Chapter Ten
I HAD to go home, shower, and change. Varic was supposed to meet Benny Diallo and Niko Gann at Benny’s club, the Tombs, over on Bourbon Street, but he didn’t want to go without me, so instead he followed me home. And because Varic never traveled without protection, I had Tiago, Hadrian, and the rest of Hadrian’s guards tromping up the narrow stairs to my apartment.
I unlocked the front door that led directly into the living room, entered, and Varic followed me.
“So it’s kind of messy, but—what’s going on?” I asked as soon as I noticed they hadn’t followed.
Tiago cleared his throat. “We cannot enter until you invite us.”
I turned to ask Varic a question, but he was gone, now in the kitchen. “Yeah, of course.” I said to Tiago. “Come on in.”
The others entered quickly. It was a lot of height and width in my small apartment where the men were concerned. All Varic’s male dreki stood at over six feet and were built like defensive linemen, except for Hadrian, who had more of a swimmer’s build. The women were more varied, one tall and lithe, another short and compact, and still another in between. What was the same across the board was that all of them looked like people you didn’t want to mess with. Maybe it was the tailored black suits.
Walking into the kitchen, I found Varic striding back through the short hallway that led to the bathroom and farther on to my bedroom.
“These are the smallest living quarters I’ve ever been in,” he remarked in awe.
I leaned on the counter and watched him walk through my apartment to the front door, turn, cross the living room again, then into the kitchen, passing me, and back down the hall again.
“What is he doing?” I asked Tiago.
“He has never been inside an apartment,” he informed me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, yours is the first apartment he has ever visited,” Tiago reiterated. “He is the prince of the noreia. His mother owns an island in Greece. He has his own wing in the royal villa in Valletta.”
“And,” Tiago repeated, “this is modest for him.”
“This is a very small space for him,” Hadrian echoed, coughing. “For all of us.”
I stared. “You’re being serious?”
“I am sure he finds it quaint… and a bit claustrophobic,” Tiago explained.
“You know,” I called down the hall to Varic as he walked out of my bedroom, “there are some places in the world that have microapartments that are, like, a hundred and sixty square feet total. This would be a palace in many countries.”
The look on his face was priceless. He was utterly dumbfounded.
“What? How big are your quarters in your home?”
“Your home would fit inside my closet.”
That had to be an exaggeration, to tease me, so I walked over and took his hand in mine. “So you’re saying you don’t want to move in here with me?”
“No!” He sounded horrified. “I want you to move in with me.”
I sucked in a breath. Playful had become serious fast.
“Did I scare you with that?” Varic asked. “Because from the look on your face, I’m going to say I did.”
“No, I just want to hear what you’re thinking.”
“Normally,” he began, taking my other hand as well and facing me, “as the prince’s consort, you wouldn’t have a choice where you would live. You would bide at a place of my choosing. But as you were not raised as a vampyr, you had no idea that your life was no longer your own before you allowed me to take your blood. Because of all of that, and because you identify as human, you have choices that no other member of the noreia does.”
“So even though I’m your consort, you won’t make me move to Malta.”
“No, I won’t.”
“And if I don’t go with you, who will you drink from?”
“I don’t need to drink blood often, you know that. I told you how long I can go without feeding,” he explained, squeezing my hand.
The last time before me was a century ago. It meant I could go the rest of my life without his fangs in me again. “But you claimed me and changed my blood,” I reminded him, as if either of us had forgotten. “Don’t you need it more now?”
“I drink from you because I want to, and for no other reason.”
It sounded good, him wanting my blood. But him needing it would have been far more comforting. Need implied something he had to have. A want was controllable. I was like dessert. He could go without that.
Everything I thought I knew changed in that moment.
He wasn’t bound to me for blood, and because I’d thought he was, because he’d made me his, a shiver of dread licked down my spine. “So you could just go back to Malta and not need to see me,” I concluded, making sure he couldn’t hear the crack in my voice as I came to terms with the size of the mess I was in.
