Droplets of water dangled from my black hair, my soul refreshed from a hot shower, as I bent down to lift the envelope from my floor. Someone had shoved the innocent white letter under my apartment’s front door while I recuperated from the King Challenge. I ground my teeth together as I straightened from my crouch, noticing the official royal wax seal on the back, the symbol as powerful as the blood pumping in my veins—two deadly swords protected by the almighty crown.
Another Challenge.
It had to be.
Only an hour after the last was completed.
I cracked my neck and tightened my bathrobe. This one couldn’t be too bad. Hopefully. The ancient book had said the third Challenge would be— Secret.
If I were to receive a secret of royal proportions…
I smiled with genuine delight as I flopped down on the crème-colored lounge chair and tucked my legs up under me. I tapped the edge of the envelope on my right knee, my grin never fading.
Knowledge was everything.
And I was about to learn a real secret held closely to the crown. I would hold it dear and never speak of it to anyone. Not even Adelie. I wouldn’t fail this Challenge.
With careful fingers, I opened the letter.
The wax cracked with a sharp snap, little red flakes falling onto my lap, dusting my black robe with the royal seal. With two fingers, I pulled the thick paper out of the envelope. I gazed at it as I held it before me, my brows lifting in surprise as I read the contents.
It was indeed the next Challenge.
But I was foolish to believe the secret would be told through a letter. The Council would never operate that way with delicate information—where anyone could steal a simple missive and read it. No, I was to meet the eldest lord in his private chambers for this one. The words would be spoken in a quiet setting.
I nibbled on my bottom lip as I set the letter aside.
Lord Belshazzar was ancient.
It was one thing to deal with him while the other lords were around and in the public eye, but another entirely to speak with him alone in a secluded location.
Every aspect of the ancient one was deadly.
From his looks. To his personality.
To his charm. To his power.
Out of all the lords, he frightened me the most.
The man had plans within plans within plans.
Within even more plans…
Every word he spoke had meaning.
Why? Because he planned everything he said, too.
Lord Belshazzar was conniving and dominant and potent to everything he touched—whether it be a new law, a kind word, the swing of his blade, an arch of his brow, or his fangs ripping out a throat. Everything he did was pure power. The entire vampire world knew it. Hell, all the druids knew it. The Original druid was even intimated by him. While the lord had ruled as king, absolutely none had tried to pull one over on him—because he had beat them to it.
He was a ruler no one had seen coming.
And they never forgot him.
The man was that good. And old.
I wondered vaguely how old he actually was.
There was no literature on that. Anywhere.
I attempted to swallow down my nerves and stood up, brushing off the tiny flakes of wax onto the floor. I watched each one flutter to the thick carpeting, and as they did, I calmed myself.
The lord is scary-ass-frightening…
But I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want me to be.
That was powerful in itself.
Though, I would keep my smartass nature in check.
I wanted to live, after all.
I strolled into my bedroom with more confidence than I probably should have had over meeting him alone. But I needed to get dressed. One did not meet the oldest vampire in just a robe. Too much flesh visible for them to get any ideas about how my blood might taste if I did something wrong—which was always a possibility.
Damn my mouth.
* * *
With the invitation tightly held in my right fist, I stopped in front of Lord Belshazzar’s door—after obtaining directions from the sentinels guarding the other council members’ private chambers. I cleared my throat, peered up to the guard on the right, and extended the invitation to him, to the vampire who probably had more deadly training years than I had days living. I stated simply, “I have an appointment with the lord. My name is—”
He waved off my words. “I know who you are.” The guard opened the lord’s door without fanfare. “He arrived only ten minutes ago, but go on in.”
I nodded and swallowed on a dry throat. I could do this. There was nothing to be afraid of—it was merely the next Challenge. Strange how the simplest challenge was the most worrisome. I stepped inside with purpose and managed not to flinch as the guard shut the door behind me with a jarring thud.
Instant silence.
