by Kayleigh Sky
With a groan, he pushed to his feet and returned to the lodge. Anin stood by the dungeon door. He smiled at Zev’s approach.
“Sire.”
“Go upstairs. Get something to eat and drink. You don’t need to stay down here.”
Anin’s eyes widened. “He attempted to assassinate you.”
Now Zev laughed. “Not really.”
Lips pressed tight, but with a dip of his chin, Anin strode off. Zev waited until he’d climbed the stairs at the end of the hall, then unlocked the dungeon. He stopped in the doorway, mouth agape at the sight in front of him. Then he laughed. Even Yair had the grace to blush. He sat on a cot piled high with comforters, playing solitaire on a table in front of him. Two heaters warmed the space, books covered the seat of a chair, and a tray and thermos sat on another table.
“Luxury accommodations,” Zev murmured.
“I didn’t ask, majesty. I accept my punishment.”
“This aside—” Zev waved a hand at the small room. “I think your punishment is going to be worse than I can imagine.”
The blush vanished from Yair’s face. He swallowed and nodded. “I won’t fight it.”
“That’s not good enough. Stand up and come here.”
Eyes wide, Yair rose. Pretty and enticing. Violet shadows under his eyes, mouth twisting with his nerves, and as durable as a spring flower. Growing a backbone now was going to hurt.
Zev rested his hands on Yair’s shoulders. “I have the right to bury you in this dungeon.”
Yair grimaced. “Yes, sire.”
“I have the right to give you away.” Yair’s eyes locked on his. Hope flickered inside. “I won’t take that right. I give it to you, Yair. Moss and Uriah want you. My cousin is kind. Uriah…” He stopped, and a shudder ran through Yair’s body. “In the old days, Uriah would have cut your throat.”
Yair’s eyes flew wide.
“You are safe,” Zev said. “Don’t worry, but loving someone who won’t love you back is a pain I can’t describe. Do you want to go with them?”
“Go where?” Yair whispered.
“Wherever they choose.”
Eyes closing, Yair nodded, his jaw clenched tight. “I will make them love me,” he said, looking up.
“Yair, have you learned nothing?”
“Without magic. I promise. I will change. I’m sorry. Please give me to them. I won’t get another chance.”
“And another chance is not a thing to take lightly. Many things can hide under a pretty appearance, Yair. I hope what emerges from you in the coming years is worth revealing.”
“I promise, sire.”
Zev nodded. “Go back to your game. I’m sure Moss will come for you soon.”
After locking Yair in, he headed upstairs. The kitchen was empty, and he stood staring into the refrigerator. Tidy shelves with a bowl of mushrooms, a few dozen eggs, a block of cheese, and a jar of strawberry jam. There were cans of vegetables and fruits in the pantry, dozens of bottles of Synelix, loaves of bread, and steaks in the freezer. The only real reason to return home was that he was a king, and kings didn’t get holidays.
He closed the refrigerator.
Maybe if Issac made him a bowl of soup. But Isaac had returned to the manor with Otto. Asa had been worried about Isaac, though he’d hidden it mostly.
“I’ll keep him safe,” Zev had said. “I promise.”
Asa’s smile had reeked of irony. Zev had kept his enemy beside him for over a decade, never knowing he was an enemy. What did that say about his judgment? He wasn’t fit to be king.
Maybe that’s why Rune had disappeared again, to make sure Zev had no chance to bail on him.
He poured a drink in the salon and sat at the window. He was on his second when Moss said, “Starting early.”
He lifted his legs and set his heels, crossed at the ankle, on the windowsill. “I’m on vacation.”
“You deserve one.”
Zev glowered at the shimmering reflection on the glass. “Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m agreeing with you.”
“After all,” Zev said with a quick glance at Moss out of the corner of his eye, “We live in luxury here.”
Moss grimaced. “I don’t question your right to decide Yair’s fate.”
“I trust you, Moss. Though I’m not sure I trust my own instincts anymore.”
“I can say the same.” Zev met his gaze, and Moss said, “I was a sitting duck. So clueless. Justin was… a fixture in my family life and unquestionably loyal.”
Zev took a swallow of his drink. “I guess we should have wondered who he was loyal to.”
“And who is that?”
Zev shrugged. “I have no idea.”
After a moment, Moss crossed the room, poured a drink, and returned. “Now what?”
“Otto investigates Og’s murder. That was… much more than just getting him out of the way. His true cause of death was… Who would do that? What kind of poison burns veins from the inside out? I doubt Otto will find anything that leads to Morjin. I want all of the Lotis family and all their attendants confined to their district on pain of death.”
“Zev—”
“On. Pain. Of. Death.”
Moss’s jaw clenched. “And Yair?”
“Keep him out of sight, but I want to know everything he knows.”
“He was love sick. With you.”
“He was being used, which means he probably knows a lot more than he realizes. Otto doesn’t believe the attempts on my life were random, and Yair was responsible for only one. He was a tool. And as far as the Lotises go—”
“Not all are guilty. The twins would have taken that oath.”
“But they didn’t, did they? I’m done negotiating with the Ellowyn who stayed behind. I want them on the surface. Or sealed in.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“Consider it an incentive to convince them their loyalty should be to me.”
