Thicker Than Blood Read online

  “What about your job with Blood Vice?” Dante countered.

  “Am I still an agent? Will I be reassigned somewhere else now that I’m ruined for St. Louis?”

  “That depends on your sire and what they decide is best for you.” I rolled my eyes, earning a snort from him. “This is what you asked for, and from the queen, of all people.”

  “I wanted someone to show me the ropes—not a tyrannical babysitter who controls every aspect of my life.”

  A small grin hitched one side of Dante’s mouth as if he thought that was exactly what I needed. “Then you should have requested a tutor. Now,”—he cleared his throat—“shall we get on with the more pressing matter at hand?” I glowered at him, but he met my ire with one of his more charming smiles. “Oh, come now, Ms. Skye. If you miss your career in law enforcement so much, this may very well cheer you up.”

  “I somehow doubt that, but please, tell me more,” I said, unable to keep my sarcasm in check.

  “I intend to.” Dante paused to take a sip of blood before circling back to the real reason he wanted to speak with me. “House Lilith has suffered a great deal in recent years, and I fear the root of this suffering has come from a source within our inner circle. Last week, after Ursula’s…um—”

  “Capture? Arrest?” I offered.

  “Homecoming,” he said, giving me a pointed look, “I contacted the queen, and she informed the Vampiric High Council the next evening. However, she did not reveal to them where we were keeping the duchess until her hearing.”

  “Why not?” I asked, though I suspected the answer had something to do with their status.

  “The council can be quite indecisive when it suits them, and having a royal prisoner in their clutches would grant undue leverage over House Lilith. They could keep her locked away for months, possibly years until they agreed on a date and location for the trial. In the meantime, they would use her captivity as a bargaining chip to sway the queen’s favor. Such behavior cannot be tolerated if the royal family is to stay in power.”

  “Is that why they were here tonight?” I asked. “Because they found out where the duchess was being kept and wanted to take her into their custody?”

  “Yes.” Dante cupped his chin in his hand and frowned.

  “Do they have the right to do that?”

  “Only if the accused’s place of holding is compromised—if they attempt escape or are assailed.”

  “I take it an assassination attempt falls into that category?”

  Dante nodded slowly, and we both fell under a spell of quiet contemplation. I tapped my nails on the table between us and then fingered a droplet of blood that had escaped my cup.

  It was clear that the duke didn’t know how the council had discovered Ursula’s whereabouts, but I wasn’t sure what made him think I would know anything about it. I’d spent the last week hiding out in my room, with no phone or internet access to speak of. Detective work of this caliber, with so little to go on, just wasn’t possible. I was betting not even with a blood sacrifice to Holmes, Tracy, and Poirot.

  “So…the real questions you want answers to…” I held out one hand and ticked them off on my fingers. “How did the council find out where Ursula was being kept? How did they find out about the assassin so quickly? And, most importantly, were they involved with the attack?”

  “Precisely,” Dante said.

  “Here’s one other I’d like to know,” I said, straightening in my seat. “How did you get them to leave here without the duchess?”

  “I convinced them that you would protect her.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “You defended her from the assassin, and you saved the queen’s life. How could they deny your ability?”

  “That’s not the—you can’t expect—” I choked out a nervous laugh. “So, what? Am I, like, her bodyguard now?” I didn’t miss my career in law enforcement that much.

  “Until the hearing has concluded, yes,” Dante said. “Don’t look so disappointed. Protecting a member of the royal family is considered one of the highest honors for a Blood Vice agent. It will look impressive on your résumé—should your future sire allow you to apply for a position at another field office.”

  I put my head in my hands and groaned. “Please tell me this trial isn’t months or years away.”

  “The council has scheduled it for Friday.” He sighed and finished off his cup of blood.

  “That’s…soon.”

  I couldn’t say that it displeased me, but I wasn’t thrilled about being trapped in a room full of bloodthirsty black hats either. I’d done my best to stay off the council’s radar, but now the duke had turned me into an obstacle in their path. That changed the game.

