Page 24 of Wedlock

‘Ally?’

20

“You’re different,” She murmurs, running her hands through my hair as I rest my head on her pale, bare breasts.

“I don’t doubt it,” I answer dryly, “it’s been a century since last we met.”

“Two centuries,” she pouts. “But it’s more than time. You’ve changed. My Falcon’s wings seem clipped.”

I inwardly groan. Women, vampire or human, always want to talk, to examine feelings, to dig into places best left undisturbed. I knew it would come eventually with Revna once the lust hadworn us out. I’d just hoped it wouldn’t be quite so soon. I’ve barely been back in her bed three days.

“My feelings foryouhaven’t changed,” I murmur, hoping to cut her off at the pass as I run my hand down her flat stomach towards her pussy.

“Yes,” she snorts, grabbing my hand and forcing my fingers inside her, “they have. There’s no intensity in you now, no fire.”

“Perhaps you remember something that was never there,” I sigh, pulling my hand away and rolling to rest my head on the pillow beside hers.

“No, that’s not something a woman forgets,” she turns her head to consider me. “What, or who, dulled your edge?”

“If indeed I ever had an edge,” I snort as I rise to pull on my pants, the conversation making me tense. “I believe my Queen’s edict that I play a foolish game might have resulted in it becoming dull — or perhaps I’ve always been this way, and your memories were just all pretence.”

“That ridiculous game? Where are you going? Lie back down.”

“I need to get out, get some air, and feed,” I shake my head as I look down at her.

“You mean you want to avoid this discussion,” she snorts. “Falco, I’ve known you since we were young vampires escaping our nannies,” she shakes her head, “I recall you drained two of yours. Once, you confided in me. You shared your hopes and dreams. Surely you can at least tell me now why you’re really here? You seem to be carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“Can’t a man, newly married, visit an old flame? Isn’t that the general idea with our kind?”

“I hoped it was,” she says quietly. “I’ve stayed single my whole life, awaiting this night. A night when you’d come to me and tell me you’d done your duty and sired an heir, and now I can live with you as your eternal lover. But I don’t think that’s why you’re here.”

“You and I both know you can’t be my eternal lover,” I shake my head at her. “You’re destined to become the Queen of Denmark. You must marry.”

“Eventually,” she sighs and stretches, giving me a knowing look.

Her long limbs are beautiful in the candlelight, as she’s well aware, but I can’t help comparing her lithe, athletic build to the rounded voluptuousness of my wife’s body, and the thought, although fleeting, brings back the ache I’m trying so desperately to numb.

Shaking my head I dress and turn to leave her suites. Wolf and Mother have called several times in the past few days, but I, needing to forget everything and everyone for a time, have ignored all correspondence and instead buried myself between Revna’s legs.

I’d hoped that Wolf’s advice to be around my own kind and reignite an old flame would help to somehow assuage my wretchedness. For a moment, it had. Perhaps it will continue to do so if I give it enough time. But right now I need a breather, now that she wants to talk.

Talk is the last thing I want to do.

Sighing, I stalk the royal halls and pull out my phone to dial my friend.

Not two minutes later I’m headed to my jet.

21

I sip my tea and watch Eleanor closely.

She’s distracted again today. She keeps staring off into the distance and isn’t even really giving the baby any attention. Usually she’s smothering him with kisses and cuddles and speaking ridiculous baby-talk to him.

Something’s up, and my mind has been in overdrive as I’ve considered just what that could be. Given the machinations of vampire nobility, I’ve narrowed it down to half a million things, each as damaging or scary as the next.

I know it’s not Viper’s return, not yet. This evening I’d jumped into his head to find he’s somewhere surrounded by other vampires. He’s happy. The room he’s in seems like a kind of opium den. There are dragon motifs on the walls and there’s smoke, thick, strange smoke hovering all around. Women and girls, naked and lolling on crimson cushions, were being bitten and fucked. I’d wanted to stick around longer to see if I could hear any snatches of conversation, but I pulled out of his head when two little girls were presented to him.

Now that Eleanor’s here, I need to frame my question in a way that she opens up, because if it’s not Viper causing a stir then there’s one scenario that keeps topping my list of possibilities.