Revealed in Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights #9)(17)

RIDE OR DIE, BITCHES! Penny thought-screamed at me. She was really good at blocking her thoughts, but communicating with them was another story.

I filled my lungs, held the air for a moment, and then let it out slowly. I met Roger’s eyes. “Yep,” I replied.

“You are the woman who went into the Underworld,” he said. “With Darius. You got him through the fog because of the bond.”

“Right again.”

“You are Lucifer’s daughter—his heir—and Vlad knows it, but Lucifer does not.”

“Three for three. What do we have for our winner?” I did a circle in the air with my finger, but I felt anything but mirth.

“Why hasn’t Vlad told Lucifer?” Roger asked, leaning back in his chair as though defeated. I had no idea what his deal was. It wasn’t like this had anything to do with him. Unless he felt it his duty to deliver me to the elves and thought, correctly, that he’d die before that happened.

“At first, it had to do with me and the bond,” Darius replied, curling his fingers around my hand, still resting on his thigh. “He did not want to cross me, because he did not want me to return the favor. Further, it is forbidden to endanger a lawful bond-mate, especially a bond-mate of a vampire in excellent standing, such as myself. To do so would invite scrutiny and punishment. However, if he tries to tantalize my kind with the promise of more freedom and power, of leaving our lair in the Realm behind for the golden castle, the standing of a bond-mate would likely be overlooked. The only thing stopping him at this point, I would wager, is not knowing where she is.”

“He can spin the bond-mate thing easily,” Emery said, leaning forward, elbows braced on the table. “If he delivers her to Lucifer, he could claim he is protecting her from the elves. He is protecting her from those who would wish her harm. Lucifer would not kill his child, and thus, she would be in no danger from him. Not of death, anyway. He could get away with it.”

“Yes. Many vampires would follow him,” Darius said. “He is the most powerful in our faction.”

“What about Ja?” Penny asked.

Darius squinted a little. “She is physically more powerful, with more experience, and I have no doubt more cunning, but her motives aren’t clear. She does not have any kind of standing at the moment. She hasn’t properly inserted herself into our hierarchy.”

“Where does that leave you?” Roger asked Darius.

He squeezed my hand. “My children are loyal to me. They will follow me.”

“And who will you follow?”

“Reagan, naturally.”

“And why is that? What play do you have with her? Do you hope to sell her to Lucifer yourself?”

“I do not expect you to understand this, dog,” Darius seethed, “but she is my beloved. I have sworn to do everything in my power to protect her. I will keep her from Lucifer and from the elves as long as I am able. I will, for the first time in my very long life, pit myself against my maker.”

“Since when do vampires love?” Roger asked, clearly not buying it.

“Since when do they ejaculate during sex?” I replied, and Roger froze. “Since me. Penny can tell you—she got a peek.”

“Really? Even now?” Penny demanded.

“Darius does love me, Roger,” I said. “I can feel it through the bond, among other ways. He isn’t like Vlad and the others, not anymore. Believe me.”

“His ability to ejaculate isn’t because of you, specifically. The magic of the Underworld allows vampires to procreate,” Cahal said, and Roger started out of his shocked daze, jerking his head back to find him. “You are slow, Alpha Shifter.” Clearly he’d adopted Romulus’s name for Roger. “You need to be better aware of your surroundings. I have been here almost the entire time.” He drifted closer. “Traveling through the Underworld would have unlocked Darius’s potential to procreate. It will dry up in time if he doesn’t head back. Although…maybe that isn’t true, with his constant access to the heir’s blood. I am not sure. But yes, vampires can be created naturally, like shifters. They can be made through intercourse and born, a process that actually makes them stronger. That’s another motivation for the vampires to ally with Lucifer—the elves insisted on shutting them out of the Underworld as a condition of the treaty with Lucifer. They wanted a sort of population control, and Lucifer wasn’t in a great position to barter.” He glanced at Roger. “The vampires are not the only ones they sought to control. Elves could not stop the shifters’ procreation, so they instead withheld the knowledge that shifters can be made in the same way as vampires—but with dragon blood instead of unicorn blood. Again, population control. The elves might hire shifters to police the vampires within the Brink, but had the vampires sworn fealty to the elves, as the shifters had done, I doubt they would have interfered. The elves care nothing for humans and the Brink. The rules are enforced to exert their control, even in places they do not reside. Why no one has questioned that is beyond me. There are a lot of these little maneuverings in the Realm. It is endlessly fascinating.”

Penny held up her hand and shook her head. “Wait. Just wait.” She rubbed her face. “Let me see if I am up to speed. Vampires can procreate, shifters can turn humans into their kind without procreating, dragons and unicorns are both real, and elves only created rules in the Brink to be asses to vampires?”