Page 57

As the day waned, I felt I needed more time away from Skartovius Ashfen to get my mind right. And since Garroway was an extension of his master, I wanted to stay away from him as well.

Thus, I contrived to find the third member of our merry, ramshackle band, the one I had seen the least of.

If I was going to go all-in on “the cause” then I needed some clarity.

So far, Skar had only filled me with confusion and horror.

Aligning myself with such a monster . . .

it can’t be right. He is surely the villain here, and if I associate with him, does that not make me the villain as well?

Before leaving the Firehold, I had promised Antones I would be in contact and would connect with him soon. Jinneth and I made a somber stroll through the mess hall and said our goodbyes to old acquaintances—friendships forged through the fires of battle and survival.

Rirth made me promise not to forget about them under the Floorboards. Culiar made a crude comment about my womanhood. Imis wrote me a naughty poem I could use “in times of need,” with Palacia as the subject, the interfolk girl blushing and shaking her head in exasperation when Imis handed it to me.

Antones told me and Jinneth, “Remember, sisters, just because we no longer toil under the shackles of Lukain Pierken doesn’t mean we are free.”

It was an ominous admission. I said I’d keep his words close to me. Jinneth told him to lighten up, yeah?

We went north without any obstacles, avoiding the gate, rushing the stairs to the ramparts at an empty part of the wall, and gingerly climbing over to find our carriage.

Two hours later, we rolled past the fringes of Olhav. The sun was an orange fireball low in the sky, quickly sinking beneath the western horizon past the mountain.

Night would soon rise, and with it the vampires would too. I didn’t want to be on the road when that happened.

We rounded the fringes of Olhav with Jin leading the horses. Once we reached a good in-point, we cut toward the Military Ward and I dropped Jinneth off near the base of the Chained Sisters.

As she hopped off the bench, she furrowed her brow. “Not coming in to gather your bald-headed mate?”

I shook my head. “Tell Garroway I’m safe and not to worry. I’ll return soon.”

She tilted her head, studying me curiously. “Should I tell him where you’re going? Wanna tell me where you’re going, yeah?”

I sighed. “You can tell him I’ve gone to meet with the surly demolitionist.”

Using the carriage to get to the North Mines cut my travel time in half. The sun had fallen completely by the time I arrived on the other side of the Olhavian Peaks, down the slanted, gravelly road that the horses snorted and huffed their way through.

I wasn’t a learned coachman and the steeds let me know their distaste with my riding style, tossing their manes with unruly flourishes.

“I know, I know,” I muttered. “I’m sorry. Not much further now.”

The mines came into view as I rounded a section of cliff. The sounds and smells hit me first: the pinging of pickaxes, the pouring of smelted metals, and the choking smoke of the excavation site.

I parked the carriage and steeds before reaching the mines, roping them to a fat boulder, and walked in on foot.

I gave small nods to the interfolk workers, who kept their heads bowed.

A few stared at me in open astonishment, evidently shocked to find a human freewoman walking among the site. It filled me with shame and guilt.

The beautiful, lithe vampiress named Cordea trudged toward me out of a tent as I made my way through. She had a scowl on her face. “You’re making a scene, my lady . This is not the place to be babysat.”

“I’m seeking no such thing, Madame Cordea.”

She frowned, arms crossing over her small chest. “I am no madame. Call me Cordea.”

“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’re everyone’s lady.”

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. But precious ?

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 not simply 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 I scare you, 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.”

Our faces were only a foot apart now. The heat of this massive man, in the confines of the tent with the brisk darkness surrounding us, made my blood run hot.

I was aware of every battle scar and shallow divot of his face.

“You hold honor and dignity in high regard,” I murmured.

My voice had fallen, turning throaty and thick, though I had no idea why.

He gave me a slight nod. His chest-length beard twitched from the way his mouth moved behind it. Slowly, his eyes narrowed, like he was seeing me in full for the first time. We had never physically been so close to one another.

The stuffiness and tightness of the tent grew worse. My pulse beat in my ears, surprising me with how nervous and out of sorts this vampire made me feel.

“And what about Lord Ashfen?” I asked lowly. “He doesn’t seem to care for honor or dignity. Far as I can tell, he’s a madman with a proclivity for torture and destruction.”

A hint of a smile quirked behind Vallan’s beard. “Yes, I’ve heard the great lengths he’s gone to please you, with the flaying of that fat wretch. Staking his claim, as it were.”

“ Please me? It terrifies me.”

“Did I not tell you we are monsters, silverblood?”

I gulped over a dry throat. “Are you like him as well, Lord Stellos? Monstrous?”

“We are different. I was no nobleblood when I was turned. I don’t fancy myself a lord. As to our methods? I prefer a more . . . straightforward, brazen approach to things. I don’t have time for games.”

I stifled another shiver at the innuendo piercing through his words. “You are a busy man, after all.”

Shit. Is it just me or are our faces getting closer? What is happening to me when I’m in the presence of these devilish fiends?! I chewed the inside of my cheek to calm my nerves.

“You wish to know more,” he said.

I matched his nod, drawn in by his gaze, lost in the tumult of his deep voice. “I feel I have to if I’m going to align myself with you three and assist your cause.”

“Skar has an unhealthy obsession with you,” he added. “Why do you think he calls you his temptress?”

I cleared my throat, fighting back a choke. “What have I done to deserve such obsession?”

“Nothing, I suspect.” His shoulders bobbed slightly.

“Perhaps it’s your Loreblood he’s addicted to.

” Then his eyes twinkled, glittering with dangerous promises I was used to seeing from Garroway and Skartovius.

Not Vallan. “I have a feeling it’s deeper than that.

More than your blood, it’s your character.

You are the first human he’s found interesting in ages.

Myself, I’ve fought against the pull that commands us all.

Which is why I’ve been locked away in my work.

” He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the sparse tent.

“So you lied.” When his brow rose in question, I smirked smugly. “You have been avoiding me, Vallan.”

“Can you blame me, silverblood?”

No. But I want it to stop. His eyes smoldered, calling to me. Even through the forest of his beard, his lips looked inescapable, inviting.

“. . . Your urges,” I eked out.

“I’ve kept them at bay thus far.”

“Tell me about them.”

A small headshake. “Can’t tell. Only show.”

A sharp inhale forced its way through me.

I cleared my throat to try and compose myself.

My sudden need was too great to deny—his words flipped a switch inside me.

“I need to know about all three of you if I’m going to be any help in this cause of yours,” I whispered, feeling awfully forward. “There can’t be any holdouts.”

He let out a scoff. His lips folded into a frown. “I’m more dangerous and unpredictable than the others.”

More unpredictable than the vampire who skinned a man alive after fucking me? “I find that hard to believe.”

“Consider yourself warned, silverblood.”

“Duly noted.” I began to move toward him—

But didn’t make it a single step before he closed the small gap and our bodies crashed together.