“I didn’t even notice there was an opening there in the wall,” I told him as he set me on a marble bench.
“Well, you walk behind the side of the shower, so if you’re not looking for it––” He shrugged. “––you’ll miss it.”
“I should shower before I get in,” I told him. “I don’t want to get blood in the water.”
“It’s big enough that it won’t matter, and I’ll have it drained and cleaned afterward. It doesn’t remain filled; I had it done for you.”
I smiled at him as he unbuckled my belt. “I can do this. You go ahead and get naked too.”
His grin was warm but not wicked, not playful, and when I stood up, unsteady for a moment, then better, taking off my pants and underwear, all that was left of my clothes, he ran his fingers over his seal around my neck.
“Nerilla wanted me to keep hers,” I told him.
“Yes,” he told me, turning to lead me down the steps into water that was warm but not hot, and instantly soothing. “I put it in our safe already. You can decide what you want to do with it when you’re ready.”
I dropped under the water then, and felt his hands in my hair, massaging my scalp. When I surfaced, he used some soap for both my hair and body that hardly lathered at all, just enough to tinge the water around us red before he eased me out into deeper water, into the shadows, the only light from gas lanterns on the wall.
“It’s beautiful in here,” I said, smiling at him. “I bet you’ve had a lot of orgies in this giant bathtub, haven’t you?”
“What you must think of me,” he teased as he drew me close, raking his fingers through my wet hair. “Just sin and decadence twenty-four hours a day.”
“No sin, just fun,” I said, loving the light catching in his eyes, the glint of them, how beautiful they were.
He nodded and took a quick breath. “You must think I’m an idiot.”
I squinted at him. “Why would I think that?”
“Because I kept leaving you alone here,” he answered, moving me through the water until we reached the stone steps on the other side of the bathtub that was, now that I could see the whole of it, the size of a small indoor pool. “I should have learned after the first time.”
“How? It seemed like a fluke, something random. And when you realized it wasn’t, I got Zev, and that attack on him and Jarah, that was coordinated. It’s not your place to be my guardian; it doesn’t work like that. And Gideon had people willing to trade their lives to kill me. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“But I do.”
“Oh no,” I soothed him. “Varic, like I said, those were insane situations. I was inside the palace. Gideon wanted me dead, and he was the one with all the power, he was the one moving all the pieces around on the board. We had no idea about Anar or Dureau, for fuck’s sake.”
He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was gravelly, burnished with smoke that I felt curling around me like some ancient spell. “Gideon planted Dureau; he knew my father would choose him and so placed a spy close to the king.”
“It makes sense.”
“So you know, he’s dead. My father served justice quickly.”
“Did he say why he did it before he died? Why he went along with Gideon?”
“He would have been paid well,” he said icily.
But there was more, I could see it. There was a tightness to his mouth, a clenching of his jaw that told me there was. “Varic?”
“Apparently,” he said under his breath, “Gideon promised him a place with me, as a courtesan, once you were gone. Dureau was led to believe that he would leave my father’s service and enter mine.”
I cleared my throat. “That had to be hard for your father to hear.”
Quick nod, which told me it had.
Varic loved his father, and his father loved him, I’d seen it, the emotion between them as the king had proudly stood with his son the first night we arrived. But he was also jealous of Varic’s youth, his virility, and how, as more of a blend of both his parents than Cassius had been, in looks and temperament, all the court, as well as the vampyr population at large, worshipped Varic. I saw it on faces when he walked by or smiled, their awe and love. The king did not inspire the same, and I suspected, as I’d been told when I first met Varic, that because he travelled the world, because he was accessible, because so many saw him, he was who they wanted sitting on the throne. Varic, with his thoughts on diversity and inclusion, on everyone belonging, giving everyone a voice. His reign would be about equality, taking away limitations and leveling the playing field. I doubted that those who still held with many older traditions would enjoy having Varic on the throne, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe they were all ready to embrace change. Time, of course, would tell.
“I wish Dureau could have known you at all, because then he would have seen the kind of man you are, and would have known that even if something happens to me, it wouldn’t turn you into the king your father is.”
“My sensibility on punishment is actually quite medieval,” he assured me. “Anyone who hurts you, who, by their actions, causes someone you love, harm, or––” He shuddered and took a breath. “––puts their hands on you without my permission, will die choking on their own blood.”
I reached out to cup his cheek, and he turned and kissed my palm.
“I’m sorry. It’s profane to speak of death when we just lost Nerilla.”
“She would understand,” I said, the tears stinging behind my eyes. “She could be a bit bloodthirsty herself.”
“Yes, she could,” he agreed, smiling at me. “One of the many reasons why Cassius chose her to be his.”
The water was so soothing, and I started gently testing my shoulder, moving my hand, clenching my fist to test the healing muscles.
“Did you find the man who helped Gideon?”
“What man?” he asked sharply.
I turned to look at him and saw the quick flash of amber before his eyes cooled to green once more. “There was a man who was helping Gideon. He had guards there at the villa.”
“Zev only found dead members of Gideon’s private guard.”
“Well, he was there, and according to him, so were some of his men,” I told him. “He was going to drink from both Nerilla and me, if I hadn’t been able to get out of the ropes.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing the news, and then opened them, smiling. “Fortunately for everyone, you are gifted at getting out of restraints,” he praised me, hands on my hips under the water, drawing me close, kissing my forehead. “I would like, after the funeral rites, for you to spend some time at our villa. Would that be all right?”
I had assumed that now, following up on a plot to kill me, and in the bigger context of all that Gideon had done, Varic would have a lot to do, which meant a far longer stay, which I wasn’t certain I could do. “I don’t know if I should––”
“I would appreciate if you didn’t go back to New Orleans without me,” he murmured, lifting one of my thighs, then the other, guiding my legs around his hips. “I can’t have you an ocean away from me right now. I would be too distracted to do what needs to be done.”