Page 166 of Cruelly Bitten
And the posturing had been directed at each other rather than at the humans in our entourage.
Juliet had been prepared to bow and supplicate, as most of my kind would require, yet she’d been able to sit beside me with her head up from mere moments after we’d arrived.
It was refreshing.
Calming.
Right.
Oh, I was more than happy to make her submit in the bedroom. But here? With everyone else? I wanted her to be my equal, not a toy. Or afuck doll,as my grand-progeny, Trevor, enjoyed calling her.
Granted, now that he had afuck dollof his own—one he shared with his maker and my progeny, Ivan—he’d stopped calling Juliet that.
“Well?” Khalid asked, his intense focus on the female beside him.
She gave him a look that was borderline hostile. “You already know the information.”
“Yes. But they don’t. Hence the game of show-and-tell, darling mirage.” He waved at all of us seated at the table. “Share what you know.”
Her jaw clenched, her blue-gray eyes sparking with barely contained violence.
Most royals in Khalid’s shoes would quickly put a lower-ranking vampire in place for such behavior, mostly to assert dominance and reinforce his royal position. However, Khalid merely chuckled at her show of blatant defiance.
“Shall I tell them how we met then, habibi?” he asked her, his knuckles brushing over her cheek. “How I turned you into my pretty little dragoness?”
“You’re going to do whatever you want to do, My Prince. You always do.”
“Yes, that’s true,” he agreed, smiling. “Would you all believe that Emine should have attended the most recent Blood Day? That a little over six months ago, she was still human?” He glanced at Jace first, then Ryder, both of them observing Khalid with polite intrigue. “Of course, she was no ordinary human, were you, little mirage?”
She simply stared at him.
As did Cedric and Hazel. The former appeared bored while the latter had subtly arched her brow. I wasn’t sure if she disapproved of what Khalid intended to reveal or if she didn’t know.
Either way, my interest was piqued.
“Go on then, habibi,” Khalid encouraged. “Show them what you can do.” With that, he focused on the screen and started pulling up what appeared to be a statistical graph.
Emine sighed before looking at the room, her attention first going to Cedric and hisErosita, Lily. The female resembled a delicate flower, thus making her name rather appropriate. However, she held Emine’s gaze for a long moment, the two of them having some sort of silent conversation.
It reminded me a bit of how Rae, Willow, and Silas communicated sometimes. Like they’d known each other for a while and had grown accustomed to furtive discussions that didn’t require speaking aloud.
I used to do something similar with Cam. As my maker and oldest friend, he’d known me better than anyone.
However, he’d barely glanced my way since he’d arrived.
I tried to catch his eye now, to see what he thought of all this. But he was too busy studying Ismerelda’s profile to notice.
That wouldn’t be strange on a normal day—he’d always been quite taken by hisErosita—but nothing about today could be described as normal.
Emine cleared her throat, drawing my gaze back to her.
“Jace, son of Johan and Livia,” she said, causing Jace’s eyebrow to arch. Likely because she’d named his mother, which very few vampires ever did.
The Blessed Ones were well known. Their mates were not.
“Mated to Calina,” she went on before looking at the female in question. “Calina, daughter of Mira and Michael.” Her head canted a bit. “And Milania, a deceased golden-blood mortal. Hmm, formerErosita,too. A surrogacy, I believe. Mixed bloodlines. Very unique.”
Khalid glanced away from his screen, his dark eyebrow arching in a manner that matched my own. “You didn’t tell me that,” he said, surprise evident in his tone.