“Yes,” he said flatly. He eased his hand from mine and walked around me to stand at the kitchen sink. He looked out the small window there onto the street below.
I was in so much trouble. I’d fallen so far so fast, and just like that, I realized my heart didn’t belong to me anymore. It was his. It was Varic’s. I was already too far gone to walk away and could only hope to God he felt the same.
I heard the others leave the apartment then, quickly, closing the door behind them. It was considerate of them not to want to intrude.
And then I thought about us in bed.
I thought about how his eyes looked when he watched me, all soft and warm. I thought about how his voice sounded, all possessive and dark, when he said I belonged to him. Mostly I thought about how he held me and didn’t let go.
This was not a man who wanted to fly away from me.
“Hey.”
He didn’t give me his attention, seemingly riveted by whatever he was looking at.
“I would love to see your home.”
Slowly he turned to look at me, those dark green eyes filled with worry while he clenched his square jaw tight.
“I really would.”
His exhale was slow, measured, as he turned to face me. “Earlier this evening you heard me yelling on the phone.”
I nodded.
“As you know, I was speaking to my parents, and after my mother hung up, my father and I were talking, and at first, he was very angry.”
“Oh?”
“He doesn’t know how to feel.”
“About what?” He tipped his head expectantly, like I should know. “About me?”
“Yes.”
“How come?”
“Because he’s thrilled that you’re a matan… and horrified at the same time.”
“Why?”
He crossed his arms, looking at me. “A matan, once mated, amplifies the power of the mate. You make me stronger in every way.”
“Do I have to be with you for it to happen?”
He squinted. “No. You’re not some sort of ring of power.”
“You made a Lord of the Rings reference,” I said playfully. “Nice.”
“I haven’t been living under a rock,” he said, glaring.
“Stop, I’m teasing you,” I said, leaning in to place soft kisses along his jaw. “Now tell me how you power up if I don’t have to be there with you.”
“Through the claiming and having your blood in me,” he answered, slipping his hands up my chest, over my collarbone, and higher to each side of my neck. “I drink from you, your blood mixes with mine, matan and royal, and I’m changed, just as I changed you.”
“And my power is what?” I asked, gazing into all that green as he held me, content, it seemed, to do so.
“There’s a barrier you have in your home or anyplace else that is yours, which is where the mythos about a vampyr having to be invited in stems from.”
“That’s why the others couldn’t just follow me in here just a few minutes ago.”
“Yes.”
“But you could.”
“You’re my mate,” he said like it was obvious. “I can follow you anywhere.”
I loved that he was so matter-of-fact and a little indignant with my questions, like How are you missing something so basic? It made my heart swell that he took us being together for granted, as though we were two sides of the same coin. I was the other half of him. It was an irrefutable fact. Our mating was innate, organic, and part of who he was. It was overwhelming to be faced with such absolute faith in something so utterly new. He didn’t have the same questions I did about our bond because they never occurred to him. Not the part that was me, because clearly I’d given him a scare just a moment ago, but the part that was his understanding, his part of us, he wholeheartedly accepted. As the prince, he’d made his claim, and it was therefore indelible in his mind. I just needed to find the same bearings. I had to believe that I was as necessary to him as he’d become to me.
I needed to move the topic away from “us” so my brain wouldn’t run down a rabbit hole of self-doubt. I couldn’t fit him into any frame of reference for the rest of my life because I was in a fantastical place, a realm outside of everything I knew about the natural order of the world. “And getting others to talk to each other and not fight?” I threw out.
“That’s a byproduct of the barrier. You don’t want strife or pain around you, so no one will be allowed to harm themselves, or you, or anyone else in your presence,” he answered, verifying something remarkable and surreal as though it were commonplace.
“I sound so cool, like a superhero.”
He scowled. “Try and remain a bit more grounded. Your power only works on vampyrs; you’re not the human whisperer.”
I laughed. “Lookit you, being funny.”
More scowling.
“Oh man, I am cool,” I said, waggling my eyebrows.
“You’re the exact opposite,” he said, smiling as he chuckled, gesturing for me to join him.
