Page 33 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

“Are you sure about that?”

“We all want stability, Hector.”

“Even if stability means having a dhampir as your sovereign?”

“You heard about the cult the Valkhars are dealing with. This is because Esperida isn’t here. This is because people think we’re about to use her loss as an opportunity to violate our treaties. Now more than ever we need a dhampir sovereign. And even Camilla knows that.” He paused to give me a meaningful look under his brows. “You don’t have to send your pretty wife away. She’s safe with us. The Ravenors will stand by youandyour human bride.”

Although Roan was not as formidable as Camilla or as dexterous as Alexandria, he was their best diplomat and therefore always inclined to describe a situation in the most amicable of terms. What he was actually trying to say with his raised brows and knowing expression was that if I sent Thea away now, it would make me look weak. It would make me look like I couldn’t protect my wife in my own home, giving Camilla further proof of my powerlessness and therefore more reason to challenge me.

Roan, though he would never admit it aloud and certainly not to me, despised Camilla. After all, she was the one who had turned the only man he’d ever loved. This tampered with the gravity of his benevolent declarations, but it also rendered him a far more incentivized ally. Someone who could help me ensure Thea’s safe stay in the Castle.

“You’re certainly eager to declare your loyalty to me,” I prodded.

He merely shrugged. “Camilla breaks things, I fix them. That’s what I do. I give you my word—”

“Your word means nothing to me. There is only one thing that can make me trust you,” I said, and now I was the one with a subtly pointed look on my face.

I expected indecision, a moment of suspense. But as it seemed, Roan had come prepared and did not hesitate to raise his hand to his mouth and use his fangs to carve an incision along his wrist. Blood gushed—dark, potent, as mystical as life itself. The kind of blood you’d have in your veins if you were feeding on your own species.

He extended the wound to me, gleaming droplets trickling down his hand to stain the floor red. “Just don’t bite me,” he said, stable as a corpse’s pulse. “I don’t want Tieran to think I went behind his back.”

I had no intention of biting him anyway. Unlike Camilla, who delighted in challenging the conventions of our kind, I respected them deeply. A lot of vampiric behaviors, such as biting, were attributed to feelings of love or hunger and were not to be greedily implemented. I did find this correlation between love and hunger a bit ironic—after all, to love was to be consumed too—but I would never be so arrogant as to bite the man who offered me his loyalty just to prove myself superior.

I only guided his wrist to my lips and ran my tongue over the gushing incision. A spurt of blood flooded the roof of my mouth. It was sweet and powerful like a burst of treacle.

When I had my fill, I released his hand but held his gaze as I slid a fang along my own wrist. I extended my bleeding flesh to him, watching a beam of incredulity flare wide in his honey-speckled eyes. “You gave me your loyalty and protection. In return, I give you my gratitude and friendship.”

His dark brows met above the aristocratic arch of his nose. “Are you sure about this?”

“You’ve always treated me like I was less than you,” I said and found no shame in his face, only a shadow of admission. “Let this make us equals now.”

He drank from me, his mouth as strong as his blood had tasted. After he was done, he wiped his lips on the translucent linen of his handkerchief and threw it in the fireplace.

I did the same with my own, watching the wound on my wrist knitting itself as if my skin were made of thread. Then I looked at him, grim as death. “No matter what happens here, you must stand by Thea’s side, protect her like your own.”

Roan nodded solemnly. “I promise.”

Someone knocked on the door. I rushed to it, expecting Thea, only to be met with Dahlia’s huge, perpetually startled eyes.

“Oh,” she gasped as if she hadn’t been expecting me either, contradicting her subsequent statement: “Good, I thought you’d be here.”

“You’re very popular tonight,” drawled Roan, slipping past me to flick his little sister’s nose.

Before he left, he gave me one final firm look, acknowledging the gravity of what had passed between us, and when the outline of his shoulders disappeared around the corner, Dahlia took the liberty of inviting herself into the study.

Gods,I groaned inwardly,this is going to be a long, long night.

“Your wife is lovely,” she remarked the second I shut the door behind me, her voice an unmade decision between unbothered and intrigued.

I fumbled for patience.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Dahlia, but we’d always regarded each other with a certain level of coldness—even disdain on her part—and whatever conversation she wished to have with me now, I knew would be at the very least unpleasant.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said. “It wasn’t my intention to put you on the spot.” When she didn’t say anything, I added a bit more sharply, “But I know you’re not disappointed.”

“No, I’m not,” she admitted. “Actually, I’m relieved you got married. Is that terrible of me?”

“Since when do you care about my opinion, Dahlia?”

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