Author: Kalayna Price

“Good. Now sit down or get out,” Tatius said. Then he turned back to me. “Where were we?”

He leaned forward, his mouth parted. A fluttering sensation erupted in my stomach, not all of it fear. His breath danced over my pulse, and the flutters turned frantic—I wanted him to bite me.

No.

What was I thinking? I didn’t want him to bite me. But Tiffany would have. And I had her memories.

Her need, her addiction, whirled in my mind, ignited my skin. Blunt human teeth grazed the flesh over my pulse, and I gasped. It would feel good. I didn’t need Tiffany’s memories to tell me that. I had personal experience.

Tatius’s fangs pressed against my throat, not yet piercing the vein. Fire flushed my skin and a gasp escaped my lips.

The sound made him chuckle, his amusement rumbling against my body where we touched.

I gritted my teeth, willing my reactions silent, but as his hand played across my stomach, trailed down to cup my hip, my breath hitched. My skin felt hyper-sensitive, overly aware of the heat of his body. He nicked my throat, not actually biting, and I trembled.

I couldn’t take anymore.

“If you’re going to bite me, get it over with.” My voice sounded thick, breathless in my ears, but Tatius went still. My words were apparently not what he expected.

“So much spirit,” he whispered. Then he stopped playing, and his fangs slid into my throat.

A flash of pain shot through me, then there was only the liquid heat of his mouth. A heat that expanded, spread, and spiraled to my center, building into a giddy current. Electricity ignited inside me, rushing through my body, reducing the world to static and heat. A wave of pleasure crashed through me, knocked my knees out from under me. There was no time to recover as a second and then third wave crashed.

Tatius pulled back, and I sagged in his arms. Someone was breathing hard, gasping for breath. It was me. I swallowed, trying to focus my blinking eyes, but nothing felt real. Nothing but the warm arms around my waist, the broad chest against my cheek. A rumble built in my chest, and I realized I was purring.

Well, why wouldn’t I be? I felt good, content. I snuggled against the chest cradling me. Hadn’t I been panicked earlier?

It seemed like I had, but it must not have been important. I drew in a deep breath, cataloguing the base scent of the man holding me.

Stone dust. Hot metal. Sea Salt.

I blinked. I didn’t know those scents. At least not as belonging to anyone I trusted. My head snapped back, and I wiggled in Tatius’s arms, inching away from his chest. I stepped back, still caught in his arms, and it was those arms that kept me standing when my knees wobbled. I swallowed and concentrated on standing upright. Just standing on my own would be an accomplishment.

“Let go,” I whispered.

He looked at me, just looked at me, his green eyes sparkling with amusement. “You’ll fall.”

“Let go.”

He did.

My legs buckled, refusing to support my weight, and I collapsed to my knees. Tatius, not touching me, moved with me, and I realized my fingers were tangled in his mesh shirt.

I didn’t remember grabbing him. Forcing my stiff fingers to uncurl, I dropped my arms to the floor. I stayed like that a moment, on all fours, on the floor, just breathing. Then I pushed to my feet. My legs wobbled, but held my weight.

Tatius watched me, his green-eyed gaze blistering, searing my skin until a flush crawled to my cheeks. What’s wrong with me? I needed to be more on the ball than this. One little bite and I turn into a simpering idiot? Hell no.

I lifted my chin and I looked around. Nathanial was on the couch again, but his gaze was on the floor. He didn’t look up.

Didn’t look at me.

I didn’t blame him.

“Happy now?” I asked Tatius, forcing every last bit of bravado hiding in my body into my voice.

He didn’t look fooled as he smiled down at me. “Not yet. But closer.” His arm wrapped around my waist, and he turned me, tucking me against his hip so we were standing side by side. “You’ll be on my arm tonight. Hermit, are you coming? We have an appointment with the Collector.”

Nathanial’s head shot up. I’d seen him rage once before, and it had been a terrifying thing to behold. It was no less frightening to see his full lips thinned in anger, his gray eyes wide and hurt. He stared at me and I was the one to drop my gaze this time.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Tatius chided. “We will present a unified front, with all of my council backing the fact my companion had nothing to do with the albino’s demise.”

“Your companion?” Nathanial’s words were hardly more than a broken scratching sound issuing from his throat. He looked at Tatius. The rage had thinned in his face, a sharp edge of fear taking its place. I’d seen similar expressions on animals before. The question in their eyes wasn’t an indication they were beaten—it was the panic of being backed into a corner. A cornered animal was deadly.

Tatius stroked my hair. “Yes, my companion.”

