Page 4 of Bartered by the Shadow Prince (Bargain with the Shadow Prince #3)

Lost in Translation

ELOISE

E xhaustion might not be a strong enough word for what I’m feeling at the moment.

As the round-faced woman I assume is a servant leads us up a dark, curved staircase, all I feel is empty and confused.

Not only do I continue to feel disconnected from my magic, I was unable to understand anything that Damien discussed with Brahm.

I know they’re brothers, of course. I remember that much.

But who was the woman? And most importantly, what did Brahm say that made Damien break down?

My fierce warrior mate looks as if the world is crumbling around him.

His expression is nothing short of grave.

Of one thing I’m certain—Brahm’s mate is not a shade.

If I had to guess, based on the way her ears extend to a rounded point and her features are similarly long and thin, she is an elf.

The only elves Damien ever told me about on Tenebris were dark elves, but then, what is she doing here?

I didn’t appreciate the way she looked at me.

Granted, I’m still wearing the pants, sweater, and trench coat that were riddled with bullet holes before we traveled here.

Maybe she was simply concerned for me. Without knowing what was said, I could easily misinterpret the context.

The servant stops at a heavy wooden door fortified with crisscrossing metal, a similar style to the front doors of the castle, and ushers us inside. Damien exchanges words with her, they both bow, and then we’re alone. I set my parents’ grimoire down on a small table near the door.

“What is going on? I’ve never seen you look like that before. And was that woman an elf? I thought you said elves were the enemy?”

“An elf, yes.” He breathes a heavy sigh. “Her name is Nevina, and she is now queen.”

“Queen?” I spit out the word. If she’s queen, what happened to Damien’s mother? “Does that mean Stygarde lost the war?”

“We did not lose, but everything has changed.” Damien relays the tragic story of how his entire family, aside from Brahm, died of a plague brought on by the war, and how only by marrying the daughter of the elf king could Brahm unite the kingdoms and save the remainder of the population.

“My god, Damien, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.

” A warm breeze curls through the room, carrying the scent of roses.

What I thought was a window at the far end of the enormous suite is actually an open-air veranda that overlooks the garden.

In obvious turmoil, Damien ushers me onto it, and we stare for a moment at the setting moon.

The lunar brilliance melts into the horizon, leaving room for brightening stars in its wake.

With the red fields of what Damien called crimson wheat on the horizon, the spectacle is stunning.

Stygarde is a world without limits for a creature like me, a creature of the night.

Gods, how strange it is still to call myself that.

Our hands couple. He’s standing close, our shoulders brushing.

His fingers tighten around mine, and I turn my full attention on him.

He’s not crying, but his eyes are rimmed red and he’s carrying enough tension that a muscle in his jaw twitches like he’s grinding his teeth.

All too well, I remember how I felt when my grams died.

I expected her death after a long bout with cancer, and still, it was as if someone had hollowed me out with a razor-sharp scoop.

Damien’s lost his mother, father, and sister all in one day.

He’s suffering my grief times three. How is he still standing?

“I need to go to the family cemetery to make an offering to Thanesia in their honor,” he says.

He means Thanesia, goddess of the dead and ruler of the Darklands. Cassius told me a little about her once, and I’ve heard Damien mention her as well. I don’t know much of the religious traditions here, but I’ll support Damien’s beliefs any way I can. “All right. Lead the way.”

He frowns and gives his head a tight shake. “No. I’m sorry. This I must do alone.”

“Oh…” I tamp down my disappointment. Staying alone in this room after everything that’s happened today isn’t high on my list. But I understand that this is his world, his religion, his grief. I send him a soft, understanding smile. “Whatever you need.”

He slides a hand along my shoulders and folds me into his embrace, brushing his lips against the side of my head. I hear him exhale as if holding me brings him some peace. Good, at least there is that.

“There’s something else you need to know,” he adds as he finally breaks away. “An unexpected complication of the changes in the political landscape.”

That doesn’t sound good. I swallow. “What’s that?”

He rubs the back of his neck where it meets his shoulder.

“Brahm isn’t just king of Stygarde. He’s king of New Stygarde, a kingdom that didn’t exist when I was here before, a royal position put into place as a contingency to a peace accord between kingdoms. I am no longer a prince in this kingdom, and if you marry me, you won’t be a princess.

Brahm is allowing us to stay here out of the goodness of his heart.

I have no position here. No income. Brahm mentioned he’d try to find me something, but?—”

I snort. “I don’t care about being a princess.”

The devastation on his face breaks my heart. “I promised you a crown. You fought for a crown. You earned a crown.”

I hold up a hand. “Damien, you’ve always watched over me. From the day I first summoned you, you’ve protected me like no one else could, while respecting my wishes and my boundaries. And you did it without any royal position.”

He snorts. “Little bird, I think we can both admit that you were as much a factor in your survival and mine as I was.”

“I mean only that I love you as you are, Damien. I don’t need a title to go with it. Honestly, after everything, we could do worse than a quiet, uneventful life.”

“For centuries, I’ve had nothing,” he grumbles, slashing his hand through the air, his bitterness apparent in the brackets around his scowl. “I want better for you.”

“And I’ve had less than nothing.” I shrug.

“Why concern ourselves with more of the same?” I offer him a light smile.

“The answer is simple. Until we can make a place for ourselves in New Stygarde, we’ll accept your brother’s hospitality.

