Her heated cheeks and guilty scent would have made me smile at any other time, but a sense of dread had settled in my chest, making it hard to breathe. I smiled stiffly and held my finger to my lips. She nodded. My lips brushed her forehead in thanks. We both needed to see what was happening here. Sor still believed Bal wouldn’t hurt us, and I really fucking wanted to believe that too. But I didn’t.
“So, Count,” purred Minerva, her voice irritating me like nails down a chalkboard. “Once I do this, you will become mine as I will become yours? I’ll become a recognised part of your House?”
Bal walked into the softly lit doorway and stared up at the emblem that had been stitched into the tapestry. The whole thing wasn’t overly large, but it was clearly ancient, its threaded pattern faded and difficult to make out behind the glass that encased it. His jaw muscles worked, and he remained silent. My gaze focused on the symbol itself. It looked familiar.
“It’s a triquetra,” Sor whispered in my ear.
Of course. I’d seen that symbol in the books we’d been researching. I couldn’t remember exactly what it meant, but my sense of dread only got worse. My eyes narrowed as I considered the faded stitches at each point of the symbol. They looked familiar, too. The one at the top resembled a cross, but with a loop at the handle. The one on the right of the tapestry was a circle with an upturned crescent moon balancing upon it, and to the left was a five-point star. But it looked strange. Like some of the points were displaced. Sor’s eyes lit up, and she tapped my arm in a fast and excited movement, opening her mouth to speak, but I quickly put my finger against her lips and mouthed, “Tell me later.”
She swallowed hard and nodded.
Dav’s spine was stiff, and he peered over his shoulder at our hiding place. We both froze, my heart banging against my ribs.They shouldn’t scent us or hear our hearts beating from this far away, but a prickle of fear had my muscles tensing, ready to defend Sor if I had to. Dav searched the shadows of the bookcases and shook his head. He sighed, wiping a hand over his face.
“Bal…”
Bal nodded stiffly, his spine ramrod straight. “I know.”
“Fine. I want you to know, I think this is a mistake.”
“I know you do, but this has been my destiny for centuries. I will not back out now.”
“Even if it breaks you—breaks them?”
Bal snarled. “They aren’t your concern, Davlov. You will stick to your orders.”
Dav’s face hardened, his irises flashing red in the gloom of the space beyond the fireplace. “Fine. In that case, Korlov expects the wolf in his possession by the end of next week.”
“I know. And he will be.”
“What of the young witch?”
Bal took a deep breath, his face as cold as I’d ever seen it, yet his nails grew, digging into the flesh of his palms, his eyes flickering towards our hiding place before he glared up at the tapestry again. “She can be returned to Nicolai. I have proved my point to him. He will toe the line, now that he knows I can walk in and take whatever I want from him, and he can do nothing but watch. I kept her to keep the hybrid happy.”
Sor’s eyes widened, and a small sob escaped her trembling mouth.
I placed a warning finger on her lips. Bal didn’t react, too engrossed in the emblem and Minerva’s touch as she ran her fingers down his stomach to caress his cock through his clothes; his fucking riding gear that I’d wanted to tear from him. Now all I wanted was to wrench her fucking hand off, but more than that, I wanted to rip Bal’s heart out of his chest like he wasripping apart Sor’s and mine. He held himself stiffly but didn’t move away, merely grunted, as she stepped closer and kissed the side of his neck. Then he shook himself, lifting his chin in the stubborn way I’d come to love so much.
“It’s time…”
Dav swallowed, his nostrils flaring. “Count…?” That one word was drawn out, heavy with unspoken questions. I had no idea what they were but I suspected Bal did.
“Go. Now.”
Dav clenched his jaw at Bal’s snarled order, but strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.
Bal’s face twisted as if in pain, then he nodded. Minerva smirked, and before I could blink, they were both naked. He spun her around, pushing her over the table that was under the huge emblem. With a roar, he drove his rigid cock into her from behind, fucking her like an animal, as if the world would end if he didn’t.
My heart broke. I felt physically sick. He’d just fucked someone else when he’d made it so clear we were his. He’d whispered words of possession in my ear, in Sor’s. And for some stupid reason, deep down, I’d believed we were his. And that he was ours. Bile burned my throat. I was an idiot. I’d been weak, thinking—no, hoping, that for the first time in my life, something good would last. Even in that godsdamned hellhole of a prison, even when the Mades had taken my dignity, feeding from my body day after day, touching me and using their mouths on my thighs and my balls and cock, I’d never once felt my spirit break. But here, now, all I wanted to do was rage at him for destroying us both. I took Sor’s hand and squeezed it tight, trying to process the evidence in front of my eyes. He’d used us, betrayed us in the worst possible way. Yet, part of me acknowledged he’d never said he was ours.
Oh gods.
I looked at the strange symbol that played as a backdrop to their fucking, because that’s what it was, fucking, not making love, not like he’d done with Sor and me. I blinked. It had been an act. One to keep us in line until the fucking king of vampires was ready to use me. The Mage had been right; Bal had seen my connection to Sor and had used her to keep me here, then, after I’d survived bloodlust, seduced us both to keep us under his control.
30
Shane
I hadto get Sor out. She’d only touched the tip of knowledge about her heritage, of that I was sure, and whatever that symbol was, it likely had something to do with her. That wasn’t good. He’d used us heartlessly, and there was no way I’d ever let Sor be taken back to Nicolai and used the way she had been before, or worse, kept prisoner and made to discover her powers only to have them abused.
