18. Bryony
brYONY
Stellan’s arm tightened around me as the sitting room shook. Red light ran over the fallen iron and raced along the waist chain still holding him to the court.
“Don’t move yet,” he said. “The room is opening.”
I was naked from the waist down on his lap, so I wasn’t planning a quick dash anywhere. “You’re certain?”
“No. Harrowmere rarely explains itself. It prefers noise and property damage.”
The wall split down the middle. Two sections of stone moved apart, revealing a wide hall lit by red lamps. Doors lined both sides, and a staircase curved down beyond the final arch. Warm air carried the smell of the rose garden into the sitting room.
Black doors stood open along the hall. Old weapon racks filled the spaces between them, and a silver raven had been set into the floor. The human house above us felt very far away. Stellan had ruled this vampire court, and Adrian wanted to steal it.
Stellan watched the new hall with his fangs still down. “That’s the lower court. It connects the royal suite to the guard rooms and old household quarters. The chapel lies at the far end. Most of it has been sealed since Cecily died.”
“Can Adrian use it?”
“Not while the outer gate remains shut. These rooms answered to the crowned queen and the Blood King. Adrian can damage the doors from outside, but he can’t walk in unless Harrowmere accepts him or you let him through.”
The red line that had marked the limit of Stellan’s chain went dark. Iron moved behind him with a hard scrape, paying out from the throne room until a loose length covered the floor.
Stellan set me on my feet and pulled my shirt down over my thighs. My knickers lay near the wall, well beyond rescue.
“The court has bloody awful timing,” I said.
His gaze moved over my bare legs. “I wouldn’t call it entirely wasted.”
“You don’t have to walk through a newly opened vampire court without underwear.”
“Give me another ten minutes and neither will I.”
The warmth in his voice made my face heat. He fastened his trousers as well as the ruined fabric allowed, then rose with one hand against the wall.
His legs held. Colour had returned to his skin, and only dried blood remained where the collar had cut his throat. The iron around his waist stayed in place, but the chain followed when he took a careful step towards the bedroom.
“Stay here,” he said. “If it tightens, I’d rather it didn’t pull you down with me.”
I gathered my abandoned knickers with two fingers. “Fine. But if the chain throws you across the room again, I’m finding trousers before I help.”
Stellan reached the old boundary near the first chair. The chain slid after him without resistance. He took another step, then another, until he stood at the bedroom door.
He put his hand on the frame and looked back at me. The smile that reached his face was small and completely real.
“I can enter the whole suite.”
The simple pleasure in his voice affected me more than another filthy remark would have. For a century, he hadn’t been able to reach a proper bed, close a door or use the bath. Now he could cross the room because I’d fed him and stayed.
I picked up the blanket from the chair and wrapped it around my waist. “Try the bath. Your shirt has reached the point where burning it would be an act of kindness.”
He looked down at the blood and the mess we’d made, then headed for the bathroom without defending the shirt.
The chain followed him across the threshold and lay loose behind his feet.
“Hot water,” he said. “This may be the best chain you’ve opened.”
I found clean clothes in the wardrobe while he washed at the basin. Harrowmere had supplied black leggings and a soft green jumper. Fresh underwear waited under them and fitted perfectly. I’d stopped asking how the house knew my size because I wouldn’t like the answer.
When I came out of the bedroom, Stellan had removed his torn shirt and cleaned the blood from his chest. Damp silver hair rested against his shoulders. The raven tattoo covered most of his back, its spread wings broken by old scars.
He turned when I approached. “You’re staring.”
“You’ve spent hours arranging opportunities for it.”
Stellan held out his hand. “Come and see the lower court with me. We’ll check the nearest doors and return before Harrowmere decides to change anything else.”
I put my hand in his. His fingers were warm from the water, and the open cuff had left a dark band around his wrist. The waist chain followed us into the new hall.
The first doors led to empty guard rooms. The second pair opened onto a dining room with a table long enough for twenty people. We left the remaining doors alone. I wasn’t interested in exploring another cursed wing while half the house was still awake and angry.
A silver line curved around the entrance to the royal suite. It brightened when Stellan crossed and settled once I followed.
“That line recognises both of us,” he said. “It’ll warn us if another vampire enters the lower court.”
“Warn us how?”
“The bedroom doors will lock, and every lamp in the suite will turn white. If that happens, get behind the ward and let me deal with whoever came through.”
I looked at the collar and waist chain. “You’re still attached to the throne.”
“I’m also stronger than anyone Adrian is likely to send through a door. The chains limit how far I can move. They don’t make me harmless.”
His confidence reminded me what he was. He had been careful with my wrist and my body because he chose control. The muscles across his bare back and the fangs he hadn’t bothered hiding gave a clearer picture of what happened when he stopped being careful.
We returned to the suite. A door beside the bedroom had opened while we were gone. It led to a small private sitting room with a cold fireplace and two narrow windows showing the underground garden.
Stellan stopped at the threshold.
“This was Cecily’s room,” he said.
His hand went cold around mine.
I entered first. Dust covered the chairs and the low table, but the walls were clean. Several formal portraits had been removed, leaving pale rectangles against the stone. A small carving remained beside the fireplace, low enough that someone must have made it while sitting on the floor.
