by Kayleigh Sky
Nobody appeared, but laughter carried to him when he stepped from the car. He inhaled evergreens and the aroma of sun-warmed wood. Squirrels chattered and yellow jackets buzzed around his shoes. He kicked in irritation and strode to a large wooden sign at the entrance to a path. Whatever had been written on it had long ago worn into shallow unpainted depressions in the wood, but he’d been told to look for it and follow the path.
He’d had to course correct after losing his claim on Isaac. It had been easy enough to trace the human from Senera Castle to the king’s manor and from there for Bronny to remember he’d glimpsed him in passing at the coven meeting. A servant and forgettable, except that Bronny never forgot a face, and unimportant outside of a way for Bronwen to insinuate himself with the king. Isaac had been a popular donor, and Bronwen had planned to take good care of him, showing his kindness to the king’s servant and Comity House’s profitability at the same time. It was a simple and benign way to get the king’s attention, but God forbid anything ever be that easy.
Fortunately, one of Bronwen’s donors had led him to a particular client of Wen’s, who had partaken of Wen’s special services. The client had not agreed to help Bronny, but an unsigned letter setting up this meeting and signed the light bearer had arrived two days ago. Bronwen intended to make something of himself and not by marrying a half-breed crossling. Solomon Frenn was a powerful vampire, a shadow in the dark, elusive and mysterious, and maybe more powerful than the king. With ties to the Adi ’el Lumi, Bronwen’s rise was almost inevitable. If he was correct and Solomon and the light bearer were the same.
He stepped over roots and followed the path around a picnic area. Several people sat at the tables. He swung around the curve, reached two metal poles with a rusty chain strung across them, and stepped over the chain. The next turn took him to a smaller picnic area. It was dark and still and uninhabited.
Bronny stepped off the path, slid down a slope, and sat on a bench at one of the tables. He brushed pine needles off the surface. Filthy place. His home city of Onoppiel hadn’t been this dirty. Workers had swept and carted off the refuse every day. The crash of something smashing into the table in front of him jerked him upright, and a laugh boomed behind him.
“You can’t be scared of a squirrel.”
A pinecone. The little bastard creature had thrown a pinecone at him. He took a breath and turned. A vampire stood at the edge of the clearing. He wasn’t alone—the area hummed with unnatural stillness.
Bronwen glanced up into the pine, but the vermin was gone.
The vampire strolled over. He was middle-aged and… bald. Curious. Bronwen lifted his chin, and the vampire laughed again.
“Proud, are you?” He pushed into Bronwen’s space, an inch from touching him before he stopped. “A royal? Let me remind you, your brother worked for me.”
Bronwen held still. “You have an advantage over me.”
“So formal,” the vampire murmured. “Wen had a healthy respect for the things he didn’t know. I am the light bearer.”
God only knew what that actually meant.
“Am I to call you that?”
The vampire smiled, stepped around him to the table, and sat on the opposite side. “Join me. And you may call me Solomon.”
Bronwen sat and knocked the pinecone off the table. “I plan to continue my brother’s work.”
“With the center? You hardly need my help with that, although the word is you lost one of your contracted donors.”
Bronwen stiffened, and heat prickled him. “How do you know that?”
“I have many eyes. We are everywhere.”
“Why would you concern yourself with my actions regarding one lowly donor?
“Not so lowly. You wanted him.”
He scowled. What he’d wanted was to get in with the false king. “What kind of world is it where humans fail to honor us?”
“Dinallah’s world.” Solomon spoke the name with a smile playing on his mouth. Waiting for Bronwen to rise to the bait.
Wait away, vampire. “Well, he is the king.”
Solomon’s smile widened. “Better to trust Ellowyn than human law.”
“Some Ellowyn.”
“True,” Solomon said. “What do you want from me?”
