Chapter 12 | Sephania
Sephania
I wake to the sound of screams. My head pops up from the bed with alarm, eyes grimy, and I breathe raggedly when I realize it’s not Garroway burning to death.
I blink the crustiness away and see sunlight peeking in through the section of window I left open.
It appears to be mid-morning. I haven’t gotten nearly enough rest.
Garroway sleeps naked next to me, housed by blankets that cover his entire body. He grumbles when I poke his side. “Something’s going on downstairs,” I murmur.
The blankets lower, his face shows—just his forehead and eyes. The red orbs are more bloodshot than usual. He hisses when he spots the sunlight in the window. Luckily, the sun points into the opposite side of the room, across from the bed. “Seems our morbid affair has been discovered,” he mumbles.
I’m confused at first. He knows Lukain has been watching us? Then the haze of sleep washes away and I sigh. Ah, right. Pukren. I had forgotten about that weasel after our torrid rooftop session. “Still no regrets about killing him?”
Garroway shakes his head. He looks adorable under the covers. I’d hate to wake him for no reason. “I am happy to make men suffer for your benefit, lass.”
His words take some of the adorableness out of him, yet I find myself chuckling. “You truly do have the strangest ways of showing affection, cub.”
His face crinkles with a smile, though I can’t see it beneath the covers. “Rest your body against mine for a while longer, little honey badger. It’s not nearly time to be awake.”
Yes, because if I sleep the day away . . . I’ll be on a vampire’s schedule and truly see myself no differently than you nightcrawlers.
I plop my head down and curl up against him, deciding I don’t give a shit.
Pukren’s corpse isn’t worth waking up for.
Hours later, I blink my eyes open again. I recall bathing in the adjacent bathhouse next to the brothel, and briefly wonder if Lukain’s visit was nothing but a fever dream.
The annoying nagging in my mind asks the question I don’t want to answer: He found me so easily and had every opportunity to steal me away as I stood naked before him, to bring me to his mother.
So why didn’t he? Could he truly be trying to convince me of his righteousness, “rescuing” me with persuasion rather than brute force?
As I stare up at the ceiling, my head instinctively shakes. I can’t think of him. Not anymore. Not when he is an agent of Spymistress Alacine Mortis. He’s only trying to win me back for her benefit, to get hold of my Loreblood so he doesn’t have to fight me for it.
Stretching, I sit up, noticing the sun has darkened in the window. It’s nearly twilight. We’ve slept the entire day.
I smile over at Garroway. He hasn’t moved since I slithered up next to him. Then my stomach yells at me and I grimace. “Shit, I need food.”
“Stew downstairs, I’m sure,” Garro mumbles under his blankets.
“Get up, sleepyhead. It’s almost night. We’re an entire day late—erm, evening late—meeting Skar at the manor.”
Grumbling the entire time like a spoiled child, my mate crawls out of bed.
Reclining and smiling, I take great satisfaction in watching his naked form search for his clothes strewn about the small room.
Those corded muscles, the way they flexed and constricted so delectably on the roof.
That thick cock swinging as he bends over to pick up his pants—the tool used to satiate my seductions.
His nearly hairless body, fit and chiseled perfectly, without a measure of fat on him.
I realize I haven’t stopped staring the entire time he dresses, and my mind takes a sordid shift. Truehearts save me, I really missed these bastards during my captivity. I can hardly go an hour without thinking of their bodies or how I want them to use me.
“What’s wrong?” His brow furrows as he throws his tunic on.
I shake my head. “Nothing.” A flush burns my cheeks but I don’t want to talk about it, or for Garroway to get any ideas.
We need to get to Manor Marquin. I’ve missed Skar.
The most unpredictable of this trio, the refined nobleman, and the bloodthirsty torturer of my enemies.
“Think Skar will be angry with us for being so late?” As I get up from bed, I issue the cozy cot a fond farewell.
Garro shrugs. “How angry can he be? You’re the key to this whole thing, not him. He’s just the spokesperson.”
I laugh at that, trying to imagine Lord Skartovius Ashfen, with all his arrogance and swagger, as nothing more than a figurehead without any real power.
The man can fucking control shadows now.
I think he has more power than Garro is giving him credit for.
Many the dhampir still stings from his dwindling bloodbond with his master.
As we make our way downstairs, shouting erupts inside the main room of the brothel. Garroway and I share looks at the sound of men’s voices—including the barman from yesterday, Kep.
“What have I told you, you diabolical bitch? Be gone with ye now!”
