“No,” Gideon said icily, his voice becoming dark, threatening, as he took a step closer. “You spoke in earnest, Jason; it is his humanity. He’s tapping into what it means to be a man and not an animal, and that’s all because of you.”
I took a step back, because suddenly I felt different. I felt very human and not at all included in what he was saying. “Again,” I reiterated firmly, “I think it’s Varic. He’s powerful and––”
“Varic has always been strong, driven, a true second son, guided by logic and sound judgement, not one who follows his passions more than to merely gratify them when needed. He’s never been lost to lust or romance. He’s always been level-headed, heeding counsel, listening to all sides, fair and constant.”
“He hasn’t changed,” I told Gideon. “He’s the same man he’s––”
“He’s not a man, Jason!” he yelled at me, taking hold of my arms, his gaze riveted on mine. “He’s the Prince of the Noreia, and he cannot be swayed by anyone or anything.”
“No, you don’t get it,” I said, trying to pull free, but his grip was like iron. “He’s got the best heart and––”
“Magnus was swayed in his kingship by his queen, and once she was gone, he was a good and just ruler. Stoic, yes, distant, closed off at times, but solid and dutiful.”
“What?” I asked him, my breath catching, unsure if I was jumping to the wrong conclusions, suddenly cold everywhere, inside and out. Was he saying what I thought he was?
“Gideon?” Nerilla said behind him, clearly following the same line of thinking as I was.
“Take them,” he murmured under his breath.
I heard Nerilla scream, with shouts from Marcellus and Alrek layering one after the other. I tried to fight, to break free, to do anything at all, but he had me, and his hands were like granite.
“Help us!” Marcellus yelled. “Alrek! What are you—Alrek!”
“Alrek? No, Alrek! Alrek!”
From the shouted questions, my first thought was that Varic’s stepbrother was a traitor just like Gideon.
“Master?” someone asked Gideon.
“Let him go,” Gideon said without turning, still staring at me.
“But he may be going for help.”
“No,” Gideon replied snidely, shaking his head. “He’s running for his life with the clothes on his back.”
“Are you certain that––”
“It’s how he’s made,” Gideon pronounced flatly.
“Alrek, get help!” Nerilla wailed, but in the deafening silence that followed, where no promise was yelled back, my heart sank, and I was certain that I wasn’t the only one.
“Now follow him,” Gideon commanded. “Tell me if he boards a plane or a boat.”
There was shuffling behind him, and I tried again, in vain, to budge him. “Gideon, let me go and we can––”
“You know, Messina, like his father before him, was enthralled with his queen,” he continued, lifting his hand fast, like a snake, taking tight hold of my face, making it impossible to even turn my head. “But when I tempted him away from her, found that I didn’t need to kill her, easily finding beauty after beauty to fill his bed, that drove a wedge between them that accomplished all I needed. I expected him to become a man just like his father, driven, but instead he was lost to his carnal appetites and has never become the king the Noreia needed.”
I fought then, gave it all I had, but he drove me back hard into the wall, the breath slamming out of my chest as I gulped for air.
“Cassius was an exact replica of his father,” he said, leaning in close to me, almost nose to nose. “He was rash and charged headfirst into danger, all soldier, not a drop of leader in him, no restraint, not a diplomat, not a thinker. He was wholly consumed with war and blood.”
But how could he say that? Cassius was young by vampyr standards. He’d aged little, never seen peace, never known the changed world.
“He wanted to get home to Nerilla,” I managed to get out, sucking in a breath. “You don’t know what his future would have been. He was already changing, wanting his mate; he could have been a great king.”
“But instead he died, and I wept tears of joy while all others mourned,” he confessed, hand around my neck as he leaned back, holding me pinned to the wall.
I glanced behind him and saw that Marcellus and Nerilla were gone, but the guards that had been standing with Marcellus and Alrek when Nerilla and I came upon them were all dead, decapitated, the pooling blood soaking into the dirt.
“Such a waste,” I choked out, my eyes returning to Gideon. “Why?”
“Because of you,” he declared, and I heard the hatred in his voice that I had missed because he’d hidden it so well.
“No.”
“Oh yes,” he hissed, grabbing the chain around my neck that bore Varic’s seal, yanking hard, surprise flickering across his face when it didn’t snap. “Varic was perfect. He was all logic, an intellectual, educated, thoughtful, ruled by reason alone. The rutting he did was measured. Even when it seemed as though he’d given himself over to pleasure, all one had to do was tell him he was needed and he would turn from every earthly pursuit.”
All I could do was listen; I couldn’t do anything else. He could crush my trachea easily, and I wanted to live to see Varic again.
He dropped the chain, letting it fall back against my clavicle, stared a moment, and then recaptured my gaze. “He was our salvation, a king who would bring the Noreia out of the dark and into the light, a monarch we could count on who would be governed by sound judgment and never swayed by something as fleeting as passion.”
I needed to stay calm, because panicking would do me no good.
“But then I saw you that first night, Jason,” he said almost sadly. “I saw Varic’s eyes change. I saw his beast rise and then go docile with just a word from you, with a caress.”
He was missing what a gift Varic’s control was, how he’d never be lost to the bloodlust like his brother had, and how, if Gideon so prized reason, Varic now had dominion over that part of himself as well. And yes, he could lose control with me, but only with me. At other times, if the wolf was needed, now he could come out of it so quickly. He wasn’t seeing that it was Varic who held sway over the animal that lived inside of him, and no longer the other way around.
“I went to speak to Niko Gann, and he told me how Varic slaughtered men to reach you and then responded to your voice, your touch, and became a man again faster than had ever been reported. I told him it was Varic, his strength and innate grace, but he said no, it was you, the matan, with your power to bring peace, along with that terrifying barrier.”
“No,” I croaked out. “You’re right. It’s Varic. It’s all Varic.”
He shook his head. “It can’t be, Jason, because he never had such power before.”
“You killed Niko,” I whispered, all the volume I had left in me.
“Of course,” he admitted, leaning in close again. “I couldn’t have him tell anyone that I was there speaking to him. The lost feed from the prison was easily explained away, but having Niko speak to Hadrian… that could never be allowed to happen.”