“Two things.” Bronwen had debated his first question for a long time because he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer, and very sure he didn’t have a death wish. But if he didn’t ask it, he was a coward, and if he didn’t suspect it, he was a fool, and neither would get him Solomon’s help. So he ignored his pounding heart and went on. “Did you kill Wen?”
Solomon surprised him with a laugh. “You’ve been investigating me. I’ve lost my business and I’m in hiding because the cops can’t solve a few murders. They’re idiots. Wen and I had a profitable working relationship I had no desire to dissolve.”
For a moment Bronny tottered on the edge of challenging Solomon on that. He hadn’t answered the question, but his gaze remained amused, as if it were nothing to him if Bronwen pressed him on it. But Bronny wasn’t convinced he’d walk out of the forest alive if he did.
“I have to avenge him,” he said.
Solomon nodded, the lines at his eyes tightening with tension. “That is because you are a true Ellowyn, and I respect that. What is the second thing you want?”
“What Wen had.”
“Wen served us and the glory of the Ellowyn.” Bronwen chuckled at that, and Solomon added, “And his bank account. Wen never lost his donors.”
Bronwen scowled. “Donors come and go, but a donor allowed to ignore his contract is unacceptable.”
“And yet we must accept it.” Solomon took a breath, gaze rising upward before he exhaled. “What do you know of Camiel Nezzarram?”
The question took Bronwen aback. Why would he know anything? From another royal family, but Camiel’s loyalties were murky at best. “I know nothing.”
“But he was at the coven meeting, yes? The one that saw the slaughter of Og Gennarah.”
A gruesome murder, and in a roundabout way, partly why he was here, and the twitch of Solomon’s mouth conveyed his knowledge of that.
“I heard he was poisoned.”
Solomon tilted his head. “Or maybe just a bad batch of Synelix. You are in an enviable position should Synelix become undrinkable.”
“I will do what I can for our people. I have a house of donors able and willing to feed us.”
“‘Willing’?”
Bronwen shrugged. “Some things can’t be helped. Obviously, if Synelix goes bad, we will need a means to survive. I’ll rise to that occasion.”
Solomon grinned. “Will you? There are many donor centers. Perhaps you imagine Comity House being the only one with a charter to provide services. You will have to expand, of course. Offer franchises perhaps.”
Yes, the Taco Bell of human blood.
Bronwen bit back a laugh. “Wen would be proud.”
Solomon nodded. “The friendship of the Adi ’el Lumi is an honor. But it can be costly.”
“I’m willing to put in the effort. I’m already making long overdue changes in Comity House. Wen was more indulgent than necessary.”
“You must do something for me.”
“I assumed that.”
“Camiel. I want to know everything he does.”
A stone dropped into Bronwen’s belly. Was he a detective? A spy? “How?”
Solomon stood and smiled down at him. “Be clever.”
13
A Stubborn King
Rune… Rune…
Abadi’s musical voice floated down the dark tunnel. “Never take it off.”
The impenetrable blackness hid her from him. He had to be somewhere between Kolnadia and Celestine City, but…
Where was the train? He’d been returning home on the train and now…
“Rune? What’s going on? Are you hurt?”
That wasn’t Abadi’s voice. Sorrow washed over him in a cold wave, so cold it burned him like a f
ire. He wanted his mother. And he shouldn’t. She’d hired assassins to kill Jessa and his mother, Dawn. She’d failed, of course, and been exiled with her family. Faithfulness wasn’t a given in Ellowyn marriages, except for fated loves. Abadi and Qudim hadn’t been fated, so there’d been no reason for Abadi’s actions. It wasn’t sane, and Rune had been afraid of her after that but lost without her too. How had the world become so dark, with his art his only light?
“Tell me you didn’t do it, Mama. Tell me.”
She’d only stroked his cheek with a fingertip. “Your truth is not mine to give you.”
“I want your truth!”
But she didn’t answer.
“I’m getting help.”
He closed his fingers on a solid wrist and opened his eyes. “Where are we?”
