My hands shook as the news of Dommik’s reassignment settled over me. Three steps forward, turn, three steps back. I gnawed on a nailbed and anxiously awaited the chime of the Hive’s morning bell. The idea of my temperamental companion taken from me overrode any sense of logic to quell my panic.
Once freed by their song, I darted from my chambers and down the empty halls of the Hive. Servants must have taken leave to rest. The demands of Solstice preparations didn’t cease, but slowed during daylight hours. The two human attendants—dressed in chambermaid grays—didn’t pay me any mind, they were busy managing a cart of laundry. Blood-stained clothing and bedsheets.
I stifled a gasp behind my hand and my throat went dry. It was so much blood. I never forgot that vampires fed, but so rarely did I see evidence of it. A curious warmth filled me as I considered what must happen in private during the most intimate acts.
Go back,a small voice whispered to me. Against its wishes, I pressed forward, doing my best impression of someone on official business.
Dommik was to be reassigned immediately and I wasn’t sure when or even if I would get another chance to speak to him.
And I needed to tell him…
But this visit wasn’t sanctioned. Alba didn’t even know I’d left my chamber. A choice I was regretting as I grew more lost by the second.Beyond the hallways I was familiar with, the scenery became less decorated, more repetitive. It was still grand, it was the floor that housed Rhazien’s court and trusted advisors.
I’d assumed I would find a sign. A symbol. Something to confirm I’d found it.
His room.
If I were a vampire, I could have picked up his scent. Leather and pine. But I’d made multiple passes up and down the hall to no avail and couldn’t risk searching much longer and possibly getting caught. If someone asked, I planned to say I was inspecting Solstice decor but would need to quickly return to my chambers, squandering my mission.
Until I saw a familiar portrait. It had been weeks since the audience when Dommik had asked me to find the mate to the hairclip with white petals. But I was positive Dommik had shown me this hall, this particular painting, and this door…
I lifted my hand to knock but was quickly pulled into the dark room before my knuckles met the wood. A hand was over my mouth and a dagger was at my throat as I fell into the unlit space. My heart thundered and I whimpered beneath the broad hand.
“What. Thefuck. Are you doing here?” the voice growled in the dark. The cold metal of the blade fell away along with the hand that had been bracing me.
A match hissed to life before lighting one candle, then a second.
The warm flames illuminated a shirtless Dommik. Their shadows accentuated the creases between his broad, muscled chest.
“I was looking for you,” I said as I struggled to pull my gaze away from the heat-inducing mounds of his build.
“You shouldn’t be out of your room at this hour. Unguarded no less,” he grumbled as three more candles bloomed.
My fingers fumbled as I struggled to refasten my robe. The silk rebelled against any knot I tied, like it longed to reveal what was underneath.
“I had to come see you. Rhazien told me you were reassigned,” I breathed, hoping I’d heard him wrong or it had been a misunderstanding.
“Yeah, reassigned,” he scoffed, shaking his head and haphazardly tossing his dagger to a nearby table.
“What?” I cocked my head and wrapped my arms over my middle.
“He could have approved my request the first time, the second, or thethird,” he said, not mincing words or wasting breath. “But he waited until now. The timing doesn’t feel like a coincidence to me.”
“But—you asked for this.” I scrunched my brows.
His head fell. I understood. And I didn’t. Dommik had charmed me. Pushed me away. Pulled me back in. Pushed me away again. And now, after he’d bared himself to me, he was reassigned.
“To where? Another post within the Hive?”
“No. Overseeing interests to the East.”
I wracked my brain. There were only the peaks and caverns of the Irriset Mountains to the East. And after that, a barren, jagged shoreline. It didn’t make sense.
“It’s not a reassignment. It’s a banishment.” Dommik’s stern façade was fading and the hurt he tried to hide peered through its cracks. “He’s punishing me.”
Dommik wasn’t moving to another floor or wing or even a nearby outpost of the Hive. He was being sent across the mountains to a deserted place.
The thought of him being so far away nearly ripped me in half.
