by Kayleigh Sky
Acalliona.
Strange emotions erupted in Zev’s chest at the sound of that name. The first fake drainer. Murdered in a field. But he’d been with someone at the time of his death, and when Zev had learned there’d been a witness to the murder, it had awoken his memories of Asa. More than that. Because it shouldn’t have awoken any memories. There was no reason for it to. But a voice had called to him. Come get me.
“And that’s it?” he asked.
“That’s it. A possible connection to Mateo I can’t confirm. Other than that, nothing. He seems to have materialized here out of thin air. Another not-so-good sign.”
“I owe him.”
“Owe him? Who? Emek or Asa?”
Zev frowned. Was he sure about Emek? “What do you know about Synelix, and how we got it?”
Otto’s mouth turned down, his expression sour. “Asa Gladstone’s father developed the formula. Somebody stole—” Otto let out a huff that sounded like a laugh. “Now why the hell didn’t I see that coming? Jesus Christ. I’m getting rusty. The kid stole it from his own father? For you?”
Zev’s body went prickly with sweat, stinging the cuts that hadn’t healed yet. Those would heal fast. But his bones… his faith in his own people? He owed them.
Everybody.
Somehow.
The burden pressed down hard, weighing on his broken places.
“I never touched him, you know. And he was my fated. That’s why I’m… sure about Emek. But I don’t know what he’s hiding from me.”
“It doesn’t matter. If he’s who you say he is, and he’s pretending to be somebody else, he’s too fucking dangerous to let run loose. Now what aren’t you telling me?”
Anger flooded him. “Don’t lecture me, human.”
Otto’s jaw muscles flexed. “If I didn’t like you, I’d throw this job right back in your goddamn face, King Dinallah. You want me gone, say so, but if you don’t, I’m gonna do my job.”
“I want you to.”
“Which I can’t do when you keep things from me. I need to know what you know.”
Zev sank into his pillows and stared at the coffered ceiling. “I’m too tired to bite you.”
“My lucky day,” Otto murmured.
“I know why Asa ran away, but not why he stayed away. Everybody in the Gladstone labs, including his father, was massacred.”
“I know. Unsolved.”
“Not surprising given the situation, but it probably happened at the same time he was giving me the formula.”
“So he blames you? Being with you probably saved his life.”
Zev opened his eyes. “Or he thinks I planned it that way. But why? I had the formula. What reason would I have to kill all those innocent people?”
“He was seventeen. Last time I checked, seventeen-year-olds aren’t known for logic.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know who I am.”
Otto chuffed on another laugh. “How would that work?”
“We only met at night. No lights. Nothing to give us away. I wasn’t a king, only an unimportant prince, and I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t tell him my name.”
“And yet the kid stole from his father and gave you the goodies.”
More than derision laced Otto’s voice. Distaste cut sharp underneath it. And why wouldn’t it? Zev had seduced a boy. Corrupted and abandoned him.
“I’m not going to explain myself to you. We ended the war.”
“What happened at the lab?”
“I don’t know. For all I know, it was other humans. They had good reason to want the formula too. We had no plans to make money on Synelix. It was always a means to end the war. But selling it would likely be profitable.”
“If any vampires would want to buy it.”
“Many would,” Zev said.
“And many wouldn’t.”
“True. Donor centers bring in more cash than Synelix. Which is another issue. Whoever entered the Gladstone building that night laid waste to everybody in it. The order didn’t come from me or Rune. It came from somebody with no limits. Somebody who wanted Synelix. To sell it or bury it.”
“Burying it makes sense if you want to make money selling human blood,” said Otto. “What about your king at the time?”
Zev shook his head. “We didn’t share our plans with him.”
“Maybe he didn’t share his plans with you. Somebody else knew about the formula. Somebody who might be pretty pissed off they didn’t get it when you two went rogue. Your enemies might go way back.”
Zev’s weariness crushed him. He ached for food but doubted he had the energy to eat it.
“Our enemies are thousands of years old,” he murmured. “Ancient.”