  “The council wants this matter resolved before Imbolc,” Dante said. “They do not wish to risk the queen publicly recognizing and accepting Ursula before they have the opportunity to crucify her.”

  “They sound like a friendly bunch.”

  “Savages,” he grumbled. “We have so little time to prepare, but I suppose they were counting on that if they could not hold Ursula themselves and use her to their advantage.”

  I tried to recall what I’d learned about the vampiric court system from my training at the bat cave. “What exactly is she being accused of?”

  Dante’s jaw tightened, and a tendon in his neck flexed. “The death of her sire, among other wrongdoings.” With his eyes boring into mine, I couldn’t find the nerve to ask if she was guilty. But I did consider what I knew of the rest of House Lilith.

  Sweat dampened the back of my neck as I tried to find an inconspicuous way to ask if Kassandra, the duchess who had orchestrated the recent attack on the queen, would be at the trial.

  I was a royal bastard posing as a low-born, orphaned vampling. When Raphael died his true death, he inadvertently passed on the Eye of Blood, a gift unique to House Lilith. So when I’d bitten Emma after she attacked the queen, I quickly discovered that she was an illegitimate scion of Kassandra’s.

  I, of course, couldn’t share that information without condemning myself. But since Emma’s blood had been used to save the queen—and since the queen theoretically possessed the Eye of Blood, too—I had to wonder if Kassandra was still in the royal family’s good graces.

  “What is it?” Dante asked. He eyed me hopefully. There had to be some way I could work around my secrets without spilling them all over the place.

  “Was the culprit behind the queen’s attack apprehended?” I asked. Dante’s expression hardened, but he answered openly.

  “The assassin’s sire was found dead. Lord Kincade was taken into custody, and he and his entire household were questioned. Vigorously. But no one could tell us anything of worth. The council has forbidden them from pledging future scions to Blood Vice, which in turn means they shall never hold a seat at the table, something House Kincade was well on their way toward before this catastrophe.”

  I nodded slowly. “So there’s a good chance Emma was working for someone else. Could the hit on Ursula be the work of the same person or persons?”

  “The royal family has many enemies, but I suppose it is possible.” Dante watched me with unblinking persistence as if he were waiting for me to get to the point.

  “I’ve heard about the Eye of Blood,” I said, waving my hand as if the thought were only just occurring to me. “Did the queen see anything useful when she drank from Emma?”

  “I am afraid the queen was too near death to open her Eye of Blood at the time.” His chin tilted up, and a damning light sparked behind his eyes. “But you bit her too, did you not? What did you see, Jenna?”

  My breath rushed out in a feverish whisper of a laugh. “House Zajalvo doesn’t have any special gifts that I’m aware of.” I tore my eyes away from his and reached for my cup of blood, flinching when his hand closed over mine.

  “I found Zajalvo’s scion nights ago. Dead.” His voice dropped low and soft, laced with a threat that he didn’t have to spell out. �
��It was a clever ruse, I will give you that. But we both know you did not engineer it on your own.”

  Roman. I screamed his name through our blood bond. If he could hear me at all, he had to know the danger he was in. My ears rang in the silence that followed, and a chill settled in the pit of my stomach. I swallowed and met the duke’s gaze.

  “What do you want from me?”

  The inner corners of Dante’s eyebrows drew up, generating the sympathetic pretense he was so good at. “Which one was it, Jenna?”

  I knew what he was asking, and there was no lying this time. Not if I wanted to keep Roman from a more permanent death. I took a deep breath and signed my death warrant.

  “Raphael.”

  Chapter Six

  Dante released my hand, and I brought the cup of blood to my lips. It had cooled, and it did little to soothe the nerves that had set my body to vibrating.