“My study,” Zev said. “We’re alone for now. Asa’s in the bedroom.”
“Too close.”
The human’s smell wafted underneath Zev’s and reached inside him like a hand tearing his heart out. Stupid. Zev wasn’t his, though they’d been boyhood lovers.
“I thought you were dying.” Zev’s face was drawn tight and pale with worry.
“Is there an enforcer outside?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t be seen. Meet me the sunroom.”
“Meet you—”
Somehow he’d gotten himself here. He had to concentrate and will that strange power. The fog he faded into was thicker than usual but wispy enough to crawl and seep around the old window frames in tendrils that sought each other outside and took form again. An enforcer was near, on the tree-lined perimeter of open space. Rune sank back against the shadowy house until the vampire passed. Moonlight caressed the corner of the sunroom. On the other side of it was the back of the house and the gardens in full bloom. Roses scented the air.
He’d collapsed onto one of the wicker sofas by the time Zev appeared, now in jeans and a T-shirt. He smiled, but he was lost in a fog more fragile than the one he’d turned into. His head was fuzzy under a faint throb, his memories murky. How had he gotten to the manor? From the moment he’d stepped from the office building to now, everything was gray.
Zev didn’t match his smile. His steps faltered. “How…? How did you…?”
“I dimmed.”
“Dimming isn’t…”
Was Zev horrified? Maybe he thought Rune’s dimming was magic. It flouted natural law. Physical bodies didn’t alter their form. But he didn’t want Zev to be afraid of him. To pull away. What if he lost Zev too?
“It’s still me,” he said. “I’m still me.”
But was he? He’d thought he’d known his parents too. That he knew them still. That they were who they’d always been. Maybe some of his thoughts showed on his face, because Zev’s expression softened, and he sank sideways onto the sofa and took Rune’s shoulders in his hands. “I want to talk about this, but first, what happened to you?”
He clasped Zev’s wrists but didn’t move away from his touch. “What do you see?”
“You look sick. Like you’ve lost twenty pounds in a day.”
His smile curled higher on one side. “How unattractive.”
“Be serious. You’re sick.”
He shook his head. “No. I met with a vampire who knew the location of the last necklace.” I hope.
Zev scowled. “And that’s worth dying over?”
“I didn’t die, but he did.”
Maybe it was due to the tone of his voice, but the anger that suffused Zev’s face dissipated a moment later. “You were hurt.”
“Yes, but… Not the way you think. They got there ahead of me, Zev. The Adi. I chased them off, and I thought I could save him. He was dying, something was eating him up. I fed him, and his blood got in me and… I can’t describe the pain, and I only got a small amount.”
“Of the poison?” Zev’s voice thickened with horror. “The one they’re killing us with.”
He nodded. “He was dissolving right in front of me, and I couldn’t stop it. I was too late.”
A strange worry wiggled around inside him, even though they sat safe from view behind a row of potted palms.
He let his head fall back against the cushion and brushed the rough fabric underneath him. The material was strangely fibrous.
“I told you that I don’t have the other necklaces, so why are you even doing this?”
“Because I know you’re lying, Zev.” Tension gripped him. The reasons Zev lied were probably good ones, but the scent of the human on him—a human Rune had saved for him—cut him like a knife. He dug his fingers into the cushion, thin threads or fibers poking his skin. “It’s time to stop. I love you. I know you want my happiness.” There it was again, the wriggling unease. “But the way Thomas died. They are killing my people. Threatening my peace.”
Zev leaned closer. “Concentrate on that. Not on the treasure. I’m close to a new formula. That will ensure the peace.”
“Zev. Listen to me. The Adi ’el Lumi existed before the Upheaval. Their members come to you, Zev. What do they say when you give them audience?”
Zev rolled his eyes. “I try not to.”
