“He tells the truth,” Benedict announced loudly, much to Patrick’s relief.
The focus shifted back to Jocelyn. “I didn’t stick around to find out if there were more of them. I went straight to my mother.”
“Anything…abnormal about the humans?” Luka asked.
“No. They had some tattoos, but they weren’t anything you couldn’t choose off the wall at any tattoo shop.” She looked back at her mother. “Are we done? It’s All Hallows’ Eve, and I have better things to be doing.”
Genevieve waved her back, and Jocelyn took her place beside the Queen. “Someone is trying to upset the order around here,” she said smoothly, drumming her fingertips on the arm of the chair.
“Maybe it should be,” Luka growled. “If the vampires are no longer capable of maintaining order—"
I bared fangs at Luka’s insinuation. “I just spent my evening cleaning up your mess, Luka. This is not a matter of false justice or slow sentencing. We’re facing a threat.” Now I just had to figure out what kind.
“Agreed,” Genevieve stated.
“And Xavier’s traitorous demon managed to off himself before we could get any useful information out of him.” I shifted my gaze to the demon king.
“It was a matter of hours,” Xavier countered with a shrug.
“Hours?” My gaze narrowed as a lethal stillness came over me. I’d only received the news after I declared Lyric immune to Xavier’s claim. “And your offer of a trade when you thought Lyric was an option?”
“He was dead by the time I returned.” Another fucking shrug.
“He’s telling the truth,” Benedict said quietly.
“Like I would bother with anything else when you’re around?” Xavier leveled an exasperated stare on Benedict. “Fucking living breathing lie detector.”
“At your service.” This time Benedict’s bow wasn’t respectful.
“Stop.” I stood before the two could get any deeper in their own shit. “Genevieve, I’ll send my guard to investigate the club and the bodies. Everyone keep an eye on their bloodlines. If they had the balls to go after Avi and Jocelyn, my guess would be the demon and lycan heirs are next.”
“If I were you, I’d worry more about your human Queen than my cousin or Luka’s brother,” Xavier drawled. “She seems a bit more…breakable.”
I kept my face neutral, but panic clawed its way up my throat.
There was no shaking the ominous feeling that I was missing something as we wended back to the estate. I spent hours with the guard before I allowed myself to seek out my wife.
Wife. The word helped soothe the acid in my stomach as I found her leaned over a text in the library.
“Hey!” She looked up the second I appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were bright, and her cheeks flush with excitement.
How the hell was I going to keep her safe with this shit going on? I had Hawke standing guard whenever she left the estate, but it wasn’t like she was going to let me keep her locked up and safe.
“I’ve been waiting all night to tell you the best news!” She pushed away from the desk and came over to me.
“Oh?” That little blue dress was about to get her fucked, because damn. It had a modest neckline, but that gauzy skirt stopped about mid-thigh.
She clasped her hands and grinned. “Julian and I found a really old text.”
“How old?” I brushed my mouth over hers. We’d been mated a couple of weeks, but my need for her hadn’t died down. Instead, it had grown, and seemed to be reaching a fever pitch at this particular moment. My cock had gone hard the second I’d caught a hint of her scent.
“Really old.” She looped her arms around my neck. “Guess what it said?”
“Beware of beautiful blondes in blue dresses?” I teased, my hands sweeping down her back to her hips. I needed her—needed to bury myself inside her and feel just how warm, how alive she was.
“Even better.” Her hair fell back over her shoulders as she brought her hands down my chest. I’d ditched the jacket and the Glocks, so all that separated her from my skin was a black T-shirt. “It said that back in the thirteen-hundreds, there was a coven of vampires in Europe that successfully turned humans!”
Time stopped—at least that was how it felt. The old grandfather clock still ticked the seconds away in the corner, but my brain couldn’t process what my wife had just told me.
“Alek, it’s possible!” Her grin faded as she caught on that I wasn’t jumping for joy over here. “Look, I know it’s dangerous—”
“No.” I released her hips and backed away, putting precious, needed distance between us.
“I haven’t even finished telling you about it.” Two little lines appeared between her eyebrows. “Julian was right. The texts said if the human has even a drop of supernatural blood, it can work.” She grimaced. “Well, except wolves. It doesn’t work on those. But witches and seers can be turned.”
“No.” For fuck’s sake. I’d spent over four hundred years waiting for her, and she wanted to gamble with her life based off some old text that might have been written by a bunch of blood-crazed idiots?
“You’re being a little ridiculous.” She fisted her hands on her hips. “This is the answer to all our problems! All I need is one more blood exchange—”
“No!” My shout was accompanied by a blast of power that shook the crystals in the chandelier, but even that wasn’t enough to startle my wife into thinking clearly, because she just rolled her eyes at me.
“If you’re worried about the danger, then you should know it said the key was how powerful the blood of the vampire turning them was.” She tilted her head. “And last time I checked, you’re the most powerful guy around, so—"
How the hell was this happening? No one argued with me. Ever.
“I don’t care. The answer is no. You and danger don’t get to be on the same page, let alone in the same fucking sentence.” I walked over to the bar and poured myself a shot of whiskey, then slammed it back, letting the burn of the liquor slide all the way down my throat to soothe my stomach.
“I want to try!”
“Absolutely not!” I stalked past her, heading for the desk to see if the text was there. It was nothing a good fire couldn’t fix.
“Alek, I can be with you forever! I would be able to give you children—”
I whipped around to face her. “I don’t care about children. I care about you.” Not that the thought of her carrying my youngling wasn’t immensely satisfying, but nothing was worth the risk to her life. Nothing.
“Well, I care about you! Avianna doesn’t want to be queen. If I’m turned, I can give us an heir. We can spend every night of eternity wrapped up in each other.” She reached for me, and I ducked away from her hand.
“Not if you’re dead!” One touch, and I’d be all over her. My instincts roared, telling me to touch and taste. Telling me to claim her again while I still had the chance.
“If you’re the one turning me, I’ll survive!”
“You don’t know that!” I sensed Serge, and glanced his way to see him discreetly shutting the library door to give us privacy for this…whatever this was. A fight? An argument? A battle for her very life? The shutters were next, blocking out the windows so any nobles in residence couldn’t look across the courtyard and see us and start gossiping that the royal house was in disorder. Because that was our life. “Do you know what my life was before you came along?”