CHAPTER 15
VEYA
Present Day
DEL AND I STARE each other down in front of the fire in my bedchamber, and I pray to the gods I won’t regret what I’m about to say.
“I’ll consider an alliance. More importantly, I’ll let you live. For now.”
Del rises from his knees. “Queen Veya,” he says with a thankful nod of his chin and a red flash of his eyes, crimson blotting plum like spilled ink before he turns away.
“Don’t make me fucking regret it, Del.”
His face jerks back to me as he stands over me, expression on fire. “I won’t,” he growls, the fire spitting behind him. “I’ve been trying to find Aurelia a way out of the cellar for over a year. You gave me that. You have my unending loyalty for it. I swear it.”
My brows pinch. “A year? But she’s still human. How—”
Del’s features darken to something feral. “Nerian keeps them caged until he can’t stand to restrain himself.”
My insides turn over, anger surging anew over Nerian. And I want to accept all the assistance I can get taking this king out, my impending decision to include Del in our plans becoming more confident by the minute.
His gaze softens. “He kept Christine for five years before you set her free.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, closing my eyes in memory of Christine, my sorrow for that sweet girl twisting my mouth into a grim frown. One of the most brutal, intimate moments of my life is shared with a girl I will never see again, and the memory threatens to rip me wide open, slicing through me anew.
I gather myself and open my eyes, focus trained on Del as he sinks back in his chair. The more he shares, the more I dare to trust him. I want to. Desperately, for both our sakes.
I’ll just take it hour by hour.
“How do we get the girls who don’t want to turn out of the castle?”
“I have a plan. Shall we move this to the sitting room to include the others?” he asks, his handsome smile aimed right at me.
“Fine.” I uncross my legs to rise, the fabric of my robe shifting, exposing the length of my thigh.
Del’s gaze smolders, running down my body, taking in every inch of me and leaving behind a heat I haven’t felt in a long time in its wake.
He’s not even trying to mask his attraction.
With a clear of my throat, I tighten my dressing cloak, its silk brushing against my skin like fingertips I wish were real. But I had love in my life once already, and the ghost of that loss is a pain I’m not sure I can repeat.
“You’re bashful, and I can’t figure out why,” Del says bluntly, striding for the door, and we regard one another in a comfortable silence I wasn’t expecting. Del breaks it with a smirk. “And you’re absolutely stunning. You don’t need to hide yourself, Veya.”
My mouth parts, but he exits my bedroom, leaving me with the consolation of not having to reply to his compliment. After a moment to collect myself from a cacophony of jarring emotions, I join the others. The girls are asleep on the sofas and settees.
Charlotte looks up from Aurelia, her fingertips stroking the girl’s long, dark strands across her lap, the same espresso black as Del’s.
Emmanuel secures the iron shutters as dawn peers across the horizon and stands over his doe again.
“Let’s let them rest and sober for a few hours. They have a big decision to make,” I tell everyone.
No one argues with me.
“And what decision is that?” Charlotte asks.
“We’ll turn them if they request it; otherwise, we’re getting them back to their families,” I say.
Charlotte’s eyes skirt to Del. “And you’re fine with that?”
“It was his idea,” I say and curse myself for jumping to Del’s defense. And then I curse again at the smug look on his face.
“Do you want to know the plan?” Del asks through a devastating smile.
Emmanuel scoffs, and Second crosses his thick arms over his wide chest and narrows his eyes at Del.
“Luckily, your queen’s actions with Christine give us the perfect way to hide the girls who don’t want to turn,” Del says, sauntering to the fireplace and turning his back to the flame.
“We can burn a large pyre, thick and deep enough that you can’t tell if bodies are there.
It’ll be both a distraction for us to get them out of castle grounds and the reason we don’t have dead girls to show off.
” Del sighs and meets my eyes. “I’m hoping those who want to turn will secure a layer of trust thick enough to believe we burned the others. ”
Never trust a vampire.
It’s a decent plan. And I can’t come up with anything better.
“I like it,” I agree.
“This has to go well,” Emmanuel growls, gazing down at his doe. His eyes don’t leave her face, and I’m pretty sure I’m staring at a newfound, breathing weakness for my top assassin.
“We will do everything we can to ensure their safety. She’s my family,” Del says, gesturing to Aurelia. “We will get them out.”
Emmanuel shakes his head. “Not what I meant. The full moon is tomorrow night. If we aren’t successful this evening—”
“Shit,” Second spits.
