by Sofia Daniel
“You’re not eating.” Nero stared at my untouched plate of lambs’ kidneys in a red wine sauce. “Why not?”
I shoveled a forkful of kidneys into my mouth and tried to imagine what the boys would say about the upcoming threat. Knowing them, they would kill Zarah to ensure her silence.
“Let’s talk about it back in our room,” I whispered.
Zarah whispered something to Kat, who turned around to glower in my direction. I chomped on my mouthful of kidneys, imagining what I would do to her if she told anyone else about her suspicions.
We finished our dinner and returned to the boys’ suite. The knockers had taken away the dog bed and crate, leaving behind a roaring and crackling fire. They’d also draped my cashmere blanket on the leather chaise, making it look like a luxurious throw.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind us, the boys turned to me, their faces expectant.
“I didn’t mention this to you earlier, but Zarah’s suspicious.”
“So, what?” Dante placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me through the reception area to the leather chaise.
I lowered myself into the plush seat and curled my legs to the side. Ever since our conversation in the bathroom and my subsequent healing of him, he had been perfectly cordial.
“She’s a discarded blood whore,” said Nero.
Annoyance prickled across my skin. “Actually, I negotiated her release with Micalla in exchange for offering myself to Lord Lilin.”
Face tightening, Nero lowered himself onto the armchair on my right. “What’s she suspicious about?”
I told the boys everything from Zarah approaching me last term after breakfast and her admission that she’d helped Micalla to set up an ambush, to her awkward questions about Micalla’s whereabouts. I ended by telling the boys that she had approached me twice now with suspicions that I’d either killed Micalla or ordered them to kill her.
Nero glowered throughout my report. Raphael, who sat on my right, frowned. Dante, who sat on the armchair on the right of the chaise, rubbed his chin.
“Even if Zarah told Lady Mantis, nobody would believe her,” said Raphael.
Nero folded his arms across his chest. “There’s a simple solution to our predicament.”
I held up a finger. “If the answer is murder, don’t bother bringing it up. Zarah is desperate, and she sees me as an easy target.”
“All the reason to get rid of her,” Dante drawled. “Murder worked for us in the past.”
“Which is why Lady Mantis is offering a reward for information leading to discovering Micalla’s whereabouts,” I said. “And I’m sure the Preta family are wondering what happened to Kush.”
Raphael placed a hand on my knee. “Don’t you remember? Captain Tanar said hunters took her.”
I shook my head. “He just said that to make everyone listen to him.”
“Alicia’s right,” said Nero.
I turned to the right and locked eyes with the dark-skinned vampire. If I could get him to agree that murdering Zarah wasn’t a viable option, I was sure we could get Dante and Raphael to take the threat she posed seriously.
His eyes lingered on my lips, making heat flare across my cheeks. I snatched my gaze away and turned to the others. “Even if you have no respect for Zarah, can you risk the attention of Lady Mantis?”
Dante’s brows drew together. “She probably knows about what I did with Camilla.”
I nodded. “Micalla told me her mother wanted a trusted vampire of her clan in every major Noble House. I’ll bet Lady Mantis ordered her daughter to compromise you.”
Dante folded his arms and stared at the pile of notebooks on the coffee table. Over the years, the boys had written down everything they knew about hunters, both from Captain Tanar’s Hunters 101 classes and from their private research in the library.
“You’re right.” Dante took one of the notebooks and flipped it open. “Your friend Zarah is a threat to us all.”
Raphael frowned and stared from me to Dante. From his expression, he still didn’t consider Zarah a threat, but it was now three against one.
“How does she think we’ll help her to escape?” asked Raphael. “Vampires aren’t allowed to walk out whenever we want. We have curfews, and the guards check our vehicles.”
I rubbed my temples, trying to phrase what I would say next without incriminating myself or anyone else. “There might be a way to make a hole in the wards.”
Dante snapped the pages of his notebook together. “How could you have worked that out by yourself?”
I pursed my lips and folded my arms across my chest. The onion woman’s existence was something I hadn’t shared with anyone, not even Zarah, and I wasn’t about to betray my only sure ally in this castle just because I’d formed a truce with the Stryx brothers.
All three brothers continued to stare at me with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity, so I blurted out a plausible half-truth. “I’ve been dipping into the library and learning what I could about frumosi magic.”
“Which book?” asked Nero.
Raphael twisted in his seat. “Is that how you were able to attack us?”
I licked my dry lips. “There wasn’t an exact text that taught me. I just picked things up. Like how some knockers can create gaps in the wards. I tried really hard to be able to see them, and now I can. The attack I used on you can burn things. I just need to get it right.”
“Can you burn firewood?” asked Raphael.
My shoulders drew up to my ears. “I haven’t tried.”
Dante tore off a piece of paper from his notebook, scrunched it into a ball, and threw it in my lap. “This will be simple enough.”
I picked up the paper and cradled it in my palm. “Let’s give it a try.”
Closing my eyes, I pictured the paper setting itself alight. Warmth flickered on my hand, but it wasn’t until the smell of burning paper filled my nostrils that I knew I’d succeeded.
