Chapter 41 | Sephania
Sephania
“Have you heard of Delmarn?” I ask Skartovius.
We’re lying naked in bed after a raucous session where he flung me around the room with his shadows and dominated me in more ways than I can count.
Vallan arrived halfway through, either hearing my moans or feeling I was in mortal danger from his bloodsight, and the vampires plugged me at both ends for an hour straight.
Now I’ve melted into the bed. Vallan has left to enforce our veiled threats to the tavern owners and brothel keepers we’ve given Silverblood to. It seems in dashing away the worst of the worst gangs in Nuhav, we’ve become the gangs. I suppose no strategy is perfect.
“The city on the coast?” He tilts his chin along the top of my head, which rests on his sturdy chest, his arm wrapped around my shoulder. “I’ve seen maps.”
I came to Skar to talk about Imis’ disconcerting news, but we had to work out some kinks first and make up for lost time over the past few months I’ve made him grovel.
Everything Imis said about demon blood and vampire cadavers and ancient lineages seems highly theoretical.
I felt I needed to talk to an expert about it.
The century-old vampire with the hidden library in his former manor seemed like the best place to start.
Given what we just did and how spent and sweaty I am now, the century-old vampire was definitely the best place to start.
“Imis came to me with some worrying information,” I murmur.
“Which one is she?”
Scoffing into his hard muscle, I say, “The one with the large spectacles we rescued from the mines. Says Liolen Sesk bought her when she first arrived back in Nuhav weeks ago.”
“Those spectacles, they’re interesting. An invention of her own making?”
“Focus, my lord.”
He chuckles, his breath warm around my face. Then I feel his hand dipping lower, past my shoulder, squeezing me close. Skar toys with my nipple, hand agonizingly gliding across my breast. “You make focusing difficult, little temptress.” His voice is a golden purr.
When I shiver, he unhands me. Unfortunately. “She says she has evidence that proves ancient vampires are demons.”
Skar scoffs again. “What evidence does she need? Of course we’re demons.”
Slowly, I lift off from his chest, glancing over at him while my hair spills around my face. “I mean literal demons. From the afterworld or some such. She places Aramastun Wyvox in that category of bloodsuckers who come from silver and use it rather than fear it.”
Skar’s face remains smooth, unconcerned.
Relentlessly handsome, as if those full lips and slight tilt to his brow, his strong jaw, are an attack on my system, all vying to bring me to my knees.
“Sounds rather silly to me, love. No tomes of mine have touched on such a subject. Granted, my library was not as extensive as it should have been.”
I lay on my side next to him, propped up on an elbow, my curves spooled out beside him and stealing his attention again.
“Imis says the tomes mentioning all this relate to the Truehearts and the Damned. It’s why she keeps going to the Temple of the True, to try and learn more, I think.
Did the tomes you have touch on religious subjects like that? ”
His perfect lips quirk into a frown. “There may have been blind spots regarding faith in my learning. I’ve always been more concerned with politics, battle, and history.”
“How can you learn history without learning of the various faiths that shaped it?”
Now his frown flips, curving crookedly. He searches my eyes, leans over, and kisses me lightly on the lips. “That’s quite good, my brat princess. And quite true. I shall endeavor to discover more about this, if it truly concerns you so.”
There’s a gnawing pit of discomfort inside me.
A sense of foreboding I can’t shake, ever since Imis laid out her argument.
She wasn’t completely eloquent or clear while telling it, like she was piecing together parts of the story herself, yet I can’t deny her fervor and belief.
“Imis is distraught over it, and she’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. I think it begs looking into.”
“She learned all this in Delmarn, eh?” He gains a pensive expression, smiling. “I would like to go to the port city some day.”
“Maybe when this is all over, we can,” I murmur. Our breaths mingle as we draw closer.
Skar lets out a little sound, somewhere between an incredulous snort and a chuckle. “I am a vampire, little temptress. I’ll never be accepted.”
My body tenses as I go on my hands and knees, tilting my head to paw at his nose with mine. “No . . . not unless we change the minds of humans about you.”
He kisses me again, harder this time, then pulls back.
“We can change minds later. And I’ll look into your friend’s studies, my queen.
” Another kiss, his tongue slipping inside my mouth this time.
I lightly suck on it, mewling at the sheer way he claims me, commandeers my lips and body to greet him.
Skar’s body ruffles the covers as he slides over.
His cock is a weighty pillar between his thighs, thickening, lengthening, and it presses against my broad hip.
“First, I have other pressing matters . . .”
I cup Skar’s chin, smiling, melding into him in a sensual embrace.
While he’s relaxed, I claim his wrists with my hands and push him onto his back, pinning them over his head.
He stares up at me delectably, grinning.
My legs wobble as I straddle the wiry nobleblood, my thick thighs bracketing his narrow hips.
My ass plants down on that monstrous beast of his, which throbs deliciously beneath me, teasing my soaked cunt with its scalding heat.
I match Skar’s grin. “Let’s see if your shadows can save you this time, you demon.”
We fall asleep entwined, hours later. The evening left me breathless and shaky. I’m awake a few short hours after that, and I wrap a heavy robe gifted to me by the Chained Sisters so I can step out and go to the underground hot spring to bathe.
My sleep has come in spurts in recent days due to all the things happening at once, swimming in my head. It makes the wee hours of morning like this peaceful. A time for myself.
A few bodies dot the eating room as I pass through it, murmuring in low voices. I recognize a couple Sisters, clad in robes like I am, conversing with Grimsons. Most of the Firehold is still asleep at this hour.
I wonder what kind of morning it is on the Floorboards, past this cave ceiling. How does the sky look? Is it gray with clouds? Brilliantly blue? I’m not curious enough to actually go look, deciding to form a vision of how I wish the sky to appear in my head instead.
