Page 27

Snowfall stalled our trip.

We completed two days’s journey before the snow began. This late in spring? A bad omen. A sign something was amiss.

Like a human willingly going to the Vampire Kingdom.

Temporarily, at least. Raphael insisted it would be safe to rest there for at least a few days.

I wasn’t fond of the plan by any means, but I needed supplies.

I’d used almost all the cards available and had only a few coins left.

Going to the Vampire Kingdom was terrifying, but the promise of a new life where no one knew me—or wanted me dead—was enticing enough to make me look past it.

And while I had reservations about being in the home of other vampires, a part of me trusted Raphael would be true to his word and keep me safe.

With the Black Grimoire in our possession—and no more disguise cards—Raphael refused to consider going near any human settlement.

Which presented a problem, since unlike the vampire, I was decidedly not impervious to the cold.

I’d used the enchanted warmth card on my cloak days before, when the cold had first settled around us, but its magic was waning.

Fortunately, one of the cards I’d traded for in the first village had been a shelter card.

Unfortunately, the “shelter” that sprang from the enchantment wasn’t the inn-sized tent promised in the picture. It was a tent, with a ceiling maybe two feet tall, twice as wide, and four times as long. A threadbare folded blanket appeared at its center.

It was a glorified sleeping bag.

“That d-dealer ripped me off,” I groused between chattering teeth. “We’ll ha-have to find an inn. Or at least a h-house.” It was so cold my fingers were turning an even starker white. I didn’t care who Raphael had to thrall to get us somewhere warm.

“This will be fine,” Raphael said. “The storm doesn’t seem too bad. It should break overnight.”

I hated that I recognized by the tone of his voice there’d be no arguing. Unwilling to stay out in the cold a minute longer, I slid into the tent. It was hardly better than being outside, except there was no snow in the tent .

I’d used up all the fire cards in the temple and didn’t stand a chance of making a flame without magic.

I curled up, pressing my body as close together as possible.

Whatever could be said about Greymere, it had never been cold like this.

In fact, growing up as I had, I’d never known cold like this at all.

Any chill that permeated the great halls was quickly chased off with a heating spell.

I clutched the tattered blanket closer. It was a poor substitute for real warmth.

The cold made it hard to think or feel. I had to resign myself to the fact it would be a long night. But I’d survive it. Probably. I shut my eyes and prepared to rest.

Then the entrance of the tent jostled.

My eyes flew open as Raphael moved through the small entrance.

“What are you d-doing?”

“You’ll hardly avoid freezing to death with this tent alone.”

I blinked at him, and in the time it took my ice-addled brain to process, he had slid beside me in the minuscule tent. His arm pinned me down, his body curved around my back. The thin blanket of my cloak was the only barrier between us.

“I’ll b-be okay,” I protested, even as I felt some of the chill ease. Vampires didn’t produce quite as much body heat as a normal human, or so I suspected. It had been so long since I’d pressed myself against another human, I struggled to recall.

“Humans. So delicate.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant the fact I was weak to the cold or that I was objecting to huddling for warmth with a vampire. I made a sound with the back of my throat and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to fall asleep.

It was not forthcoming. Even with Raphael and the tent, I couldn’t stop shivering.

“You’re still too cold.”

“I’m f-fine.”

He snorted. “I’ve worked too hard to keep you alive to let some snow destroy you, dove.”

He reached for the blankets, and I yelped a protest. But my half-frozen fingers clutching the blanket were no match for Raphael, who with a deftness that shouldn’t have been possible, maneuvered himself under the thin fabric.

The barrier was gone.

“This is inap-p-propriate,” I chattered. It was an utterly inane protest, but it was the only thing my iced-over brain could think of to try to articulate that this should not be happening .

“You freed a vampire from the most secure prison in the Witch Kingdom and stole a sacred grimoire from a goddess’s temple, and now you expect me to believe you’re worried about propriety?”

“Yes.” It was petulant. It was my only defense against the foreign sensations curling around my center.

I’d never had this awareness before, not the way I’d felt since when Raphael fed on me in the temple.

It was like my eyes had opened to an entire world, and I was desperate to keep my eyes shut because it was a vampire opening my eyes to that world.

The past few days’s ride had been agony. While I’d once reveled in the admission Raphael made about our riding impacting him, now that I understood it intimately, there was no revelry, only shame.

“Too bad, Samara. We both know you’re a survivor first. And that’s all this is—survival.” His words were soft steel, each one a counter to the arguments in my head.

The trouble was, it didn’t feel like survival.

Survival was unpleasant and brutal. It was catching rats and having my scraps of food spat in.

It was making myself small and staying unnoticed.

It was serving a sentence for a crime I didn’t commit.

It was taking blows to prove I was worthy of the gods’s grace.

