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“I have no interest in them. You’ll marry Damien and rule your kingdom; a throne which I helped you win. You may govern your society as you see fit, and I’ll do the same with mine. But it will cost your firstborn, who will live and be raised according to our laws. So, do we have a deal?”
I thought of stalling, to discuss this with the others, but this wasn’t something I needed to ask their approval for. For better or worse, I was the leader here—and he was asking something of me, not them. A personal deal. I’d never really thought about having children. And there was an implicit promise in Augustine’s reference to his laws; nothing could be taken away from him without permission, which meant he would be safe.
“You can have ten years,” I said. “The child will be sent at seven years old, and returned when they are seventeen.”
“Fifteen,” Augustine said. “From birth to adolescence. After that they will be free to choose for themselves whose hearth to darken.”
I hesitated, bartering the details of someone else’s future life. But it was a better deal than I’d had myself, growing up in Algrave, waiting to be old enough to be served up to the elite with no autonomy at all.
“You’ve already won a few battles, Emily,” he purred. “It would be awful to lose everything, and end up leaving yourself and all the compounds much worse off than they were before. With my help you’ve got a shot. But you can’t do it alone.”
He was leaning forward now, eagerly. If I hadn’t been renitent, I would have wilted beneath him.
“I need some time to think about it,” I said.
“You have a few hours, until midnight. I’ve promised the town a great spectacle tonight, and I intend to deliver. If you refuse my offer, I’ll be forced to let Tate extract her own price from your friends, and I assure you, my terms will be preferable.”
“What about the drawing?” I asked, standing up to look at it. The sketch was half finished, but the outlines traced my features with surprising accuracy. Deep charcoal lines detailed the marks on my hands, my bare shoulders, and one soulful eye beneath a tangle of dark hair. It looked a little wild, and manic.
“I’ll finish it later,” Augustine said. “Don’t worry, I won’t soon forget your face.”
It was busy when I hit the strip, after leaving Augustine’s. He didn’t offer to join me, nor did he excuse himself for private affairs. He just nodded as I crept out of his dark apartment, closing the door behind me.
I kept the outfit I’d picked out, but also kept the lightweight sports jacket, which had a high enough collar to mostly hide the bite marks on my neck. I stopped in a public restroom to scrub my skin and hands, but I still felt dirty.
The dark brown marks on my fingers and palms wouldn’t wash away, and now they were immortalized in Augustine’s sketch of me. The vampire had barely touched me the whole time, yet I still felt somehow like I’d left a piece of my soul in the room with him. Maybe it was the very small amount of elixir, which had made me feel so warm and good, but was already going cold in my veins, leaving me empty.
I was grateful for a chance to get away, so I could run through the whole conversation for clues and be alone with my thoughts, outside the elite’s scrutiny and influence. But I also wasn’t eager to see Trevor or Camina, both of whom had accused me of selling myself for private deals behind closed doors. In my head I was already defending myself from the snide comments that were sure to come.
I merged with the foot traffic and let myself be carried forward at a steady pace, by the endless loop around the strip. But I saw little, other than the few feet in front of me and a few flashes of light from when I glanced up to check my progress.
I’d almost made the full loop back when Luke found me. He linked arms in mine, which was weird for him, but he looked a little tipsy already.
“Had enough brooding?” he said.
“I’m not brooding. I’m thinking.”
“You know Emily, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile.”
“Should I grin for your pleasure?” I said harshly.
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying, you can’t solve every problem by smashing through them, or thinking them over. Sometimes you have to relax and see what happens.”
I bit my tongue, resisting a caustic remark. Easy for him to say, I fumed. He never had to make any important decisions. But what I do matters. He has no one he cares about, that he’s trying to protect… I stopped myself, my feet freezing in place so fast it made Luke stumble. He grabbed my arm and steered me to the side so we wouldn’t get knocked over by the crowd.
I bent over, forcing myself to breathe into my lungs, racked by guilt. Luke rubbed my back in concern, but it only made me feel worse. Because I was thinking about Beatrice. She’d been like a mother to him, and she’d been one of the first casualties in my personal war with Nigel.
I could talk lofty about saving the kingdom, but this all started because I’d pissed off the wrong elite, and people were still paying the price for it. If my siblings died, if I lost Damien, who’s to say I wouldn’t also be getting drunk somewhere, telling people to chill out. And Luke was still here, for whatever reason. That counted for something.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “And thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for trusting me, with all of this.”
“Um, no offense, but get your head out of your ass.”
“What?” I asked, surprised by his tone.
“We were fighting this war before you came around, while you grew up in your sheltered compound. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad for the help. But I’m not here for you, your prince, anybody else. I’m here for the hundreds of people from Havoc, which was destroyed. I want them to have a shot at something. Some kind of future.”
“Is there any future out there—really? You saw what the slagpaw did to Jazmine. Can humanity ever thrive without the protection of an elite king?”
