31. Chapter 31
31
I woke suddenly, my heart pounding and my breaths quick. Bastian’s bedroom was dark, and a glance up at the face of the shifter holding me like I was his own personal teddy bear told me he was fast asleep. My dreams had been a discomfiting mix of bodies writhing in either pleasure or pain. I had flitted from scenes of having my body worshipped by my seven immortals to long walks through a dank dungeon to brutal battles ending in fields of broken bodies, Gavin and Bastian among the dead.
I needed air and movement to clear my head and shake off the disturbing images.
Ever so carefully, I extricated myself from under Bastian’s heavy arm and scooted to the edge of the bed. The thin cotton of the T-shirt stuck to my clammy skin. Feeling gross, I stood and crossed to the door to the en suite bathroom, twisting my hair up into a messy top knot.
I took a quicker rinse in the shower than I had intended because I sensed Gavin approaching almost as soon as I stepped into the steaming water. I hastily donned the full-length silk dressing gown I had left hanging on the hook on the back of the bathroom door after my previous shower, and feeling like the heroine in a gothic romance novel, I headed across the bedroom for the door to the hallway. Gavin was a few steps away, and I didn’t want him to wake Bastian. The shifter’s day had quite possibly been even more trying than mine.
“Hey,” I said to Gavin, still tying the robe’s belt as I eased the door shut. I pulled my hair free from its ridiculous-looking bun, hoping to look a little less like a slob around the always-put-together vampire.
Gavin looked impossibly elegant as he strolled up the hallway with his hands tucked into his front pockets, his sigils fainter than before. He stopped well within my personal bubble, standing closer to me than would have been comfortable had we not been all up in each other’s business multiple times already that day. He wore the same impeccably tailored gray slacks and white button-down shirt from earlier, but the polished clothes did nothing to civilize him as he slowly scanned me from the feet up, no doubt noting the way the silk clung to my damp skin. Desire awakened within him, rousing my own.
“What’s up?” I asked, leaning back against the door, my voice breathier than before. I glanced down at the front of his pants, noting the growing bulge. “Besides the obvious,” I teased.
Gavin planted one hand beside my head on the door, the other remaining in his pocket. He loomed sexily, if such a thing was even possible. “I have something for you.”
I angled my face up toward his and smiled sweetly. “Besides the obvious?”
He made a deep, rough noise that rumbled through his chest and made me clench my thighs together. “You are insatiable.”
I frowned, pouting a little. “Maybe you just haven’t tried hard enough to sate me yet.”
He closed his eyes and drew in a shaky breath. “I still have much to do tonight, so if you would please show some restraint . . .”
Sighing, I slouched back against the door. “Fine,” I said, reining in my inner vixen. “What do you have for me?”
Gavin pulled his hand out of his trouser pocket and held it up, a vial of Javier’s blood tincture pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Modified, as promised,” he said, nimbly unscrewing the cap with the pad of his thumb and tip of his finger. He brought the open vial to my lips. “Open for me.”
I did so without hesitation, eager to welcome at least some stability back into my life. I desperately needed to be able to go more than a few hours without requiring a communion with an immortal.
But this modified tincture wasn’t a permanent solution. I would only be unshackled from uncertainty once we either found Javier and made him an actual functioning member of my harem or when the blood bond I had been so oblivious of all these years finally broke with his death. I didn’t have much of the tincture left, thus my extreme rationing over the past few years, so it wasn’t like we had an indefinite time to find my Prime Consort.
The tincture dribbled over my tongue, faintly bitter but lacking the tang I had come to expect. The sigils on Gavin’s face and neck brightened a little, rather than fading, as had happened the last time I took the tincture in his presence.
I swallowed, and my lips spread into a broad grin. “It worked,” I laughed. “I still have my sight .” The wards on the walls continued to glow silver, many accented by a colorful highlight. My brow furrowed, and I frowned slightly. “I haven’t seen any ghosts,” I mused. “Is that strange?”
Gavin shook his head and tucked the empty vial back into his pants pocket. “The residential wings are warded against them, all but the High Queen’s chambers,” he said. “For privacy.”
“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense.”
Gavin raised his hand again, settling it on my neck, where he stroked up and down seductively. “Would you do something for me?” he asked, so close his breath caressed my lips and chin.
