Page 81 of Maksym

“You have power,” she stated. “Your father has more. I’m not naïve enough to think that makes either of you harmless. Harmless men do not survive in rooms like these.” Her mouth tightened. “But if anyone came after the people I loved, if I had any people left to love, I’d be the first in line to stop them.”

The words entered me cleanly. Not forgiveness. Not trust. Not love.

Understanding.

For a man who had spent centuries being judged by creatures who wanted my strength when it served them and called it tyranny when it did not, understanding felt almost indecently intimate.

My jaw loosened. Barely. A small release, a betrayal of relief so slight only those who watched me too closely would have seen it.

Her gaze moved to Remy, then back to me.

“So,” her voice had gone quieter now. “Philadelphia.”

“Yes.”

“Family estate, vampire king father, fallen angel stepmother, vampire sister, hybrid wolf-vampire doctor mate, brother awaiting Council scrutiny, wolf mate named Maddie, and likely a room full of people evaluating whether I’m a liability.”

“That is an efficient summary.”

“It’s missing profanity.”

“I assumed it was implied.”

A corner of her mouth moved. This time it was not almost a smile. It was one. Small. Exhausted. Brief.

“Good,” she said. “Then we should eat before I start making flashcards for monster Congress.”

Remy closed her book. “I told you she was going to be fun.”

“She is not an amusement,” I said.

Grace looked at me. “I can be several things.”

My answer caught somewhere behind my teeth. Yes, I thought. Goddess help me, yes.

She could be several things. Prosecutor. Survivor. New vampire. Mate. Problem, as she had called herself. And a blade not yet sharpened to its immortal edge.

Chapter 12

Grace

Istood in front of the mirror freshly showered, a thick towel wrapped around my body, my deep wine-colored hair damp against my shoulders and leaving cool trails down my collarbones. Steam lingered in the air, softening the edges of the room until the marble seemed less like wealth and more like weather.

I leaned close to the glass.

The woman looking back at me did not appear dead.

I had expected pallor. Some graveyard version of myself. Cheeks hollow, lips bloodless, eyes too bright in a face that had forgotten warmth. I had imagined vampirism as subtraction. Breath gone. Pulse gone. Sun gone, maybe, though apparently that rule had caveats because born royal vampires were overachieving about everything.

Instead, my skin held a faint luminous quality. Not sparkly—thank God and every editor who ever lived—but subtly lit, as if warmth had been tucked beneath the surface and told to behave. My cheeks had filled out. Not fully; I was not restored to the woman I had been before the parking garage, before Lucian, before rooms with no windows. But the hard starvation angles had softened. My jaw had its curve again. My mouth looked fuller. My neck, which had been a record of violence, now bore only faint silver lines where claws and fangs had torn me open.

I turned my head slowly to the left. There. A thin crescent near the tendon, pale as moonlight under skin.

Lucian’s fangs had opened me there more than once. He had liked the throat because fear arrived quickly when teeth entered a place so close to speech. He had liked making me feel every swallow afterward. Every breath. Every attempt at dignity.

I turned to the right. More silver. Not gone. Not erased. Just changed into something quieter.

My navy eyes stared back. Brighter than they had been when I was human. Clearer. The blue had deepened until it looked almost black at the outer ring, then caught light near the pupil. They were still mine, which helped. If the eyes had changed completely, I might have broken the mirror simply to avoid the transformation.