Page 129 of Loreblood

“That gives us two hours. Maybe three.” She clears her throat. “Do you wish to finish your tale before you are disposed of?”

“I always finish what I start, bloodsucker.”

She claps once, smiling cruelly. “Excellent. You left off at the Tanmount.” She poises her pen over the page.

Her eyes return to the window, to the jutting tops of the tall buildings that hang under the predawn sky like dragon’s teeth. Her gaze lingers on the glittering western district of the Commerce Ward, where the ten-story Tanmount compound sits against other similarly massive skyrises. “What’s a story without a good heist, Lady Lock?”

I watch her profile for a moment, noting the green tint of veins under the alabaster skin of her thin neck. I wish nothing more than to wring that fucking neck with all my strength.

Alas, the shackles holding me chained to the floor and chair are too strong.

“Quite true,” I mutter. “High-stakes heists do make for great stories.”

“Shame this one didn’t turn out how you hoped.”

I snort. “An understatement, Madame Kleora. This one didn’t turn out howany of ushoped.”

Chapter 40

Garroway didn’t return to the safehouse for nearly a fortnight.

It dismayed me because the dhampir had become my sole friend among this trio. At least Garro was personable—or as personable as a bloodthirsty Buver could be. Vallan was surly and loathsome, while Skartovius was too caught up in his own schemes for me to consider him an ally.

Skar mostly spent his time at Manor Marquin as Lord Ashfen, arriving at the safehouse only every other day or so with news and, I suspected, to check on me.

On the third visit, I noticed the fraying in his eyes. Though he put on an air of impassiveness and indifference, the lines of his smooth forehead were deepening more often. They were flashes of consternation and veiled anger or frustration.

Or is that fear I’m seeing? Is a monster like Skartovius Ashfen capable of feeling fear?

Of course, I would never ask him what ailed him. I knew it well enough: Skar’s bloodthrall was out in the wild, ostensibly missing.

“Can’t you just speak to him in your mind and call him back?” I asked one night. I was reclined on the bed, reading a tome Skartovius had seen fit to provide me from his library in Manor Marquin.

Even though Olhav didn’t have a knowledge center, Skar made an effort to create one in his own lair. I had told him the daytime hours in Olhav were beginning to bore me, which prompted him to return with the book.

The bastards didn’t let me leave the safehouse without an escort. They didn’t lock me up, either, so in truth I could have easily gone out on my own during the days when there were less threats and vampires roaming the streets.

But that tingle of fear that knotted in my belly never quite went away when I debated staking out on my own. Skar had warned me of the dangers of being a human alone in Olhav, and I didn’t wish to test my luck.

So, like a good little prisoner, I stayed put until the nighttime hours when the vampires awoke and joined me.

Skartovius was sitting at the table, scribbling something on a page. Vallan was out at the North Mines, managing the silver deposits. He was there more often than here, and I had a feeling it was partly so he could avoid having to talk to or see me.

Skartovius unfolded himself and stared at the high window in front of him. “Our mind-speak has been . . . unstable as of late,” he admitted.

“That’s worrying, isn’t it?” I noted how his shoulders stiffened. A man like Skartovius Ashfen did not simply displayworry. “Garro has been your bloodthrall for how long, exactly?”

“Does it matter?”

“To me it does.”

He glanced over his shoulder with narrowed eyes, as if trying to ascertain the trap I was leading him into. “Forty-seven years, six months, and twenty-three days.”

I blinked wide. “That’s quite . . . exact.”

“Our bond is inexorable.”

“This is the first time something like this has happened?”