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“Hardly,” I scoffed. “They threatened to curse and skewer me with a wooden stake, but I charmed them into keeping me around. Not unlike another witch in my life.” Not waiting for her to dispute my response, I continued swiftly, “I came back for many nights, mostly to escape my lessons, but then I grew enraptured by the magick they conjured. My father caught wind of what I was up to, and he was furious.”
Darkness swam in my vision as I remembered him forcing me to lead him to this very bell tower after one of many beatings in the Vasyliev dungeons.
“Instead of killing the witches outright, he grew curious about the talismans. He pretended to offer peace for knowledge of their spirit magick, but it was all in the pursuit of their power. He killed them as soon as they lost their usefulness.” I let out a pained chuckle, my eyes distant. “They should have never trusted my father.”
Jade absorbed this new information blankly, but she perched on the edge of the armrest, as far as she could get from me. “Butwhy? Why does he hate us so much?”
I wanted to bury my face in my hands to dull the screams of that night. Of hundreds of nights since where he forced me on his crusade, forever haunting me. “Other than daylight, nothing can kill a vampire besides brute strength or powerful magick. Witches were never a genuine concern until those talismans, and my father could not allow weakness.”
“He killed them all?” She sucked in a breath, already knowing the answer.
I grew deathly quiet, my eyes far away. “Yes.”
“So, your family stole the talismans, but they were corrupted by the violence. Alistair thought he had curtailed the problem, but then more spirit witches across the world realized the power they could wield over vampires and created more. Your father hunted them down like cattle to be slaughtered. Am I wrong?”
My hands clenched at my sides.
“Our world is violent, Jade,” I murmured, brokenly. “My father is ancient and powerful, a force to be reckoned with. No one defies him and lives.”
“Not even his son and heir?”
“Especially not me,” I grated, knowing I was running headlong toward such a fate but unable to back down with so much to lose. “But for the witches who died and the witches who possess this amazing magick that threatens my father? I was willing to defy his orders, yet he still slaughtered hundreds of witches.”
“Your exile?” she whispered.
I nodded, considering a jaunt to the bar cart for another glass of whiskey. “He would have killed anyone else for my treachery, but as his only male heir, he merely made a show of punishing me. Thus, he sent me to New Orleans, a city overrun with other debauched vampires.”
Jade pushed away from the armrest and came to sit on the cushion beside me. She stared into the flames, the light reflecting her emerald-green eyes. “How can I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t trust me, Jade,” I said honestly. “Just because I’ve never killed a witch, doesn’t mean I’m not a villain. Before I was exiled to New Orleans, I didn’t live ethically. You can no doubt imagine the extent of my crimes by the rumors circulating through the Court. I drank from warmbloods, murdered, stole, fucked. Anything to rid myself of the loathing inside of me.”
Her body stiffened into a taut line. “So, you spent most of a century being a degenerate? I suppose I’m not surprised.”
“That’s one word for it.” I rubbed my chin as a spark of untimely humor surfaced. “I never claimed to be a saint, nor will I ever magically transform into a pious male who doesn’t indulge in his lusts. But I’d like to think my moral compass has shifted.”
“I can handle violence, and I can handle your wildly inappropriate possessive tendencies, but I cannot handle any more deceptions from you. That’s my hard line.”
I captured her fingers and lifted her wrist to my lips, brushing a whisper of a kiss onto the skin before releasing her. “No more secrets that will negatively affect each other. For either of us.”
A stricken look passed over her face. Shakily, she whispered,“Agreed.”
She looked so solemn I couldn’t help but tease her. “Should we shake on it? Enter a blood oath? My dagger is around here somewhere.”
The pensive crease between Jade’s brows smoothed, and her lips quirked into a crooked smile. I nearly bowed over in relief at the sight. Her acceptance was more than I had hoped to expect after the revelations of the night.
“Maybe we’ll hold off on the vows for now.”
Locking away the shame of my past for now, I focused instead on the witch before me. Unsure whether she wanted to stay, I put more wooden logs into the hearth, while Jade stood and wandered to the back door that led to the patio. She hovered near the window, staring up at the night sky.
“Here, I’ll show you around. Henry truly pulled out all the stops.” Cautiously, I approached her, urging her to step into the enclosed patio. “Don’t worry, darling, I won’t hold you captive unless you ask me to.”
My lighthearted quip seemed to settle her remaining nerves.
“You wish, vamp,” she responded with a harmless smack on my arm.
“Drink?” I asked her.
Her gaze drifted to the small table adorned with a bottle imported from a village outside the Vasyliev castle. “Sure, why not?”
