AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Most of us muttered our assent. The king before Alek’s father had been…raucous in the best possible ways.
“That was over eight hundred years ago,” Zachariah lectured, his hazel eyes narrowing on us. “As you can see, things have evolved.” He gestured toward the room.
“I don’t think fake-ass nobles dressing themselves in jewels and drinking bagged blood from a cup make them evolved,” Dagon argued. “I think it makes them fake.”
“Agreed,” Talon said, reaching for a piece of bacon and looking at the closest table of nobles. “Look there.”
I bit into a biscuit and followed his line of sight to where Cassandra Zorin sat with a preening group of aristocrats, all daintily holding their goblets mid-sip.
“Half of those nobles would happily unseat our king for his throne,” Talon continued.
“Same could be said for our time,” I argued, just for the sake of arguing.
“Thisisour time,” Zachariah chided.
“Fine, but inourtime, those nobles would have been open and honest about their intent. Someone would have brought a challenge against the king. Today it’s all done in shadows and lies. There’s no integrity among the nobles.” Talon bit into his bacon.
Hunger bit into my stomach and surged through my veins. I reached for the crimson-filled goblet, but the scent of the bagged blood turned my hunger to overwhelming nausea.
“We simply have to”— Zachariah started, then narrowed his eyes on me. “What is going on with you?”
“It’s the blood. Probably bad or something.” I set the goblet back down.
“It’s the human,” Talon muttered between bites.
And here we go.
“What human?” Zachariah cocked his head and leaned forward in his seat.
“Seriously?” I shot a look at Talon. So much for keeping Grace a secret.
“Hey, if you’re going to spend almost every night checking in on the woman, then your brothers should know.” Talon kept eating unapologetically.
“What. Human.” Zachariah repeated.
“She’s…” Fuck, whatwasshe? She wasn’t my girlfriend or whatever mortals called courting in this century. She wasn’tnothingto me, either. She was the first thought I had at rising, and the last thought before my eyes shut in the morning.
And I wasn’t ready to examine why that was.
“She’s a friend,” I finally managed to say.
“A friend you’re fucking?” Dagon asked, stabbing his food with his fork and carrying on like we weren’t examining my personal life.
“Please. Ajax fucking a human? That’s laughable.” Saint drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
“Like you haven’t fucked a human,” Dagon retorted.
“I’m not the size of a fucking tree.”
“True.” Dagon waved his fork at me. “He makes a good point. Humans are kind of fragile, and you’re…not.”
“We’re not having this conversation.” I shook my head. Not that we hadn’t been in the same situation countless times over the centuries, giving each other shit about whichever female’s bed we were occupying, but Grace was…different.
“I mean, aren’t you scared you’ll break her?” Dagon continued.
Yes, actually, I was. It was one of the many logical reasons I had for keeping away from her. Problem was, the illogical knowledge that I didn’t want to. She was laughter and life, and everything I’d thought the centuries of my existence had numbed me to.
“Grace isn’t up for discussion.” The words came out as little more than a growl, as a primal, undeniable anger prowled through me.
