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Your deaths will not be in vain, I thought to the fallen.

This was the time for better action. Now to clear the fogginess in my head. It lingered as a thick lethargy, as if I couldn’t quite get out of the haze of waking from sleep.

Did I hear waves, feel a warmer air kissing my skin?

I pushed a hand through my hair, my eyes piercing the darkness. This room was big, the bed beneath me large and covered in white silk. Champagne colored walls surrounded me, and a gleaming white marble floor spread toward blackout blinds drawn across panoramic windows.

Layla’s holiday home on the Mer Domain’s southern coast. Alabaster Sands, an expensive, picturesque area many mortals would kill to live in. A hotspot for spotting celebrities, or so I was told.

The smell of tuberose took me back to a time when Layla was alive and the days I’d spent here with my late friend.

The friend Paris killed in a scuffle at his flat.

I missed her terribly, yet I didn’t harbor any hate for Paris over it. I’d killed plenty of his kind, and…and the forgiveness confused me.

We were both killers, the elf and me. Both of our souls drenched in blood.

He must be here, too. Sleeping beautifully in one of the other guestrooms.

Stay away.

Be smart.

“Enjoy this respite,” Selene said.

It was good to hear her voice. “Why are we here?”

“You must feed on mortal blood, darling king. To clear the infection.”

“What infection? The fog in my skull?”

“Aidan’s disgusting magic put it there.”

I rubbed at my temples, swinging my legs off Layla’s guestroom bed.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

She didn’t answer me.

Fine. I got up to pace and to listen, the fog now a worm-like presence slithering inside of me.

Vile.

Vaughn’s gentle breaths sounded on the other side of the wall. Gently, I opened the bedroom door to find him asleep in the hallway on a chaise lounge. Layla loved those, her old room at the palace had three in champagne gold.

I leaned against the wall, steadying myself against a wave of haziness. Selene had been right. I did need blood.

Rather than wake my friend, I slowly navigated the dark corridor to the living room. I stepped into the wide, marble-white space to find Medusa sitting on a champagne sofa, her unblinking amber eyes staring at the blackout blinds.

Both the guest room and this living room opened directly onto the beach, which sloped gently down to the ocean. Layla, Vaughn, and I had spent some blissful nights here a few years ago, enjoying some peace away from politics on the white sands in the dead of night, bringing some thralls with us to add some spice to proceedings.

Elio had been wonderful that night.

I would have to feed him and Patti by tomorrow night. My thralls needed to drink my blood every three days or die. There wouldn’t be an elaborate feeding this time, but a quick gifting from me to them.

I’d do it the moment we returned to the Carving Glade.

“Medusa?” I whispered.