A minute later, Valor and I climbed back into the Rover.
“Thank you,” she whispered, looking toward the house with so much longing that I felt the physical ache of it through our bond. How the hell was it that strong already? I hadn’t even kissed her, let alone fucked her or fed from her.
“Now what?” I asked, my voice rough as I started the engine. We needed to keep busy, to move to the next actionable item that would help get her out of my life before biology kicked into gear and made us both miserable—made it impossible for me to let her go.
She sighed, settling into the seat and laying her head back against the leather headrest. “Now we wait.”
Yeah, that was exactly what I was afraid of.
4
Valor
I clenched my jaw shut, refusing to let it drop open.
Lyric paused on my right, her arm hooked in mine as she led me into one of several grand ballrooms used by vampire royalty in the residence.
Crystal chandeliers, matt black linens, a string quartet, and enough delicacies served on silver platters to make my mouth water.
The scene before me was a far cry from the macabre pictures my family had painted my entire life. Those special bedtimes stories depicting the supernatural beings in every manner of malice.
Vampires who pinned humans to the wall with railroad spikes, delighting in their blood whenever they felt hungry. Lycans who used their serrated teeth to shred little girls to ribbons. Witches who would cast spells without so much as uttering a word—one blink, and your body and mind would be under their control for as long as they wished. And the demons—a shiver raced down my spine recalling the stories revolving around them—malicious entities with unchecked power who could slip between spaces in time like shadows in the night.
Were any of them true? Or had my family simply come from a long line of jealous and fearful ignorant people? Terrified of what they couldn’t understand and angry because they didn’t possess the powers these creatures were born with.
I’d seen firsthand what hate and fear combined could do. Add to it a centuries-old grudge?
I shook my head, my heart aching in my chest. Daphne was in the middle of it all. I should’ve gotten her out before I sought out Alek to help Lyric…but I’d been frantic. They were going to kill my best friend, and I’d foolishly thought Daphne would be safe until I came back.
I had to get her out.
Had to find her before the Sons ground her into a shell of the firecracker she was.
I’d already given up intel on them in order to uphold my end of the bargain, and if the Order was impressed, they hadn’t led on. Not surprising, with centuries-old training. But Lachlan? He’d been surprising—the coffee, the stakeout, the small moments in the silence where I thought I’d burst from wanting him.
Fucking mating bond bullshit. Still, I’d endure anything if it meant rescuing Daphne.
“You all right?” Lyric whispered, gently squeezing my arm.
I blinked a few times, straightened my spine, and tipped my chin up. Sure, Lyric was my best friend, but I didn’t want her to know about the turmoil I grappled with at the moment. She had enough on her plate—realizing her best friend came from a family who actively hunted her kind, not to mention the whopping pile of shit I’d brought to her door now. She’d offered up her Onyx Assassins without a second thought for me—I’d never be able to repay her.
“Not what I pictured,” I admitted as she led us toward a table positioned atop a dais at the head of the room.
“What were you picturing?” she asked, urging me to sit at her left. The spot to her right—dead center of the long table—was vacant. Alek’s, no doubt. But the king mingled with the wealthy vampires scattered about the floor.
I settled into the plush, cushioned chair, instantly reaching for the glass of champagne resting next to the empty china before me. “For a vampire summer solstice ball?” I took a few sips of the bubbly liquid, contemplating if I should bite my tongue now that Lyric happened to be the vampire queen. I shrugged to myself—I’d never filtered my words before, beyond the secrets I’d been raised to keep, so I wasn’t about to start now. “My father once told me only the witches celebrated the summer solstice.” She arched a brow at me but remained quiet so I could continue. “He said the vampires especially hated the summer solstice and created their own ritual on the day to spite the sun’s prime presence.” I glanced around the vampires before me, all dressed in silk or jewels or slick suites. Dancing, drinking, laughing.
“What was the ritual?” Lyric asked when I didn’t elaborate.
