Queen of Myth and Monsters (Adrian X Isolde, #2)(4)

I wanted to touch him, but my hands were barred by his armor. I questioned my power and his restraint. Could I convince him to delay?

But I also wanted this over. I wanted Gesalac and Julian caught. I wanted to watch their torture and their deaths.

Adrian must have sensed the change in my thoughts because he pulled away, mouth tense, eyes alight.

“You will rest today,” he said.

My lips flattened at his command, and very gently, he pulled my hair, guiding my head back, exposing my neck. He pressed his lips to the spot he had bitten in the library. It was healed now, but the memory lived on my skin.

I held my breath and shivered at the soft caress of his mouth. A wave of heat blossomed in my chest and made me light-headed.

As he pulled away, he studied me, twisting a piece of my hair around his lithe finger.

“You will rest today,” he said again. “If you want me tonight.”

“Are you attempting to bribe me?” I asked.

“I should not have taken your blood,” he said. “You could not handle it.”

“I feel fine,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter that you feel fine,” he said. “You lost consciousness.”

I frowned. “Why is that…bad?”

His hand loosened in my hair, and he brushed his thumb along my lips.

“You should always be alert when we are together,” he said. “When I took your blood, I was inside you. You went limp. You were gone. So yes, it is bad.”

I dropped my gaze. I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty, even a little embarrassed. I hadn’t thought of what Adrian had experienced after I blacked out. Now I considered just how unnerved he must have been.

“Isolde,” he said in an attempt to draw my attention, but still I looked away, swallowing.

“I will rest,” I said, my tone far more cross than I intended.

“Isolde,” he repeated quietly, and when I finally met his gaze, his stare was gentle. “You are my light.”

I took his face between my hands.

“You are my darkness,” I said and kissed him.

We stared at each other for a long moment, and then he took a step away, and I felt the distance sink into my heart.

“Will you see me off?” he asked.

“Of course.”

I was still wearing my shift and did not want to delay Adrian by returning to my room to dress. Instead, he offered a woolen overcoat. The fabric was heavy, the sleeves too long, but it was warm and smelled like him.

We walked in silence, my hand on Adrian’s arm, and when the doors opened to the courtyard, a wave of cold air stole my breath. Frost had settled on the stones, gleaming like bloody webs beneath the sun’s light.

Adrian’s men were gathered there with their horses, and at our appearance, they knelt, rising at his command. Some were soldiers, others noblesse, and while none here had aligned themselves with Gesalac and Julian, I couldn’t help questioning their loyalty to Adrian. Since I’d joined him here, he had lost four of the nine noblesse.

Were the rest merely biding their time before they struck?

Suddenly my stomach churned. If they chose today to attack, could Adrian take them?

My gaze shifted to Daroc, Adrian’s general, and Sorin, his lover. Visually, the two made a stunning pair, but they could not be more different. Daroc, with his strong and angled features, always looked severe, his eyes piercing, as if he were trying to read everyone’s mind, and perhaps he could, but I’d learned from the start that vampires did not willingly tell their abilities. Even Sorin, who was the most forthright, had not told me he could shift into the form of a falcon. I’d learned that by chance when he had come to my rescue in the woods after being attacked by Ravena and mist-possessed Ciro. Looking at him now with his soft features and dimpled smile, I found it hard to believe he could be anything but good.

And yet someone had told Ravena that Adrian had tasted my blood. The act made me his greatest weakness—our lives were bound.

I have waited centuries for this. For you, Adrian had said. He had been so willing, comforted in the knowledge that he could trust the four who knew the consequences of the bloodletting—Daroc, Sorin, Adrian’s cousin Ana Maria, and his viceroy, Tanaka—and yet as it turned out, we could trust no one.

I took a deep breath, attempting to release the tension tightening my chest at having such a weakness known to my greatest enemy, and faced Adrian, who drew my hand to his lips, his eyes burning into mine.

“We will return at sundown.”

The words were a fierce promise, and I held them close to my heart. He claimed my mouth in a searing kiss, drawing his thumb over my bottom lip as he pulled away.

“See that you do,” I said, and he turned and mounted Shadow. I wanted him back already, but I also wanted him to return tonight, triumphant, with Gesalac and Julian as our prisoners.

With a final look, he rode out, his men falling into step behind him. They left through the gate, and I followed, watching as they cut a path through the nine impaled bodies that decorated our doorstep.

Not even the cold air could keep the smell of decay at bay. It tinged the air—subtle but sour—and it turned my stomach. Still, I kept watch until I could no longer see Adrian descending the sheer pathway into the valley of Cel Ceredi. Only then did I move, climbing to the tower wall where I tracked them, racing through the city, to the outer wall—a streak of shadows cloaked in red as they dashed into the darkened forest. Even when they left my sight, I lingered.