Chapter 7
“We have a problem.” David’s voice at Valen’s closed door startles me. I’d just woken up and started slipping out of bed, but Valen dragged me back to him before I could even get one foot on the floor.
Valen’s eyes narrow. “What?”
“Coal isn’t back.”
“I’m aware.” Valen slides his hand to my throat, his thumb grazing along my carotid, stroking gently, his dark eyes holding me captive.
“He should’ve been back by now.” David’s voice rises. “It’s been dark for hours. If he weren’t in some sort of trouble, he’d be here.”
“You should help,” I whisper. “Remember what I said about him being your only fri—?”
He kisses me, stealing my words and starting a fizzing tension low in my belly.
“Valen!” David doesn’t hide his irritation.
Valen growls and rises, his dark hair mussed, the muscles in his back flexing as he stalks to the door. “Coal can take care of himself.” He yanks it open.
I yelp and pull the blanket up to my chin. Valen is stark naked, but he clearly doesn’t care at all.
“Usually, yeah, but you sent him out there after that bloodbath with the Tantuns. You don’t think they’ll be out for revenge?”
“Revenge against me, yes.” Valen shrugs.
“Revenge against you and your allies. Don’t pretend that no one knows you and Coal are working together. You aren’t as clever as you think.”
“I was clever enough to fake your death and bring you here, wasn’t I?” Valen glowers.
It suddenly clicks for me. “You’re Druin?” I ask.
David flicks his gaze to me.
“Yes,” Valen answers.
“You and Coal were talking about him in the library. You said you killed him.”
Valen nods. “Druin is of Coal’s line. I was ordered to kill him and several other Corvidions Gregor believed to be disloyal.”
“But you saved them.”
“No,” David answers grimly. “Only me.”
Valen glances at me over his shoulder. “Anything more than that would draw suspicion.”
“Oh,” I say softly, the full import of what they’re saying sitting heavily on me. How many of his friends, of his allies, did he have to kill to satisfy Gregor? To show him that the Specter will always obey?
Valen puts a hand on Druin’s shoulder, a rare show of comradery. “Coal will return.”
“No. Something’s wrong. I feel it. My blood is off. Almost … frantic. It felt the same way when you showed up with your orders to kill me.” He pats his chest. “It’s in here. A warning. I know it.”
“Give him more time—”
“No. I’m not losing him.” Druin shakes his head. “I’ll fly out. I’ll find him.”
“You know I can’t let you do that.” Valen crosses his arms.
“I’m going.” Druin straightens, his eyes going hard.
“If anyone sees you—”
“No one will see me.” Druin’s wings flash at his back, unfurling.
“Druin.” The warning in Valen’s tone makes my hackles rise. “You will not leave the wards. I gave Coal my word, and he gave me his. If anyone discovers you’re still alive—”
“Gregor will come for your head. I know.”
“Not just mine,” Valen says evenly. “For my mate’s. I think you understand what that means enough to know I’ll never let you leave this castle.”
Mate? I have to assume he’s speaking about me, but he’s chosen such an odd word.
“You can’t keep me here,” Druin challenges.
“I think you’ll find I can.” Valen’s voice is lower now, deadlier.
Druin stares at him, the tension radiating through the room and sending goose bumps racing along my skin.
“Valen, can’t you go look for him?” I ask, almost fumbling over my words in my haste to end the rising conflict.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Then I’m going.” Druin turns and disappears into the hallway. Valen follows him, and not a half-second passes before there’s a loud thud and a low growl.
“Valen!” I scramble from the bed and wrap the sheet around me, then run into the hallway.
Valen has Druin pinned against the wall, his forearm across Druin’s throat.
“Stop!”
Valen’s fangs are longer now, his eyes that cold blue. “He’s threatening your life. His rashness, his foolishness—faults of his youth, but ones I can’t forgive.” He holds one hand out, claws where his nails usually are.
Druin struggles, his wings pinned behind him. “Fuck you! Fucking Dragonis,” Druin chokes on the words.
“Don’t!” I run to them, my heart pounding, a cold sweat coating my skin. “Stop!” I grab Valen’s wrist. “Please, please don’t.”
“I won’t let him harm you.” He turns to me, his feral gaze more animal than man.
“He’s not. He wouldn’t! Please! We can work this out. Look. You go bring Coal back, okay? You can move around and be the Specter and grab Coal. Druin will stay here and keep me safe. Right?” I turn to Druin. His golden brown eyes are lasered in on Valen. “Druin!” I yell. “Agree!”
“He was supposed to keep you safe when Whitbine took you. Did you think I’d forgotten?” Valen snarls at him. “That I could forgive you for putting my Blood in danger? I would’ve crucified you and watched the sun take you if it weren’t for Coal.”
“Valen!” I yank on his wrist. “Listen to me! If you harm Druin, I won’t forgive you!”
Valen turns to me with his unnatural quickness.
“Seriously, let him go. He’s my friend. He would never hurt me. Please, just go and look for Coal, then come back. Okay? Please?”
“You abuse your power.” He slowly lets up on Druin’s throat.