“A bonfire under the moonlight where they sacrificed children not yet of age. An offering to the darkness, a plea for the long days of summer to end and give way to night. And when the bodies had been burned to nothing but bone, the vampires would carve them into flatware, straws, goblets, and use them to eat or drink with.”
Lyric’s lips parted open.
“That’s not true at all,” a male voice said from right behind me. Years of training kept me from jumping. I turned my head just slightly to see who belonged to the voice. Ransom, if I remembered right. The model-worthy vampire was one of Lyric’s favorites. “We only use bones to pick flesh out of our teeth on Christmas day.”
Lyric playfully batted the vampire’s rock hard stomach. “Ransom, stop,” she chided. “That isn’t funny.”
A sad, broken smile shaped my lips. “It’s fine,” I said, waving the two off. “His joke is no more ridiculous than the shit I was handed my entire life.” I nodded toward the elegant party in full swing. “Clearly, there are no bonfires with screaming children.” God, how could my father be so blind? How had everyone in the Sons? Was there ever any truth to anything they said, or was it all fabricated?
“You haven’t seen the courtyard,” Ransom said, curling his lips into a smirk that showed his fangs.
Lyric snorted, shaking her head. “You’re not even remotely scary.”
My brows raised at her statement, but I tried to control my reactions—a knee-jerk reaction ingrained in me since birth. The assassin was absolutely terrifying, despite his playful humor. Death and power radiated off of him, as it did with all the Onyx Assassins, and the human in me screamed to run. To get as far away as possible.
But I couldn’t.
I now had more to fear from my own blood than I did from the vampires. How fucked up was that?
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ransom said, eying me. He inhaled deeply, something flashing behind his dark blue eyes before he shook his head.
I glared up at him, not even blinking. Fuck him if he could smell the hint of fear I had snaking through my blood. “Only an idiot wouldn’t be scared of you all.”
Lyric frowned, her shoulders dropping a fraction.
I reached out and held her hand. “I’d never be afraid of you,” I clarified. “But your brood here?” I shrugged. “Even without the bedtime stories, they’re menacing.”
Ransom parted his lips in mock-shock. “Menacing? Us?” He shook his head. “Words can hurt, you know?” he teased, and I actually held back a laugh. This version of Ransom was so different from the one who’d helped Lachlan interrogate me. Though, I suppose, at a party he didn’t have to constantly wear his assassin hat.
I pointed across the room to where—Hawke, I recalled—stood behind Avianna’s table. The hulking assassin looked like a statue, he moved so little, his sharp eyes trained on every single aristocrat vampire that approached the princess—male and female alike.
With his black leather pants and jacket, the shimmer of blades winking from holsters beneath, he looked as terrifying as any creature of the dark. And the look in his eyes? God, he may slaughter the next person who reached for Avianna’s hand. “You’re saying he isn’t menacing?” I challenged.
Ransom and Lyric both followed my gaze, then almost in unison tilted their head to the right in a form of defeat.
“Hawke is quite terrifying,” Lyric admitted.
>
“Only until you get to know him,” Ransom said. “Then he’s a real pain in the ass.” His eyes drifted to Olivia, who stood next to Hawke. Something churned in his gaze, almost fiery, but it was gone the second she met his eye from across the room.
She flashed him a look that could only be described as a child silently rebelling against the boredom of the party, and he returned the look with a contorted face of his own.
She laughed, and he winked at her before he reached for Lyric’s champagne flute. He threw back the contents in one gulp. He glanced down at Lyric, holding up her empty class. “I’ll fetch you what you like, my queen.” He said the title with such a teasing tone I gaped at him. He hurried off with a speed and beauty that reminded me of a lightning strike.
“Isn’t he supposed to be…more respectful than that?” I asked, completely flabbergasted by all the ways in which this new world was combatting what I’d been told all my life.
