Page 46 of Wedlock (Vampire Bachelor Games #3)

The cell is spectacularly free of all modern conveniences and comforts, and I’m not surprised.

The Queen’s dungeons and torture chambers, built specifically to hold vampires, have a long, bloody reputation that stretches back a millennia and continues to this day.

If ghosts were real, I’m quite sure there wouldn’t even be standing room where I’m currently incarcerated.

I’ve never been here before, but I’ve heard reports of what goes on, and I know there’s no possibility of escape.

The walls are at least two metres thick.

There’s no window, naturally. The only light is shed from the bare bulbs running the length of the hallway between cells.

The floor is equally as thick as the walls, and I expect just as reinforced.

At the sound of a key in the lock at the end of the hallway and boots on the flagstones, I stay seated on the hard, rock shelf built into the wall, the only nod to furnishing, and look up to see the familiar face of my friend staring through my bars, shaking his head.

“I came as soon as I heard.”

“Wolf,” I meet his eyes, “I didn’t do it.”

“Of course you fucking didn’t,” he snorts.

“I just wanted you to know.”

“You’re unhinged, no doubt about it,” he chuckles, “but even at your psychotic best you wouldn’t kill a pregnant human, royal or otherwise.”

“She wasn’t pregnant; she’d already had the baby. She told me Spider put her on the hook. My guess is the child looked like me, and he took his vengeance out on her.”

“It’s a shame,” Wolf nods, “but…”

“But what?”

“Falcon, let’s be honest, she was a complication you didn’t need. How many women do you want to have hanging around your neck like lead weights? Bad enough you have a wife and a princess determined to become your next. You didn’t need a countess too.”

“I know,” I scowl, “it’s not my intention to collect women like you collect fucking old maps, but I got myself into this situation and I have to take responsibility for my actions. I need your help.”

“Obviously.”

“She said someone took it.”

“Took what? The infant?”

“Yes. I need you to find out who has my child.”

Wolf gives me a hard look before sighing heavily and staring at the ceiling.

“Wolf?”

“I know you fear becoming your father,” he sighs, “and we both know he would have killed the bastard, not sent out a search party. He was a prick, we’re all agreed on that, but he might have had the right idea on this issue.

How about I just hire someone to find it and to knock it off, and we save all this palaver. ”

“The child isn’t a bastard,” I scowl, “his mother was a royal, as is his father — namely me — and it was born in wedlock.”

“Point of order,” Wolf snorts, “you weren’t married to each other at the time of its conception.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I snap. “I promised Sophie I’d look after her; instead, I left her with my enemy while suspecting she was carrying my child.”

“Your spy said she wasn’t pregnant when she went back to him,” Wolf says quietly. “You might have suspected, but you had no proof. And need I remind you she was a gold-digging bitch who ditched you for the Count?”

“I still gave her my word, and I broke that,” I scowl. “The least I can do is ensure the child is cared for. I need to find it, Wolf.”

“Why?”

“Because some of us still have honour.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?” He sighs.

“I don’t know.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he shakes his head. “You know it isn’t me that you need for this side quest. It’s Jag. He could find a needle in a silver haystack. And just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been looking for my own sister, unsuccessfully, for centuries.”

“I don’t want Jag involved,” I snap, “for obvious fucking reasons.”

Wolf shrugs.

“I’ll do my best. But in the meantime we have more pressing concerns. I need to know where to look, or who to look for, to clear your name.”

I shake my head and rub my temples. It’s been a long twenty-four hours, a long, harrowing, twenty-four hours.

I’d found my dead brother, supposedly dispatched by an unknown woman, discovered my dying former mistress and learned that I had another child.

Then to top it off, I’d been falsely accused, arrested, and jailed.

‘Who could clear my name? Nobody. I went alone, uninvited, to the estate of my known enemy, and I was caught surrounded by his dead guards, my hands red with the blood of his wife.’

“I’m up shit creek without a paddle, Wolf.”

“Lucky you’re a strong swimmer,” he smirks.