When I stepped in close, he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me. And even though it was already one in a long line of many—he’d been hugging me all night—I gave him my weight and leaned, soaking up the feel of him, his warmth and his scent. I could be held like this forever.
Never in my life had a lover been all over me outside the bedroom. It was new and uncharted territory. I had missed out on cuddling, on being held. I’d gone into the service straight out of high school. There was sex for years, bent over in bathroom stalls, behind buildings, and in the back seats of cars. I was never on furlough long enough to meet anyone serious, and nothing was safe anywhere I was stationed. I’d never had a boyfriend, and I hadn’t missed it, figuring that when I was ready, settled down, I’d meet someone.
It never happened until, out of the blue, I found not only the man of my dreams, but one who wasn’t even supposed to exist.
My life no longer fell into parameters that fit other peoples’ lives, but really, it never had. What was normal anymore, and who judged that? My life was about to become a wild, complicated ride, and I didn’t care what it looked like from the outside, only how I felt on the inside.
“Tell me, your parents,” I said as he let me go and leaned on the counter again. “How did you leave it with them?”
“My mother is elated that I have a consort, because she was worried about me not being grounded for so long.”
“You’ll love her, and I’ll be lucky if I get you back from her,” he grumbled.
“And your father?”
“He too was worried about me not settling down,” he said, and the affection he held for his mother drained out of his voice. “Which is hypocritical coming from him, don’t you think? He thinks because he’s married but lives with his many courtesans that he can lecture me about fidelity? It’s ridiculous.”
“He sounds like every other parent on the planet,” I appeased him. “Great advice, but maybe not so much self-reflection.”
“Yes,” he muttered. “And also we had a disagreement about the law.”
“Explain.”
“He immediately amended the law regarding fomori to include only the prohibition of killing humans, not drinking from those who are unmated,” he told me. “He said it was hypocritical to not do so immediately.”
“And you said?”
“I said that there should be consequences for me as well.”
“Death is a pretty severe consequence,” I whispered, my heart in my throat.
“Not death,” he assured me, touching my cheek. “It couldn’t be, as you turned out to be a matan and my consort, which basically cancels out the punishment of death. You can’t identify a matan unless blood is ingested.”
“I see. That’s tricky.”
He nodded. “But I told him that I should still be punished.”
“And he said?”
“That the draugr is not a commoner and will therefore not be punished like one.” I suspected those were his father’s exact words.
“He loves you.”
“I got snobbery and class distinction from that, but you heard love?”
“Very clearly,” I assured him.
His grunt told me he wasn’t convinced.
“He changed the law as he saw fit, and now it stands going forward. The new law was posted to the website and—”
“You have a website?”
“Of course there’s a website,” he snapped, scowling. “This is the twenty-first century, where we have the internet and mass email and everything else.”
I couldn’t stifle my laughter. He looked so indignant.
“Think of us as a huge conglomerate with millions of members.”
“What if someone misses the update and kills someone over the offense of drinking?”
He shook his head. “There are far too many people with the app on their phones with updates. I can’t imagine anyone missed it, even in some backwoods burb.”
My brows lifted. “There’s an app?”
Palms up, looking at me expectantly, the message clear as day in body and expression, the Are you kidding? more than implied. “Of course.”
“Please tell me that it’s called, like, Fang News or something,” I said, egging him on, grinning like a crazy person. “Are you guys on Twitter too?”
“You can be utterly infuriating at times,” he said irritably. “Are you aware of this fact?”
I waggled my eyebrows, and he threw up his hands in disgust.
I stopped chuckling and got serious. “So you said the ban on killing humans remains?”
“Of course. Always.”
I exhaled sharply. “Your father’s amazing.”
He shook his head. “He’s the king of the noreia and can do as he sees fit. And though it helps if he also has the backing of the council, keeping everyone happy, he doesn’t need them to enact new law.”
“Pretend I’m not a vampyr, so I don’t know anything.”
“You’re such a smartass,” he told me. “You should have warned me about that up front.”
“You should have asked Tiago. He knew.”
