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“Why won’t any of them talk to me,” I muttered under my breath.
“So stupid,” I chided myself. The birds just sat there, bobbing their heads around, stretching their wings.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when Kiam spoke. “You can’t communicate with the birds anymore?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders, blinking away tears. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
He set the book down on a desk and came back to me, gently clutching my shoulders. “I don’t know enough yet, about Fae blood. It could be dormant.”
“I’m the idiot who was excited for like five minutes, thinking I had some kind of magic.”
Kiam genuinely looked sad for me. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I can teach you magic.”
CHAPTER 26
Kiam
Brittney would not be the first person I helped learn magic, but she’d be the first human.
“Really?” Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and I felt them like a punch in the gut.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
She shuffled her feet and smoothed a palm down the side of her leg, tracing her distracting curves. “Don’t you have important vampire shit to do?” she asked.
Always, but I would put her first. “Of course I do. But we can and will do that.”
“Wait, what do vampires do all day? You don’t sleep, as far as I know.”
It was funny, the way urban myths worked. “And I don’t burn up in the sun, either. I do whatever I feel like, but it usually involves business, study, acquiring artifacts, helping friends. Right now, I’m reinforcing the magic that surrounds this home. I used some of the energy from the two of us the other day down here.”
Her brows furrowed and then she exclaimed, “sex magic!” I nodded. “Oooo I like that kind.”
“Me, too.” I grinned at her.
She followed me over to one of my crystal balls, seating herself in an old, tattered armchair beside the table. I held my hands over the object, letting my energy fuse with the glass, before I saw images of Kakians, presumably headed our way.
I knew they would come; I just didn’t know who would be first. Leander and Adrian, or the demon assassins. There was no way to anticipate what methods the demons would use, employed by a species I barely knew.
“What is it?” Brittney asked.
Leaning against the table, I gestured toward the ball. “The Kakians are headed this way. I’ve only dealt with them employed by demons, not by Fae.”
“And?” She crossed her arms and chewed on her bottom lip.
Telling others my innermost thoughts wasn’t something I ever did. Not until lately. It would take a little while to get used to. “They could be empowered by the Fae. Fae magic, from what I’ve learned from you and my studies, covers a wide range of abilities.”
Her gaze flicked up to mine. “So, we don’t know what to expect. That’s some bullshit.”
She was right, on both accounts.
Visions of my helpless wife filled my head as I remembered the powerlessness I felt, and the heartache. Our marriage had been an arranged affair, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t come to care about her deeply.
The man who attacked us had shown no mercy, and as a new vampire there was nothing I could have done to stop him from tearing everything I had ever known away from me.
Every instinct within me told me to lock Brittney in the pretty cage I’d made for her. The problem was, she’d never forgive me, and I actually cared about that. Side effect of being human born, I suppose. Every last one of my friends would have already imprisoned their woman under these circumstances, just because they felt like it.
“You’ll be staying securely locked inside your pretty cage when they get here,” I stated.
