Chapter 6
SIX
At first, sleep was inevitable for Nadi. She couldn’t avoid it if she tried. The rocking of the wagon as the caravan processed in the line, coupled with the exhaustion that threatened to consume her ability to form any semblance of rational thought, made it inevitable.
Everything was simply a muddled, tangled catastrophe in her mind. So, she put it all aside, rested her head on Raziel’s cold chest, and let the exhaustion take her away. There was nothing she could solve in their current state.
When she woke up, there was a bowl of stew and some bread sitting by the door of the wagon.
Both tasted stale. But it was food. Raziel was still asleep—or unconscious—she didn’t know which, and it didn’t really quite matter.
He was alive. For now. Until the Lohti clan decided to change their minds on that.
Sitting with her back to the wall, she watched him as she ate, lost in thought.
The only fae among the Lohti traveling with them was Kalo and her. The only two people immune to his power. Once he was mended, he would be nigh unstoppable. They were prisoners, yes. But only until Raziel had regained his strength and was done humoring them.
Or until it was no longer politically convenient to do so.
That was going to be the challenge.
Nadi had to try to find a way to make it beneficial for Raziel to “play nice” with her people. The trick was how? And why? Especially when they clearly despised him, and for good reasons.
No, every possible approach had just as much of a chance to turn into a bloodbath.
She finished the stew, scraping the bowl clean with the last of the bread, and set it aside. The food sat heavy in her stomach, but it was sustenance, and she’d learned long ago not to be precious about such things.
Raziel stirred beside her. His eyes flickered open, those crimson irises catching the faint purple glow that filtered through the gaps in the wagon’s living walls.
For a moment, he simply stared at the ceiling, and she wondered what he was thinking.
What calculations were running through that ancient, twisted mind of his.
“You’re staring at me.” His voice was rough, weaker than she was used to hearing it.
“Someone has to make sure you don’t die in your sleep.”
“How touching.” He shifted, wincing as he pulled himself upright against the wall. The chains around his wrists clinked softly. “How long was I out?”
“Hard to say. A day, maybe more. The light down here doesn’t exactly make it easy to keep time.” She paused. “I also have no idea how long I was asleep for either.”
He nodded slowly, taking stock of himself.
She watched him flex his fingers, roll his shoulders, test the limits of his body.
Still weak. Still diminished. But there was something different in his eyes now—something sharper, more focused.
The vulnerability she’d glimpsed when he’d first woken on the shores of that underground lake was gone, buried beneath layers of cold calculation.
It unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.
“I need to feed.” He said it matter-of-factly, like he was commenting on the weather.
Nadi’s jaw tightened. “Kalo won’t help us. He said you could starve, for all he cared.” That left exactly one option. Her.
“Kalo says a great many things.” Raziel’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “But he also saved my life, which suggests he has plans that require me breathing. Or whatever it is I do.”
“And what do you think those plans are?”
He turned those red eyes on her, and she felt the weight of his gaze like a physical thing.
“The same as ours, I suspect. He said it himself, he wants to burn down the vampires who’ve been feasting on his people for centuries.
He blames us for the addiction issues that have spread among his kind.
The difference is, he thinks he can control how the fire spreads.
” A pause. “He plans to use me to do it. He won’t be able to do either of those things. The fire will consume him instead.”
There it was. That casual dismissal, that absolute certainty that he alone understood how the game was played. It was the same tone he’d used when he’d first proposed their alliance, back in the ruins of the abandoned family estate.
Help me murder my entire family.
She’d agreed because she’d had no choice.
Because her own family had been slaughtered, and revenge was the only currency she had left.
Because even then, she’d been refusing to accept that some part of her had already fallen in love with him.
But now, watching him in the dim glow of the living wagon, she found herself once more wondering what came after.
What happened when the Nostroms were ash and bone, and Raziel stood alone atop the empire he’d built from their corpses?
Where did that leave her people?
Where did that leave her?
“You’re thinking too loudly.” His voice cut through her spiraling thoughts.
No point in lying. “Fine. I’m thinking about what happens next. In the rare chance that we win all this. After.” She met his gaze squarely. “You told me once that you wanted to burn it all down and rule over what’s left. What does that actually mean, Raziel?”
