Chapter 7
Blaise
My gaze keeps returning, in a mesmerized daze, at Sariah’s perky ass moving up and down in a trotting motion on the chocolate Thoroughbred before me. We’ve been horseback riding for almost two days straight since we left Bradvva.
We crossed the border on foot with a group of fifty Dark Umbras, trickling into Wrahta in small numbers every few hours.
Dressed as merchants and stragglers, no one paid them any mind, lost in the sea of people that transited the border every day.
We regrouped in Bradvva, procuring horses for everyone, and we’ve been traveling straight to Sangeries since, only stopping for small respites along the way.
I’ve had plenty of time to study Sariah in silence: how she carries herself with ease and determination, how she talks to her warriors, how they regard her with respect and adoration.
She is a true-born leader, exuding natural charm and infusing everyone with a sense of belonging and purpose.
I can see why they would wade through fire for her.
Hell, I’ve known her only for a few days, and I would probably do the same too.
The resolute flame in her haunting eyes makes one lose himself completely in them, ready to surrender their volition at her altar, to her cause. Or maybe that’s just me?
“If you keep looking at my ass like that, pretty boy, you’ll burn holes through it.”
I raise my gaze to her taunting smile as she looks at me over her shoulder.
Her fair hair is pinned like a braided crown to her head, gold-spun tendrils floating like a halo in the wind.
A humbler man would probably feel embarrassed she caught him staring at her posterior.
Good for me then, that I don’t have a single humble bone in my body.
“Don’t ride in front of me, moonlight, if you don’t like the attention,” I say as I squeeze my horse forward, gaining ground and matching her trot. We’re side by side now, and I chance a glance her way. She’s pursing her lips, restraining a laugh that seems to fight to get out.
“You’re such a flirt, Blaise,” she snickers.
“Well, I heard so are you. At least, that’s what Aimee said.”
“She talked about me with you?” she asks, her hopeful voice trembling slightly in the wind. “What did she say?”
“Oh, you know, just that you were her only friend for a very long time. Before she met me, that is,” I say proudly. “You’ll have to fight me for the best-friend title now, little pixie.”
Sariah scrunches her nose playfully at my nickname for her, rolling her eyes and laughing.
“We’ve already established I’m better than you at many things, Blaise. This wouldn’t be the exception.”
“Mmm, I don’t know about that. I’m not the one who pretended to be her friend while secretly being part of an obscure order tasked with keeping watch over her.”
My words are meant as a lively jab, but her eyes turn downcast and weary, her shoulders slumping with guilt.
“I, uh–I didn’t pretend. Do you think she’ll hate me?”
“I think she’ll understand, eventually. You were bound by a blood oath, and that’s extremely powerful magic. Besides, if there is anybody who can understand keeping secrets from the ones you love, it’s her.”
Sariah gives me a quizzical look.
“What do you mean?”
“That, moonlight, is not my story to tell,” I say, poking her cute button nose. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to deprive you females of the chance of having a heart to heart about us.”
She raises a pointed eyebrow my way, an amused smile painting her deliciously looking lips.
“About you?”
“Killian and I, yes. I am well aware of the so-called girl talk between females, about the males that capture their attention and hearts.” I wiggle my eyebrows at her playfully.
Her cerulean eyes widen before she bursts out in uncontrolled laughter.
“Oh dear Ereshkygall, you’re hilarious,” she manages to say between cackles.
“How so?”
I was expecting her cheeks to pinken in coquettish embarrassment, to at least flutter her eyelashes a bit at me.
That’s the usual response I get from females.
But I’m rapidly learning that my usual infallible charm and roguish remarks don’t work shit at all on Sariah Voxhall.
She’s such a strange creature, both spellbinding and maddening.
And utterly immune to my magnetic presence.
That’s never ever happened before.
“You really think I’d be talking about you, Blaise? Oh, poor, poor pretty boy,” she giggles further.
“Well, why not?” I ask, truly bewildered.
She looks at me as one would regard a child before stealing their innocence away a little by telling them happy endings don’t exist, or that the mythical Fae Godmother that grants one all their wishes is just make-believe.
“I’m suspecting nobody has ever told you this before, so it’s gonna be awkward, but you’re just not my type,” she says in a gentle voice.
“I’m everyone’s type!” I burst out before I can think better of it.
“Exactly why you’re not mine, pretty boy. Sure, you’re not bad to look at, but I have zero interest in malewhores and the drama your kind always drags around.”
“I—I’m no such…”
My rebuttal dies on my lips. While I resent the implications of what she just said, I do have a six-hundred-year-old track record of sleeping with any female that piques my interest. I would have bedded Aimee just a few months ago, before it was abundantly clear she and Killian had a genuine connection.
I frown, seeming at a loss for words. I like to fuck around, sure, but I don’t see myself as a malewhore.
Am I that promiscuous? And more importantly, why does it bother me so much that she has this opinion of me?
“What is that up ahead?” she asks, pointing forward, thus changing the subject completely.
The black gothic spires of Drovillan dominate the skyline up ahead, a blotch of darkness against the cloudy canvas expanse of the horizon.