With everything that’s happened, I’d forgotten about the full moon. We’ll all be out of our minds tomorrow night and useless to these women.
“Then we make sure we’re successful,” Del says, and Emmanuel nods at him.
My mind races. If we aren’t able to ensure their safety by then, especially if their escape is discovered, Nerian has hundreds of human guards to do his dirty work in the bright light of day, or during a full moon.
“We need to get them out.”
Del rolls his eyes at me. “I already said we would.”
“Watch those pretty eyes, Del. They should never roll in my direction.”
He nods at me through a smirk and then fixes his face.
I roll out my neck and shoulders, trying to fight off my emotional and daytime exhaustion.
“We need to get them to the Night Kingdom. It’s too risky to send them to their families in Goreon.
We can’t ensure their safety, especially with the full moon.
” I look at Del. “We house them in our territory until we know it’s safe to return.
Especially given our other pressing goals. ”
Second glowers at me, and Emmanuel and Charlotte bounce their focus between Del and me.
“Something we need to know from your bedroom dalliance?” Second asks brusquely.
My turn to roll my eyes. “Del has asked for our assistance in taking Nerian’s throne.”
My people lose an entire shade, alabaster complexions looking back at me now.
Second moves his hand to his hilt. “Just to be clear,” he grits. “Are we speaking about Goreon treason with the second of Goreon right now?”
“We are,” I reply.
Del hits us with a winning grin before he speaks. “I agree we should send the girls to the Night Kingdom. Thank you for your gracious offer,” he says.
“The girls will be safe there. I promise you. We’ll send a letter with them, my legion at the wall will get them to Prosperity.”
Del nods.
“Don’t you want to know what Prosperity is before agreeing to it?” Charlotte coos at Del.
He looks down at her, face softening as he watches Charlotte hold Aurelia. “I gave myself a tour of your kingdom decades ago.”
“Godsdamnit,” Second fumes and marches his ass over to the window like he can stare out of it to cool off.
“Del,” I say and he looks at me. “Do you know if any of them will want to turn?”
He gazes at the girls from the cellar, his throat tracking a slow swallow. “Yeah. Sophie will want to turn,” he says about my siren. “She has no one left.”
He shifts his focus to Emmanuel’s doe. “Amelia will turn. She’s hated her vulnerability ever since she was locked in that cage.
The one with the braid is Samantha,” he says, peering down at Second’s girls, curled together.
“She has human family. She’ll go to the Night Kingdom.
And the blonde is Hannah. I fear she may not want either option. Death preferred.”
“Whatever for?” Second asks, expression stern as he whips his gaze from the steel shutters he can’t see through.
“Her unborn child didn’t survive her capture.”
I tent my fingertips against my forehead, pressing my hands into my face to stave off the curdling scream I’d like to release. “You know all their real names?” I ask softly, dropping my hands.
Del nods, leaning an elbow against the mantle. “I snuck down to the cellar when I could. To talk to them, to keep their spirits up.”
“And will we turn Aurelia?” I ask gently.
“She’s sixteen,” Del snarls. “She has too much human life left to toss it away. She’s not turning.”
“Why didn’t you just break them out?” Charlotte asks. “You had access.”
He pins Charlotte with a look that has me reaching for the blade at my thigh.
“I would lose the position of second and my life. The greater purpose, my ultimate mission, had to be more important. It just had to be—” His voice breaks, and I wonder if he’s still trying to convince himself he made the right decision for so long.
Second rescues him. “We need to take the girls as far as we can toward the Night Kingdom tonight. They’ll have to finish the journey during the day, but we have human guards at the border to receive them. So, who stays with the pyre, and who’s going toward the wall?”
“Queen Veya needs to stay, and so do I,” Del says. “We can’t alert Nerian to our absence.”
My eyes find Em, and he nods. My assassin will stay by my side.
“If absences are noted by the king, Second leaving for the Night Kingdom wouldn’t be frowned upon,” I say. “I can tell Nerian there was a stirring to deal with.” I look at Second. “And I’m not sending you alone with innocents to defend. Charlotte goes too.”
Charlotte strokes Aurelia’s hair. “More than happy to.”
“Good … that sounds good,” Del says, staring into the fire like he’s reviewing the plan in his head and searching for holes.
We linger in the parlor for a few hours while the girls sleep. Finally, Aurelia stirs in Charlotte’s lap, and Del rushes to her, kneeling down beside them.
“Aurelia,” he whispers, and her eyes flutter open.
“Hi,” she squeaks, her high-pitched voice chirping through a sob.