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"Would you dare to take it?"

Her offer was a challenge, but it also required Thane to believe that the strange woman who had come to him several nights a week for sword lessons was actually capable of threatening the height of power within Lothian March.

"You’ve never told who you really are, your ladyship," Thane said, relaxing casually with one foot on a low bench while he used a towel to wipe sweat from his neck and broad, muscular chest. "You’re quicker than me and surprisingly strong for your size, but it will take more than that to threaten the Lothians.

What gives you the confidence to deliver on your promise? "

"It’s simple," Nyrielle said, summoning the darkness and shadows of the dimly lit school to wrap around her like a cloak before slowly unfolding her dark, feathered wings.

"I’ve killed one Marquis already," she said with a smile that bore a hint of wickedly pointed fangs.

"With you fighting at my side, I have every confidence in killing another. "

"One bite," she said, appearing behind him faster than his eyes could follow her motion.

"One bite on your neck, and one drink of my blood and you’ll gain strength like few humans have ever possessed.

Strength enough not only to destroy the Marquis who condemned your sister, but to destroy the barony that fostered a vile beast who tried to defile her.

Your enemies are my enemies, Thane," she whispered against his neck.

"Say the word, and everything will change," she promised.

"You can have your vengeance, and an eternity of days afterward to live free of the oppression and disdain that the rulers of this wretched place subject you to," she said, gesturing at the rundown school that he’d barely been able to keep open without her assistance.

"You," he started to say before his voice caught in his throat and it felt like the beads of sweat on his body turned into tiny crystals of ice. "You’re the Demon Lady of the Vale..."

"Shhh," Nyrielle whispered against his neck. "We don’t like the word ’Demon.’ But you, if you accept my offer, can call me ’Nyrielle.’"

"And if I refuse," Thane asked as his heart beat wildly in his chest, urging him to run, to flee, to escape the monster whose mere presence meant certain death. "Will you kill me to hide your secret?"

"I don’t like the idea of killing a friend, Thane," Nyrielle whispered. "Refuse, and you will never see me again. But if you refuse, the offer will never come again. Or accept, and gain the power to take revenge for yourself with your own hands..."

In the end, it had been an offer that the fallen knight couldn’t refuse. She had been searching for a partner who could fill the aching void within her heart and she thought that she finally found him, even if there wasn’t love between them yet, there was at least friendship.

When she took Thane back to the Vale of Mists, bringing him to the hidden waterfall where her mother had once worked to nurture life in one of the most shadowed places in the ancient fortress, she did everything she could to transform him into a vampire that could be worthy of standing next to her, reigning above any of her other progeny as a true equal to her power.

She chose to give him the Voice of Command so that no one in the Vale could disobey him, intending to share her power equally with him and rule the Vale together.

At the time, she had naively believed that if she allowed him to drain her to the point of death, he would gain strength close enough to her own that they could truly become partners, equals, and in time, perhaps lovers, giving birth to a relationship filled with warmth like the one she had seen between her parents.

Reality, however, had no intention of indulging such childish fantasies.

Two hearts that knew only a thirst for vengeance and death could never find love and no matter how much of her power she poured into Thane, it was always her power that gave him strength.

No matter how close to him she drew, there was always an uncrossable gulf between them, and he was never able to step out of her shadow to cast one of his own.

Neither of them ever spoke of how close they had come to becoming more than a loyal servant and his mistress. Over the years, Nyrielle had come to see him more as a prodigal son than a potential lover while Thane treated her as the greatest liege lady a knight could ever dedicate his sword to.

The closeness they shared never became romantic but if either of them regretted that fact, those regrets had been ground to dust decades before Ashlynn’s arrival could wash away any lingering notions of such a relationship.

It had been a fanciful idea then and now that she knew what it meant to find someone who could be a real partner for her, it was one that Nyrielle no longer regretted leaving in the past.

"Just because Thane is special," Nyrielle said, shaking herself out of her memories and returning to the conversation at hand.

"That doesn’t mean you should underestimate the others.

You saw Ignatious at his weakest and most broken.

