“Let go,” I whispered.
He looked at me, just looked at me, his green eyes sparkling with amusement. “You’ll fall.”
“Let go.”
He did.
My legs buckled, refusing to support my weight, and I collapsed to my knees. Tatius, not touching me, moved with me, and I realized my fingers were tangled in his mesh shirt.
I didn’t remember grabbing him. Forcing my stiff fingers to uncurl, I dropped my arms to the floor. I stayed like that a moment, on all fours, on the floor, just breathing. Then I pushed to my feet. My legs wobbled, but held my weight.
Tatius watched me, his green-eyed gaze blistering, searing my skin until a flush crawled to my cheeks.
What’s wrong
with me?
I needed to be more on the ball than this.
One little
bite and I turn into a simpering idiot?
Hell no.
I lifted my chin and I looked around. Nathanial was on the couch again, but his gaze was on the floor. He didn’t look up.
Didn’t look at me.
I didn’t blame him.
“Happy now?” I asked Tatius, forcing every last bit of bravado hiding in my body into my voice.
He didn’t look fooled as he smiled down at me. “Not yet. But closer.” His arm wrapped around my waist, and he turned me, tucking me against his hip so we were standing side by side. “You’ll be on my arm tonight. Hermit, are you coming? We have an appointment with the Collector.”
Nathanial’s head shot up. I’d seen him rage once before, and it had been a terrifying thing to behold. It was no less frightening to see his full lips thinned in anger, his gray eyes wide and hurt. He stared at me and I was the one to drop my gaze this time.
“Get a hold of yourself,” Tatius chided. “We will present a unified front, with all of my council backing the fact my companion had nothing to do with the albino’s demise.”
“Your companion?” Nathanial’s words were hardly more than a broken scratching sound issuing from his throat. He looked at Tatius. The rage had thinned in his face, a sharp edge of fear taking its place. I’d seen similar expressions on animals before. The question in their eyes wasn’t an indication they were beaten—it was the panic of being backed into a corner. A cornered animal was deadly.
Tatius stroked my hair. “Yes,
my
companion.”
A statement. No question. No room to argue.
I tried to push free. “No.”
He cocked a dyed eyebrow. “No? My dear, you get no say in this matter. You are a novelty, a child, a commodity. And now you are mine.”
Chapter Seven
His?
Like hell. I didn’t belong to anyone. Least of all to Tatius.
My effort to detangle myself from Tatius’s arms redoubled, and Nathanial was suddenly in the space before us. I hadn’t seen him move, hadn’t heard him. His hand shot out, ripping me from Tatius’s grasp, pulling me behind him.
My legs still weren’t steady, and I stumbled, falling to my knees. I rolled with it, letting the momentum turn me. Then I shot back to my feet. My vision filled with black dots. That didn’t stop me. I slid into a defensive crouch, my fists clenching. One heartbeat pounded behind my blind eyes.
Two.
I couldn’t hear the fight. Couldn’t tell who was winning.
The darkness gave way to a gray washed world. I caught a glimpse of Nathanial’s back, his hands locked with Tatius’s as the two of them grappled. The gray parted. Nathanial crumpled to his knees, his arms going slack.
Shsssk.
The dagger slid from Tatius’s thigh hilt.
Nathanial didn’t move. Didn’t twitch.
The dagger angled toward his throat, and I threw myself forward, knocking Nathanial to the floor. I expected pain to slice through my back, across my unprotected shoulders. It didn’t. I chanced a glance up.
Tatius glared down at me, his arms crossed over his broad chest and the dagger tapping his forearm. “You’re both fools. Get up.”
Nathanial rose smoothly before turning and offering me a hand. I wouldn’t normally have accepted the help, but it had been a hell of a night. I took his hand, glad for it as I realized I was shaking again.
“Come,” Tatius said, holding out his arm for me to take.
Apparently we were picking back up where we were before Nathanial’s outburst.
“No,” Nathanial stepped in front of me, blocking me from Tatius’s sight with his own body. “No. She is my companion. I brought her here in good faith. She will not be presented on your arm.”
I could just make out Tatius around Nathanial’s shoulder.