“Let’s concentrate on the ones in front of us. I’ll look into this Emek and Asa now I know more what I’m looking for. What do you plan to do with him, Zev?”
Zev’s voice floated away. “I need to know he’s safe.”
“I need to know you’re safe,” said Otto.
He rose, and a few minutes later, voices came from behind the door to the study. The ropes of fear that had wound around Zev as he fell down the cliffside pulled tighter. It didn’t matter if he didn’t survive what was coming, but Asa…
Zev needed his forgiveness.
20
Asa Waits on Zev
Asa opened the door to the king’s study and entered with the trolley behind him. Fog and rain darkened the windows, but flames from the fire and candles glowed orange. A single lamp on a table by the bedroom warmed a golden cloth shade. He pulled the trolley across the room but stopped at the sound of voices behind the door.
Shit.
Was he supposed to knock? Wait?
Well, the food wouldn’t get cold. The trolley came with warmers.
He released his grip on the handle and glanced at the chessboard. A heavy shadow fell across it. He bit his lip. But the sound of voices rose behind the door again, and he left the room. An enforcer stood at attention across from him.
“I left his lunch inside,” he said, swung the door closed behind him, and stared at the palm raised in front of his face.
“Give it to him,” said the enforcer.
A strange mulishness came over him. Goddamn vampires. “He’s talking to somebody.”
“I’m talking to you.”
Fangs glistened in the dull light. Absalom or Ray? Who cared?
“Can’t you tell him?”
“This is my post. Stay and give it to him.”
He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. What did falling down a cliff do to a body? Broke its bones? Tore its flesh off? Zev was too damaged to get out of bed, and Asa… didn’t want to see him like that. Idiot enforcer. Would he refuse to budge from his post no matter what?
Asa turned and went back into the room, only at the last moment not slamming the door.
A dull pain knotted his stomach. The flu-like ache he’d been living with since the day before hung on. He squeezed and released his fists. Zev didn’t deserve Asa’s sympathy. The vampires won, and they didn’t get to pretend they suffered now. Who cared how bad he looked? He deserved to fall off a fucking cliff, and Asa wasn’t going to give one ounce of emotion to him. He refused to feel anything. Wasn’t going to be like Isaac and lose himself in a cooking frenzy. The kid had loaded the trolley with stew, biscuits, cheese, peach cobbler, hot chocolate, and Synelix.
But that meant Zev was okay, didn’t it?
How could he eat all that if he wasn’t okay?
And it shouldn’t matter anyway. What mattered was Asa getting out of this situation alive. He surveyed the room, built more like a hallway, longer than wide. Where would Zev keep the necklaces? Anywhere? Hidden behind a portrait? In a false-bottomed drawer in one of the tables scattered around the room? In a cabinet?
When Adalyn had given Asa a bucket and rags and directed him to clean the woodwork in the king’s wing, he’d pushed on all the walls, hunting for a hidden compartment. Now he stared at the rug benea
th his feet. Maybe there was a secret safe beneath the floorboards. Maybe if he pushed on every section of wainscoting, one would pop open. Was he supposed to tear this place apart?
No. You’re supposed to seduce the monster and make him tell you.
His breath came short for a moment. He took a deep one and paced the length of the room. The muffled voices grew louder, quieting again the closer he got to Zev’s bedroom. He turned back around and stared at the chessboard again.
Maybe it had a hidden compartment. He approached it and squeezed the back of his neck as he stared down. Zev had taken Asa’s bishop since his last move. That had been his only choice really. He pictured Zev biting his lip, frowning in frustration, and warmed inside. Odd that beating him didn’t make Asa feel guilty. It was what Zev wanted. But why? Why didn’t Zev want Asa to treat him with kid gloves? Bow to him. But he didn’t, and something about that scared Asa with a sense of responsibility that he wasn’t up to.
