Chapter 8 Roman
I stood by the fire in the study waiting for the inevitable arguments that would soon fill this space.
The guys weren’t going to like what I had to say about Katarina and what her presence here could mean to us.
There was a reason the coven had taken her in and kept her hidden.
And while I didn’t have all the answers just yet, I knew when to trust my instincts.
After all, one didn’t survive two hundred years by not paying attention.
“What is that smell?” Aiden asked as he strode into the room.
He’d changed into his usual jeans and hoodie.
For someone who once belonged to fae royalty, he certainly dismissed all the formalities that had been a part of his life for a long time.
Snapping his fingers together, he walked closer to me and began to sniff the air.
“The sweet aroma of lavender salts, expensive shampoo, pheromones, and—” He sucked in a breath and poked a finger against my chest. “Did you kiss her?”
“Kiss who?” Dorian hollered from the doorway. He still had the bottom half of his suit on, but the button-up shirt was now hanging open and his hair had been freed of the bun.
“Katarina,” Aiden growled, still glaring at me and still poking his finger against my muscles.
“What the fuck, Roman?” Dorian snapped. “Why do you get to kiss her?”
“Kiss who?” This time, it was Blaise asking from the shadows. When had he entered the study? I hated how he could sneak up on me like that.
“Looks like Roman is staking a claim on my woman.” Dorian’s eyes blazed yellow, his wolf getting a little too close to the surface.
“Your woman?” Aiden squeaked as he spun and stared at Dorian. “She’s mine!”
“No, she’s mine!”
Dorian and Aiden got in each other’s faces and circled several times.
I didn’t think they would actually fight over a woman, but I didn’t like how quickly this turned ugly.
Blaise must have thought the same, as he pushed off from the wall and stood between the two.
With outstretched hands, he pressed against both men’s chests and held them apart.
“Stop acting like children,” he grumbled. With his height and size, Dorian and Aiden knew taking him on may cause injury. I could see that recognition in how they each dropped their shoulders and took a breath. “She’s just a human,” Blaise sighed. “She’s nothing special.”
One of the traits I’d developed during my time as a vampire was to recognize when someone was lying to me.
Be it in the heart rate, the dilated pupils, or the shallow breathing.
Sometimes it was a slight hitch in the voice.
Other times it was the lack of conviction in the words.
Either way, I prided myself on being a good reader of people.
And I knew that Blaise was full of shit right now.
Unfortunately, the other men noticed as well.
“Get your hands off me, half-breed,” Dorian sneered, knocking Blaise’s arm to the side. “You know as well as I do that she’s not just any human.”
“Exactly,” Aiden added, pulling down his sweatshirt and stepping away from Blaise. “There’s something different about her.”
“And that is what I want to discuss with you all tonight,” I said.
The tension in the room weighed us down, and I wondered if I needed to enhance our bond again soon.
A vampire kept his subordinates in line through blood sharing.
These guys have all had my blood throughout the years.
Just a small amount every couple of months, but enough to tie us all together and make us an enviable force.
Something was happening to the strength of that bond, and I worried I knew the reason. A very pretty, redheaded reason.
“What? Do you want to tell us all about your make-out session, Roman? I don’t think we want to hear the details.” Dorian plopped down into one of the leather chairs that faced the fireplace. He was genuinely upset, and that didn’t sit well with me.
“Dorian,” warned Blaise. “We have enough going on without you acting like a sullen tween.”
Aiden laughed and clapped Blaise on the back.
The hollow sound echoed throughout the room.
“Good one, big guy.” He appeared directly by Dorian, fluffed his loose hair, and disappeared again before Dorian could catch him.
Aiden popped back into the room directly next to me, and it said a lot about my state of mind that I almost flinched. Damn, this woman was distracting.
“Listen,” I started. “When I kissed her—"
Dorian let out a long sigh but lifted his hands when I glared at him. “What? You kissed her and…?”
I paused, trying to find the right words. “And something happened between us.”
This time, Aiden made a noise and Blaise hit him on the back of his head. The two scowled at each other, so I quickly continued. “It felt similar to when I feed.”
“You fed on her?”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Enough!” I yelled. “I didn’t feed on her.”
“But you kissed her.” Dorian’s snark didn’t go unnoticed.
“We’ve kissed the same people numerous times, wolf. Don’t act like this is something new.”
Aiden hid his laugh and when I looked at him, he raised his brows. “Katarina isn’t like anyone else we’ve shared, Roman.”
I sat down in the leather recliner and leaned forward.
With my elbows resting on my knees, I rubbed my forehead like I had a headache.
“I’m telling you, there was a moment where we shared our energy.
Like she was sucking it out of me, pulling it through her body, and then giving it back tenfold.
I have never, in all my years, experienced something like that. ”
The room was silent for a moment until Aiden made a show of sitting down on the leather couch and crossing his legs. “I felt something similar,” he admitted.
“Me too,” Dorian confessed.
We all turned to the corner of the room where Blaise was hiding, and he huffed in annoyance. “Don’t look at me. I have self-control.”
“Whatever half-breed. You know you want her too,” Aiden egged him on. “I can smell the blood from your fresh punishment sessions.” He mimicked whipping himself over his shoulder, and I worried he’d gone too far.
Blaise let out a low growl, warning the fae not to push. That animal buried inside of him would be an absolute beast if he ever had a chance to see the world. We would all be in trouble if half-breed dragons could shift.
“So, we all felt something,” I stated, trying to calm the energy in the room. “This means either she doesn’t know who she is, or she’s lying to us about her background.”