It showed a woman with long hair and a pointed crown. The lines were simple and uneven. Eight points rose above her head, and the longest leaned to one side. The initials C.V. had been cut under the figure.
“Did Cecily carve this?”
Stellan came to stand behind me. “Yes. The court painters kept making the Crown larger in every portrait. She said they’d eventually paint her as a head with seven metal spikes and no body. This was her correction.”
I touched the stone beside the carving. “Was she your wife?”
“We ruled together. We never married or shared a bed. Cecily was my queen because Harrowmere chose her bloodline, and we became friends long before she accepted the Crown.”
Relief moved through me, followed by annoyance that I’d felt it. Stellan noticed but kept his reaction to himself.
Only a few minutes earlier, I’d been naked on his lap and listening to him come with my name in his mouth.
I could still feel his hands on me despite the clean clothes and the quiet room.
If I wanted whatever was starting with Stellan, I needed the truth that had ended his last partnership with a human queen.
“You told Adrian the Crown was controlling her when you killed her,” I said. “I want the whole account now. Start when you knew she was in danger.”
Stellan looked at the rough figure. For several seconds, he said nothing. I waited. He had promised me a direct answer, and filling the silence for him would make it easier to avoid the worst part.
“Cecily had worn the Crown for six years,” he said.
“At first, it let her open Harrowmere and stop any vampire in the court from harming a human under her protection. She used that power carefully. Then it began speaking when she was alone. She stopped sleeping and heard threats in harmless conversations. Soon she kept guards outside her rooms because she believed someone was coming to take it.”
“Did you know Adrian had interfered with it?”
“I knew he was spending too much time in the chapel. I thought he was strengthening the wards after an attack on the estate. He was feeding his blood into the Crown and teaching it to answer him. By the time I understood, it had made Cecily believe I was the threat.”
Stellan moved to the fireplace and braced one hand against the mantel. The chain at his waist remained loose, but his body had gone rigid.
“On the last night, she ordered everyone into the chapel. The guards and the families sheltering under Harrowmere were forced inside with their human households. The Crown used her voice to turn them against one another. Some fought the command. Others couldn’t.
People who’d lived together for years started tearing each other apart while Adrian stood behind the altar and watched the whole fucking thing. ”
I pictured the chapel full of people who couldn’t trust their own bodies. One woman’s voice had been enough to make everyone nearby dangerous. Stellan had watched his court attack itself while the person he trusted stood at the middle of it.
Cold moved across my skin. “What did Cecily do?”
“She tried to remove the Crown. It drove the points into her head and took control of her hands. When I reached her, she ordered me to kneel and surrender my heartblood. The command forced me down, but I could still move one arm. She came at me with a silver knife while the Crown held my guards away.”
He turned from the fireplace. His grey eyes had darkened around the red.
“I caught her wrist. For a few seconds, I believed I could hold her until the Crown weakened. Then she gave another order, and three of my guards put blades to the throats of the humans beside them. I had enough control to stop Cecily or enough to fight her command. I couldn’t do both.”
“So you killed her.”
“I pulled her close and bit through the artery in her throat. She died quickly. The command ended, and my guards released the people they were holding.” His voice stayed level, but one hand closed hard around the edge of the mantel.
“Edith entered while Cecily’s blood was still in my mouth.
Adrian told her I’d murdered the queen to take the Crown.
I was half mad with her blood and grief, and I attacked him instead of explaining.
Edith used the court to chain me before I killed him. ”
I stared at him. “Edith wasn’t alive one hundred and twelve years ago.”
“She was twenty-six when Cecily died. Lenora gave her small amounts of vampire blood after that. It slowed her ageing without turning her.”
“My grandmother told me she was eighty-four.”
“Your grandmother hid a vampire court under her house. Lying about her date of birth was probably the easy part.”
“She was over a hundred and thirty?”
“Yes. She kept you away from our blood because she wanted you to have a human life.”
Edith had found Cecily dead and Stellan covered in her blood, with Adrian already there to control the explanation.
“Did Cecily know what you were doing?” I asked.
Pain tightened his face. “I don’t know. She looked at me when I pulled her close, and for one second her eyes cleared. She said my name. I’ve spent a century deciding whether she was asking for help or understood that I was about to kill her. I still don’t know.”
I rose and faced him. “You chose to save the people she was forcing your guards to kill.”
“I chose the fastest way to end the command. I might have found another if I’d held her longer. More people would have died while I tried.”
I looked back at the carving. “And Adrian walked away.”
“He had already left the chapel by the time the command broke. He let Edith find me with Cecily. By sunrise, the chains were closed and he was regent.”
Anger made my voice rough. “That fucking bastard.”
Stellan’s mouth tightened. “On that, we agree.”
I looked at the crooked Crown Cecily had carved when it was still a joke she could make. Six years later, it had used her body to kill her own people and left Stellan with her blood in his mouth.
He’d told me the ugly part without pretending he knew what Cecily wanted. I believed him. It didn’t settle everything between us.
Stellan had needed my blood from the moment I entered Harrowmere, and he’d known attraction could bring me closer. Adrian wanted me as a route to Stellan’s power. Both had seen what my blood could unlock.
I let go of Stellan’s hand.
His attention moved to my face. “Bryony?”
“When you first felt me enter Harrowmere, did you plan to use me to get free and leave me here with Adrian?”