Chapter 19
Cain
I rose from my day sleep with the blood-thirst chewing at my gut like a feral rat. I needed fresh blood to replace what I’d given Nyx.
The lair was stirring around me—doors opening, low voices sifting through the stone, the soft movements of bodies waking. Background noise, the familiar routine.
I sent a text, arranging to meet one of my regulars in the thralls’ quarters. Unlike most of the castle vampires, I didn’t bring thralls back to my apartment—that was my private space, open only to a few close friends.
My next message was to Nyx’s guard, who assured me that she was better, that she’d eaten a couple of good meals and was moving around.
The thrall greeted me with a smile and a body-hugging red dress, the practiced welcome of a woman who knew the routine.
With a muttered hello, I backed her to a wall, pushed her long black hair to one side and sank my fangs into her soft skin.
She shivered in pleasure and let her head fall to the side.
Each suck flooded me with heat. My dick hardened, the predator in me craving the other half of the blood-sex equation. I pushed my hips against her, driven by an ancient, primal instinct.
Her breath hitched. She widened her thighs, asking for more. My hand moved over her body, cupping a firm breast, pinching her nipple into hardness.
“More,” she rasped.
My hand went to her hem. But as I started to draw up her skirt, I flashed on Nyx, hollow-eyed and shivering in that musty, airless cell.
And I couldn’t do it.
I moved my hand back to her waist and finished feeding.
“Cain?” she whimpered as I licked her neck clean, healing the small wounds.
“Sorry, love.” I patted her ass. “Not tonight. I’ll drop a bonus in your account, though—all right?”
I stalked back to my apartment in a piss-poor mood. First Paris, now tonight. Nyx was in my head, fucking with my instincts—my very self.
The last thing I wanted was to find Rio slouched against my door, contemplating the purple laces on his scuffed boots.
The eighteen-year-old was Talon’s project—I think he saw something of himself in this New York City street kid.
Me, I figured Rio had seen an opportunity and jumped on it.
And hey, all respect to him; I admired his hustle.
Didn’t mean I wanted to babysit him, though.
“What?” I demanded gruffly.
“Lieutenant.” He uncoiled his skinny body from the door. “Got a sec?”
I grunted, hoping he’d get the hint and take his problem elsewhere. I touched my hand to the biorec pad and pulled the door open.
“It’s about Nyx,” he added.
My head snapped toward him. Nyx had scared the crap out of me last night—raving about doors and wolves, out of her head with silver poisoning, then losing consciousness—but by the time I’d left this morning, she’d been sleeping all right, her fever broken.
And the guard was under orders to let me know immediately if she relapsed again.
“What about her? She okay?”
“She’s fine,” he said. “That’s not why I’m here.”
I lifted my brows. “Go on.”
“Well, I was the one who delivered the meals you ordered for her.”
“And?”
“I want to keep visiting her, that’s—”
“No,” I interrupted. “You can take her meals, and that’s it.”
“But Eden said…” He gulped at the look I turned on him.
“Go on,” I prompted softly. “What did Eden say?”
“You know.” Shoving his hands in his jeans pockets, he rocked back and forth on his toes. “That you…like her.”
“I like a lot of people.”
Rio’s eyelids fluttered at that obvious untruth. He hitched a shoulder without speaking.
“And no, I don’t want you visiting my prisoner.”
“Okay, but…”
I pulled an irritated breath through my teeth. “What?”
“Nyx asked for a couple of other things, too—and we already gave them to her. Eden said you wouldn’t mind.”
“Did she now?” Eden had been a castle thrall. She knew better than to stick her nose into syndicate business.
“A toothbrush,” Rio said. “And a hairbrush. Things like that.”
“I guess that’s okay, but that’s the end of it. Understand?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
I was pretty sure he’d have rolled his eyes if he’d dared. But he didn’t.
Smart kid.
I stepped inside my apartment.
“But you should know,” Rio added in a rush, “that Eden sent her a sketchpad and stuff to draw with, too.”
I halted, hand on the door. “Eden isn’t in charge of Nyx—I am. From now on, any requests go through me first, understand?”
“Yeah.” He glanced down. “But Nyx asked for them,” he said under his breath.
Of course she’d asked for them. An acrid shame filled my mouth. Nazaire had punished her by not allowing her to make her art, hadn’t he?
“You did say she could have anything within reason,” the kid added. “You should’ve seen how she lit up when I gave them to her.”
“Fine,” I said tightly. “Let her keep them. But that’s it—nothing else.”
I started to shut my door.
“Nice talk,” Rio muttered. “But you’re going about this all wrong.”
I swung the door open, pinning him with a look. “What did you say?”
