Page 13 of Kept

Chapter Three

LAURENT

I felt Varick’s presence behind me in the temple. I’d always been able to feel him, even when I couldn’t see him.

But I could also sense he was hesitant to disturb me when I was at prayer.

“Stay,” I said without opening my eyes. I’d lost track of how long I’d knelt in the palace’s small temple. It wasn’t my favorite place to pray. The nobles used it, and I disliked having others around when I spoke to the gods. For so many in Nor Doru, religion was more theater than faith. Courtiers delighted in the spectacle of blood rites. They expected the spectacle every time.

But the most powerful rites were boring and bloody. Painful and demanding. The gods spoke to so few. It was a privilege and a burden to bear their counsel. Not that they often gave it.

“Petru always said I was too impatient to listen,” I murmured.

Soft footsteps, and then a temple robe settled around my shoulders, the weight of the fabric more familiar than my own skin. A second later, Varick knelt beside me, his body warm and solid. I heard him swallow, and then his gruff, beloved voice disturbed the stillness of the temple. “It’s been ten hours, Laurent. The Council grows restless.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He’d removed his armor and washed, and he was big and golden and the kind of heat that didn’t burn. It only warmed. I wanted to crawl into his lap and pretend I wasn’t on the precipice of losing everything. That I hadn’t allowed my arrogance to lead us into an ambush.

“Petru is dead,” I told him, as if saying it might make me believe it. Even after seeing his death unfold before me, I couldn’t quite accept that it was real. It was like something I’d read in a story and pictured in my mind.

Varick put a hand on my shoulder. “What happened today isn’t your fault.”

I gave a soft, humorless laugh. “You know better than to tell me things you don’t believe.”

“I believe your intentions were good.” He tugged the robe’s open front more securely over my chest. “You made a sound argument before we left. I can see why you wanted to go.”

“You believed crossing the Rift was stupid,” I said, hearing the edge in my voice. “You told me repeatedly, and you were right. Now my High Priest is dead, the Deepnight continues to fail, there’s a demon army ready to rip us to shreds, and the humans have fucking mirror shields. Did I miss anything?”

He pulled his hand back and folded his arms. Another male might have looked odd on his knees with his arms in that position, but he managed to look both sexy and irritated. And sexier because he was irritated. My dick stirred. Somehow, even if the midst of the shit situation I’d created, I still wanted to fuck more than anything.

Weak. The voice in my head was my father’s. I could hear him now, sneering at me from his throne. “You thought you were smart, didn’t you, boy? Putting on pretty crowns and seeking to humble the humans. You think they’ll help you fight your demons? To them, you are the demons.”

The worst part was, my father was right. Before he lost his grip on sanity, he had always been the most accurate assessor of my shortcomings. Petru had also excelled at it. “You should marry,” the High Priest had said at every opportunity. “Kings put their personal desires aside for the good of the realm, Laurent.” Petru had never said it outright, but he believed the Deepnight’s weakness was my weakness. Nor Doru lacked an heir because I’d lacked a wife. The prophecy had dovetailed nicely with the old male’s wishes for my future.

But he didn’t wish for anything anymore. Because he was dead.

Varick’s golden stare was steady. “You miscalculated. And now you’re hiding in here.”

“Is that what the Council is saying?”

“It’s hard to hear anything over the shouting.”

And I’d left him to handle it alone for ten hours. Weak.

Yes, Father. But I was good on my knees. My sire had seen to that. It was one of the last taunts I’d thrown at him before madness rendered him incapable of holding a coherent conversation. My father hadn’t particularly cared about my relationship with Varick, but Valen had—and Nicolae of Nor Doru had gone to great lengths to keep his “ghost” happy. Sneaking off with Varick had meant days in the Sanctum if I were caught.

My punishments had always looked the same. The priests carried it out because the alternative was a swan dive into the Rift. So they stripped me bare and left me with nothing but my thoughts and the sound of dripping blood to keep me company. Nude on my knees on the obsidian floor, I chanted prayers until I lost my voice. When I nodded off, the priests roused me with buckets of icy water. When I pissed myself, they swung their buckets again. When hunger gnawed at my gut, I rocked on my knees and prayed harder. And when I grew too weak to sit up, a thrall crept to my side and offered a ribbon-covered wrist. Just enough blood to keep me conscious. Just enough to prolong the punishment. To twist the knife of pain and humiliation.

And I was twisted, because the pain only made me seek more pleasure. Eventually, the pain became pleasure. Like the vine on the night-blooming rose, I’d twisted myself around Varick, craving his big hands and his sharp thorns. Longing to be pinned down and pierced. My father had worked tirelessly to bend me to his will, and then he’d been surprised when I thrived in submission.

Weak.

Of course I was. That weakness had killed Petru. Like my father always claimed, I wasn’t strong enough to bear the weight of the crown. I was twisted and I didn’t care because it felt too good to ever stop. A trait unbecoming a king.

Another for the list, Father.

I couldn’t look Varick in the eye, so I looked at the floor. “I am hiding,” I said quietly. “I should have listened to you. I thought I was being clever.” I rubbed a hand over my face and released a short, frustrated breath. “I could have gotten us all killed. Roasted by fucking mirrors. It’s almost poetic.”

Varick pulled my hand from my face. Then he stood, gripped me under my elbows, and lifted me to my feet. My muscles screamed, nerves waking and protesting. Knives stabbed deep in my calves and thighs, making me suck in a sharp breath and sag against him.

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