He crossed his arms, scowling at me, which I found terribly endearing. Yes, I asked more questions than anyone else in his life, and he answered for no other reason than he liked me.
I couldn’t stifle my chuckle. “Just go on about the council, because you haven’t mentioned them before. I thought your father was just this all-powerful king.”
“He is, but all things go more smoothly if, before he does something, he consults my mother and the council and everyone gets to weigh in.”
“So if he wanted to make a law, then he’d convene this council, invite your mother, and everybody would talk about it first.”
“Yes.”
“And what do you do?”
“I make sure all the laws are followed.”
“Laws are handled by individual leaders of individual cities across the world. I travel, I see my subjects, and I investigate defilers of the law.”
“Basically your mother and father and the council, they make the laws and you enforce them.”
“Yes. Unless I disagree with them. At which point the noble families send one person who has the proxy for that family, and we vote again.”
“How many times has that happened?”
“Never.”
“And who’s on the council?”
“Five members selected by each of us—my father, my mother, and me—to oversee the laws and the administration of them, either in changes to the law or hearing cases where members of the noreia are to be punished, exiled, or put to death.”
“That seems pretty fair.”
“It’s tedious and time consuming, but it works.”
“I interrupted before you could finish, so tell me what else was amended in the law.”
“It now states that every human, in every case of blood drinking, must give explicit permission before a vampyr may drink from them.”
“I think that’s perfect.”
He grunted.
“I have to tell you, I know you have issues with your old man, but I like the way he does things. He’s quick and decisive.”
“And a cheat.”
“How so?” I asked.
“He backdated the law to yesterday.”
It was too good.
“Stop laughing.”
“He’s awesome. He didn’t want you to get in trouble, so he made it so you wouldn’t. I think that’s great looking out.”
“You don’t see what a poor precedent this sets? That any law can be treated with so much disrespect? That he can change something so cavalierly and indiscriminately on a whim without the full support of the council?”
“I suspect that normally he doesn’t do that, right?”
He was quiet, which told me I was correct.
“I bet he usually gives things a lot of thought and does accept input from your mother and the council, but this time was different, and really had to be because you were involved.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“I love that you’re arguing about something that benefits you.”
“Which is my point.”
“But the amendment to the law, was it a whim like you said, or was it a long time coming?” I asked. “Because I suspect that a lot of people wanted to see that law ratified. It’s like I told Cooke a while back—the king should not be able to tell his people who to love, and loving a vampyr requires blood.”
“Jason—”
“I want you to feed on me when we’re in bed. I do. I’m addicted to it already.”
“Are you?” he husked, eyes riveted on me.
“I am. And if I am after just a few hours, people who have been together for years probably can’t separate the bloodletting from the sex. So… I think your father might have made a choice based on you, but I’ll bet you there are thousands of requests cluttering up his inbox and his secretary’s desk.”
He grunted. “Perhaps.”
“But the fact that he acted, that fast, to protect you—I think I love him.”
“He wields his power—and always has—like a sword and swings it at whatever he pleases, whenever he pleases.”
It sounded like an old rehearsed line, as though he’d had the discussion about his father with someone else often. “Your brother and you, you guys used to have these conversations about him, didn’t you?”
His gaze met mine. “How did you know?”
“Because you’re the solid one, the steady one, second born all the way,” I told him. “I bet Cassius was more like your father. He did what he wanted, when he wanted.”
“Yes.”
“You miss him terribly.”
Quick nod.
I stepped into his space, slid my hand around the back of his neck, coaxed his head down onto my shoulder, and held him there, my fingers buried in his hair.
“Much too soft a heart to be the prince’s consort,” Varic murmured and lifted his head to kiss me deeply.
I melted against him, and he turned and shoved me up against the kitchen wall, jostling pictures. He slipped his hands inside the cardigan he’d given me and under my T-shirt. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him close, ravaging his mouth, wanting him closer, plastered against me.
He cupped my ass with one hand and squeezed, and I shivered under the domination and possessiveness and how ready my body was to take him in again.
