Page 139 of Red Rooster

She held out her hand. She had calluses at the base of each finger from holding reins. “Prove it.” It was more plea than challenge, something vulnerable in her eyes that tugged helplessly at his shriveled black heartstrings.

He reached for her, and as he’d known it would, his hand passed straight through hers.

He was only a projection.

“You have no idea how badly,” he started.

And she said, “I do.”

He believed her.

Val turned away, cleared his throat. Let his eyes wander across the framed photos of elegant warmbloods and their elegant riders decked out in show finery. God, he missed riding. What would it be like to go riding with Mia? Better than blood, better than freedom. He ached for it.

When he trusted his voice, he turned back. She had opened her day planner and was penciling in notes, head propped on her hand. Tired. From this angle, he could see the dark circles beneath her eyes.

“So tell me how Brando is doing,” he said of her gelding, too-cheerful, just wanting to break the weight of coming grief.

She allowed a small grin. “Well, before I took a nosedive off of him, we were working on pirouettes.”

“Ah. Tricky.”

“Yeah, but he’s catching on so quick.” Her gaze lit up, tired though it was, and it warmed parts of him thought long dead to listen to her passion for animals, for the sport she loved. It had been battle in his days, those fanciful movements on horseback, but now they were only for pleasure. A small miracle in a world of unending disasters.

“I have video if you want to see,” she said, and he felt himself smile.

“Yes, I want to see.”

He spent probably an hour peering over her shoulder at the laptop screen, watching the dance of horse and rider. Not as good as watching it live, but wonderful all the same. And then, suddenly, in the back of his mind, he registered the sound of the heavy bank vault door opening at the end of the hall of cells, and was sucked back to his body through self-preservation alone.

Darkness. A swirl of lights. Dizzy. Sick. And he opened his eyes on his dank little cell to the sound of footsteps coming toward him across the old stone floors.

Familiar footsteps.

Not the light skip of the baroness, or the somber grace of her baron. Not one of the tromping guards, or the nervous medical technicians.

No, these were the measured steps of a man – of a prince – confident in his ability to terrorize and liberate in equal measure.

Val pressed his back into the corner, forced his hands to lay still over his knees, and watched Vlad Tepes step into view.

The problem with history, Val had always believed, was that, prior to photography, its images were preserved by artists who were inevitably biased in some way. There were records of his brother relating him as short, as stocky, as cruel-faced, as deformed. As ugly, with filed teeth. All the portraits had managed to touch onsometruth. Hedidpossess cruel features. And hedidhave fangs, as did all vampires.

But the man known as the Son of the Dragon was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and strong as ten men. Stronger. An athlete, and a warrior, and an expert swordsman. Beautiful in the way of a predator, impassive as a cliff face. He had their father’s dark eyes; Val had been bestowed the clear blue of their Nordic mother.

It was the first time Vlad had been down into the subbasement – oh, call it what it was, thedungeon– since Fulk le Strange awakened him.

It was the brothers’ first meeting in five centuries.

“Radu,” Vlad said.

“I see someone finally shaved that horrible mustache off of you,” Val said.

Vlad shifted closer, boot soles scraping over stone, his expression unchanging. He was dressed in simple, modern clothes. Black tac pants and a thin, black long-sleeved shirt that showed off the muscle he’d put back on since waking. He’d tied his hair back, like he was ready for a fight. Someone had given him a dagger –hisdagger; Val recognized the rubies worked into the hilt. The belt was new, though; leather couldn’t survive five-hundred years without regular cleaning and oiling.

“I didn’t believe them,” Vlad said in correct, though accented English. He’d always had a head for languages. “When they told me that you were here.”

Val sent him a barbed-wire smile. “You took your time coming to see for yourself.”

“I’ve been busy.” It was said with the old dismissive authority; the voice of a brother without time for childish games.