“I didn’t think it would take you three goddamned millennia to find him and take his head off. And you didn’t have to lock the gate.”
“I didn’t lock the gate.”
“Funny. That looked pretty damn locked to me.”
“The damned amulets locked the gate! Your brat was the one who swiped one of the keys!”
Dorian scowled. “It still took you too damned long to get back here with them.”
Gwen started laughing, and I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face. Rilen and Roran were also chuckling, and even Aiko was wearing a smirk. Both Belshazzar and Dorian looked downright pissed at us.
Dorian stared at all of us. “What the hell are you laughing at?”
Roran was the only one composed enough to answer at that point. “You fight like brothers.”
Dorian looked straight at Roran. “He started it.”
All of us were laughing so hard the horses were spooked. It took a long moment for all of us to get ourselves back together, but there was a softening of tension in the group. The laugh unintentionally brought on by brothers being brothers was a relief.
“So the vampires here lost their frigging minds?” Queen Gwynnore probed.
“Not all of us, highness,” Aiko answered. “We have a strong rebel component that tried desperately to preserve our collective culture.” He swept his gaze across the city and shook his head. “With Savion gone, I do not know what’s happening now.”
“We have someone who might be able to answer that now,” Staviz answered, holding the reins of Aiko’s horse. “But as you’re currently the only vampire the army trusts, Lord Knight, we need you to verify that he is who he says he is.”
Aiko dismounted, and I followed.
Roran and Rilen flanked me as we walked across the field to the small building waiting for us.
Jallina strode up next to me and leaned in. “Who are the other two on the horses?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Are you asking, or is the spy asking?”
She smirked. “I am. I have to find quarters for them.”
I groaned. “Oh, I do not envy you that duty for the queen.”
“What? She’s a queen? Of what? Where?”
“Queen Gwynnore, the Queen of Vampires on Earth.”
She looked me dead in the eye. “Where?”
“Hell if I know,” I answered. “She came through the gate with King Belshazzar.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Belshazzar. Why do I know that name?”
“He’s a vampire, apparently from here on S’Kir.”
“But King?”
I held up a hand. “I truly have no idea how to explain this, Jalli. Let them try. I want to see if this is who I think it is.”
Staviz opened the door and ushered Aiko in, along with the rest of us. He shut the door and pressed a button on the wall.
The room lit up.
I gasped and jerked around to him. “Electricity? But how? So quickly!?”
