Page 53 of Queen of the Crimson Throne (Queen of Blood and Stardust #2)

53

LUKA

The door slammed behind me, rattling the frames on the wall.

“Who got your panties in a bunch?” Nico called from the couch.

Great. The last thing I wanted right now was to be around people. I needed time to think. Alone.

I collapsed on the couch next to Nico with a sigh.

“You look like you need a drink,” Delcan commented from the chair.

“Does that mean your offering?”

Declan raised a brow as he reached for the decanter on the table and filled it with several fingers worth of liquor.

I drowned half the glass in one swallow.

“You going to tell us what’s got you all torn up?” Nico asked.

“Lennox and I kissed last night.” Declan’s brows rose slightly. “And today she summoned Astria.”

“She what?” Nico interjected.

“There’s more.” I swallowed the rest of my drink and reached for the decanter. “Astria must have said something that upset her and she refused to talk about it. She wanted to fuck instead and I turned her down. ”

“You turned her down?” Declan repeated. “I didn’t think that was possible for you.”

I laid back on the couch. “I didn’t think so either, but—she said she wasn’t ready to commit to anything yet, which is fine—I understand. Last night it was fine, but today she wanted to use me as a distraction and I couldn’t be that today.”

Not after last night. Last night—last night I saw the emotion in her eyes, felt it in her kiss.

All of that was absent when she kissed me in the hallway.

“But I feel like I let her down when she needed me today.” She needed me, she needed me as a distraction and I denied her.

“I think keeping sex out of the picture is better for both of you until you get your feelings sorted out.” Declan and I both turned our attention to the wolf.

“Since when did you become a relationship expert?” I asked Nico.

“I never said I was, I have common sense. Something you and Lennox both seem to lack.” He leaned back on the couch, letting his arms rest on the top of either side.

Declan let out a huff as he sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “He’s got you there.”

“Who invited you two in here anyways?” I muttered.

“You have the good liquor—that in itself was an invitation.” Nico raised his glass in my direction.

“Well if you’re going to be in here, shut up. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” I rested my head on the back of the couch.

“So what do you want to talk about?”

“Did Lennox fill you in on our conversation with the Galtain family?”

“No, we’ve all been a little preoccupied with you getting kidnapped, you and Lennox almost fucking, and Lennox apparently summoning Astria on her own. No one tells me anything,” Nico pouted .

“You do have a flair for the dramatics don’t you, ” Declan added.

I shook my head before filling them in on the details of mine and Lennox’s visit with the Galtain’s.”

“So you didn’t destroy the journal?” Nico asked. “No wonder Luciana has been so grumpy.”

“And since when are you in on the state of Luciana’s feelings?” I pressed.

“I’m not in the know of her feelings, but I noticed she’s been a little more irritable lately.”

I shook my head, I didn’t want to dive into my own shit right now, I wasn’t going to make him.

“Anyways, back to our conversation, we didn’t destroy the journal. Neither of us had the heart to take the journal away from the family.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like there was much use for the journal anyways so it should be fine right?”

“Well,” I scrubbed my hand over the back of my neck. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

Both of them leaned forward in their seats. “There was one important detail we gained from the journal. It said if someone manages to reverse the spell on vampires, all living vampires will cease to exist.”

“You didn’t think to start with that?” Declan protested. I ignored him as he swore under his breath.

“What are you going to do with that information?” he pressed.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It left us with a lot of questions. I’m assuming that’s why Lennox summoned Astria again.”

Declan stood, his wings rustling behind him. “Let’s go find her and ask her.”

“Not tonight, please.” I looked at them. “Tomorrow. Do you remember why I’m here?”

“Tomorrow then.” Declan sat back down. “But no more avoiding this after tonight. ”

“Fine. Nico, pass the bottle.”

Declan was knocking on my door early the next morning, much to the disappointment of my throbbing head.

Nico groaned from where he slept belly down on the couch. Declan was the only one with any self-preservation skills last night.

“How much longer did you two stay up drinking last night?” Declan wrinkled his nose at the sight of the table of empty bottles.

“I don’t know.” I collapsed into the chair. “I’ve had a terrible sense of time lately.” It was true, especially since my kidnapping the hours had blended together. Nico and I kept drinking until we passed out. Long after Declan left us.

“Well get up and get ready.” Declan rolled Nico off the couch.

“Ow!” Nico groaned as he fell to the ground with a thud.

“You could both use a shower.” Declan wrinkled his nose. “We’re all meeting in an hour. Get your sorry asses ready.”

