Lord Belshazzar ran his fingers through his hair.
His guard eventually showed up.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened.
The four of us moved inside.
With our silent guards standing in front of us, and Orin typing in the access code, per normal for protection in tight enclosures, I crossed my arms and tapped my right foot waiting for the elevator to open again on the royal floor.
Lord Belshazzar glanced down at me. Eyed my person for many tense moments. When I didn’t look up at him, he snorted, his tone derisive and blunt. “You’re really going to let him ruin our evening?”
“With respect…fuck off,” I muttered.
But my foot did quit tapping.
A suspicious snort came from my “mute” bodyguard in front of me. Though he didn’t move at all, as if he were in Rest.
And there was my reason the two mute guards were with me right there. I knew I’d figure it out soon. My father had just been crowned king back when they’d requested turning their human lover into a vampire—and he’d denied the request, it never even making it to the Overlords. Their human lover had died many,manyyears ago. A mere side note in their profiles, not as if it hadn’t devastated them to the point they’d withdrawn from the world. It was two middle fingers lifted in my father’s direction by picking me to protect, a person he’d hurt too.
They were still bitter.
I snapped my brows together. I stared at the back of my bodyguard’s blond head. “Actually, I have something to discuss with my guards.”
Phoenix’s back stiffened.
Lord Belshazzar’s icy gaze met mine.
I should have known. The man did everything with a purpose.Everything.A simple lift of his brow to the right person could mean the end of an empire.
He’d wanted me to be aware, his words spot on.
I stared into his eyes. My lips pinched in aggravation.
Fuck, I really wanted to keep them.
The lord scratched at his black whiskers that were shadowing his jaw this late at night. He studied me for a full two seconds, reading what was in my gaze. With an eyebrow lifted, he inquired bluntly, “Do you want me to handle it or do you want to?”
I uncrossed my arms and rubbed at my forehead.
It had been a long damn day.
Staring at my boots, not wanting to show my relief he’d asked to help with men I knew I couldn’t best, I waved a hand at him.
The elevator suddenly jerked to a stop, and my bodyguard was lifted off his feet and restrained against a wall. A knife was pressed to his throat and the lord’s other forearm held Phoenix in place. All of this materialized before I could even blink, none of how it happened registered in my brain. It justwas.
Orin stared in astonishment, having been shoved to the side—now with the lord’s shoes and socks in his possession—blinking the confusion out of his eyes. He quickly recovered with a bored shrug of his shoulders and a scowl down at the footwear in his hands.
My jaw hung open, and my palms gripped the railing behind me from the jar of the elevator’s sudden stop.
Lord Belshazzar placed his face right in front of Phoenix’s, speaking in a normal, peaceful tone, “If you move, you’re dead.”
Phoenix closed his mouth. Glowered.
But he didn’t move to retaliate.
The lord nicked my bodyguard’s throat.
Just a drop of blood on his knife.
