Then again, the obsession seemed mutual. Helget always wanted to leave the Firehold and was more than willing to seduce a nobleblood to ascend out of the depths of Nuhav to Olhav. I wonder if she ever planned on gettingturnedby a vampire, too. Most human broodstock remain human, pump out dhampir babies, and are then cast aside. Not Helget.
I find it interesting Godial refers toheras “bleak mistress,” rather than Helget calling him “master.” It’s a strange instance that’s antithetical to everything I’ve learned—the bloodthrall being at the whims of his or her master. Instead, Helget appears to be the dominant force in the threesome . . . or former threesome.
My old friend has turned into a bloodthirsty killer. But she’s a vampire. Being a bloodthirsty killer is in the job description.
So what’s my excuse?
I give Helget a sad smile and pat her on the arm, murmuring, “I am sorry for your loss, Helg.” She doesn’t seem to hear me, already tilting her head to lock lips with the demilord over her shoulder.
At another table in the ballroom, Indokkus Shirin sits across two chairs, legs stretched over one. His left leg is shattered, a sharp bone sticking out of his shin in a grotesque display. The nobleblood frowns at the wound as two white-robed mutes work on correcting the fracture and bandaging him.
“Met your brother,” I say as I saunter up. “Seems like a nice fellow.”
Indokkus barks a laugh. His hair is cut short, where Vanison’s is long and lustrous across his shoulders, yet their faces betray the same cunning and intellect. “Don’t try to fool a bloodsucker, Lady Lock. Vani is as despicable and corrupt as humans come. I’m impressed he hasn’t taken the plunge to vampirism yet, given his love of a boastful life.”
He’s not wrong. I likened Vanison Shirin to a snake, and it seems his older brother, who looks twenty years younger, has the same opinion of him.
“You think he doesn’t care to live a boastful life forever then?” I ask, sitting on the chair next to him and drawing my legs up. “For him to stay human all these years?”
“He’ll come around.” The vampire shoots me a wicked smirk, so similar to his silversmith brother’s. “Too ambitious not to.”
It’s odd how nonchalant these monsters can speak about others. How little theyfeel. As if Vanison turning isn’t the most intense, jarring experience the man might ever go through.
“How is the little viper these days?” he asks.
I shrug, enclosing my arms around my lifted knees. “Still fighting for the cause, it seems.”
“Doing our dirty work.”
“Just so, Lord Shirin.”
He laughs again, glancing over my shoulder. “Go away, Lady Lock, before your knights stare swords into my heart and kill me.”
I follow his gaze over my shoulder to see Skar, Vall, and Garro studying me from across the ballroom, near the dais where Skar usually sits.
With one more smile for Indokkus, I rise to my feet, heading toward my mates.
“What are you doing, love? Tempting the rest of my court?” Skartovius asks as I approach.
I roll my eyes. “You once told me I should ingratiate myself with your court. That they needed to know me. So I’m getting to know them.”
His eyes narrow, scanning the room. “Yes, well . . . not like that.”
A crooked smile stretches across my face. “You jealous, jealous man.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me into his angular body so swiftly I yelp, drawing many eyes of the survivors in the room. “Mine,” he growls in my ear.
Goosebumps skitter across my arms. My face warms. Nestling my lips against the cut of his jawline, I pepper a kiss on him and murmur, “You don’t know how happy it makes me to know the four of us made it out alive. Even you, my jealous lord.”
“Especiallyme, you mean,” he answers, taking his typical smug approach.
Vallan sidles up beside us. At first, based on the blank expression on his face, I think he wants a kiss also. Then he says, “My bloodsight failed me, silverblood.”
I look down at the gauze wrapped tight around my thigh. I lost a bit of blood from the flying dagger that knifed me. Garroway tells me I’m lucky the damned thing wasn’t poisoned.
Garro wasn’t so lucky. “Wasted the poison on me, with his arrow.” Looking more pale than usual, he currently rests on a chair nearby, breathing deeply and layered in sweat as his half-blood body attempts to fight off the poison. Whereas I would be fighting for my life, he appears to be going through a mediocre inconvenience.
“Your bloodsight didn’t fail you, my big brute,” I tell Vallan. “Everything happened so fast. What could you have done diff—”
