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Gods.
He truly had lost his mind.
“Ravenholm is convenient,” Lady Volyrin said slowly. Lucan’s gaze shifted toward her. The older vampire tapped one lacquered nail against the table. “Almost too convenient.”
The room quieted.
“Explain,” Lord Raviron demanded.
“An assassin enters a vampire’s chambers. Leaves human blood to cover their scent and sovereigns to send a message.” Her gaze wandered across the table. “A story designed to be discovered, like any good assassination. But without the human’s blood, who is to say the assassin did not come from beyond the Evermist?”
Elarian tensed visibly at Lady Volyrin’s words. Lucan placed his hand on her shoulder, clamping down tightly as if to say, control yourself.
“Then you believe this was not a human attack?” another councilor asked.
“I believe someone intended for us to never question it, at the very least.”
Lucan studied her carefully. Volyrin had always been frustratingly perceptive; not dangerous enough to threaten him, but clever enough to notice when a room was being manipulated. He hated the thought of killing her, too. Allies—no matter how thin—were too hard to come by to idly throw them away.
Before the silence could grow, Ataen sighed dramatically.
“How exhausting.”
Every eye turned toward him.
“Must we pretend every corpse requires a grand philosophical debate? Someone wanted Drevain removed. That is hardly a rare occurrence within these walls. To think a moon elf crossed the Evermist, snuck into our court, evaded detection, and then killed a countess instead of our beloved prince is beyond laughable.”
A few councilors shifted uncomfortably. Jace continued, lazily swirling the bloodwine in his glass.
“The question is not whether the murderer wished to send a message. Clearly, they did. The question is whether the message was intended for us—” His gaze briefly flickered toward Lucan, “—or for someone else.”
A warning.
Not about the council.
About him.
As the councilors returned to debating who among the Ravenholm rebels would be so bold as to attack Drevain in the Blooded Palace, Lucan let his thoughts wander back to the previous two nights. He recalled the way Elarian moved as silently as any vampire, her head held high, eyes darkened with bloodlust. How she struck with precision that spoke of instinct and not mere training. Wrapped in silk and armed with steel, she rivaled any vampire in lethality.
And underneath it all, when her moon-pale skin lay exposed to the world, her beauty outshone even the brightest of stars in the night sky. A succulent meal waiting for his cruel kiss, her taste lingered long after his fangs had pierced her flesh.
He was losing himself to her.
Lucan only hoped he could find a way to escape Aurelion’s clutches before he did completely and damned them both.
Soon enough, the council ended, and the lords and ladies filtered out of the suffocating room one by one. Jace lingered after dismissing the guards until only the three of them remained. He never moved from his chair, gaze boring into Lucan until he couldn’t help but meet his eye.
“You missed something today.”
Lucan’s expression hardened.
“I missed nothing.”
Ataen smiled sadly. “Luc, you are a terrible liar.”
“What?”
“See? That.”
