Page 165 of Loreblood

Skar noticed my nervousness and put a hand on my knee. “Don’t worry. You look ravishing. Remember our plan.”

We had concocted the scheme in private over the prior nights—a means to keep attention wholly diverted from me during the gala, until I needed to make my grand inauguration. Entertainment was the name of the game, and a means to keep the blood flowing and the bloodsuckers satiated.

For the first time since bonding with Skar, Vall, and Garro, I felt like a fish out of water. Like I was staring at strangers, callingthem bloodsuckers and Buvers and bloodies—everything I used to call them when I lived on the Floorboards of Nuhav.

Though I had learned to trust my trio, that courtesy did not extend to Lord Ashfen’s court.

To take my mind off the situation, Skar pointed out and discussed specific attendees as they came to greet and give fealty and devotion to their lord.

After a thin, gaunt vampire came to the dais and bowed, wandering off without a word to me, Skar nodded his chin toward the man. “Indokkus Shirin. Not an important man in his own right, but he has a human brother in Nuhav we employ handily. Vanison Shirin is a silversmith—an illegal trade, of course—who we utilize for our cause.”

I blinked over at Skar. My mask was a porcelain V that hid the upper half of my face, accentuating my full lips. “This human, Vanison, he crafts weapons out of the silver I’ve been bringing into Nuhav over the past few months?”

“Yes. Quite good at it, too.”

“Sounds dangerous. If the silver mines are forbidden for human contact, how can you trust a human to craft silver weapons to fend against vampire incursions . . . and not use those same weapons against you?”

Skartovius hummed. He looked delectable in a tight-fitting suit of gold and red robes, with a mask that matched and hid his entire beautiful face. He threw a leg over his knee and drummed his thigh with his spindly fingers. “With the exception of Vallan, Garroway, and you,” he said quietly, “I trust no one. We get by with mutually assured destruction. The humans we work with know if they use the gifted silver against us, their families and sects will cease to exist.”

I took that in, mulled it over, and still wasn’t sure I agreed with the idea of arming humans with the very weakness the vampires feared. Then I scoffed.What am I thinking? Humansare supposed to bemypeople! Why would I care if they kill vampires when that had been my own goal for so many years?

These delectable bloodsuckers truly were corrupting me to their way of life.

Skar aimed his eyes on a plump masked woman making her way by the tables, with two male mates close on either side of her. “I’m sure you recognize that one.”

I gawked. “Helget.” My former friend and Grimdaughter who had been eager to get chosen as broodstock among Lord Ashfen’s court. She’d been neglected her first shadowgala.

Helget hadn’t noticed me yet. I preferred to keep it that way. I shrank in my seat as she waltzed past a white-robed acolyte, snagged a blood-goblet, and began drinking and conversing with other nobles.

Good for you, I suppose, Helg. You managed to reach your destiny. I hope it’s everything you wished for.

I noticed the stature of Demilord Tymon Aldion. The broad-shouldered duke was one of the wealthiest vamps in Skar’s coven, with a tall, lanky woman at his side.

Jinneth’s replacement,I figured.

Then I saw a younger woman I vaguely recognized. Her mask hid her face but her gait, stature, and long black hair made me tilt my head in confusion.

“Sister Zefyra of the Chained Sisters,” Skar pointed out. “Iron Sister Keffa’s ambassador for this event.”

I gasped. “Zefyra was turned?” Last I’d seen, her skin was hale and flush, not pale and dead.

“By Cordea of the North Mines.” Skar’s brow twitched. “I thought you knew that was happening?”

“I guess I did. Just didn’t know it would happen so soon.”

“Her recovery took months. This is her first public outing.”

I became lost in my thoughts. Directly in front of our dais, just below the lip of the platform, the closest members ofSkar’s court took their seats. Vallan was one of them, wearing battle-gear of black and red, looking incredibly intimidating as he towered over everyone. Another was Lord Aldion with his mistress plopping down on his knee. A third was a man I did not recognize, sitting directly to Skar’s left and glancing over his shoulder with an appreciative nod to Lord Ashfen.

Skar leaned into my ear and whispered, “You remember the four-fingered vampire, Baringsten?”

“The one you turned into a human torch for being a spy for Spymistress Mortis? How could I forget?”

“Glintov there is a friend of Baringsten’s. Another assumed spy. He won’t last long.”

My eyes widened. Even with our low voices, Glintov might have been able to hear us if there wasn’t a constant din of conversation flowing through the room.

“If you know he’s a spy, why do you keep him alive?” I hissed.