Lyric shrugged. “Ransom and I made a deal,” she said. “When Alek isn’t around, he treats me like a friend.” She blew out a breath. “I tried to make the deal with the others, but they weren’t having it. They treat me as an extension of Alek—which I am—but sometimes the formalities can be a little suffocating. Ransom gets that and does his part to make me feel…”
“Human?” I filled in for her.
“Yes,” she said, laughing. “I don’t miss my old life. Not at all. But I do miss people treating me like a normal person rather than a…queen.”
I sipped from my glass again, shaking my head. “I suppose if you’re going to turn vampire, a queen isn’t a bad place to start.”
She nodded, smiling with true pride in her eyes. “Every night I wonder how I managed to get so lucky. Being mated to Alek is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I’ve never known a love more real, deep, or consuming.” Her eyes found him without hesitance across the room where he spoke with several male vampires that looked ten times his senior. I knew that wasn’t true, though, because Alek was old as dirt.
Still, the sparks igniting when their eyes locked? God, it was enough to make me blush, and I rarely blushed.
I tore my eyes off of their private yet intimate moment despite being separated by an entire room and scanned the crowd. So many vampires were gliding this way and that, chatting and touching and laughing. If it weren’t for the sometimes flash of fangs, or the blood-filled crystal pitchers being offered on silver trays, I’d say it looked like the pompous parties my father would throw for the Sons of Honor. Same music, same game of networking and trying to climb to the top of the food chain.
“Is everyone here trying to get mated?” I asked when Lyric returned her attention to me.
“Not everyone,” she said. “But yes, many hope for that.”
“Poor Avianna,” I said, my gaze returning to her table. The princess had grown on me—likely due to the way she was adamant about not allowing someone else to lay claim to her. That, and the way she treated my best friend. “Does she always wear gloves?”
“Yes,” Lyric said. “She has an infinite number of fantastic pairs. I think she has a witch stylist hook-up, but she’ll never admit it.”
I chuckled, eying the romper I borrowed from her extensive closet. “She has phenomenal taste.”
“Doesn’t she?” Lyric asked. “I’m surprised they’re even still trying,” she said, motioning to the male vampire who currently reached for her hand. He bowed slightly at the waist, but not fully, which even in my world would be disrespectful to a princess. “Oh dear,” Lyric said, and my eyes widened.
“What?”
“He’s just said…well, it wasn’t exactly appropriate—” Her words broke off in a gasp, and I marveled at her enhanced hearing.
Hawke moved so fast my eyes couldn’t follow. One minute he was a statue holding up the wall behind the princess, and the next? He stood between her and the male, towering over him with enough death in his eyes to turn the vampire a few shades lighter.
“Should you do something?” I whispered.
“Nope,” she answered. “If the vampire was dumb enough to run his mouth in front of Avi and her guards, well…” She shrugged, a slight glint in her eye as Hawke hauled the vampire not-so-discreetly from the room.
“Will he kill him?” I asked, slightly breathless. The stories from my past flickered in my mind—how vampires were so heartless and cold they would shred their own kind for merely looking at another wrong.
“No,” Lyric said, her brow furrowed. “He’ll just remind him to choose his words more carefully next time.” She frowned at me. “You truly think we’re all cold-blooded killers?”
I swallowed hard at the effortless way she included herself with the vampires. Which, yeah, of course, she would. She’d made the transition and became something of a marvel in the vampire world.
“No,” I finally answered. It was the truth. “If you all were, Lachlan would’ve killed me the second he’d found me in that hotel.” Saying his name out loud had the brand on my neck sizzling with an aching heat that made me grind my teeth.
He hadn’t killed me, but it didn’t mean he didn’t want to. If Alek gave the order?
Would he have the stomach to do it? I didn’t understand much about mates, but I imagine killing one would be hard to stomach. Even I could acknowledge that much. I may hate the Scottish bastard, but the idea of harm coming to him made me want to puke. “But,” I continued, “I can’t simply erase everything my family ever told me.”
