“Then it’s settled, General. Apologies accepted. We shall see you and your soldiers in Wrahta.”
I whirl Aimee in my arms, capturing her lips with my own. She tenses for a second before melting into the kiss, opening her sweet mouth and letting my tongue explore. I nibble on her soft flesh, sucking on her plump bottom lip and sinking my fangs just enough to draw a drop of blood, eliciting a sultry moan from her.
I’m well aware we have an audience, both the High General and his men gawking at us.
Good.
Just in case they needed a reminder of whom she belongs to.
I let my crimson shadows unfurl from my skin, enveloping us in a mist before we disintegrate into thin air with a clear destination in mind.
My bedroom.
Chapter 15
Blaise
Anotherdayhaspassed,and no news has emerged about Killian and Aimee’s whereabouts.
Sariah says to trust her brother and the Dark Umbras. That if Aurora were involved in their disappearance, Soren would find out about it. But what if deceptively sweet-faced Aurora would not bring them to the Fae court?
She’s a masterful manipulator—calculated, conniving, and always a step ahead of us. She might keep her evil persona separate from her queenly title, just as she pretended to be the Foretold One for so long, while infecting our lands with the exact sickness we needed the Foretold One’s help to defeat.
A sudden thought freezes the blood in my veins to the point I can feel it move sluggishly, barely pumping my chilled heart with its sustenance.
Is she still pretending to be the Foretold One? Is that how she weaseled her way into the Royal Fae family?
What if she poisoned their minds not with her mind control, but with outrageous lies furthering Killian’s image as the ruthless villain that must be vanquished? She could still pretend to be the doting sister, terrifiedabout Aimee’s safety and only wanting to save her from the Vampire King’s clutches. After centuries of deceit, no one in the Fae lands would bat an eye or question her side of events. No one besides the Dark Umbras, the only ones in that dishonest kingdom to know the truth.
I don’t know what would be worse. If Noahlin, dipshit that he is, knew about her sinister motivations andstillmarried her, or if the Fae are just mindless pawns in her wicked, nefarious scheme?
And amid all this uncertainty, how could I possibly do anything else but worry and ransack the whole Godsdamn castle for evidence of their whereabouts?
The maids have been trying to drag me into shadowed corners for trivial trysts, the usual endeavors I jump into without a second thought. A spanking here, a quick fuck there, nothing but a normal Tuesday for me. But it all feels tainted now. Inconceivable.
No, I can’t in good conscience dally in my usual rakish pursuits while waiting for my brother in arms to reappear, together with the female who has become like a sister to me.
Albeit, that’s not how I regarded her at first.
Those lecherous dreams about Aimee and Killian have stopped completely, thank fuck. It wasn’t one of my best moments, secretly lusting after the future Vampire Queen. In my defense, I used to lust openly after every pretty girl that caught my eye because life’s too short and even eternity is not guaranteed, so why would I hold myself to nonsensical standards of virtue thrust upon me by others?
But I don’t have the mindset for meaningless sex anymore. I’m trying to come to terms with the baffling revelation that neither my body nor my mind seems to find it thrilling anymore.
Several buxom courtesans in Drovillan have been making their usual googly eyes at me, and for the death of me, I can’t seem to give a rat’s ass. I’ve never discarded a leggy opportunity that literally landed in my lap, yet now the attentions of any other damsel except Sariah feel utterly wrong.
So, I might have accumulated quite a bit of pent-up, frenzied energy without a sexual outlet. Combine it with my trepidation over Killian and Aimee’s current fate, and what you get is a six-hundred-year-old vampire snooping around the Vampire King’s bedroom, checking for clues everywhere, including his undergarments drawer.
The room’s a mess in my wake, as if a hurricane of handsomeness just barreled through, upturning everything. Clothes lie discarded in a black heap on the floor. More black clothes hang haphazardly on wooden hangers, while black knives peek out from under his massive bed wrapped in, once again, black satin bedsheets.
Killian’s affinity for the sable shade is nothing new, but this is just plain ridiculous. Does he even own anything that is not dark as midnight?
My fingers pause before touching a pair of bejeweled ruby-red thongs. There it is, the pop of color in his life.
They must be Aimee’s, tucked away in the back of a drawer, hidden like a precious treasure.
Ha! I knew it! The poor sap pretends he hates her, but deep down he can’t help himself but keep mementos of their better days.
Oh, this is motherfucking gold! I store this priceless information for later, fully planning to use it to annoy him with it. That’s our relationship, after all. I say or do something inappropriately outrageous; he gets positively furious and curses me to the high heavens; I laugh it off.
