My fingers waft through the fine fabric of her golden gown, gripping only air as she’s already two more rungs up the ladder.
Behind me, my mates respond with a surprised commotion of “Shit!” and “Ah!”
The sunlight cast into the hold from the hole above comes in diagonally. It reaches the first four rungs of the ladder before slanting off to the ground and wall to the side of my mates.
Palacia has already climbed five of twenty rungs, and if she reaches those upper few, ascending onto the surface of Nuhav with her hood down, she’ll be dead in seconds. The sun will turn her into a vampiric torch, and she knows it.
That’s what she’s trying to do, and I desperately cry out and grab at her again, leaping for all I’m worth.
She reaches the eighth rung down, feet scrabbling, so desperate to commit a grisly suicide it’s alarming how little it seems she’s thought this through.
“Where . . . do you think you’re going . . . little pixie?”
The voice stops the commotion dead. It comes from behind my mates, a whisper of a pained grunt.
Palacia freezes first, recognizing the voice, gasping as she peers down and over her shoulder.
Rirth steps into the room with a clacking of canes he’s using as crutches—one belonging to Antones, one to Keffa. It’s safe to say neither of them need to use the canes right now.
The captain of the Silverknights limps into the room, taking his spot in the circle of sunlight against the wall where my mates can’t be.
“Got you!” I yell, breaking the silence as I grab firm hold of Palacia’s gown andtug.
Seems I didn’t think this one through either, because she slides down with a yelp and topples onto me, taking both of us to the ground.
Luckily, the vampirex is light as feathers, and all I do is let out a grunting “Oof” as I land on my back and she plops down on my chest.
Palacia proceeds to climb over me, struggling with her ridiculous dress. She pushes down on me and, somehow, through her dress, manages to drag her damned cock over my face in the process, before crawling off my body and leaping to her feet. She yells, “My king!” before jumping into Rirth’s arms and nearly knocking the grievously wounded man over.
If there was ever a sign more obvious that she isnot the onefor my coven of mates than her hauling that heavy package across my face as she scrabbles to get to her feet, disrespectfully discard me, and jump into another man’s arms, I wouldloveto know what that sign is.
Skar can’t help but scoff a laugh at my unfortunate predicament. That, combined with his “Finally some good fucking news!” comment makes me wonder if, without Garroway present, we’ve found a new jester in the group.
“Fuck me true, girl!” I sputter, spitting out and running a hand over my face. I’m still on my back, staring up at the circle of light of the opening overhead, wondering ifIshould be running into the sun. “. . . If you’d let me finish my damned sentence before you try jumping to your death!”
Rolling my head back, I look at them upside down. I’m almost too tired to stand, and too humiliated to want to.
Rirth says, “You didn’t tell her I lived, Sephania? Was it suspense you were hoping for? Because it seemed to work.” His voice is serious but with a hint of mirth. He once bested me in the Firehold, and now he feels he’s bested me again by claiming Palacia.
Only the spirits and deities know she’sallhis, for all I care. His canes are discarded and he’s holding onto the small vampirex for balance. If she wasn’t turned, she wouldn’t bestrong enough to hold up his dead weight, because he certainlylooksdead. His face is almost as pale as hers, still sweaty from his near-death experience in the Faith Ward cathedral.
“I was about to!” I choke out a snarl and lift myleftarm straight into the sky. Right arm for Keffa, left arm for Rirth. “Your stubborn beau wouldn’t drink the Silverblood I offered him while he was on death’s door, so I waited for the idiot to pass out and I force-fed him my Loreblood.”
Lukain chuckles. “When in doubt, tap it directly from the source.”
“The Silverblood is diluted,” Skar points out. “Makes sense it wouldn’t work to heal a human. I’m surprised you went with that first, when you know your Loreblood does the trick.”
I recall using my Loreblood to save Garroway’s life in the Temple of the True so many moons ago, after we were attacked by Alacine’s assassins or bounty hunters or whatever they were. I wish Garro was here right now, because surely he’d be making fun of me in a lighthearted way, whereas everything Skar says has a tint of meanness to it. He hasn’t learned Garro’s gift of gab to the same extent.
Skar’s right about one thing though: The Loreblood works. On both vampires and humans.
Vallan helps me to my feet, the gentleman that he is.
I scowl at him, dusting myself off. “I thought I told you to put Rirth up and not to let him leave his bed so he could recover.”
Vallan helped haul Rirth down here after the Faith Ward incident. He practically carried the much-smaller man over his shoulder, while Rirth groaned and attempted to die and slowly healed from my Loreblood.
The giant shrugs. “I did. Then I followed you to the ant-man’s room.”