When he broke the kiss seconds later and pulled free, backpedaling to the middle of the room, standing there, panting, and staring at me warily, I was surprised.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he whispered hoarsely. “I just think I should go to the club alone.”
It was an out-of-the-blue change that shouldn’t have hurt—we weren’t attached at the hip, after all—but it felt like a knife in the chest regardless. “Sure,” I agreed instead of questioning him, because it was business anyway. I didn’t need to go, would have just been sitting there quietly, I was certain, so it was fine.
“You should rest, regain your strength.”
I didn’t have to be told to take care of myself. I’d been doing it for years.
He swallowed hard and looked unsure, conflicted about whatever was going on in his head before he took a step toward me, stopped, swallowed again, took a breath, and then pivoted and was gone, out of my apartment without a backward glance.
It was surprising that he’d just left, like he was trying to sever the connection between us with the action, but perhaps it was that he had to be in prince mode—leader mode—before he went to see Benny and Niko, and so had to leave me behind. We’d been together a whole minute and a half. I couldn’t expect him to know how to compartmentalize his feelings that quickly as well as be able to convey them to me.
Still, it hurt that he walked out. After the intensity that had marked our time together, I was a bit lost.
I was surprised when the door reopened to reveal Tiago and Aziel.
“Hey,” I said, forcing a smile.
They walked in. Aziel moved quickly past me to stand where Varic had, at the window in the kitchen, looking down at the street. Tiago gestured for me to follow him into the living room.
“Do not read a lot into him leaving.”
“No, of course not. He’s a busy man. He can’t hang out in bed with me all day just because I haven’t been laid in a while.” It was nonchalant and crude, but I hardly cared. I’d been caught up in the eye of the tornado that was Varic, and when he left, I was plunged into the actual storm of figuring out how I really fit into his life. It was a wake-up call for me. The romance bubble had popped, leaving me with the reality of the situation.
Tiago coughed softly, taking hold of my bicep. “As strange as this is for you, think about what it must be like for him.”
“I’m not following.”
“Your space, this apartment, represents a place you could come to leave him. He hates it. Would, in fact, I am sure, love to burn it down.”
“What’re you—”
“Back in the day, he could have just taken you, kept you, ensconced you in his home in Valletta, confined you to the castle. And that would be your life. He would have you at his beck and call, and if he wanted you with him, you would travel, and if not, you would remain behind. There would be no choices for you.”
“It’s a bit medieval,” I asserted.
“It is the way of things down through the ages. But now he has finally found his consort, and you have your own home, your own life, he has to somehow fit his life around yours and fit you into his.”
“And he’s scared,” I surmised.
“I think terrified.”
“It should not be his right,” Aziel muttered from the kitchen.
I was going to say something, but Tiago lifted his hand to stop me and turned to Aziel.
“Pardon?” Tiago asked, his voice hard and cold like I’d never heard it before. “Should not be whose right?”
Aziel turned to look at Tiago. “This man has been the prince’s consort for mere hours, and already I see our dreaded draugr being led around like a lovesick schoolboy. He’s as weak as his father.”
I bristled. “Love doesn’t make you weak,” I argued even though it wasn’t love yet, but I couldn’t think of a better word to use. What could I say? Lust didn’t make you weak? Extreme like? “Love focuses you because once one part of your life is set, you can give your attention to the rest.”
“You’re wrong,” he argued, and I heard the anger in his voice.
“The prince is strong, you know this.” Tiago gestured for me to move, to go to the door, to run.
Aziel huffed and rounded on Tiago and me, and it was only then I saw he had his phone in his hand.
“Who did you call?” Tiago wanted to know.
“This is exactly how Rhyton said things would go if the prince saw this man again after the first time,” Aziel railed. “He said the prince was acting strange after their initial meeting. He said he thought perhaps he would make him his consort, and that as soon as he did, he’d be weak.”
“Rhyton said,” Tiago repeated even as he flicked his gaze around the room, possibly looking for other ways out.
He wasn’t worried about himself, I knew that. He was a warrior first and had boasted many times of his fighting prowess. It was me he was concerned about… and how to get me safely out of the line of fire.
