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I jerked at the cuffs, forgetting the silver, forgetting everything but the fury seething in me at his betrayal.
“You thrice-damned son of a serpent.” I threw the words at him like the fists I wanted to smash into his lying, grinning face. “Father trusted you. Made you his lieutenant and treated you like family. You swore a fucking oath of loyalty.” I sent Victorine a look of loathing. “She must be paying you a helluva lot.”
“Victorine pays me nothing.” He unfolded his arms and paced closer. “I do not break my oath. But I also do not follow a weak man.”
“You won’t win. He’ll stake you first.”
“We shall see. His sons will be dead. He will be strong again. Like a primus should be.”
My chest jerked in and out. The depths of Tomas’s betrayal was still sinking in, but I turned to Victorine and dredged up a let’s-make-a-deal smile. It was the only weapon I had.
“Any chance we can negotiate something here?”
Her upper lip curled. “If it were up to me, I’d have already staked you.”
“Yeah, I got that. Loud and clear. But my father’s a reasonable man. What do you want in exchange for me? Territory? Gold?”
“Shut up,” Tomas snarled.
We both ignored him. Victorine raised a plucked black eyebrow.
“Why would I bargain with Karoly? I hold all the cards.”
True—at least, where I was concerned.
I shifted against the wall. “So why are you here?”
And is Zoe all right?
But I didn’t ask. Victorine wouldn’t tell me anyway, and it would only serve to remind her of Zoe’s part in this.
A smile lifted Victorine’s lips. The kind of smile that’s like an ice pick to the groin. “To remind you of my promise.”
Sweat trickled down my spine. For a moment, I was back in the hotel room with Victorine grinding a pointy heel into my solar plexus.
“If you ever touch the princess again, I will consider the truce broken. I won’t rest until I’ve sent you and your brothers to the final death.”
“And now you staked my lieutenant.” She was a foot away from me now.
She’d regained her composure since the last time I’d seen her. She was pure, ruthless prima. Not a hint of vampire blue tinted her eyes. Instead, they were the unforgiving black of a deep-sea creature.
“I should thank you,” she said. “You’ve given me the perfect excuse to break the truce. We’ve already leaked the information that a Kral staked the Tremblay lieutenant.”
Hell. I suppose I should’ve seen that coming.
I met her gaze, pretending my insides weren’t coated with fear. “To protect your daughter.”
Victorine’s composure cracked. She hissed. “You have norightto protect her, dhampir.”
“Go to Hades,” I growled back. “We both know you broke the truce first.”
“But no one knows that for sure except the people in this lair.” She touched a sharp red nail to my carotid.
I locked my knees and glared back, refusing to give an inch.
Victorine let out a slow breath. “We were speaking of my promise. And Rafael? You should know I always keep my promises. But I think”—she pressed the nail a little deeper—“you’ll be the last Kral to die. I want you to go to your final grave knowing that your family has been wiped from the face of the earth.”
She turned and glided from the cell, the only sound thetap-tapof those damn pointy heels.
