Page 76 of Hunt the Dusk
He smirked, mirthless and empty. “Because I made it so. I set the boundaries to our world long before the mageri made them official. Pure-blood vampires cannot leave the borders. The vermin called sucker and sewer rats unfortunately can. They are an anomaly, a mutation not under my control, and the council is demanding the same privilege.” He sipped his wine.
Hewas keeping the vampires here? “How? How can you keep them from leaving?”
“Blood oath contracts,” Ezekiel said. “Every vampire is ultimately connected to me in some way, and they must adhere to the oaths taken by the heads of their bloodlines.”
The summit and Darage’s desperation made sense now. These creatures, as powerful and ancient as they were, were confined in a pretty cage. Ezekiel had done that. “Why?”
“Why?” He arched a brow.
“Why keep them locked up here?”
He studied me for several moments, a series of emotions flitting across his face that I couldn’t read, and then he drained his goblet and left the room.
I slumped in my seat, suddenly empty.
“You’re getting to him,” Ordell said, his voice a low vibration that cut across the room. “He almost opened up to you.”
Almost wasn’t enough. I needed answers. “I don’t understand why he’d want to keep his people locked up. I mean, I’m grateful for it, but…I don’t get it.”
“Then you still don’t understand him,” Hemlock said. “Stop thinking of him as a monster and start thinking of him as a man who once gave up everything to save his people. Hishumanbrethren.”
It was so simple when I changed my perspective. So easy to see why. “He’s protecting humanity.”
Ordell’s chest rumbled in approval. “Even though they see him as a monster, there is a part of him that continues to protect them.”
He was a coin with two halves that could never be reconciled. “But he killed so many.”
“It’s the nature of the beast,” Hemlock said. “A beast who is losing his humanity.”
Ordell made a sound of agreement. “And if we don’t stop it, expansion of the territory will be the least of our worries.”
Chapter 26
“Checkmate,” the doorknocker said with glee.
“Fucking hell!” I resisted the urge to tip the board. “Every. Single. Time.”
“You need to work harder than that to beat me.”
“Yeah, obviously.” I moved the small table housing the chessboard to one side and tucked the chair under it.
After emerging for the dinner with Laudon, Ezekiel had locked himself back in his quarters. So I’d come to see him and brought the chessboard from the memory room, hoping to teach my new friend to play, but the fucker already knew how, and he was fucking good at it too. He was supposed to have basic sentience and be a summons only, but he was so much more than that. I couldn’t help but wonder about his origins, but every time I’d broached the subject, he’d either go dormant and back into door knocker mode or change the subject.
I’d been popping over to see him every day for a week now. Another bloody week of Ezekiel cloistering himself. Didn’t he get bored locked in his quarters? According to Leo the knocker—I’d decided he needed a name—he wasn’t sneaking out via asecret exit. But what did I know? He could be lying. After all, his loyalties lay with his master.
“You want to play again?” he asked.
“I can’t.” I picked up the ring that needed to go back in his mouth. “I best get going.”
“So soon?” There was a pout to his tone.
“Yeah, I have a date.”
His eyebrows went up. “A date. Anyone I know?”
I bit back a smile. “How many peopledoyou know?”
He scrunched up his face. “No need to be mean. I was making conversation.”