Once we find an alternative, we’ll go. Surely there’s some way we can eke out a living here aside from your former title? ”

The corner of his mouth twitches for the first time since learning of his family’s deaths. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned that you might have given up your comfortable human life to live in a hovel in my world?”

I scoff. “First of all, when I journeyed to Night Haven to get you back, I was eighty percent sure that I was going to die in the process. The fact that I did die wasn’t as surprising as the idea that I’d come back as a vampire.

Now that I am what I am, it seems I need little to survive.

If my fate is to live in a hovel with the man I love, then so be it.

Just as long as we can get to living and stop this surviving we’ve been caught up in for far too long.

You won’t hear a single complaint from me. ”

He draws me closer and presses his forehead gently against mine.

“Then it is settled. Brahm mentioned that he’d find a role for me in the kingdom, but if I can’t use my experience and knowledge to work my way into an official, paid position which allows us to stay in this castle, we’ll simply build ourselves a hovel in the woods and live off the land.

” Now, both sides of his mouth are twitching, like he can barely contain a laugh.

“Settled,” I say through a smile. His lips meet mine in a long, deep kiss that seems to hold hope and tragedy in equal measure. A kiss that is both a comfort and a sharing of pain and grief. A kiss that goes on and on but seems too short when it’s over.

Damien pulls back. “Now, feed on me before I go. You’ll need your strength to recover and call your anchor again.”

I place my hands on his chest. “It can wait. I’m not hungry at all. You should go. Do what you have to do.”

He frowns and offers me his neck again. “The more frequently you feed, the stronger you’ll become. The faster you recover, the sooner your magic will return.”

I frown, a deep fear bubbling to the surface. “Damien…are you sure my magic will return? Vampires don’t have magic after all, at least not the ones I know of.”

His brows rise. “But those vampires did not have magic before they were made vampire. Besides, we know you must have some magic because you carried us here with Phantom in your arms.”

“True.” I let the conversation die there, although I still have my doubts.

The truth is, I infused the spell that brought us here with magic before I was turned.

Also, although Phantom was in my arms, I hadn’t been able to hear his voice or connect with him since I was made vampire.

I’m terrified that my new status has eliminated my ability to perform magic, but Damien doesn’t need the added stress of my worries right now.

“Then go do what you need to do, and we’ll hunt together afterward. ”

With a deep sigh, he pokes a finger through one of the bullet holes in my jacket. I’ll have to find something to wear tomorrow that doesn’t look like Swiss cheese. He gathers my hair in one hand and tugs gently. “Our agreement is that you feed on me.”

“It can’t always be you. I’ll have to feed on animals eventually.”

He stares down at me with a potent intensity in his eyes that makes my knees weak and my body feel warm below the waist. My fangs throb. My mouth waters.

“Feed, Eloise. Tonight, allow me to do this for you.”

I nod once because I can’t speak around the fangs crowding my mouth.

He moves to the bed and sits on the edge.

I strip out of my trench and throw it on a nearby chair.

Straddling his lap, I spread my knees wide until he’s pressed against just the right spot.

I’m still fully dressed in a pair of jeans and a lightweight sweater, but the pressure where our bodies meet sends electricity pulsing through me.

It’s like the blood inside me knows him, knows that he is the source of all pleasure, all satiety.

Hunger rises in me. I wish we were naked, but there will be time enough for that later.

For now, I understand that this feeding is distracting him from the grief that waits just beside us.

I strike quickly. My eyes roll back as blood rushes over my tongue and down my throat.

Delicious heat warms my veins, and I grind against him, unable to stop myself from indulging every hunger growing inside me.

Pressure builds, and I teeter on the verge of a full-body orgasm.

I rub against him like a cat in heat. He thrusts his hips.

That’s all it takes. From my tongue to my toes, I unravel, blooming in the night in a way that must rival the stars.

It takes all my strength to stop without draining him dry.

I lick the wound on his neck again and again until it’s closed. When I pull back to look at him, he’s grinning like a wolf with a rabbit in its jaws.

“Why do you look like that when I’m the one who’s coming down from the high?”

He runs a thumb across my bottom lip and then brings it to his mouth to suck off a smear of blood. “Because, Eloise, I’m thinking about exactly what I’m going to do to you when I return tonight. Don’t tire yourself practicing your magic. You’ll need your energy.”

My cheeks heat. The images that spring up in my mind at those words have me grinding against him again. But he lifts me off the bed and sets me on my feet. “Soon. I will return.”

“Wait! You should feed from me before you go.”

He shakes his head as he moves toward the stone railing of the veranda.

When he glances back at me, something I can’t quite interpret flits through his expression.

Something devastating. But then it’s gone and I wonder if it was there at all, or maybe I misinterpreted a resurgence of grief over his family.

“Later, little bird. Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

Before I can say another word, he dives off the terrace and breaks into shadow, silver-rimmed tendrils cutting through the night. I can barely see him at all as he reforms in the garden, just as the last silvery light of the set moon sinks below the horizon.

I turn back toward the empty room, feeling utterly alone, despite Damien’s blood surging in my veins. At least, it feels like it’s surging. In reality, nothing is moving inside me. As a vampire, my heart is dead in my chest.

As I lift my parents’ grimoire into my arms again, I hope and pray that my magic hasn’t died with it.