“That is Drovillan, our capital. We’ll leave your followers to rest in the city and proceed on foot to the castle. They can join us after we clear it with Killian and our men.”
“They’re not my followers, Blaise. We’re not a fucking cult.” She rolls her eyes at me, and the sight only makes my attraction to her grow. My reaction to this Fae is becoming quite a nuisance.
“Then what would you have me call them?”
“Call them by their titles. Dark Umbras,” she says, lifting her chin proudly. “Why are we not going directly to the castle? Seems a waste of time to stop in the city and go alone on foot.”
“Because the way into Sangeries is hidden. Tunnels under the city connect to our home. No other way in or out.”
She nods in understanding, and we fall into a companionable silence as the city starts sprawling around us.
We exchange the frozen mud beneath our horses’ hooves for cobblestones, and the forest’s trees brimming with snow for the stony facades of townhouses and the glitzy gleam of my favorite parlors.
We’re crossing through the Plaisir District, and several skimpy-clad human girls giggle behind velvet curtains, fluttering their lashes my way and waving me over.
“We miss you, Blaise,” a girl shouts from one establishment, pouting her red lips and pushing her breasts up against the open window.
“Point made,” Sariah snorts from beside me, and I keep my mouth shut as I have no clever retort, for the first time in forever.
This display of sensual eagerness directed at me is not helping my case at all.
I sit up straighter in the saddle and give my horse a light kick, taking the forefront of the group.
“The inn is just a few streets away. Everyone can rest while we speak with Killian and Aimee, and then I’ll send my warriors to fetch them.”
After we leave the Dark Umbras at the inn, we continue our way through the city, following the winding river towards the entrance of the tunnels.
Sariah’s eyes roam around the streets brimming with life in astonishment, lingering on the various vampire and human couples that we pass by.
The denizens are preparing for Kronna, our most cherished commemoration.
Crimson lanterns are hanging from every balcony, human girls running around with huge red-blooded snake kites floating behind them in the air.
The entire center of Drovillan is draped in shades of burgundy, a visual ode to Killian’s shadows.
A group of boisterous little boys, their faces painted red, are mock fighting with wooden swords.
A ginger-haired boy, who can’t be a day older than seven, runs directly into us. His ears turn pink as he stares for a second at Sariah, his lips parting into a toothy grin.
“Apologies, my lady,” he says before turning around and throwing himself back into the playful fray.
I stare at their youthful display for a second longer, my heart clenching inside my chest. I always wanted a big family back when I was human.
It was my dream to have a loving wife and a house full of little noisy feet pattering on the floorboards and giggling voices filling the space with childish mayhem.
That dream shattered into dust the night my family was massacred, and I was left to die in a puddle of my blood and theirs.
By choosing to live eternally as a vampire, I relinquished my humanity and those silly human fantasies. But was it even a choice when the alternative was simply death?
I still mourned those stolen daydreams whenever I saw a fragile human child and gazed into their unsullied eyes.
“What are they celebrating?” Sariah asks, pulling me out of my wandering thoughts.
“Kronna, our annual jubilee held in Killian’s honor, on the day of his coronation.”
“His subjects really love him, don’t they?”
“They do.” I nod in confirmation. “Against what is said in Ryawarath about him, he is a good King. Fair and caring.”
“I’m sure he is,” she says in a serious tone.
“You are?”
“You forget, Blaise, that we’re keepers of the prophecy. Of history, really. We know better than to buy into the lies the Fae Royals feed us.”
“I never thought I would hear a Fae say that in this lifetime,” I admit.
“We’re not all bad, pretty boy.”
“No, that you are not.”
She’s quite a surprise, and I’m not sure how to feel about the way she is making me reconsider many aspects I would have deemed irrefutable until a few days ago. But then again, nothing has ever been black and white in this cursed realm.
“Aren’t they afraid of the impending war? Life seems to flow so unperturbed here,” Sariah says in a low voice, as if afraid to burst the brittle bubble of joy that surrounds us.
“Of course they are, but we’ve been surviving through wars for centuries. Thriving against them. When tomorrow is never guaranteed, you learn to treasure the moment.”
“That’s tragically beautiful.”
“I suppose it is.”
We finally arrive at the entrance of the tunnels, hidden in plain sight between two buildings. I push the heavy metal doors aside, gesturing for her to enter, before stepping into the torch-lit tunnels myself.
The rest of the journey is spent in silence, and I can sense Sariah’s nerves at facing Aimee and admitting her cunningness. It might come from a good place, but it’s still a deception that she enacted for five years. Will Aimee feel betrayed?
Will she get mad, or will she understand, having done something rather similar to Killian?
I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
When we emerge inside Sangeries, I take Sariah directly to Killian’s chambers, but we’re met with silence and stillness.
No sign of Killian anywhere.
We search Aimee’s room next, the training hall, the library, but there’s no trace of them. It’s as if they’ve vanished into thin air, and the hairs on the back of my arms stand on end in alarm.
What the fuck is going on here?