Page 7 of Dark Fire Kiss

Beside me, Aleksander stiffened.

My father clutched at his throat. His eyes bulged. Veins stood out under his skin.

The tattooed thrall on his lap scrambled to her feet and looked down at him with suddenly clear eyes. “Prince Sergey sends his regards.” Before anyone could move, she pulled his dagger from its sheath and plunged it into her own chest.

The hall erupted into chaos.

Chapter Two

HALINA

“It’s a poison called Black Settanis,” Grigory said. He stood next to my father’s bed with Aleksander at his side. “See how the veins in his neck have turned black? It will keep spreading. And then…”

“And then what?” Aleksander demanded.

“Death.”

I put my hand over my mouth to muffle my gasp. After the thrall had taken her own life, my father had crashed to the ground, his fingers clawing at his neck. Grigory had bellowed for the warriors to detain the rest of the castle’s thralls before lifting my father and channeling away.

I’d jumped from my chair, prepared to run to my room, but Aleksander had clamped a hand on my shoulder. “Come with me,” he’d growled, and the world had blurred as he channeled us into our father’s chamber. Before I’d steadied myself, he’d shoved me toward the door. “Don’t let anyone inside.”

As if I could stop a warrior from entering. Still, I’d stayed put, my heart racing as he and Grigory bent over my father’s unconscious body.

Aleksander looked at Grigory now. “Impossible. Father is a Blooded prince. An immortal. No poison can kill him.”

“Black Settanis can. It’s harmless on the skin but toxic when ingested.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“You’re a child. It takes a thousand years to brew a single dose.”

I stared between them. Only a vampire as old as Grigory could call Aleksander a “child.” My brother had been born before Columbus discovered America.

“I warned him,” Grigory said, turning toward my father. “Prince Sergey is not one to trifle with. But Ludovic wouldn’t listen. It’s poetic in a way. Sergey used my brother’s lust for female flesh to deliver his revenge.”

“Is there a treatment? Some kind of antidote?”

“Nothing. Except—” Grigory fell silent, his gaze on the black lines crisscrossing my father’s face. “Dragon tears are the only thing that will reverse this.”

Ice slid down my spine. Information wasn’t easy to come by in Krovnosta—at least not for me—but I’d heard enough about dragons to know even vampires feared them. Fierce and powerful, they were the only true immortals in the world. Not even a beheading could kill them.

But they were a dwindling race. According to Firstborn lore, a plague had killed off their females over a thousand years ago, leaving the males to hunt for suitable replacements among the other immortal races. They mated in threes—two males and one female—and the males shared each other’s beds. When I was younger, the mechanics of it had puzzled me. Then I’d grown older and realized how such a mating could happen.

And what it might look like.

The stories said the dragons were enormous males—larger than the warriors of Krovnosta. But they lusted only for one another, reserving their females for breeding. And when they bred their female, they took her together, forcing their way into every part of her body with little regard for her consent or comfort. There were terrifying stories of females plucked from their homes and confined to towers in the Highlands. Whenever I thought of it, my heart raced and my skin felt too tight.

Grigory pulled Aleksander away from the bed. “We need those tears. You know the rules of the Blood.”

Anger shaded Aleksander’s eyes. “This is an impossible task. The dragons despise us above all overs. They think we killed their women.”

I barely managed to stifle my gasp. The dragons blamed the vampires for the plague that took their females? If that was the case, they were unlikely to give Aleksander the tears. And he had to get them. Princes were chosen by the Blood—the power that flowed through every vampire’s veins. It was sacred, ancient magic. It also stopped a rightful prince’s heirs and relatives from rising against him. When a prince was Blooded, the magic was strongest in him—and other vampires could sense it. Until the Blood chose a worthier prince, they would follow no other. And the Blood would never choose a prince who killed his predecessor—or willingly let him die. In a race that thrived on violence and bloodshed, it was the only thing standing between vampires and chaos.

Without the rules of the Blood, ambitious heirs would be forever plotting to usurp the throne.

Aleksander’s voice was bitter. “I’ve waited centuries. And now, when fate drops an opportunity in my lap, I have to pretend I don’t notice it.”

“There is no guarantee the dragons will give us the tears,” Grigory said. “But we have to try.”

---