Chapter 13
L ukas
“Did I or did I not tell you that Kiam is your guard?” Cassia stared back at me wide-eyed.
Kiam brought her directly to my office, as I instructed him. The moment I found out she was off palace grounds with a slave, I didn’t know who I’d punish first.
Kiam would likely be first, for all the good it would do me. It was more likely we’d end up killing each other than having anything else useful transpire. But I wouldn’t forget his lapse in judgement or the risk he’d posed to my Cassia.
“You did, but I was with Katarina. She knows her way around better than me or Kiam.”
“She’s a slave, Cassia. A human.”
She crossed her arms right under her breasts. “So why doesn’t she have a guard?”
“She’s a slave. She’s expendable. You, dear, are not. You are not to leave without protection.” I rounded my desk and sat in my chair.
The panic that’d filled me when I realized she was gone was far more than I’d expected.
I’d been in the courtroom, working on an active verdict and been unable to address the situation myself.
Breaking protocol and interrupting proceedings, I summoned Kiam to fetch her immediately.
The relief that filled me when I felt her return caused me to sentence the man to burn at the stake.
My blood burned during her absence. So would his.
She stood there, her lips slightly separated. She pressed a couple of fingers to her mouth and glanced to the side before meeting my gaze. “She is my friend. She’s not expendable.”
“You’ll make better friends.”
Who they would be, I didn’t know. I would have to investigate that. I certainly didn’t want her to spend all her time in Kiam’s company.
I felt her aura billow with anger, as if a gust of wind had caught and stretched a curtain that now fluttered against my legs. “You can’t tell me who my friends are. That’s not how it works. You better not hurt her.”
Katarina had been escorted down to the dungeons the moment the women were returned.
She knew Cassia was not to leave without being accompanied by her guard. It was standard procedure. She’d been employed long enough to be aware of what would happen.
“You are my responsibility. For someone so fearful of her surroundings, you made a reckless decision.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised, but I was.
Throwing projectiles at me in the safety of the bedroom was much different than wandering the city unaccompanied. She had displayed carelessness for her own well-being. She was my responsibility and it was my job to keep her safe.
Too much was going on. Kalix was being sent to rule a kingdom in the north. One of my men, Deven, had located a human in possession of contraband under odd circumstances. And Annalise was hinting at something major occurring in her personal life.
Being torn in many different directions meant I had neglected to monitor Cassia sufficiently.
Pure spite radiated from her gaze. “You’re not going to keep me locked up here like a child.”
“There’s a reason there are no children here.” Her chest rose and fell. “I’ll deal with Kiam, but you are not going to flitter about the Realm unsupervised.”
“Katarina should be enough. Are you telling me that somebody would hurt what you claim is yours?”
My own anger flared. She was testing me.
And very much trying my patience.
The pen in my hand made a sharp cracking sound, and she quickly glanced at it. I dropped the broken writing instrument on my desk and watched the ink pool in a small, thick circle before I looked at her.
I crowded her against the wall before she realized what had happened. My hand curled around her neck with her soft strands draping against my skin. She teetered on her tiptoes and her big blue eyes watered. The temptation to leave her suspended in this position won.
She was speechless, gaping at me when I returned to my desk. With a small cotton cloth, I mopped up the spilled ink.
“Lukas.” Her voice was hoarse.
I still had a verdict to decree, regarding Deven’s find, but the circumstances were outlandish. I had half a mind to transfer the case to Ezekiel, let him deal with it. Cassia needed tending to.
Her muscles were twitching as she fought to lower her feet, and she repeated my name again. Her disbelief and anger filled the room with a thick, cloying fog that Kiam walked right into. He wasn’t a pureblood, he shouldn’t have been so sensitive. But he was.
“What the hell,” he muttered, giving her a cursory glance.
He strolled directly over to the carafe of blood sitting on the sideboard and poured himself a glass, the sound of the crystal decanter competing with Cassia’s grunts.
“I imagine Katarina is waiting for your company,” I drawled.
He arched a single brow. “You do have a nice dungeon here. Gave me some ideas for my own.”
“No. Lukas! You can’t put my friend in a dungeon!” Tears flew down Cassia’s cheeks in earnest. “Get her out of there right now or I’ll?—”
“Or you’ll what?” I interrupted her. “What will you do?”
Kiam snickered and seated himself in one of the two armchairs facing my desk and slowly sipped on his beverage. He didn’t care about Cassia’s slave, but I had a point to make, and he played along.
“Please?”
Her voice was so soft that I wouldn’t have heard it if I wasn’t a vampire. The sound of that single word slid around my brain and my chest, softening my anger. Without thinking any further, I lifted my hand and she lowered to her knees.
Cassia gasped and rose from the floor. “Where do you think you are going?” I asked.
She glanced at Kiam and I gestured for him to stand. “Bring her to her room and return. We have things to discuss. Namely, what you were doing courting Annalise from Wyvon’s throne.”
* * *
“I think Cassia’s bored,” Kiam stated, returning to my office. “And I’m not a babysitter.”