“Maybe,” I said, my voice throatier than before.
The corner of Gavin’s mouth tensed, hinting at a smile. “Go to Ash,” he said. “Bind him.”
My eyes widened, and I leaned sideways to put a few inches of distance between us. “ Now ?”
Gavin nodded, a single dip of his chin. “It will be as good of a test of the efficacy of the clean tincture as we’re going to get, short of waiting days or even weeks to see how long it will tide you over.” After a moment, he added. “Thane may not have that long, and if you’re determined to help—”
“I am,” I said, nodding adamantly.
“Then you’ll go to him?” Gavin asked.
My focus drifted to the opposite wall, and I considered my options. I only saw two: bind Ash, commune with the three immortals, and rescue Thane, or remain here and let Ash lead a team of immortals on a wild goose chase for Thane while I sat on my ass, feeling useless.
I locked eyes with Gavin. “I’ll do it.”
“Good,” Gavin said, then inhaled and held the breath for a moment longer than was natural. “He may take some coaxing. He’s been with Thane for nearly a century, and Thane’s absence has left him, ah . . . unbalanced.”
My brows bunched together. “Oh,” I said, my eyes widening as I understood Gavin’s meaning. I shook my head, feeling dense. “I didn’t realize.”
“It may ease your mind to know that Ash only ever beds a woman with Thane,” Gavin provided. “So communion with him will likely only involve a blood exchange.”
“Oh,” I said again, starting to feel like a broken record. It was impossible to hide the pang of disappointment from my voice. Ash was the epitome of the strong, silent type, as reserved and stoic as could be. I would have been lying to myself if I claimed he didn’t intrigue me, or that I hadn’t thought about what it would be like to be with him. Especially after agreeing to the bargain with Gavin to bind Ash before going after Thane.
“As that is the case,” Gavin said, “I don’t think I should be there with you when you bind Ash. My presence will undoubtedly drag the interaction into something sexual, and I would not wish to force that upon him.”
Nerves fluttered in my stomach. “I understand,” I said, the spike of anxiety tightening my voice. I took a deep breath, slowly releasing it through pursed lips.
Gavin’s focus dropped to my mouth, and he licked his lips. “I can escort you to him, however,” he offered and glanced down the hall. “Ash is in his suite, awaiting intel on Thane’s location.”
I followed Gavin’s line of sight, my eyebrows rising as I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Is there some other way to find Thane besides me ?”
Gavin hesitated for a moment before answering. “Not reliably, no. We all have GPS trackers embedded under our skin as well as a tracing sigil, but both have been excised from Thane, and our in-house elementals have been unable to target him by scrying.” Gavin sighed. “If not for your ability to sense him, I would assume he had perished in the explosion.” His gaze roved over my face. “Much as I hate to admit it, you are our best—and likely our only— chance of finding him.”
“No pressure,” I breathed.
“Come,” Gavin said, sliding his hand down from my neck, over my shoulder, and along my arm to capture my hand. He led me down the hallway, my nervousness ratcheting higher with each step. We stopped at a door three down from Bastian’s.
Gavin leaned in, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I’ll be up the hall in my quarters if you need me after.”
My cheeks flamed as I understood his meaning—Ash wasn’t likely to be interested in a side of sex with his blood exchange, but I most certainly was.
I nodded, averting my gaze to the floor. “Is it weird?” I asked, then shook my head and tried again. “I mean, is it normal for a queen to crave sex during a communion , or am I, um . . .”
“It’s perfectly normal, or so I’ve been told,” Gavin said, and I looked at his face, searching for any hint of deceit. A faint smile curved his lips. “There is great honor in binding oneself to a queen, but honor is rarely what immortals think about when they imagine serving a queen.” He squeezed my hand, then let it go and nodded toward the door. “Go on.”
I took a step toward the door and placed my hand on the knob, but I didn’t turn it. “When will we, um . . .” I cleared my throat and peeked at Gavin over my shoulder, my blush returning. “When will we do the full communion ?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he said. “After you’ve rested.”
I swallowed roughly and nodded. “Okay.” I inhaled deeply, then blew out the breath. “Okay.” And then I turned the doorknob before I could chicken out, pushed open the door, and stepped into Ash’s private rooms.