“Your chances of pulling off a clean extraction of someone like him sit just above zero. Especially a specialist of his notoriety, in his own territory,” she stated, her voice a cold, measured rasp. She appraised Ilyana with the clinical air of a general reviewing a battlefield. “I understand the tactical cost of such an operation. I paid it myself to secure my own asset.”
Frost formed in Sidney’s tone. “How else would he be here with us, then?”
The vampiress shifted her gaze to me, stripping away my “loyal pet” veneer with a single, dismissive look. Shestudied me the way a hunter studies the blade of an enemy. “This stinks of a staged defection.” She stepped closer, stabbing a long, sharp nail in accusation. “He didn't fall to your brilliance. He walked across that border because you offered him a better cage. Didn’t he?”
A crowd gathered around to listen. Some of them had been following us. They’d been waiting for something like this, most likely.
Sidney pivoted toward me, looking up and down in a pointed perusal. I put on a broad grin through the thicket of my beard. It probably didn’t help the case she was trying to make when I panted with my hands tucked together like paws.
She said, “I don’t know a single person who’d willingly let me bind him up and drag him around by the neck. Do you?”
A bad question to ask. Awellllll… was perched on the tip of my tongue. I’d known a few folks over the centuries whose proclivities leaned that way. But I stayed in place like a trained hunting dog. I was a very good boy.
The vampiress didn't flinch. She ignored Sidney entirely, her focus boring into me. “What terms did you negotiate?” she demanded. “Does your contract stipulate our executions while we sleep, as with Genevieve?”
“That is quite the ridiculous accusation, Tierney,” Sidney cut in.
“Keep the name of your future queen off your lips,” Tierney said haughtily. “Cheater. If you were willing to cheat on the last competition, surely you’re doing it again.”
They continued to go back and forth. My gaze bounced between them, avid to see the catfight to come.
“Candidates, please,” an authority-filled voice interrupted them.Damn. A male parted the crowd, lookingunimpressed by the scene before him. “We are all on edge, but I assure you, no one’s setting a Whispers assassin loose in m—the mansion. Tierney, you should return to your business.”
She lifted her chin and stormed off.
“This is your nemesis, Lady Ilyana?”
“Yes, Lord Regent.”
My lips tilted wryly. They were undressing each other as violently as possible with their eyes and forcing the rest of us to witness it. Embarrassing, really. I barked again to break it up between them.
She startled and he cleared his throat. “In your absence, we began upgrading your accommodations,” he told her.
She stiffened. “Did you move my stuff?” she asked in a tone bordering on alarm.
He raised a dark brow. “Yes, of course. You have a Devotion now, so you are allotted more space. You can also keep your nemesis there until it’s time. Surely that is ideal?”
A muscle in her jaw twitched. “Certainly. Thank you.”
“I’ll show you to your suite, then.”
Unwelcome jealousy bit into my side as he offered his arm and she took it, still jerking me along behind her.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one, as Zane narrowed his eyes at the regent’s back. Maybe he’d help me stab this male. Oh! We could practice our spleen removals on him first.
“You’re now on the second floor, with two bedrooms and a larger receiving area. You’ll be closer to any events that may occur,” the regent narrated along the way.
“Speaking of events,” Sidney said. “How will tomorrow’s trial go?”
He waited to respond until we all filed into her new suite. For a moment, four males surrounded Sidney. Two that looked at her with devotion, one with hunger.
And then there was me, side-eying the ceiling, searching for patterns that may remind me of a past life.
“The coven will be present in the great hall to watch. You’ll step forward one by one before the Flask of Dominion to declare the name and former profession of your nemesis,” the regent explained. “The Flask will speak through me about whether your offering is accepted. And if he is, you have options for him. You can make him your personal servant or send him to the fighting pits or the mines. You could add him to your Devotion. Or…”
He eyed me suspiciously, his eyes like twin drops of dried blood against his dark complexion. I made a friendlywoofat him.
“You can have him executed, which I highly recommend,” he concluded.
