Chapter 25 Protecting Foolish Fears #2
“The tall one with the cane?”
“Vor,” he said without hesitation, and I had to say, the name suited him, although I wondered if it was short for something else.
“He serves on my council.”
Council… Umm… The word conjured images far more structured than the chaos I had walked into that first night.
“Council?” I repeated, tilting my head slightly.
“You say that like you’re running some ancient board meeting,” I commented.
“In a sense, I am,” he replied, and this time there was the faintest hint of dry humor threading through his voice.
I thought he would say more about it, but he remained silent as we resumed walking.
I also became acutely aware of the way my heels sounded against the stone, the echo carried upward into the open space above.
His stride remained unhurried and, as usual, one of confidence.
In fact, I had to shorten mine slightly to match it, which only made me more conscious of the proximity between us, with my hand still held firmly in his.
“What exactly do you think you know about me?” he asked suddenly, and the question tightened something low in my stomach. To the point that I hesitated, studying the angle of his jaw, the sharp cut of it beneath the light, wondering how much truth I could afford.
“I know enough,” I said, though my voice lacked some of its earlier boldness.
“Do you now?” he asked, his tone somewhere between intrigued and amused.
“You’re an Enforcer,” I said, the words leaving my mouth before I could reconsider them. He raised a brow at that, a flicker of surprise crossing his expression before it settled again.
“What else?” he prompted, as though genuinely interested in what I might dare to say next. So, I took a steadying breath and decided to tell him more, unable to help myself at this point.
“You answer to the King of Kings. You judge the damned. You manage what happens within your domain.”
The silence that followed was not explosive, but it was charged. I watched his expression carefully, and for the first time since meeting him, I saw something genuine flicker there.
Total astonishment.
“That is considerably more than I expected,” he said slowly, and I felt myself tense at once, the regret surfacing almost as quickly as the words had left my mouth.
I swallowed the nervous pounding in my chest and answered it with defiance, holding his gaze far longer than was comfortable.
“You didn’t expect me to ask questions?” I challenged.
“I did not expect you to have answers,” he replied sternly, and his gaze searched my face with a new intensity that I had to force myself not to back down from.
“For a mortal to know so much does not usually happen without consequence,” he continued, lowering his voice slightly, and his words slid over my skin like a warning I couldn’t quite decipher. I swallowed hard, the motion suddenly noticeable in my throat… something he didn’t miss.
“What does that mean?” I asked, my fingers on my free hand curling instinctively into the material of my skirt. And for a heartbeat, I thought he might answer fully. His jaw shifted slightly, as though he were considering it. But then whatever decision he reached settled behind his eyes.
“It means that you ask dangerous questions to potentially the wrong person,” he said instead, leading me off the main entrance hall into a corridor of stone walls and flaming wrought iron lanterns that hung from the tall arched ceiling.
“That’s not an answer,” I murmured, frustration mingling with curiosity.
“No,” he agreed quietly, before his tone came out hard and unyielding,
“It is not.”
“What does that mean?” I asked as I tried to pull my hand from his, not liking where this conversation was headed. Especially when his expression did not soften this time.
“It means that you have been speaking to someone you should not have,” he warned quietly, as there was no question in it.
He already knew.
I held his gaze, refusing to let the flicker of panic surface.
“In that case, it would be foolish of me to confirm, wouldn’t it?”
Something shifted in him then. Something dangerous and not necessarily visible to anyone who didn’t know to look for it. But I saw it. The subtle tightening along his jaw. The faint flare of silver in his eyes.
“You think I do not know?” he asked softly, and the calm in his tone unsettled me far more than anger would have.
“I think that if I tell you who, then they may suffer for it,” I replied carefully, and that did it!
Before I knew what was happening, he suddenly stepped forward with clear and deliberate intent that forced me back until the cool stone met my shoulders.
I gasped, the contact startling me more than I expected, and for a split second, I thought my head would strike the wall behind me as I was forced backwards.
