Page 57

“You’re avoiding me.”

I shrieked and nearly dropped my towel. When I’d entered the bathing chamber, my room had been empty.

Now, Raphael was lounging on my bed, his hands tucked behind his head, flexing his biceps in the confines of his white shirt.

His ankles were crossed, boots resting on the coverlet in a way that would have earned me an ear-ringing lecture from my mother.

In contrast, I was naked, save for the towel clutched perilously in one hand.

“Expecting privacy in my own room hardly counts as avoiding you,” I snapped.

Anger was good. Anger that let me cover the flush I felt encroaching on every inch of my body as Raphael arched a single eyebrow at me.

The anger wasn’t about Raphael in the room—it was about the mutilated corpse I’d seen yesterday.

But having him here in my space made it impossible to wall away those emotions, so I chose to focus on the immediate ones that made my blood roar, not the memory.

Part of me wondered, Did he like what he saw? Now that I’d put on some fat and muscle, turning into a woman more substantial than the skin-and-bones waif he’d met in Greymere…

I tightened my mental shields and kicked the thought aside. That was the trouble with kissing vampire kings who looked like Raphael. You started to wonder if your body was pleasing rather than when you’d outlive your usefulness and would be abandoned once more.

“You walked in on me wearing a towel,” he replied when he’d completed his appraisal. “I’d argue returning the favor should be expected.”

Unfortunately, he finished his a second before I finished mine, and the curve of his lips let me know he was aware I’d been looking too.

I skirted the room to get to the changing screen, where my dress was perched.

“I’d rather you leave now.”

“Eventually,” he repeated .

No one made the vampire king do a single thing he didn’t want to.

I blew out a breath of frustration. Either I grabbed my dress and marched across the room again to change in the bathing room with my tail between my legs, or I got out of my now-soaked towel and dressed in the same room as Raphael.

Even he can’t see through solid objects , I chided myself. Still, it felt utterly intimate to be changing clothes with Raphael in the room. I threw the dress on and walked out from the screen so I could cross my arms over my chest and tell Raphael what I thought of him camping on my bed.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

“Amalthea mentioned you saw something unpleasant yesterday.”

My fingers pressed harder into the flesh of my upper arms. The girl, massacred by a careless vampire.

I didn’t even know her name. Her killer probably didn’t either.

The scene where we’d found her body replayed over and over in my mind, but it was like I was a distant viewer.

I saw it in my waking hours, and during what little sleep I’d had last night, I replayed a scenario where I’d done something different in the den and saved her.

I failed in each one.

“I didn’t feel it, you know,” Raphael continued. “I would have come if I’d felt it, but there wasn’t even a ripple. It’s impressive your shield didn’t slip even when dealing with such a shock. You’ve been a quick study in learning to secure your emotions.”

He called it impressive, yet neither of us was impressed.

For me, it made sense. I’d spent my entire life suppressing my feelings in front of others, and in turn, to myself.

And I’d had extra motivation to block out Raphael.

Now that I planned to take the grimoire once I finished using his resources to translate it, it was all the more important I hid my true feelings.

As exposed as I’d felt with only my towel for modesty, I felt completely exposed at the thought of Raphael feeling my emotions.

“And that’s what bothers you. The fact you couldn’t feel my emotions. Not that an innocent girl was mutilated by one of your citizens.”

Raphael made no denial. “These things happen. You are my priority, not some random human who signed up as a donor.”

Because in whatever moral compass he followed, the humans didn’t matter. I did. Knowing whether I was upset was of paramount importance. But the fact I was upset one of my kind was killed by one of his meant nothing.

Titus was right.

“Fine,” I snarled, my fingers curling into fists. “You want to know my emotions? Here.”

They unfurled inside me. I hadn’t simply locked them away from Raphael, but myself.

Now, I let it all pour out of me. The anger.

The disgust. The hatred for the one who had maimed that girl was overwhelming.

I despised them all for being complicit.

The ones who walked by. The ones who would let whatever vampire feed again.

The ones who stole children, the ones who hurled them into ravines for their own gain.

The hatred I’d known since childhood, the memories that had tormented me for years—I unleashed them too.

Raphael recoiled, just slightly, as each one slammed into him.

The fear I felt walking around the halls of Damerel.

The helplessness when I saw her body.

The unending hatred for vampires.

And then, when they’d all landed true, I shoved my mental walls high, reeling back my errant emotions until they were tucked away in a tidy corner, the same place I put all the inconvenient feelings that got between me and survival.

Raphael looked to the other edge of the room, his gaze distant.

“Well?” I demanded, dissatisfied by the way he just sat there. “Did that please you? Did that voyeuristic look at my inner feelings satisfy your curiosity?”

Raphael didn’t turn to look at me. Instead, with that terrifying, preternatural speed, he simply moved from the bed to the space in front of me in the time it took me to blink.

“I want you to be safe,” he hissed. “I don’t crave your fear out of some perverse desire to make sure you realize exactly how breakable you are, but to be there at your side so no one else does so.”

I flinched. Breakable . Vampires couldn’t lie. That’s how he saw me.

Most days it was how I saw myself. Weak, breakable, pathetic.

It made me scared. Made me cower around those stronger to appease them.

