Look at you, giggling again. You’re even thinking of a request. Someone you want to geld. Aren’t you? Fuck, I love that. I bet if you’re honest with yourself, you’re already kinda into me and the work I do. Easy now. I’m not here to get you wet, so don’t get your knickers in a twist.
I’m here for my own reasons. Reasons that I’ll be keeping to myself.
I hate to run off and leave you unfinished with such a juicy story dangling, but don’t worry, we’ll meet again. And when we do, blow me a kiss to let me know you remembered our little chat.
Oh, there’s one last thing before I go. It’s a request. Just a little thing. Don’t tell Bastien you heard from me. Okay? Let’s keep that our little secret.
Chapter 11
Espionner
BASTIEN
When I discovered that Claire was alone with her consorts inside this tea room, I decided to follow one of the rules we established. I’d give her three minutes before I interrupted.
However, my vampiric hearing meant I was an invisible guest at the table. Forced to listen while two people in my service plotted to rob me of my wife.
My hands shook with barely contained rage, and I shoved them inside my pockets for fear I was going to break through the door and rip their throats out. I could almost taste their blood as it splattered across my face.
The only reason I remained where I stood was that they were right. She’d be better off settling on some quaint island where the weather was warm, and she would never be cold again.
Where I couldn’t hurt her. And I had hurt her. Not just earlier today. But when I led her into that graveyard.
Tansy had asked, “Do you love theDuke?”
I waited for her reply, wishing, not for the first time, that I could be the kind of man Claire deserved. A man with a beating heart. A man who didn’t need blood to survive.
“Claire, do you love the Duke?” Tansy asked again.
Breathing was more a habit than a necessity for me, yet I found myself holding it all the same.
“I do. Love him.Very much.” Pride and happiness swelled inside me, almost like my heart was beating again. “As many in his service do,” she added.
I rested my forehead against the door. I didn’t think I could take much more of this.
“And because of that love,” Claire continued, “I cannot abandon him to handle this burden on his own.” There was a tense pause. “I’m not supposed to repeat this, but apparently the Witches of the Light have discovered a way to becomewerewolves.”
Werewolves who had learned how to sneak past the boundary between lands.
“No,” Tansy was saying. “That can’t be true. They wouldn’t.”
“Theyhave,” Claire asserted. “I saw proof myself.”
Hector’s head in that box. A memory I would never forget. A good man. A good witch. Someone who had welcomed me into his home. And it was that very friendship, and his desire for peace, that had gotten him killed.
“Do you think that’s what Alec wanted to warn you about?” Devlinn asked. “That werewolves were coming? He said he’d been scratched by one.”
I froze. A new thought worming into my mind. I’d assumed the magick to make werewolves had comefromthe Lawless Lands, but what if that wasn’t true? When Alec was firstbrought to my tent for questioning, he claimed to have seen a werewolf and bore a scratch to prove it. And now, he was missing.
One of her wolves whined, and Claire hushed it with a few reassuring words. I put my hand on the doorknob, ready to break up this conversation, needing to see my wife, when the sound of Claire’s voice stopped me.
“They are coming to cut off the source of dark magick because they don’t want balance. They want power. And they want to destroy everyone and anything that threatens their twisted worldview.”
Claire had come so far after being raised at the Nightfall Convent. That she could embrace another viewpoint after two decades of indoctrination spoke volumes about her. Many witches with the same upbringing refused to accept the truth she saw so plainly.
“If there are werewolves, we need torun,” Tansy said. “They’ll come foreveryonewith red hair. It won’t matter if you charge your magick or not. Trust me, I grew up with witches who were waiting for something big like this to change the game.”
Of course. It wasn’t just the Prideaux. There were other witches who harbored old grudges. They didn’t have the desire to strike out without a way to defeat us. But if there were creatures who matched vampires in strength, perhaps more would defect.
