Shadow's Claim (Immortals After Dark #13)(27)

“Uncle Viktor said you were leaving.” She shyly glanced up at him from under blond bangs.

“Rest easy. I might be returning directly. I only go to observe, just as I often do.” He frowned. “Mirceo doesn’t suspect you’ve come here?” Dacianos didn’t usually meet in private—unless a fight was imminent. The last thing he needed was Mirceo appearing, sword in hand, to defend his sister’s life.

As if I’d ever hurt her. Trehan pinched the bridge of his nose. Distrust and dread marked their family, just like a curse.

If only it were so easy as that. Curses can be broken.

“I keep telling him that you won’t harm me,” Kosmina said. “Stelian’s the only royal you’d truly kill.”

“Is that so?” Trehan asked with a hint of amusement at her conviction.

She outlined a pattern of the rug with the toe of one boot. “You found your Bride?”

“I did.”

“Will you have offspring now? I’d like to be an auntie.”

He exhaled a gust of breath. Offspring. When he’d been younger, he’d longed for his Bride, for a family of his own. As ages whispered past, he’d lost hope.

Now he could mate another female and beget young. But children with Bettina . . .

Would never see Dacia. Would never grow the House of Shadow.

“I don’t know, Kosmina. My Bride doesn’t care for me at present.”

She glanced up, brows drawn. “Then she doesn’t know you.”

“I appreciate your confidence.” He still couldn’t believe that his Bride and his niece were about the same age.

If some lecherous, centuries-old male lusted for Kosmina, Trehan would gut him so slowly.

And still I go to Rune?

“I’ll keep your home and your collection as you left them, Uncle, just in case. But I hope you make a life out there.” Her light blue eyes went dreamy. “Every day, I imagine leaving this place.”

She was forbidden to leave the kingdom. In this, he agreed with his cousins; it was too dangerous.

“I imagine it will be like waking up, like rising from a coffin and coming to life.”

“Coffin, Niece?” She described herself as if she were dead. “Come now, it’s not so bad. Life is good here. You’re safe from the plague.” Afflicting only the females of their species, the sickness was deadly even to immortal vampires. Deadly—or worse.

“Good here?” she queried softly. She pointed to his favorite seat. “Then imagine sitting there, reading the same books. For another thousand years.”

The idea made him feel vaguely nauseated, her point delivered. For one so childlike in many ways, she was uncommonly observant.

He managed an even tone as he said, “Imagine the alternative: never seeing my home again, allowing my house to perish when so many have died for it.” Years wasted, waiting for something that would never be? Years spent fighting, only to abandon those vendettas?

Those vendettas defined him. His duty defined him.

Without those things . . . I will not be who I was.

“We’re all slowly moldering down here,” Kosmina said, “as good as dead, just waiting for a deathblow. At least you’ll be free now.”

“As good as dead?” he scoffed. She exaggerated.

“Mirceo said all of the royals—except for him—were ‘in stasis.’ ”

Trehan pulled the invitation from his coat pocket. Have I been “in stasis”? If so, nothing could upend his entire existence quite like this tournament.

A marriage ceremony. Death matches in a stadium. The crown of the Abaddonae.

Me, a demon king?

When he gazed back at Kosmina, he found her eyes watering. “There now, Niece.” He chucked her under the chin. “I’ll probably return anon.”

As if he hadn’t spoken, she said, “I will miss you.”

He picked up his bag, then gazed around for another look. A last look?

“Uncle Trehan?”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to hear something sad?” He raised his brows. “Your leaving is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened in my life. . . .”





Morgana stood at the doorway in all her furious majesty.

“You are not yet dressed, and I am unamused,” she snapped as she swept her gaze over Bettina, still clad in her robe. Three slaves—powerless Sorceri known as Inferi—trailed in the sorceress’s wake, weighed down with cases of cosmetics and accessories. “Ah, you’ve been working on your trinkets, haven’t you? What an . . . adorable hobby.”

“They’re not trinkets.” Bettina’s shoulders went back. “They’re art; I’m an artist. And it’s not a hobby—I sell more than I can make.”

“Of course you do, dearest freakling.” Then she frowned. “Where’s your phantom? The notorious Salem? I don’t sense him.”

“He stepped out to let me get ready.”

When her godmother made a moue of disappointment, her Inferi as well, Bettina asked, “What exactly is Salem notorious for?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Morgana’s attention was already on Bettina’s wardrobe. “Now, we have scant time! Raum, curse his demonic soul, will be here at sunset to escort you.” She waved her hand, and several outfits flew out of Bettina’s wardrobe, landing on a divan. Then she turned to Bettina. “Let’s see what we have to work with.” Morgana shoved her in front of a full-length mirror, stepping behind her.