“What kind of tea are you in the mood for?”
My subject change wasn’t smooth, but Thea accepted it with grace all the same. She told me about the different herbs and which sweets the kitchens currently favored she was looking forward to.
I chimed in with opinions, a slight pang in my chest at the realization I would never get to enjoy those things again. But, well, I hadn’t had them for many years growing up. What was eternity?
The slight pang turned more painful as we continued walking. I rubbed a palm over my sternum.
A few steps later, my leg seized.
Thea lifted her brows in concern. “Sam? What’s wrong?”
I exhaled through my nose, trying to breathe through the pain. “I think my leg cramped.” It felt worse than that, like my feet didn’t want to go a step farther, my knees locking in defiance. I pounded my fist into the side of my leg, trying to break up the pain. “Let’s keep going.”
“Are you okay?” Thea asked cautiously as we took another step.
I still couldn’t lie, so I forced my foot forward.
And in an instant the pain went from miserable to unbearable. I cried out, falling to my knees.
“Oh, shit. Sam, stay here. I’ll get Raphael.”
Raphael.
The fledgling bond.
“No,” I ground out. “I know what this is. Just help me go back a few steps in the direction we came.”
I couldn’t quite stand, so Thea dragged me across the carpeted hall. As soon as she pulled me back, the pain lessened to a bearable degree. I forced myself upright. My legs worked now—in fact, they ached to run. In the direction we’d come from.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I forced my feet to stay planted and faced her. “Raphael explained fledglings can’t be far from their, um, sires.” I tripped over the word a little, panic stirring in my chest. “I guess this is as far as I can go.” For now. When he’d said that, I had no idea he meant it to be such a short distance. Had no idea it would be sopainful.
The corner of her lips turned down in understanding. “I’ve heard of that sometimes happening, but I suppose I failed to realize it was that tight a leash. Normally it’s a few blocks, at least.”
I winced at the wordleash, born of shame and then anger. Titus had called me Raphael’s pet, and it seems I truly was one now.
“We’ll need to go back a bit farther. It looks like it still hurts you,” Thea said, brow furrowed. “Raphael wouldn’t have let us go without him if he’d anticipated this.”
We walked back. Thea tried and failed to recapture the easy mood of before, filling me in on some casual gossip from over the past weeks. It was a spottier recollection than usual—and I pieced together that was because she was omitting the most salacious story: how the vampire king had been rejected on the tri-lunar eclipse, their most sacred holiday, and then poisoned. The poisoning might or might not have been common knowledge—those loyal to a royal would likely try to stifle any rumors to that effect—but the fact that the king had been missing for . . .
“How long ago was the eclipse?” I asked, accidentally interrupting Thea’s chatter.
Thea stopped mid-sentence. “That was abrupt.”
I looked away. It was. Because I hadn’t really been listening. “Sorry.”
Thea shrugged it off, the way she seemed to shrug off most of my transgressions. “Nearly a month ago.”
A month. It hadfeltlike forever . . . yet for it be an entire month was still shocking.A month while the vampires were left unchecked. By both their king . . . and me.Who had been watching over the donors in blood dens, the ones so easily exploited? Who had been punishing the vampires for their cruel plots?
We continued down the hallway back to my chambers, opposite Raphael’s. The pain had abated, but a phantom remained.
“I’ll summon a servant for tea,” Thea offered, fingers grazing my door handle.
I smacked a palm on the entrance to my chambers before conscious thought formed. The resoundingsmackwas loud even for human ears.
Thea cocked her head at me.