It didn’t.
That was because his hand came up instantly, cupping the back of my head, fingers spreading against my hair to shield me from the impact he himself had caused.
His other arm braced above my head, closing the space entirely.
I could feel the heat of him now. The controlled tension in his frame, and I would have been an idiot had I not been frightened of him in that moment.
“You believe I would harm someone for speaking to you…” he said, his tone so calm it would have been foolish to mistake it for reassurance. I heard it in the way he delivered the words, this was not denial forming on his tongue, but stark acknowledgement.
“…And you are not wrong,” he finished at the same time as his hand tightened in my hair, making me gasp again.
Although, it wasn’t painful, just possessive, and something shifted behind his eyes.
Silver flashed there. Something furious settling there, turning his eyes into something darker than their usual striking ice blue color.
The air thickened, shadows at the edges of the corridor seeming to lean inward, drawn toward him.
“You do understand that it is forbidden for you to know what you know… don’t you?” he continued, his voice lowering into something that vibrated through my bones.
But I was stuck on that one word that carried far more weight than it should.
Forbidden.
It struck somewhere deep, too close to the truth of what I was to him… What I was not meant to be.
His head dipped then, deliberately slow like he had all the time in the world with me. His nose brushed the curve of my neck as he inhaled deeply. The sensation stole the air from my lungs. His fingers tightened in my hair just enough to hold me still, not cruel, not careless, but unyielding.
The faintest pressure then grazed my skin, and I froze.
Fangs.
He had fucking fangs!
Yet they didn’t pierce my skin, instead they simply hovered over my quivering flesh.
The promise of them sent a violent clash of sensations through me.
Fear and heat colliding so sharply I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
My pulse thundered in my ears, every instinct screaming at me to push him away, and yet my body betrayed me by arching infinitesimally closer.
The slight movement on my part had him groaning into my neck, and shame filled me.
“So, I’m here to be punished?” I asked, trying to mask the dangerous slip of desire that made me want to step closer instead of away. Although, admittedly, the words barely made it past my lips. Another low and dangerous sound left him, something far closer to a growl than a laugh.
“No one would dare punish you,” he practically snarled, lifting his gaze to mine, silver still ghosting faintly at the edges of the darkness.
“But someone will answer for this!” The inevitability in his tone made my stomach twist.
“And that…” I managed, breath uneven now,
“…is exactly why I won’t tell you.”
His thumb shifted slightly in my hair, the smallest of warnings.
“I will find out,” he stated firmly, like it wasn’t only a threat but more like… law.
“What remains uncertain…” he continued, his mouth still close enough to my throat that I could feel the warmth of his breath against my pulse,
“…is how lenient I will be when I do.”
For one reckless, terrifying heartbeat, I thought he might bite me after that. And if I were being honest with myself, part of me not only feared it but more than anything else…
Part of me wanted him to.
The humiliation of that realization burned hotter than the fear itself.
However, in the end, my fears were for nothing, as instead of biting me and claiming me there and then, he pulled back abruptly.
As though dragging something feral back into submission.
The shadows eased after that as if they, too, had been yanked back suddenly.
The silver in his eyes faded with it, and his expression smoothed into something controlled.
Something composed and dangerous in an entirely different way.
“Come,” he said, steady again, as though the Enforcer still lingered beneath the surface.
He held his hand out for me to take, but I swallowed hard and nodded.
This time, I made my feelings clear by continuing forward without taking his offered hand, forcing him to let it fall back to his side.
I didn’t miss the way his fingers curled slowly into a fist once it was there, and I hated the small stab of guilt that followed.
It was only when we reached the midpoint of the hall that something shifted.
At first, I didn’t register it consciously.
My steps simply slowed, my gaze drifting ahead with a faint frown tugging at my brow.
The far end of the space opened into another chamber, and along the perimeter of the walls stood a series of tall, pale forms arranged at careful intervals.
Statues!
The word formed in my mind before I could stop it.