“You wound me,” Skartovius drawled.
Was that sarcasm?“Tell me, what makes the danger before me any different than the dangerous barbarians at Manor Marquin?”
Skartovius dipped his chin and swept his auburn mane over his shoulders. He clearly grew bored of me, and my heart started to quicken again.
Any second, he will strike.
“I am not required, nor inclined, to answer your questions,” he said.
“Fine,” I spat. “Then quit stalling. Why do you call my master Lukain Mortis? That is not his name.”
His angular head quirked to the side. “Oh,nowyou wish to know more? Where is your fear—your indignation—little temptress?”
“Why do you call me that?!” I yelled, frustrated beyond belief. He was surely toying with me.
“Because you tempted me at the initial masquerade gala, and you have bedeviled my mind since that day. I was pleased to see you at my turn-day gala last eve.”
“Your . . . turn-day gala.” I breathed shallowly as he stroked his smooth chin, examining me with a serious expression.His day of birth,I assumed.A celebration for the day he was turned into a vampire, however many years ago.
He stepped closer. This time, against my better judgment, I did not back up. “Let me ask you, Sephania. Was it not surprising to find yourself in my court once again last evening? So soon after your first failed bout against my thrall?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. Unsure where he was leading, I stayed quiet.
“It is because I requested your presence to your former master,” he explained.
“More lies.”
He turned aside, showing me his back for the first time. Garroway picked his discarded hood off the ground and handed it to him.
Skartovius inclined his chin to the shorter thrall. “I believe it saved your life,” Skartovius continued, facing me. “Had you not been within Manor Marquin this evening—perhaps locked away in your depressing Firehold—I wager you’d be dead right now, or hauled in by worse hands than mine.”
My nostrils flared with new anger. I was finally getting somewhere, even if I didn’t understand it. “Why do you care whose hands I’m in? I’ve run from one enemy into the arms of another. You vampires are all the same. Wicked demons. I’ve seen what you do.”
“Yes, it is true.” He paced in front of me, pursing his lips. “We are wicked demons. We feast on the blood of mortals. We enjoy death and violence. We grow giddy at the struggles of our inferiors, and at times ruthless against any perceived wrong.” He stopped moving, looking at me firmly. “. . . And yet, you have not been turned. You have not been drained. You have not been violated or harmed in any way during your ten-hour slumber. Do you not questionwhy?”
When he paused to let me answer, my lips moved but no words came out. I was befuddled, confused by all the points he made—none of which I could argue against. I tried to speak again—
The front door opened, letting in a line of grey . . . and amuchmore staggering figure within that space.
He was tall, even taller than Skartovius. His stature reminded me of Kemini, my ill-fated Holdmate. If Skartovius was a head taller than me, this newcomer was a head again taller than him.
I gawked at the massive vampire, a black beard stretching to his chest, with a mop of dark hair atop his head. It was not his height alone that made me gape, or the way he had to duck to fit under the frame of the door. It was his sheer bulkiness, making him look like a muscled tree more than a living or undead being.
My blood ran cold as the small space of the safehouse became intensely crowded and stuffy, this newcomer stealing all the air. He frowned at me, silent, his eyes a shade of crimson darker than either of the others.
Speaking of wicked demons, I’m staring at one now.
“Ah, finally you honor us with your presence,” Lord Ashfen drawled, again sounding sarcastic and annoyed.
The massive man wore black gloves on his hands. I noticed spots of soot or ash across his garb, like he had just gotten out of a fire unscathed yet dirtied.
The vampire ignored Skartovius and took a step toward me, making me shrink in his gaze. Then he . . . sniffed the air. “She is the one?” His voice was a hammer of rasp and bottomless depths.
I gained my wits and my confidence, gritting my teeth. “I do not recognize you from Lord Ashfen’s court last night, brute.”
“Perhaps I waited in the shadows,” he countered.
My eyes went from his boots up—and up—to his face. “I would have noticed you.”
