Nadia #2
Deep Tharros green, because apparently being declared betrothed to a vampire prince came with house colors and a complete loss of privacy. I belted it tight, dragged my damp hair out from under the collar, and picked up my dagger before stepping back into the room.
Hospitality had limits.
Food came a few minutes later, delivered by a maid who kept her attention pinned to the floor, the tray, Enzo’s bare chest, the floor again, and then left with the admirable survival instincts of someone who’d been raised around dangerous people.
The tray held warm bread, sliced meat, fruit, a small pot of butter, and a flask of dark red wine. Practical food. Soldier food dressed up for a prince. Nothing delicate enough to require manners either of us had the energy to pretend we still possessed.
We ate silently, like two wounded predators pretending bread and cold meat counted as civilization.
Enzo stood while he ate, one hip against the table, his hair still damp from the bath and his skin gold in the firelight.
He kept his distance from me, which was considerate of him and deeply irritating.
I sat in the chair nearest the hearth with my feet tucked beneath me, pretending not to notice the way his throat moved when he drank or the way the bond hummed every time his attention found the places my wounds had been.
The restraint came through the bond clean and sharp, a blade he kept turning on himself because he’d decided I was allowed to be angry in peace.
I wanted to bite him for it. Possibly in a non-murder way. Possibly not. That part was still unclear. His focus caught on my mouth for half a second too long, then looked away.
Good.
At least I wasn’t the only idiot in the room.
When the tray was mostly destroyed and neither of us had any more excuses to put between us and the conversation waiting on the other side of the silence, Enzo set his cup down. The soft sound of ceramic against wood went through me like a warning bell.
He crossed to the door and checked the bolt again. It was already locked. We both knew it. But the slide of metal into place wasn’t about the door. It was about the rest of the world.
The sound ricocheted through me.
He turned to the small table and lit the silencing rune carved into its edge. Light pulsed once, soft and blue-white, then settled over the room.
No more excuses. No more interruptions. He sat.
He didn’t ask me to. He waited. I hated how much I liked that.
The fire moved beside us as I sat across from him. The bath steamed faintly behind the screen. Outside the tower, the hold worked itself into wartime order, boots crossing stone and voices passing commands too muffled for even my hearing to catch.
Inside, there was only him and me, our bond, and every truth he’d swallowed.
“All of it,” I said.
His jaw tightened once, then he nodded.
“All of it.”
He didn’t ease into it. That was probably a mercy.
“The assassin in the pines called you Venchenya.”
The word went through my body like a blade sliding between ribs, and for one bright, horrible second, I wasn’t in the east tower at all.
I was in old rooms.
Behind closed doors.
Listening to adults lower their voices around a word I wasn’t supposed to hear and had learned, very young, not to ask about.
My fingers curled around the edge of the chair.
“She of the crown,” he said quietly. “Female heir. Direct line. A claimant.”
His translation was slightly off, but he was close. Too fucking close.
“Stop.”
He stopped immediately. That made it worse.
I pushed to my feet because sitting still had become impossible. The chair scraped back across the floor, too loud in the silenced room, and I crossed to the hearth with absolutely no plan beyond putting space between my body and the word he’d just placed on the table.
Venchenya.
No. Absolutely not. Not in this room. Not in his voice. Not while I was wearing nothing but a robe in his house colors, with his blood still working through me, and my skin still too aware of every inch of him.
Behind me, he stood. I felt it through the bond before I heard the chair move.
Of course the general-prince-vampire-disaster stood, because apparently my retreat had offended every predatory instinct in his body.
“Don’t crowd me,” I said.
“I’m not touching you.”
“That wasn’t what I fucking said.”
“No,” he agreed. His voice was closer.
I didn’t turn around. Couldn’t. But I didn’t need to. The bond gave him to me, anyway: the heat of him, the restraint, the want pulled so tight it had become a kind of violence he kept turned inward, only because I hadn’t given him permission to put it anywhere else.
