 23
Sidney
We returned to my quarters in the early hours of morning, sated. I shed my sullied bonding clothes and bathed, letting the steam and water soothe me. Butters had beaten me to the bathroom, fast asleep in the scoop of the sink and snoring.
Razira’s invitation to tea lingered at the edge of my thoughts. As I chose what to wear for the rest of the evening, the unease I’d tried to ignore surged back, knotting beneath my ribs.
Finn took his turn bathing, leaving Nibs perched on a side table. His tiny eyes tracked me as I secured a couple daggers in the hidden pockets of my gown.
“Can you understand me?” I asked.
I reached for my spark of magic and found a cold, damp echo, a sluggish flicker that died before I could take hold of it.
After how intense it’d been to bond with Zane and Finn, it was hardly a surprise that my body needed to recover before I could effectively use my gifts, let alone the powers of my new mates. Not that I knew how to do so yet.
Nibs twitched his little whiskers, either unaware of the question or unable to respond. I offered him my hand. “Come with me.”
He sniffed my fingertips and licked the salt from them.
When it became clear we weren’t getting anywhere, I picked him up and put him on my shoulder, where he perched after squeaking a complaint. Then I pushed into the bathroom, startling Finn when he glanced up at the door. Water sloshed around him.
I’m stealing your mouse, I signed.
And here I thought you wanted to admire. He posed, arms on the rim of the tub. We’d just barely gotten our clothes back on long enough to head inside, and I bit my lip as I took in his lean body in better lighting. Sudsy water hid the lower half of him. Unfortunately.
Do not tempt me. I am already going to try licking every freckle off your body when I return.
He bounced his brow, though a faint flush lit his cheeks. He lifted his hands, then hesitated. After a thoughtful moment, he signed, Why do you need Nibbles?
I would like him to summon you and Zane if I run into trouble.
He relayed the plan to Nibs with a furrow of concentration pinching his face. After a long moment, the small animal bobbed its entire body.
He says he will do it if you sneak him a treat.
Deal. I placed him in another hidden pocket in my skirt.
So this is goodbye? Finn pouted as his fingers formed the words.
I crossed to the side of the tub and bent, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. Heat curled through my chest as we lingered. There was a careful tenderness to him that set him apart from Zane’s more possessive affection.
If I closed my eyes, he could be human. Part of my heart yearned for it, while the other half questioned whether it mattered.
No. He would be human again, once I was finished taking Sanguine by force and had more time to develop my cure. That was the plan.
Despite every surprise I encountered along the way, I needed to remember how I’d envisioned this mission ending: in agony for my enemies and redemption for those who deserved it.
Plus the adoration of Carlyle and every other slayer who’d doubted me for my dirty blood.
Though that, more than ever, seemed like a fantasy.
After bidding Finn farewell, I went to Zane, who waited by the door to escort me to Razira. With me on his arm, we swept into the hall. “Think you’ll remain King Zane now that we’re bonded?”
“Gods, I hope not,” he answered under his breath.
As we passed a maid going about her duties on the second floor, he gave a clearer, more careful answer.
“There’s a small chance I’ll continue to have a spot on the council, but no one will call me a king-in-waiting anymore until you’re recognized as the next queen, my lady. ”
“Well, I’d better get your title back soon,” I said with a fake titter.
“Lord Mathias is going to take great pleasure in removing me from the council, actually.”
“I suppose you have a conflict of interest now.”
He lowered his voice again, “Surely you’ve noticed the gigantic chip on his shoulder.”
“I’ve noticed many things about the Lord Regent,” I answered as we approached Razira’s door.
But I gave him a particular look so he knew we’d be revisiting this conversation.
Mathias was a dangerous enigma and the first name on the temple’s kill list. I needed to put a stake through his heart at the earliest opportunity.
Zane stayed with me until Razira answered her door.
“Ah, Ilyana! You’re earlier than I expected.
” She stepped aside so I could enter. I slipped from Zane’s hold until my fingertips lingered on his forearm for a tenuous moment.
Once the door swung closed between us, I rubbed my chest to ward off a sense of loss.
