Page 22 of Blood Curse

Stellan joined me under the arch. “Bryony is Harrowmere’s queen.”

Her gaze climbed to the Crown. “You’re human.”

“I was the last time I checked. The evening has been unusually eventful.”

“Did you send the summons?”

“The Crown did. I opened the door.”

Her breath shook. She caught it, straightened and guided the others over the threshold.

The Crown gave a faint pulse against my scalp.

Not a command. Not pleasure either. It felt interested.

Another group came behind them. Then another. They shared the same drawn faces and wary attention.

They were vampires, but they were also Stellan’s people. I saw it when their shoulders dropped when he spoke to them. They had followed a blood summons into a house they hadn’t been able to find for a century because they believed he might be waiting at the end of it.

The realisation tightened my throat.

Stellan moved among them without hesitation. He checked the grey-faced vampire, sent Mara for Lenora and directed the strongest arrivals towards the ones who needed help. He didn’t raise his voice. The lower court organised itself around him anyway.

Watching him take control of the room did something warm and inconvenient to my stomach.

“The Night Hall is awake,” I said.

He looked at me across the gathering crowd. The heat in his eyes told me my inconvenient reaction wasn’t as private as I’d hoped.

“Then we use it,” he said.

The Night Hall stood beyond the lower court. Its black doors swung open before I reached them, revealing warmth, dark wooden tables and a fireplace large enough to roast a cow. Red lamps woke along the walls while the dust vanished up the chimney.

“Show-off,” I muttered.

The nearest lamp flashed brighter.

Stellan came to my side. “It likes you.”

“It likes having someone to impress.”

“That too.”

Behind us, a dozen vampires stared into the hall.

“It’s exactly the same,” the silver-haired woman said.

“The tables are,” Stellan replied. “The court isn’t.”

The warning settled over them. Nobody argued.

One of the men glanced towards the corridor. “Where is Adrian?”

“Dead,” I said. “His body is locked in a guard chamber until morning.”

“Who killed him?”

“The Crown used me to do it.”