Page 122 of Land of Shadow

I go silent, matching his taciturn energy.

He sighs, low and deep. “I will give you what you want, but when it’s done, you may regret having asked for it.”

“Nice and vague. Just like I like it.” I grind my teeth.

He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it mussed. “All these things I tell you—you have to understand that I kept them from you to keep you safe. The more you knew about my kind, the more you knew aboutme, the more danger you were in.”

“I’ve had enough of people protecting me for my own good. Making these decisions for me like I’m a child. Do you hear me? No more. I’m going to fuck up the next person who tells me they’ve deceived me for my own good.” I flex my fists and wonder just how far I’d get.

He settles into the couch and crooks a finger at me.

“What?” I gawk at him.

“I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Once you’re here where you belong.” He smooths his palms down his lap.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I swear his audacity knows no bounds.

He smirks.

“No!”

He shrugs and leans his head back, his cat eyes closing.

I stare at him, willing him to open his eyes. He doesn’t move. Just waits. Pretending to be relaxed when I see the tension in his chest, his shoulders. He’s holding his breath.

“Seriously?”

Still, he doesn’t move.

I try to wait him out.

I try. But I fail.

I want to claw his eyes out. I think about it for a long moment before grudgingly climbing into his lap. He pulls me closer, resting my head on his chest. Why does this feel good? Why does my body seem to settle down, my mind go almost quiet? Ihatehow I react to him.

“Gregor is the oldest and cleverest of our kind. Blood Dragonis has ruled over the others for as long as our history has been written.” He strokes his hand down my back. “He saw the plague as an opportunity. The other houses believe that working with humans is folly. Even so, he forged ahead and offered a deal, one that would lead to a cure for the plague and his eventual ascension to rule over both humans and vampires.”

I close my eyes, listening to the deep resonance of his voice. “I knew all that.”

“Patience, my Blood. He offered the bargain to your sister. This bargain is one he’d been planning on for quite some time. Different versions of it in different centuries, of course. But this time, he knew it could work. He sent me to show her the lure and hide the hook. Without much effort at all on my part, she took it.”

“Tell me the terms.” God, do I want to know?

“She would become president with Gregor’s help. In return, she would open the blood camps where my people could feed at their leisure.”

“What about the cure?”

“That was her addition to the deal—or at least she believed it was her idea. She wanted access to our blood. Gregor agreed, of course. He needed to save the food supply if he wants to rule.”

“Fucking bleak.”

“Yes,” he purrs, his hand still stroking through my hair. “But he never intended to let you keep the cure once you’d found it.”

“That’s the ‘killing us all’ part you mentioned?”

“Just so. He would take the cure and dole it out as he saw fit. Use it as a whip to keep the humans in line and willing participants in his scheme.”

“But you gave me shit samples to draw it out, to make his plan falter?”

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