“Sorry,” I said, taking his hand and leading him into the kitchen, which was quiet. “So you went to the library and found something about me.”
He nodded. “My father knew where the scrolls were that concerned laws pertaining to the others, as he described them.”
“I’m an other?”
Quick nod. “As you know, it’s considered quite a blessing for a royal to find a matan, as they enhance the power of the royal, but—”
“How do we know that? I don’t see that I’ve given you—”
“Not power like speed or strength, but discernment and patience,” he explained. “My father and mother have not stopped commenting on how changed my temperament is.”
“But Gideon told me that you were always logical and—”
“Which he liked,” he told me, taking hold of my hips and easing me close as he stared into my eyes. “But I wasn’t kind. I wasn’t gentle. I had no empathy.”
I slipped my hand around the side of his neck, marveling at the sleek feel of his warm skin and how full of me his gaze was. “Oh,” I said softly, “your skin is warm all the time now too. Just a few weeks ago it was cold, and my blood would change it for a bit, but then it would get cold again. Not anymore.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I noticed that as well, and it startles many.”
“I bet,” I said, unable not to lean into him for a hug.
“This too,” he said, clutching me to him, breathing in deeply, inhaling my scent as he nuzzled his face into my hair. “This need in me to be close to you, that’s a change, and Gideon was right in the fact that he’s not the only one who sees you as a threat to me.”
I tried to pull free, but he held me tight.
“You do have power over me, influence over me, and while for me it’s good, because you give me a humanity I would never have otherwise,” he murmured into my skin as he brushed his lips down the side of my neck, “many, like Gideon, perceive it as a weakness.”
“So there will always be threats to my life.”
“I believe so, yes. Whether you leave me or not.”
“I would never leave you,” I said, burying my right hand in his thick mane of hair, savoring the feel of the silky strands running through my fingers. “I don’t think I can even if I wanted to.”
He made a very satisfied noise, part purr, part growl, as I slid my other hand to his back, gripping at the muscles there. “It said that too, in the scrolls. That when a matan is found, all haste should be made to bind them to the king or queen or prince, as once their blood is taken, the royal ingesting such will go mad if parted.”
I chuckled as I felt his lips on my skin. “I think you made that up.”
“No,” he promised, hand cupping my right cheek as he tilted my head sideways, lengthening my neck. “It’s there in the text. As soon as you learn Latin, you can read it too.”
His fangs gently pierced my skin, sliding in deep before he began to drink. I gave him my weight, letting him hold me as I leaned, surrendering as I always did, body and soul.
“My prince.”
The growl made me smile as he stopped drinking, lifted his fangs from me, licked over the wound once, then again. Then he sucked on my skin before I felt the graze of his teeth again.
“My prince!” Tiago yelled that time, and Varic turned from facing me to facing him. “I need you outside.”
Varic gestured for me to walk in front of him, and I was steered out to the patio, where the glaring floodlights were still on, illuminating the grounds as well as the water closest to the villa. There were six men, including Count Teyrn, on the ground on their knees.
Leaving me beside Tiago, Varic walked over to Teyrn and squatted down in front of him as Dae-Jung came to stand on the other side of me.
“You’re smart,” Varic told him. “You made the connection to what it was you needed when Gideon was being questioned in the hall.”
“Your Highness, I—”
“No,” Varic said, lifting his hand to stop him. “You were working with Gideon, and you killed Jarah, you, along with Gideon, put the process of Nerilla’s death in motion, and would have murdered my consort if he were not so tremendously capable.”
“My prince, you—”
“No,” Varic barked the second time, shaking his head. “I know you came here for a key, and I think you even know what it is.”
“I—”
“Tell me,” Varic ordered, “and perhaps I will grant your family your body and not simply your fangs when you’re dead.”
He shuddered and met Varic’s gaze. “It’s Gideon’s ring, the one with his seal on it, with the sun. His house is the house of Aelius, and I needed the ring to gain access to his crypt.”
Varic shook his head. “There’s nothing in the crypt, and I know that because I was in there earlier today. The ring opens nothing, does nothing, it’s merely the crest for his house, granted to him by my father, which he wore and never took off, and now Zev will wear and never take off. It has become a token of his love for Zev, just as the collar Zev wears is a token of his status in my house.”
Teryn’s eyes searched Varic’s face.
“You were right about the key, it has to do with Zev, but Gideon didn’t give him a key, he is the key.”
“I don’t under—”
“Gideon has, just as I do, just as my father does, just as the queen does, a vault at the Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, Germany. Gideon’s can only be accessed by Zev, in person, with several different biometric scans.”
“You’re saying that––”
“The key is a person, not a physical item.”
I could see the realization dawn on his face.
“You didn’t have to come and attack my home or try and leverage my consort,” Varic told him. “You merely had to wait and take Zev. No one would have been the wiser, and you wouldn’t be executed with what remains of your men, if only you were as smart as I am.”
And with that he rose and signaled for Hadrian to take them away.
“I want them all taken back to the palace. I want everyone to see what happens to those who dare threaten my consort.”
“Yes, my prince,” Hadrian said, smiling at him.
“Take Tiago with you and remain there. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with my consort to carry out the sentences at sunset.”
Hadrian looked at him. “Shall I leave your dreki with—”
“Zev is here, as are Eris and Brenna, Kamari and Sibel. I’m sure once they all wake up and are suitably mortified over being taken out with something as plebian as drugged blood, they will protect me.”
“But until they rise, you will be—”
“Protected in the villa by a barrier that only those who Jason trusts may pass through.”
Hadrian nodded.
“Have my bag and the other items I brought placed in my den.”
“Yes, my prince.”
Varic turned on me then, took hold of my hand, and led me back into the house and up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom. Letting go of my hand, he followed me in, locking the door behind me. When I turned to face him, he was right there in my space.