“We can sit outside if you like,” he says. “Might be a little cold for you though. I don’t feel it the same way you do. There are blankets.”
I am drawn to the lovely space with its potted plants and blooming chrysanthemums, but he’s right, I’m only now beginning to warm up from the walk over. I nod toward the open book and furrow my brow. “I hope I didn’t interrupt your reading.”
He appears beside me, although I don’t hear him coming, and hands me one of the drinks. “On Halloween? I would have been interrupted either way. Truth be told, I knew it was only a matter of time until you sought me out. I’ve felt a disturbance down the shadows for weeks.”
“You can feel that something’s wrong?”
He takes a sip and stares at the fire crackling outside. “Sometimes. The shadows are like a web—connected, sensitive. Normally I can feel Damien and Morpheus as a soft vibration in the distance. Damien’s vibration has been irregular as of late.”
“Valeska took him. She’s holding him in a silo in Night Haven. She’s hired the Kim witches to spell the walls so that he’s always in daylight.”
His sigh turns into a groan, and he sets down his drink. “Then my worst fears are true. Give me your jacket. This conversation could take a while.”
I remove my puffer and hand it to him. He clicks on a lamp and gestures for me to have a seat, then leaves to presumably hang it up. I park my bag and sit, suddenly thankful for the soft armchair. I still haven’t fully recovered from being drained by Damien. I flop onto the overstuffed cushions, my limbs turning to jelly at the first opportunity. My head feels like I’m thinking through cream soup. Maybe I should have asked for coffee instead of sparkling water.
When Cassius returns, my heart gives a tender squeeze. “You move like him,” I say, glancing down into my drink. “Smooth, like your joints are just for show.”
He laughs, a twinkle sparking in his eyes, and sits across from me. “It’s a shade thing. These bodies are more for convenience than anything else.”
“Convenience? Don’t you mean camouflage? For fitting in among humans?”
“Even on Tenebris, this is our preferred state when we aren’t fighting. Easier to fit around a table. Our horns don’t bump into things.”
“Right. Damien mentioned something about that to me once.” I think back to that first day I entered his dream of the garden and how he’d mentioned that his humanlike form was considered more diplomatic on his planet. I take another sip of my drink and then really look at Cassius.
He has the type of burnt-umber skin that’s luminescent, remarkably smooth for a male, without a hint of a beard. His hair is cut short on the sides and back, a little longer on top. But when he shifts to pick up his drink, the movement is lethally fast. From the first moment I met him, I had the impression he was a gentler soul than Morpheus. Now I’m not so sure. My intuition tells me he’s kind but also capable. Fair but deadly when he needs to be. He’s exactly who I need. I bet he could have Damien out in an afternoon.
“I warned Damien that Valeska wouldn’t give up easily.” He lifts his drink and swirls the ice around the glass. “He swore she’d move on once she knew about the Gowdie curse, but when the vampire queen wants something, she will not be denied.”
“You… suspected this might happen?” It’s like taking a blow to the stomach. Damien hadn’t so much as mentioned Valeska to me. I had no idea she was a danger.
He nods. “Shades like us are the ultimate weapon to vampire kind. We can both feed from and be fed on by vampires, thrive in the dark but can survive the light, and our control of shadows makes us positively lethal here where their kind has no such power. When we mate, it’s for life, and a shade is fiercely loyal to his mate. It’s biologically determined. If the queen managed to force Damien to mate her, my brother could not fight the bonding. He’d become her tool, her weapon, until either she or he is slain. She knows this. Knows that if she managed it, he’d be her ultimate protector and assassin. She’s already grown Night Haven by swallowing up neighboring covens. With him by her side, no coven in North America would be safe.”
A dark pit forms in my middle. I already hated her. Knowing she is a megalomaniac, even to other vampires, only darkens my sense of her. “Then you’ll help me free him?”
Cassius takes another drink, this one longer, and scrapes his bottom lip with his teeth. “That is a more complicated question than you as a human could possibly imagine.”
“Explain it to me like I’m a toddler,” I say with more attitude than necessary.
He leans back in his chair, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee. “By the frustration in your voice, I’m guessing you’ve already tried Morpheus.”
“I have.”
“And he refused you.”
“He said he couldn’t risk starting a war with Valeska. His triune would never agree to it. It would put the entire Caspian line at risk.”
Cassius nods. “Alas, I’m afraid I’m in the same boat. I am now the commander of the Lamia coven, the largest vampire coven in the Midwest. The master here is nothing like Valeska. She and her mate are fair and benevolent, but she’s also a wise leader. Allowing me to act on Damien’s behalf could put her coven at risk. No one, Eloise, wants to pick a fight with Valeska right now. Her hive is too big and too powerful.”
“You say it’s too big of a risk, but if Valeska is truly that big and powerful and mating Damien would make her unstoppable, why wouldn’t every coven leader band together to make sure that doesn’t happen? Isn’t doing nothing just as risky?”
“While you might think so, vampire politics is a delicate and complex thing, and that type of strategic cooperation is almost unheard of among them. Vampire covens rarely form alliances. They form armies.”
Tears form in my eyes, and suddenly I can’t catch my breath. It’s like my last hope has been tugged like a rug out from under me. “You’re not going to help him, are you?”
“I didn’t say that.” He shakes his head, face fallen. “I said my master may not allow me to help as long as I hold my current position, and unfortunately, if I leave my current position, I become an option for Valeska. She could slay Damien and target me.”
“Fuck.” I blow out another breath and throw back the remainder of my drink. “So it’s hopeless?”
