Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Guild of Assassins, Shadow Court
Daire
I grunt with pain, as Taran yanks me down the dungeon steps by the base of my wing. “Why do people always go for my wings?”
“Maybe if you didn’t insult your bosses, apprentice, then you wouldn’t find yourself in these kinds of positions. For example, about to be thrown into a cell with a vampire. Do you enjoy pain?” Taran’s voice is tight with rage.
He drags me on relentlessly without looking down at me.
The oil lamp swings violently in his hand, casting monstrous shadows across the mold-infested walls.
“It depends who is dishing it out,” I reply. “Isn’t this Guild all about pain and pleasure? And that’s the best kind in skilled hands.”
“Don’t expect that I shall spare any of that type of pleasure for a filthy fae.” Taran tosses his hair. “Especially not one who just insulted my assassin skills. I shall show you what happens to apprentices in this Guild who dare to say that their mentors fight like a goose guarding a bog.”
“Also, that you swing like a man trying not to spill his mead. And I asked you, who taught you to murder? A frightened rabbit? Then I said—”
“I remember what you said.” Taran reddens. I grin. “Apprentices should be grateful for their mentor’s lessons, as I was for Vic’s. I only took you on as a favor for Wraith. I knew that you would be trouble.”
“Trouble? Me?” I try and fail for wide-eyed innocence.
Taran hauls me even faster into the bowels of the dungeon, which is just where I want to be.
Idiot.
He is easier to play than any dragon I’ve met yet, but he thinks that he’s some type of smart assassin.
The courtesans who trained me in their guild were shrewder than he is.
When I catch the scent of intoxicating incense, my grin widens.
Then I force myself to look contrite.
Taran won’t believe my act, but a sadistic bastard like him will always be easy to con because they’re driven by their own cruelty.
“You’ll learn how I discipline those who are insolent to the Head of the Guild.
” Taran drags me to the single cell that lies in darkness.
He pulls out a key and opens the door. Then he shoves me inside.
“The vampire is starving and feral. Aren’t you his Blood Lover?
They say that fae blood is impossible to resist. If he hasn’t drained you, then I will return for you tomorrow and see if you have learned some respect.
You can beg me to take you back out of the dungeons.
I will consider whether you have learned your lesson. Have fun.”
My heart is beating fast, but I wait until I hear the clank of the cell door slamming shut, then Taran retreating back up the steps and away into the darkness.
I can’t see a bloody thing in the black. But then, I can’t see much anymore anyway.
It was agony yesterday in the arena, knowing that a brutal fight was happening far beneath me in the pit, in which Lanlin was battling for his life, but it being too far away for me to be able to see what was happening.
I had to trust that Aurelius would step in to save my Bat King’s life.
When sunlight had started to stream down from the roof, I had thought that it was my own soul leaving my body.
I had started to fly from my seat in desperation to save Lanlin, but Aurelius’ wings had already burst from his back, and he’d shoved me down into my seat.
“He’s alive…alive…alive.” Freya sobbed, clutching my shoulders.
Lost in my own blurred world, I had grabbed her arm and rested my cheek against the Ankh mark because it was the only way that I could feel connected to my vampire.
Now, I slowly turn, before I am bowled over backwards by a feral, incense-scented vampire.
“Darkness,” I whisper, brokenly.
“Sunshine.” Lanlin’s voice sounds hoarse like he has been crying all night.
He knocks me over, and I grunt as I fall onto my back, crushing my wings.
I don’t care, however, because Lanlin is crouched over me desperately sniffing at my neck. He is patting me up and down.
His shackles clank, before he grasps my hands and drags them above my head. He pins me down like he’s frightened that I will run away, rather than having plotted to be here.
I am exactly where I want to be.
When Lanlin’s fangs graze my neck, I shiver in the delightful pain and pleasure that I taunted Taran about.
Lanlin is a master in it.
I hadn’t been joking that I can revel in just the right knife-edge of pain, when it comes with the pleasure like the sensation of Lanlin’s fangs sinking into my skin.
“You’re real,” he mutters.
“Fae King in the flesh.”
Lanlin pats my head, stroking my hair. “You’re not wearing your crown.”
I will never wear Aurelius’.
I barely hold back the smirk, however, thinking of Elatha’s crown.
I shutter my expression. “Not yet.”
Lanlin’s eyes glow in the dark; they’re red-rimmed. He takes a deeper breath of my neck.
I shiver, before I steel myself and deliberately turn my head more to the side, baring my neck.
It’s a hard thing for an Alpha to do for another Alpha. But I’ve missed Lanlin feeding from me.
