Chapter 25

E zekiel demanded my presence for dinner.

Demanded.

Hah!

After avoiding me all week. Who the hell did he think he was?

I stormed down the corridor toward the dining hall, ready to give him a piece of my mind.

I’d been ready for another meal in the kitchens when Ingrid delivered Ezekiel’s order, and God help me, I’d been tempted to ignore him and eat in the kitchens anyway, but that might have gotten Ingrid in trouble.

No, this was better.

He had some explaining to do, after all.

Voices drifted out to meet me as I drew closer. I picked up my pace and entered to find the king ensconced at the head of the table with Laudon a few seats down from him. Ordell and Hemlock were also present at the other end of the table.

Dammit. I couldn’t unleash on him with Laudon present.

“Ah, Miss Lighthart.” Ezekiel greeted me as if he hadn’t been avoiding me all bloody week. “Come, sit by me.” His fingers gleamed with rings, and his hair was pulled back from his face allowing the candlelight to caress the planes of his high cheekbones with loving fingers while abandoning the hollows to the shadows. He’d shucked off his jacket and wasn’t wearing a waistcoat, just a thin shirt that hugged his frame in all the right places, and yes, I was eating him up with my eyes, and that had to stop because I was sure Ordell had noticed. His lips were tight as if it bothered him. I mean, of course it bothered him; his beast had me marked and here I was ogling another male.

There was something terribly wrong with me.

Hemlock, on the other hand, gave nothing away. He didn’t even have his silver coin out to play.

I took the seat to the left of Ezekiel, and he poured me some wine. “How has your week been?” he asked.

Seriously? “Fine. Yours?” I smiled sweetly.

He settled back in his seat and shrugged a shoulder, causing the material covering it to stretch and rustle. “Uneventful.”

I gritted my teeth. “I suppose there’s only so much one can do locked in their chambers.”

I expected him to bite, but he merely smiled. “Indeed.”

For fucksake. “Well, at least Laudon was able to coax you out of your room.”

His eyes flashed. “At least he tried.”

“Excuse me?”

He sipped his wine to hide his smile, and my burst of indignation died. He was toying with me. He knew how often I’d knocked for him the past week. That damned door knocker and I were becoming best friends.

Laudon cleared his throat. “Could we continue our discussion, my liege?”

‘My liege’ was it now? What happened to Ezekiel old pal, old buddy? I suppose watching a fellow ancient have his head ripped off was humbling.

Ezekiel plucked a grape off his plate and popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly. “There is nothing more to discuss. As I told you before my watcher joined us, there will be no petition for expansion and no permits of new business from outside of the territory, and we will certainly not be conscripting more humans.”

Ice trickled through my veins. “You want more humans?”

Laudon topped up his wine. “It’s a House-blessed request, and as spokesperson for the council, it falls to me to bring it to his grace.”

“And you have my answer to it all,” Ezekiel said smoothly.

Laudon made a sound of irritation. “But our numbers are growing and?—”

“Why is that?” Ezekiel asked. “Why is it that our numbers are growing when nature has herself stifled them?”

Laudon inhaled through his nose as if he needed the extra oxygen to keep calm. “If nature did not expect us to procreate, she would not have made turning humans possible.”

Ezekiel rolled his eyes. “There’s always a justification with you, isn’t there, Laudon?”

“I’m merely stating that?—”

“Dracul territory will remain as it is,” Ezekiel snapped. “The vampires who reside here make use of the vast abundance of space they have within the confines of our borders, am I clear? If that means curbing your method of procreation, then so be it.”

“And what of businesses outside the?—”

Ezekiel slammed his fist on the table so hard my heart shot into my mouth. “Vampires will not leave Dracul territory!”

Laudon winced and slowly sat back in his seat. “I will convey your responses to the council, my liege,” he said stiffly. “But I urge you to reconsider. The world is changing, and by halting progress, you will force us into extinction.”

“Noted,” Ezekiel said, sounding bored now.

“Well, at least you’re taking interest in territory affairs.” Laudon didn’t say ‘this time,’ but it was implied in his tone. “I shall take my leave.”

Ezekiel waved him off, and Laudon quickly left the room.

I took a gulp of the wine, fruity and sharp, a shock to my palette and just what I needed to help make sense of what just happened. “I guess the summit didn’t cover expansion?”

“No. They just asked for control to make new rules,” Ezekiel drawled. “And when they couldn’t rid themselves of me, they’ve come to me to implement the very rules they wanted to overthrow me for. More space and more humans to serve them.”

“And you don’t agree?”

“Dracul territory is already the largest out of the three territories, and do you know why that is?”

“Why?”

He smirked, mirthless and empty. “Because I made it so. I set the boundaries to our world long before the mageri made them official. Pure-blood vampires cannot leave the borders. The vermin called sucker and sewer rats unfortunately can. They are an anomaly, a mutation not under my control, and the council is demanding the same privilege.” He sipped his wine.

He was keeping the vampires here? “How? How can you keep them from leaving?”

“Blood oath contracts,” Ezekiel said. “Every vampire is ultimately connected to me in some way, and they must adhere to the oaths taken by the heads of their bloodlines.”

The summit and Darage’s desperation made sense now. These creatures, as powerful and ancient as they were, were confined in a pretty cage. Ezekiel had done that. “Why?”

“Why?” He arched a brow.

“Why keep them locked up here?”

He studied me for several moments, a series of emotions flitting across his face that I couldn’t read, and then he drained his goblet and left the room.

I slumped in my seat, suddenly empty.

“You’re getting to him,” Ordell said, his voice a low vibration that cut across the room. “He almost opened up to you.”

Almost wasn’t enough. I needed answers. “I don’t understand why he’d want to keep his people locked up. I mean, I’m grateful for it, but…I don’t get it.”

“Then you still don’t understand him,” Hemlock said. “Stop thinking of him as a monster and start thinking of him as a man who once gave up everything to save his people. His human brethren.”

It was so simple when I changed my perspective. So easy to see why. “He’s protecting humanity.”

Ordell’s chest rumbled in approval. “Even though they see him as a monster, there is a part of him that continues to protect them.”

He was a coin with two halves that could never be reconciled. “But he killed so many.”

“It’s the nature of the beast,” Hemlock said. “A beast who is losing his humanity.”

Ordell made a sound of agreement. “And if we don’t stop it, expansion of the territory will be the least of our worries.”