I answered Razira’s remark late. “I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”
“The newly mated keep everyone waiting,” she answered with a laugh. She swept an elegant hand toward the front room of her suite. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
She clearly had more space than my two-room setup just from the parlor she’d waved toward. I made my way to a circular table set for five that was in a nook surrounded by three windows. With the curtains drawn back, Razira had a decent view of the sloping forest beyond the mansion.
I picked a seat where I could look outside. Nibs poked his head out of the pocket where I’d hidden him, snuffling the air curiously.
Razira spoke briefly with a servant in the hall before shutting the door. “Tea should be coming shortly.” Her silvery skirts rippled with the graceful sway of her hips as she crossed the parlor.
She was looking perfectly vampiric today with her white hair up in a bun and a flawless shimmer of brown cosmetics causing her red eyes to stand out from the oval of her face. She settled in the seat across from me. “I’ve sent my Devotion away so we could relax without prying ears.”
I couldn’t keep my curiosity contained any longer. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”
“We’ve been allies in this dangerous competition for a whole trial, yet I feel I barely know you,” she remarked. “Every event, you are the last to arrive and the first to leave.”
I clasped my fingers under the table, already nervous despite her even tone. “I’m not one for social niceties.”
“Hmm. I can’t think of a more social job than being a queen of one of Eona’s houses. An entertained populace is a malleable one. Did you consider that before you let the Flask of Dominion judge your worthiness?”
I hesitated to answer, considering I hadn’t given much thought to fulfilling the role properly.
It wasn’t part of my plan to keep any bloodsuckers entertained.
But Razira awaited an answer, her icy pink lips a placid line.
I’d seen her patient face in a hundred different ways when she was human and knew this tactic well.
She’d wait me out, silent until I responded.
“Of course. I just don’t see much merit in spending time with our competitors. Most of them are insufferable,” I finally said.
“Do you find…” She let the question drift off when there was a knock at her door. “Come in!”
A human servant entered, balancing a tea service on a platter. She distributed plates and steaming cups full of pale amber liquid, then offered her scarred neck to Razira with a shy murmur.
“It won’t be necessary tonight, dear,” she answered for both of us. She took a few pieces of bread and cheese off a plate that’d be set between us and pushed them discreetly into the servant’s palm.
The human only lingered long enough to eat the gift without savoring it.
Both of us looked the other way. Razira spooned some sugar into her tea, while I stirred honey into my cup.
I salivated at the sight of real food that wasn’t shaped into bars and dried.
What a shame I had to deny myself, all for the sake of appearances.
We waited in tenuous silence until the servant left.
I held a piece of cookie out to Nibs under the table.
A moment later, faint crunches ticked my knee in a patient rhythm.
Razira sipped her tea. Once she swallowed, I did the same, pleased to taste an ordinary blend untainted by eyeballs or bat wool.
“Last year, the late Queen Nemea held a solstice ball. The whole coven was invited here to celebrate on the shortest night of the year.” Razira settled back, a smile tilting her lips.
“We mocked the humans who celebrated their extra vampire-free time, for there is no day without the dark and no sunrise without sunset. Do you remember it?”
Would Ilyana have attended such an event? I made a split-second decision that yes, she must’ve. “Of course. It was a grand time.”
“I can still picture it. You were blood drunk and arm-in-arm with Fiorella on one side. And another girl who looked so much like you on your other side.”
“My sister, Tahlia.” I hoped supplying at least one detail would keep her going until she tired of this topic.
She hummed and waved the detail away. “I remember you as you were, carefree in a gaggle of other Born. A young woman who’d never known what it was like to be human, nor the fear that comes with it.
” An eager gleam flashed in Razira’s eyes.
“There to sip blood wine and brag about the tiniest of conquests. A socialite. A weakling. Someone you’ve never been, Sidney. ”
Porcelain shattered in the wake of my real name escaping her lips. I was only vaguely aware that the teacup had slipped from my numb fingers and had clipped the edge of the table, splattering my lap with shards and warm liquid.
Nibs burrowed deeper in his pocket. My hand was already in another, drawing a hidden knife.
“It is unlike you to be robbed for words, dove,” she said, as if she hadn’t just upended my whole cover. She gestured dismissively toward the flash of a blade I brandished. “There’s no need for that. I mean you no harm.”
“How?” My voice was a mere wisp.