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“And sometimes certainties.” I motioned to the dagger again. “Do it, if you’re willing. Pledge yourself to Laurent.”

He reached down and grasped the dagger. He pulled, but the blade wouldn’t budge. Bending, I grasped the hilt over his hand and yanked the blade free. We rose together, heads lifting and gazes colliding.

He froze, his face inches from mine. His eyes dipped to my mouth.

I released the blade and straightened. Stepped back and cleared my throat. “Get on with it, then.”

He pushed to his feet. Faint color touched his cheekbones as he grasped the blade until blood seeped between his knuckles. “I pledge my complete loyalty to Laurent, King of Nor Doru and Vessel of the Sacred Blood. I vow to be at his service, for whatever he requires. I swear it on my blood.”

“Good.” I extended my hand. When he stared blankly, I said, “The dagger, Jordan.”

“Oh.” He flushed. “Right.” He handed it over, and I wiped the blade on my sleeve. His eyes followed the movement. “You…” His gaze bounced to mine, and his flushed deepened. “You’ll stain your jacket.”

“I’m a vampire. I’m used to blood. And you can drop the act.”

He startled. A line appeared between his brows. “Act?”

The anger I’d felt at the start of our conversation flooded back. I sheathed the dagger. “You pretended to be afraid of me. Then you pretended to be my friend. You pretended to—” I snapped my mouth shut, my nape heating as an odd emotion twisted through me. It was both familiar and alien. Something akin to embarrassment, maybe. Which was ridiculous. I had nothing to be embarrassed about with him. I didn’t even like him. I looked away and cleared my throat. “You pretended,” I said finally. “I don’t like being manipulated.” I started for the door.

“Varick.”

I stopped and looked over my shoulder.

For a moment, he just stared. Then he swallowed. “One of the first things a mage learns is that magic demands balance. Always. In everything. That was Avenor’s fatal mistake. He thought he could invite evil into his land and then simply remake whatever damage the darkness caused. It doesn’t work that way.” Jordan lowered his gaze, and the color in his cheeks returned as he seemed to gather his thoughts. He looked at me, and his voice went low. “When magic gives great power, it always demands an equal measure of sacrifice. So often, the things we want most are the things we can’t have.”

Before I could respond, he moved past me, trailing the scent of leaves and rain. He stopped at the door. Hand on the latch, he turned his head just enough for me to see one downcast eye. “It was never an act. I hope you’ll believe me one day. When you’re ready to look.”

He left.

For a long time, I just stood there. I didn’t want to look. I tried not to. But I lost the battle.

I looked at the painting.

It wasn’t night-blooming roses. I drifted closer, trying to make it out. A few feet away, I stopped. The painting was amateurish. Uninspiring. But the scene it depicted was as crisp and bright as sunlight on freshly fallen snow.

The inside of a tower room, gray and desolate—except for a window that revealed the life and color outside.

Chapter Eleven

GIVEN

“Is everything all right, baby?”

I lifted my head from the rolls of bandages in my lap as Laurent gave Varick a discerning look across the bedchamber’s sitting area.

Heat snaked through me—something that never failed to happen every time Laurent said “baby” to his general. I suspected my husband knew this. Laurent was no mind reader. But in matters of sex, he didn’t need to be. He seemed to know exactly where to press. Precisely what to say. No matter how deeply I buried my desires, he effortlessly dug them up, showed them to me, and made me beg for more revelations.

Varick turned from where he’d stood at the mantel since he returned from the library an hour ago. By unspoken agreement, Laurent and I had left him to his thoughts when he entered the bedchamber looking tense and brooding.

The brooding look was gone, replaced with an intensity that added shivers to the heat under my skin.

“I think we should fuck,” Varick said bluntly. “The three of us.”

“Now?” I asked, my voice breathless and uncertain. I wasn’t unenthusiastic. Quite the opposite. But the events of the day had taken a toll. We were all exhausted. The Council wanted to meet first thing in the morning. Jordan had just told me I possessed the power of creation.

Varick’s golden eyes pinned me in place. “Can you think of a better time?”

“Well—”