Scorched

“Yeah, yeah, you love each other, blah blah blah.”

Alessandro pressed his lips together. He wasn’t sure what Ashe had in life besides attitude, but it wasn’t making her a happy person. “Is there a point here besides the stake in your back pocket?”

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing to my sister? She’s a warm-blooded young woman who deserves a real, live man. You leave her in peace.”

Ouch.

Ashe walked toward her bike, cutting across the grass to give him a wide berth. “See you around, fang- boy.”

Impassively, Alessandro watched her put on her helmet and mount the Ducati. The bike pulled away, the motor snarling through the still, dark streets. With a disgusted sigh, he headed up the front steps, trying to shake off the dirty feeling Ashe had left in her wake.

Surely if Holly was unhappy, she’d say something....

So much for my first hunt. I am the most pathetic vampire ever to rise. After Constance’s dismal attempt to bite Conall Macmillan, the Castle might as well crumble around her ears just as Reynard had feared. At least the rubble would hide her shame.

For a fleeting moment, she wondered whether there was any truth to Reynard’s doomsday rumors, but she had far more immediate things to worry about, like rescuing her son. Keeping her family together. Anything else, however urgent, fell to a distant second.

Constance wandered slowly back toward Atreus’s rooms, looking for Viktor. The beast had wandered off again. Like most canines, he’d come back to the last place he’d considered home. The question was always when.

She’d been searching for the werebeast when she’d seen Bran. She’d followed the guardsman, hoping he’d lead her to Reynard’s headquarters. It was likely that’s where they had taken Sylvius’s box.

Constance stopped, twisting her long hair into a rope, a nervous habit from childhood. Then Conall Macmillan had come along. And didn’t he make a fine mess, knocking Bran unconscious so I couldn’t follow him? On top of that, after she had decided Macmillan would do for her first meal, he went and turned into a cloud of dust. Blast him!

She still felt Macmillan’s touch on her flesh, a brand that marked her as a trusting fool. Men and demons were such expert liars. Then again, she had been planning to bite him. She couldn’t exactly throw stones.

Resuming her path, she threaded her way through the maze of corridors. Her feet fell silently, only the rustle of her skirts marking her passage through the semidarkness. A cold draft told her she was getting close to her destination.

Too bad Macmillan had been so compelling. He had good, capable hands. A deep voice. He had aroused a curiosity she’d all but forgotten, not just as a vampire, but as a woman. If she’d begun to dream of home and family, he’d sharpened that yearning, given it new details. A face with dark eyes and a fleeting smile.

It made her think of so many of her mother’s songs, those ones sung around the table so long ago. Come away, my lassie-o, come away, my bonny / Come away, my dearieo, with rovin’ soldier Johnny...

That, more than anything, was a signal for caution. The last man who made her sing couldn’t wait to put his hand up her skirts and his teeth in her neck.

She passed a large leather glove someone had dropped. One of the guardsmen? A spy of Prince Miru-kai? She stepped carefully around it, reluctant to touch it even with her shoe. It was too big for anything that was, or ever had been, human.

Well, any spies were wasting their time. Sylvius was gone.

Constance reached her destination. Viktor was nowhere in sight, but her master was there. Constance stood in the shadow of the door, trying to see without being seen. Atreus sat in the great, carved chair, but it seemed to engulf him, more a prison than a throne.

Atreus rocked back and forth, his face in his hands. She could guess what that meant. The strain of Reynard’s visit had left his mind worse off than before. His slowly gathering madness took so many forms: Grandiose dreams. Forgetfulness. Hallucinations. Now, he had added violence and betrayal to his repertoire.

Did he grieve for Sylvius? She wondered whether he even remembered who Sylvius was.

Should I go to him? Instead, she lingered in the doorway, rubbing Sylvius’s pendant between her thumb and fingers. In the past, she had reached out to Atreus, a flower tracking the light. She had hungered for his regard, his protection. Now, even her anger toward him felt muffled, wrapped in dull, colorless grief. What could she do for him? It wasn’t a question of loyalty. It was a question of fact. She had nursed him for years, but he had nearly killed her and had given away her son.

Reynard had promised that his men would visit this part of the Castle daily to ensure all was well and to sup-ply whatever goods might be needed. He would keep that promise. She need have no fears for Atreus’s physical care.

For the moment, the only thing she could truly do for her master was to fix the damage he had done.

Constance crept along the edge of the room, hugging the wall. She turned when she got to a passageway on the right. It was a short hall that branched into individual bedrooms. Atreus had the largest. That door, a pointed arch of dark, polished wood, was to her right.

Atreus forbade anyone to set foot inside his chambers, always locking the door tight. That had always been quite line with Constance. She had no wish to invade a sorcerer’s private space—until now.

Anxiety shrilled with the urgency of an animal in an iron trap.

This had better be worth the risk.

It was a testament to Atreus’s befuddled state that he’d begun to neglect his secrets. The door to his room was slightly ajar, just enough to see the faint glow of a lamp within. Cautiously, she gave a push, letting the door drift open with a faint creak.

The chamber was large, with a bed covered in dark furs. A terra-cotta oil lamp hung on chains from the ceiling. The far corner held a high table draped in black silk and littered with the accouterments of a sorcerer. At the foot of the bed was a trunk. Nothing looked actively threatening.

So far, so good. But with sorcerers, one could never tell.

She had heard that vampires could not enter where they were not invited. That didn’t seem to apply within the Castle. Atreus’s magic was another matter. It might do more than stop her. It might destroy her.

Her scalp prickling with nerves, she cautiously waved a hand in the archway of the chamber door, half expecting it to be blown off in a whoosh of flame.

Nothing.

She slid one foot inside the room like a swimmer testing the temperature of a pond. Nothing.

With her heart in her mouth, she drifted inside Atreus’s rooms like a guilty ghost, tiptoeing across the flagstones, every sense on the highest alert. What she wanted was in the trunk. At least, she was fairly sure it was. She might never have set foot inside this room, but that did not mean she had never spied on her master from time to time.

Constance nervously watched the table where Atreus did his magic. While the Castle interfered with so many supernatural energies, it had never stopped him from weaving spells. She had no idea what wild spirits lingered among his books and wands, ready to jump out at the unwary.

The guilty. Justified or not, what she was doing was wrong. She didn’t like herself at all, but that didn’t slow her down one bit. Sylvius needed her.

She knelt beside the trunk. At the height of Atreus’s power, they had lived in splendor. Now all that wealth was gone, the remains of his kingdom whittled down to just the contents of the trunk. It was old and strapped in greening brass, the lid heavy as a coffin’s. There was a padlock, but it was ancient. Constance broke it in seconds. The lid rose with a crackle of old leather hinges, releasing the scent of aromatic woods. Clothes, books, and a bundle of scrolls lay neatly piled inside—but she was looking for something else.

The jewel chest sat in one corner. She lifted it out and set it on the cold, gray stone of the floor. The chest was a cube of tooled leather the shade of old, dried blood. The handles on either side were ornate silver gone black with age, but there was no lock. No hasps. No hinges.

She turned the cube over and over, but couldn’t figure out where the lid was fastened. Only the handles gave a clue as to which side of the cube was the top.