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I’d expected the second day of the Summit to be just as filled with political tension, drama, and rivalry as the first.
Instead, I was so bored I could barely stay awake in my chair.
“...it is therefore essential to increase the standard levy on all imports passing through the Crimson Cliffs,” a vampire noble said, his nasally voice buzzing through the hall as he stood just before the dais, facing the emperor even though his address was also meant for the crowd at his back. “This measure will help regulate the influx of foreign fabrics, ensuring our local producers remain competitive.”
In all fairness, I might have found some of this interesting if I’d gotten any sleep last night. But I’d spent yet another night tossing and turning, replaying the encounter with Casimir over and over in my mind, trying to dig up some tidbit that would explain his violent reaction to touching me.
The vampire in question was sitting on the opposite side of the hall from me, his chin propped in his hand as he watched the vampire lord continue to drone on in a voice that would have put even the most energetic toddler into a coma. Unlike yesterday, he hadn’t looked at me at all, his fascination supposedly put to an end by whatever had happened between us last night.
But there was another explanation for the look on his face when he’d spun me around, and my hand unconsciously drifted to the center of my torso, fingers skimming across the missing flower.
He saw you.
No. That couldn’t have been it. I’d thrown up all the blood, had purged it from my system before it could take root inside me. If Casimir had truly seen me, he wouldn’t have kept silent, nor would he have run off the way he had. He would have gone straight to his father, and I would be chained up in an interrogation room somewhere—
My train of thought cut off as someone pinched my side, and I jerked, looking around for the perpetrator. It couldn’t have been Marisse, who was seated next to me, nor the vampire on my other side—neither of them had moved, and unlike me, they seemed to have no trouble paying attention to the speaker. But as my gaze moved down the row, I noticed Maximillian watching me. His expression was placid, but there was a gleam in his eyes as he stared back, as if they were silently saying,“Pay attention. I saw you drifting off.”
Annoyed, I tore my gaze from him and focused on what the vampire noble was saying. “This tariff will support our naval defenses against pirate activities in the region, stabilizing the trade routes…”
I tried to pay attention, I really did, but my gaze drifted back to Casimir, almost of its own accord. A jolt went through me as his citrine eyes met mine, and that tugging sensation increased, until I had to grip the edge of my seat to keep from coming out of my chair. It was as if there was a lodestone in my chest, incessantly trying to drag me toward him, and I didn’t understand it. Casimir Invictus was thelastperson in this castle I should be getting close to.
Another pinch came, sharper this time, and I whipped my head around to glare at Maximillian. The glint in his eyes had turned dangerous, and I hissed when he pinched me a third time, the sensation sharper, almost punishing. This time, lines of displeasure bracketed his mouth, and I watched as he turned to look at Casimir, his right hand flexing as if he would have very much liked to drive it into the vampire prince’s face.
Wait a minute. Was Maximillian… jealous?
That’s absurd,I told myself. But when I turned my attention back to the speaker, I couldn’t help noticing Maximillian relax. Curious, I waited a few minutes, then allowed myself to look at Casimir, who this time was thankfully engaged in whispered conversation with the noble sitting to his left.
This time, the pinch was not on my side, but the place where my neck and shoulder met. And I could have sworn that I felt the scrape of phantom fangs against my skin.
Furious, I looked down the row at Maximillian, only to see his lips twitching with amusement. That bastard. Was he actually angry with me for staring at Casimir, or was he just toying with me because he found the current topic being discussed as mind-numbing as I did?
Well. Two could play at that game.
Dropping my gaze to his feet, I focused my attention on the shadows pooling beneath his chair. They responded at once, and I directed them with my mind, sliding a thin ribbon up his trouser leg, subtle enough that no one else would notice.
I expected Maximillian to start squirming, but either he had no nerve endings in his flesh, or he had extraordinary control, because he remained perfectly still. An almost bored expression settled on his face as he watched another noble stand up to argue against the proposed tariff. Several others joined in, and a lively debate ensued, but I hardly paid any attention, my annoyance with Maximillian peaking.
Determined to get a reaction, I urged my shadow ribbon to climb higher, watching in my mind’s eye as it snaked its way up his calf and around his thigh. I pinched the sensitive skin on his inner thigh, and his gaze flickered, but he showed no visible sign of distress.
So I went a little higher.
Maximillian’s eyes widened as my shadow tendril slipped between his thighs and wrapped around an evenmoresensitive part of him. I swallowed a grin as I squeezed lightly, intending for it to be a subtle threat. But when his hands gripped the arms of his chair, his eyelids sliding to half-mast, an unexpected heat began to gather in my lower abdomen.
A phantom hand wrapped around my throat, and my heart hammered in my chest as I felt an invisible caress trail down my front, between my breasts, over my belly. The control Maximillian had over his telekinetic ability was beyond anything I’d ever seen. Most Psychoros vampires could use their powerto hit targets with telekinetic blasts, immobilize them, or move their bodies about—smashing them into walls, forcing them to bury a blade in their own gut, or even kill their friends.
But to know that he could use that power with such finesse—to break bones and snap tendons, as he’d done with Vinicius, or to tease and seduce, as he was doing with me—was incredibly terrifying and arousing at the same time.
But before that phantom hand could drift any lower, the main doors to the Summit Hall opened with a bang that slammed me straight back into full awareness of my surroundings. “Your Imperial Highness!” a messenger cried, sprinting into the hall as though he were being chased by hellhounds. He skidded to a stop in front of the dais and bowed hastily. “Apologies for the interruption, but Taius has been found.”
I saw Casimir straighten in his chair out of the corner of my eye, his full attention on the messenger. “Well?” the emperor demanded. “Where is he, then? He should have arrived days ago.”
“His head was found on the gates of the Iron Spire just a few moments ago, impaled on one of the spikes,” the messenger said. A gasp rippled through the hall as he extended a bloodied scrap of paper to the emperor. “We don’t know who left it, or where the rest of his body is, but they pinned this note to his scalp.”
The emperor unfolded the paper, his eyes narrowing, and when he read the words aloud, my entire world tilted on its axis.
“I know you’re awake, darkling girl.”
Each word hit like a punch to the gut, and I felt my vision tunneling, gaze fixed on the paper in Vladimir’s hands as ifI could read the words myself if I just stared hard enough. “Darkling girl?” the emperor repeated, his harsh features twisting with rage. “What kind of nonsense is this?”
