6. Chapter 6
Maksym
Dawn approached.
It did not enter Grace’s chamber so much as gather behind the blackout curtains, a pale pressure at the seams of velvet, turning the black edges gray.
The room looked like it had been prepared for a visiting dignitary, not a woman dragged half-dead from slavery into immortality, and that mismatch had begun to offend me more with every passing minute.
A low fire smoldered in the black stone hearth despite the desert heat beyond the wards, not for warmth but because Millie believed fire made a room less lonely.
Along the far wall, two tall wardrobes stood open enough to reveal the work of my staff: folded nightclothes, soft robes, shoes in several sizes, everything chosen by people trying very hard not to imagine the woman who might need them.
On the table between us, the decanter of blood wine stood half-empty.
Her plate was empty. Mine remained untouched.
Grace sat in the chair opposite me with the robe gathered around her body in both hands.
Her hair had dried in loose, dark waves around her shoulders, the color a rich cherry-brunette.
Her navy eyes kept finding mine, then moving away with visible discipline, as though even looking at me for too long might concede something she was not ready to name.
They were growing heavy.
“You said dusk,” she murmured.
“Yes,” I said. “Dusk.”
“That’s when I wake?”
“Most likely.”
“Most likely,” she repeated, because uncertain answers offended her.
I inclined my head. “Your body is still adjusting. You may wake earlier. You may sleep past sunset. There is no danger in either.”
She looked toward the curtains. “And sunrise?”
“Sleep will pull harder once the sun climbs. Made vampires are more bound to that rhythm than born vampires. My blood may change some of that for you, but tonight we will not test boundaries.”
Her eyes returned to me. “You keep saying tonight.”
“For us, this is still night.”
A small line formed between her brows. “Even with daylight coming.”
“Yes.”
“That will be annoying.”
“It can be,” I told her.
She looked at the decanter. “So vampire life is dusk to dawn. Sleep when the sun climbs. Wake when it falls.”
“For most, yes. Courts convene after sunset. Business is conducted through the night. Amethyst is most alive between midnight and four.”
“Of course it is.”
“Human institutions remain inconveniently attached to daylight,” I added. “So we adapt when necessary.”
Her gaze sharpened faintly. “Can I still practice law?”
The question was so unexpected, and so entirely her, that something in my chest shifted.
I answered carefully. “Not immediately.”
Her face closed.
“Not because you are incapable,” I said before she could strike. “Because your death as a human will need to be handled. Your disappearance. Your identity. Your records. If Lucian Devereux had influence in your human life, anything public may expose you before we understand what he knows.”
Grace absorbed that in silence.
The prosecutor had not gone away. She was merely exhausted, starved for facts, and seated in a robe at a table with a vampire king. Her mind still moved beneath the shock. I could almost see it sorting columns: risk, remedy, jurisdiction, evidence.
“I had cases,” she said.
“I know.”
“You don’t know.”
“No,” I admitted. “I know only that you would not have abandoned them willingly.”
Her eyes held mine for one beat too long. Then she looked down.
That was enough. More than I deserved.
“What happens when I wake?” she asked.
“Millie will be here first, unless you ask otherwise. There will be blood wine nearby and food if you want it. I will come when you permit me.”
Her fingers tightened on the robe. “If I don’t?”
“Then I will wait.”
“You’re very good at making statements that sound reasonable and impossible at the same time.”
“That is a useful skill for ruling.”
“I imagine it’s also useful for trapping people.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “It can be.”
Her eyes lifted again.
I let the admission stand. There was no point pretending power was harmless merely because I intended to use mine gently with her.
I had trapped men. I had cornered enemies until every door out led through me.
I had built a kingdom out of rules and consequences, and I would not insult her intelligence by pretending a crown was only decorative.
But she was not my enemy. She was a woman whose hand had bent a fork without noticing. A woman fighting sleep like sleep itself might touch her without permission.
“Will someone be outside the door?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Taras?”
“If he has his way.”
“And if I want him gone?”
“Then he will be farther down the corridor and offended in silence. He is your brother now, as he is mine.”
A breath left her. Not quite a laugh, but its ruined cousin. It was enough to make me grateful in a way that embarrassed me.
“He really does alphabetize knives, doesn’t he?” she asked.
“Swords first. Knives by length, then by origin.”
