Chapter 7

E zekiel threw me unceremoniously into the back of a car, and I’d barely scrambled into a decent sitting position before he was crowded against me.

The door slammed, and the engine roared to life as the driver took his cue.

I drew a breath.

“Don’t speak,” Ezekiel growled. “Don’t breathe too loud. Don’t. Fucking. Move.”

The urge to snap back, to fight him, coursed through me, but common sense and survival instinct took precedence, reminding me not to poke the fucking beast.

The drive to the stables was tense, the air vibrating with unsaid things, but it gave me the chance to compose my emotions. By the time we reached the stables, I was done with the silence.

The engine died, and I turned to the vampire king, doing my best to ignore how close he sat, and how his thigh was pressed to mine. “You had no right to behave the way you just did, and I think you know it.”

His jaw worked, his gaze remaining fixed straight ahead.

“Explain to me why? Why did you do it?”

“I don’t need to explain anything to you, Miss Lighthart. You belong to?—”

“Enough!” I glared at him until he turned his head to look at me. His eyes were honey-toned again, only the rim of the irises crimson. “I’m not your property. I’m a fucking Order operative, here because they assigned me to be, and I accepted. But I can change my mind and reject this assignment.”

His left eye twitched. “You think you can just leave.”

“I know I can, and I almost did.” Heat clawed at my throat and pricked my eyes. “You killed my friend. You planned a massacre just to prove some twisted point. This is the last place I want to be. Here in your territory, obligated to be around you. To watch over you, so yeah, I’ll do what it takes to make it easier.”

“Like date Kaster Black?”

“Yes, and I?—”

He had me pressed to the seat by my throat in a blink, his body caging me. I stilled, trapped in the snare of his hungry eyes as his free hand slid up my side to lightly cup my breast. My stomach flipped, desire pooling between my thighs as my body betrayed my mind.

The corner of his mouth lifted, thin and cruel. “Your mouth says one thing and yet your body says another. Which is it, Miss Lighthart? Your body’s reaction…” He squeezed my throat, gently pinching my nipple through the fabric of my shirt with the other. I was too late to bite back a moan, and disgust flared in the pit of my stomach. “Or the pretty lies that spill from your delectable lips?”

“I’m not lying.” My words came out hushed and breathless. “I hate you.”

His mouth coasted against mine. “Do you now?” He massaged my breast and pinched the peak once again.

I gritted my teeth, heat gathering behind my eyes as my pussy throbbed with need.

“Let me make something clear, little Silver: Your freedom is a gift from me. Test the boundaries again, and it will be taken from you.”

Ice pricked at my skin. “You can’t keep me prisoner.”

“Yes, I can. I can keep you prisoner and bind you to the bed and fuck you until you scream if I wish. Do you want that?”

Heat flashed through me, setting every pulse throbbing needily. “You’re sick.”

“And your point is?”

“I hate you.”

He stroked my rapid pulse with his thumb, and my eyes threatened to flutter closed. “Now you’re simply repeating yourself,” he crooned, his breath hot on my lips inviting me to offer myself to him.

My chest heaved as I fought the urge.

He smirked and released me abruptly, leaving me gasping against the leather, shame burning a path across my collarbones and gathering in my cheeks.

“Lessons can be painful, Miss Lighthart. But I believe my little massacre helped you to learn yours. I’m not an unforgiving man, so you can date Kaster Black if you wish. A balm for your wounded sensibilities. No one can ever say that Ezekiel Tepes doesn’t take care of his things.” He sat back and looked out of his window. “Now get out and take the carriage back to the castle. I have business to attend to.”

My heart pulsed in my throat as I stared at him, stunned.

My door opened, and Ezekiel’s driver waited patiently for me to exit. The driver who’d probably heard and seen everything. Shame warred with anger, twisting into a knot inside me, but the words I needed, words I wanted to say, refused to come.

There was nothing to do but climb out and accept that Ezekiel Tepes was a twisted son of a bitch who lived in his own fabricated world of privilege.

Tearing a hole in his reality was going to take some time.

I had a year.

I hoped it would be enough.

Ordell and Hemlock met me at the stables, and after sending a Raven to the chapter house to let them know I wasn’t coming back tonight, we took their carriage back to the castle.

Ordell drove, and Hemlock rode in the cabin with me.

“You’re very quiet,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it? What he said…what he did?”

“No.”

“For what it’s worth, we are grateful for your help.”

“I’m not sure anyone can help him.”

