“She’s not met all the requirements to become queen just yet,” he snaps out, sweeping from the room with his entourage behind him. They’ll take the gold and test it. Honestly, if I didn’t have Vyce, Sorrow, and Wolfe looking out for me, I’d be worried they’d find some way to fuck me over. Clearly, the king is pissed.
“So today is your day, huh?” I ask, but Wolfe doesn’t even so much as smile at me. He just stands there and looks me over in the purple dress. But he can’t hide the approval in his eyes. Not even close.
“You figured out our schedule, good for you,” he grumbles, looking me up and down and then holding out an arm. It takes me a moment to realize he’s actually offering to take me downstairs for dinner.
Vamps might get up at night, but our first meal of the day is still ‘dinner’, both in the timing and the food choices. Usually something meaty—you’re not going to find a vegetarian vampire. Like, never. Honestly, pretty sure our people can’t survive without meat.
“So we’re fucking sometime in the next twenty-four hours?” I ask, but Wolfe doesn’t even bother to look at me, just keeps walking with his face forward, those gray eyes stone-cold.
“Keep your head. If you think the king is upset about a dhampir stepping forward to claim the crown then you haven’t seen the royals.” Wolfe leads me down the curving staircase. We could theoretically leap over the railing and drop straight to the bottom floor, land in a crouch and walk away like it’s nothing. But it isn’t proper etiquette, so down a zillion floors we’ll walk, our footsteps echoing loudly around the empty space.
But I have no doubt we’re being watched.
“So you guys are keeping me alive...because you need me to have your baby?” I ask and Wolfe snorts. I take that as a yes. “I’ve been alone most of my life, so I’m damn good at talking to myself. You can ignore me all you want and I’ll just keep going.”
“I’m sorry,” Wolfe says, but his voice is ice-cold. He glances down at me, and I can’t get a read on his facial expression. “I spent a lot of time alone, too. Until I was paired with Sorrow and Vyce, even House Stiltz didn’t hold a lot of joy for me.”
Wolfe stops talking, leading me down the stairs while I gape up at him. Not only is he ridiculously tall, but he walks with his spine straight, shoulders back. I bet it kills the other vamps, to see a turned vampire with this much confidence.
“Did you just open up to me?” I ask, but he ignores me again, waiting until we get to the bottom floor before he says anything else.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he grumbles, waiting for a human servant in a long, white dress to approach and lead us through the massive manor to the formal dining room.
Nobody speaks when we arrive in the open double doors, gold chandeliers dripping over the table, casting strange shadows on the myriad faces that line the long rectangular table. Nobody’s breathing, nobody’s moving. On the far end, the king throws daggers at me with his eyes. At any moment, one of the fifty royals in this room could explode from their chair and make a play at me. But as we stand there, waiting for a cue from the king, I notice that after they get a nice long look at me, most of their gazes move over to Wolfe.
They’re intimidated.
And well they should be.
I saw this motherfucker blast holes in a hellhound with a revolver in either one of his huge hands.
“Have a seat,” the king says, but he doesn’t bother to introduce me or explain my presence. Everyone knows why I’m here. But I still have two days to go, two more rooms of straw to change into gold, and I have to pass all the tests his alchemists put my finished products through.
I’m not worried.
Rumpel Stiltz’ kin...they’ve got my back.
We sit down on the king’s right side, waiting for the human servants to move into the room and start laying out the food. Chatter starts up slowly around us, voices pitched low enough that I can’t hear. Doesn’t matter. I can tell by the hostile-but-hopeful vibe in the room that everyone here thinks I’m on my way to an early death. They don’t like me, but they’re not going to react to me...not yet. Maybe if I make it to the coronation then they’ll all start trying to murder me? Vamps can be super creative when it comes to death. One time, I saw a guy kill another guy with a Kleenex box. Basically, sharp cardboard corner, lots of force, physics… Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Inventive though, very inventive.
“The hellhounds...those were from a hit?” Wolfe asks, leaning down to put his mouth near my ear. Everyone else is doing it, too, having these private sorts of conversation. I have to wonder if I’m not the only one wishing my dinner partner would bend down a little more and bite into my throat.
“Yep. Few weeks ago. King’s orders.” Wolfe listens to what I have to say and sits back up. The king hears me, too, I think, but he pretends not to notice, working his way through his food and then standing up from his chair without a word. He stalks from the room like a spoiled child. I resist the urge to flip him off behind his back; people have been killed for less. Vampires have been killed for shit like that, and I don’t even have the proper bloodline to back me up.
“If he’s going to send you on jobs like that, he should give you the proper training to defend yourself when you get backlash.”
I shrug, and I don’t eat a goddamn bite of my food. Hello, poison. But I’ve got enough of Vyce’s blood in my tummy to hold me over for now.
“How much training have you had?” Wolfe asks, reaching down to take my chin in his. He turns my face to look at him. Normally, I’d punch a guy for less, but his touch is gentle and his expression is earnest.
“Uh, self-taught?” I ask and from the way he wrinkles his face, I can tell he’s pissed.
“You’ve never had formal self-defense training? Weapons training? Magic?” I shrug and Wolfe curses under his breath. He looks like he wants to punch a bitch. Probably the king. And maybe most of the royals in the room.
After a respectable amount of time passes, Wolfe stands up and offers me his arm again. I won’t be allowed to leave the castle grounds, but surely I’m not going to be confined to my room all night?
As if he can sense the question brewing in my mind, Wolfe takes me into the back gardens instead. Guards follow us at a safe distance, but I’m not worried about them, not with Wolfe here. Seems strange that I could have such confidence in a man I barely know, but the thing is, I recognize this guy’s type. I know what he’s all about. He does things by the book. Whether it’s the same book that I follow or not, doesn’t matter. The rules of this contract state that one of these three men have to give me a baby, and that they’ll take it to raise. In order for that to happen, he’ll keep me safe. I can trust in that, at least. And selfish motivations, those I understand.
“Is Sorrow coming tomorrow night then?” I ask, but then I hear a laugh, echoing out from the trees at the far end of the walkway. In a second, Sorrow’s just there, hopping down from the branches and landing with a noisy thud on the cobblestones.
“Vyce got lucky last night. Wolfe and I had business to wrap up so we could be free to spend more time with you.” He grins at me and I have to wonder if, like Vyce, he snuck onto House Verenim grounds or if he’s on official ‘liaison’ business for House Stiltz again. “You did get lucky, didn’t you?” he repeats, and a second later, Vyce is strolling out from the shadows near the rose garden and pausing in a beam of silver moonlight like he’s been there all along.
“I sure did,” Vyce says, looking me over in the purple dress in a way that says he clearly appreciates my choice of outfit. “Cameron and I had an amazing time. We even managed to check off all our initial contractual obligations, didn’t we?”