Rune snorted. “Well, it doesn’t matter because they say it out loud. That drainers are a sign we were born to drink from humans. How do we argue? It’s the truth. But they aren’t after the treasure because of any truth. Drainers and Synelix are just tools to them. They want domination. To rule over all of us. They followed Qudim because he was one of them. The war with the Nezzarrams woke something ugly in him, and it only got worse after Dawn died. The Adi will use the treasure to come against us. They want to feed on humans, Zev. I won’t let them.”
He fixed his gaze on Zev’s face and his bunched jaw. Zev had been with him through everything. The one thing he still held onto.
“The humans call what you’re doing a wild goose chase,” Zev said.
His betrayal wasn’t a cut—it was a fucking wound in the chest. He reared up with a hiss, knocking Zev back. “The treasure is real.”
Zev’s face glowed white in the room.
Is he afraid of me?
But Zev’s voice held steady, angry. “Like heaven and fallen angels and—”
“Transmutation?”
Zev pulled his upper lip between his teeth then sighed. “There have always been stories.”
“I saw where the treasure is.”
“I’m speaking as your friend, Rune. You wouldn’t recognize the treasure if it rained jewels on your head.”
He gripped Zev’s shirt in his fist and pulled him over until his lips brushed Zev’s cheek. “Only you. Only you can say whatever you wish to me, even when you sound like my enemy.”
An enemy who knew his every secret now. Who knew where to do the worst damage.
But Zev locked onto Rune’s gaze, his eyes burning as when they’d made love as boys, and his voice fell to a whisper. “What is the other treasure that keeps you awake at night? The one you can’t imagine living without? Does it glow in the dark like our cities? Does it light your way? Fill your heart? We weren’t fated for each other, but I keep trying to tell you, Rune, that you are looking for the wrong things.”
Zev’s resistance left a taste like burnt blood in his mouth. “Love? Is that what you mean? Look what happened to Qudim when Dawn died. He laid waste to every human he saw.”
“You said yourself that he had changed before then. Or maybe never changed. Maybe he was always that way and the Nezzarrams only brought his bloodlust out.”
Never take it off.
Rune shook himself, his hand falling away from Zev’s shirt. “I dreamed of Abadi earlier. Do you remember the bracelet she gave me for my eighteenth birthday?”
Zev frowned. “The spell-catcher?”
He nodded, detecting the human’s scent on Zev again. His fated—
He sat up, sensing a strange emptiness around him. “Where is Isaac?”
Zev shifted, sitting forward. “I didn’t know you knew he was here. Jessa has
seen him.”
“But he’s not here.”
“Not at the moment.” Zev’s frown deepened. “The Wrythins are chafing at my control. Poking at me for the hell of it. They’re the lowest family for God’s sakes. How far do they think they can climb? Abysmal people.”
“What did they do?”
“Nothing illegal. Bronwen is running Comity House now, and when he was going over the records he found reference to donor contracts. Apparently, Isaac had one. Did you know about that?”
“No.”
“I think he assumed you paid it off when he went to live with Jessa. There’s only ten months on it, but the Wrythins decided to stick it to me because they know Isaac’s a member of my household.”
“They wanted his contract?”
“Yes, but they didn’t get it. I paid it off. My enforcers made sure the Wrythins returned home without him. He’s safe.”
Rune sank against the cushions again. “Good.”
Zev’s expression went hard. “He’s your fated, isn’t he? He told me he left the castle because Jessa didn’t need him anymore, but he was lying. He was following you. You came to me on my birthday for the first time in three years. Were you leading him here?”
“You sound as romantic as Jessa. I told you I sensed him here. I care about him for Jessa’s sake.”
“Right. Well, as I said, he’s safe, and you’re free to ignore him.”
“Careful, old friend.” Bitterness grated across his voice like a rasp. “I need my old friend now.”
Zev’s shoulders sank. “I am with you, but I’m afraid for you. You said yourself they’re one step ahead of you. They could’ve killed you. They didn’t even have to be there to do it. If you had gotten too much of the poisoned blood…”