Chapter 5
Blaise
Repeated slaps against my cheeks pull me out of the drug-induced nap I was in. I groan and squint my eyes as several facts hit me at once.
The pretty—not so harmless after all—pixie female overpowered and drugged me.
I am heavily chained to a wooden chair in the middle of what looks like a deserted barn.
Said pixie is standing in front of me, an icy glint in her bewitching eyes.
She has changed her clothing to a leather combat one-piece suit that clings to her curves in all the right places, and of course my dick stands to painful attention, because why wouldn’t it?
Not the time or the place, but tell that to my stupid libido.
“Atta, pretty boy. You sure like your beauty sleep,” she mocks in a haughty rasp.
I grunt as I try to wrestle free of the sturdy chains keeping me in place, but it’s no use. They must be made of iron, for how feeble they make me feel.
“What the fuck, Sariah,” I say before I realize my rookie mistake.
“See, that right there is a problem, pretty boy. You know who I am, while I have no fucking clue who you are or why you were pursuing me in the dead of night. Your stalking skills leave much to be desired, by the way.”
I rapidly scan the area for an exit strategy from the Fae-sized pickle I’m in.
The space is shrouded in darkness, the only source of light being a window high above the decrepit doors.
The hay scattered on the ground, and the faint smell of manure have me guessing that this place used to be a stable at some point, but it’s completely empty now.
“Don’t even think about it, vampire. Even if you manage to get out of those iron chains, you’d need to get through us and the dozen fighters stationed outside.”
A voice floats from the darkness as a fair-haired male steps out from the shadows and joins Sariah in front of me.
I clench my teeth at the sight of him.
A lover, perhaps?
No, his pale appearance and sea-colored eyes are too similar to Sariah’s. The resemblance is clear.
“And who the hell might you be?”
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he answers mockingly, giving my not-so-subtle erection a pointed look. “Or, in this case, share. Names, that is.”
I sigh, exasperated. This is going nowhere. Might as well get out of it with the truth.
“I’m Blaise Mortenghail, the—”
“The Vampire King’s famed second-in-command?
The spy and warrior extraordinaire?” Sariah interrupts me with a disbelieving laugh.
“This is quite anticlimactic, I must say,” she continues before erupting in a fit of giggles, the sound both charming and aggravating at the same time. “You suck at being a spy.”
“Hey!” I interject in my defense. “This is my first screw-up, if you must know.”
“Second, if we count when you kidnapped the wrong twin,” she answers with a knowing smirk. “Soren, untie him.”
“Are you sure?” the male asks at the same time as I say, “Wait, you know about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. This much incompetence can’t be faked.” Sariah nods to this Soren guy before turning her cerulean gaze back on me.
“We know many things, pretty boy.”
The male unwillingly obeys and proceeds to unclasp the chunky lock keeping the chains together. They fall with a loud thud, pooling at the base of the chair.
I crack my neck left, then right, before standing up and facing the Fae pair.
“Okay, let’s try to fucking do this again. I’m Blaise, enchanted to make your acquaintance, my lady.” I bow slightly in mock courtesy before straightening to my full height. “And who the fuck are you two, exactly? Because you’re definitely not who Aimee said you’d be.”
Sariah looks almost sheepish at the mention of Aimee, before Soren takes the lead.
“Soren and Sariah Voxhall. Siblings. Leaders of the Order of Ereshkygall.”
“The what now?” I ask, puzzled. Never heard of such a thing before.
“The Order of Ereshkygall,” Sariah answers. “Also known as the Dark Umbras.”
“Why haven’t I heard of this before?” I mutter more to myself than to them, dragging a hand through my braids.
“Because unlike you, we are that good.” Sariah doesn’t lose a breath in throwing another jab at my expense, and it’s no surprise to me that I find her snarky attitude irresistible. I like them feisty, what can I say?
I take a heartbeat to appraise her more thoroughly.
Her blond locks are pinned away from her face in a messy braid, and her bottomless sky-blue eyes glint with mischief but also a depth I hadn’t noticed earlier.
She’s quite a mystifying creature, and I wonder what it would feel like to have her wrapped around me.
To put that sharp mouth of hers to other, more pleasurable uses.
“If you’re done ogling my sister, we would like to know about Aimee. How is she?”
“She’s the Foretold One,” I blurt out, still looking at Sariah. What the fuck is wrong with me? It seems I lose all my spy skills around her.
