Page 151

I lower Widow’s Fang. ‘There’s only one thing to do.’

His jaw tightens. ‘No.’

‘You don’t know what I’m going to say.’

‘I know your face when you have decided to leap into disaster and call it strategy.’

‘Then admire my consistency.’ My voice shakes, but I keep his gaze. ‘We need to perform the mating ritual.’

Rowan exhales slowly as Valentin’s eyes darken.

‘It may not save us,’ I say. ‘It might make everything worse. But doing nothing definitely will.’

His hand lifts to my cheek as the Tower hums around us.

The broken Glass burns red.

And just this once, Valentin Moretti doesn’t answer with command. He steps closer and presses his forehead to mine. And when he answers, my heart quakes at the power and terror within it.

‘Then we do it. But for us, tesoro. Only for us. Never for them.’

I exhale, pressing my mouth to his. ‘Because fuck them?’

‘Indeed.’

25

EIRA

We’ve relocated to the Vaults.

That sentence sounds very benign for something that involves an underground ritual chamber and ancient vampire mating rites.

Several global favours have been called in from witches, warlocks, blood-priests and at least one disgraced oracle in Prague.

All to have me here, standing naked in a cathedral of candles while the Vampire King of New York watches me like I’m the only throne he ever wants to conquer.

The Lower Vaults have been transformed.

This time there’s no obsidian slab. And no clinical horror or echoes of the dream-compulsion after the first time my blood made Valentin rise from collapse like a god with hell in his veins. Thank fuck.

Tonight, the chamber glows.

Candles fill every ledge, every stair, every carved recess in the black stone walls. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Their flames burn in shades of gold, red, blue and white, fed by magic instead of air. Wards layer the room so thickly I can feel them pressing against my skin, viscerally present, like hands held outward to keep every nightmare from stepping closer.

Rowan has drawn circles on the floor in salt, ash, crushed ruby and Valentin’s blood. The runes are old enough that looking at them for too long makes my eyes water. The Twelve have secured the outer corridors beyond the third ward line with enough weapons to topple a small kingdom. Luca was ordered to remain two doors away because his nerves manifest as jokes, and apparently mating rituals do not appreciate heckling.

Our enemies are out there. The Crimson Mother waits in the dark.

Valentin’s mark is still a black, horrifying landscape spreading across his skin, and as of this morning one finger has crept over his cheekbone. It would almost look panty-melting-hot and beyond badass if I didn’t know what it signifies.

So I’m here, scrubbed clean of every foreign scent until my skin feels new and raw.

The bath was the longest bubble bath known to woman, vampire, and probably maritime law. Rowan insisted on purification. Valentin insisted on supervising. I threatened to drown him in rose oil when he tried to wash my hair with the grave intensity of a man preparing a queen for burial.

He didn’t laugh.

That almost made me stop joking.