Page 30

If I’d hoped Raphael might give me a few days in private to acclimate to the subterranean kingdom, I was to be sorely disappointed.

Once I could stand, he ordered me up and off the settee.

We were in a sitting room that was as large as twenty cells in Greymere put together, and an explosion of color.

A velvet green couch, a rich scarlet bedspread, chairs covered in navy fabric.

Like Greymere, there was a distinct lack of windows.

Before forcing me to face the kingdom once more, however, Raphael led me to a bathing chamber.

The room was a marvel of quartz and marble, a large tub at the center filled with steaming water.

I glanced at Raphael.

He left the room, latching the door shut behind him .

Any hesitation was overwhelmingly defeated by the prospect of bathing in warm water. I stripped my dirty traveling clothes as carefully as I could while speeding towards the tub. The heat of the bath engulfed me, and I began scrubbing my body as best I could.

Then my eyes landed on a shelf across from the tub.

At least fifty crystal bottles were nestled closely together. Curious, I got out of the tub, already missing the warm water. Once I removed the stopper from one, I inhaled deeply.

Bergamot.

Rich citrus with a hint of tartness I could feel on my tongue. My heart nearly stopped. It was utterly decadent, and I was hungry for more. I wafted it over, taking the deepest inhale I had in ages. It was the complete opposite of everything I’d been surrounded by for so long.

Sense abandoned me. I snatched half a dozen bottles of perfumed bathing oils and poured them one by one into the tub, watching the water go from light blue to navy to violet.

Different notes rubbed against my senses, each of them exotic and luxurious, each of them a world apart from vampires and darkness and blood.

Part of me longed to dive under the water and drink them until I drowned a happy, aromatic death.

I savored the cacophony of perfumes and soaked myself, wishing I could stay forever.

Sense eventually won out, and when my skin wrinkled to the point I looked like a proper crone, I forced myself to rise from the tub.

Water slid away, steam wrapping around me as I found a fluffy white towel on the rack to dry myself with.

My dirty clothes lay in a pile on the floor, utterly unappealing compared to the luxury of the towel.

A neatly folded assortment of fabric I hadn’t noticed before, however, sat on a shelf beyond the tub. A cinched tunic and trousers, like those for riding.

I finished drying and wrung my hair with my hands.

My fingers tried and failed to comb my black hair into a semblance of order.

The tunic slipped over my shoulders easily, a loose style that didn’t require much cinching.

I tied the embroidered belt with my deck over it and sourced my remaining defenses from my pockets.

The trousers didn’t offer a spot for the cuffs.

I considered switching back, but the clothes were in tatters.

I hesitated and reburied the broken shackles, resolving to figure it out later.

There was a large mirror covering one wall, and I wiped my fingers against the steamed-over glass to take a look.

My skin was pink from the heat of the bath. My hair had a shine to it from the water and the oils. The clothes didn’t quite fit, the neck a bit too wide for my narrow shoulders, the trousers requiring me to pull the ties tight, but I looked more normal than I had in ages.

A knock sounded on the door. Raphael . I swallowed. I couldn’t hide here forever.

I opened the door.

Raphael had his mouth open, as if he’d been about to say something, but as the steam flew out around me, his mouth shut, and he wrinkled his nose .

Given that even to my own nose I had a cloying amount of scents strewn on me, it was probably painful for a vampire to be near me. Well, good.

“You were always complaining I smelled,” I reminded him.

“Now you don’t smell like yourself at all,” he said with what bordered on a petulant sigh.

Wasn’t that the entire point? Guilt pricked at me all the same.

I supposed I should feel bad about wasting all the perfume.

Yes, it had been nice to imagine a life where I was surrounded by decadence, but that’s not what I was meant for.

I was a mortal driven to seek refuge in the Vampire Kingdom. I didn’t deserve nice things like this.

“I’ll be more mindful,” I murmured, resolving to not take such things again. I looked at the floor. Fancy bath oils weren’t for girls like me, anyway.

“If you like it, use it all,” he replied in an instant. “Just perhaps… not all at once.”

I lifted my gaze and gave Raphael a tentative smile. He nodded, approving of something he saw in me.

“What now?” I asked.

“Now we let Amalthea find us.”

Amalthea .

I repeated the lyrical name in my mind as we walked through the hallways. Amalthea . It was an elegant name. A lady’s name. The name of Raphael’s lady? Before, it would never have occurred to me that vampires could take lovers. Now, I was consumed by the thought of Raphael belonging to another.

The thought had never crossed my mind.

My gut twisted.

“Something wrong?” Raphael asked as I fell behind a step.

I hurried to catch up. Awful clenching in my stomach aside, I didn’t dare fall away from the protection of the vampire king.

“No, no. I was just thinking perhaps I could, um, not go to meet this vampire Amalthea.”

Raphael chuckled. “Amalthea’s not a vampire.”

I stumbled.

“She’s not?”

“Damerel is home to more than just vampires. If it wasn’t, we would starve.”

That was true, but it didn’t make me feel better. Obviously there were humans the vampires fed on, but just by the way Raphael spoke of her, I knew there was more to this Amalthea. “So she’s a void, like me?”

“Amalthea is a witch.”

A witch? In the Vampire Kingdom? All I could do was blink in surprise as Raphael threw open a massive wooden door.

Gone were the carpeted palace halls, replaced by packed dirt.

The cavern was large and mostly empty, with a weapons rack at either end of the space, and a few benches.

In the center was a woman. Nobility of some kind, judging by her posture and finery.

“Amalthea,” Raphael said in greeting.

“Raphael,” she replied, without any of the deference that should have come from speaking to a king. “You know, just because I knew you’d be here didn’t mean I knew when. I’ve been waiting for half a day. And it’s so dusty here. You might have arranged a luncheon for this introduction.”

Raphael shrugged. “Then you should have found us at luncheon.”

The witch blew out an exasperated breath. “You know that’s not how it works. I saw us here .”

I at once understood why Amalthea, a witch, was in the Vampire Kingdom.

Amalthea wasn’t just a witch.

She was an oracle.