“Part of humanity is caring about things. Ezekiel obviously cares about you.”

“I wouldn’t call it care. He gets a thrill from trying to control me.” I jabbed a thumb at my chest. “New shiny toy.”

“No,” Hemlock said. “We know him. We’ve seen him century after century. This…with you…it means something.”

“I hope for all our sakes that it does.”

“What happened tonight, Orina? If you tell me, then maybe we can dissect it, figure out how to move forward.”

I sighed and nodded. “I was on a date with Kaster Black and?—”

“You went on a date ?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I went on a date.”

“Go on,” he said tightly.

“The date was more of a ploy to find out information on the fire that killed the Order ordained a few months back.” I filled him in on what my team had told me about the fire and how we’d deduced that Kaster might know what happened, but I left out Padma’s condition. That wasn’t for me to tell. “Ezekiel showed up and asserted his dominance as usual. He was pissed I was out with Kaster.” Hemlock’s eyes lit up. “Made it clear that I belonged to him, and we had words…” I cleared my throat. “Um…anyway, it ended with him saying I was allowed to date Kaster if I wanted. Said I’d learned my lesson…” I gritted my teeth. “Referring to the massacre. He said he was allowing me to date as a balm for my wounded sensibilities .”

Hemlock exhaled sharply. “He apologized.”

“What?”

“You really don’t see it, do you? That was Ezekiel apologizing for what he’s done.”

He was so desperate to save his brother that he was spinning Ezekiel’s game of control-the-watcher into something else. “I don’t think that?—”

“I know you don’t. But it doesn’t matter. Just…keep being you.”

Good because I didn’t know how to be anyone else.

We rode in silence for several minutes, and my mind wandered, going over the events of the past few days, over what they’d told me and what I understood about the bigger picture. “How much does Ezekiel remember of his life before?”

“Not much,” Hemlock said. “He doesn’t recall that he had brothers, but he knows he had a wife once. That he spawned children and other vampires. There are artifacts from his life, ones that contained information about Ordell and me, but we’ve removed them for Ezekiel’s sanity.”

“What about Laudon? How come he remembers him?”

“Laudon was his friend before he was taken by Loviator. He was the only person Ezekiel turned before he was taken. Laudon was sick, and we were at a loss of how to save him. I’m not sure how, maybe instinct, but Ezekiel figured out that maybe his gift could be passed on through an exchange of blood. Up until then, the only other creatures like Ezekiel were his biological children. After we got him back, after the curse was activated, Ezekiel went on a rampage of death, killing and turning indiscriminately. Ordell believes that it was his bid at not being alone.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think he was angry. Afraid. Confused. Anyway, Laudon was the only one who could reach him. They reconnected. We believe that the fact Ezekiel turned him before his curse activated created a unique bond between them somehow. So Laudon was the only one who could get through to him and eventually stopped his bloody reign. But by then, he’d created a whole new race.”

“That’s where the houses came from?”

“Yes. Shadows is Laudon’s bloodline; House of Spirit come from the Tepes bloodline. Lissa, my niece, married and continued that bloodline.”

“So Christian is related to you guys by blood? Or is he a turned vamp?”

“He’s a born vampire. One of a handful. Procreation is difficult for vampires. Ezekiel’s bloodline, the born vampires, can procreate with humans and produce more born vampires, but turned vampires can only procreate with other turned vampires and even that is a struggle.” He looked away. “That’s why they have the School of Creation.”

“And what is that?”

“A school where children are prepared to be turned.”

“What the fuck?”

His top lip lifted slightly. “The children are educated to the highest standards and taught the etiquette required of the house that has claimed them, and on their twenty-first birthday they’re turned.”

“Do they get a choice?”

“I doubt it. These are orphans, or the children of prized veins. They belong to the vampire houses. There are other children at the school. The children of high-ranked humans, but it’s mostly potential vampires.”

I felt sick. “This is wrong, surely you can see that.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. This is Dracul territory, and there are rules and a system. The council has ruled that they have a right to survive and thrive, and procreation is a part of that, be it biological or by adoption.”

“Turning someone is not adoption.”

“It is in this world.”

Then this world sucked worse than I could ever have imagined. “What about the House of Blessed?”

His expression clouded. “That is not a pretty tale.” The carriage clattered to a halt. “Let’s save it for another day.”

I had to save Ezekiel to save us all from Loviator, that much was a given. But maybe if I learned more about the man he’d been, I could make myself believe that he was worth saving.