He shook his head, his expression turning dark. He lifted the blade, and it glimmered in the candlelight. The orange glow made the surface look like it was already coated in blood.
“Is that the position you are choosing to take, Hermit?”
The threat was clear in his voice, and if not his voice, then in the glinting blade.
Nathanial spun. His arms locked around my waist and lifted me from the floor in one movement. I gasped as the ceiling rushed toward us and he hugged me tighter to his chest.
“Shhhh,” he hissed in my ear.
I held my breath, willing my heart to stop its deafening banging. It didn’t obey. I caught my reflection in a mirror. I hated the frightened look carved across my face, my too wide eyes. My reflection looked away. I blinked.
What the—?
There was no mirror.
Doppelgangers hung in the air around us, each an exact copy of Nathanial and me.
How?
Nathanial. One of his powers was to create illusions. He used it to make himself invisible when he flew, and once he’d changed my appearance, but I’d never realized he could do anything so… elaborate.
Half a dozen doppelgangers filled the small room. The Kitacopies all looked stricken as they stared at each other. Two red dots decorated each of their throats.
The bite
—Tatius hadn’t closed it. The Nathanial-copies stared at Tatius, brows creased with strain, pupils expanded until their gray irises were eradicated.
“This is foolish, Nate,” Tatius said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And deadly.”
He sounded at ease, bored even, as his gaze moved over the half dozen copies, but his pupils had also expanded, only the thinnest sliver of green left.
Nate?
It was a very un-Nathanial like nickname. Was Tatius’s use of the nickname supposed to engender trust? To remind Nathanial of some shared past—or possibly to remind himself?
Nathanial floated us toward the door as the doppelgangers dashed in front of us. They dipped as they flew, switching places like a street magician’s sleight of hand trick. Which cup is the quarter under? Which Nathanial and Kita are real? The audience rarely guessed correctly, and Nathanial was more than a street magician—he was an old vampire with a gift for illusion.
But Tatius was ancient.
We glided toward the door, invisible, undetectable. The doppelgangers were mere distractions. They darted closer to Tatius, feigning attacks, drawing his attention. We couldn’t fight Tatius and win—that had already been proven. But maybe we could still run.
Under my hands, I felt the strain tingling along Nathanial’s skin, the tension stiffening his shoulders. He’d told me once that he couldn’t maintain a moving illusion more than a few feet. We were now yards from the darting copies of ourselves.
One of the feigned attackers dashed at Tatius’s back. Tatius spun, his dagger disappearing into the fake Nathanial’s chest.
The real Nathanial shuddered, his arms tensing around me.
The impaled copy vanished.
Tatius whirled and planted the dagger in another illusionary chest. Another doppelganger disappeared. Only four remained. Our slow glide toward the door picked up speed. Tatius spun. The dagger flew through the air, straight at us. Nathanial careened sideways, the dagger slicing through the material of his tux before burying itself halfway to the hilt in the door.
Found you,
Tatius’s smug voice said
inside
my head.
I swallowed hard, clinging tighter to Nathanial. Tatius lifted his hand, not even the smallest bit of green left in his eyes.
He ignored the illusions darting at him, his intense gaze fixed on us. Nathanial’s fangs flashed, his pupils expanded, turned his eyes black.
The doppelgangers disappeared. Nathanial’s flight path changed. He was pouring all of his energy into making us invisible, but Tatius’s eyes tracked our movement.
A smirk twisted Tatius’s lips, and he clenched his fist as if snatching a butterfly out of the air. Nathanial froze. Then the ground jutted toward us as we dropped.
I crouched, absorbing the impact, but Nathanial hit the carpet hard, his body crumpling like a boneless doll—or like a puppet with limp strings.
Horror twisted my stomach as Tatius strolled across the room, casual-like, to retrieve his dagger. Nathanial never moved. My hands trembled as I reached down and lifted him under the arms. His pulse pounded against my palms, so he was alive, but he was dead weight. Only his eyes, wide and locked on me, showed he was conscious.
Dammit.
He couldn’t move. He would have if he could. Tatius had control of his body. And speaking of, Tatius was almost upon us. I looked around. I was strong and fast, but Nathanial hadn’t been a match for Tatius, and Nathanial could kick my ass while reading a book.
