“And how fares the crown prince?”
Terencia’s eyes softened. “Rishaq is growing heartily. He’ll soon be as tall as his father. He is a fine heir to the empire.”
After examining Cosette’s leg, Aziza had moved close to Baz. Now, he felt her stiffen in an affront Baz didn’t share.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said.
“I’ll let him know you inquired about his well-being.”
Terencia wouldn’t. She never did.
“Take me to my quarters,” Junot said. “I will feed now.”
Baz dipped his head. “Follow me, Father.”
When Baz turned to lead Junot in the opposite direction, his friends’ eyes were on him, several with subtly arched brows that said, Do you know where the fuck you’re going?
Baz ignored them, saying aloud, “Castle Hawxfure, please lead us to the emperor’s rooms.” Though he’d come up with the name Mauldrene in anger, it felt too personal to share with the man he wanted to know nothing about him, an impossibility when Junot was his sire.
Junot harrumphed. “No son of mine will defer to a thing.”
Baz willed Mauldrene to slice the man to bits on their way to his rooms.
“In all this vast world, only I and your brother stand above you, Alobaz,” Junot added, causing Terencia to flinch then glower at Alicia, who was closest and had noticed.
“You,” Junot barked at Moncho, though they’d met many times over the centuries and Moncho was a warrior well known in the Opalese. “Make sure my feeders are waiting for me.”
Moncho’s jaw clenched before he smiled more genially than Baz usually managed. “Right away, Your Dominance.”
Moncho left in the same direction Lev had, although there was no guarantee Mauldrene would lay out the same path.
Junot extended his arm. Baz offered his for Junot to take. When the men touched, an involuntary shudder ripped through Baz.
Junot’s lips turned upward, revealing fang tips.
“At least your sänglure remembers to whom he owes complete allegiance.”
Baz forced his step to remain smooth. “I don’t know what you mean, Father. I’ve been your loyal servant since you rebirthed me.”
He grunted. “Then you and I have very different ideas of what loyalty means.”
With brusque movements that jostled his cape, he jerked his arm free of Baz’s. His eyes were so dark and hard that not even the lumoonlight softened them.
“You’ve been lying to me.”
He then stomped toward an archway, his cape jouncing in a shimmer of gold.
Unbidden, Baz’s thoughts plummeted down to the dungeon, to the woman who made no secret of her hatred for him. Scorch, she screamed it until her voice cracked. She was a constant suffocating pressure against his ribs—and also a comforting presence.
He wanted only to go to her right then. To coat his body in her arousal again, to smell her scent on himself. To have her rake her nails along his back in a pain so exquisite he both loathed and loved it.
Junot had passed through the archway. Whatever the emperor might have heard through his own spies, the parvnit and the goblin were the only ones who knew exactly whom Velle was. Trying to anticipate exactly which other lies Junot might have caught him in, Baz hurried to cross the archway himself.
The darkened hall beyond it felt cavernous. Impenetrable shadows clung to the ceiling, to the walls, the floor. No doors led off the hall—which surely should have had at least one, if not several. No light from windows penetrated webs of threaded darkness. Even before he lit a pair of lumoons to hover beside him, Baz immediately knew the hall was empty. There was no Junot Ninian, with his mean, glittering eyes, twirling froufrou cape, and clattering, heeled boots.
Baz searched every corner and alcove of the large hall.
“Father?”