“I said—” he squared his shoulders—“that you’re going about this all wrong.”
I jerked my chin at my living room. “Inside.”
“I’m Talon and Eden’s PA,” he grumbled. “Not yours.”
I just looked him. He sidled past me like the former street-rat he was.
“Sit.” I pointed at the couch.
He obeyed, his mouth a narrow line.
I considered him. He was testing me, seeing what he could get away with. Normally, I wouldn’t tolerate it, but if our roles were reversed, I’d probably be doing the same. Fuck, at his age, I would’ve flipped myself off and dared me to do something about it.
If I kept on like this, Rio was going to clam up and I’d learn nothing.
I sighed inwardly and offered him a drink. His mouth dropped open, but he recovered smoothly. “Sure.”
I poured us each a shot of a premium, blood-free whiskey and handed one to him. “Okay,” I said, settling into the Barcelona chair, “what am I doing wrong?”
“You want something from Nyx, right?” He took a gulp of whiskey. “And no, I don’t know what,” he added when my brows dipped. “But people talk. I know her dad’s a QCS enforcer and that he’s the one you’re really after.”
I could guess who “people” was—Eden. Talon needed to impress upon his mate the importance of guarding syndicate business.
“Go on,” I told Rio.
“Well, if you wanted something from me and you locked me in a cell, I wouldn’t give you fuck-all.”
I sipped my whiskey. “So what would you do?”
He blinked. “You asking my advice?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Why I was talking this over with a teenage human, I had no clue—except Nyx was proving tougher than I’d expected and I didn’t have the stomach for what it’d take to break her.
Last night when I’d found her curled up on the stone floor, I’d been nearly paralyzed with fear. I would have done anything to make her better—anything.
Letting her drink my blood was the least of it. I would’ve drained myself dry for her.
Lilith help me if Nyx ever realized the power she had over me.
“Huh.” A faint, pleased smile curled Rio’s mouth. He propped a booted foot on the opposite thigh and took another swallow of whiskey. “First thing is to let her out of the cell. I mean, it’s not like she’s going to escape Lilith Island.”
I shook my head. “The cell’s leverage. Let her out, and I have nothing to pressure her with.”
“Fair.” Rio eyed his shot glass, thinking. “Okay, how about this? Find out what she wants most. Use that to bargain with her.”
“Tried that. She turned me down flat.”
I’d offered the woman sanctuary, her own studio. She’d said no to both. I had nothing else to bargain with unless it was her father’s continuing existence—and that was a nonstarter.
“Yeah? Damn.” His face fell, but he quickly rallied. “You sure that’s what she really wanted? I mean, did she tell you straight out?”
“Yes,” I said, then grimaced because I had no idea what Nyx wanted most. I’d assumed. “No,” I admitted.
Rio pursed his lips. “Tell you what. I’ll work on her for you. I think she likes me.”
Something panged in my chest.
I forced a slow breath through my nose. Was I actually bothered that Rio and Nyx had apparently hit it off? More likely, she was playing him. Still, it grated.
I kept seeing her face from yesterday evening. Blank, flat-voiced, saying she understood it wasn’t personal. Like she'd already buried whatever we’d had, marked the grave, and moved on.
I shook my head. “You won’t change her mind.”
“Maybe not. But either way, I’d let her out of that cell. Locking her up like that—you’re making an enemy, you know?”
I grunted, staring into my whiskey. Itching to hurl the shot glass at my clean white walls, to watch the expensive crystal shatter, the liquid exploding across the painted surface like a bloodstain.
But that was teenage Cain, the feral, out-of-control kid I’d been before being turned and learning self-discipline.
The kid who’d been caged a few times himself—in the island jail—and nearly gone berserk trying to get free.
“I’ll think about it.” I knocked back the whiskey and rose to my feet. “Now, if we’re finished, I’ve got work to do.”
For the next couple of nights, I stayed out of the dungeon except for a quick visit each evening to see Nyx with my own eyes.
Each time she was upright, the silver burned out of her system, but she wasn’t herself. Low energy. Dimmed. The sparkle gone.
No suggestive voice, no games. Just cool politeness, eyes lowered like I was a stranger. Like she’d never begged me, moaned for me, taken me deep inside her body.
And Gods, that pissed me off.
She wasn’t supposed to look through me like that. She wasn’t supposed to feel distant. My instincts snarled every time she dropped her gaze, every time she acted like I meant nothing.
By the third night, it was clear that she’d rather rot in that cell than sell out her father. Any other prisoner, I would’ve admired the loyalty. Or crushed it out of them.
But with her, respect twisted into something darker.
Possessive.
Unreasonable.