Something flickered in his expression—surprise, perhaps. “It means exactly what it sounds like.”
“And the fae? My people? What happens to them in this grand vision of yours?”
He was quiet for a long moment. Too long. “They’ll be free of the vampires who’ve hunted them. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Free to do what? Serve a different master?” She heard the edge in her own voice and didn’t bother to soften it.
“You’re still a vampire, Raziel. Your kind has been feeding on mine since before either of us was born.
You have slaughtered how many of us? Why should I believe you’ll be any different now? ”
His chains rattled as he shifted to face her more fully. “Because I am not them. Because I love you.”
The words hung between them, heavy. And she wanted to believe them. Moons above, she wanted to believe them so badly it hurt. It wasn’t that she didn’t. Not exactly. But she didn’t precisely believe him either. Just as she didn’t precisely trust him.
Moreover, she’d seen what he was capable of. She’d watched him slaughter her uncle’s men without hesitation. She’d stood beside him as he’d plotted and schemed and manipulated everyone around him like pieces on a game board. Over his own family too. Ones he’d claimed to love, in his own way.
Love, for Raziel, was not the same as mercy.
“I love you too,” she said softly. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
Before he could respond, the wagon lurched to a halt. Outside, she could hear voices calling to one another, the creak of wheels settling, the stamping of the great ushil as the caravan made camp.
The door to their wagon swung open, and Kalo’s silhouette filled the frame. The fae’s silver eyes swept over them both with barely concealed contempt.
“We’ve stopped for the evening. You.” He pointed at Nadi. “Come. We need to talk.”
Raziel’s hand shot out, catching her wrist. The grip was weak—weaker than it should have been—but there was possessive intensity in it, nonetheless. “She stays with me.”
Kalo laughed, the sound sharp and mocking. “You don’t give orders here, vuampi. The only reason you’re still breathing is because the elders want you alive.”
“It’s fine.” Nadi gently pried Raziel’s fingers from her wrist. “I’ll be back.”
She saw the flash of something dangerous in his eyes—jealousy, perhaps, or fear. Maybe both. But he let her go, settling back against the wall with his chains pooled in his lap.
She climbed down from the wagon and followed Kalo through the circled camp. The humans watched her pass, their expressions ranging from curiosity to outright hostility. She ignored them, keeping her focus on the blue-skinned fae in front of her.
He led her to the edge of the camp, where a small fire crackled in a ring of stones. The flames cast dancing shadows across his tattooed arms as he settled onto a fallen log and gestured for her to sit across from him.
“You’ve changed, little fish.” His voice was quieter now, away from the others. Almost gentle.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? It’s what your mother used to call you.” His silver eyes reflected the firelight. “She always said you were too slippery for your own good. That you’d wriggle out of any net someone tried to throw over you.” He smirked.
The mention of her mother hit like a blow to the chest. She hadn’t spoken to anyone who had known her family in so long… the grief was a wound she’d cauterized shut, and Kalo was picking at the scar tissue.
“What do you want, Kalo?”
“To understand.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You were always stubborn, always determined to do things your own way. But this?” He shook his head. “Bedding a vampire? The Serpent himself? I thought you had more sense than that.”
“You don’t know what I’ve been through. What we’ve been through together.”
“No. I don’t.” He nodded slowly. “But I know what he is. I know what his family has done to ours. I was there, Nadi, when the Nostroms slaughtered the Reshi clan. I saw what they left behind. Bodies strung up like birthday decorations, drained until there was nothing left but husks.” His jaw tightened. “I was fourteen years old.”
She said nothing. What could she say? She’d seen similar horrors. She’d lived them.
“And now you bring one of them here. Into our midst. I heard what you said to him.” Kalo’s laugh was bitter. “Do you really think I believe those chains will hold him once he’s recovered? Do you really think he won’t turn on us the moment it suits him?”
“He might.” The admission surprised her even as it left her lips. “But right now, we have common enemies. His family tried to kill him. They threw him into the ocean to drown for eternity. Whatever else he is, he wants them dead as much as we do. You’re right about why we’re here.”