A statement. No question. No room to argue.

I tried to push free. “No.”

He cocked a dyed eyebrow. “No? My dear, you get no say in this matter. You are a novelty, a child, a commodity. And now you are mine.”

Chapter Seven

His?

Like hell. I didn’t belong to anyone. Least of all to Tatius.

My effort to detangle myself from Tatius’s arms redoubled, and Nathanial was suddenly in the space before us. I hadn’t seen him move, hadn’t heard him. His hand shot out, ripping me from Tatius’s grasp, pulling me behind him.

My legs still weren’t steady, and I stumbled, falling to my knees. I rolled with it, letting the momentum turn me. Then I shot back to my feet. My vision filled with black dots. That didn’t stop me. I slid into a defensive crouch, my fists clenching. One heartbeat pounded behind my blind eyes.

Two.

I couldn’t hear the fight. Couldn’t tell who was winning.

The darkness gave way to a gray washed world. I caught a glimpse of Nathanial’s back, his hands locked with Tatius’s as the two of them grappled. The gray parted. Nathanial crumpled to his knees, his arms going slack.

Shsssk. The dagger slid from Tatius’s thigh hilt.

Nathanial didn’t move. Didn’t twitch.

The dagger angled toward his throat, and I threw myself forward, knocking Nathanial to the floor. I expected pain to slice through my back, across my unprotected shoulders. It didn’t. I chanced a glance up.

Tatius glared down at me, his arms crossed over his broad chest and the dagger tapping his forearm. “You’re both fools. Get up.”

Nathanial rose smoothly before turning and offering me a hand. I wouldn’t normally have accepted the help, but it had been a hell of a night. I took his hand, glad for it as I realized I was shaking again.

“Come,” Tatius said, holding out his arm for me to take.

Apparently we were picking back up where we were before Nathanial’s outburst.

“No,” Nathanial stepped in front of me, blocking me from Tatius’s sight with his own body. “No. She is my companion. I brought her here in good faith. She will not be presented on your arm.”

I could just make out Tatius around Nathanial’s shoulder.

He shook his head, his expression turning dark. He lifted the blade, and it glimmered in the candlelight. The orange glow made the surface look like it was already coated in blood.

“Is that the position you are choosing to take, Hermit?”

The threat was clear in his voice, and if not his voice, then in the glinting blade.

Nathanial spun. His arms locked around my waist and lifted me from the floor in one movement. I gasped as the ceiling rushed toward us and he hugged me tighter to his chest.

“Shhhh,” he hissed in my ear.

I held my breath, willing my heart to stop its deafening banging. It didn’t obey. I caught my reflection in a mirror. I hated the frightened look carved across my face, my too wide eyes. My reflection looked away. I blinked. What the—?

There was no mirror.

Doppelgangers hung in the air around us, each an exact copy of Nathanial and me. How?

Nathanial. One of his powers was to create illusions. He used it to make himself invisible when he flew, and once he’d changed my appearance, but I’d never realized he could do anything so… elaborate.

Half a dozen doppelgangers filled the small room. The Kitacopies all looked stricken as they stared at each other. Two red dots decorated each of their throats. The bite—Tatius hadn’t closed it. The Nathanial-copies stared at Tatius, brows creased with strain, pupils expanded until their gray irises were eradicated.

“This is foolish, Nate,” Tatius said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And deadly.”

He sounded at ease, bored even, as his gaze moved over the half dozen copies, but his pupils had also expanded, only the thinnest sliver of green left.

Nate? It was a very un-Nathanial like nickname. Was Tatius’s use of the nickname supposed to engender trust? To remind Nathanial of some shared past—or possibly to remind himself?

Nathanial floated us toward the door as the doppelgangers dashed in front of us. They dipped as they flew, switching places like a street magician’s sleight of hand trick. Which cup is the quarter under? Which Nathanial and Kita are real? The audience rarely guessed correctly, and Nathanial was more than a street magician—he was an old vampire with a gift for illusion.

But Tatius was ancient.

We glided toward the door, invisible, undetectable. The doppelgangers were mere distractions. They darted closer to Tatius, feigning attacks, drawing his attention. We couldn’t fight Tatius and win—that had already been proven. But maybe we could still run.

Under my hands, I felt the strain tingling along Nathanial’s skin, the tension stiffening his shoulders. He’d told me once that he couldn’t maintain a moving illusion more than a few feet. We were now yards from the darting copies of ourselves.

One of the feigned attackers dashed at Tatius’s back. Tatius spun, his dagger disappearing into the fake Nathanial’s chest.