Now that he has begun to mend his faith and found meaning in his life again," she said, giving Heila a brief, knowing look before she continued.

"I expect that his flames will burn hotter than the Inquisition’s in the war to come. "

"I understand, Your Eternity," Savis said, bowing his head in acknowledgement.

"But, Lord General," he said, returning his attention to Thane in the hopes of moving the conversation on to a different topic, any topic, that would shift the attention away from him and allow him to recover from the crushing defeat he’d just suffered.

"You said you needed three men to join Bassinger as commanders of the army.

He will lead the common soldiers and I will lead our elite warriors, but what else does that leave? "

"I’m glad you asked," Thane said, pulling his gaze away from Nyrielle and taking a moment to allow the memories she’d stirred within him to subside.

All the things that had happened between them and all of the things that hadn’t belonged to the past and he had no regrets for the choices they’d made or the things that had never been, and seeing Nyrielle’s genuine happiness with Ashlynn now only made him grateful that his Mistress had finally found the partner she sought after so many years.

Those old memories, however, stirred other thoughts within the Lord General as he looked down the table at the bearish figure sitting next to Savis.

"I’m sure that High Lord Torbin would be proud that one of his brothers has come to fight alongside the Vale against the enemies that sent him into the dark embrace of the abyss," Thane said, nodding briefly at Savis.

"But I think it would be an even greater comfort to him if Commander Savis was joined by another brother. "

"So what say you, Tausau?" Thane asked, raising a brow at the Clanless vampire as he tried to imagine how the great-grandsire he’d never met would feel about seeing this younger brother of his sitting here now.

"You and your Mongrel Horde are ideally suited to form the core of the Vale’s third pillar of strength," Thane said, trying to shake off thoughts of the past to focus on the present. "While Commander Bassinger’s men are well organized and disciplined soldiers and Commander Savis’s men are elite professionals, sometimes, we need to make use of far less organized forces led by a commander who can bring out the most of their individual and unique strengths. "

"You would put me and my Mongrel Horde on equal footing with Commander Savis and Commander Bassinger?" Tausau said, blinking several times in surprise. "I had thought that I would serve as one of Savis’s captains when he formed his army."

"If you wish to serve under your elder brother, we won’t force you," Ashlynn said, stepping up beside Nyrielle and resting a hand on her shoulder as if to reassure the vampire that she was still here and to provide a moment of warmth through the touch of her fingers on her lover’s cool skin.

Ashlynn might not understand everything that had passed between Thane and Nyrielle in that gaze but she understood how her lover felt when the vampire stumbled into a memory from long ago that carried emotions Nyrielle had only recently begun to understand.

Feeling the echo of her lover’s fluttering heartbeat in her chest as it refused to slow even as the conversation moved on from Thane’s uniqueness made it clear that something powerful had stirred feelings long buried within Nyrielle’s heart and it was clear that the look she’d shared with Thane had stirred up distant memories in him as well.

So, rather than forcing either Nyrielle or Thane to explain the details of their plan, Ashlynn smoothly inserted herself to take over part of the explanation.

"But before you refuse, I’d like to explain how we’d like to use the army we’re asking you to build," she said with a faint smile as she walked across the room to the wall behind Nyrielle where a detailed map of the Vale of Mists and the surrounding territories had been hung expressly for this meeting, drawing attention away from Nyrielle and Thane as she took the lead explaining this part of their plan.

"I think that you’ll find we need your talents even more than you may suspect and that your army will be a vital part of the opening phase of this war," Ashlynn said as ghosts of her own began to dance behind her eyes. After all, if all went well, it would be Tausau’s men who struck her first blow of vengeance against Lothian March.

"Your army will also be the sharp spear we rely on to solve one of the most pressing issues weighing on Mashal Jakob’s mind," she added with a nod of acknowledgement toward the horned marshal at the far end of the table.

"So," she asked, giving the Clanless vampire an encouraging smile. "Will you hear us out?"

"When you put it like that, Your Dominion," Tausau said, puffing up his thick chest with pride he’d only recently regained the ability to feel and smoothing out the ruffles on his tunic. "How can I refuse?"