"This is different," I say. "These aren't Konstantin's soldiers. These are vampires who've been playing power games longer than most civilizations have existed. One wrong word, one moment of weakness, and they'll…"
"They'll what? Kill me?" She steps closer, and I force myself not to step back. "It's not like I haven't almost died since I met you, Maximus. I'm getting used to it."
"That's not funny."
"It's not meant to be." She's close now. Close enough that I can smell her. The same scent that filled my lungs in the war room when I had her pressed against the wall, when her head fell back, and she gasped my name.
I've been trying not to think about it for two days. I'm failing spectacularly.
"I'm going into that room tomorrow, whether you think I'mready or not," she says. "So instead of trying to talk me out of it, maybe focus on making sure I'm prepared."
She's right. I know she's right. But every instinct I have screams to keep her here, to lock her in the compound where Konstantin can't touch her, where ancient vampires with centuries of political cunning can't destroy her with a well-placed word.
I've already tried controlling her. I've already tried protecting her by taking away her choices.
I won't make that mistake again. Even if watching her walk into danger might kill me.
"There's one more thing," I say. "Wait here."
I go to my private quarters and retrieve a small leather box from my desk drawer. It's nothing special to look at. Worn leather, brass hinges, no ornamentation. But what's inside has been with me for over six hundred years.
When I return to the training room, Celeste is watching me with curiosity.
"What is that?"
"A statement." I open the box.
Inside, nested in black velvet, is my signet ring.
Heavy gold, wide band, engraved with my family's mark. A stylized M intertwined with symbols that marked my family in fourteenth-century Italy, when I had a name that mattered.
"It's beautiful," Celeste says quietly.
"It's mine. Was my father's before, and his father's before that." I lift the ring from the box. The gold catches the light, gleaming against my fingers. "Luciano took it when he turned me. I took it back when I killed him."
Her expression shifts. She understands what I'm not saying. That this ring represents everything I lost and everything I fought to reclaim.
"Every vampire in that room will know what it means when they see it on you."
Her eyes snap to mine. "Maximus."
"It's a claiming gesture," I say. The words come out rougher than I intended. "Everyone in that room will see it and understand exactly what it signifies. That you're mine. That you act with my authority. That anyone who threatens you answers to me."
Mine.The word settles into my chest, and I remember the possessive surge that flooded through me in the war room. The primal satisfaction of feeling her clench around my fingers, of hearing her cry out my name, of watching her face as she shattered for me.
She's quiet for a long moment, her gaze moving between my face and the ring in my hand.
"Every vampire in that room will look at me and know exactly what I am to you," she says slowly. "What am I to you?"
The question hangs between us. I should have an answer. A political answer, a strategic answer, something that explains this in terms of alliances and assets and tactical advantages.
But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
Because the truth is too much. The truth is something I haven't let myself name, haven't let myself examine too closely, because if I do, I'll have to acknowledge that I'm falling. That I've been falling since the moment she looked at me in that alley and saw a person instead of a monster. That what happened in the war room only accelerated a descent that was already inevitable.
"You're trusting me with more than my own safety," she says when I don't answer. "You're asking me to carry your reputation into that room. Your name. Your legacy."
"Yes."