“I told you she was the one for us.” Nero grinned and gave Dante a self-satisfied look.
Dante grinned back. “I’m impressed.”
“You’re amazing,” said Raphael.
Pride warmed my chest and straightened my shoulders. After half a term of insults, hearing them express wonder at what I had achieved made a huge difference.
That night, I chose to sleep in Nero’s room. Now that we’d formed a truce and I could defend myself, there was no need for me to hide from the boys. We exchanged long, slow, toe-curling kisses while taking our time to undress each other, and I delighted in uncovering his gorgeous, bronze skin.
Once we were both naked, Nero laid me on his bed and licked and sucked every inch of my body. He made a point of not going near my sex. Perhaps this was his attempt to prove he wasn’t just after my blood. But his hands and lips and tongue got me hot and wet, I clung to his back and writhed my clit against his hard erection.
“What do you want?” he whispered in my ear, his low, seductive voice seeping through my defenses. “Tell me.”
As he ground against me, creating the most delicious friction, Nero’s blunt teeth nibbled at my neck.
I wasn’t ready to have sex with any of the brothers. After how devastated I’d been last term about the misunderstanding with Raphael, I couldn’t risk my heart until we had formed a meaningful bond.
He picked up the speed of his thrusts and sucked on my neck. “You’re perfect,” he murmured. “Exactly what I dreamed for in a mate.”
Mate. I arched my neck and shuddered under Nero’s ministrations. The boys had mentioned that before, but neither the teachers nor the onion woman had told me that vampires could form such deep connections.
“Do you know how to make that bond?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he said, “But it will be fun to experiment.”
My toes curled with the onslaught of sensations. Bucking my hips, I dug the pads of my fingers into his hard, muscular ass to increase the friction.
“You’re so hot,” he
groaned into my ear, sending sweet shivers up my spine. “And so wet. Can I taste you?”
“Yes.” The word slipped from my lips.
Nero placed a gentle peck on my lips and kissed a slow trail down my neck, over my collar bone, my breasts, and my belly, until he positioned himself between my legs. The first swipe of his tongue sent a wave of pleasure so intense, my back arched off the mattress, and the next made my toes curl.
He kept up a steady, merciless pace of moaning and lapping that sent my pleasure to a crescendo. My hands laced into his dreadlocks, and I held onto him as though it was the only thing keeping me rooted to the bed.
“Come with me,” he moaned against my folds.
The pleasure peaked, and an explosion of fire tore through my body, making me cry out my release. Nero continued swiping his tongue up and down, taking in my blood and juices until I felt wrung dry.
Afterward, he pulled me into his arms and rested my head on his chest. His heart beat against my ear about twice as slow as my frantic pulse.
“Sorry for treating you like shit the first few weeks.” He stroked my back.
“Why did you do it?”
Nero blew out a breath and encircled me in his muscular arms. “Because I could. Because I wanted revenge for what you did to Raphael. Because I wanted my cock sucked and loved watching you squirm.”
“Asshole,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “Having you kiss me willingly is a thousand times better than blackmail. I’ll make it up to you somehow.”
I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders and snuggled into his smooth, hard chest. “It won’t be easy.”
He pressed a kiss on my head. “After you kicked all three of our asses on Saturday, I’m convinced that you’re worth any amount of groveling.”
I dozed in Nero’s strong arms until my body clock woke me around midday. He felt so warm, so safe, so comfortable that I didn’t want to leave his embrace. But I had so many questions to ask the onion woman. And there was the issue of Zarah’s blackmail and her demand for an escape from the academy.
As much as I wanted to press a kiss on Nero’s throat, I didn’t in case he was a lighter sleeper than Raphael and would ask me where I was going. Instead, I wriggled out of his arms, muttering something about needing to go to the bathroom, and I padded to the door, picked up Nero’s black dressing gown, and eased out of his room.
I found the onion woman in the pigpen, emptying large buckets of sliced oranges and raw kidneys into the troughs of the strange, hybrid animals. One of the piglets stood on stilt-like legs and cried like a baby. I turned my gaze away and backed toward the door. Even though human-hybrid pigs were a less distasteful alternative to vampires feeding off actual humans, it still felt a little peculiar.
I left the room and stood at her station, where a pile of onions waited by the chopping board. Knockers shuffled through the kitchen, some cooking vats of garlic-scented porridge and others preparing ingredients for breakfast and lunch.
“Did you burn the paper?” she asked from behind.
I turned around and grimaced. “And I burned the boys.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, the first time I’d seen her surprised. “Don’t tell me you killed them!”
My brows rose. “You knew it was possible?”
“I didn’t think you’d reach that level of power so quickly. It took you long enough to open your third eye and stop walking past me.” Her gaze swept down my black dressing gown. “Did you heal them?”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. It was a difficult thing to admit. “Only one of them got burned badly enough. But over the past few days, they’ve all…”
“They’ve all fed from your nectar?” she asked.
I nodded and turned back to the stainless-steel table, blowing out a grateful breath that she hadn’t made me spell out what I’d done with the Stryx brothers.