“He told me to stay close to you, Jason, because there would be a time when the prince wasn’t looking—and that would be the time to act.”
Tiago’s laughter surprised me. It was loud, belittling, and scornful. “You are listening to a courtier,” he mocked. “Are you mad?”
The steps outside the door were too old, too creaky; there was no way to climb them without making any sound, no matter how light on your feet you were. The men clomping up them now weren’t worried about alerting us to their presence.
When the door swung open, I turned and saw the platinum-haired courtier who’d propositioned Varic at Benny’s mansion, the vampyr whose presence pushed me to run. He was just as stunning as when he accosted me at Garrett’s club on Saturday, but this time he held a long, curved dagger in his right hand. The two men behind him were not as beautiful, but what they lacked in appearance they made up for in muscle.
“The king changed the law today for the prince, just as you said he would,” Aziel advised. “Everything you said was true, Rhyton.”
“I told you,” Rhyton said smugly, shifting his weight toward the doorway. “It’s only a matter of time before this one makes a slave of your prince.”
“I won’t have it,” Aziel insisted, his eyes flat, dead. “You saved the prince with your actions, Jason Thorpe, so I will make this quick.”
“What will you make quick?” Tiago demanded, stepping in front of me, blocking Aziel.
“His death!” Aziel barked. “The prince will be in agony, but I’ll have killed those that committed the crime against his beloved.”
“And who will you blame?”
“Made vampyrs, of course,” Aziel said dismissively. “They’re animals. They’ve killed many.”
“As have we. We have killed so very many of them,” Tiago told him, gesturing at Rhyton, who was now looking at the frame of the door, as were the others with him, uncertainty washing over their features.
“What dark magic is this?” Rhyton asked Aziel. “Why can’t I cross into this room?”
Tiago exhaled as he turned to Aziel, at the same time pulling gloves from each pocket of his suit jacket. They looked like driving gloves, but when he put them on, I saw a metal claw at the tip of each finger.
Aziel scoffed at Tiago’s preparation and then looked at me. “You will give them permission, or I will gut this whelp where he stands.”
I jolted, reaching out to put a hand on Tiago’s shoulder, but he didn’t turn to look at me, instead shook his head slightly.
“It is always the same,” Tiago said, smiling, stepping sideways, then crouching down, looking like a panther ready to take on a bull as Aziel advanced on him. “Whenever there is change, there are always small-minded fanatics goaded on by those with their own agenda.”
Meaning, of course, that Rhyton had worked his charms and rhetoric on the weaker mind that was Aziel’s.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aziel growled.
Tiago’s grin faded. “But I do, and this is sad because I thought you were good and loyal, and I was so very wrong.”
“My loyalty is to the prince!” he roared and rushed Tiago.
I kept the baseball bat Ode had given me for my birthday in August in the antique umbrella stand that was well within reach. I shifted to my right, grabbed it, shoved Tiago sideways, and swung.
I’d surprised him—it was the only way I’d managed to knock him off balance.
Aziel grabbed the bat and smiled, as did I before I kicked him in the side of the knee.
“Fuck!” he roared as I yanked the bat free and cracked him on the ear as hard as I could.
“I’ll kill you!” he screamed.
I always got that threat after that particular maneuver when I executed the same in the past. You just had to give a guy something to look at first, to block while you used your legs.
He dropped to his good knee, clutching the other, and once he was down, I hit him again in the face, and he went out like a light.
“Jason!”
Turning from the crumpled man, I saw Tiago standing there, fuming.
“What?” I gasped, pulling in air, not because I was winded but because my adrenaline was pumping. “Are you hurt?”
“How could I have been—you could have been killed!” he screeched.
I made a face. “You have lost your mind if you think I’d let you fight my battles for me.”
A small statue of Anubis exploded beside Tiago—Rhyton had a gun. Apparently a Glock was not impressed by my barrier.
I tackled Tiago and drove him onto the thick turquoise-and-brown area rug behind my couch and stayed still as he shot at us some more.