“Obviously,” she retorts, rolling her eyes as if I haven’t just divulged the biggest, most shocking revelation of the century.
“You aren’t surprised?” I frown, switching my gaze between the siblings. This encounter is getting more and more surreal by the minute.
“We are keepers of the prophecy, Blaise.” Soren’s gravely voice cuts through the tension gathering in the space between us.
“We know more than you could imagine, but we won’t disclose more to you.
Not until we meet with Aimee and the Vampire King.
Come now. If my sister trusts you enough to unchain you, we can leave the interrogation chamber and discuss other important matters. ”
He swiftly turns and with determined strides crosses the expanse between us and the door.
“After you, pretty boy,” Sariah quips in an amused tone, gesturing towards the exit.
“I know you’re trying to get on my nerves with that moniker, moonlight, but truthfully, all I hear is that you think I’m pretty,” I say, smirking as I brush past her, making sure my arm touches hers, the burn of her skin on mine a lingering whisper.
She snorts gleefully as she stalks behind me. “Oh, you’re so full of yourself, it’s almost hilarious.”
“And you’re delightful,” I quip back, meaning the words as a sarcastic comeback, but they lack the bite, betraying my inner thoughts.
The more this female takes a piss at me, the more I feel enthralled by her, like a helpless fly caught in a black widow’s web.
She’s dangerous; I can already feel it deep within my bones.
And I don’t mean it in the “oh, she’s part of a super-secret society kicking ass” kind of way.
No, her danger and her allure come from the way she makes my head spin and my other head throb.
“If you two are done flirting for the night, we have other crucial matters to attend to.”
Soren’s gaze as I reach him by the door is nothing short of petrifying. I sense the male doesn’t like me very much, but it doesn’t come as a shock, since I’ve been drooling all over his sister since I came back to my senses.
That reminds me of something, and I turn slightly towards Sariah before asking, “What was that thing you used to subdue me with in the alley?”
“Our personal vampire tranquilizer concoction. Two parts bloodbane’s root, one part liquefied iron.
Inserted directly into the bloodstream through a hollowed dove’s wing bone.
Puts your kind to sleep instantly,” Sariah answers with a proud glint in her eyes.
I could find her terrifying if I weren’t so damn besotted with her.
The sooner I can scratch this itch, the faster I can stop being this blubbering mess that I currently am.
I have a rakish reputation to uphold, for Akaori’s sake!
We step out of the barn into a long hallway lit by torches, with doors scattered left and right. That’s an interesting turn of events. Soren called it an interrogation chamber, not a barn, and the fact only hits my brain just now.
“Where are we exactly?” I ask, looking at the nondescript hallway that seems to stretch for miles on both ends.
“The Order of Ereshkygall’s Sanctum, of course,” Sariah answers from behind me.
“Of course, how could I not know that?” I roll my eyes. “I must have missed the history lesson about your little secret society.”
“There’s nothing little about it, pretty boy. But it is secret, for reasons that are beyond your comprehension.”
“And you’re letting me in on your privileged information because?”
“You’re just a means to an end, vampire.
An opportunity that fell into our lap, or stalked its way badly into our midst, whatever you want to call it,” Soren answers, although my question was directed to his sister.
He pauses in front of a massive iron door, opens it curtly and gestures for me to get inside.
I begrudgingly oblige and enter the square chamber, wary of my surroundings. It resembles a mixture of a study and a library, with tomes of ancient texts encased in glass bookshelves that run from floor to ceiling.
Sariah’s fingertips start glowing a warm hue, casting a faint light in the room.
She moves towards the center of the chamber and hops onto the sturdy oak desk carved with Fae mythological beasts and depictions of battles that are of unknown origin to me.
Soren fills two whiskey glasses with the amber liquid, passing one to his sister, and leans against the worktable next to her in a rigid stance.
“No welcoming drink for me, I gather?” I ask, amused.
“We don’t keep blood on hand.”
Soren’s reply is curt and standoffish, and his tense posture makes me snicker. This male would get along great with Killian. Or butt heads. It’s a gamble I would like to see unfold.
I take a seat on the rich brown sofa on the far wall, kicking my feet up on the arm, my boots leaving muddy imprints on the lush velvet. Soren’s jaw ticks with controlled annoyance, and I know I will take great pleasure in pissing him off.