This time the corner of her mouth moved. Barely. It vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but I saw it.
Her lashes lowered. She forced them open. “What if I wake up hungry and hurt someone?”
“You will not be alone long enough for that to happen.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“It was a promise.”
“Maksym.”
My name in her mouth stopped me.
She had not said Majesty. Had not said vampire. Had not said monster. The sound of my given name, tired and edged with warning, settled under my skin with more force than any title.
I lowered my voice. “If you wake hungry, you call for Millie. Or Taras. Or me. There will be blood wine within reach, but if you are disoriented and cannot drink safely, someone will help. No humans will be placed near you. No donor will be offered until you are steady and understand what is being asked of you.”
Her throat moved.
“You will not be allowed to accidentally harm someone in this house,” I said. “Not because you are restrained. Because you will be cared for.”
She looked as if she disliked that answer because part of her wanted to believe it.
I knew the feeling. Trust, when it first returned after betrayal, did not arrive like a guest. It crept in like a trespasser and made a person resent the unlocked window.
“How long before I’m safe?” she whispered.
“You are safe now.”
Her expression went hard.
I corrected myself. “Before you feel safe? I do not know.”
That answer she accepted, though it saddened her. Or perhaps exhaustion did. Her shoulders sank by a fraction, and this time she did not immediately pull them back into place.
Nothing had ever required more discipline than sitting across from Grace while she tried not to fall asleep.
“You should rest,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “That sounds like an order.”
“It was a plea.”
She studied me. Then, with the last tatters of her strength, she said, “You need practice.”
“Yes.”
Another breath. Closer to amusement this time, though too faint to count.
I rose slowly.
Grace’s body reacted before her mind gave permission. Her fingers tightened on the chair arms. Her gaze tracked my height, my hands, the space between us. I stopped at once and kept my palms visible.
“I am leaving,” I said. “Millie will come in. You will not be alone.”
She nodded.
“Rest,” I said. “Everything else can wait until dusk.”
For once, Grace did not argue.
I opened the door and stepped into the corridor. Only when I had pulled it closed behind me did I allow my lungs to work.
Taras sat exactly where I expected him.
He had folded himself into a carved wooden chair against the opposite wall, one ankle crossed over the other, arms drawn over his chest. His silver hair had fallen slightly across his forehead. His hazel eyes fixed on me the instant I emerged.
He read my face.
I did not know what he found there. I only knew his shoulders, held tight for hours, lowered by the smallest degree.
“She is holding,” he said.
“She is asking questions.”
His eyes closed briefly. Relief, for Taras, was often indistinguishable from pain.
“Better than screaming,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Better than trying to bolt through the wards.”
“She considered it. Decided against wasting energy.”
“That sounds promising.”
“That sounds like Grace.”
Taras leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “She knows?”
Clearly, my twin had closed off his hearing and allowed me the privacy my mate and I were due.
“About the bond? Yes.”
His brows lifted.
“I told her.”
“You chose subtlety, then.”
“She asked why her suffering had personal significance.”
“Ah.” His gaze moved to the closed door. “And?”
“She told me a goddess giving her a vampire king as a mate after two years of vampire captivity was a cruel joke.”
Taras was silent for half a second.
“Reasonable assessment,” he said.
I looked at him as his expression remained blank and felt a spark of dry humor.
“Yes,” I said. “I thought so.”
The spark died quickly.
Taras’s eyes sharpened again, and the corridor seemed to narrow around what came next.
“Father.”
There it was.
The word had been standing behind us since Grace whispered blood slave into the desert night.
Kazimir Kozlov had outlawed the trade a century ago with the kind of finality that made wise men bury their appetites and foolish ones bury their evidence.
If an Elder in my territory had been keeping slaves, if Devereux had moved human bodies beneath my authority, then this was not merely a crime.
It was rot inside the wall. I nodded once.
“I will call him.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Before either of us moved, the soft rhythm of footsteps approached from the adjoining corridor. Millie appeared, carrying a small tray.
A steaming bowl sat on it; the scent of warm broth rising gently through the cold air. Beside it lay a folded nightgown in pale cotton, thick socks, and a tall glass of blood wine. Practical mercy, arranged neatly on silver.
She paused before us and looked me over. Her gaze moved over my face, my hands, the set of my shoulders.
Then she said, “You did well tonight.”