A while back, he’d suggested that I date her. It wasn’t a terrible idea—if I could find the time to do so. “That may very well be,” I admitted.
“Are you going to let Katarina go? They removed a couple of her fingernails, but she can still work with Cassia. I only spotted two missing.”
If I let her remain unpunished, it sent a message of leniency I couldn’t afford. However, I could engineer her sentencing so that she survived largely intact. “Maybe,” I replied.
“While you sit there brooding, I’ll tell you what me and Annalise discussed. What she confided in me.” He waited for me to meet his gaze. “She gave birth once.”
That was the last thing I expected to hear. Not once had I ever seen her pregnant, but she was vain enough to remain in seclusion for the gestational period.
“Who does she think the father is?” I asked.
It couldn’t be Wyvon. He may be her husband and King, but neither had desired to wed the other. It was simply a strategic pairing. There was no meeting of souls, no love. They weren’t mates and they should barely be considered partners. They never lived together.
The joining of the two was an aberration as vampires were traditionally loyal and faithful. Knowing Annalise, whoever had sired her spawn would be a vampire of renown. The idea was both fascinating and disturbing.
He shook his head and placed his glass down. “She didn’t say. She didn’t say much about it at all.”
“And this came up because why? Because she’d told Cassia she’d never get pregnant?”
“I believe so. I was asking her general questions about life here, and she filled me in a bit before dropping that bomb. She’d didn’t extrapolate on the subject, but she mentioned that she wondered what had become of him.”
“Him,” I repeated. If I knew our Queen at all, I knew this meant she was going to search for this boy, or man. “How long ago did she give birth?”
Kiam stood and folded his hands together behind his back. He strolled over to a bookshelf and eyed the titles.
“She’s not easy to read, not even for me. I could get past some of her barriers, but she’s the strongest I’ve ever met. I’m not sure she was aware, but she instinctively closed every open door in her mind while I searched. But some, I got there before she could.”
He turned around, one corner of his mouth lifting. “My best guess would be approximately three hundred years ago. Perhaps up to five. Most likely somewhere in between.”
The man was a very useful friend. “She is going to send someone to look for him.”
“Possibly me,” he said.
“I need you here.”
“You need to pay attention to Cassia. Do something other than pin her to your office wall.”
He pursed his lips and glanced at the door. “Take her out or something. Reward her for good behavior. She’ll start acting against you if you keep this up.”
An unfamiliar heavy weight landed in my chest. I didn’t want Cassia to take steps to thwart me. What I’d envisioned wasn’t anything like that. I pictured spending time with her, dining with—and on, her. Sleeping beside her and protecting her, keeping her close.
I was doing an abominable job moving things in that direction.
Chair legs scraped the floor as I got up. “You’re right. I’ll see to Katarina as well.”
I’d figure something out. I had to for both our sake. “Do not leave this Realm, or the kingdom, without talking to me first.”
Kiam walked through the door as I held it open, leaving first. He didn’t look back, striding down the hall. I turned the other way, heading to the lower levels.
The basement of the castle was much as one would expect.
Flickering torches lit themselves as I passed, throwing an orange hue along the corridor's ceiling.
The faint sound of dripping water and the pungent taste of fear hung in the air, buoyed by the sharp, spicy flavor of misery.
Roughhewn walls, the chisel marks visible and bordered with punishing edges funneled me into a cavernous space.
The area was five stories tall with balconied walkways well-traveled by many guards over thousands of years.
The energy signatures of countless prisoners had embedded into the walls deep enough to never be extracted from the granite.
The effect on the senses was almost enough to never have to lay a hand on a single inmate. Breathing the air was a punishment.
The oppressive atmosphere, heavy with the scents of blood and flesh, was hypnotic. My fangs pushed through my gums, and I ran my tongue over them. It had been a while since I’d satiated my need to drink naturally.
Uniformed men stood sentry in the corners while others patrolled the expanse. I nodded to one, Macius, and focused until I found the overly confident maid.
She sat chained to a chair in a small cell, her head hanging forward, and her strapped hands bleeding onto the stone floor. My Cassia was quite fond of this human. She’d want her hands healed.
That wasn’t something I could do without causing an uprising.
“Katarina,” I said her name. She lifted her head and tried to shrink back but there was nowhere she could go.
“Cassia requires your friendship,” I stated. She flicked a glance at me before gazing at her lap. “She has asked me to spare you.”
She looked at me again. “I am altering the terms of your punishment. No one will feed on you any longer, and you will remain mostly intact.”
A small glimmer of hope colored her aura. She hadn’t meant any harm, not truly. She held no treason or duplicity. I suspected she genuinely liked the woman.
I lowered my voice. “I cannot pretend to understand why you would defy commonsense and put Cassia at risk. This is your one and only chance. I will not hesitate to remove your heart myself.”
Her eyes widened but she remained silent.
“Tell me you understand and will obey.”
She nodded and whispered, her voice harsh from either crying or screaming, I didn’t know, “Yes... I understand.”
She appeared sincere, and her energy flickered as if it had let out a long breath. I waited for a change, but she seemed steady and sure.
Then, I walked away. I had a woman to placate.