  My eyes searched the wall of windows. There had to be a sliding glass door tucked among them somewhere. Not that I’d make it far with all the guards swarming the property. Still, I’d put up a fight if it came down to it—though part of me had to believe Dante had other plans if he already knew I was a fraud. The muted horror that stretched between us suggested that he hadn’t considered Ursula’s exiled scions until just now, and that maybe I should have kept my big mouth shut.

  “And his true death?” Dante asked as I cradled the empty espresso cup in my lap.

  “Last June. I was working for the St. Louis PD, and my partner and I had been assigned to a sex trafficking case.”

  “Scarlett’s Inn.” He nodded, putting the pieces together for himself.

  “We were watching a building someone had tipped us off about. It was just before dawn.” I pressed my lips together and forced my eyes up to meet his. I couldn’t botch this part of the story. I’d already endangered Roman—I couldn’t do the same to Mandy. “Raphael arrived, and we followed him inside. He killed my partner…and then he tried to escape, but I followed, and he bit me—” I touched my neck, and a shiver rolled up my spine. “I woke up that night in the morgue.”

  “Then how…” Dante frowned disbelievingly, but I just blinked and willed myself to think innocent thoughts. “Was he badly injured?”

  “I filled him with lead right after my partner did the same, so I imagine.”

  “His blood ran freely and in close proximity to you.”

  “Close proximity?” I scoffed. “He mauled me like a rabid dog.”

  “And you were outside at this point?” Dante asked.

  “No.” I wasn’t stupid enough to contradict the police report. The duke would have seen it after Blood Vice took over the case. “I died in that basement. Bled out just a few feet away from my partner.”

  He hummed thoughtfully. “So it is to be assumed that he fled the building, and dawn claimed him before he could find adequate shelter?”

  “I don’t know. I guess?” I shrugged one shoulder and tried to push the image of Mandy’s shadowy wolf soaring across the warehouse basement from my mind.

  “And how did you discover his name after rising?” Dante asked. I wasn’t sure if he was being skeptical or genuinely curious how such a freak accident could occur.

  “I was put on leave, but I continued investigating the Scarlett Inn—off the books,” I said truthfully. “That’s how I found Mandy. She was looking for the inn, too. She’d escaped but came back to free her friends. I know my way around a sketchpad, and I drew Raphael’s picture.”

  “And your wolf identified him?” Dante leaned closer. He was buying it, but I’d included enough of the truth to make it stick.

  “She did,” I confirmed. There was no sense crediting Roman with the revelation. The less the duke assumed my late lover knew, the safer he would be.

  “You are an artist. I didn’t realize.” It almost sounded like praise, until he added, “I should like to see this sketch.”

  “Well, that’s the funny thing about house fires.” I didn’t put as much bite into the accusation this time. Nothing either of us said could undo the crime, and in light of more recent events, it had become the least of my worries.

  “That is regrettable.” It was the closest thing to an apology the duke had offered me. “I will have someone pick up a new sketchpad. You will draw your sire again—for me—just to be sure your wolf was not mistaken.”

  “Could it have been someone else?” I asked. It seemed unlikely that Roman would misidentify the brother of a potential sire who had spent years torturing him until her exile. “Do any other houses have the Eye of Blood?”

  “Not that I am aware of, but Ursula’s progenies were quite unlawful to be sure. A bastard scion—pardon my Romanian—is not entirely out of the question, and their death could have just as well passed on the birthright.”

  “Speaking of…” I swallowed, wondering how well my next confession would go over. “The queen’s assailant was not a scion of House Kincade.”

  “I feared as much.” Eager wrath widened his eyes. “Tell me who sired the fiend.”

  “Kassandra.”

  Dante’s hands closed into fists. He brought one up to his face and pressed it over his mouth. He was angry but not as surprised as I expected him to be. “You are absolutely certain?”

  “I saw her through Emma’s blood. She arrived at the All Hallows’ Eve ball right after.” The memory was vivid in my mind, and it brought with it the taste of her traitorous scion’s blood on the back of my tongue. “Is there some reason Kassandra would want the queen dead—fancy headgear aside?”

