Page 152 of Loreblood

“I imagine you prefer I don’t call you anything at all,” I quipped. “You dislike me.”

“I don’t trust you. There’s a difference.”

With a nod, I said, “Understandable,” and scanned the site. Dozens of workers toiled, walking to and from tents to the caves on the northern edge, or into the southern pit. Others moved in a line toward the refinery. Grime hung thick in the air, clouding my view.

“While we’re on the topic of titles, please don’t call me ‘my lady,’ Cordea. I’m no one’s lady.”

She smirked, walking away. “Rumor has it you’reeveryone’slady.”

Is she calling me a whore?I muttered, “Word travels fast around here,” out of earshot from her. Then, louder, “Where are you going?”

She paused. “You’re seeking the foreman, are you not? I’d rather put you in a tent as soon as possible so the workers can quit gawking and resume mining.”

Cordea brought me to the largest tent in the mines, surrounded by half a dozen smaller hovels. She pulled the flap back, nodded for me to enter, and I did.

Vallan Stellos stood over a table, examining a map while tracing it with his finger. As ever, he wore black gloves over both hands—likely a prerequisite for a vampire accustomed to handling silver.

The huge fullblood had his back to me, hulking over everything in the tight space. His large presence made the tent feel claustrophobic and stuffy—his broad shoulders too wide, his muscles too stacked.

“You simply can’t resist sticking your nose where it’s not wanted,” he drawled without turning to face me.

I rolled my eyes. “Well met to you too, Vallan.”

Keeping his finger pinned to a point on the map, he looked back at me with a frown etched in his handsome face. The scars lining his jaw past his thick beard seemed to stick out from the way the moonlight mottled through the fabric of the tent. His brown-red eyes gleamed. “What are you doing here, silverblood?”

I ignored his question and asked one of my own. “Why do you call me that? Because silver is your weakness, as I am a weakness to your kinsmen?”

Speaking of silver, I noticed a pile of it sitting precariously on the only chair in the room, a few feet from Vallan and the single small cot that looked entirely too tiny to support his massive frame.

“Your Loreblood is a weakness to us. It’s also precious, forbidden, and dangerous, like silver. All qualities you admittedly possess within your person.”

He quickly went back to his map while my brow furrowed.Did he just call me . . . precious? Dangerous, I understand, and perhaps forbidden too, because I’m human. Butprecious?

I didn’t know whether to take the claim as a compliment or insult, so I didn’t provoke him with more questions about it. “You’ve been avoiding me,” I said, walking forward from the closed tent flap.

He stood straighter, his shoulders bunching together and tensing. “I’ve not been avoiding you. I’ve been busy running a revolution.”

I sat on the cot, keeping my distance from Vallan but edging closer at the same time. He intrigued me even more than my other two rescuers because he seemed the most reticent to protect, coddle, or accept me.

I wanted to know if there was a deeper reason for it or if my human traits merely disgusted him.I know he worries I’m a distraction to Skartovius, who is allegedly leading this “revolution” he speaks of. Does he think I tilt Skar off his game—that I make him complacent or weak?

I suppressed a shudder as I recalled the horrid sight and stench of Dimmon Plank, skinned alive and kept alive by Skar’s turning of him. The sheer torture and wild look I’d seen in Skar’s eyes made me imagine there was nothing weak or frail about the nobleblood.

“I don’t want to be a distraction,” I said at last. “I want to help.”

The lumbering giant stopped perusing his map and slowly turned to me. Settling his backside against the table, he crossed his legs at the ankles and folded his arms disapprovingly over his barrel-sized chest. “A human woman from Nuhav? How can you help us? You don’t even know what you’re professing.”

“Then teach me.” I stood from the cot to match his gaze, slightly craning my neck to narrow my eyes at him. “I’m notsimply a human, Vall. You said it yourself, I’m your silverblood. In Skar’s eyes, I’m the key to victory in this great rebellion of yours.” My feet brought me forward, danger pealing through my body. I ignored it, staring at him. “How can you call the Loreblood a weakness to you when it healed Garroway? You don’t know enough about it to come to such conclusions.”

His eyes widened, which he quickly controlled. I felt immense glee at surprising the vampire, who typically held such a firm, flat, indifferent affect. Maybe he respected me standing up to him and pushing back.

He shoved off from the table with a customary grunt, nearing me and making the threatening danger in my mind grow louder. His arms remained crossed, gloved hands hidden beneath his biceps as if he was worried to even touch me. “You’re right. I don’t know enough about your Loreblood. No one does. I don’t like what I don’t know.”

“That’s why you’ve avoided your own safehouses while I’ve been here? Do Iscareyou, Vallan Stellos?”

Another grunt, though I couldn’t be sure if it was acceptance or incredulity. “The fact you saved the cub when you didn’t have to—when you could have escaped into the wildnerness of Nuhav—is the only reason I’m talking to you now, Sephania Lock. There’s a measure of honor and dignity in you, I’ll admit, that’s enticing. It’s rare in a human.”

“Rare in a vampire, too.”