Shadow's Claim (Immortals After Dark #13)(65)

Damn them! None had drawn.

“Look at those fangs, Trey!” Viktor exclaimed. “Still maintaining that you haven’t bitten your Bride?”

Never bitten her. But he’d taken her blood. And I’ll do it again.

Stelian turned up his flask. “You can learn to control your fangs, Cousin.”

Can I? Trehan shook his head hard. “Fight me, or leave! My break from you was clean.”

“And it was your leaving that opened up a dialogue among the three of us,” Mirceo said.

“What are you talking about?”

Though Mirceo was normally a male who took little seriously—a notorious hedonist—his gray eyes were grave. “We’ve realized that we’ve all been fighting for something we don’t want to win. You gave up your right to the throne. But here’s the thing, Uncle. None of us want it either.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ll reach my immortality soon, might not even have a year left.” Mirceo was nearing the time when he would freeze forever, the time when he’d stop breathing and his heart would cease beating. When he could no longer have sex. “The last thing I want is to be mired in this feud.”

Though Trehan had vague memories of intercourse as an enjoyable pastime, Mirceo’s entire life revolved around bedding—females, males, anyone who’d have him.

“Why should I rule others when I can’t even govern myself?”

Good point.

Stelian took a nip from his flask of blood and mead. “And I am the gatekeeper—”

“A task that already cuts into your drinking?” Trehan interrupted. Whereas he had once been friends with Viktor and a fond “uncle” to Mirceo, he’d never tolerated Stelian well.

Stelian’s parents had been the most devious of all. Just two decades ago, his widowed father had murdered Mirceo and Kosmina’s parents, then disappeared. Trehan had hunted him down and slain him. To this day, they all must suspect me of it. . . .

Stelian scowled at Trehan’s statement, but he didn’t deny his love of drink. “We all know that in a secret realm, a gatekeeper possesses far more power than a king. I can be one or the other, but not both. I choose my current position.” As the guardian of the kingdom.

Trehan could scarcely believe what he was hearing. The two of them had battled nearly to the death as many times as Trehan and Viktor had. “And your reasoning, Viktor?”

He shrugged. “I’m the last of the House of War, and frankly, that’s all I want to do. I’m given to understand this is a bad trait for a king to possess.”

There had to be more to it than that, but Trehan wouldn’t push for details in front of the others. “So what do you three plan?”

“We install Cousin Lothaire as monarch,” Mirceo said. “And then the discord will end. Just as predicted.”

At the hour of her death, Lothaire’s mother, Ivana, the rightful heiress to the throne, was said to have cursed Dacia with unrelenting strife.

Until Lothaire was made king.

I wonder if Lothaire the Enemy of Old knows exactly how accurate his trailing name is. . . .

Mirceo had seen enough strife in his short lifetime to believe in the curse. Trehan, however, had been alive long enough to know that the wily Ivana had likely just predicted more of the same underhanded maneuvering already in play. Dacia’s finite amount of political power and territory made for a situation rife with conflict.

“How much damage can Lothaire do?” Viktor said. “We don’t aggress other kingdoms, we don’t have civil unrest—other than what we royals get up to—and we’re bloody hidden! He’ll be a figurehead. And by rights, the throne is his.”

Trehan shook his head. “The last time I saw him, he was half out of his mind, searching for Dacia in the dead of winter—naked.” The vampire’s white-blond hair had been saturated with blood, his pale skin covered with it, his eyes glowing red like coals. “Oh, and he was also bellowing in Russian for someone to ‘f*cking fight’ him.”

Like the rest of them, Lothaire pursued a vendetta, and he coveted the crown of the Dacians to a blistering degree. Too bad he couldn’t find his own kingdom. “He murders for sport, he feeds without restraint, and he sleep-traces uncontrollably.” Like sleep walking—only he could awaken in a different world. “The Enemy of Old is a madman.”

Mirceo said, “We’ve been watching him, Uncle. This idea is not as implausible as you’d think. He’s found his Bride.”

This was a new development.

Viktor added, “I understand your hesitation, Trey. But I’ve seen him with his female. Even in the grips of blood lust, he doesn’t ravage her. And he’s been setting off purposely, as if for some kind of mission. Which indicates at least a degree of sanity.”

Trehan narrowed his gaze. “And you want to find out what this mission is.”

“Exactly. We’ve found his lair in a mortal city called York—”

“It’s New York,” Stelian said with a roll of his eyes, as if he’d explained this before. Then to Trehan he added, “He’s going farther afield, to locations we can’t predict. We can’t follow his movements—not without your crystal.”

Trehan gave a laugh. “Which will never leave my sight.”