“I’m not asking that,” she said, her voice soft. “I can’t imagine how terrible these last six months have been for you, Valor. I hate that our worlds crossed in such a twisted way. But you’re here now, with me, with us, and you’re safe here. I know that has to be impossible to believe, but you are. I promise. I love you, no matter what. No matter who your family is or if you never decide to fully trust us. I loved you since that first day of college, when you graciously offered me the extra coffee the barista had given you.”
A knot formed in my throat, my eyes stinging. Lyric had always loved me unconditionally and without hesitance. That’s just who she was. Which I always admired since her family had left her in the dust before she could even remember.
Shouldn’t the way she loved me be the way my family loved me? Instead, they’d raised me on lies and hate, and the second I questioned their motivations I’d made their kill list.
Fucking hell, everything was a mess.
I wrapped my arms around Lyric, not totally unaware of how the motion put her fangs near my neck. I knew she’d never hurt me, but turning off a lifetime of instincts wasn’t possible.
“I love you too, queen,” I teased as I released her. “I’m going to see if Avianna needs rescuing now that her statue-serial-killer of a guard is gone.”
Lyric flashed me a smile, hope filling her eyes as I descended into the fray.
I had to get some air, get away from the emotions she stirred in me. Lyric loved me like I loved Daphne. Daphne would’ve protected me, and I needed to protect her. But I had to find her first. And with the Order? I might actually have a shot in hell. The notion fueled me with hope enough to chase away the stripping pain stinging my chest with every realization I had about my family.
Weaving through the throngs of vampires dressed in silk and suits, I headed toward Avianna’s table, nodding at Olivia who now sat poised and just as elegant to the princess’s right. She looked so delicate, so graceful, and almost wraith-like. How could she possibly be the princess’s royal bodyguard? Hawke sure, but Olivia? She looked like a girl Lyric and I would hang out with. Drink and dance and laugh with. Maybe trip over our heels with while making the walk home after a fun night out. Not a girl capable of rendering a horde of supernaturals useless. But then again, I didn’t look like the second in power to an ancient group duty-bound to irradiate the supernatural lines either.
Ex-second, anyway.
Kyle.
My brother’s face flashed behind my eyes, and
I froze in the middle of the crowd.
“You are no longer a concern of mine,” Kyle said, and my hand trembled around the cell I held to my ear.
“She’s sixteen, Kyle. Please. Let me take her somewhere safe—”
“Safe?” He cut me off. “You think you have any idea what is safe for her now? She’s with her family, her real family.”
Acid licked my veins. “Hidden away with her betrothed’s family is not the same as safe—”
“And sucking off a motorcycle gang of vampires is?”
My lips parted on a gasp. “I am not—”
“Save it,” he snapped. “You are no longer my blood. No longer my sister. The only person I want dead more than you is that vampire king who killed my men. Good men. Men who had children and wives and families to look after. Men you got killed by letting him in.”
Tears stung the backs of my eyes, his words hitting every piece of my soul.
My father and I had never seen eye to eye, but Kyle? My brother? We used to sleep in the same room when we were children. Would stay up late with a flashlight and a stack of books. He’d read to me until I fell asleep.
“You’re as good as dead when we find you, Valor,” he said my name with such hate in his voice. The same hate he usually reserved for supes. “Forget Daphne. She’s where she belongs. I know you two were close, but I swear to God, Valor if she so much as hints to thinking like you…”
“She won’t,” I blurted out, true terror clanging through me. “She’s not like me. She doesn’t think like me. We were close, but I never…she won’t—”
“Good. Hate to have to kill Jared’s bride-to-be.”
Ice crackled through my stomach.
“Kyle—”
“You remember when we were kids, and we stayed on the Cooler’s family estate?”
I shook my head, my mind and heart jerking from the whiplash. “Yes.”
“You always begged me to play hide and seek.”
Crimson Highlander: An Onyx Assassins Novel Page 4