Yet somehow, though I was no stronger than any other void, when Raphael said it, I didn’t feel like I was confronted with a truth.

I felt like I was presented with an injustice, and it made me furious.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you slipped out without an escort.

” His hands were around my biceps, not squeezing, but pressing in enough that I felt caged in.

“Do you realize,” he said with deadly calm, “how easily that could have been you? When you decided to sneak out into the dark corners of my city, did you not stop and realize just how monumentally stupid that was?”

Stupid. Breakable. So much for strong and clever. “Am I safe or am I not?” I retorted. “You tell me no one will touch me. You make these promises that you yourself don’t seem to believe. They mean nothing.”

His red eyes seared me. “Is that what you think?”

No. Yes. I don’t know! I wanted to scream.

“How simple the dividing line for you—if a human is worthy of your attention, then all should perish for looking at them. Yet if they live in your kingdom, with you as their ruler, trust you to care for them, they’re fools in your eyes.

Veins to be tapped for your real citizens to feast on. ”

Raphael scoffed. “Do you think your old king is any better? ”

“I daresay he couldn’t be worse. You take what you want, Raphael. You and all the vampires. I understand the hierarchy you’ve set. I’m to be paraded around as your personal meal next week. Amalthea told me—something you didn’t bother to do.”

“Amalthea said what ?” Raphael growled.

“The Tri-Lunar Eclipse. She’d seen you at my neck, despite all your promises to never drink from me again.” Raphael’s lips parted as if to protest, but I continued on before he could interject. “Wasn’t this your plan all along?”

“It was not ,” Raphael growled. “I had another plan.”

“Oh?” I nearly snarled the word. “And was this plan to drink from another human and kill them?”

Raphael flinched as if I’d struck him.

But he didn’t deny it.

I shook my head in disbelief. “You were going to kill someone. And you probably weren’t even going to tell me.

I’m upset because a human girl was killed, and you were about to do the same thing .

So fine, Raphael. Drink from me. Claim my lifeblood if that’s what will save some unlucky human’s life, but know you’re no different than any of the other monsters.

The only difference is that you treat me a little better, and the others see me as your pet, so that when they kill a human in their bloodlust, it’s one you don’t have use for.

” I broke out of his grip with a tug of my shoulders.

“Now, leave so I can get back to being useful , Your Majesty.”

Raphael remained rooted in his spot. “Do you not see that you’re different?”

As if this conversation hadn’t proved he saw me as he did every other worthless mortal, except that I was his . “I’m useful, as we agreed.” I gave the Black Grimoire a pointed look. “So I’d best get back to work.”

Still, Raphael remained. “Have you had success in your translations?” His voice was soft, coaxing.

I didn’t want small talk, but the quickest way to get rid of him was to pretend everything was fine. “It’s slow. Slower than I expected, so I have nothing to show for it. I should get back to it,” I repeated.

Raphael made no move to leave. He wasn’t oblivious. He simply didn’t care.

“By the fifth hell, Raphael, I want to be alone!” Apparently, I wasn’t so good at pretending.

Finally, Raphael moved. We crossed in opposite directions, me moving to the couch where the grimoire was and him towards the door. When he reached the doorframe, he paused.

“I mean it,” I said quietly from across the room. The urge to yell had passed in those few steps and now I could scarcely whisper. But no doubt he would hear every word. “I’ll go with you to the ball. Just leave me be until then.”

Raphael left.

I watched the door for several minutes, as if expecting him to come back .

To apologize? To say he’d find the vampire who murdered the donor and see justice done? To say he’d been wrong about the humans? About me? To say I didn’t need to go to the ball?

I didn’t know what I wanted from Raphael. Worse, I seemed to want everything , and everything was a delusion.

When I, at last, was confident he wasn’t coming back, I opened the grimoire.

I’d been lying to Raphael for weeks now.

Since I’d translated the opening line and realized it was the key to undoing the vampires, I’d thought of little else.

Some parts were hard to interpret—winding prose, detailed origins of the goddess Anagenni, the meaning of death and all other kinds of philosophical dribble that didn’t mean anything concrete.

I slipped out the sheet where I’d translated the first true passage and traced my fingers over the dried ink on the parchment. I’d nearly memorized the words.

The undead bow to the necromancer. One witch is gifted to the world every two hundred years with Anagenni’s blessing. They alone can right the balance.

At first, I’d concluded Raphael must not realize what he had in his possession if he was letting me translate it.

In the days since, I’d dismissed the thought.

This was why Raphael hunted them. Because vampires weren’t stronger than all witches after all.

That was why he’d taken the grimoire, so even if this necromancer rose to power they’d be weak.

The book likely gave some hint of who it was or some secrets to their magic the vampires could use against them.

Somewhere out there was a witch who would be able to take on the vampires. To stop them from killing humans as they so pleased.

Once I finished, I planned to help them with the translated grimoire. But the truth was, I had no idea where to look. And every day wasted in searching would cost more lives.

I needed to do something more immediate to make the vampires realize they weren’t so untouchable.

That us weak, breakable mortals could fight back instead of being fodder.

Hours later, when the castle was quiet, I slipped out of my room once more.

That was why I slid a small parchment with one word scribbled on it behind the false rock Titus had shown me.

Yes .