I blinked and turned around in a circle.
The room itself was nothing like my apartment. The lord’s private space was set up more like a regular bedroom—very modest. An enormous bed with red and black satin sheets sat on my left. To my right, a couch and chair were in front of a fireplace. An actual freaking fireplace where logs were burning, a glow of flames licking up into the black cavernous rock. And there was no smoke billowing inside the room. How he had managed that inside a mountain, I didn’t even venture to guess.
But the silence had my brows rising.
The lord’s room was soundproof.
No wonder he’d wanted to have this discussion here.
The only noise heard was the sprinkle of water.
I cleared my throat again and stuffed the invitation into the right pocket of my black leather pants. Then I fussed with my white sweater and called to the dark wooden door directly across from me, “Lord Belshazzar? I can come back if you aren’t ready.”
The shower continued in the bathroom.
Though his voice was clear. “I’ll only be a minute. Make yourself comfortable.”
I ran my fingers through my own slightly damp hair and walked toward the bookshelf on the far wall next to the couch. I even took my boots and socks off to feel the brush of the fur rug on my bare feet, the rug warmed by the fire. The vampire had said to get comfortable, after all. And with that man’s black hair, just like mine in length and color, I knew he wouldn’t only be a minute.
I ran my fingers over the old tomes lining the bookshelf. No dust coated my skin. The cleaning people here were amazing. Each book was treated better than most people, with love and a tender touch.
My head cocked and my brows furrowed, as I eyed an interesting development to my curiosity. A hidden panel in the bookshelf, slightly open—a compartment opened and hastily closed. I cast my gaze to the bathroom. The water was still running, tinkling on the tiles. I stood very still, contemplating my next actions.
I cracked my neck.
Dammit. Temptation was a bitch.
I quickly opened the panel wider.
I quickly gazed at the many books inside. Each one older than the next. Some were mere olden notebooks, the colors long faded with time. I scratched my cheek in slight confusion, though.
The spines of the books—the volumes that still had spines—were all in the ancient druid language. I’d only seen one before in my lifetime, in my grandfather’s collection. He hadn’t been able to read it, but had been extremely proud to own it. No one knew how to speak the forgotten language, much less read it.
Well, an Original druid probably could.
Asshat.
But the most puzzling problem about this view…
I jerked the invitation out of my pocket and held it up to the most legible of the spines. My gaze flicked back and forth between the two, the handwriting on the spine and the handwriting on the invitation.
Oh my dear fuck.
They were…a match.
I blinked and stuffed the invitation back into my pocket. Ever so carefully, I pulled one of the books from the shelf and opened its delicate pages. They didn’t flake as I had feared, but they were stiff from an ointment used to preserve the revered pages. I gazed at the writing, and just as the spine had shown, the pages were filled with his handwriting, in a language I couldn’t read. The ancient druid language.
I squinted at one page. A bowl had been drawn there with what might be a list underneath it, each sentence with what could be one word. Yes, probably a list.
Holy…shit.
These were druid spells.
How the fuck did the lord even know these?
Druids coveted their spells.
They killed to keep their spells to themselves.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lord Belshazzar roared.
A shot of electric fear raced through my veins, and I dropped the book like it had burned me as severely as the flames in his fireplace could. My head swiveled in the direction of the bathroom. He was standing in nothing but a pair of black pajama pants and a long-sleeved black t-shirt, but I still froze like a human seeing a vampire rage for the first time in their life. With his eyes blood-red and actually fucking glowing—didn’t even know that was possible—I held my hands up into the air, mumbling rapidly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Didn’t help.
The ancient vampire bashed into my backside, slamming the front of my shoulders into the bookshelf. I hadn’t even seen him move. Not a blur in my vampire vision. Nothing. The lord was in one spot, and then he moved so fast he was in another. I shouted in terror as he grabbed my hair and yanked my head far to the side.
His fangs sank into my neck in the next breath.