Thankfully he was not a good shot, but Tiago kept trying to get me off him—and could have easily—but I was wrapped around him so tight the only way to get me off was to hurt me in the process.
“Jason, move!” he yelled. “I need to subdue Rhyton!”
“Shut up and stay where you are,” I warned, pressing him to the floor.
“I will kill you!” Rhyton shrieked. “How dare you put your filthy hands on my prince! He should have nothing to do with something as vile as you!”
“He made me his consort,” I yelled. “Not you. Me!”
“When you’re dead, everything will go back to the way it was!”
He was so deluded he had no idea that his life was over once I let Tiago up off the floor. The prince’s rajan would tear Rhyton’s throat out, of that I had no doubt.
“Things will never be the same,” I thundered. “And you’ll never have him again, not ever.”
His scream was loud, pained, and unhinged as he discharged the clip until all he had was empty clicks of the trigger.
I scrambled off Tiago, and he flew across the room toward Rhyton. It happened so fast I could barely follow it, and then they were all gone: the courtier, his goons, and Tiago, as though they’d never been there.
I checked outside and glimpsed Tiago giving chase in the darkness across the rooftops, the men leaping in high arcs, not truly running. Spinning around, I charged over to Aziel, grabbed the phone he’d dropped, used his thumb to unlock it, and scrolled through his contacts until I found Hadrian’s number.
It rang three times. His greeting, when he came on the line, sounded harsh. The clipped sound of his voice was a night-and-day difference from how he sounded with me. He sounded nicer when he and I talked and all business when he thought Aziel was calling.
“Hadrian,” I said quickly.
“Jason?” he replied. I heard the concern instantly. “Why are you on this phone?”
“Aziel attacked me and Tiago, and that courtier, the blond one, Rhyton, he was here, and he tried to shoot us,” I recounted after taking a breath. “Tiago went after them, but there’s four of them and just one of him, so you gotta save him.”
“Tell the prince there has been an attack!” he shouted at someone, clearly not me. “Get him in the car!”
“Hadrian—”
“I cannot—do you understand that I cannot leave Varic alone, especially now that I have no idea whom to trust!”
His voice fractured, and I understood because I’d faced the same kind of decision during an attack. And though I’d never had to make the choice between love and sworn duty, I’d had to make the one between saving one friend or many others. I knew he had to be breaking inside because leaving Varic was not an option, but neither was abandoning Tiago to his fate.
“There have to be others,” I urged, “at least one person you have faith in.”
Mere seconds ticked by, but it felt like an eternity.
“Eris,” Hadrian yelled, “Duro!”
I didn’t remember meeting them, but if he was calling for them now, of all moments, needing them to save his heart, then he had to be sure of them.
“Return to the apartment and chase the scent of the rajan from there!”
I wanted Hadrian to have backup. I was worried about him. I knew he was a badass, but I wasn’t sure what the limit of his power was.
“You—” Hadrian huffed a shaky breath. “Was Tiago hurt?”
“Not yet, but tell them to hurry,” I implored, not ready to lose Tiago when I just got him back in my life. I was probably scared for no reason, because again, you didn’t get to be the rajan if you weren’t deadly, but still….
“They are already gone.”
Vampyr speed was really something.
“I will inform my prince and have you—”
“Don’t worry about me,” I impelled, needing him to listen. “Just make sure Varic’s safe, and then get to Tiago yourself. He’s gonna need you.”
“Are you safe there? Is Aziel—”
“He’s out, so send whoever here and get him.”
“We will go to your home and—”
“Save Tiago!” I yelled. “For fuck’s sake, Hadrian, he’s the love of your fuckin’ long-ass life, isn’t he? Stop screwing around and go save your man!”
He hung up on me, which I approved of. It didn’t escape my notice, as I bolted to my bedroom to grab clothes, not knowing how long I might need to be out of my apartment, that I didn’t have Varic’s number to call him. My main concern at the moment was getting out of my place. I didn’t want to be there when Aziel woke up to Hadrian’s wrath.