KNOCK, KNOCK.
I froze in place with my sweater halfway off and hanging over my head. “Shit.”
A growl erupted in the air. Pissed…off.
I shoved my sweater back down over my head and patted the air in my lover’s direction. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.” I sidestepped a broken lamp lying on the floor in front of me and hurried to Bel’s bedchamber door. I opened it swiftly and stepped out into the hallway. I surveyed the scene, and stated, “Now is really not a great time, my lords.”
Lord Cato and Lord Xenon stood in the hallway, both wearing horrible scowls on their faces.
My father hissed, “It’s been four days. Without any word from him.”
I peered down my nose at him. “I’ve kept you informed.”
“All you’ve told us is that ‘he’s working on it’.” Lord Xenon shook his head hard, his black military-style haircut harsh with his features. “That isn’t good enough right now. We need transparency, and we aren’t receiving it.”
“We need to speak with him.” Lord Cato pointed at the door. “Now.”
I held up a stopping hand. “If you go in there right now, you’ll only make matters worse. He’s barely slept. He’s barely been eating. And he’s in a horrible mood tonight.”
My father glowered. “I don’t care if he’s in a bad mood—”
“You don’t understand,” I growled, cutting him off. “He’s agitated right now. Do you want to go in there when he’s pissed off? Do you want to poke the beast when he’s already in a bad mood?”
“It doesn’t matter. We need to go inside.” Lord Cato scratched his cheek and sighed. “We need to figure out how it’s going and speak with him.”
My eyebrows rose. “I think you’re making a mistake.”
Lord Xenon muttered, “Thank you for the advisement, your majesty, but we’ve been dealing with him longer than you have. We’ve seen his bad moods before, just like he’s seen ours. We know how to deal with him.”
I pinched my lips together.
Lord Xenon was probably right.
I still didn’t like them bothering him, though.
I leaned toward both men, and snarled, “If either of you upsets him too badly while he’s already troubled, I will fucking hurt you. Understand?”
Both stood silent for a long moment.
Lord Xenon broke the quiet first. He hummed softly, “You’re awfully protective of him, your majesty.”
My brows snapped together. “And?”
He chuckled. “I was simply stating an observation.”
I swung my gaze to my father. “Do you have any commentary you’d like to add?”
“Nope.” Lord Cato rocked back on his heels and placed his hands into his pockets. “You’re old enough to know what you’re heading for and make your own decisions on your personal life.”
“That’s very kind of you to say, my darling Father,” I muttered. I turned and opened the door for them. “Enter at your own peril, my lords.”
Leaving a grand total of five personal royal bodyguards behind us, we stepped inside Lord Belshazzar’s bedchamber. I shut the door behind us and went to sit on the unkempt bed—no housekeepers having been allowed in here—and watched the events with an eagle eye.
Lord Belshazzar had shoved all the furniture to the walls of the room, leaving a large clearing in the center of his intimate bedchamber. He sat in the center of it, unshowered for four days, wearing a pair of dress slacks and nothing more. The tomes written in the ancient druid language were spread around him in a circle, each one opened to an exact page, while he wrote on a pad of paper and crawled from book to book studying each one carefully as he took more notes.
My vampire Overlord didn’t look up from his work, but he did growl under his breath at their interruption.
Lord Cato stepped over the broken lamp and walked to the edge of the circle of books. He took a seat and crossed his legs, and then placed his hands in his lap. My father stayed silent as he looked over the situation happening before him.
Lord Xenon stayed farther away and leaned a shoulder against the door, asking quietly, “What progress have you made, my lord?”
Lord Belshazzar shifted from his sitting position. He crawled to a book on his right and stared down at it. His eyes slowly read the words there, and then he wrote on his pad of paper again. He finally answered in a voice rough from disuse, “The spell needed is complicated.”
My father stated gently, “We can see that. But is it feasible in the timeframe we need?”
“I believe so,” Lord Belshazzar mumbled and crawled to a different book. He pointed at the page, still not looking at either one of them. “I will need Chester. He needs to be brought here immediately.”
“Is that all you need?” My father didn’t argue, even though he had said he hated the man. “We need a list of what it’ll take to complete the spell.”
Lord Belshazzar raked his fingers through his tangled hair and lifted his pad of paper to view it. He stated, “I’ll also need a druid woman with a child in her womb. Her blood needs to be drained—all of it—and kept in a vase made of amethyst. She needs to be a willing sacrifice, not coerced.”
Lord Xenon tapped his fingers on his cell phone, taking notes, while my father stayed silent and was his ear for patient listening.
“I’ll also need snake’s venom. It doesn’t matter what kind of snake. And I’ll need four rocks, one from the east, west, north, and the south. And two feathers from a crow. Two feathers from a dove.” He scanned his notes and flipped the page, reading further. Eventually, he bit his lower plump lip, pulling it out slowly between his teeth. “And the fucker’s head. It’s fortunate we have that. Otherwise, the spell wouldn’t work. I think that’s it for ingredients.”
I breathed a silent sigh of relief.
That list wasn’t awful. And I had made the right decision allowing the lords in, even if I hadn’t wanted them to disturb him. It would take a few days to wrangle up what he needed.
“How long until you’ve got the spell ready?” My father asked with serenity in his tone. “When should we have everything ready for you?”
“Five days,” Lord Belshazzar stated instantly while writing on his pad of paper again. “No later.”
My father nodded and stood to his feet. “Five days. We’ll have it ready for you.”
When the lords were both at his door, ready to leave, Lord Belshazzar’s head snapped up, stopping them in their tracks. My vampire Overlord growled dangerously, “Do not allow Chester to be alone with our queen. If you do, I will end you.”
Lord Xenon blinked…and repeated the words he had said to me outside, “You’re awfully protective of her, my lord.”
“Yes, I am.” My lover didn’t blink.
Lord Cato chuckled—evilly. “Don’t worry, my lord. I won’t allow that demented ass near her.”
With that, they left the room.
I hummed softly and scratched at my cheek. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this Chester individual. I take it he’s a real piece of work?”
“He is.” Lord Belshazzar’s attention returned to his writing. “If, by chance, he gets past Lord Cato, don’t hesitate to run from him as fast as you can. That wouldn’t be the cowardly act either, Gwen. It would be the smart one for you.”
I pulled out my phone and started to research the druid. “I’ll make sure to stay clear of him.”
“And keep Crow with you while Chester’s here. Crow is a little faster than Phoenix.”
“Duly noted.” I flopped back onto his bed and held my cell phone above my face, scrolling through information. “Bel?”
“Yes?”
“You are eating tonight. I don’t want to hear you argue, either. You will eat and shut up about it, or I will stuff the food into your mouth.” I sniffed. “And you’ll sleep in bed with me tonight. Am I making myself clear?”
He grunted.
“That’s not a yes.” I had learned his ways, too, in the past four days I’d been sleeping in here. “I want to hear you verbally say it.”
Bel hissed, “Yes.”
“Thank you.” I flipped through another page. “And it wouldn’t hurt if you took a shower before coming to bed. You kind of stink.”
Sniffing from the floor… “I don’t smell that bad.”
I snorted. “Shower, Bel. You’ll take one. You’re fast enough. It won’t take that much time away from your work.”
“Fine.” The beast growled.