That was the first time he’d ever said that to her. Good lord, he wasn’t as certain of the king’s ignorance at all, was he? She could be walking into a trap that would send her to her grave.
Damned faeries. She should have known they would betray her eventually.
Squaring her shoulders, she marched through the halls and listed all the reasons why she shouldn’t be afraid. Even if that was a flimsy attempt to bolster her confidence, it seemed to work.
First, she was a lot more powerful than she had been the first time she met the king. Teleportation, bursting into a swarm of bats, even the much more superior strength and speed would help her. She could evade him for a very long time.
Second, he had kissed her. Clearly the king had a soft spot for her. She could exploit that. Even though that would ruin whatever future they might have had together, it was still better than death.
She paused in front of his door and took a deep breath.
Third, she had survived centuries before and she would do so again. No faerie king would be the end of her.
She lifted her hand to knock.
“Lilith, how many times do I have to tell you? I already know it’s you. Just come in.” His voice echoed through the halls like thunder.
Lilith curled into herself for a second before steadying her resolve. He was the King of the Flame, sure. The element was at his beck and call, and there might be a creature inside him who was fire itself. The greatest threat to vampires stood on the other side of this door but she couldn’t be frightened of him. Not yet, anyway.
She pushed the door open and stepped into his room.
Drake wasn’t standing in the center like he usually did while waiting for her. Instead, someone had moved the clawfoot tub and in its place were two wing-backed chairs. He sat in one before a great fireplace, like the wall had split open for his pleasure. A roaring fire pumped heat into the already blistering room. He held a goblet of wine in one hand and a decanter in the other.
“Grab a glass if you drink wine,” he murmured. He didn’t even look at her, just stared into the flames like he was thinking about something important.
Shit. She was so screwed.
Lilith walked woodenly to the dresser where another metal-stemmed glass goblet sat. If he was going to accuse her of something, then she wanted wine in her system. She hadn’t agreed to kill him. That’s the only thing she had on her side.
And if Flint thought she wouldn’t throw him under the bus in this whole mess, he had another thing coming. Lilith took care of herself first and foremost.
Goblet in hand, she rounded the chairs and took a seat. The heat was so overwhelming it made her sweat. She loosened the neck of her robe and held the goblet out. “I drink wine.”
He leaned over the arm of his chair and poured her a hefty serving. “Profusely?”
“No.” She lifted the glass to the light of the flame. “But it looks like blood, don’t you think?”
“I take it you don’t get the same reaction to alcohol that the rest of us do.”
She met his gaze and smiled. “I don’t. But it still tastes lovely.”
They both sipped their glasses and stared into the fire for a few moments. She took heart that maybe this meant he didn’t want to kill her. Or maybe this was just a warning for daring to even consider betraying him. She could live with that kind of reaction.
Finally, Drake spoke. “Someone in the palace wants me dead.”
She froze. Her heart thundered in her chest so loudly she stopped the organ so he wouldn’t hear the steady thump. Her own body would give her away long before her words.
Lilith lifted her glass to her mouth once more. “Is that so? Considering you’re a king, I would assume many people want you dead.”
He laughed, but the sound was dull and mirthless. “Many people do. I just never thought it would be someone within my own court.”
She could imagine how difficult this was for him. But was he hinting the person was her? She wasn’t in his court. So he must be asking about Flint.
That was good, but also... Flint had said he’d been watching over Drake for centuries. He wanted to help the king, he’d just given up believing he could be helped. Was that reason to kill him? In her mind, no. He was doing his best to make sure Drake remained alive while the elemental did not.
She took a deep breath and blew it out through her teeth in a low hiss. Might as well rip the bandaid off. “Are you accusing me?”
His eyes widened in shock, then he burst out laughing. “You? No, vampiress. I’m not accusing you of anything. You’re the only person in this entire fortress I know couldn’t betray me even if you wanted to.”
Her hackles rose. “Excuse me? If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I’ve killed kings before.”
She hadn’t. Actually, she’d spent most of her life avoiding kings because they very much enjoyed hanging vampires or burning them at the stake to prove a point. Lilith had kept her head low her entire life until this ridiculous mistake.
Drake tore his eyes away from the fire and leaned over the arm of his chair once more. Arm outstretched, he tapped his finger against the collar. “You’re the only one I know cannot betray me. Because this won’t let you, vampire. Not because I trust you.”
He leaned back, and she didn’t know whether to be surprised or horrified. He had shackled her, she knew that, but she’d forgotten. Just like he hadn’t put this chain around her neck and told her to heel a few weeks ago.
She lifted a hand and touched the cool metal. Magic ran through it in pulses of heat beneath her fingers. It flared up for a moment and then died.
Why hadn’t the collar warned him about her conversation with Flint? She needed to talk with the head of staff to clarify that strange new addition to the puzzle of this place.
Lilith leaned back into her chair and lifted the wine once more. “Then who do you think it is?”
