Thalia stared down at the blood-red ruby, noted how it seemed to suck in the light. “Someone tried to compel me in the throne room when I was introduced.”
“What?” Cassius’s words turned lethal.
She shook her head. “I thought Lord Adrian was doing something, but if only full-blooded Vampyrs can …” Cassius’s face darkened, but Thalia asked, “What of you? Have you been compelled?”
The thought had her stomach twisting in knots.
“No. It is harder to compel a turned. The fact we were once human but are now something else makes the Vampyrs’ influence become confused. Even then, we are trained to fight against it. Lord Damien is powerful; the Vampyr that was brought before us was weak.”
“What were you trying to find out? Francesca …” Thalia’s mind flashed to Julian’s lover. “She mentioned trying to find a cure.” She moved another chess piece.
Cassius moved a piece without looking at the board. “Yes, it was about the cure.”
“And there are no leads to it? Surely there must be something to help them get better.”
Cassius moved his bishop, exposing his king, although Thalia didn’t think he realized it. “The prince’s council is seeing to it.”
That wasn’t an answer, but given the guarded expression now crossing Cassius’s features, she didn’t think she’d get any more from him.
Thalia moved her queen. “Checkmate.”
Cassius raised a brow in surprise, then huffed out a laugh. “Seems I was the one distracted.”
Thalia smirked, stretching her neck, then winced at the sharp pain coming from her throat. She touched the bruise that marred her neck from where Cassius had bitten her the night before.
“I am sorry,” Cassius said, his voice quiet but not weak.
Thalia glanced at him. “For what?”
Cassius’s throat bobbed. “For my behavior last night.”
His eyes were on her neck, slightly glowing against the heat of the fire. His gaze wasn’t full of hunger but rather remorse.
“It was a brutish thing to do. Something that I should have had better control of. You have every right to”—he looked at the bruise, and indeed, there was deep regret and shame flashing in his blue eyes—“to not wish me to touch you.”
Thalia wasn’t sure which surprised her more: his apology, or the anguish with which he’d said the last words. “What are you talking about?”
Cassius swallowed, nodding toward the end of the bed. “The day you were introduced to the courts, I held you and you flinched.”
Thalia glanced at the foot of the bed. The memory of when he’d torn her dress so she didn’t pass out surfaced. “I didn’t flinch because you held me.”
Cassius’s face flashed in surprise, the look so human it almost made Thalia laugh—until his eyes seemed to brighten further. “Why did you flinch, then?”
Thalia looked away, her fingers picking at the skin of her thumbs. Cassius didn’t push. Didn’t even tell her to stop before she finally got out, “I had a dream that night. About you.”
At Cassius’s nod to go on, she added, “You ripped out my throat.”
Too many emotions flashed in Cassius’s features for her to decipher before he finally said low, “I see.”
“When you—when you held me that day, you looked at my neck.”
“And that’s why you flinched?”
“Yes. I saw the hunger in your eyes.” Bile rose in her throat at the image flashing in her mind, but she pushed it aside.
Cassius stared at her a moment longer, his gaze dark. “Do you know what that hunger is?”
“No. But I assume it’s your incessant need to be sated by blood?”