  Dante grimaced as if he weren’t sure he wanted to answer the question. Airing family laundry was not becoming of a royal scion, but technically, I was family.

  “I believe she may fear that Lili intends to take the prince to her forever rest,” Dante said reluctantly. “As Lilith did with Adam before our time.”

  “But if the queen were to die before taking her forever rest, then the prince—your sire—would assume control?”

  Dante nodded. “And with Morgan’s death and Ursula’s self-inflicted exile, the council would require little convincing to permit Alexander to take Kassandra as his queen.”

  “But now that Ursula has returned…” I didn’t need to finish the question. It was clear who was behind her attack, and it wasn’t much of a stretch to think she might be responsible for Morgan, too. From the look on Dante’s face, I imagined he was wondering the same thing.

  “You see why she needs you?” His hand found mine again, and he squeezed it desperately. “Why I need you?”

  My stomach knotted at the thought of spending more time with Ursula. It was only made worse when I contemplated how she’d react if she found out that Raphael was dead and that I was more or less to blame.

  “You have dozens of guards.” I gave Dante a pleading frown and waited to see if he would threaten Roman’s life. Or Mandy’s. This nice act of his was hard to swallow. I didn’t trust it.

  “None of my guards have the Eye of Blood,” he said. “And none know the truth of this delicate matter—nor can they. It would compromise your safety, and as cruel as you may think I am, I do not wish to see harm come to you.”

  I wanted to believe him, but the nervous hum twisting its way through my body wasn’t for fear of Dante alone. “Does Kassandra know I saved the queen?”

  “Everyone knows, my dear.” His brows drew up in surprise. “Why do you think you are here and not locked in a coffin after your slight against House Sorano?”

  “Oh…” I was an idiot. An ignorant, ungrateful child was not far off the mark at all.

  “You have been quite lucky for an impulsive vampling,” Dante said. A tired smile creased his face. “I hope you will lend me and my cousin—our cousin—some of that luck.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “There is always a choice.” He released my hand and picked up the teapot, pouring us each a third helping of blood. “Though, I very much suspect that the court will issue a formal summon
s for your presence if you do not attend.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you were crucial in Ursula’s…return,” he said. “If you are not there to support her, they will assume they can use you to prove her guilt.”

  I took the cup he offered with a frown. “You’re not asking me to lie under oath, are you?”

  “Of course not. But I would be remiss if I didn’t advocate for extra care and compassion if you are asked to recount the details of that night. Be gentle with Ursula. I know twenty years seems like an awfully long time, but she and Morgan shared a bond that does not come close to any I have seen before, and grief makes sad fools of the best of us.”

  His remark brought my mother to mind. I knew a thing or two about grieving and the struggle that was letting go and moving on. Maybe if I tried to see that in Ursula, I could stand to be around her for more than five minutes without wanting to strangle her.

  Sure, she’d sired a couple of homicidal heathens. My mother had given birth to Laura. No one was perfect.

  Dante’s hand touched mine again, and I jumped.

  “Help me protect Ursula from Kassandra and the vultures on the council,” he said. “And I shall do everything in my power to convince your future sire that your calling is with Blood Vice.”

  “And you’ll take the truth about my sire to your grave,” I added. If we were striking a bargain, I’d settle for nothing short of his word not to blackmail me.

  “You have my word,” he said, eyes locking with mine. My heart flipflopped hesitantly.

  “And I want my guns back.”

  “I will make sure you have them before the hearing.”

  “Magazines fully loaded.”

  His mouth twitched up in a small grin. “Does this mean we have an accord?”

  How could we not at this point? He was agreeing to my every demand—though a little too easily. It felt like a trap. But it was a trap in which I’d be armed and allowed to leave the manor.

  “We have a deal.”

  Chapter Seven