“She is a thief,” Blaise pointed out.
Aiden and Dorian were shaking their heads. “No,” the wolf said. “She may be a thief but she isn’t a liar.”
“You believe the orphan story?” I asked him.
“I do.”
“Me too,” Aiden added. “Besides, she was under your spell, right? She couldn’t lie if she wanted to. I mean, she told us she killed someone…during sex. Who would willingly admit to that?”
“Someone the witches spelled to forget things,” Blaise said.
“Exactly.” I stood, pacing in front of the fireplace while I tried to figure out our next moves. “The coven leaders will be at the ball tomorrow night. We need to do some digging without raising suspicion.”
Aiden, the forever asshole, raised his hand like we were in a class.
“Excuse me, teacher. But won’t they already suspect something is up when they see Katarina by your side?
I mean, she was supposed to return that necklace to them two nights ago.
When she didn’t show, don’t you think they started to wonder where she was? ”
“I have a strong suspicion that Murielle knows exactly where she is,” I admitted.
“You think they set her up?” Dorian asked.
“Think about it,” Blaise cut in, slinking forward from the shadows. He still had his suit on and couldn’t possibly look any darker. “How did we know someone was after the necklace?”
“Didn’t Pasha get some kind of tip?” Aiden offered.
“A security alert,” I confirmed. “About an hour before we caught Katarina inside the building.”
“So, it was a trap. For her?” Dorian jumped to his feet. “Why would they do that to her?”
“I’m not convinced it is only about her,” I said. “Look, something is going on. The coven has been making moves for years. I wouldn’t put it past them that this is a part of a larger scheme.”
“They can’t dethrone you, right?” Dorian asked. “I mean, you’re Roman Fucking Zarka.”
I smiled at my friend and did my best to hide the doubt. “These last few years have been…interesting. The humans are pushing back, the government can’t be bought anymore, and some circles are talking about officially revealing our true natures. The community is struggling. All of us.”
“Including the witches,” Blaise said.
“Yes, even them. So, we need to be vigilant.” I walked to the far side of the room and poured four glasses of scotch.
The only sound was ice clinking as the warm liquid poured over the cubes.
When I handed a drink to each of my men, I pointedly looked them in the eye.
“Katarina is special. She may be a human, but there is something supernatural in her bloodline. I will have Pasha do some digging, but I need each of you to work on finding out what she knows and what the rest of the supernatural community has heard about her.”
“What about Murielle?” Blaise asked. “She won’t tolerate us for too long.”
“Leave Murielle to me,” I said, already formulating a plan in my head for how I was going to approach tomorrow night.
“So, about that sex thing,” Dorian started. “Do you really think Katarina killed someone after doing the nasty?”
“Why do you ask, Dorian?” Aiden jeered at him.
He shrugged. “No reason.”
“I would imagine the poor young man wasn’t killed by—”
“Katarina’s magical vagina?” Aiden cut me off.
“Seriously?” Blaise groaned. “You are such an adolescent.”
Aiden raised his hand again. “I’ll volunteer to test out said magical vagina and see if it kills me.”
Dorian laughed, but the way he sat stiffly on the edge of his seat let me know just how much of a hold Katarina already had on him.
“You’re both children.” Blaise downed the rest of his scotch and stomped toward the door. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
I assumed he was speaking to me, but Aiden and Dorian both made a point of saying goodbye to his large back. “Why do you egg him on?” I asked the two after Blaise left.
“Because it’s fun,” Dorian answered quickly.
“Back to the vagina testing thing,” Aiden said, and I immediately interrupted.
“Katarina is more than that, Aiden. Have some respect.” Admittedly, I would be lying to myself if I didn’t want to test my own theory.
If she could somehow exchange energy or magic or whatever it was she did to me…
that would change the entire power dynamics of our city.
I only knew of one creature who could consume energy that wasn’t in the form of blood.
But Katarina wasn’t a succubus. She wasn’t a demon, there was no way she could hide that from us.
However, I did suspect our little orphan had more to her past than she ever imagined.
“Well, I’m going to go think about magical—”
“Don’t say it,” I warned Dorian.
“Magical thoughts, Roman. I’m going to go to bed and think magical thoughts all night.”
As the wolf sauntered out of the room, I called after him. “Dorian! Please don’t get possessive.”
He gave me a salute but wore that shit-eating grin on his face which meant he had no intention of following any kind of rules.
“Maybe I should make sure Katarina is safe,” Aiden suggested.
I rolled my neck and made the vertebrate crack. “Please don’t fight over her. She was sent to us for a purpose. And I don’t want her running away screaming before we learn what that is.”
“Oh, I’ll make her scream,” he said and popped out of the room before I could reply.
These men. We were a crew, and we would fight for each other but sometimes…sometimes I wished for a little bit of silence and a little less testosterone-fueled arrogance filling up my space.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I smiled as I read the text from Pasha. He would be working a few more hours trying to track where that tip had come from. Maybe I should go visit him and get my mind off everything else for a while. Or maybe I should take this time and feed.
Yes, I needed to feed so I could be prepared for what I would face tomorrow.
Murielle and her coven wanted me out of the city—they’ve made no secret of it.
But the shifters and the voodoo priestess…
they were still honoring our agreement. The question was for how long?
How much longer did I have before I would truly have to wage war to keep my territory? The power was shifting in New Orleans.
And I wasn’t sure if Murielle just handed me the key or a bomb.