ChapterEleven
Kolvar
My heart still hadn’t settled from the fear that had it hammering in my chest wildly upon finding Kyella gone from my room. Staring at her as her mouth opened in awe and the sun sparkled against her eyes, I realized they were practically glowing like the brightest gold coins I’d ever seen. Her exceptionally stunning eyes had caught my attention from the start, but they absolutely hadn’t beenthisvivid before.
My brows furrowed in confusion over the enigma this woman was. She craved blood like a vampyre, but she didn’t have fangs like one, and she drank my blood with no adverse reaction. That was unheard of for a vampyre. We would get extremely sick from one of our own kind’s blood. But if she were a human, she would undoubtedly have been controlled by Malakai through the abilities our blood gives us once ingested by a human. Emotionally and physically, we were able to warp what it was they wanted. Thankfully compulsion was outlawed in our lands.
Elijah snuck a look over at her, and I saw the interest that sparked in his eyes as she stared at our home, our ship sailing closer to port. But the second she turned her head towards him, Elijah snapped his head the other way, and I saw a cold mask slip back over him.
Letting out a heavy sigh, I approached him as Dakath and Kyella began to talk about our home and its customs. She was completely riveted by the conversation, and I had accepted I couldn’t hog her attention any longer. It was clear she was feeling better, but I would still stay close in case her hunger surged.
The fact that she drank my blood would stay our secret for as long as she wanted. To be honest, I loved it. I felt needed and valued by her and loved having the opportunity to prove she could trust me.
But with the looks Dakath and Elijah gave her, the way our natural defenses surged in response to her safety, I knew that I couldn’t live in this little bubble with her forever. But I would always treasure the way her sleepy gaze lit up when she took me in after waking up from a nap, though I wasn’t sure if it was because I was the one providing her blood or if she felt affection for me already.
“So,” I said, leaning against the smooth wooden railing on the starboard side near Elijah. Flicking my eyes down at his face, I smirked when I saw the way his jaw clenched at my one word greeting. He was trying so hard to keep his usual calm, collected, honorable demeanor intact, but it was clear Kyella was tearing up that carefully constructed persona. The best part was she had no idea how much she was impacting the stoic vampyre.
Few would even notice the small changes in him. Dakath and I had spent enough time with him since our turning, though, that the subtle inflections of his tone and a tight jaw were more than enough to give him away.
“Don’t,” he rebutted, already knowing where I was going with this. Kyella had obviously been the topic of our conversation since beginning our voyage home. A journey that had thankfully been free of storms, making it an easy two-day trip.
“Don’t what?” I asked innocently.
His green eyes glittered with frustration in the sun, but as he turned them on me, I had to laugh at the challenge lurking in their depths. “Don’t play dumb, Kolvar. It isn’t becoming of a Lord in the direct service of our ruler.”
At that, I barked out a laugh. “Yeah, and what are you doing, Elijah? Because you sure as hell aren’t being honest with us or yourself. It’s going to eat you away if you continue to try to bury it.”
Turning his cheek to me once more, he muttered in an adamant low tone, “I don’t know why the two of you insist that something’s changed within me. My focus is solely on my duty to our ruler and our empire. That hasn’t changed and will always remain.”
Leaning down on my forearms, I clasped my hands together and kept my voice quiet, not wanting to embarrass our older comrade. “You know it isn’t against the law to feel emotions for her?”
While I wasn’t the youngest, Dakath being the baby at 148 years old, I knew Elijah had never been one to let people in. He’d been 107 when I’d been turned and met him, forcing my friendship on him. Before that, in the nearly forty years he’d been a vampyre, he’d never had anyone he considered a friend or family. While many told me not to bother with the aloof and off-putting vampyre during our training years, I hadn’t listened—rather the opposite. No, I found myself wanting to befriend the man, even if it had been a tedious process. Eventually though, he had let me in, and forty-five years later he let Dakath in as well.
Still, there was a deep sadness within Elijah, and even after over a century and a half, I’d never quite been able to pinpoint how to remove that cloud that followed him. Instead, I had done my best to lighten the weight of the world he seemed to carry on his shoulders, and in the rare moments I got a smile or laugh from him, my soul had felt at peace.
Family was everything to me, and after watching my human family pass in their old age, all I had left were these two men that I considered my brothers. I would die for them and would spend each day refusing to give up on bringing joy to their lives. And now I felt the same for Kyella. A part of me just knew, with every fiber of my being, that she was the missing piece we all needed. The element of our life that had been absent until now—until I had met her gaze across the throne room and everything in my universe had shifted.
“But it may yet be against the law to harbor four fugitives from their empire, possibly starting a war for her return to Malakai,” Elijah finally relented, letting his head hang down, watching the waves break around us.
Surprise flitted through me. “Is that what’s concerning you? How our ruler will react to bringing them with us?”
Our ruler was benevolent and kind, so I couldn’t see that being a potential scenario. But Elijah held himself to this impossible standard that not even our ruler expected of him. It was why he was their right-hand man.
“She was the Emperor’s personal blood slave, and his actions at that party,” he spat, grinding his teeth together before continuing, “proved that she is something significant to him. He wanted her defeated and cowering, but she refused.”
I detected quite a bit of admiration from him in that statement. He respected the fact that she hadn’t allowed herself to be broken by her time in that castle.
“There has to be something special about her,” he muttered while sneaking a look at her. “Why else would the Emperor go through all that trouble instead of killing her and finding a new Thrall?”
Taking a deep inhale and blowing it out, I kept my own knowledge of how unique she was to myself. I wouldn’t break the fragile trust that Kyella had in me.
Glancing over, I saw Dakath holding her hand casually as he pointed at different landmarks we were passing as we closed in on our specified dock. Her black hair was blowing back behind her, highlighting her stunning face and the beautiful, curious expression that covered it. Kyella was somehow so dainty-looking, yet she possessed an inner strength that radiated from her without trying.
The smile that lit her face had my own lips tugging up.Also, when the hell had Dakath started going around making people smile?Don’t get me wrong, I liked the bastard but he wasn’t the type to tell jokes. That was normally my specialty. Hell, he was usually far quieter and reserved than he was around Kyella. Much like Elijah, it was a change that was very noticeable after spending so many years together. It looked good on him and made my heart swell with happiness, seeing him begin to come out of his shell after struggling so much with his grief over his past.
Straightening up as we prepared to disembark, I ran a hand roughly over my jaw and fixed Elijah with a knowing look. “Well, it’s clear that there is something special enough about her to draw all three of our interests so quickly.”
As he opened his mouth to rebut that claim, I held my hand up. “Stop. If you want to continue to lie to yourself, that’s fine, but don’t do that with me. I won’t entertain it, and I have a feeling our spitfire isn’t going to like it either.”
