“Eventually, I caught the eye of a highborn vampire, and he turned me. His name is Barnabac Craxon. A well-known entity in Olhav. The Red Butcher, the Blood Baron. Whatever you want to call him, Barnabac is the minister of the Military Ward. One of the most dangerous vampires you will ever meet. Hopefully you never do.”
My eyebrows rose to try and meet my hairline. “Shit. This Barnaby fellowmadeyou a nobleblood?”
“Barnabac. And not quite. Noblebloods like Skar are turned because they are already royalty. There are expectations. I was . . . an experiment, if you will. A mistake, even. Overlord Barnabac has a host of thralls, of which I am one. His focus is scattered because of his incessant need for more thralls, which has meant his power over me has thankfully dwindled over the years. It is through Barnabac that my bloodrage hails.”
He cleared his throat, falling silent. I had a feeling he had not spoken about this to anyone in a long time, if ever. Then he continued in his deep, rumbling cadence.
“Skartovius Ashfen is a means to an end, Sephania. We use each other for mutual benefit. I have no delusions of becoming a great vampire lord like he does, or trying to operate Olhav more efficiently. I simply want to watch it all burn.”
My lungs felt tight when he finished—so matter-of-fact, with his large shoulders shrugging. “Because of what the vampires did to you . . .” I eked out, trailing off.
“Because of the rape, the toil, the torture, and for stealing me from my friends and family for decades. I was used, turned, and my life was destroyed. Now I work in the shadows of the North Mines.”
“You can do a lot of damage from the inside,” I pointed out.
“Indeed, silverblood.” He patted my ass, his arm draped over my neck and resting comfortably on my side where I was curled against him. “I am a practical man. I’m not a proponent of alchemy or magic and I don’t know what to believe about the Loreblood. It’s one of the reasons I resisted your presence and treated you with suspicion.”
“After what you’ve been through, it would be illogical to treat me any other way.” I sat up, finally extricating my head from his collar where I’d been resting. “So, Skar wants control over Olhav, and you want it to burn. Does he know you’re a self-loathing vampire who has machinations at odds with his?”
He grunted. “Of course he does. I do not lie about my intentions to my brothers. I watch out for them and make sure they don’t get too big for their britches. There’s only enough room for one hulking brute in this outfit.”
I smiled and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his lips, running my hand through his beard. “And what a brute you are, Vallan Stellos. The best kind of monster.”
We returned to Manor Marquin the following night, after sleeping the day in the tent. It took many hours for me to recover from our intense affair. I still wasn’t sure I’d be walking without a limp when I left the North Mines.
Once nightfall came, we retreated to a nearby waterway to bathe. Vallan expertly hooked some fish out of the river, which he cooked and fed me. Of course, bathing naked together under a moonlit river spurred our libidos and forced our bodies to meld in another raucous session, but we didn’t go overboard this time.
From there, Vallan led me up the mountain and into Olhav, with a fresh supply of silver hidden away on his person.
“Do you require sacrifices every time you pilfer silver from the mines?” I asked on the way up the cliff.
“Not if it’s a small enough amount to go unnoticed.”
He averted his gaze, and I knew I’d touched on a rough subject. The memory of him killing Ethera was still stark in both our minds. The sick interfolk worker had sacrificed herself to aid Zefyra, who I had since met at the Chained Sisters’ abode.
I was content knowing Zefyra was privy to her lover’s outcome, had probably had a hand in agreeing to it, and Vallan wasn’t keeping dastardly secrets from his people. It showed me—even though Vall was brutal, unflinching, and cutthroat—he carried dignity and respect, even for the weakest among us.
The carriage was stuffed away not far up the mountain pass, unmolested. With Vallan leading the reins, it took a couple hours to reach the eastern outskirts of Olhav where Manor Marquin lay.
I could hear the voices of Skartovius’ flock coming from the windows of the spired mansion, even as far back as the country roads. We rolled past the courtyard to the eastern entrance where I would not be seen.
“Soon,” Vallan said with distaste as we went by, “I will demand you are no longer kept in the dark here.”
I put a hand on his bulky shoulder, squeezing. “Let me handle the timing of that, my big brute.”
He grunted acknowledgment and we parked the carriage near the stable. A white-robed acolyte took the cart, eyeing me warily.
We strode into the mansion through the back doors. I could hear Skar’s voice through the open door of the jail room, and then Garroway’s.Good. We’re all here.
Skar was treating his grisly experiment, hunched over Dimmon’s bound body on the table in the cell. My rapist was a mottled bag of discolored skin and misshapen flesh. Parts of him were exposed, pink muscle showing, and made bile rise in my throat all over again.
I kept my pescatarian dinner down this time, standing near the back of the room.
“Glad you’ve arrived safely, my wandering temptress,” Skar said without turning to look at me. He was too caught up in his pet, poking and prodding Dimmon’s exposed innards with a bloody knife. The former Diplomat leader was seemingly unconscious.
It was, alarmingly, possibly worse to see him as half a man with half his flesh than it had been to see him covered in rivulets of blood the other night. Cleaned, there was no hiding the macabre appearance of him.
“Was she much trouble bringing here, brother?” Skar asked.