Whatever survival was, it wasn’t the warm embrace of a male and bone-deep awareness that, against all odds, I was safe. Because no matter what predator lurked in the woods, there was none worse than the one in bed with me. And this one was devoted to keeping me safe—for now, anyway.

Every spot Raphael touched me felt like a brand, his skin scalding me.

He was so godsdamned large . The tent wasn’t big to begin with, but with him inside, there seemed to be no space that wasn’t part of him.

His arm was heavy across my stomach. He didn’t deliberately press against me, but it was only natural our legs brushed, the backs of my thighs pressed against the tree trunks he called legs.

Hard, firm muscle. A protective barrier from the chill.

The spice of his scent filled the air, and it immediately brought me back to the temple.

To the way he’d been so close against me when he’d bit my neck.

I tried to despise the memory, but my body remembered a very different story.

Even in the cold, heat rose between my legs that had me squeezing my thighs and willing my thoughts to change, burying my nose in the blankets to stifle the scent.

But magic-produced blankets had no smell of their own.

When Raphael sighed in exasperation, his breath tickled the back of my neck. Right over the spot he’d bitten.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I suggest you stop and just sleep.”

My eyes flew open.

How did he know?

“I’m not thinking anything,” I hissed, noting my teeth no longer chattered.

I felt, more than heard, the rumble of his chuckle. “Now, we both know you’re not capable of having less than ten thoughts in a second, Samara.”

“Well, I’m not having any right now.”

“I can scent the truth.” His whispered words sent a shiver down my spine—and not from the cold.

“You… you can smell when someone is telling the truth? ”

He chuckled, a low, strained sound. “I can scent the evidence from you that your thoughts are a bit, let’s say, amorous.”

I flushed, my cheeks suddenly warm against the frigid air. “There’s nothing to scent.” Dear gods, please let there be nothing to scent . I squeezed my thighs, trying to will my desire away. In doing so, I accidentally brushed closer to Raphael, something moving against my back.

My cheeks weren’t just warm. They were blazing.

“If it makes you feel better, you’re not the only one affected.” There was that low, strained chuckle again.

“There’s nothing to scent, I told you. Your nose must be defective.”

“There’s not a part of me that’s defective, I assure you. Though I do love how easily you lie,” he mused. “Not a talent I ever acquired.”

“You’ve probably never had to.” I wasn’t sure why I said it. The cold, the exhaustion, the proximity where I wasn’t meeting his gaze. Or just because I didn’t want to discuss my other thoughts any further.

“There’ve been times I wanted to,” Raphael admitted. “But vampires aren’t capable of telling untruths.”

I shifted slightly at his answer and immediately regretted it. Because it was obvious, I wasn’t the only one having thoughts in the tent.

“You expect me to believe vampires are always honest?” I countered, trying to move the conversation past any chance to mention we both knew I’d just felt his erection press into me.

“Not hardly. We merely cannot tell untruths, and that’s not the same thing. In the vampire courts, twisting words is a great game, though I can’t say it’s one I care for.”

Not unlike the courts of King Vaughn, then. My mother had been a master at the game—until she’d lost grievously.

“But you lie when you thrall people. You tell them they see things that aren’t there.”

“That’s different. It’s less a lie and more of a command on the mind.”

Some good that was, then. Instead of trying to poke holes in the logic of vampire magic, I asked, “What’s Damerel like?”

“Damerel sits inside the Western Vampire Kingdom. It’s—”

“Wait.” Another jerk before I could stop myself, and a loosening of breath from Raphael I wanted to drink in even though I made myself ignore it and the accompanying pulse at my back. “What do you mean Western Vampire Kingdom?”

“There are three realms ruled by vampires,” Raphael explained.

He didn’t seem surprised I wasn’t aware of this.

“The North, the West, and the South. The West, seated at Damerel, is the strongest. The South is the most populous and richest. The North is… I suppose unusual is the most succinct way to describe it. ”

I didn’t want succinct, but I forced myself to process what he’d said. Multiple Vampire Kingdoms. I’d never considered it.

“Damerel,” he continued, “is inside a mountain. Its walls are carved from the mountain stone itself, allowing people to shelter themselves from the sun. It could be considered a palace from that view, but it’s the size of a city, with three layers.

The base is the common folk, then the merchants and commerce levels, and then the seat of the Crown, where the aristocrats and king live. ”

We’d be going to the base of a mountain. I tried to imagine it but came up empty; all I could picture was Greymere. It was hard to read Raphael’s tone. He described the mountain-city in neutral terms. There wasn’t any longing in his voice, nor any contempt.

“Is it home?”

There was a long pause. So long I wondered if perhaps the vampire had gone to sleep. But then—

“I confess to you, I think I’ve forgotten the meaning of the word.”

Perhaps the vampire and I were more alike than I’d realized.