He sighed and returned his attention to the board. Every one of Zev’s walks thrust him into turmoil. He struggled not to run in here and take his turn while Zev was out. It was too much like flirting, and that was too real. In the next moment though, he’d panic, because he hadn’t played, and maybe Solomon would find out. But he liked making his move when Zev was there best anyway. Knowing that Zev was trying to ignore him. Glancing up to catch Zev watching. The blush on Zev’s face burned on Asa’s own cheeks. Too much like flirting. Though how else to seduce him? He rubbed the skin over his jugular. Fucking Solomon.
When Asa had moved the queen’s pawn at their first lunch, he’d thought Zev would return it to its place. But then he’d learned that he hadn’t, and his belly had gone weak. Warm and weak, and a whisper had floated through his head. Kiss me, vampire.
Jesus.
He gritted his teeth and squinted at his pieces.
Zev could only win now if Asa screwed up his next move, but he wasn’t going to. He was going to run Zev down. Run him down. Break him. Bend him…
Knock him against the table and twist his hair in a fist.
Asa’s fingers tingled as though brushed by silk-cool strands. By hair as obsidian as a crow’s wing, as a city dead in the dark, as Zev’s glittering eyes. Asa imagined the vampire sprawling across the chess table, pieces scattering. Heat rushed through him, burning into him at the image. The study disappeared as he fell over Zev’s body, gripped his wrists and…
The door swung open behind him. He jerked back, clutching his queen, cheeks flushing with heat.
The ex-cop stepped out, angled toward the door to the hall until his gaze locked on Asa then dropped to his hand.
“What do you have?”
Asa shook his head. “No-nothing,” he said, before opening his hand and staring dumbly at the queen on his palm. He turned and set it back on the board. “I brought the king’s lunch.”
The cop approached. A deep line creased his forehead as though somebody had carved it there. His cool blue gaze didn’t move from Asa’s. A drainer’s swain Asa had found out. How did a tough-looking cop like this one throw in with vampires? Agree to marry one? And a drainer at that.
The cop stopped half a foot away, eye to eye. “Who are you?” he asked.
“A servant.”
The cop smiled. “That so. What’s your name?”
“Emek Henley.”
“My name’s Otto Jones. I usually do a quick check on all the king’s employees, but I didn’t get the paperwork on you or your friend.”
Asa dug a nail into his palm. He’d put the minimum on his application, only enough to make it look like he had nothing to hide. “I filled something out. I remember.”
Otto nodded. “I’ll get it from Justin. Where were you yesterday afternoon?”
“You think I did something?”
“I think I asked you where you were.”
Asa wanted the bastard out of his face. The blue ice of Otto’s eyes trapped him like a bug. “I was here.”
“Where here?”
“Outside the garage, washing the cars. I got some lunch and went back out again.”
“Alone?”
“No. Dennis was helping me with the cars. Marcus and Isaac were with me in the kitchen. I was with—”
Otto’s frown pulled his brows together now. “Isaac?”
Shit, did the cop know him? Had they met when the kid fed the prince? Isaac had never said anything.
“Yeah,” Asa said. “He was hired with me.”
“Huh.” Now Otto stepped back and swiped a hand across his mouth. “What’s Isaac’s last name?”
Asa did something—a twitch, a flicker in his eye—that brought Otto back on alert. He loomed closer, though he didn’t appear to move.
“I don’t know,” Asa said. “I never asked.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Tall, skinny, blond.”
Stupid. Like he wasn’t going to find out. But Asa wasn’t taking it back now. He said nothing while a smile grew on Otto’s face.
“You know, a good thing about being an asshole is you can always suss out another asshole a mile away. Keep an eye out for me, Emek. I’m gonna be watching you.”
Otto’s smile widened, then he turned and strode from the room.
Asa gritted his teeth and pushed the trolley to the bedroom door. After a deep breath, he knocked.
A rough voice came from the other side. “Come in.”
With his back to the door, Asa pushed it open and pulled the trolley in after him. His palms, slick with sweat, slipped on the metal bar. He tightened his fingers and pulled the trolley out of the way of the door. After it swung shut, he turned around and—
Zev looked like Zev.