“We’ll stick you with the pointy side of this fire poker if you don’t step out, witch woman,” says another.
“Get your vile hands away from our delicate waifs!” says a third.
I rub the back of my neck, feeling embarrassed for whoever is getting kicked out of the brothel and being called such awful names.
Then I hear her voice. “Sirs, please, I don’t wish any ill upon your nightladies. I only wish to rest. I was told my kind is accepted here.”
“Your kind?” fumes Kep. “We hardly tolerate dhampir, but you? You’re a paleskin fullblooded bi—”
“What’s going on down here?” Garroway shouts as we reach the bottom of the landing and everything comes into view. A hooded woman stands in the doorway, slightly hunched. She’s dressed in little more than rags. I can see the paleness of the lower half of her face.
Despite the woman being a vampiress—an odd sight in a brothel in Nuhav—she looks disheveled and weak. Nothing like the elegant monsters I know from Olhav.
Kep spins around with his two workers. The barman is a stout fellow with a long mustache, and his two lackeys are young and spry. All three of them tower over the vampiress, who I know poses much more of a threat than these three human men combined, despite her appearance.
My eyes stay on the girl with her hood pulled down to her nose. Her lips are a pale red, almost pink. But it was her voice that threw me off when we descended the steps. Somehow, it sounded familiar.
My distraction brings me to ignore Kep as he approaches me and Garro, saying, “None of your concern, half-blood.”
His friend to the right says, “Unless you’re in cahoots with this vermin.”
“Don’t trust her meekness, grayskin,” says the third.
They crowd us, as if shifting their anger to my dhampir mate because he looks similar to the vagabond in the doorway. The rest of the brothel is empty, still too early for the evening arrivals of lustful men.
Garroway crosses his arms. “You were much more cordial with me last night, Kep. Why the hostility?”
“I’m tired of your kind scaring away my patrons. I put up with you, Garroway. Doesn’t mean I like you.”
“For shame,” Garro sighs, tilting his head. “Here I thought I was helping you keep scoundrels like Banooth in check.”
The lad to my right snarls at Garro. “Found that body outside in the alley, too. Think that’s good for business? Was probably this wicked bloodsucker bitch or you, half-blood.” He jabs his finger into Garroway’s chest—
Or almost does, because my hand instinctively lashes out and crashes into the man’s wrist directly in a sore point, causing the lad to howl and grab at his flung hand.
“Don’t touch him, for your own safety,” I growl.
“Kep, I’m tired of this shit!” yells the lad on the left, furthest from me. “These curs can’t just push us around in our own place of business!” He shoves past the burly barman, charging at me.
Kep gasps, too slow to stop him. “Wait, you fool!”
I read the lad’s flying fist the entire way, instincts taking over. Bobbing left, I bring up my elbow and use his momentum to rail the bone into his nose, crunching every little thing there. Blood spews, which makes the girl in the doorway sniff and hiss from the scent.
The other lad with the bruised wrist spins at me, but Garroway’s sword flashes. One quick jab toward the boy’s neck, drawing a bead of blood as it rests against his collar, stops the boy cold. His face drains of color.
“We’re leaving now,” Garroway says. “If you make one more move trying to harm a hair on my lady’s body, I’ll slice off every single appendage from the three of you. I tally eighteen limbs between you, counting heads and cocks. If you have those.”
Kep inhales sharply and backs up, barring his lackeys with his arms spread wide. “You madman.”
“I’m much worse than mad. I’m annoyed.” Garro sheathes his sword now that there’s some space between us. “I’ll chalk this up to a misunderstanding, Kep.”
We march past them, toward the vampiress standing in the doorway. She looks confused.
“D-Don’t show your f-face here again, grayskin!” Kep stammers, trying to muster his courage to our backs. “And take that ragged bloodsucker with you!”
“Was planning on it,” I say for Garro. As we approach the door, the girl moves aside to let us pass. Her hood stays low. “Come on,” I urge, holding an arm out. “You’re not welcome here, lady.”
A frown forms on her pink lips, lines of confusion marring the few features I can see.
“Don’t be sad,” I say, wondering if bloodies like her even can feel sad. “This dingy brothel isn’t worth your time.”
“No, it’s not that, Mistress,” she mutters. “It’s your . . . voice.” Her hood falls back, red eyes staring up at me.
My world tilts, shock speeding across my face as swiftly as I recognize her, even though she’s grown now.
“S-Sister Cyprilis? Is that really you?”
“True be true,” I say in awe as the three of us lazily walk through the dark streets of Nuhav. “I haven’t seen you since we were children.”