“What?”
“Your power over me.” Valen advances on me until I’m backed against his bedroom door, his broad frame blocking out everything except him. “You’re wielding it against me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I gasp when he wraps his hand around my throat.
“You do, kedves verem.” His lips ghost against mine.
My knees go weak as he squeezes the sides of my neck lightly, his lips teasing along my cheek and then my ear.
“I will do as you ask, but when I return, there will be a price.” He meets my eyes, and I realize his are no longer the cold abyss he’d shown to Druin.
For me, they’re molten, a raging blue of water and sky.
I shudder at his touch, at the intimacy of this, of us.
My heart pounds, my eyelids fluttering as he presses a kiss to my lips. And then he’s gone, storming past me and dressing so quickly he’s nothing but a blur. By the time I have my shirt on, he’s nowhere to be found.
Once I’m dressed, I hurry to the staircase and climb until I find Druin sitting on the steps and leaning against the stone wall.
“He’ll find Coal.” I sit beside him.
“You don’t know that. I should be out there looking for him. He’s Corvidion. My direct line.” His golden brown eyes don’t focus. He stares past me, as if he can see through the earthen walls and all the way to Coal. “I should be flying for him. Not sending a Dragonis.”
“Valen was out of line.”
He shakes his head. “No, he wasn’t.”
Perplexed, I stare at him.
He sighs and bounces the back of his head on the wall a couple times. “You’re his mate. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
“Mate. What does that mean?”
“You don’t know what ‘mate’ means?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, of course I do, but the way you’re using it and Valen was using it—it clearly means something else to you.”
“You’re his Blood.” He shrugs a shoulder, his wing scraping against the wall.
I swallow hard. The only reference I have for that statement is what I know about Gregor’s bond with Theo.
Given what’s happening to Gregor, I can’t chalk it up as a metaphor or a flowery way to describe love.
It means something more, something that I’ve seen in the books in the library but have failed at translating.
What Valen’s been calling me—kedves verem; it’s some sort of a blood blond.
“I’m a human. I can’t—”
“Valen is half human. That doesn’t matter. What matters is you’re his mate. You two are bound. Your Blood is one.”
He says it so matter-of-factly, as if this is something vampires are taught from birth. Common knowledge.
“What does that even mean?”
He raises his brows and points at my chest. “You feel it. You can feel it right now. In there. In your heart, your blood.”
“Feel what?”
He peers at me. “Close your eyes.”
“Huh?”
“Close your eyes.” He has the nerve to sound exasperated.
“If this is a trick …” I glare at him, then slowly close my eyes.
“Now listen.”
I sit for a moment, but all I hear is nothing. Just my breathing. Druin is silent. “To what?”
“To your blood.”
“My blood doesn’t make a sou—”
“Shh,” he hisses. “Just listen.”
I shake my head but keep my mouth shut. And I sit.
Slowly, I relax a little. My lower back against the higher step, one of my knees bent, the other leg straight.
I think about a million things all at once, my thoughts never landing on any idea for too long.
It’s like a chaotic slideshow in there, always has been.
“You’re not listening,” Druin chides.
“Shh!” I snipe back at him.
Then I settle even more. And I think about blood.
About cells. About random bits of minutiae dealing with blood—the varieties, the rhesus, the types.
Slowly, my thoughts quiet and I think about Valen.
Not pulsing blood or white blood cells. I picture him, his eyes when they’re kind.
When they see me. His touch. The sharp wit that cuts, the gentle touch that heals. My skin warms.
I sense something else. Someone else. I sense—determination.
Not just a drive, but a force that can’t be stopped.
A relentlessness that leaves me breathless.
It’s Valen. He’s searching for Coal. I focus on that feeling, on the sensation that doesn’t spring from me. It’s alien. But it’s also familiar.
Awareness tingles along my skin. And then the feeling changes. To … interest. Something soft grazes along my cheek, a warm exhale, and I know—somehow I know—Valen can feel me.
“Valen?” I call out.
No one answers. No one is there. Still, I feel something. A reassurance. A warmth that permeates every cell until it’s like he’s with me. Wrapping me in his arms, nothing between us. Kedves verem.
I gasp and open my eyes. The sensation dims and fades.
“Now do you understand?” Druin asks.
I blink a few times. It’s as if I’d been under a veil. Or even underwater. “What was that?” I press a palm to my cheek. “What—”
“Mates. A bond stronger and rarer than any other. You’re Blooded by fate. The bond you feel will only grow with time.”
“And this is what, in a book somewhere? Like vampire lore? Is that how you know all this?”
He arches a brow. “You think I read books for fun?”
I don’t know how to answer that. I mean, I read books for fun. Or, at least, I used to.
“Common knowledge, Georgia.”
Right. Common for vampires. Not so much for me. I could ask more questions, but I know it would only lead me back to Valen saying there’s more to blood than what I can see under a microscope.
Druin returns to brooding, and I decide to head back to the library. Maybe Druin isn’t in the habit of researching vampires, but I’ve developed a bit of a specialty in the area, and there’s always more to learn.