Bruises, of course. Scrapes on his chin and cheekbone, but being a vampire meant he was already healing.
Asa didn’t have to feel sorry for him at all.
And then Zev smiled and said, “I think I wasted your time. Not sure I can eat.”
The words dragged at the air like metal over gravel, like nails over Asa’s skin. Pain stung him in all the raw places on Zev’s face. Shit.
His head swam for a minute. He’d felt him get hurt. And it wasn’t the first time either. He’d let this guy crawl through his bedroom window. Let him dig under his skin, night after night, burrowing deeper and deeper into his heart.
“I feel you,” he’d whispered. “Wherever you are.”
Silly romantic words he’d only partly believed. Then had come the day the floor in his classroom rocked and the walls tilted, and his teacher and classmates had stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
Wasn’t it an earthquake?
“You look like a ghost,” said his teacher.
“I feel sick,” he admitted and, as if to prove it, threw up all over his desk. He felt gutted, as if… Dead? Are you dead?
A half hour later, Larry arrived and took him home, and he sat upstairs with his face in Lady’s neck, waiting. Please be okay. Please…
He’d never understand what he felt, just that something had gone wrong. Hours later, his vampire slumped over the windowsill and slithered onto the carpet. Bloody, panting, but alive. Asa crushed him in his arms. “I felt it.”
“I’m okay,” he whispered. “But God, I hate this war…”
Now… Now Zev was hurt again, and Asa longed to… feed him.
“Want me to fix you a bowl anyway?” he asked. “Maybe the smell will wake your appetite.”
Zev sighed, eyes half closing. “It does smell good.”
“My friend made it.” At first, the meaning of his words eluded him. But then he froze. Christ. Did he just call Isaac his friend?
“What is it?” Zev asked.
“Stew.”
“I’ll try it.”
With a nod, Asa took the lid off the warmer and ladled the food into a bowl. The pillows rustled, and when he glanced up, Zev’s face had gone the color of the fog at the windows.
“Why aren’t you healing?”
Why did he care?
A quick smile curved Zev’s lips. “I am. I’m just tired. That stubborn detective of mine talks too much.”
You think?
Asa nodded again and brought him a bowl.
“Set it on the table, will you?”
“Are you thirsty?”
“No. Will you keep me company for a few minutes?”
Asa’s muscles tightened, the door at his back tugging at him. Go. Run. Get out. But Zev dragged him back. What kind of fight could the frail vampire put up now? Any? Asa was supposed to get close. Seduce him. Kill him if necessary.
But he’d never killed anybody. Never been tempted really. Would it even be a real murder? Would Zev feel the same fear Asa had when Brillen Acalliona had tried to drain him? He’d known he shouldn’t take that job, but he’d been so damn hungry. If it hadn’t been for the fog…
He glanced out the window as he sank into the chair beside Zev’s bed.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
“I sat on a weak part of a wall and went down a cliff. Luckily, a tree stopped me. I… I’m going to need some help. Justin has a family issue that requires his presence, so he’ll be absent for a week or so. I want you to help me. Is that okay?”
Asa shrugged as though it didn’t matter to him that Zev had made his job that much easier. “I’m happy to help wherever.”
Zev’s smile widened. His dark hair fanned over his pile of pillows, his dark, usually glowing eyes, dull. “You don’t sound happy.”
“Not my nature, I guess. I’m not unhappy.”
“I understand that,” Zev said quietly.
“What are your injuries?”
The smile widened again. “It might be easier to tell you what isn’t hurt.”
“You don’t have any casts.”
“I have a splint. My right leg is broken in two places. My ribs and clavicle are broken. And two fingers,” he added with a chuckle. “I punctured a lung, bruised my spleen, and tore my liver. That’s the worst, I think. Contusions and cuts.”
“But it will heal?”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to bring you lunch and…” He trailed off. Justin did more than wait on him. Surely, Zev didn’t expect him to run things.