“You said stop,” he murmured. “So I stopped speaking.”
“And then followed me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m done watching you run from me in rooms where there’s nowhere for you to go.”
My breath caught. He heard it. Of course he heard it. The bastard heard everything.
“You arrogant—”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
“You were about to be inaccurate.”
I turned then, which was a mistake on my part. He was closer than he had any right to be. Bare chest. Damp hair. Sleep pants slung low on his hips. Firelight drew gold along every line of him like subtlety had personally offended the gods.
He stood an arm’s length away, waiting like he always did. His eyes dropped to my mouth once, then came back to mine.
The bond caught fire.
“You are very brave for a man currently within stabbing range,” I said.
His gaze didn’t move from my face. “I’m within kissing range, too.”
Every thought in my head went silent. All of them. Even the useful ones. Especially the useful ones.
Enzo took one step closer. I didn’t move back. Couldn’t.
His voice dropped. “You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
“You are owed answers.”
“Yes.”
“You will have them.”
“I know.”
His eyes darkened at that. At the certainty in my voice. At the fact that I believed him, even furious. Especially furious.
“But not tonight,” he said.
My throat tightened. “Convenient.”
“No.” He took another step. “Necessary.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s necessary for me.”
“I know.” The words came rougher now. “So decide.”
The room went utterly still.
“What?” I asked.
“Decide.” His hand lifted, slow enough that I could have stopped him, and settled against the wall beside my head. Not trapping me. Marking the place where he’d chosen not to touch.
“Tell me to step back, Nadia, and I will. Tell me to sit down, tell me to sleep on the floor, tell me to spend the rest of the night with my hands folded in my lap like a penitent child, and I’ll do it.”
His mouth was close enough now that every word touched my skin.
“But if you don’t tell me to stop, I’m finished pretending I don’t want you. I’m finished standing three careful feet away from you like distance is honorable when both of us know it’s a lie. I’m done letting you run from this when I can feel you wanting me through the bond.”
My pulse went stupid. Absolutely stupid.
“I hate the bond,” I whispered.
“No, you don’t.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Don’t get smug.”
“I’m not smug.” His other hand rose, and this time he touched me, two fingers beneath my chin, lifting my face with a gentleness that somehow made the command of it worse. “I’m hanging on by a fucking thread.”
Oh. That was the truth. Not court truth. Not prince truth. Not polished commander truth.
Raw. Ugly. Mine.
The bond opened around it and showed me exactly what he meant: the ruined town behind us, my blood on his hands, my mouth on his wrist, my body going cold in his arms, the unbearable relief of me standing in front of him alive, furious, and close enough to touch.
He was close to losing it. Not his control. His restraint. There was a difference, and some deeply reckless part of me wanted to find out exactly how much of one.
“You still owe me answers,” I said.
“Yes.”
“All of them.”
“Yes.”
“And if you decide to protect me from my own life again, I will make you regret every year of your unnaturally long existence.”
“I believe you.”
“You should.”
“I do.”
His thumb brushed once along my jaw. A tiny touch. A ruinous one.
“You have one choice that matters tonight, Nadia.”
My breath stopped as his eyes held mine.
“Tell me no.”
The word sat between us—clear, sharp. Clean enough that not even the bond could muddy it.
I could say it. He would stop. He would step back. He would bleed himself dry on the altar of my boundaries if I asked it of him.
I believed that. I hated that I believed that. I hated more that I didn’t want to ask.
My hand rose to his chest, over one of the thin pink lines where an arrow had tried to take him from me.
“Lorenzo Veyne,” I said, in dialect.
His entire body went still. “Yes.”
“If you stop now, I will stab you.”
His restraint snapped silently.
One second, he was holding himself away from me by force of will and four centuries of discipline.
The next, his hand was in my hair, his body was flush against me, and his mouth came down on mine like he’d been starving for a week and had finally decided starvation was beneath him.
And I drowned in it.