Think of something, dammit.
Nothing emerged from my panicking mind. Which meant I was winging it or dying.
Maybe both.
I lowered Nathanial and he slumped forward like a ragdoll.
Tatius, still strolling, was less than a yard away, his dagger flashing in the candlelight. I stepped between him and Nathanial.
“Move,” he said, stepping into my personal bubble.
“You made your point,” I said between gritted teeth.
“You’ve reestablished yourself as the biggest badass around. We get it.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Move.”
I didn’t.
I wasn’t familiar with vampire society, but I knew ‘ruled by the fittest’ structure. In Firth I’d been named
Dyre,
destined to take my father’s place as
Torin
, but if I’d stepped up as
Torin,
my position would have been challenged, hard. I’d left before I was old enough to be opposed, but if I’d have stayed, I’d have needed a deadly reputation to survive.
Tatius was no kitten amongst lions, but I had no doubt he had a reputation to maintain. With my issues with authority, you’d think I’d have appeasement tactics down. Instead I’d spent much of my life thankful I healed quickly. Not an option currently. If I didn’t diffuse this situation, one of us wasn’t walking out of the room alive.
I kept my gaze locked with Tatius’s but sank to my knees.
I was still in his path, still blocking him, but in a much more placating position. His eyes moved from my face to my neck.
No, not just my neck, but to his bite marks in my throat. I brushed aside my hair, giving him a better view of the wound.
“You made your point,” I said again. “There were no witnesses. There’s nothing more to prove.” Because what happened behind closed doors was always easier to forgive.
“Are you bargaining for your master’s life?” Tatius frowned at me, but a rim of green appeared around his pupils. “What do you have to bargain with?”
Damn.
I mentally cast about, but I had nothing. Nothing to offer or trade. Whatever my face revealed made Tatius smirk, a small, self-satisfied twist of his mouth. He crouched in front of me and reached out, his hand hovering over the bite in my throat.
I winced and my tongue dried and stuck to the roof of my mouth. I
knew
what I had available to trade. My lips cracked as they parted, as if they were the last defense trying to keep the words from leaving my mouth. I spoke anyway. “Me? I mean, my companion bond?”
His smirk turned crueler. “An awful big opinion of yourself for a runt with no manners or feminine wiles. Besides, I can already take your bond. As you said, I proved my point and our sad little Hermit cannot deny me. Offer me something else.”
I swallowed around my thick tongue.
What else did I have?
I seriously doubted he’d want the marbles or other knickknacks I’d collected. All I had was myself to offer.
“No resistance,” I whispered.
“What?”
He’d heard me, I knew he had, but I cleared my throat, speaking louder anyway. “My cooperation. That’s what I have on the table.”
His fingers, still hovering over my throat, dropped the inch to my skin. They landed ever so lightly above my pulse then trailed downward in a smooth stroke over the bite mark he’d left open. My back arched as a maddening mix of pain and pleasure shot from my throat and pooled in my center. I gasped. My vision blanked.
Then the sensation passed.
What the hell was that?
I swallowed, shaking as my breath tumbled out of me.
When my vision cleared, Tatius’s nose was less than an inch from mine, his face filling my awareness.
“You couldn’t resist me,” he whispered, his breath passing the words over my lips.
Every instinct in my body urged me to pull back, to run away. I was more than flirting with death, I was presenting myself to him as a cheap whore. I swallowed down the need to flee, forcing it into a bottle deep inside, knowing the next time I examined that corner of my psyche I would probably end up screaming.
“Take it or leave it,” I said. And here I’d thought I’d exhausted my bravado.
Tatius stood, sheathing his dagger in one smooth movement. “I do like your spirit.”
Was that acceptance?
I rose slowly, my knees unsteady as I pushed to my feet.
Behind me, I heard Nathanial move as well.
“Kita?”
Just my name, carried with so much uncertainty, I almost didn’t recognize it from Nathanial’s mouth. I could feel him staring at me, the weight of his gaze prickly against my back.
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said to Tatius.
“So anxious?” He held out his hand, and I gritted my teeth but obediently took it, letting him pull me closer. He lifted his wrist and bit deep. “His life is in your hands. Drink.”