My knees buckled as I hit the ground, and I grabbed for support.
Fortunately, it wasn’t the vampire I reached for.
Unfortunately, it was Lec Rus, my fingers slamming against his bunched forearm. The second I steadied myself, I whipped my hand away, half afraid he’d latch on.
But perhaps Barend caused the Alpen to be cautious, although Rus still sneered at the vampire. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for her.”
I loathed Barend with a singular intensity. He wore black, similar to Lec Rus. But he wore it with arrogance, where the Alpen simply wore it.
“Set took care of your little tracking gift,” I said. “The poison in the runes. Grayson’s been eliminating your advantage. Ago’s dead. Looks like you’re running out of allies.”
A smile played around the vampire’s lips. “You’re not one of them?”
“Imagine it, Barend.” I smiled back, mostly teeth, but still… a smile. “Imagine how my hands will warm as I suck out your life force until there’s nothing left but dried skin.”
“I told you safety was fought for, never given.”
“You also told me only mortals died for the right principle and thought it made a difference.”
“My offer still stands,” he said. “I can give you what you need to defeat Amal.”
“Not even close. We might agree on the outcome, but not the path to get there.”
“You know Amal’s power. You’ve seen it.”
“I also know her weakness. Were you behind the attack on Julien?”
A startled twitch around the vampire’s eyes. “No. My spies tell me the attack came from Amal. She discovered what he was looking for and put a bounty on his head. Hoped to destroy him before he found anything useful.”
“What was he looking for?”
“You would have to ask him—rumors are ripe that he still lives.”
“Perhaps it was you,” I accused. “Playing the innocent now.”
The vampire rocked back on his heels. A slight smile changed his mouth from threatening to seductive. “I would have killed him on the wall if I wanted him dead.”
I smiled in return, so very coldly. “You wanted him alive to torture Set into cooperating.”
The vampire nodded. “Your instincts are like ours.”
If smiles won the wars, both Barend and I would be victors by now. My face hurt from the warfare. “Try again.”
“Turning you would be worth the struggle. But I fear you’d be too reluctant to do much good, and I’d waste the effort to change your opinion.”
“We’re allies enough as we are,” I said, grossly expanding the concept, but the Alpen was just as hostile.
And the Alpen had grown impatient; perhaps he’d realized that, with all the gods-damned smiling, he was more and more irrelevant. Lec exaggerated his posture, declaring, “You have no business here, Barend.”
“I have every right.”
“You bought wolves—”
“And you sold them,” the vampire answered. “Along with the elder from Sentinel Falls.”
“Different reasons.”