Shuffling my way through the central dining hall, which shoots off to the southern hot springs, I catch a slight form rise from an eating bench. My eyes veer over and I see Imis hurrying through, finishing her breakfast.
“Im,” I call out.
She freezes, as if she’s guilty about something. Slowly, the slight woman peers over her shoulder. “Sephy?”
I approach. “Headed to the temple?”
She nods deeply.
Something sits uncomfortably in my chest. Resisting a wince, I speak softly. “All this demon-hunting and demon-learning, do you think it’s good for your mind? Have you not grown a bit . . .”
“Obsessed?”
Now I do wince, shrugging helplessly.
She gives me a kind smile. “We all have our obsessions, Sephy. Everyone could hear yours last night. At least I keep mine private and quiet.”
My cheeks burn like the sun, and I gawk. Shit. She heard us? Who else did? I suppose I’ve stopped trying to be quiet when I’m with my mates, because who knows how long we have until the next tragic battle or attempt on my life? There’s no point in being squeamish these days.
I also didn’t expect Imis to be one to fire back at me, because she’s always been so quiet and sweet. Everyone changes, I muse.
She smiles coyly at me, not with any malice.
I wonder if there’s some jealousy in that smile and her tone.
She did kiss me, many years ago, trying to “break the spell” I had inadvertently cast over her when I became a fighting champion for the Grimdaughters.
She meant nothing by the barb now, just as she meant nothing by the kiss then.
I shouldn’t be so spineless as to be hurt by it.
“Well let me go with you, at least,” I eke out, clearing my throat, trying to hide my flushed cheeks while I stare at something uninteresting in the distance. “It’s been years since I’ve attended mass at the temple.”
And many more years I’ll gladly wait. The truth is, I don’t care about the Temple of the True. I do care about Imis’ safety, however.
Her face sinks, and I already know the refusal is coming. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less when she says, “Thank you, my friend, but I prefer to take in the solemn presence of the Truehearts in solitude. I feel safe there.”
She turns and shuffles off, leaving me holding the air, watching hopelessly after her. Yes, that’s what I’m afraid of, Im.
Over the past few weeks, things have moved in a lilting daze.
We work during the evenings to pass out the Silverblood and engage the city in our disruptive rebellion.
Correspondences start to come in. Letters from comrades who wish to stay on our good side, or at least give the pretense of aiding us.
I go over the messages with Antones on a daily basis, shuffling through coded letters, notes hidden by text only readable through firelight, and other dubiously designed intelligence.
It seems that not only have we become the leading gang in Nuhav—fighting for good rather than profit—but we’ve also begun utilizing their communication strategies. I find it ironic, Antones finds it shameful.
“We can’t just air this shit out in the open, Ant,” I tell the aging man, sifting through a stack of pages on the desk I’m sitting at.
The pages arrive either by herald—transcribed if necessary—or courier, or fucking messenger pigeon.
I don’t even know where all these letters are coming from at this point, but I think we need a secretary.
If nothing else, the letters prove our activities have been fruitful. We have Silverblood in the hands of all the major players. Now we just need proof that it’s working to disrupt the Olhavians.
Antones, for his part, is growing more curmudgeonly by the day. He’s more prone to grunting like Vallan, or giving monosyllabic responses rather than evocative, flourishing answers that remind me of a simpler time.
Maybe he’s unhappy his Firehold has swollen to the size it is now, with more Grimsons and Grimdaughters than ever before. In a matter of weeks, the place has grown to over two-hundred souls. Four times its number than when I first returned with the Chained Sisters.
“This is the result of progress,” I tried to tell him a few days ago, to which he simply grunted and limped off.
“Here’s one that looks important,” Antones says from his side of the room, behind his desk. He lifts a letter, and I get up to grab it, since it takes more effort for him to get off his ass these days.
I look at the jumble of words on the page, eyebrows screwing up. “Do you have the cipher?” I curl my fingers impatiently toward him.
“Erm . . .” He shuffles pages around, rustling them across his desk, and comes up with a worn copy of our code reader, handing it to me. “Here we are.”
It takes me nearly an hour to replace the unreadable letters with the correct ones, but eventually I have it, and the message makes me hum and nod, contented.
“Sounds like good news,” Antones says.
“It’s from Zefyra. She’s out in the eastern flank with Aramastun’s army.
She says the rebellion is growing strongly over there, in secrecy.
Helget’s and Tymon’s soldiers have begun meetings.
” I let out a chuckle, scooting to the bottom of the page, and shake my head.
“She says vampires and humans have begun to mate, out there in the woods away from civilization. Where they can’t be judged.
This isn’t new, as we know—humans and vampires mating—”
“It’s how Master Lukain was made, and so many other dhampir—”
“—but the interesting part is the couples seem to be escaping into the night out of honest attraction and attachment, rather than through forced broodstock-thrall tendencies, as Zef puts it.”
Antones puts down the page he’s looking at and tilts his head at me, focusing wholly on my discovery. He leans back in his chair with a mischievous little smile that reminds me of the Ant of old. “Sounds like things are going swimmingly, then.”
“Better than that, Ant.” My voice is excited.
I flap the letter in the air. “Don’t you see?
It means the Silverblood is working! If vampires and humans are fucking, and in such a free way that’s removed from shadowgalas and the awful broodstock and sex-slaving operations, then perhaps it is possible to create a new society for the two cities. ”
“You sound surprised to find it’s possible,” Ant points out. “When hasn’t that been your goal the entire time?”
I throw my arms up, forcing out a laugh that’s bordering on hysterical. “Well, yes, sure, that was the goal. But I didn’t think it would actually work!”