Page 24 of Tell No Tales
"Hungry," Klaus admitted. "Is it lunch time?"
Vadim nodded. "I heard Tim clattering around in the kitchen again."
"Does he ever stop?"
Vadim's eyes lit up as he laughed at Klaus's joke. Vadim treated each tidbit of Klaus's sense of humor like a gift. Klaus had been sarcastic to keep people away. He'd never dreamed one day he would be using it to lure the shy death weaver to his side the way he once used cheese to lure the street cats into the orphanage at night.
Vadim was no street cat. He was far more dangerous. He dropped two items on the mattress between them. The journal held the red seal of the emperor on the cover. The letter had a black seal, but it also looked to have been stamped with the same signet.
"What are those?"
"Proof that Coryn has a plan far larger than what we've uncovered." He sighed. "If you and Niall hadn't escaped from her ship near Stony Eel Island … "
"We're lucky we escaped, then."
Vadim nodded, but he still looked scared.
"What is it?"
"Delilah stumbled on something at the academy, something that shouldn't have been there. Milton mentioned something pawing at him in the darkness, but this is far worse than anything I could imagine."
Vadim swallowed hard. "We've stopped her from getting Niall, at least. I'll need to talk to Milton to be sure, but I think Coryn already has a spectral weaver of her own. They would be fifteen now, to his eighteen, and quite possibly training at the academy with him." He shrugged. "What I don't understand is why Coryn has moved the timeline forward. She wanted to wait until that weaver was eighteen, which would be three years away. If she'd stuck to that, we would have had more time to yank Hugo from her grasp."
"She changed her timeline, so you had to change yours."
He nodded. "She would only act if she felt threatened. None of the other countries would risk a war with us, for fear that their own weavers will rebel and flee their military. It must be from within."
"Was it you?"
Klaus thought he was asking a reasonable question until Vadim pounced, straddling his legs and shoving him down onto the mattress, holding his arms at his sides. Gods, Klaus loved rough treatment, and when Vadim did it, his entire body tensed for maximum pleasure.
"I'm no threat to her." Vadim's green eyes sparkled in the low light.
Klaus thrust his pelvis up, grinding his cock along Vadim's. He was surprised to find Vadim already hard, too, as hard as he was.
"You like that." Klaus met his gaze. "You like me."
"That was never in question."
"Oh, I questioned it when I could hear your every waking thought." Klaus met his gaze until Vadim finally looked away.
"I didn't say I wanted to like you."
Vadim's scowl from this close would usually scare him, but Klaus wasn't scared any more. "You don't want to like me?" He did his best pout and batted his eyelashes the way he'd learned from the more experienced prostitutes on his first day turning tricks.
"I don't want to like anyone."
Klaus met Vadim's gaze for so long, he swore he could see into his soul. "Love leads to heartache," he surmised.
"Love leads to loss," Vadim agreed. "Always. I've already lost so much of myself in other people. I'm afraid there isn't much left for you, or anyone."
Gods. This man. Klaus dug his fingers into Vadim's scalp and pulled him down for a chaste brush of lips. "Your losses only make you more desirable."
"How so?"
"It means you cared." Klaus kissed Vadim for real this time, desperate to keep the rest of that statement to himself. Vadim had cared enough to link with Klaus so he wouldn't die. Even if he didn't love Klaus, even if he could never love Klaus the way he wanted to be loved, he'd given Klaus more than any one person ever had in his life, even Niall with his healing.
Vadim broke the kiss and sat back on his heels. "We have got to stop doing that."
