“Are there any limitations?” the King asked, cutting across the Curator’s speech.
“What?” The Curator blinked slowly, a little dazed by someone interrupting his flow.
“Are there limitations to the boy? Is it just one siphon per day, or can you do it multiple times?” The King asked, his hands casually tucked into his trouser pockets and his posture far too comfortable for my taste.
The Curator smiled wide and his eyes brightened with madness. “You can siphon him more than once, but you need to walk a fine line between life and death because you can only siphon him when his magic thinks he’s dying or going beyond the veil.”
The King cocked his head to one side. “Why?”
“Magic doesn’t exist beyond the veil,” the Curator said simply. “He cannot take it with him when he travels to that plane, and he does not have an established vessel or tether to keep his magic safe. Without that, his magic can be captured, stored, and used for whatever you like.”
“Very well,” the King said with an inclination of his head. “Please continue.”
The Curator scoffed at the King’s arrogance but moved on swiftly. “As I was saying, you should all have received some glasses upon entering the viewing room. If you could all put these on, I will begin the demonstration.”
“This all feels a bit theatrical,” the King muttered next to me as he slipped on the dark round glasses.
I hummed in agreement and put on my own glasses. My stomach churned uncomfortably as the Curator pressed a couple of buttons on the intercom.
The boy’s head lifted from where he was suspended in the chains. “Father?”
This boy was his son?!
“Father?” the boy said again, his voice raw and pained.
“Ah, Wilder, you’re awake,” the Curator said in the same soothing, smarmy voice. “We’re going to put on a show.”
I couldn’t believe this. The man was auctioning off his own kin for money?
“Well, this just got a lot more interesting,” the King whispered in my ear.
“Let the show begin,” the Curator said as he gripped a large switch.
“Father! No! Please, no!” the boy screamed, and my fingers sank into the meat of my thighs. I wanted to put an end to this right now. I could, but then I’d be fighting fuck knows what kind of supernatural creatures, and there was a high possibility that I wouldn’t even make it out alive with the boy.
I was in this for the long game, which meant I had to grin and bear it.
The Curator flipped the large switch, and the boy screamed in agony. Lightning filled the room behind the glass. Bright shades of purple and violet, lavender and lilac, and all the while the boy screamed and screamed.
Until he didn’t.
Then all I could hear was the pop and crackle of his magic caught in the oversized lantern and the silent whisper of greed as the auction began.
Chapter One
Byron
“You may now kiss your soulmate.”
The crowd erupted into whoops and cheers as Damyr dipped Benji into a kiss that looked both romantic and filthy at the same time. They’d finally done it. After months of sucking up to Lucia and all the back and forth with some hotshot lawyer that specialised in supernatural affairs, Damyr had somehow procured a divorce for a marriage that occurred centuries ago.
I didn’t understand their reasons for getting married. Damyr and Benji were already mated as vampires; what difference was a piece of paper from a minister going to make? But who was I to judge? I was incapable of understanding the emotions behind the ceremony anyway. The whole concept of marriage was bizarre to me. And ridiculous. Binding yourself to one person for as long as you might live just didn’t make sense, but I could see that it made perfect sense to Damyr and Benji. I might not be able to feel love, but I could see it in their eyes as they stared at each other. It was so sweet, I thought I might die of an insulin overdose.
I was only here because Damyr ordered me to be, and because my twin said it would be rude not to be here.
That, and the promise of an open bar, was too hard to resist.
My twin, Bishop, was sitting next to me with the dopiest grin on his face as he watched the happy couple walk back down the aisle. We were mirror twins, and while I got no emotions, he got all of them.