I nodded and turned back around to face them, my swords still in my hands. “I’m in the mood to spar for a little while. One of you go to my new quarters and stand guard. The other stay here and work with me. I don’t care which does what. The general knows you’re my royal guard now, and you’ll have no issue entering the royal area. If you do, have them call me.”
Crow turned and started to walk toward the entrance with a pensive expression on his handsome face, Phoenix staying behind to spar with me. Though, the dark-headed man stopped, done deliberating whatever he was thinking about, and asked, “I have one question, your majesty.”
“Whoa. You’re becoming chatty. The horrors.”
He flicked a glare over his shoulder, silent.
My lips twitched. “Ask your question, Crow.”
He cleared his throat again, his questioning quiet. “Were you being obtuse? Or do you really not know why we’re silent?”
“That was two questions.” I swung my swords to keep my arms loose, acting unbothered by his question—the personal nature behind it. “Let me ask you this. Are you two really cousins?”
They were old. Black and white did mix in vampire culture back in their birth years, defying human cultures at that time. But they looked absolutely nothing alike. At all. They didn’t even have the same accents. If I had to guess, one had grown up in Germany, the other in France.
Crow snorted. “You know our parentage is a lie.”
“I lied too.” I tipped my head to the exit. “Go on now, and I’ll promise to never ask you about her.”
He swallowed hard, his throat constricting and releasing with the telling action. He tipped his head in appreciation, and then he marched out of the room, my tablet still in his hand.
I raised my swords up in preparation for a fight but kept my tone honest as I stared at my other guard. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, and my concentration is waning. Don’t go too hard on me.” The man was much more skilled than I was.
Phoenix nodded, mute, and lifted his own sword.
The fight was on.
Our swords hitting, again and again, shattered the relative quiet, silencing the howling wolf outside hidden on the mountain.
Sweat beaded my brow. My feet skipped around debris. The smell of blood was still in the air. My grunts of effort stung my own ears. Occasionally, rocks crumbled down from broken walls, clattering loudly in the background as we moved throughout the damaged chamber.
But my thoughts were still elsewhere.
My parries scarcely registered in my own mind.
Off to my right, a deep, masculine voice, one of sin and sex, commented, “Sloppy, your majesty.”
I risked a glance in that direction.
An Overlord had entered the ceremonial room at some point while I’d been sparring. I hadn’t even noticed, my thoughts too grim and heart-constricting.
I grunted and raised a hand at my guard. He stopped instantly, and I nodded my head in thanks. I turned to the Overlord while my bodyguard discreetly backed away into the shadows—on the opposite wall as the Overlord’s bodyguard (the one who went with him everywhere and usually frightened the shit out of me) so they could both protect us from different angles.
I swung my short swords in small circles, eyeing the man who had interrupted my practice. He was just as delicious as always, but the lord had been avoiding any personal contact with me the past couple of days. Not that I blamed him. I hadn’t been in the right frame of mind—still wasn’t.
With a bored flare, I asked, “Lock yourself out of your room again, Lord Belshazzar?”
He flicked a piece of dirt off the shoulder of his pristine suit, rather annoyed with the flake for having landed there. “No, I had that fixed the night after the Blood Rite.” The night he’d had to spend in my room.
“Hmm.” I kept swinging my swords. “That’s a shame.”
He bent over and started untying his dress shoes, his eyes peeking up at me through the fall of his long, thick black hair. Those ice blue eyes flared in heat, desire aimed straight at me—heady and lethal and delicious. A black eyebrow lifted as he placed one shoe and a sock on a stone next to him, baring one foot. “All you have to do is call me. As long as I’m free, there’s no reason to use a locked room as an excuse.”
My cheeks turned pink, and I glanced at my bodyguard in the shadows. Phoenix was doing a damn good job of pretending not to listen to us. Good man. I turned my attention to the Overlord. My head jerked back an inch in surprise. He was standing right in front of me now, his minty scent and his heat invading my personal space…with both of his shoes and his socks back on the rock across the room. I peered down at his bare toes.
He wiggled them under my inspection.
They were perfect and adorable. Fuck.
I blinked up at him. “What are you doing?”
He lifted his left hand and tucked a lock of my black hair behind my ear, a few stray pieces now hanging around my face from fighting. His blue eyes watched this action closely, and his deep rumble was soft. “You and I are going to spar until you’re no longer thinking about the dead.”
Subtle, he was not.
My mouth snapped shut. I hissed, “Don’t.”
Adelie was off limits.
He shrugged his massive shoulders, continuing to mess with my earlobe. “You’re out of practice from your recent Rest, and I won’t go as easy on you as Phoenix did. And, in the end, all you’ll be thinking about is me.”
I scoffed. “Your ego is as big as this mountain.”
“Bigger.” His plump lips curved up at the corners and his ice blue eyes met mine again as he lowered his hand.
I sighed and lifted my eyes heavenward.
Lord Belshazzar took a step forward and pressed his hard, muscled body against mine. His head dipped low, and he placed his warm, soft lips against the ear he’d been playing with. His breath puffed against my flesh as he murmured casually, “Then we’ll go back to my room and fuck all night long, celebrate your new crown.”
My lower stomach instantly warmed with his heated promise, and my lips twitched as I took a step back from him and raised my swords. “So, this is all in an effort to have my direct attention later?”
“Something like that.” He chuckled and peered over my head. He raised his left hand and snapped his fingers. “Phoenix, give me your sword.”
Nothing happened.
The wolf howled outside.
Lord Belshazzar winked at me, swordless. “The invented cousins have been coveted by every king and queen for the past thousand years for their royal guard. Phoenix and Crow have turned them all down.”
I merely lifted a brow, not lowering my swords or showing my surprise at that fact. Instead, I deadpanned. “It’s obviously my amazingness that brought them running.”
I would figure out why they’d really decided I was the one to throw their hats in with, to turn everyone else down, but say yes to me. There was a reason there—even if it was just boredom. I’d know it soon enough.
“Perhaps that’s true.” Not a real answer from the man. Bel leaned down and pressed his mouth to mine, grinning against my lips when I didn’t falter in my stance, my swords still at the ready. He bit my lower lip with his blunt teeth and tugged on it before releasing my mouth—right as our heartbeats had started to connect, only to separate instantly when he pulled back. The lord stood to his full, intimidating height and snapped his fingers behind him. “Sword, Orin.”
His bodyguard immediately relinquished one of his weapons, pitching it into the air with his vampire speed.
Lord Belshazzar twisted and caught the handle in mid-flight, holding the sword in the air like a striking scorpion in my direction. His grin was wicked in the face of my sour expression. “I won’t play nice, your majesty. But I won’t kill you either. Don’t worry your pretty little head too much.”
I griped, “Thanks, Lord Belshazzar. That’s extraordinarily kind of you.”
The man launched at me.
Shit. Shit. Shiiiit.
I spun, barely missing impalement.
Was that a piece of my hair flying through the air?
What the fuck?
My eyes narrowed, and my grip tightened on my swords. I charged the ancient lord head on.
Our swords clashed together in the silence.
I ducked under his lifted arm, using my smaller stature to advantage. As he spun around to face me, I slashed one sword in the air, my other meeting his sword above our heads.