This thing between us…?
It’s an obsession. An addiction.
I thought that I was the one catching Lanlin in my web, but I didn’t realize that I would be just as entangled. I have been shaking as much from withdrawal from his bite, as much as I have from the iron poisoning.
He is in my blood and soul and has been from the moment that we bonded.
I am his King, and he is mine.
I wish that Aurelius could bloody see that I am his too. But that is too much to expect in this life, right?
I don’t have long before I die, and I won’t wish for things that hurt too much.
Aurelius doesn’t respect me. We share an Omega, and my place in his nest is as her Alpha.
Aurelius has made me an Emperor, but that’s because Freya would have his balls if he didn’t.
We all love Freya, and she holds the three of us together.
She is the spark that has set our hearts and empire on fire.
Does she know how much power she holds over us? That everything each of us has done for years has been for her.
Well, most of it…
Lanlin’s fast, hot breaths gust against my throat. He holds himself back with extreme self-control, however, when I know he is starving.
I swallow. My mouth is dry.
I make him wait a moment longer just to test his loyalty and my power over him as his Blood Lover.
He snakes his tongue out to lick me, growling.
I smile, reaching to grasp him by his long hair. “You have my permission. Drink, my King.”
Instantly, Lanlin’s fangs sink savagely into my throat.
I groan. My eyelashes flutter.
He has never drunk this ferally from me before.
I don’t struggle, despite the danger.
I love the thrill, even as I become lightheaded.
I am floating.
He sucks at my throat, and I let myself relax.
This is bloody heaven.
I should tell him to stop…
I should…
Is this dying?
Would this be the worst way to die? On my Blood Lover’s fangs? Feeding him?
I would be giving life, rather than simply succumbing to death.
Fuck you, Maximinus.
You haven’t executed me. I have sacrificed myself on my vampire’s blood altar.
Slowly, I blink.
I become aware that I am being sat up, held in someone’s arms. I am being hugged to a strong chest, and a tongue is lapping at my throat, healing the wound.
Not dead then.
My mind clears.
Panic skitters through me.
On the sacred ash, the bite is bloody dangerous. It almost made me forget my duty to my people, the Winter Court, and the spirits of my ancestors.
I hurriedly touch the bronze and emerald ring in apology.
My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. “Did I taste yummy then?”
“Like the food of the heavens,” Lanlin murmurs.
He pulls me closer against his chest.
I remember when he would flinch away from touch. But now he appears touch starved for it.
I turn to study Lanlin’s face.
He smiles at me with bloodstained fangs.
He’s buzzing.
“You feel better, aye?” I ask.
“Rest a moment and recover. It is overwhelming for both of us when we have not fed for so long. I have missed this.”
“I wish our Omega was with us too like she always was in Sheut.”
“I could never wish that she was in this cursed cell. Is our Queen well?”
“Aye, but Spark is missing you like hell. She’s an Empress now.”
Lanlin’s gaze darkens. “She is my Queen.”
Possessive.
I glance down. “I’m sorry about your friends.”
I shudder at the memory of the screams in the arena as the vampires burned under the sunlight.
Lanlin had told me about what happened to vampires caught in the sun, but hearing and smelling it at the Imperial Games had been something else.
Something I never want to witness again.
“I hardly knew them,” Lanlin replies, flatly.
“That right? Aurelius said that it looked like you were protecting two of them.”
“Then he should have saved them for me,” Lanlin snarls.
Shocked, I twist to face him. “Who were they?”
“My twin was once locked in this dungeon like I am. They were his nestmates. They loved him, and because of that, they became my family. And Relius allowed them to burn.”
Damn, there goes my joy that I’d finally helped mend this pack for Freya.
I clench my jaw.
I can’t die yet then. Not until I bring these idiots together.
I understand the grief that Lanlin must be feeling because I experienced it with Barnabas.
On the Hunt, it was Lanlin who came to save me and bring me home.
“Do you remember how I wept for Barnabas?” I say, softly.
Lanlin nods.
“We were trapped together. We were hunted for sport, and he died, fighting at my side. You saved me but you didn’t save Barnabas because he was just a Human Shifter, aye? He wasn’t anyone to you. A stranger. You saved me because Freya told you to.”
Lanlin looks guilty. “Dearheart, I didn’t understand anything about my feelings then, but I do now.”
“I’m not blaming you. We should make shrines or find a way to honor the vampires who died in the Sun Arena. I will do whatever you want like you did for me. Your family shouldn’t be forgotten. I’m just saying that Aurelius was like you. When he saved you, he was already taking a big risk and—”