Moss leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “That’s not you talking.”
Zev held his gaze, forced coldness into his eyes, but then he sighed and slumped. “It’s not what I want, but I can’t let them jeopardize everything we’ve fought for. Our peace. Somebody… Somebody wants to destroy us all. Og’s death was—”
“Horrible, I know.”
And not the only one. Otto had received news of two other similar deaths. Two Ellowyn, who by all accounts did not know each other, lived in separate districts, and did not come from the same family. Not royal either. Obscure and… disposable?
“But why?” Moss asked. “Why kill vampires?”
“Find out what Yair knows.”
Moss nodded. “And you?”
“I’ll be home in a day or two.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Zev smiled faintly. “Emek is free.”
“Asa.”
“Asa too.”
“Don’t let him walk away, Zev.”
“I already have.”
Moss said nothing else. After he finished his drink, he squeezed Zev’s shoulder and left.
Zev stared outside. Most of the snow had melted, but a field of white still extended to the tree line. What did it hide? What darkness lay under it? What was happening underground in the wreckage of their cities?
The next morning, Moss and Yair were gone. Zev stayed another day. He had little to pack. Most of his things had been sent ahead, but he opened his nightstand drawer and removed Asa’s chess set. He opened it and gazed at the memorial card inside. Time and the weak light through the window blurred the image. This was all Asa had of his family. Inexplicably, Zev longed to go home, to see the house in the cliffs one more time. The image lanced him with an old pain.
With a single bag hanging on his shoulder, he left his rooms.
Enforcers materialized out of nowhere. He got into the car with one on either side of him and two in the front seat.
“Change of plans,” he said. “I want to see my parents.”
He spent a week with them, basking in the cool sunshine, the ocean that surrounded the island, a deep, placid blue. He had no worries there and flirted with the idea of staying. He arranged pieces of Asa’s chess set in the same configuration their game had been in at the lodge. He finished the game imagining the moves Asa might make. Asa, who according to Anin, had gotten out of the car at the manor and walked away. But even without Asa…
You made a promise.
You gave an oath.
His parents wanted to hear nothing of the world.
He put Asa’s chess set back into the position of their last game again. Maybe Zev had made all the wrong moves for him. Maybe Asa would surprise him.
He returned home. Asa wasn’t there, but Zev didn’t expect him to be.
Eleven days later, Anin, who had taken over Justin’s position, knocked on his study door.
“Emek Henley is approaching the house. Is he welcome?”
“I’ll see to him,” Zev said.
He took Asa’s chess set where it sat on the corner of his desk and went out to wait for him on the front steps.
51
A New Game
“Hush,” Asa muttered through his teeth.
The house emerged from the foliage, an enforcer standing on spread legs at the top of the driveway in the shade of a tree. The sun had broken through the fog and shown on the leggy weeds and the scattered flowerpots bright with ranunculus. He held his coat in front of him, wrapped around a squirming bundle.
The enforcer remained in place, even when the front door opened, and Zev stepped out. He sat on a step, set something behind him, and laid his arms over his knees. As Asa got closer, Zev’s features came into view. At first, he merely stared without expression. Then an eyebrow rose, then he frowned. And then he looked—
Scared?
A scared vampire?
But the expression disappeared again, flattened out, and he tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.
“Having trouble with your coat?”
Asa grappled with it, hemming in the bouncing bundle inside. “I brought a present. Not for you though.”
Zev cocked his head. “Too bad. Is it something I’d want to display on my mantle?”
“You could try.”
Zev chuckled. “Show me.”
He stooped to the ground and unwound his coat from the furry bundle he’d carried from the ride that had let him out on the highway below. The brown and tan puppy scrambled free, shook herself off her feet, and smacked chin first into the gravel before bounding up again.
“What’s her name?”
“I call her Rowena.”
“Who’d you get her for?”
“Isaac.”
Zev raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Dogs are good friends.”
Zev smiled. A wry smile that faded a moment later. He cocked his head again, strands of loose hair falling across his cheek. “Is she in memory of Lady?”
Asa held his breath until it ached. Then he let it out and gave a raspy laugh. “You remember.”
“You got her on your eleventh birthday.”
Asa nodded. “After that night at my dad’s lab, I ran all the way home. The house looked the same as it had the day before. I even pretended it was a dream and my dad would come home soon. I lay down on my bed, and a few minutes later, Lady went crazy outside. I didn’t see anybody, but I realized I couldn’t stay. I thought they’d come for me.”
Zev shook his head. “You didn’t have anything they wanted anymore.”
Asa shrugged. “I don’t know. Anyway, I grabbed a few things and ran. I had Lady for another six years.” He gazed at the puppy snuffling around Zev’s bare foot. A smile pulled at his lips. “I thought this would be a good place for Rowena.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Room to run, I guess.”
Zev smiled. “That’s not what I meant by why.”
