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Maximillian’s fingers—strong yet elegant—wrapped around mine, and he hauled me to my feet in one fluid motion. My head spun, and I instinctively tightened my grip on his hand to steady myself. An unexpected wave of emotion swept through me at the contact, and I blinked in shock as a lump formed in my throat.
It took me a second to realize that I was reacting this way because I was experiencing my first non-threatening touch for the first time since I’d been imprisoned. Not at the hands of a witch, or even a human. But a vampire.
Maximillian’s eyes flickered, and perhaps I imagined it, but I could have sworn his expression softened just a touch. Coming back to my senses, I yanked my hand out of his and stepped away, doing my best to look down my nose at him. Which wasnot an easy feat, considering that he was at least six-foot-four. But when you’re a short girl, you work with what you’ve got.
The vampire lord raised his eyebrows, seeing right through my poor attempt at posturing. “If we’re finished here,” he said, crouching to retrieve something from the ground, “I’d like to return to the Tower and get cleaned up.”
Anxiety tightened my chest, and I took a step back. “I won’t be your captive.” Pain radiated up and down my spine now that the rush of battle had faded, but I stood firm, refusing to give into the pain. I would sooner drive a stake through my own heart than allow myself to be locked up again.
Maximillian straightened, shaking his storm cloud hair from his eyes. “You aren’t my captive,” he said, and extended his hand to me again. I blinked at the sight of my stake in his outstretched palm. The silver metal had to be burning the fuck out of him, but he acted as if the pain didn’t bother him at all. “I didn’t break you out of that prison just to put you into a new one.”
I snatched the stake out of his hand before he could change his mind, then brandished it between us as if I was in any condition to fight him off. To his credit, he didn’t scoff or laugh or show any other sign of disdain. He simply met my stare and waited, my chest rising and falling rapidly as I struggled to regain control of my breathing.
I didn’t want to believe him, but I couldn’t deny that he hadn’t treated me like a prisoner so far. There had to be some kind of trick to this—altruism wasn’t exactly a vampiric trait—but I couldn’t figure out what his agenda was, why he’d gone through so much effort to help me.
“Why should I agree to go with you?” I finally asked.
“Because you need answers about what’s happened over the past fifty years,” he said. “Answers about why it’s full night at two o’clock in the afternoon. Answers about how and why vampires have taken over one of the most powerful human cities in Heliaris. And answers about why a vampire broke you out of your prison, put you up in a comfortable room in his stronghold, and gave you full freedom to run about his city in weapons and armor.”
I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut. Because he was right. I did need answers. And though I trusted Maximillian about as far as I could throw him—which, at the moment, wasn’t very far at all—he was my best source of information right now.
So when he turned away from me and headed toward the mouth of the alley, I followed him back to the Tower.
Keeping my stakes clutched in my fists the entire time.
3
If looks could kill, I would have been dead the moment I approached the compound gates.
“My guards aren’t too happy you killed three of their own,” Maximillian murmured as we passed through the gate and into the compound. The two of us had to be quite a sight—the vampire lord disheveled, his arm drenched in gore, and me hobbling beside him like a cripple. At least my blood-spattered weapons and armor were hidden—Maximillian had leant me his cloak, informing me that while I was a guest under his protection, it would raise far too many questions for me to be running around the city looking like I was about to slaughter every vampire in sight. He suggested that on future excursions, I keep a lower profile.
I couldn’t even wrap my mind aroundfuture excursions, never mind the one I’d just returned from. The truth was, I’d pulled up the hood of Maximillian’s cloak the moment we’d left the alleyway, and stuck as close to the vampire lord as possible. That overwhelming desire to curl up into a ball in the darkest corner I could find and hide from the world had returned, and the reliefI felt as we passed through the gates was so palpable, it filled me with disgust.
“Oh, and Eliza will be upset with you as well,” Maximillian added. “She was very excited about your arrival, so I imagine you crushed her hopes quite thoroughly when you choked her out on your very first meeting.”
His tone was conversational, but I detected a hint of accusation beneath it that made my spine stiffen. “You can’t blame me for that,” I said, even as a stab of guilt pierced my gut. I remembered how excited she’d looked when she’d seen I was awake. But why in the hells did I even care about that? It wasn’t like I knew her. I’d been as gentle as I could with her under the circumstances, rendering her unconscious instead of injuring or killing her. “Or for killing the guards. You should have known I would try to escape.”
“I did,” he admitted. “That’s part of the reason I had Eliza tend to you instead of sending a vampire. I knew you wouldn’t kill her.”
“How could you know that?” I asked, affronted on her behalf. That her master would so callously put his thrall’s life in danger like that… it took everything in me not to stake him on the spot.
“I made it my business to learn everything I could about you.”
I pursed my lips, not knowing how to respond to that. He clearlydidknow a lot about me—enough to figure out the location of my prison and the exact night that the spells protecting it were weak enough to be breached. And I knew almost nothing about him, except that he was a powerful telekinetic and a high-ranking vampire noble.
I stewed about that as we approached the Tower entrance— a grand archway, flanked by two slender obelisks of burnishedsunsteel. The vampire lord raised a hand, and the door, a work of art adorned with etchings of sun symbols and iconography, swung open of its own accord. Beyond, a vast foyer awaited, bathed in an enchanted, muted glow emanating from veins of aetheric crystal embedded into the walls. A vaulted ceiling set with an array of crystal stars arched above us as we crossed the threshold, and sunstone floors gleamed beneath our feet, reflecting the crystalline light so that it almost appeared as if we were walking on water.
Or, it would have, if not for the deep blue runner that stretched from the foyer entrance and through to the main hall. Embroidered across it, in gold thread, was an intricate design displaying a large eye that sat smack dab in the middle of a web-like constellation. I knew that symbol. This was House Psychoros’s crest—The Astral Web.
A female vampire stepped forward to greet us. Her auburn hair was styled in loose waves that cascaded around her slim shoulders, and she wore a high-collared dress with a narrow skirt that flared out just below her knees, paired with pointed, low-heeled shoes. Gold panels were sewn into the sides of the figure-hugging garment, highlighting her tall, willowy frame. She held a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other, and I noted her claws were retracted, and that she'd painted her nails a deep crimson.
“Welcome back, Sire,” she said, dipping her head. Her hazel eyes glittered as she surveyed me, her brows pulling together into a faint frown. “I see you’ve retrieved our guest. Would you like me to send for a healer?”
Our guest?
“Yes,” Maximillian said dryly. “She’s done an excellent job of sabotaging Eliza’s efforts over the past few days. Nothing another night hooked up to the Elinfuser won’t fix, but at the very least she should take a painkiller tonic.”
“Elinfuser?” I thought back to the crystal-and-sunsteel machine I’d been hooked up to. “Is that what that thing is called?”