“Erm…” I chewed my lip and sliced off the bottom of a huge onion. “There’s a girl who suspects what happened at the end of last term, and she’s threatening to tell Lady Mantis.”
The onion woman scowled. “Did she see you do it?”
“No, but she arranged an ambush for me and got suspicious when things didn’t work out as planned.” Right now, I was too paranoid to mention Micalla’s name in the kitchen in case Zarah or someone else was lurking about, trying to secure a way to freedom.
“What does this girl want?”
“To escape.” I sliced off the onion’s top and peeled off its golden outer layer.
“Will you help her?” The onion woman reached into her apron and pulled out a knife.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.”
“Probably not,” she replied. “Are you talking about Zarah Peridot?”
“How did you know?” I placed the peeled onion into a metal bowl, pushed the papery skin to one side in case it was useful, and picked up a new onion.
“Your friend is vamp-struck.” She picked up an onion, watched how I’d sliced off the bottom, and copied my movements.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Anyone willing to let a friend fall into a vampire ambush has to have been bitten too many times to see straight,” she said. “Too much bliss in a vampire bite is addictive. It’s why some people crave vampires, no matter what.”
“Oh.”
At least that explained why Zarah would never withdraw her consent to being bitten even when that would have ended her problems. I wondered if Captain Tanar was using bliss on Miss Margolyes. The woman always looked so beaten down. Perhaps I could help her escape at the same time I helped Zarah.
“Whatever you do, don’t trust that girl,” said the onion woman. “Same goes for anyone under the thrall of vampire bliss.”
I opened my mouth to tell the onion woman that Zarah was no longer the Coven of Bitches’ plaything, but I clamped it shut. Zarah was still in conversations with Juno, who wanted her to join their noble house. I had no idea if Zarah was servicing one careful vampire or none at all.
“Right.” I blew out a long breath. “She’s not trustworthy, but if I don’t help, she’ll screw me over.”
“That’s why you need to learn how to practice opening and closing the wards,” said the onion woman. “And fast.”
Chapter 14
Our final lesson the next night was Hunters 101. I sat in the back with the boys while Zarah flitted between Juno and Lava. Lava would occasionally turn around and shoot us narrow-eyed gazes.
I tried to stare ahead and focus on Captain Tanar’s lecture. No one would ever guess that Raphael, who everyone had known to be injured from my blood, had snuck out of the infirmary to kill Kush. It also didn’t help that I’d hidden a baggie of the girl’s ashes up in Frumosi Tower.
Raphael leaned into my side. “What’s she doing?”
“Making allies, I think,” I whispered back.
“Miss Stephens,” snapped the captain. “Do not talk in class unless you wish to be punished.”
Dread seized my stomach in its cold grip. Captain Tanar hadn’t spoken to me since that time he’d offered to make me his consort. Back then, I thought he was just a perverted old vampire, but things were different now.
If Nero had thought I might help him and his brothers gain the same kind of power as Dracula’s grand-sons, I was betting the captain thought the same.
Everyone turned around and stared. Some of the frumosi girls shot me jealous looks, but the frumosi boys grimaced with pity.
Dante stood. “My apologies, Captain. I take full responsibility for the actions of our concubine.”
Humiliation burned my cheeks, and I ducked my head. This was still a hundred times better than being punished in front of the captain.
The older vampire’s face twisted with annoyance, and he returned to his lecture.
My gaze wandered back to Zarah, who had turned back to the front, but Lava stared into my eyes with such intensity, I had to snatch my gaze away in case she w
as mesmerizing me.
I lowered my head and focused on writing notes. If Zarah was planning on sharing her suspicions with others, I needed to stop her. Now.
Throughout dinner, the boys discussed what to do about Zarah in hushed voices. I stole glances at her from across the dining room, absentmindedly nibbling on a liver and bacon roulade. They had already explained that speaking at a volume I could hear would mean letting other vampires eavesdrop.
When they finished talking, Dante turned to me and said, “Invite her to the suite to discuss terms.”
“This had better not be an ambush,” I whispered.
“With Dracula needing frumosi trained up as familiars, killing or even hurting one will cause an investigation no one can afford.”
I took a sip on my grapefruit juice and walked over to the frumosi side of the dining room, where Zarah and the other girls had already stood and were preparing to leave.
“Zarah,” I said.
She turned around, hope glimmering in her pale green eyes.
“What do you want?” Kat placed her hands on her hips and rolled her head in a feisty movement that made her auburn curls bob.
“I don’t remember calling your name,” I spat.
“Zarah told us you weren’t really a blood whore,” she said loud enough for everyone to hear. “The Stryx brothers are treating you like a princess.”
I curled my lip. What business was that of hers? If she wanted three horny and hungry vampires crowding around her during her period, she only needed to stop taking her anti-conceptional. I would have told her as much, but I didn’t want to give her more attention than she deserved.
“Do you want to have this conversation or not?” I asked Zarah.
She turned to the others and smiled. “It’s fine. Alicia won’t hurt me.”
Kat sniffed, her lips turning downward. She said to Anette, “I suppose we’d better go, then.”
