Page 92 of Dhampira

“Elven law is specific about debts and claims. Ruvien almost certainly knew we were here last time. And I can guarantee he doesn’t care. But we’re trespassing, and he chose to enforce the rules. We took from the elves by stepping into their lands without permission. That gives him the right to take from us in return. The elves used to rule Nocta. They withdrew from it willingly, which means they still own it under elven law. Since we can’t give them land they already own, that gives Ruvien the right to take one of us.”

My breath caught. “Take one of us?”

“I bargained with him,” Lorcan said, and a rueful smile appeared briefly on his lips. “Although I suspect he got the result he wanted from the beginning. Vander and I have exchanged blood often enough for me to have a claim on him. And you and I are betrothed. Both of those circumstances are good enough to prevent Ruvien from taking you.”

“So you offered yourself instead,” I said. “Why didn’t he take you to Veradorn?”

Lorcan looked toward the statue in the center of the fountain. “Probably because the elves want me here. I do what I can to keep Rasimir in check. And they don’t want me in their kingdom.”

Because he teetered on the edge of madness. Ruvien had called him dragon lord. Was it mockery for Lorcan killing a dragon? I didn’t dare to ask. So I chose another question.

“What happens when Ruvien collects his debt?”

Lorcan kept his eyes on the fountain, his face in profile. “I won’t know until he demands settlement. And that could be centuries from now. It grows late. We should go.” He turned and went to the grass, where he bent and retrieved the rock I’d tried to illuminate.

“Come on,” Vander said, taking my arm. He guided me to the statue, the steady splash of water putting mist in the air.

“Ruvien did something in my mind,” I said. The feeling of fuzzy compliance returned, sending a shiver down my spine. “I couldn’t refuse his order. Do all elves possess that power?”

“More or less,” he said, his silver eyes somber. “It’s a fearsome gift. Some elves are stronger than others.”

Lorcan strode from the grass with the rock in his hand. Bending, he placed it with a cluster of similar rocks near a crack in the crumbling wall that kept the fountain’s water at bay.

I chewed my lip. “If the elves can force people to do their bidding, why don’t they stop Rasimir from terrorizing Nocta?”

Lorcan shook his head. “They’re not capable of pulling off that level of persuasion. Manipulation isn’t all that different from deceit. It’s one thing to make someone approach you against their will. It’s quite another to make them completely change their behavior. Even if the elves could manage it, they believe themselves above Rasimir’s evil.”

“So they’re good?”

“No,” Vander said, the sudden sharpness in his voice drawing my attention. His jaw was tight as he took my arm again and led me away from the fountain. “Not all elves are good.”

Lorcan walked on my other side.

“Rix,” Vander said, and the forest appeared before I could ask anything else.

But questions still buzzed in my head. Important things I’d overlooked but needed to know. Vander claimed he wouldn’t “overstep” again. What happened if he needed to siphon dead blood from me? Rasimir was almost guaranteed to force another witch under my fangs.

Vander likes women, too.

But Lorcan never stated his likes or dislikes.

I walked between the men, my lips sealed and my mind spinning as we made our way through the trees. My thoughts returned to the question I’d asked when Lorcan dropped us into the Everless on glomarid wings.

What are you to each other? Now I knew.

I just didn’t know what they were to me.

19

We entered the courtyard at the same moment a wagon creaked across the stones. But it was unlike any wagon I’d seen in Ghedda.

For one thing, the horses pulling it were twice the size of draft horses. They also sported long black horns that curled backward into snowy white manes. The creature steering them possessed similar horns, although his face and form were otherwise human.

But the horse and driver were the least arresting thing about the wagon.

That distinction belonged to its cargo. An enormous wooden cage held dozens of creatures. A few stood, but most sat on the wooden planks. Some, like the voluptuous sirens and snarling werewolves, were familiar. Others ranged from majestic to bizarre.

But no one in the cage looked happy to be there. A man with a head full of feathers wept openly, his knees drawn to his chest. The woman beside him bared pointed teeth as the wagon hit a rut, setting the cage rocking. A pair of women with translucent wings huddled in one corner, their arms wrapped around each other and their eyes wide with fear as they stared up at the Drakhold. A man with prominent ears, a bald head, and a single eye clung to the bars.