Asa bit his lip. Why was he there? Safety? He hadn’t done his job. By the time he’d gotten to Comity, he’d given up worrying about Solomon. His first night in his motel room, he’d slept for twelve hours. His nerves returned after that, but Solomon never showed. Asa didn’t doubt he was the vengeful type. Maybe Asa was more trouble than he was worth, but he doubted it. When he got back to New Seaside, the FOR SALE sign in the window of Jaan’s Coffee Shop had taken his breath away.
He’d hurried into Starbucks and said, “What happened across the street?”
“Not sure,” the guy behind the counter had said. “The owner just disappeared.”
So maybe Solomon had too. At least for a while. Long enough to lick his wounds and come back stronger. But he remembered Louise’s words too—“He’s just a servant.”
Zev had enemies, and as long as Asa loved him, so did he. It didn’t matter where he was, so he’d come back.
“You have my chess set,” he said.
Zev bent and ruffled the puppy’s ears. She plunked her rear down and grinned a puppy grin.
“It’s here,” Zev said. He straightened, reached behind him, and brought it out. “Take it.”
Asa pushed the tips of his fingers in his pockets, and Zev’s arm slowly fell.
“I didn’t thank you,” Asa said.
“For your dad?” When Asa nodded, Zev nodded too. “Justin bought his death with his treachery. I didn’t do it so you’d owe me. I didn’t keep my promise.”
“I don’t make promises,” Asa said. He paused after that, but Zev said nothing, waiting, his gaze fixed and steady. “It’s easier.”
Now Zev spoke with a slight smile. “That’s true.”
“Nobody to disappoint. Except…” Asa flashed on Isaac when he’d walked past him on the driveway the day he’d left. Isaac had given him Zev’s same slight smile. As though he didn’t expect anything better of him. “This is that kind of world.”
“I think it always was,” Zev said. “We aren’t making new choices.”
“I thought you killed my father.”
“And now?”
Asa looked at Rowena, nose in the ranunculus. “I betrayed him.”
“Or he betrayed you.”
He jerked his gaze back and said, “What do you mean?”
“Synelix was the key to peace, but it was an accident, wasn’t it? It was developed as part of a program to kill us.”
Asa licked his lips. “How do you know that?”
“The old-fashioned way. Informants. Synelix was created to keep us alive, so that you could discover a way to wipe us out like a disease. Gladstone Solutions made vaccines. So there were two versions of Synelix. One was a poison. Simple, but hard to administer. The other was a successful substitute for human blood that was supposed to keep the test subjects alive while your dad’s scientists worked on a better way to kill us. An injection, like a vaccine, that would be harmless to you, yet turn your blood into poison to us.”
“I didn’t know all that. I just knew my father didn’t want peace.”
“I had to stop him, and I thought taking Synelix was enough to do that. That it would buy us peace. I came for you, but you—”
“Ran, like I said.” Well, well. Come here, little one… You can’t get away…
But he had gotten away. For years. He’d gotten as lost as lost could get.
“Would you have killed me?” Zev asked.
“I only thought I could. I tried to get back to you. You and Isaac.”
“You saved my life.”
“And you saved mine.”
Zev grinned. “So we’re even.”
“No,” said Asa, watching Zev’s grin fade. “You still owe me a game. I was winning.”
“Is that so?”
“Come on. I had total control of the board.”
“Ha. Strategy, my friend.”
“Too chicken to see it through?”
Zev’s eyebrows rose. “Is that a dare?”
Asa shook his head. “It’s a promise.”
52
Taking Up The Game
The cottage stood where it had always been, though it was empty now. The garage had three of its doors open, two vehicles on the driveway, but no one in sight. A few roses dotted the gardens with color, the rest of the bushes heavy with buds. Everything looked the same as it had on the day Asa walked away.
One of things he’d done while he was gone was go back to his old house in Lakewood where he’d sat on the curb in front of what had once been Mr. Li’s house. The crisp green lawn was still there, but vampires lived inside. His old house had been white with black trim when he’d lived there with his dad. Now it was shades of lavender and purple like amethyst. Jewel tones. Vampires.
It hadn’t bothered him really, and that had surprised him. He’d felt only the echo of sorrow, a wound long ago healed, a scar so faint and old he’d have to hunt for it. It was where he’d met Zev.
He’d gotten up and walked away. Walked here, where he stood breathing in the scents of cinnamon and vanilla, the stillness broken by a sudden cry.
“Emek!”
The kid raced out of the garage and down the slope.
“Whoops,” Zev murmured in his ear, standing where he could hide Rowena behind his back.
Asa braced himself for an onslaught, but Isaac pulled up at the last second, gasping out of a grin that lit up his face.
“I knew you’d come back.”
Asa chuckled. “Yeah, well…” He took a breath of the sweet aromas on the air. “I missed your cooking.”
“Snickerdoodles!”
“Cookies? They smell great.”
Isaac’s gaze shot to the king, still standing behind Asa, and his cheeks pinked. “You can have some,” Isaac said. “I made a lot.”
Instead of answering, Asa said, “I brought you a present.”
Isaac blinked. “Really?”
Was it that shocking? Maybe from Asa. He hadn’t had a friend since… Well, not even Mateo.
He stepped sideways, and Isaac stared at the creature wriggling in Zev’s arms.