Lennox didn’t look up as I entered the room, instead, she continued her conversation with Luciana as her plate of food sat untouched in front of her.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Kara and Luciana responded.

“Good morning,” Lennox said quietly, her gaze finally sliding to me.

“Now that everyone is here, can we discuss why Declan dragged us all here this morning?” Luciana crossed her arms over her chest. “I’d like to hear about your conversation with Astria so I can stop holding this grudge against you Lennox.”

“You told her?” Lennox looked at me with narrowed eyes.

“No. I told Declan and Nico.” I looked at the two of them. “I’m assuming Declan told her since he was concerned about the information shared about our Galtain visit.”

“What information?” Kara and Luciana said in unison.

“You didn’t tell them?” I asked Lennox.

“I’ve been a little preoccupied,” she mumbled.

“Obviously,” Luciana huffed while Kara eyed her sister curiously.

“In the journal, it said if the curse against vampires is reversed, all living vampires die.”

Luciana whipped her head in Lennox’s direction. “What in the stars was occupying your mind so much you failed to share that little tidbit of information?”

Lennox’s gaze slid to mine before giving her attention back to Luciana. “That’s what I was so preoccupied with, that’s why I summoned Astria. I needed to get answers from her.”

“And did you?” Declan asked.

“Yes and no.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “When I pressed her as to why she wanted us to destroy the journal, why we shouldn’t share that information with everyone—she said the people who are looking for the journal wouldn’t care about that. According to her, she thinks that will only make their goal come to fruition sooner. It will make their jobs easier in the long run. These people hate vampires so much they’d love to see them extinct.”

Astria’s tits . This was worse than I anticipated.

“Can’t Astria prevent that from happening?” Declan asked

Lennox shook her head. “She didn’t make it sound like she could.”

“So what are we going to do?” Luciana set her glass back on the table.

“I’m hoping I can convince them to destroy the book, if I tell them the circumstances.” Lennox chewed her bottom lip.

“Do you think they will do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I have to try.” We had to try or I might die .

“So there’s nothing we can do now?” Kara asked.

Lennox shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Luce, have you gotten anywhere with the Dhampir body?” Declan turned his attention to Luciana.

The witch slumped in her chair. “No. Everytime I feel like I’m getting close my magic runs out and I pass out. I can try one more time and then I need to get rid of the body. It can’t last much longer.”

I kept my eye on Lennox as the conversation continued. Nothing Lennox revealed was new information. We had both already known my dying was a possibility.

She was still hiding something.

“Lennox, wait.” I reached for her as I followed her out of the dining room.

“What?” She didn’t stop, talking as she continued down the hallway.

“We need to talk.”

“Oh, now you want to talk.” She stopped and turned toward me, crossing her arms over her chest.

“What else did Astria say to you that you‘re not telling us.” Something flashed across her features.

“Nothing.” She shifted from one foot to the other.

“Stop lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

I took another step toward her, forcing her to tilt her chin up to meet my gaze. “I know you better than you think, you’re hiding something.”

“Whatever Astria said to me is none of your business.”

“It’s my business when it makes you act like this to me.” She was silent as she looked at her feet. “Whatever she said upset you and I want to help you. Talk to me.”

“Despite what you might assume, I don’t need your help.”

“That’s not what you made it seem like last night.”

“Fuck you,” She spat, her eyes churning violently, the green turning a dark shade, I could sense her magic rising to the surface. “I needed you last night and you left me.” She shoved me with a hand to the chest.

“I didn’t leave you, Lennox. If you needed me, you wouldn’t have tried to get me into bed and would have talked to me instead. You wanted to use me to avoid dealing with whatever is eating you up. If you would have talked, I would have listened. But my feelings are at stake here, I have to have some self-preservation when it comes to you, Lennox.”

She looked like I slapped her, but I continued, “I’m not saying any of this to try and hurt you Lennox, I need you to understand that. I want to be able to be there for you when you need me, but I can’t risk my own well-being in the process. I’m trying to protect myself, Lennox. Don’t you realize the power you have over me? You can shatter my heart with a single word. One fucking word and I’m done for. That’s how much control you have over me. You don’t realize how hard it was for me to say no to you yesterday but I did. And then I drank myself into a stupor to keep myself from going to you anyway.”

Still, she said nothing. Her face blank—I had no idea if my words were even sinking in. If she heard any of them at all.

“Come and find me when you’re ready to talk,” I told her before leaving her in the hallway.