“One of my staff members.” His brows drew down, and he stared so intensely into the flames, she thought he might jump into them. “I have a feeling I know who it is, and it’s someone I never thought would harm me in such a way.”
Her heart ached for Flint. She never thought in her life she’d feel any guilt for another person. Lilith prided herself in being selfish, but this time... Damn. Flint might not be her favorite person on the planet, but she respected the man.
He’d devoted his entire life to making sure Drake didn’t kill the humans. She didn’t know how many centuries, but if he hadn’t been watching this faerie king, then she might not be alive. The human realm would have been wiped out a long time ago.
Her hand was shaking. She put the goblet on her leg and forced her hand to still. “I spend most of my days with the staff, Drake. I don’t think any of them would dare try to kill you. They all respect you more than you know.”
It was a lie. His nostrils flared, and she knew he could sniff it in the air.
Another dull laugh echoed through the chamber. “I appreciate the attempt to ease my suffering, vampiress. But that’s not you.”
“I can be reassuring when I want to be.”
“And yet, you have never wanted to be.” He lifted his goblet in the air. “It’s one of the many things I admire about you.”
“Listen to me, Drake. I really don’t think it could be-”
He crushed the wine goblet in his hand. Glass shattered and wine sprayed in every direction. A funnel of flames erupted from the fireplace and surrounded his hand, coiling around it like he’d called a snake out of the fireplace.
Lilith stopped talking. She froze in her seat and watched the king, waiting to see what would happen next.
Would he threaten her? Would he toss that fire onto her and be done with it?
She didn’t know why her mind always went to him killing her. Perhaps because he was one of the few people who could. And he’d made it very clear that he would kill her, maybe someday, or maybe he would let her live. As long as she was interesting enough to keep his attention.
<
br /> Lilith wasn’t all that interesting a person. So she waited to see if this was the moment she knew was coming.
He stared into the fire, rotating his hand and caressing the flames. But he said nothing else.
Slowly, she reached out her own wine glass for him to take. “I’ll clean up the glass.”
“Don’t bother.”
A blast of heat roared from the floor. Lilith picked up her feet and tried to stay still as a statue. The floor had opened up and lava pooled out of the new crack. It absorbed the glass and metal, then disappeared back into the floor. The crack sealed and the heat subsided.
She shook her head. “Handy trick. Why do you have people to clean at all?”
He took her offered wine glass, placing his mouth on the mark where her lips had been. “I enjoy having servants. They bring life to an otherwise dead place.”
Okay, so he wasn’t in a mood to argue.
Lilith remained seated and silent for a thousand heartbeats. She counted each one, waiting for him to say or do something other than just sit and stare into the fire. Eventually, she had to fill the silence with something.
“What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do?” She lifted her hands in the air, helpless and tired of this mood he was in. “Why did you call me here, Drake?”
At that, he turned to look at her. His eyes were completely black with red irises gazing at her. This didn’t seem like the Drake she knew. He was an asshole, yes, but he had never been so distant or so quiet. The Drake she knew never kept his mouth shut.
Was she staring at the elemental? Was she finally meeting the creature Flint claimed was so dangerous?
“I want you to be my eyes and ears,” he whispered, reaching out to touch a finger to the collar around her neck again. “Be my spy, dear vampiress. Let’s make you even more useful than a pleasant distraction.”
Distraction? Was that all she was to him?
The words shouldn’t sting, but they stuck in her chest and burned like an ember. She was just a distraction to him.
That settled it then. If he didn’t see her as anything long lasting, then the words were proof she was just another new, shiny toy he’d toss aside. And her heart wasn’t a toy to be played with.
Lilith nodded and stopped all bodily functions. She no longer had a heartbeat, breath, not even blood running through her veins. So when she said the words, “Of course. I’ll see what I can find,” nothing could be used to guess she was lying through her teeth.
20
The next day, all the servants were a flurry of fear and momentum. The king had invited the entire Autumn Court to the castle with only one day for everyone to prepare. The entire court was to be here tonight, and not a single room in the fortress was ready.
Lilith had a million things to do, but first, she had to talk with Flint. He needed to know that Drake was onto him.
If Drake was planning some big party, she could only assume he had ideas for entertainment. And considering he’d threatened Lilith with being the burning entertainment, she worried what would happen to Flint tonight. He needed to run. Maybe to hide.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t want someone to die. Not because he was a good person. Nor because he’d made a good impression on her or was even kind to her in the slightest.
She didn’t want him to die because he didn’t deserve to die. Plain and simple.
It made her head spin to realize how badly she wanted to save someone. She didn’t want to think of herself as a principled person either. But that’s what it was coming to, and suddenly her mind was in a tailspin.
Fucking faeries. They had turned her into a softie and she wasn’t even fighting them.
Lilith raced through the halls until she finally found him. Flint stood at the head of a sizable group of faeries, directing them with sharp jabs of his fingers and barking orders.
“You! To the right with the others. You! Start cleaning the upper rooms and make sure the sheets are actually clean this time!” He snapped his fingers at a smaller fire faerie. “Get all the braziers lit in the upper portions of the ceilings. You know the king will want to impress.”
