“It’s one big happy harem.” I sighed.
“So convince the idiot that your dark vampire isn’t taking anything away. He’s not replacing anything. He’s just going to add to the four of you.”
The king looked back up at the sky again, and we stood quietly, just letting the stars whirl by in the growing dark. S’Kir was going to bed, and a sleepiness was falling over the city.
It had only been a little over ten weeks since I’d broken the Spine, but it felt like an eternity. It would take years to rebuild what Savion—and now Niniane—had done to the land.
Gleaming white buildings were great piles of ash. Families were torn apart by death. The temple had been brought to its knees. The druids of S’Kir were not fond of our newfound vampire allies.
Standing there, looking at the rubble, I felt like I hadn’t just broken the Spine but broken all of S’Kir, as well.
Belshazzar sighed. “Howareyou going to manage four dicks at a time, anyway?”
* * *
The king had a lot of trouble not rushing through the gap of the Chasm to find his queen. The energy had him vibrating.
I stared at the Chasm forlornly. I missed my cave. I missed going in there and feeling the raw, untainted power that S’Kir offered. I missed feeling like it was speaking to me.
“Are you all right, mistress?” Aiko whispered to me.
“Aiko, you don’t want to be here,” I said. “The king is a little… angry.”
“We don’t want you here alone with him,” Rilen said from my other side. “I know what Dorian was like when you were missing.”
Belshazzar tossed a look at us and turned back to the chasm. “Will they shoot at us if we go through?”
“No, they won’t,” Vitas said, staring. His eyes were wild, almost mad, and the image of his mate having her head sliced off flashed through my mind. “It seems that the contingent of the guard that was assigned here ran the instant they heard Savion was dead.”
“Instead,” Odom added, “they have fields of incendiary explosives.”
“Minefields?” Belshazzar asked.
“Your fields?” Odom asked.
He growled. “Mine-fields are fields with mines planted. Mines are explosive disks.”
“Then yes,yourfields,” Odom answered.
“General,” Aiko said, clearing his throat. “They’re called minefields where the king is from, I believe.”
“Stupid name,” Odom said.
I chuckled. “I think we agree that racing through there is a bad idea, yes? No matter what the other end is called.” I glanced at Lunella. “The Void?”
“Still in place as you had it,” she said. “As well as the galena lines, up and down the scar.”
“Galena?” Belshazzar asked, staring at me.
“Lead, Your Highness. Unrefined, far safer to transport and handle than refined.”
“Why would you?”
He stared at me.
Dorian chuckled. He was going to make an asshole comment. I could feel it.
“You don’t even know your own limits,” he said.
