Crow rubbed the top of his short black hair with the edge of my tablet while his sword dangled from his other hand. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His voice was gruff, unused. “I’m thirsty.”
Phoenix tossed his head, moving his sweaty blond locks out of his eyes, acting bored. “Talking is overrated.”
I hid my grin by turning around and drawing out my two short swords strapped to my back. “Almost a thousand years of silence, and that’s what you two have to say?” With my back to them, I snorted and swung my arms a few times, loosening them up. They didn’t answer me, and I didn’t expect it. I moved along. “So, your duties are as such: Once I’ve picked my personal assistant, you’ll each receive my daily schedule, though your job starts now. Your pay will reflect that of a royal guard on your next paycheck and your own personal quarters will be moved to the royal guard chambers. One of you will always safeguard my personal quarters, while the other guard will be with me.No oneis to enter my room withoutmypermission. There are no days off, as I have no days off. Figure out your own sleep schedule—though, if you are too run down, I’ll trust you to pick reliable soldiers to take your place for a few hours so you may rest. You’ll tell no one of my activities. If you do, I’ll have your heads chopped off without mercy. You’ll be my eyes and ears along with my protection. If I ask to bite you to look into your memories, you will allow it. Do you understand and agree?”
A moment of quiet, then eventually…
“Yes, your majesty,” Phoenix grunted.
Crow cleared his throat, his voice still gruff. “Yes, your majesty.”
I nodded and turned back around to face them, my swords still in my hands. “I’m in the mood to spar for a little while. One of you go to my new quarters and stand guard. The other stay here and work with me. I don’t care which does what. The general knows you’re my royal guard now, and you’ll have no issue entering the royal area. If you do, have them call me.”
Crow turned and started to walk toward the entrance with a pensive expression on his handsome face, Phoenix staying behind to spar with me. Though, the dark-headed man stopped, done deliberating whatever he was thinking about, and asked, “I have one question, your majesty.”
“Whoa. You’re becoming chatty. The horrors.”
He flicked a glare over his shoulder, silent.
My lips twitched. “Ask your question, Crow.”
He cleared his throat again, his questioning quiet. “Were you being obtuse? Or do you really not know why we’re silent?”
“That was two questions.” I swung my swords to keep my arms loose, acting unbothered by his question—the personal nature behind it. “Let me ask you this. Are you two really cousins?”
They were old. Black and white did mix in vampire culture back in their birth years, defying human cultures at that time. But they looked absolutely nothing alike. At all. They didn’t even have the same accents. If I had to guess, one had grown up in Germany, the other in France.
Crow snorted. “You know our parentage is a lie.”
“I lied too.” I tipped my head to the exit. “Go on now, and I’ll promise to never ask you abouther.”
He swallowed hard, his throat constricting and releasing with the telling action. He tipped his head in appreciation, and then he marched out of the room, my tablet still in his hand.
I raised my swords up in preparation for a fight but kept my tone honest as I stared at my other guard. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, and my concentration is waning. Don’t go too hard on me.” The man was much more skilled than I was.
Phoenix nodded, mute, and lifted his own sword.
The fight was on.
Our swords hitting, again and again, shattered the relative quiet, silencing the howling wolf outside hidden on the mountain.
Sweat beaded my brow. My feet skipped around debris. The smell of blood was still in the air. My grunts of effort stung my own ears. Occasionally, rocks crumbled down from broken walls, clattering loudly in the background as we moved throughout the damaged chamber.
But my thoughts were still elsewhere.
My parries scarcely registered in my own mind.
Off to my right, a deep, masculine voice, one of sin and sex, commented, “Sloppy, your majesty.”
I risked a glance in that direction.
An Overlord had entered the ceremonial room at some point while I’d been sparring. I hadn’t even noticed, my thoughts too grim and heart-constricting.
I grunted and raised a hand at my guard. He stopped instantly, and I nodded my head in thanks. I turned to the Overlord while my bodyguard discreetly backed away into the shadows—on the opposite wall as the Overlord’s bodyguard (the one who went with him everywhere and usually frightened the shit out of me) so they could both protect us from different angles.
I swung my short swords in small circles, eyeing the man who had interrupted my practice. He was just as delicious as always, but the lord had been avoiding any personal contact with me the past couple of days. Not that I blamed him. I hadn’t been in the right frame of mind—still wasn’t.
With a bored flare, I asked, “Lock yourself out of your room again, Lord Belshazzar?”