Lilith didn’t want to interrupt him while he was working, but this was a little more important than making sure the fortress looked pretty. “Flint!”
He ignored her.
“Flint, I need to talk with you right now. It’s important.”
He continued to ignore her until all the faeries were directed where they needed to go. When they were finally the last two in the hall, he turned to look at her.
She was a bundle of negative energy. Toes tapping on the ground, arms crossed over her chest, she glared at him with every bit of anger in her body. She had almost teleported in front of him a hundred times while he wasted precious moments when he could be running.
“What do you want, Lilith?”
She darted forward and grabbed his arms. “He knows.”
She’d expected wide eyes and immediate fear. Instead, he remained deadpan and asked, “What does he know?”
What if someone was listening to them? She couldn’t come right out and say what she thought Drake knew.
Lilith looked around them, searching for anyone who might be hiding in the walls and listening to their conversation. Then she leaned as close as she dared to the burning faerie and whispered, “He knows someone wants him dead. He called me to his quarters last night and asked for me to spy for him. I can’t... I didn’t tell him about you.”
“It’s good that you didn’t tell him about me, but I don’t understand why you’re all worked up about this. We have work to do, vampiress.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “He wants you dead. Don’t you hear me?”
“He wants a lot of people dead. That’s what the King of the Flame does. He kills.”
A low snarl of frustration reverberated through her throat. She shook him hard, jolting his entire body forward with her anger. “Why aren’t you listening to me?”
Flint snatched her wrists and forced her away from his body. “He’s known someone in the staff wants him dead for a very long time, Lilith. Calm yourself. Tonight, we must ensure he’s distracted and won’t do something stupid. It’s up to you to make sure no one dies tonight.”
She took a deep breath and tried to still the anger in her chest. “What are you talking about?”
“The king only calls a court like this when he has something to show the other faeries. It’s a power play. He wants the others to know never to cross him, which means he will do something very foolish.” Flint bent his knees to stare into her eyes. “Make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The weight of responsibility settled on her shoulders and nearly slammed her into the volcanic floor. “You can’t ask me to be that person.”
“I can and I will.”
“I don’t know how to stop him! He didn’t even listen to me last night when I was trying to distract him from hunting you down!” she hissed. “What makes you think I can distract him from killing someone when he already has the plan in motion?”
“Because you must.” Flint released her wrists, then gestured up and down her body. “He’s interested in you, Lilith. Use what you have to keep him busy. Sometimes, you don’t need an elaborate escape route. Sometimes you just have to give everyone enough time to save those who deserve saving.”
Right. She didn’t have to be the knight in shining armor. She just had to be the woman with the tits.
Okay, she could do that.
Lilith turned on her heel and raced down the hall toward Drake’s private quarters. The entire time she planned how this would go.
Distracting him until the party was over would be the best way to go about this. Then he wouldn’t be able to kill anyone. And even if this took a lot less time than she thought it would, after all they’d been tempting each other for a very long time, then at least he’d be late to the party. Which could only be a good thing.
Faeries loved formalit
y, didn’t they? She’d seen the whole torch dinner ceremony and how they all took turns speaking. Even when the current speaker was a complete idiot like the fat man who had gone on about stealing buckets of lava.
Surely if she could keep him from going to the party for long enough to give the others time to plan, then that would be enough? She could do it.
Lilith planned on walking into the room and dropping her robe. He’d been interested in her body the first time he’d seen her nude. The bath had been enough to make her own body overheat, and clearly he wanted her. She’d felt the hard heat of him against her spine when she’d fed from his arm.
Good enough. All of this were steps in the right direction.
So if she walked into his room, dropped her robe and said... what?
He’d reacted when she said she needed him to feed. Maybe she’d go that route again. She could drop the robe, say she needed to feed from him, and then... well, just let him do what he’d wanted to do the first time she’d fed from him.
And that wouldn’t be a chore. She’d wanted to fuck him too. Even in that damned trophy room, locked away, she’d thought about what it would be like to feel his hands on her skin.
She skidded to a stop in front of his door.
He’d told her a hundred times not to knock, and this would be the first time she didn’t.
Lilith pushed the door open and strode into his room like she owned the place. He stood in front of the fireplace once more, but this time there was a large mirror just above it. Drake smoothed his hand down the velvet suit that fit him like a second skin and met her gaze in the mirror. “Lilith. I wasn’t expecting you just yet.”
Holy shit, he was handsome.
His broad shoulders filled out the jacket like he was born to wear it. The pants cupped his thighs and ass just like her hands suddenly longed to do. But it was his back that caught her attention the most. His back that had velvet plastered down the length of it and showcased layers upon layers of muscle begging for her hands to dig into them.
She stepped into the room and closed the door behind herself.
Her own reflection didn’t show in the mirror, so she didn’t know how he knew it was her. She didn’t know how he met her gaze either, but he held her eyes like he could see her in the reflection.
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